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Chapters (92)
  1. Other Books by this Author
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. The Worst Dream in the World
  5. Chapter One
  6. Chapter Two
  7. Chapter Three
  8. Chapter Four
  9. Chapter Five
  10. Chapter Six
  11. Chapter Seven
  12. Chapter Eight
  13. Chapter Nine
  14. Chapter Ten
  15. Chapter Eleven
  16. Chapter Twelve
  17. Chapter Thirteen
  18. Chapter Fourteen
  19. The Year of Zero
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. The Last City
  24. Chapter Eighteen
  25. All Eyes
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Girl from Nowhere
  32. Chapter Twenty-Four
  33. Chapter Twenty-Five
  34. Chapter Twenty-Six
  35. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-One
  40. Chapter Thirty-Two
  41. Chapter Thirty-Three
  42. Chapter Thirty-Four
  43. The Night of Blades and Stars
  44. Chapter Thirty-Five
  45. Chapter Thirty-Six
  46. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  47. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  48. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  49. Chapter Forty
  50. Chapter Forty-One
  51. The Darklands
  52. Chapter Forty-Two
  53. Chapter Forty-Three
  54. Chapter Forty-Four
  55. Chapter Forty-Five
  56. Chapter Forty-Six
  57. The Haven
  58. Chapter Forty-Seven
  59. Chapter Forty-Eight
  60. Chapter Forty-Nine
  61. Chapter Fifty
  62. Chapter Fifty-One
  63. Chapter Fifty-Two
  64. Chapter Fifty-Three
  65. Chapter Fifty-Four
  66. Chapter Fifty-Five
  67. The Last Expeditionary
  68. Chapter Fifty-Six
  69. Chapter Fifty-Seven
  70. Chapter Fifty-Eight
  71. Chapter Fifty-Nine
  72. Chapter Sixty
  73. Chapter Sixty-One
  74. The Angel of the Mountain
  75. Chapter Sixty-Two
  76. Chapter Sixty-Three
  77. Chapter Sixty-Four
  78. Chapter Sixty-Five
  79. Chapter Sixty-Six
  80. Chapter Sixty-Seven
  81. Chapter Sixty-Eight
  82. Chapter Sixty-Nine
  83. Chapter Seventy
  84. The New Thing
  85. Chapter Seventy-One
  86. Chapter Seventy-Two
  87. Chapter Seventy-Three
  88. Chapter Seventy-Four
  89. Postscript - Roswell Road
  90. Acknowledgments
  91. About the Author
  92. Copyright

Then he turned, brushing past Dale, practically knocking him over; he was through the curtain and out the door and stumbling down the steps into the spotlit yard, his mind still caught in the flow of words in his head—she misses you she misses you—his vision wavering through the tears that were rising to his eyes.

Chapter Thirty-Four


THIRTY-FOUR

For Mausami Patal, the night began in the Sanctuary.

She was sitting alone in the Big Room, trying to teach herself to knit. All the cots and cribs had been taken out; the children had bedded down upstairs. The broken window was boarded up, the glass swept away, the room and all its surfaces washed down with spirits. The smell would linger for days.

It wasn’t anyplace she should have been. The aroma of alcohol was so strong it was making her eyes tear up. Poor Arlo, Maus thought. And Hollis, having to kill his brother like that, though it was lucky that he had. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he’d missed. And of course Arlo wasn’t really Arlo anymore, just as Theo, if he was still alive out there, wasn’t Theo. The virus took the soul, the person you loved, away.

The chair where she sat was an old nursing rocker she’d found in the storage closet. She’d positioned a small table beside it; resting on this was a lantern, giving her enough light to work by. Leigh had instructed her in the basic stitches, which had seemed easy enough when she’d started, but somewhere along the way she had taken a wrong turn. The stitches weren’t coming out even, not at all, and her left thumb, when she tried to draw the yarn around the needle, as Leigh had demonstrated, kept getting in the way. Here she was, a woman who could bolt-load a crossbow in under a second, put half a dozen long arrows in the air in fewer than five, blade a target dead through the sweet spot at six meters, on the run, on an off day; and yet knitting a pair of baby booties seemed completely beyond her power. She’d gotten so distracted that twice the ball of yarn in her lap had dropped to the floor to roll across the room, and by the time she’d gotten it rolled back up, she’d forgotten where she was and had to start over.

Part of her simply couldn’t absorb the notion that Theo was gone. She had planned to tell him about the baby on the ride, their first night at the station. With its warren of rooms and heavy walls and doors that sealed, it was easy to find an occasion to be alone there. A fact that, as long as she was being honest with herself, was the reason the whole situation existed in the first place.