Page 17

The afternoon is warm and humid, and Burgundy and I get hot and sweaty working in the stockroom, sorting out the remaining food and supplies.

Once it’s all organized, it’s quite clear we have less than a week left of provisions.

We’re going to have to leave soon.

After two months here—feeling secure, feeling comfortable, even enjoying myself—I hate the idea of getting back on the road and facing who knows what danger along the way.

Burgundy suggests washing up in the creek after we finish working, and I immediately agree. I’d like to cool down and get clean, and I could also use the distraction since the idea of leaving this house soon is bringing me down.

In all the time we’ve been here, we’ve encountered very few passersby.

The occasional traveler will stop, thinking it might be an abandoned house to scavenge, and there’re always a few folks who live nearby hunting or searching for food who wander onto the property.

But we’ve gotten so that we don’t expect threats from every direction when we’re close to the house.

Burgundy and I are relaxed as we find a secluded spot near the creek and put our stuff down.

No matter how relaxed we are, we’re not stupid enough to both be vulnerable at the same time. I take off my clothes and get in the water first, using some scavenged bath soap and shampoo to wash my hair and clean up while Burgundy stands guard with her gun.

When I’m done, I dry off and pull on one of Deck’s T-shirts—it hangs like a short dress on me—and draw my pistol so Burgundy can wash up in the creek too.

I hear someone moving in the trees behind me, so I turn around and raise my weapon. But I’m not worried. It’s almost certainly one of us. I’ll just tell them to go somewhere else so they don’t invade Burgundy’s privacy.

But it’s not one of us. It’s a stranger. A dirty man with long, greasy hair and cutoff denim shorts with hiking boots.

I freeze, my gun pointed at him.

He looks as surprised as I am. He jerks to a stop, blinking at me.

Then his face changes into an ugly kind of smirk.

I recognize that smirk. Any woman who’s stayed alive for two years after Impact would recognize that smirk.

My gut twists, and my hand trembles on the trigger. “Go away!” I manage to say in my fiercest voice .

It’s not very fierce.

He cuts his eyes over to Burgundy, naked in the creek, before he looks back at me. He takes a step forward. “Put the gun down, little girl. You two are way too little and pretty to make it without a man, but I can take care of that for you.”

I shoot, aiming just over his right shoulder.

He must know I missed on purpose because, after an instinctive flinch, he laughs. A sickening sort of laugh. He keeps coming toward me.

“Go away!” I say again as everything inside me screams at me to pull the trigger.

“Shoot him, Lilah!” Burgundy calls from behind me. I hear motion from the water. The man’s head shifts toward her again, and his face transforms into a coarse leer.

I shoot again, still incapable of aiming at him directly because I know the shot will kill him.

Kill him.

He’s almost reached me when there’s a shot from behind me and the man drops. He collapses to the ground in a bloody mess.

He’s dead. Burgundy scrambled out of the creek wet and naked, grabbed her gun, and shot the man because I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

What the hell is wrong with me?

“I’m sorry,” I manage to choke out.

Burgundy has snatched up a towel and is wrapping it around herself, one hand still holding her pistol. “It’s fine, Lilah. We took care of it. Don’t beat yourself up.”

I’m shaking inside but completely frozen outside. I look from Burgundy to the man’s body on the ground. She shot him in the chest. Right in the heart. He died immediately.

There’s so much blood.

“Lilah, it’s okay. It’s really hard the first time. I couldn’t manage to kill anyone either until the guy was right on top of me. Survival instincts kick in, and you just do it.”

“I don’t know if I have any survival instincts.” My nose is running. I wipe at it with the back of my hand.

“Of course you do.” There’s not the slightest hint of disappointment, resentment, or judgment on Burgundy’s face, and for some reason that makes me feel worse.

I don’t deserve her empathy. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do.

Our gunshots were obviously heard because Logan appears from the woods at a run. He’s got his hair pulled back at the nape of his neck as usual, and there’s a sweat spot on the front of his gray T-shirt.

He takes a quick scan of the scene and then holsters his gun. His mind works more quickly than anyone I’ve ever met. He’s obviously put the pieces together and knows exactly what happened here.

Trisha bursts out of the surrounding trees too. I don’t know if she heard the gunshots as well or simply followed Logan.

“We’re fine,” Burgundy says. “This guy showed up and made trouble, but we took care of it.” She puts down her gun and tucks the towel around herself more securely.

Trisha might be my least favorite person in the world, but she’s not slow or dense. She too must deduce what happened here. She gives a little laugh. “Did you freeze again, Lilah, and make poor Burgundy come out of the water naked to kill the man for you?”

The words feel like a slap in the face. Mostly because they’re entirely true.

“You can’t keep letting other people fight your battles. You’ve got to be stronger than that.”

“Shut up,” Burgundy snaps. “You don’t know?—”

“Enough,” Logan says curtly. “Trisha, go find Micah and Billy to take care of this body. It’s not your place to lecture Lilah, so keep your comments to yourself.”

Trisha doesn’t like that. She hides a scowl as she turns to leave.

When she’s out of sight, Logan turns to Burgundy. “And it’s not your place to cover for Lilah. Otherwise you did good here. Go ahead and get dressed.”

Burgundy gives me a sympathetic look before she walks over to where she left her clothes.

And me, I’m still standing like a statue.

Like a useless, pitiful waste of space.

Logan meets my eyes. “Why didn’t you shoot?”

“I…” The words get stuck in my throat. “I should have. I’m sorry.”

Logan glances down at the man’s body. “Were you unsure of his intentions?”

It would have been an easy excuse—some way to defend my inaction—but I’ve never been any good at lying, and it doesn’t even occur to me to do so now. “N-no. I knew what he was after.”

“Then why didn’t you shoot?” Logan doesn’t sound angry. I’ve never seen the man angry. He’s either blunt and matter-of-fact or quietly reflective or as cold and cutting as ice. Right now he’s asking a real question and waiting for me to get the answer out.

It takes a minute before I can finally verbalize the real reason.

“Because… because he was a human being. And killing him is so… final. What if I misread him? What if there’s more to him than it looked like from the few seconds I saw?

What if I get it wrong? He’ll be dead, and I’ll be the one who did it. ”

Logan listens. Genuinely thinks about what I’ve said.

Then he finally takes a step closer to me.

“That hesitation,” he says at last, soft and cool.

“That hesitation is you still believing you can be a good person and live in this world. Maybe a few years ago there was room for those kinds of choices. But not anymore. Good people don’t survive.

Not here. Not now. Your job is not to solve moral quandaries.

You protect yourself. And you protect your people.

That’s your job now. You failed at both today, so Burgundy had to do it for you. ”

I’ve noticed Burgundy getting dressed in my peripheral vision, and now she makes a noise of objection.

Logan silences her with a brief wave of his hand.

“So you take that sense of morality that keeps holding you back, and you force it into a dark corner of your mind so you can do what must be done to survive. This world doesn’t give you the luxury of moral introspection.

All the truly good people didn’t make it even this long because they couldn’t do what we’re forced to do to make it through each day.

Do you think the monsters of this world hesitate even a moment before they pull the trigger?

Of course not. That means you can’t hesitate either.

If someone is a threat to you or yours, you shoot.

And you keep shooting until they’re dead.

You can try to be decent, but you can’t be good. Do you understand?”

I nod. Manage to get out “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”

Logan inclines his head. “Okay. It’s done now.” He glances over my shoulder. “Burgundy, can you get her back to the house?”

He must think I’m in a pitiful state if I need support walking the short distance to the house.

The worst thing is he’s entirely right.

Burgundy walks with me up to my room, but then I tell her I’d like to be alone for a little while. She gives me a quick hug and leaves.

I climb into my bunk and curl up on my side, hugging my knees and shaking helplessly.

I don’t know how long I stay like that, but I’m still in the same position when the bedroom door opens and Deck’s familiar scent fills the room.

He stands still and looks at me. I don’t turn around, but I can feel it. Then he takes off his shoes and climbs into bed with me, curling his big body around mine to spoon me.

I shake even more. Grab his hands and hug them to my chest .

I’m not crying. Just shaking. And it goes on for a long time as Deck holds me.

When I finally grow still enough to speak, I whisper, “I failed everyone.”

Deck sucks in a sharp breath and pulls one of his hands free so he can tap two fingers with his thumb in the sign for no .

“I did.”

No .