The Burning World (Warm Bodies #2)(16)

“Mr. Balt,” Rosso says softly, “you are not a ranking officer so will you please gather your fraternity and return to your building. We’re done here.” He steps back into the hall and addresses the mics. “The meeting is over, folks. Some . . . ambiguous developments are in progress. We’ll keep you apprised.”

The crowd in the lobby begins to disperse, floating on a tide of anxious chatter. Balt lingers long enough to imply he’s only leaving because he feels like it, but he leaves. Evan and a few other officers remain, waiting for Rosso.

“One unit outside the gate,” he tells them. “Armed, but nonaggressive. I’ll join you in a moment.”

Evan gives the traditional Army salute—more of a geeky anachronism the further into history the government recedes—and he and his officers exit.

After the whitewater noise of a packed house, the community center feels ghostly with only five people in it. Nora spins a rod on the foosball table. The tiny blue men kick wildly, but there is no ball.

“What is this?” Julie asks Rosso as he stares at the floor. “Who are they?”

“Axiom was . . . a militia.” I can hear a longer, darker description buried in that ellipsis. His head is shaking subtly. “But it’s gone. It was wiped out years ago, when you were a little girl. There’s no way it could have . . .”

Ella watches him, her throat slowly constricting. Then a sharp, wet cough erupts from her lungs and she hunches over, inhaling, coughing, inhaling, coughing. Rosso rubs her back. “Where’s your medicine, El?”

The fit subsides and she straightens, wheezing like she’s just run a marathon. “Left it at home.”

Rosso glances to the lobby door, then to me, then to Julie and Nora. “Will you girls take her home and make sure she gets her pills? I need to get to the gate.”

The girls nod and take Ella by the elbows. I move to follow them.

“R,” Rosso says. “I’d like you to come with me.”

I look at Julie, then at Rosso, thinking I must have misheard him. “Come with you?”

“Yes. To the gate.”

I pause. “Why?”

“I’m not sure I know why. But I want you to be there.”

I shoot Julie a desperate look. “There” is the last place I want to be. I want to be back at our house, patching holes and scrubbing floors, sitting next to her on the ratty old couch reading children’s books while she helps me sound out the syllables, watching her cook an omelet and then attempting to eat it, telling myself this is food, this is food, people aren’t food, this is food.

I want to be alone with her, not in this swarm of fraught and noisy people debating military operations. I’ve just rejoined humanity. Curious George is above my reading level. I’m not ready for this.

“Go on,” Julie says, her eyes tight with worry. “I’ll find you later.”

Rosso waits patiently. He knows my fears. We’ve spent many an evening discussing them in his library as he counsels me through my recovery. But there is no sympathy in his eyes today, no comfort, only the steady resolve of a man telling a man what must be done and trusting him to do it.

I wanted to be human. I wanted to be part of the world. Well, this is the world. Not a cozy cottage—a battlefield. I thought I’d have more time to brace myself, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short residency here it’s that nothing ever happens when you’re ready for it. You tell life, “On the count of three!” and it goes on two.

I pull myself away from Julie and nod to Rosso. We walk toward the gate.





IT’S LATE JULY, and the average temperature hovers around 120 degrees. Humanity has had a few generations to adapt to the new climate, but everyone in the stadium still drips miserably. My ravaged body has been too busy relearning the more essential functions to bother with sweating, so the heat bakes my unmarinated meat. For once I’m grateful for the crush of the stadium’s slum towers. The five-story apartments of moldy plywood and rusty sheet metal bathe most of the enclave in shade, which turns the oven down to a more livable 100.

“I wish I could be clearer with you,” Rosso says as our boots slap and peel away from the melting asphalt. The “street” is really no more than a crudely paved footpath, too narrow for us to walk abreast, so I follow behind him and can only guess at his expression. “All I can say is that I believe you’re important.”

I say nothing.

“That is to say you represent something important. You and the others like you. And I’m very interested to find out what it is.”

I remain silent. He glances back at me. “Am I overwhelming you?”

I nod.

He smiles and turns back to the path. “Sorry. I’m sure you’re going through enough right now without me dumping some half-baked hero’s journey in your lap.”

“I’m not important,” I say to the back of his head. “I’m . . . impotent.”

“Why do you say that, R?”

I hadn’t intended to elaborate, but something in the soft sincerity of his tone makes it bubble out of me. “I can’t read. I can’t speak. My fingers don’t work. My kids won’t stop eating people. I don’t have a job. I can’t make love. Most people want to kill me.”