The Burning World (Warm Bodies #2)(105)

“Get out,” I mutter.

He chuckles again and stands up. The guard takes his chair and opens the cellblock door for him. “You’re right about one thing,” Mr. Atvist says. “You are better than them. But not because of your moral pretensions.”

“Why, then?” I say through my teeth.

“You’re better because you’re an Atvist, and they’re not. Because you have a future, and they don’t.”

A tiny crack forms in my shell. Before I can seal it, a glint of desperation shines through. “Can you get me out?” I ask my grandfather.

He smiles. “Of course I can.”

He walks away.

? ? ?

“R,” Julie says.

My eyes are already open but I blink them, snapping back to the present.

“Are you okay?”

It’s a basic question, often asked by strangers. I give it the response it deserves: a shrug and a nod.

“It wasn’t your fault, you know,” she says, and it takes me a moment to realize she’s talking about the recent massacre, not the dark path unfolding in my memories.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she repeats. “You did what you thought was right with the knowledge you had at the time. That’s all anyone can ever do.”

She is not inside my head, and I’m dismayed by how much this relieves me. There was a time when I wanted nothing more than for her to visit me in here, to know my thoughts, to know me. When did I revoke her invitation? I wish the absolution she’s offering were for the wretch in my basement, but she has never even met him.

“Are we still going to Iceland?” I ask her.

We are sitting on the floor in the rear of the plane, leaning against the wall, watching her mother gnaw at the shredded flesh of her fingers. Julie has given up trying to stop her.

“R,” she says, giving me a pained look. “Do you understand that I have to do this?”

“Do you understand that you can’t save her?”

The words don’t feel like mine. They feel like his. A bitter young man sulking in his cell, whispering cruelties through the bars. Is he calling out to his counterpart, the girl in Julie’s basement? The scarred orphan who cries in her sleep and kills without blinking, who’s convinced she’s unworthy of love?

We were building a home. It was going to be beautiful. How did we let them lock us out?

“Yes,” Julie replies to my cold question, and the lack of anger in it stings me. Instead of exploding, she shrinks inward, clutching her knees and staring at the floor. “I understand.”

I want to pull her against me and melt our barriers with a simple warm gesture, but the wretch holds me back. He keeps my arms folded, my face stiff, and he whispers, You’ll hurt her. She’ll hurt you. He whispers, Not safe.

Nora brushes through the curtain and sits next to me. The three of us watch Audrey, whose eyes drift around the cabin with a vaguely troubled squint.

“I’m sorry, R,” Nora says.

I nod.

“They were just too far gone.”

I nod.

“One thing you learn as a nurse: you’ve got to let the gone ones go so you can save the ones that are still here.”

Julie buries her chin in her knees. Her eyes are damp.

M is leaning in the doorway, reluctant to intrude. “Didn’t kill all of them,” he offers with a shrug.

“Yeah,” Nora says with an optimistic lilt. “A few dozen, maybe, but there were hundreds.” She elbows me. “You saved hundreds of people, R.”

Another nod is the only response I can manage. Our friends have no idea how many fights are inside us. They can’t hear our silent shouting.

M sighs and comes inside. He settles down next to Nora, leaving a few polite feet between them. Abram appears in the doorway behind him and pauses to take in the scene: a Dead woman in the middle of the room and the four of us lined up in front of her like an intervention. But he has no wry comments for us. His expression is remote.

“We’re heading south,” he says. “Just wanted to let you know so you don’t shoot me when you see the ocean.”

We all glance at Julie for her reaction, but she doesn’t seem to be listening.

“Iceland’s not south,” Nora says.

“We can’t go through New York. Axiom has defenses all over the state. We need to go around.”

“That’s a big detour. Do we have enough fuel?”

“I’ll cut around Long Island as close as I can, then up toward Boston and—”

“Do it,” Julie mumbles into her knees. “Whatever you need to do, do it. Just get us off this insane continent.”

Abram nods. Julie notices us all looking at her and she straightens, resting the back of her head against the window. “Maybe we can come back someday with an Icelandic army and save everyone. Ella. David and Marie . . . even Evan if you want, Nora. But for now . . . it’s like you said, right?” Her voice is an exhausted sigh spiked with bitterness. “Let the gone ones go.”

I can feel the turmoil in everyone, but it’s hard to argue anymore. We’ve traveled the country and found death in every corner. We’ve searched for resistance and found comfortable slaves. We have grand ideas but no way to share them, because the world has plugged its ears, wrapped itself in a blanket of radio silence, and ordered everyone into bomb shelters to wait for death in the dark.