Page 24

AUTUMN

T he moment the guys start climbing out of the bunker, I drop to my knees and tear through the wreckage. Every corner. Every blanket. Every crate. I rip open a sealed bin that smells like rot and bile.

Nothing.

I yank the cracked plastic light fixture from the ceiling.

Still nothing.

I shove over an old metal chair, and it screeches across the floor before slamming into the wall.

There has to be more. There must be something else. Another name. Another clue. Something, anything, that tells me where she went next. Who is G.L.?

My fingers scrape under the cot frame. Nothing.

I tug at the floorboards, pulling at them until my knuckles split. Still nothing.

My heart pounds too fast. My lungs feel too small. “Come on. Please. Please, please, please.”

Footsteps pound down the stairs and rush back into the bunker. I feel three pairs of eyes on me, but no one stops me.

I hear the shift of boots. One of them starts forward, but then stops. I don’t know who, and I don’t care. I’m already moving.

Outside, back into the dead light of morning. Is Summer seeing this same light right now? Does she have access to a window where we see the same light during the day, and the same moon at night?

The air is thick with rot and failure. I scour the overgrown dock ruins behind the building. Push through thorned brush. Crawl through collapsed doorways and over abandoned crates. Something sharp cuts across my shin, but I don’t stop.

“Summer!” I scream.

My voice bounces back to me off the concrete, empty, useless, and unanswered.

“Where is she?” I shout.

The world doesn’t answer, but the rotters do. They close in. I hear them, but I don’t stop. I keep screaming. Keep searching. Keep breaking.

“Hey, stumble your ugly asses over this way,” Mars shouts out before opening the music box again to draw the rotters toward me. It works. The rotters change direction and head right for me.

The music has an effect on me, too. It tugs at my frayed nerves, and another scream rips from my throat.

The guys move. They’re coordinated and ruthless.

One rotter falls.

Then another.

There’s silence again before another rotter follows my screams, only to be taken down by one of the guys. I don’t know which one. It’s hard to tell them apart through the tear collecting in my eyes.

They’re not trying to calm me down, or even trying to talk me through this. They’re clearing the way, letting me tear myself apart, and keeping me safe during the process .

I love them for it, and I hate they don’t understand. They can’t possibly understand.

Because they didn’t lose her. I did.

I reach the far wall of the ruins. There’s some rusted fence with no gate, some skeletal dead-end that doesn’t care how desperate I am. I scale the fence and drop to the other side.

My knees crack against the concrete, but I don’t feel it. My hands scrape the ground and I dig my fingers into the dirt as though I could pull her name out of it, but there’s nothing. Nothing other than me and the sound of my own broken breathing.

It comes fast after that.

The sob.

The first one hits so hard I choke on it.

The next one rips through my ribs like it wants to crack them open.

Then I’m screaming again, but this time there are no words, only grief. I crumple into myself with my arms over my head like I can hold myself together with skin alone, but I can’t.

My chest starts to lock up. The crushing tightness claws its way up my throat, making each breath a battle. My vision tunnels as panic joins the grief, feeding off it, making everything worse. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t function.

I don’t know how long I stay like that, gasping and choking on air that won’t come. Eventually, the world shifts again. The air moves differently.

There’s a shape at my back. Boots in the dirt. A body kneeling beside me.

A warm hand touches the middle of my back. They don’t say anything; not a single word. They let me fall apart, and somehow, that’s the only thing that holds me.

Then, barely louder than the wind, he says, “You don’t have to do it alone, you know. ”

I’m too far gone to match the voice to the man, but it has me sobbing again. My chest still seizes with each attempted breath.

Summer was here. She was so close. And now I might be too late.

A low whine cuts through my grief, and I look up through tear-filled eyes to see Luna approaching. Her steps are slow and her dark eyes fix on me. She doesn’t hesitate this time. She comes right up to me, sniffs my face, then presses her warm, solid body against me.

The moment she settles against my front, my breathing evens out. The panic that was clawing at my chest loosens its grip. She’s warm and real, and somehow that anchors me back to the present. The fractured reality I never asked for.

I wrap my arms around her, burying my face in her rough fur as the last waves of panic subside into exhausted sobs. She doesn’t pull away. She stays solid and warm against me, letting me fall apart while keeping me tethered to something real. Something alive.

“She’s lost, too,” I choke out against Luna’s fur.

She whimpers in understanding, then licks my cheek.

“We’re both lost,” I whisper. “Aren’t we?”