“Pope’s dead, Adam.” Theresa hesitated. “A lot has happened since you’ve been gone. Ethan is the sheriff now.”

“Ethan’s here?”

“He was introduced into the town a month or so ago. He turned this place upside down. Nothing’s been the same since.”

Hassler stared into the flames. “I didn’t know he was here,” he said.

“Why would you?”

“No, I just . . . Does Ethan know?”

“About us?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I haven’t told him. I mean, I was going to eventually, but Ben and I talked about it, decided there was no rush. We didn’t think we’d ever see you again.”

Tears dropped out of the corners of Hassler’s eyes, carving clean trails through the grime embedded in his face.

Ben watched him from the mattress.

“It’s like a nightmare,” Hassler said.

“What?”

“Coming home to this. Every day I was out beyond the fence, facing death and hunger and thirst, it was you, only you, that kept me going. The thought of how our life would be when I got back.”

“Adam.”

“That year we lived together—”

“Please.”

“Was the happiest I’d ever been. I love you. I never stopped.” Hassler crawled around the bed of coals and put his arm around her. He looked at Ben. “I was a father to you, wasn’t I?” He looked at Theresa. “And I was your man. Your protector.”

“I wouldn’t have survived Wayward Pines without you, Adam, but I thought you were never coming back. And then, suddenly, out of nowhere, my husband is here.”

Somewhere outside, an abby howled.

Hassler pulled his backpack over, opened it, dug around inside until he emerged with a leather-bound journal. Tearing off the plastic, he opened the weathered book to the first page. In the firelight, he pointed to the inscription: When you come back—and you will come back—I’m gonna fuck you, solider, like you just came home from war.

It broke her to see those words.

Knocked her flat.

She’d written them just before Hassler had left.

“I read it every day,” he said. “You have no idea the hard times it got me through.”

She couldn’t see anything now, the tears flowing, the emotion unfurling inside of her like a hemorrhage—too fast to staunch.

“I’m not asking you to predict the future,” he said. “I’m talking about right now. This moment. Do you still love me, Theresa?”

She looked up at the matted beard, the scarred face, his hollowed-out eyes.

God, but she did.

“I never stopped,” she whispered.

The relief in his eyes was like a stay of execution.

“I need to know something,” she said. “When we were living together, did you know?”

“Did I know what?”

“About this town. What it was. All the secrets that were kept.”