She looks up and shrugs. “Maybe it was an old picture even when the Return hit,” she argues. “But the river matches up along the side there,” she says. “And it just feels right. Don’t you get the same feeling looking at this picture as you do looking at the City?”

I can’t help it, I laugh. “This?” I ask, flicking the picture against her nose before handing it back to her. “There’s nothing the same between them. One’s new and bright and shiny and the other’s old and dead and forgotten.”

She frowns. “Not forgotten,” she says.

My breath catches a little at how serious she sounds when she says that. “No, not forgotten,” I say, even though I don’t believe my words. We forget too fast. Sometimes it’s probably a gift, though—we forget the pain also.

She shakes her head, her eyes glistening. “It wasn’t supposed to last this long, you know.”

“Us?” I ask, confused.

“No, this city. One of the books Catcher brought me talks about what would happen if everything shut down. It says the city would crumble in a few months. Maybe last it out for a few years—a decade or two perhaps. But no one thought it would ever last this long.” She’s staring at the remains of the city. The steel and glass and concrete still struggling to hold on.

“It’s been decades,” she whispers. “Over a century and then some. It’s stayed alive.” She stands to face me. “Don’t you see? Don’t you understand that if this city that no one had any hope for can do it, then we can too? Look at this,” she says, grabbing my hand and pressing it against the photo.

“We’ve been looking at what’s not in this picture. At everything that’s fallen. But what about what’s still there? What about what’s made it through? What about the ones that survived?”

I want to tell her that buildings aren’t as fragile as people are. They can’t get infected. They don’t need to eat and breathe and sleep and love.

“After we’re gone this city will still be here, and maybe …” She takes in a deep breath. “You know, maybe they can build something we didn’t. Maybe they can find a way to make it work that we couldn’t.”

My sister seems so fierce in that moment that it almost takes my breath away. I realize I’ve been thinking about her as being my opposite. But seeing her up here like this shows me that she’s a fighter as well.

“How can I help?”

She looks at me for a long moment and then glances over my shoulder at the stairwell. Her eyes widen and focus, her lips parting. Wondering what’s captured her attention, I turn, hand dropping to the machete at my waist.