World After (Penryn & the End of Days 2)

I hate to leave the sword but I have no choice. I cover it, bear and all, with broken shingles and splintered boards.

I get up and walk away, feeling naked. I hope the looters don’t have the luxury of digging through piles of debris for hidden treasures.

Chpater 47

BY THE TIME the captain gets off the boat, our group is being shepherded into a small caravan of vans, SUVs, and a short school bus. Madeline escorts the captain to one of those hateful shipping containers. I casually join them.

“There’s an escape planned for tonight,” I say in a low voice.

He looks at me, then at Madeline, then back at me. He’s younger than I expected—probably no more than thirty—with a clean face and a completely bald head. “Good luck to you. ” His voice isn’t unfriendly, but it isn’t inviting either.

Madeline unlocks the shipping container and swings the metal doors open. It has shelves stocked with canned soup and vegetables, along with rows of liquor and books. Battery-powered lights stand in the corner and an overstuffed chair sits beside a small side table. By World After standards, it’s downright cozy.

“They need you to take the ship back and pick up the prisoners,” I say. His expression is skeptical so I rush on before he can say no. “It’ll be totally safe. All the scorpions and angels will be gone. They have a mission tonight. ”

He steps into the container and turns on the lights. “Nothing is totally safe. And that ferry keeps me alive and fed. I can’t risk it. I won’t rat you out but I won’t let anyone touch that ferry, either. ”

I glance at Madeline for help. “Can you talk to him? I mean, you have someone imprisoned on the island too, right?”

She looks down, refusing to meet my eyes. “The doctor will keep him safe so long as I help him with his little projects. ” She shrugs. “We need to get going. ”

I glance from Madeline to the captain who is now pouring himself a drink. “This is your chance to make a difference,” I say. “You can save all those lives. Make up for whatever it is you felt you had to do to survive. You know what goes on there. ”

He bangs the glass onto the table. “Where did you find her, Madeline? Isn’t what we go through bad enough without Little Miss Pain-in-the-Ass lecturing us?”

“It’s the right thing to do,” I say.

“The right thing is a luxury for rich and sheltered people. For the rest of us, the only right thing is staying out of trouble and surviving as best we can

. ” He sits in the chair and opens a book, pointedly not looking at me.

“They need you. You’re the only one who can help them. My mom and my friend—”

“Get out before you convince me to rat you out just to get rid of you. ” He has the decency to look uncomfortable about it.

Madeline closes the door. “I’m leaving it unlocked. ”

“That’s fine,” he says in a voice that makes it clear he’s done with the conversation.

I had completely underestimated how hard it would be to talk someone into risking his life for others. Whatever issues the Resistance has, they would have rallied around a cause like this.

“Can anyone else drive the boat?” I ask Madeline.

“Not without sinking it while trying to back it out from the dock. You can’t make someone be a hero. I’ve left the door open for Jake in case he changes his mind. ”

“That’s not good enough. I need to find someone to take the boat back tonight. ”

Daniel, Madeline’s assistant, sticks his tanned face out of the bus window. “Let’s go!”

Madeline takes my arm and pulls me toward the bus. “Come on. It’s not our problem anymore. ”

I yank out of her grasp. “How can you say that?”

She pulls a small pistol from her pocket and points it at me. “I told the doctor I’d take you to the aerie and that’s what I’m going to do. I’m sorry, but my husband’s life depends on it. ”

“A lot of lives can be saved, including your husband’s, if we can just—”

She shakes her head. “There is no one else who can drive that ferry. And even if we found someone, he wouldn’t risk his life any more than Jake would. I’m not throwing away my husband’s life for a pie-in-the-sky escape plan. Let’s go. Now. ” She has a determined gleam in her eyes like she’s ready to shoot my arm and drag me into the bus.

I reluctantly head toward the bus with Madeline.

Chpater 48

WE WEAVE through the abandoned cars onto I-280 and head south. The further we get from the piers, the worse I feel about the Alcatraz escape plan. Captain Jake looked like he was pretty comfortable with his position as slave captain. Is there any chance he might throw away the one asset that’s been keeping him alive and risk his life to rescue the same people he ferried to their doom?

There’s a small chance that he might. He is human and humans sometimes do things like that.

But it’s more likely that he’ll drink steadily all day until he’s in a guilt-induced stupor when the scorpions take off on their mission.

This is too much. Mom and Paige are too much. The sword and Clara and all those people on Alcatraz…

I shove everything into the vault in my head and mentally lean hard to shut the door. I have a whole world in there now. I can’t afford to open it without the serious risk of being crushed by all the stuff that’ll spill out. Some of my friends had therapists in the World Before. What I have in that vault could take a therapist’s entire career to untangle.