The Burning World (Warm Bodies #2)(92)

“What are you kids up to?” the pastor inquires cheerfully.

“Your sermon moved me,” I tell him. “I’d like to stay and pray about it.”

“We’re all going to stay with him,” Paul says.

“That’s good of you,” the pastor says, then downturns his smile into consolation. “I’m very sorry for your losses, all of you. I know it’s been a hard season.”

“What do you mean?” I say with a strange, trembling euphoria. “Everything we lose brings the Kingdom closer.”

He looks uncomfortable. “Right. Well. I hope God speaks to you tonight.”

He walks away, leaving us alone in the conference room. I glance from face to face, all of them pale and tired, eyes red from grieving and fighting and seeking answers that never come, and I see my own epiphany reflected in all of them.

I pull out my notepad and begin to sketch plans, and they crowd in around me like members of one body. It’s the closest I’ve ever felt to the Spirit of God moving.





THERE IS NO WARMTH in this basement. No pleasant nostalgia in these old boxes. They lie in heaps as if tossed in a panic. Sharp objects poke through them and some are soggy with dark fluid. What was I supposed to find here? Why should I want these old horrors? There are plenty of new ones waiting outside.

I open my eyes.

The interior of the plane is calm. The soft drone of the engines. The pink morning glow creeping through the windows. Will this day look different? Are the eyes I just opened the same ones I closed last night, or did I bring new ones back with me? What does the world look like to someone who has sought to destroy it?

M and Nora are asleep in the row behind me. Sprout is curled up near the back, arms wrapped around her knees in a heartbreaking posture of fear. Abram snores in the cockpit with the autopilot engaged, his wounds neatly bandaged, looking rather comfortable.

Only Julie is awake. She slumps in the copilot chair, her pistol on the armrest. She notices me looking at her and her puffy eyes glint with defiance, daring me to judge her. After what I’ve just relived, the thought of me judging anyone almost makes me smile.

I step into the cockpit and lean against the instrument panel behind her. She swivels her chair to face me, giving me a blunt stare. “What.”

It’s the voice of someone addressing a stranger. Perhaps an enemy. Whatever I had to say evaporates.

She swivels back to the windshield. The sun is a small coal rising up from an endless gray expanse.

“Julie.” I step forward and put my hands on her shoulders. “I understand.”

“Do you?” she says to the windshield, and there’s a dangerous tremble under her level tone. “Because I thought you were a blank canvas.” Her shoulders are so tight they seem to be extruding spikes. “I thought you get to choose where your past begins and you chose the day you met me. Which is sweet and all, but it means you never had a family, never lost a family, never lost anything. It means you don’t understand.”

I withdraw my hands. I look down at the top of her head, that little golden ball that contains every moment of my third life. I wish she were right. I wish I were nothing but that brief vignette, but my present is becoming a small raft adrift on a dark ocean.

Could I tell her? Could I introduce her to the broken wretch taking shape in my head? Is she broken enough to accept him?

A harsh beep pierces the cockpit and a red light blinks on in front of Abram. He sits up and takes the controls without so much as a yawn, either a light sleeper or a good pretender. Julie also snaps to attention, steadying the pistol and blinking alertness into her bloodshot eyes.

Abram glances at the gun. “That’s really not necessary, you know. You’ve made your point.”

Julie watches him silently.

“What am I going to do, jump out the window? Why don’t you save the hostage stuff for when we’re on the ground?”

“The hostage thinks I should put my gun away,” Julie says flatly. “The hostage thinks that would be the logical thing to do.”

Abram sighs. “I’m just asking you to ease up.”

“Why?” She wiggles the barrel. “Do guns make you nervous?”

He looks at her with what appears to be genuine emotion, a genuine plea. “They make my daughter nervous.”

Julie’s mask slips. The hard angles of her face melt. She glances back into the cabin and sees Sprout watching her anxiously, crouched on her seat as if ready to run away. Julie’s chin trembles just once, a spasm of sadness. She puts the gun in her lap.

“Thank you,” Abram says.

The red light blinks and beeps again.

“What is that?” Julie says.

“It’s my morning alarm. Can’t be late for work when the boss is armed and insane.”

“What is it.”

“It’s a route notice. Means we’re close to Pittsburgh.”

“Why do you have a route notice for Pittsburgh?”

“Because I think we should stop there.”

She stares at him. “What?”

“I think we should stop in Pittsburgh.”

She leans in, peering at him curiously and gripping the gun against her thigh. “Have I been vague about our itinerary?”

“Look, I’ll fly you to Iceland. It’s going to be a lifeless rock, but I’ll fly you there. But before we launch ourselves across the Atlantic with limited fuel and 1970s nav gear, I think we should make a stop in Pittsburgh.”