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Back Ruins Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Dedication
  2. Contents
  3. Part 1
  4. Chapter One
  5. Chapter Two
  6. Chapter Three
  7. Chapter Four
  8. Chapter Five
  9. Chapter Six
  10. Chapter Seven
  11. Chapter Eight
  12. Chapter Nine
  13. Chapter Ten
  14. Chapter Eleven
  15. Chapter Twelve
  16. Chapter Thirteen
  17. Chapter Fourteen
  18. Chapter Fifteen
  19. Chapter Sixteen
  20. Chapter Seventeen
  21. Chapter Eighteen
  22. Chapter Nineteen
  23. Chapter Twenty
  24. Chapter Twenty-one
  25. Part 2
  26. Chapter Twenty-two
  27. Chapter Twenty-three
  28. Chapter Twenty-four
  29. Chapter Twenty-five
  30. Chapter Twenty-six
  31. Chapter Twenty-seven
  32. Chapter Twenty-eight
  33. Chapter Twenty-nine
  34. Chapter Thirty
  35. Chapter Thirty-one
  36. Chapter Thirty-two
  37. Chapter Thirty-three
  38. Chapter Thirty-four
  39. Chapter Thirty-five
  40. Chapter Thirty-six
  41. Chapter Thirty-seven
  42. Part 3
  43. Chapter Thirty-eight
  44. Chapter Thirty-nine
  45. Chapter Forty
  46. Chapter Forty-one
  47. Chapter Forty-two
  48. Chapter Forty-three
  49. Chapter Forty-four
  50. Chapter Forty-five
  51. Chapter Forty-six
  52. Chapter Forty-seven
  53. Chapter Forty-eight
  54. Chapter Forty-nine
  55. Chapter Fifty
  56. Chapter Fifty-one
  57. Acknowledgments
  58. About the Author
  59. Back Ad
  60. Credits
  61. Copyright
  62. About the Publisher

Mohammad Khan died at 8:34 p.m., in a small house on the North Shore. The disease had brought him to the brink of death; add the pressure the winter conditions had put on his body, and it was simply too much for a weeks-old baby to handle. Isolde was in the basement, holding him and crying, completely inconsolable. Ariel stood by the back windows, overlooking a steep, rocky bluff above the sound, and looked west to the mainland. To the mushroom cloud.

The Partials were gone.

They were her enemy, but they were also her people. The only real, biological link she had in the world, behind all the lies and deceptions, and she’d never even known them. There were still Partials on the island, of course, though she figured the group that had killed Senator Kessler was gone now. Dead of the same plague that killed Khan, she thought, but the thought gave her no joy, no vindictive triumph at the parity of their deaths. Nobody needed to die in that building, and yet six people did, and three more were wounded, and now Khan’s gone and White Plains is gone and . . . everything’s gone. Xochi had taken a bullet in the hip, and another in her hand; Hobb had taken two in his back, which Nandita said had pierced his lung and liver. As poorly as Hobb was doing, Ariel wondered if Isolde might be the next to die. She was physically unharmed, but her soul was destroyed.

Nandita herself had been clipped in the shoulder, the lightest of the wounds, but her gene mods had accelerated her healing so dramatically that the hole was already starting to close.

Ariel played with the gun in her hands, flicking the safety on and off. On and off.

Even if we could travel, we don’t have anywhere to go. That child was the entire purpose of our journey—protecting him, getting him to safety, curing his disease. He gave us a direction and a reason to hope. A reason to stay together. Now that he’s gone, what do we do next?

On and off. On and off.

Ariel knew exactly what to do next; she’d been planning it since the day Khan was born. Help Nandita save him, and then . . .

She turned and walked downstairs.