Year One (Chronicles of The One #1)(35)

“I think you need to cut yourself a break there.”

“A journalist—”

“Kind of an apocalypse going on right now,” Fred reminded her, “so everybody gets cut a break.”

When they reached the lobby, the dark of night had fallen. Arlys headed for the door, paused.

“I didn’t question why nobody’s busted in here. I’ve just been glad no one did. Did you do something? Like with the market?”

“I had help. It’s a lot bigger than the market. You probably didn’t look up high enough to see the symbols. It won’t last forever, but it’s holding so far.”

“You’re full of surprises, Fred. Will it keep out the cops, the military, whoever tries to get in?”

“I didn’t think of that!” Doing a hip wiggle, Fred punched Arlys’s arm lightly. “I think so. I’m not absolutely a hundred percent, but yeah, they’d mean harm, right? Maybe some of them, it’s just duty, but even then … I think ninety percent. No, eighty-five.”

“I’ll take it. Let’s go.”

“Where, exactly?”

“Hoboken.”

“Yeah? I went to an art fair there once. How are we getting there?”

“We’re taking the PATH.”

“None of the subways are running.”

“The tracks are still there. We’re hiking it. We head to the Thirty-third Street station, go down, follow the tracks. It’ll take us awhile.” They slipped out, headed west again, trying to keep out of the glow from any of the streetlights still operating. “But we’ve got time. My source isn’t going to meet us until three a.m.”

“We’re meeting up with your source? Excellent! I never met with a source.”

“Don’t get too excited. I’m counting on having understood his code about where and when—and that he watched the broadcast so he knows I’m coming. If any of that didn’t pan out? We’ll have to keep going. I need to get to Ohio.”

“I’ve never been to Ohio.” Fred shot Arlys a sunny smile. “I bet it’s nice.”

*

Lana wept in her dreams. She sat under a dead tree with skeletal branches jutting toward a starless sky. Everything dark and dead, her own body and mind aching, exhausted.

Nowhere to go, she thought, in a world so full of hate and death, so swollen with grief.

She was too tired to go on pretending, to walk another step. She’d lost everything, and the hate would hunt her to the grave. What point was there in fighting it?

“You don’t have time for this.”

Lana looked up.

A young woman stood over her, hands fisted on her hips. Raven black hair cut short and sharp formed a dark halo around her head. Though she wore black, she was light. Luminous. In the moonless dark, she shimmered with light.

She stood slim and straight, a rifle slung over her shoulder, a quiver on her back, a knife sheath on her belt.

With them, she carried a palpable strength and an almost careless beauty.

“I’m tired,” Lana told her.

“Then stop wasting your energy on tears. Get up, get moving.”

“For what? To what?”

“For your life, for the world. To your destiny.”

“There is no world.”

The woman crouched so they were eye to eye. “Am I here? Are you? One person can make a world, and we’re two. There are more. You have power in you.”

“I don’t want it!”

“It doesn’t matter what you want, but what is. You hold the key, Lana Bingham. Get up, go north. Follow the signs. Trust them. Trust what you have and are, Lana Bingham.” The woman smiled on Lana’s name, and Lana felt a flash of knowing, of recognition, that rippled away. “You have all you need. Use it.”

“I … Do I know you? Do I?”

“You will. Now get up. You need to get up!”

“Lana, you have to get up.” Max shook her shoulder. “We need to get going.”

“I … all right.”

She sat up in the lumpy bed in the musty-smelling room. They’d found a run-down motel far enough off the main road that Max felt it was safe enough to stop, to sleep for a few hours.

God knew they’d needed it.

“There’s bad motel-room coffee.” He gestured to the pot on the TV stand. “It’s better than none—barely.” He took her face in his hands. “It’s still shy of dawn. I’m going to go out, see if there’s anything in the vending machines. Ten minutes. All right?”

“Ten minutes.”

She took the coffee into the bathroom, splashed water on her face. It smelled metallic; but like the coffee, it was better than none.

She looked in the mirror, saw hollow eyes, pale skin. She did a subtle glamour—not for vanity this time, but for Max. If she looked too tired, too weak, he wouldn’t push.

After yesterday, she understood they needed to push.

They’d finally gotten across the river on the 202, just after the all but deserted city of Peekskill. Deserted, she’d discovered, as they hadn’t been the only ones trying to get across.

Wrecked cars, abandoned cars, some with bodies at the wheels.

They’d had to leave the SUV less than halfway across and carry their belongings around an overturned semi blocking the way. She’d realized while some had fled west—or tried—others had been rushing east.