Year One (Chronicles of The One #1)(124)

He tapped another pot. “Do this one.”

She let it come, all joy now. Then stepped back from the tender sprout.

“I don’t know if it’s me or her or us. But I know she changed me. If I woke tomorrow, and all these months had been a dream, I’d still be changed. Oh!” Once again she laughed as she pressed a hand to the side of her belly.

Those kinds of moves and gestures made him twitchy. “You okay?”

“Yeah. She’s kicking.” Surprising them both, Lana took his hand, pressing it to her stomach.

He felt a jolt, one that went straight into him. Life kicking against his hands, and for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, into his heart.

Someone grew inside there, he thought. Someone innocent, helpless. Yet from the strength of the kick, fierce.

“She’s … got some sass.”

Now he stepped back as Lana’s face was nearly as luminous as it had been when she’d brought life out of the dirt. The look of her, bold and glowing, stirred something in him just as the child stirred in her.

He’d been careful, damn careful, to avoid that.

“I’ve got work I need to get to. Can you handle the rest of this?”

“Yes.”

When he left, she stood quietly with the scent of dirt and growing things.

*

Simon kept busy, and treated Lana like he’d have treated a sister if he’d had one. Twice in September groups passed by. She stayed in the house and out of sight, wary.

He gave them supplies, directed them to the settlement. Some would stay, others he knew would continue on. Searching for something else, something more. Just searching.

After he saw the second group off, Simon came into the kitchen to find her stirring stew on the stove with the shotgun propped beside her.

He moved it to the back door.

“Eight people. One of them had wings. I can’t get used to seeing that. They skirted around D.C. a few days ago.”

Since the table was set—she tended to fuss with that sort of thing—he washed up in the sink.

“They heard gunfire, saw smoke. One of them was getting the hell out when he hooked up with them. He said, word is— God, what’s her name?” He paused, rubbed his temple. “MacBride’s still alive, and what’s left of the government’s trying to hold the city. Every time they get communications up, somebody takes it out again.”

“It seems like another world. Like a story about another world.”

“Yeah, it does. But it isn’t. There are rumors about people in camps and labs.”

“Magickal people?”

“Yeah, but not just. The estimate is…” He’d considered saying nothing to her, had nearly convinced himself to take that tack.

But he couldn’t.

“I’m telling you because it’s not right you don’t know, but it’s not confirmed, okay?”

She turned to him. “Okay?”

“They’re saying the plague’s finished, run its course. That’s the good news. The bad is they’re estimating it took about eighty percent of the population. That’s world population. That’s more than five billion people. It could be more.

“I need a drink.”

He went to the pantry, got a bottle of whiskey, poured two fingers.

“I heard the same a few days ago.” He downed half the whiskey. “There’s a guy with a ham radio in the settlement, and he’s been able to reach a few others—even a couple in Europe, and it’s no better there. Adding the ones who offed themselves, the ones killed for the fucking hell of it, you can up the percentage. New York … Do you want to hear this?”

“Yes. But more, I need to hear it.”

“New York’s under the control of the Dark Uncannys. There’s talk of human sacrifice, of stake-burning people like you—who aren’t like them. The military’s holding some areas, especially west of the Mississippi, but from what I get, the chain of command’s pretty fractured. There are offshoots, and they’re posting bounties on all Uncannys: dark, light, doesn’t matter.”

“The Purity Warriors.”

“They’re leading the charge. Raiders are keeping mobile, doing hit-and-runs. And they’re bounty hunting.”

Calmly, she ladled stew into one of his mother’s fancy dishes—she did like to fuss. “So it’s bad for everyone, but for someone like me? We’re hunted by all sides. It’s hard to believe what you said the other day about getting it right this time could happen.”

She carried the bowl to the table.

“I have to believe it.”

Now she ladled stew from the dish to the bowls.

She sat, waited for him to join her.

“When I was in New Hope, I saw what people could and would do together. I saw how others tried to destroy that. You were a soldier.”

“Yeah.”

“So was Max, at the end. He made the choice to fight, to lead because it needed to be done. You did the same, killing to protect someone you barely knew. You gave the people who were here food you worked to grow, and that was a choice. The people who try to destroy won’t win because there will always be people like Max, like you, like the people I left behind who make the choice.”

She held a brighter view than he did at the moment. He didn’t mind the balance.