“I had to put myself in the best strategic position,” he says, sighing heavily. “I don’t expect you to understand. But know that I’m sorry for the hurt I caused you two—”

“And Mom,” I interrupt. “Or did you forget about how you slapped her the night before you left?”

He looks away, ashamed. “I haven’t forgotten. And I’ve regretted it every day that’s passed.”

“You know she waited for you,” I say, and I can hear the bitterness in my voice. “Even after the mushroom cloud. She said we couldn’t leave, in case you came back. You hit her and she still died for you.”

Bree begins to weep softly beside me. I know she wants me to stop but I can’t help myself. All the rage and anger I’ve felt over the last few years is spilling out of me. There’s no amount of apologies Dad can say to atone for the death of our mom, or make up for the fact that I had to leave her to her certain death and look after Bree alone. Because of him I had to grow up overnight, make adult decisions, and live with the consequences. I was just a kid and his actions robbed me of my childhood.

“I understand if you never forgive me,” Dad says. “But I had to be right in the thick of it in order to fight it from the inside out.”

I pause and frown. I’m confused, not able to comprehend what he’s saying.

“What do you mean, ‘fight it from the inside out’?” I say.

“The compound,” he explains. “What we’re doing here. We’re building an army. A resistance to both sides of the war. We’re working to take the system down from the inside out. It’s a long, slow process. Once we’re strong enough, we’ll take control of all the cities, destroy all the arenas, and bring the slaverunners to justice. But first we need to unite all the other pockets of resistance across the country. We’ve been trying to communicate with all the other resistance groups that we know of. It’s only when we’re together that we can fight and win.”

My heart begins to thud. “The radio message to Fort Noix. That was you?”

He nods. “We’re making contact with every base we can. There are resistors all over the country. We created compounds because we knew the war would mean mutually assured destruction. We knew it was the only chance we’d have of restoring civilization once it was all over.”

My mind swirls with emotions. “You mean, you left… you volunteered for the army because…”