“Then why did you two split?” Dorian bravely asked.

  Sam cleared her throat. “I was the mother of his child, but I wasn’t what he wanted in a wife, I guess.”

  “Even if he has enough for Dott and himself, he’s not expecting a group of people to show up on his doorstep,” Dorian said.

  “We’ll figure something out,” Sam said. “Mel’s apartment or mine.”

  “Or maybe we’ll have to leave the city entirely,” I said, chewing my cheek. “If things are bad in Green Bay, can you imagine what they might be like back home?”

  Sam clenched her hands. “It doesn’t matter, we’re going to get Dott, and we’ll figure it out. We’ve figured it out so far.”

  “That’s only because we happened to have a neighbor who had extra food and space,” I said. “If we hadn’t run into Erik, things wouldn’t be that good for us.”

  “I’d probably be dead,” Dorian said.

  “Do we always have to talk about doom and gloom?” Sam asked. “Instead, let’s be positive. Besides, I think it’s better if just Mel and I go. It’ll be easier that way.”

  Erik laughed. “Nothing about it will be easy. And if you think I can let you two just walk away, you’re kidding yourself.”

  “Well, the three of us then,” Sam said. “Dorian can take care of your house. Hell, we could even come back here if we figure out this Elijah stuff.”

  “Figure out is a nice way to say murder,” Dorian said.

  “I thought so,” Sam said. “Although, I don’t know why I would need to be nice when it comes to Elijah.”

  I looked up in the trees as though Elijah might be swinging from them like a monkey, listening to our every word.

  “You don’t need to be nice,” I said. “None of us are safe until he’s gone.”

  Back at the house, we wheeled the water into the garage. Each of us picked up two jugs and carried them to the back door, where it would be easier to bring them out back to boil them.

  “Thank God you’re back,” June said.

  “Did something happen?” Erik asked, looking at her with bulging eyes.

  June’s head bobbed slowly. “Yes. Those people, from the other night… they came back.”

  21

  Erik charged toward the front window. “How long ago?”

  “They walked away a few minutes ago,” June said, her mouth hanging open. She stepped up next to Erik at the window. “I can’t believe your paths didn’t cross.”

  “We didn’t see anyone,” Erik said. “Did you notice anything about them?”

  June’s brows snapped together. “They were all wearing the same thing.”

  “The people from the north,” Sam said, grabbing my arm.

  “What were they wearing?” I asked.

  “Brown camo,” June said. “One of them had a black hoodie, but he had on the same pants as the others. They looked like a group of hunters.”

  Dorian sat down on the couch, steepling his fingers over his lips. “Maybe they were looking for deer.”

  Erik’s head moved in the direction of his eyes. “Were they hunting or watching the house?”

  “They could have been hunting.” June shifted her weight. “Or they could have been looking at the house. It’s hard to say. Maybe it was both.”

  “Where’s Gina?” I asked.

  “Still sleeping, I guess,” she said, with an uncaring half-shrug. “She hasn’t come upstairs yet.”

  My stomach churned. “Maybe I should go check on her.”

  “Maybe leaving here isn’t a bad idea,” Sam said. “The people from the north are coming down this far.”

  “But why are they coming here,” Erik wondered out loud.

  “Better yet, how do we stay safe?” Dorian asked. “We’re outnumbered.”

  Erik’s head bobbed. “I’ll have to talk with Mark Bennett again. Maybe he has some ideas.”

  “We talked to him already,” I said. “He has no idea.”

  “Well, now that we know who is poking around, maybe he can offer advice,” Erik said.

  “Mark isn’t going to help us,” I said with a hand on my hip.

  Erik cocked his head. “Why do you say that?”

  “I just don’t get helpful vibes from him, do you?” I asked.

  “I definitely don’t,” Dorian said.

  “So far, they haven’t don’t anything,” June said. “Maybe they were just hunting.”

  Erik sighed. “They weren’t hunting in the middle of the night.”

  “Why would they suddenly be interested in us?” I asked.

  Erik threw his fist into the air. “We really needed to boil that water.”

  “They won’t come back,” Sam said.

  “We don’t know that,” Erik roared.

  “We’ll see them coming, and then we just go inside,” Sam said as if it were all just so simple.

  Erik pressed his palm to his face. “I don’t see we have much of a choice. Do you think your sister would help? We need all the eyes we can get.”

  “Yeah, I think she’ll help,” I said. “I’ll go talk to her.”

  I hugged myself as I descended the stairs. At the bottom, I knocked on the wall.

  “Hey, Gina,” I said in a feather-soft voice. “You awake?”

  She didn’t answer.

  I peeked around the corner. “Gina?”

  She was slumped to the side with one leg hanging off the couch, and her arm limply flopped over. As I got closer, I saw the rubber tied around her bicep and a needle still poking out of her arm.

  “Dammit, Gina,” I said, kneeling down next to her. I shook her aggressively. “Are you alive?”

  Her lips slowly curled. “I’mmmm fiiiiiine.”

  “What is wrong with you?” I asked.

  “There is absolutely nothing wrong with me,” she sloppily replied, slurring most of her words.

  “This is so embarrassing.”

  “You’re embarrassing.”

  My hand curled into a fist. It wasn’t the first time I wanted to hit my sister. I hadn’t seen her often, but the few times I had my fist always wanted to meet her face.

  “Your friends want to have a good time too,” Gina said, straightening slightly.

  “Get that thing out of your arm.” I stood and glanced toward the stairs. “If they see that, they’ll probably kick you out of here.”

  “Nahhh,” Gina said, loosening the rubber and letting the needle fall onto the couch.

  My nose crinkled as I turned away from her. “God, you are such a mess.”

  “Jealous much?”

  “Not even a little,” I said, shaking my head. “Maybe I should throw you out of here myself.”

  “I’m family!” Gina said. It looked as though she were trying to frown, but only one eyebrow dipped with the twitching of the corner of her mouth. “You’ll be happy to know that’s it. That’s all I had. I was trying to save it, but I just couldn’t take it anymore.”

  I stroked the back of my neck. “Good. It’s time to get clean. If you hadn’t noticed, shit kind of hit the fan.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Gina said. “It’s not the first time I got clean. I can do it again.”

  I laughed. “When were you ever clean?”

  “A few years ago,” she said, perking up slightly. “I got pregnant.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  A tear dropped out of the corner of her eye, but her face was devoid of emotion. “I lost her.”

  “Why didn’t you tell mom or me any of this?” I said.

  “Who said I didn’t tell mom?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything.”

  Gina bowed her head. “I made her promise not to tell anyone. Everyone would blame me.”

  “Oh, no, Gina,” I said as I sat next to her. “You should have told me.”

  “Why?” she said, facing me. “It’s not like you could have made things better. Everything fell apart again after that anyway.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, clasping my hands together. “I wish I could have been there for you.”

  Gina stood and wobbled. “Like I said, there wasn’t anything you could have done. I just wanted to forget about it. Doesn’t matter now anyway.”

  “Things will get better,” I said. “You could always get healthy and try again.”

  “I’d be a terrible mother,” Gina said, leaning toward me with a finger in my face. “We aren’t meant to be parents.”

  “Ezra’s a dad,” I said.

  I didn’t completely disagree with Gina. I had my own problems. I would have been a terrible mother, too.

  “Yeah, well, he’s probably a shitty dad,” Gina said.

  “When is the last time you talked to him?” I asked.

  Gina shrugged. “I don’t remember. He’s probably dead now. There are so many dead people. Fires… explosions… and just people fighting each other. That’s why I wish I had more of this stuff.”

  “I’m glad you don’t.”

  Gina snorted. “I bet you’re going to help me detox, huh?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean, who else is going to do it?” I asked.

  Gina stared at me for a long moment as she weaved back and forth. “Why did you come down here anyway? Just wanted to bring me down?”

  “We needed some help, but I guess I’ll have to come up with some kind of excuse,” I said, raising a brow. “What a shock.”

  “Help with what?”

  “We need to boil more water,” I said.

  Gina squinted at me. “Boil water? For what?”

  “So, it’s safe to drink,” I said. “What have you been eating and drinking since all this?”

  “Whatever I can find. Soup. Soda.” Gina pointed to Erik’s bar. “A shot of vodka.”

  I sighed. “Lay down.”

  “I thought you needed me?”

  “They can’t see you like this,” I said, looking down my nose at her. “I said I’d make an excuse for you.”

  “Good, because I don’t feel like boiling water,” Gina said, rolling onto her side. She closed her eyes and smiled.

  My shoulder dropped as I walked toward the stairs. I’d probably just tell Sam and Erik the truth. If it was really her last high, maybe they’d let it go.

  “Maybe one day I can be a mother again,” Gina mumbled. “I met a guy. He was so nice.”

  When I got upstairs, they were all standing at the back door. The bottles were lined up, ready to be boiled, cleaned, and re-bottled.

  “Where’s your sister?” Sam asked, her lips curling as if she could already guess.

  I hesitated as I looked away from their questioning eyes. “She’s just so tired from all the traveling.”

  “It’s fine,” Erik said. “We’ll manage.”

  Erik pulled the grill closer to the house, even though it made him nervous. Dorian brought the fire extinguisher out to the back patio, and it brought back memories of having to use the one at my mom’s house the night of the solar storm.

  We boiled all the water without anyone coming around. I couldn’t help but feel as though Elijah was watching us, but I always felt that way and probably always would… even after he was gone.

  Erik’s food supplies were good, but they wouldn’t last forever. I wasn’t sure what would happen first, Erik would have us figure out finding more food or if Sam would ask me to leave.

  For now, I just worried about how things would go with my sister being around. If how I’d found her was any indication of how things would be, I was in for trouble.

  As if I didn’t have enough on my plate.

  22

  I hadn’t been able to keep Gina’s problem a secret. Dorian had walked in on her having some kind of seizure when he’d gone downstairs to get a beer.

  She cried after he’d helped her. Endlessly thanking him while profusely apologizing to Erik. She told him she suffered from a disease and promised it wouldn’t happen again.

  She said it was over. It was done. But those were words my mom had heard before, and they’d never been true.

  The only reason it might be over was that she was really out of everything. Finding more would be difficult, but if she managed to find something, she’d drink it, swallow it, snort it, or inject it.

  Over the next several days, we took turns watching out the window and watching over Gina as she puked her guts out. There were several times I wasn’t sure if she would pull through. Her body might be next to be thrown into the bay.

  It was strange, though, how the thought of losing her hadn’t really saddened me. In a way, even though she was very much alive, it was like Gina had died to my family a long time ago.

  We hadn’t seen the group of people wandering around since the day we’d brought the water back. Elijah was still likely watching, but no one had spotted him either.

  “I think I’ve almost finished our list,” Sam said, slapping the cover of her notebook closed.

  “Our list?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the window.

  The heat of summer was back, and it was nearly impossible to stay cool in Erik’s house. I probably looked ridiculous in one of Erik’s old tank tops and a pair of running shorts I couldn’t even picture him ever having worn.

  “Everything we’ll need for our hike,” Sam said.

  “Do you even know which way we start walking?” I asked.

  “I’ll figure it out.” Sam cocked her head to the side. “Perhaps that map you secretly bought at one of the gas stations is still in the SUV.”

  I looked down, hoping to hide the anxiety that was surely all over my face. “Perhaps.”

  Sam sighed and stood. “Remember, no one is making you do anything.”

  “I know, Sam,” I said. “But walking could be a mistake. I just want you to think with your brain, not your heart.”

  “Let me know when it’s my turn to watch your sister… or the window,” Sam said before stomping up the stairs.

  After several minutes, I heard someone walking behind me. I whipped around as if I thought it could be Elijah.

  “What was that all about?” Gina asked.

  “You’re up,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m weak and tired, but I feel better… or rather, I feel different. I might be through the worst of it.”

  The smile I gave her was awkward and shaky. “That’s good to hear.”

  “Yeah, I can help out more instead of being a burden,” Gina said.

  “Everyone will appreciate that, I’m sure,” I said.

  Gina stood closer, wrapping her arms around herself. “I know I haven’t ever been a good sister to you, and for that, I’m truly sorry.”

  “None of that matters anymore,” I said, desperately hoping to end the awkward conversation.

  Gina reached down and took my hand. “I’m going to make it up to you. You’ll see. I can be the sister you should have had.”

  “Why, Gina? Why did you do that to mom?” Anger prickled the back of my neck.

  Gina looked down. “I was selfish. Depressed. Getting that high became necessary to function, and then it took over my life. I would have done anything to avoid that feeling of the walls closing in on me.”

  The feeling I understood, but how Gina had handled it, I couldn’t comprehend. Although, maybe I wasn’t that much different. I had abandoned our mom, too. Only it had been for my education, not for the next high.

  “And I wasn’t as bad as you think,” Gina said, looking into my eyes. “I called mom. I tried to stay in touch with you and Ezra, but no one wanted anything to do with me.”

  “We were all tired of the lies,” I said, getting to my feet.

  I wanted to walk away from the window, but I couldn’t do it without someone watching for me. Gina could tell how desperate I was to flee.

  “I can watch the window,” Gina said. “I know what to do.”

  “Really?” I said sharply.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Gina said. “If I see anything, I’ll let Erik know.”

  I looked around, hoping to spot Dorian or June, but they were probably both catching up on sleep, just like Erik was. And hell, I knew they all needed it. It was strange how we had nothing but time, but getting enough sleep was a challenge.

  “You promise you’ll let Erik know if anything happens?” I said.

  “Of course,” Gina said, narrowing her eyes. “I knew how crazy shit has gotten. One man killed another five feet from me in Green Bay because he wouldn’t give him his last cigarette.”

  I exhaled slowly, giving another look toward the kitchen as if staring harder would make June appear.

  “Are you sure about this?” I asked. “I mean, it seemed a bit touch and go there for a bit.”

  “I’m fine now,” Gina said with a wide smile. “Promise.”

  “Fine,” I said. “I won’t be long.”

  Gina sat down and leaned forward to look out the window. “I got this. Take your time.”

  I started up the stairs, but didn’t make it far.

  “Oh,” Gina said. “I really do hope you give me a chance.”

  I didn’t respond. I walked into my room and flopped down on the bed.

  Everything Gina had said cycled through my head, over and over again. Gina felt like a stranger to me. I wasn’t any closer to her than I was to June. In fact, Sam was more of a sister to me, but I was glad she was with us instead of out there fighting for her life.

  My body was exhausted, but my mind was firing on all cylinders. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed when I sat up. A yawn stretched my mouth, but I wasn’t about to sleep with Gina at the window.

  I stretched my arms over my head and glanced out of the window. It would be night soon. Ever since Gina arrived, it had been hard to keep track of what time of day it was.

  I walked out the door and downstairs, but stopped halfway when I saw the front door open. The stairwell started to grow, and the walls around me tunneled.

  My breaths came quicker. My voice was high-pitched and didn’t sound like it was mine. “Gina? What are you doing?”

  She didn’t answer. My knuckles whitened as my fingers wrapped around the railing.

  It was hard to find my voice, and when I did, it cracked. “Gina!”

  23

 

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