Page 26 of Brood (After the End #5)

“No. Most of the council doesn’t know. It’s like you said.

There’s that core group—that secret network that handles all the real leadership, and the rest of the council just does the visible stuff.

Only a few people who are necessary for the process know, including Trevor.

It’s top secret, but it’s true. The surface isn’t uninhabitable.

They aren’t all ferals up there. There are real communities.

And maybe they’re rougher and wilder than we’re used to down here, but they’re not animals.

There’s a stable, secure community not far from our exterior door that we’ve been trading with for decades.

They call it the Mill, Bella says. It’s… it’s livable up there.”

“Fuck,” Will breathes out.

We stare at each other under the covers for a long time. While Will has never been able to find any cameras in our quarters, it still feels safer to have this conversation with the blanket and sheets over our heads.

“So we could…” It’s like his voice gives out. He clears his throat. “It’s livable up there? We could…we could leave this place?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” I scoot closer, overwhelmed with jittery anxiety again. “Maybe.”

He wraps his arms around me, and we hold each other for several minutes. Then he asks, in a tone closer to his normal voice, “How much does Bella know?”

“She knows everything. Trevor told her how to get out. Just in case something happens to him and she needs to get away. He even told her how to get to that community. She said he’d be willing to help us if we need to escape. He’s…he’s my father.”

He still doesn’t look surprised by Bella and Trevor being my parents. The suspicions he mentioned must have been strong.

“So this could really happen?” he asks.

“Maybe. We would need a plan. And I’m not going anywhere unless we can take Bun with us.”

“Of course not! We would never leave him. This is going to take a while to make work. We don’t only need a plan.

We need exactly the right time. And we need to be ready to survive up there.

It might not be a hostile wasteland, but it’s going to be dangerous.

Maybe just as dangerous as it is down here. ”

“I know. But at least…at least we’d have the chance of being free.”

His arms tighten around me. “Yes. It’s never been more than a dream, but maybe…”

All the restless nerves I’ve been living with for months now are still there, but they’ve taken a different form. Something that looks and feels a lot like hope.

Hope.

Will feels the same way. I know it. I can sense it in the urgency of his embrace.

It gives me the courage to say, “Will?”

He draws back. Meets my eyes again. “Yes, love?”

I gulp at the endearment. He’s only occasionally called me that, and it’s always wrapped my heart in an embrace. “I thought… I mean, I wanted to say something. I hope it’s okay.”

“You can tell me anything. You know you can.” He’s reached over to cup my face in one of his hands. He’s been nearly as exhausted as I’ve been for the almost six months of Bun’s life, but he’s wide awake now.

All the way awake. And excited.

“When we…when they told me we were going to marry, I wasn’t happy. And I know you weren’t either. But now…getting to be your spouse, it’s the best thing to ever happen to me.”

Will makes a guttural sound. His fingers spasm briefly against my face.

“It is. I know we’re supposed to deal with our marriages in the same impersonal way we’re supposed to do everything else, but that doesn’t feel natural to me.

Not any more natural than not being a mother to Bun.

I never would have made it through this past year without you.

Despite everything that’s been so hard, I’ve also never been so…

so happy. And I wanted to tell you. Just so you know. ”

He grabs me. Pulls me into a tight hug. His entire body is shuddering with an energy I don’t understand.

“Cadence, love, I feel the same way,” he rasps out against my hair.

We hug for another long time before we pull away, both of us kind of sheepish.

Will says, “I did care about Vanessa. I hated that she died—and it was even worse once I found out that they killed her—but my marriage with her was what it was supposed to be. Companionable. About responsibility and cooperation. I’m not trying to dismiss anything about her; she was important to me, and she never should have died.

But I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve never felt… alive.”

“Me neither. Me neither.”

“And I understand now why they’ve tried so hard to discourage anyone from feeling anything like this. Because I swear, I could rip a hole in the ceiling of this bunker and mow down hundreds of guards for you. You and Bun. To keep both of you safe and happy.”

I’m laughing and crying at the same time. “You mean it?”

“I do. And that’s why I know for sure that we’re going to get out of here. All of us. And we’re going to be safe. Because I already experienced a miracle the day you came into my life. And now every other miracle in the world is possible too.”