Elliott shakes his head. His expression is wild, fierce with anger and hatred and vindication. “Your brother,” he says savagely, “is as dead as mine.”

CHAPTER TEN

WHITE NOISE DROWNS OUT ALL MY THOUGHTS. Adrenaline takes over.

I scoop up a piece of broken brake light from the ground and pitch it at Elliott. He throws his arm up to shield his eyes, and before he can lower it, I’m on him. I bring my foot down hard on the side of his knee. He curses and staggers sideways, grabs ahold of my arm and wrenches it up behind my back. It hurts like hell, but I follow the momentum, twist around, throw my free elbow at his face. The blow lands on his cheekbone, the same spot where he punched me. He flinches but the pressure on my arm intensifies. He’s going to break it unless I stop him. I’ve got plenty of dirty street fighting tricks but he’s all battering-ram power, sharply focused violence, crisp punches that’ll break bone if I let him get ahold of me.

I go limp. He shoves me forward, up against the huge trunk of the long-dead tree, to avoid being dragged to the ground by my weight. With my free hand I snap off a dead branch next to my face. I stab it blindly backwards. Elliott yells and releases me, dodging. I whirl, shove him hard. I’ve caught him off-balance, and he reels backwards, stumbling into the car. I dart toward him to press my advantage.

There is no London. The words loop in my head, warping, scattering apart and gluing themselves back together as I try to force them to make sense. Your brother is as dead as mine. There is no London.

It can’t be true. It can’t. My brain throws information at me, a shield of evidence against Elliott’s words: He was so eager to get to the airport. He drove through a hurricane to try to reach the planes. Why would he do that if he truly believed there was nowhere to go?

I stop in my advance toward Elliott as a sick realization washes over me. “You were going to take us back to the island. Back to your mother.”

He pushes himself off the car and wipes blood from the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t say anything but only watches me warily, that wildness still bright in his eyes, waiting for his chance to rush me again.

I remember more. “That shit about asking for asylum.” My muscles are so tight they ache with the pressure of holding me in, holding out the awfulness of what Elliott’s said and done. “You meant asylum there. You were going to just hand her the information about the fog and hope she’d spare your life in return. You always meant to go back!”

“It’s the only place we can go!” he shouts.