Revolution (Collide, #4)(80)

"What is it?" Jeff asked, his usual Keeper self. Though he wasn't a Keeper anymore.

"I'll explain later. Mind if I take the van?"

"Sure, mate," Miguel spouted and turned on the TV. "Before you head into town let's…"

The town was a mess. Stores had been destroyed, some things were on fire and still burning. The streets were littered with debris and the wind whipped some of it around into the air. The anchorwoman stood in front of the sign that I had defaced. Our Town now blazed behind her as she said what was happening. The sound of yelling could be heard from behind the camera. As she, who was no longer compelled, walked through town and showed the destruction, she also showed the people gathering in the streets. They were…celebrating.

I gripped my husband to me and we all watched enraptured. We'd been fighting here and they'd been fighting there.

Even though we hadn't made it to them last night, they'd fought and stood strong. And when the Lighters had been defeated they knew the war was over. Now in the morning light of glorious victory, even though we still weren't together as one body, we all celebrated together as one human race.

The war was over.

A new life was beginning.

A life without Lighters or Keepers or Markers or Takers. A life of humans who were hell bent on rebuilding a world worth living in.

The rebellion may have been over, but the revolution was ongoing.

This was our world, our town, and we refused to give up.



Happily Ever After



Chapter 32


Lily



I giggled as I watched Mommy cwy. It always made me sad to see her cwy, but this time, she was laughing and cwying at the same time. Daddy kept kissing her neck. He was her prince charming. Well, that's what Aunt Rissa had said.

Aunt Rissa was going to be a good mommy. She was a good teacher. And Uncle Jeff was a good Daddy. He was her prince charming, too.

Calvin and Frankwin, those meany pants, were not prince charmings.

But I was glad the bad man was gone now. I wasn't scarwed. Mrs. Trudy said not to be. She said everything was going to be ok. And now we could go outside and play! Maybe Daddy could build me a swing, and tell Calvin he's not allowed to play on it 'cause he's too big!

Maybe Daddy would build a doll house. A big one. We might need a big one one day, because Mommy didn't know it, but there was a surpwise in her belly. It was a girl and Mrs. Trudy said to tell Mommy to name her Hope.

Because all the world needed right now…was a little Hope.

Epilogue

One Week Later

Sherry



So, the little surprise that Chesser had been talking about was staring back at us as we all stood in the middle of town. It was beautiful. We'd packed all of our things, which wasn't much, and followed Chesser in our little convoy across town.

And there we were.

It was an apartment complex that had been abandoned. It was right near the radio station and where the Enforcement facility used to be, so people had scrammed and moved on to somewhere not so close.

He said he'd scoped it out a long time ago, checked all the rooms, and that it was as empty as it could be. But the glorious thing was that when people fled, they left most of their furniture and 'stuff'. So we weren't sitting on the floor anymore, or sleeping on concrete anymore, or eating off our laps. And the very, very best part? We got to be separated, but still be technically together.

There were only about twenty apartments, but that was plenty for us. We'd divide it up by families and it would be perfect.

We walked into the first one we saw. It didn't matter what it looked like. It was a place to live and be alone. They were all two bedrooms so we had our room and Lily had hers.

I didn't even remember what privacy was like, but when I walked to the back and saw the washer and dryer, I almost cried right there. I heard Merrick call me into the kitchen. "Don't faint," he said.

"What? Why?"

He took my arm and pulled me around to see a dishwasher. I squealed like a little girl and jumped up and down and into his arms as he laughed. Lily hugged our legs and we lifted her up to squeeze between us.

Later as we sat on our couch - our couch - we thought about what we could do to start turning the town back around. Money was a thing of the past. No one had it and no one knew much about what was going on outside of the state except that all the Lighters were gone. We figured there was no point in waiting for the government to come and fix things.

There was no government.

So all of us met in the conference room and talked about it until we decided to invite the town, what was left of it, to speak with everybody all at once and come up with a trade system. We needed to start planting crops again and getting the stores back in order. We needed have limits and rules and regulations that everybody agreed to and we needed to start living them.

It was exciting to think about a new society.

That night after we put Lily to bed in her new room, we lay in our own bed and looked at the ceiling. The sheets I had washed were soft and smelled heavenly. Merrick and I had taken a shower for a long time, like we couldn't get clean enough. Then without putting on clothes, he'd carried me to bed.

Lily had told me some news this morning while Jeff and Merrick were talking to the Enforcers in our group about setting up some kind of security, just in case. I was dusting and going through the books left in the apartment and she'd let the secret fall sweetly from her lips.