Page 17

chapter sixteen

Tuck

“That road might go on for thirty miles,” Charlie whined. “What the hell do we do now?”

I didn’t attempt to provide an answer, instead turning my back and taking a slow walk around the station that had once been part of the electrical grid.

This situation disturbed me. I considered what it might mean. What if instead of an electric storm, some other, more monumental natural event had occurred that brought down our plane? The lightning might have been a result, not the originating factor. And then whatever it was also hit a bigger station in these parts and then spread? Were substations connected? I thought I’d read somewhere that they were, but I didn’t know exactly how. What if this had been caused by a…meteor or a comet or something? I glanced up. Because the sky was still off and it had been since we’d crashed, streaky and strange-colored which had to mean something. Or was this targeted? Some type of bomb or attack? Jesus, for all I knew, we were at war right now.

Maybe we’d emerge somewhere and immediately be drafted. At least then I’d have some direction.

Stop. Stop being dramatic and full of self-pity.

The truth was accidents happened all the time that sparked localized catastrophes. My mind was spinning, attempting to work through what I knew so far. But at this point, I could only guess.

“What are you thinking?” Emily asked, coming up beside me.

My guard went up, slamming into place. “What do you care what I’m thinking?” I blurted as though she’d read my secret, pitiful thoughts about the backward direction of my life.

Her head turned toward me as she blinked, and I was pretty sure I saw hurt mixed in with the confusion in her expression. But then she pulled her shoulders back and held her head higher. “I was only asking if you had any ideas about what might have happened to this place,” she said. “I’m standing here too, Tuck, among the ashes. The least you can do is talk to me.” Her voice shook on the final few words, and she whipped her head forward again so I could only see her profile.

The least I could do? The least you could do is give me the benefit of the doubt over Charlie. But why should she in all honesty? My life choices hadn’t exactly made it easy to trust my judgment. I let out a slow breath. Whether I was justified in my bitterness toward her or not, I didn’t have to be rude. I’d already determined that I owed it to her parents to get her to safety, and since that was my decision, I could act cordial until then. Emily and I were at odds, but she also surprised me sometimes with her depth of feeling, like the night before when she’d stood crying in the woods over Russell’s death. As I’d cared for her wound, the moment had felt…almost intimate and maybe I was extra irritated because I wanted to stay mad at her, but there were these times where protectiveness and affection and unwanted emotions regarding Emily snuck up on me. And some part of me welcomed it. But another part wanted to growl with frustration.

I glanced over my shoulder to see Charlie with his phone raised to the sky again, walking in circles. I almost rolled my eyes. He hadn’t even gotten it to turn on. How was raising it to the sky going to do anything? But…hell, it couldn’t hurt to keep trying. Maybe the dirtbag would end up getting reception somewhere along the way and have the last laugh.

In this case, I hoped he would.

I turned back to Emily, who was staring out at the dirt road in front of us and the sky that stretched beyond. I seriously hoped Charlie wasn’t right about this road going on for thirty miles—or more—but it was definitely possible. I didn’t see any tire tracks whatsoever, so either weather had erased them, or no one came out here very often at all.

It was well into the evening now and though the vibrancy of the sky had dulled, the orange hue still remained, just like the day before. I’d never seen anything like it, and it kept making me wonder if my internal clock was off. The moon had been different too, unusually bright so that the nighttime hours seemed like eternal dawn. “I don’t know what to think about what happened—” I waved my hand around “—here or to our plane. I’m not even sure they’re connected, although…it’d be a big damn coincidence if they weren’t.”

“Any guesses at all?”

I shrugged. “I thought about an electric storm, or something bigger like a meteor that worked to alter the weather in some way.”

“The sky is …odd,” she said, voicing the same thought I’d had. “It’s like a forever sunrise.” Eternal dawn. Forever sunrise. Despite the somewhat romantic wording, a strange chill wound through me. I didn’t like the idea of the sky remaining in any state permanently. It meant the natural order of things had been severely interrupted at the very least. By what was the question.

“I also considered an attack of some sort.”

“Like a bomb?” she asked, eyes widening as her lips formed an O. I looked at her, taking her in more closely. The full face of makeup she’d been wearing had started rubbing off and one of her false lash strips was sort of hanging crookedly. “What?” she asked, obviously noting my gaze not moving from that spidery-looking thing clinging to her eyelid.

“Your lash…” I said, tipping my chin toward it. “It’s coming off.”

She went sort of cross-eyed as she tried to look at it, color rising in her cheeks. She reached up and used two fingers to try to straighten it. Instead, it stuck to her fingers when she pulled them away. Her lips thinned, and she looked briefly angry, and a little embarrassed. She huffed out a small breath and then removed it entirely and then peeled the other one off as well, tossed them both on the ground and then brushed her hands together as though she’d just won a mini battle and was proud of the achievement. My lip quirked against my will. What was it about this damn woman that had my emotions swinging so dramatically moment by moment? And why, despite my best efforts, was I still thinking about the feel of her satiny skin beneath my fingertips?

I cleared my throat, moving my mind back to her question about a bomb. “We won’t have any way of knowing what happened until we make it somewhere.”

She nodded slowly. “Where do you think it goes?” Emily asked, pointing out to the road.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said. I dropped my duffel bag on the ground. “But not tonight.”

“What? We’re going to camp here?” she asked, her voice rising into a whine.

“I’m not walking into anything unprepared in the dark,” I said. “We have a road in front of us now, and all roads lead somewhere. But it’s warm here from the residual fire, and so we might as well take advantage of it.”

She sighed and turned her head, her eyes meeting mine. “All we have left are a couple packs of crackers. And some chocolate.”

“It’ll do. We still have water, which is the most important thing. We’ll start out fresh at first light.”

“More walking,” she said. “How far do you think?”

“I don’t possess an internal map, Emily,” I said. “I’m just going with my gut.”

“Oh, your gut. Great.”

My jaw tensed at the insinuation that my gut was less than trustworthy. Again though, maybe she wasn’t wrong—if the state of my life was any indication—so I chose to bite my tongue.

She glanced back at Charlie still doing his little circle-dance and then gestured to the remains of the station. “This is a power station, right? But our phones should have satellite service. So it must mean our phones just aren’t working. Unless the satellites are down too?”

Or both. I squinted up at the sky as though I’d be able to see one of the satellites she spoke of. Because we might be too far out in the wilderness right now but the phones should at least turn on. I was beginning to think that whatever had affected the plane, had affected a lot more. “There’s no way to tell right now,” I said.

Charlie came up beside Emily, stuffing his phone in his pocket and taking her suitcase from her so he could place it on the ground and sit on it. I saw the irritation flash in her eyes as she watched him and stifled the laugh that threatened. The weird thing was, he didn’t seem to notice her emotions or reactions. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

Not my problem.

He scooted over slightly and patted the suitcase in invitation, and she let out a breath on a smile, perching herself next to him as best she could. I turned away. Those two deserved each other, and they could curl up together with their useless designer shit.

I needed to start turning my attention to myself because the road in front of us led to the destination where the three of us would part ways. I had an actual visual of the beginning of the end of this unpleasant threesome.