She reached out a finger and almost touched the burn on Chong’s stomach. The flesh around it was livid and veined with black lines.

“Hurt?” she asked in the tiniest of voices. Looking into her eyes was like looking into a haunted house.

“No, honey . . . it’s not bad,” lied Chong. “Hardly hurts at all.”

He reached out and gently stroked Eve’s tangled blond hair. She flinched at first, but he waited, showed her that his hand was empty, and tried again. This time Eve allowed it. Then she knelt down and laid her head against his chest.

“I had a bad dream,” she murmured.

That thought—that Eve believed this was a dream she would or could wake up from—came close to breaking Chong’s heart. He continued to stroke her hair while he lay there and tried not to be afraid of what he was becoming.

He hoped Lilah would never find him.

Part Three: Sanctuary

PART THREE

SANCTUARY

The act of dying is one of the acts of life.

—MARCUS AURELIUS

FROM NIX’S JOURNAL

Tom once asked us each if we knew what we would fight for. What we would kill for. What we would die for.

He said if a person didn’t know the answers to those questions, then they should never go to war. He also said that if a person did know the answers to those questions, they should never want to go to war.

I don’t know if I can answer any of those questions yet, but I feel like I’m already living inside a war.

Chapter 66

66

“NIX?” ASKED BENNY GENTLY. “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?”

She kept crying and didn’t answer.

“Look . . . Tom was right,” said Benny, “the plague is changing, and maybe that’s good news. Those papers said that it was mutating. Maybe it’s mutating into something that won’t be as bad.”

“Oh sure, and when’s the last time something changed for the better?” she sobbed. “Everything is wrong. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. This isn’t how any of this is supposed to be. It’s all wrong, Benny. God, I’m so stupid.”

“Wait—what? Nix, what are you talking about? How’s any of this your fault?”

“You don’t understand.” She was crying so hard those were the only words he could understand. “You just don’t understand.”

“Nix . . . I want to understand . . . just tell me what’s wrong.”

Benny felt his own tears running in lines down his face and falling onto her hair.

What storms raged inside Nix? Benny could make a list, but he was achingly positive that any list he could make would not be complete.

“I’m sorry,” he said, because he had nothing better to say. “It’ll be okay.”

“No,” she said. “It’s not going to be okay.”

He pushed her gently back and studied her face. “What do you mean?”