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My father holds me for a long time, and my mother openly weeps. I’m blubbering like a baby when I see them both alive.

Plague never got them.

Our reunion is touching and ridiculous and beautiful, and I just fucking love my parents.

When I return to the fire station, Luke is the first one to see me. It’s almost comical, the way the shock registers on his face.

“Holy motherfucking shit!Burns!” He nearly overturns the chair he sits in when he sees me. “You’re alive!”

“So are you!”

It’s startling to see him after all this time. He looks a little leaner, not that I should be surprised. Living through a Canadian winter post-Arrival is difficult enough. Living through a Canadian winterinthe frozen wilderness is near impossible. And that’s what he and all these other survivors had to do to escape the plague.

Luke’s exclamation draws the attention of others, who are soon thumping me on the back and pulling me into hugs, Felix among them. They all escaped with their lives, all of them except for …

“Briggs?” I ask, my eyes searching for him.

Could just be his day off.

Someone sobers up. “Didn’t make it.”

“He … didn’t?” My mood plummets. I was supposed to be the one that kicked the bucket, not him.

Surely he had enough time to escape.

“They needed help at the hospital. He came back early to aid the sick.”

And he died for it.

The more I look around, the more I notice other missing men. “Who else?”

“Sean and Rene. Blake. Foster.”

So many.

“All died in the line of duty,” someone else adds.

I should’ve known. First responders will always put their lives on the line for others.

I get that itchy feeling beneath my skin.It should’ve been me.A dozen times over it should’ve.

Pestilence stopped the plague altogether because of you, a quiet voice whispers at the back of my mind. Of course, that thought comes with its own strange pain.

“How did you escape the horseman?” Felix asks.

They’re all looking at me.

I’ve dreaded this question since I realized there would be survivors in Whistler. There’s so much I have to answer for, and I don’t know what to include and how much to say.

So I keep it simple. “The horseman … showed me mercy.”

Surprisingly,life returnsto normal. Or at least, as normal as I can expect these days.

I move back into my apartment, though I spend an agonizing few weeks carting my belongings from my parents’ house—where they were brought when I was presumed dead—back to my place.

In the wake of my return, people have questions—somany questions.

How did you survive the horseman?