Page 3 of Last Light

I nod. The ash in the atmosphere for the past few years—only now starting to clear from the air—has killed as many people and animals as the droves, tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes.

The ash just kills them slower.

“My little Grace too. She died a couple of weeks ago. I’m headed to Fort Knox now, so you can come with me if you want.”

I’m tempted.

This isn’t a nice man or a friendly one, but he’s strong and well armed and knows how to hunt. He also comes across as decent, just like he says.

My instincts are better now than they used to be when I was a sixteen-year-old girl living a comfortable life. My parents died in a car accident when I was twelve, and that was the hardest thing that ever happened to me. I had to leave Charlotte and move to Meadows, a small mountain town in southwest Virginia. My grandparents were loving and well-off, and they did everything they could for me. Despite my grief, I made good grades in school. I had a lot of friends. I was getting interested in boys. I didn’t feel like I fully belonged in Meadows, but I was basically happy there.

Like all the other girls I knew, I approached strange men with reasonable precautions but still assumed that most of them would act civilized. That was before. Afterward, in the first year when we still had cable and internet, I’d watch the news reports from the big cities, which one by one fell into violence and chaos, and I’d rock back and forth in nauseated shock at hearing about what men were doing to women and children.

I stupidly thought my little town—far away from the main population centers and most of the violence, protected by mountains and a river and guarded by men who’d been taught to hunt and shoot from birth—would keep me safe.

My instincts are better now. They have to be, living in this world.

I know not all men act like animals. I had a father who loved me. I had a boyfriend at seventeen who was sweet and gentle as we made out, as we kissed and touched each other, as he hesitantly slipped his hands under my shirt in the back of an abandoned Oldsmobile. I had a grandfather who gave his life trying to protect those under his care.

I know some men are still good, but all the ones I knew are dead now.

And now that there are no consequences to men taking whatever they want, there are just as many bad ones as good ones, and some of the bad ones talk a good game.

I’m not going to risk it.

Not even for the protection a traveling companion like Travis would give me.

“What d’you say, Layne? Put down the gun. We can go to Fort Knox together.”

I swallow and shake my head so hard the two long braids that hang down my back bounce slightly. “No. I’ll stay on my own.”

He lets out a breath, but that’s his only reaction. “Okay. Be careful.”

“I’m always careful. Now come forward slowly and put that book back in my bag.”

He glances down at the book he’s still holding like he’s forgotten about it. “Poems?”

Maybe it’s foolish to take a book with me when every inch of my pack needs to hold necessities, but I couldn’t leave it behind. It’s a slim paperback volume calledBest-Loved Poems, and I read it over and over to my grandmother as she died. “Yes. Return it and then back all the way up to the building.”

“Okay.” He takes a few steps forward and drops the book into my opened bag, and then he starts moving back again. “You’re makin’ a mistake, girl. You’re not gonna last out there.”

“We’ll see.”

I notice him glance down at his shotgun still lying on the gravel, which is spread thinly over hard dirt. I momentarily think about taking it. Weapons are nearly as valuable as food or working vehicles. But I decide against it.

Like everyone else, I stick to the rule that anything I find that isn’t already claimed by someone else is fair game to be salvaged. I’ll take it without a qualm. But that shotgun is Travis’s, and he’s standing right there.

Besides, it’s really big, and I’m not entirely confident I’m capable of using it.

I glance back up at him and see he’s eyeing me. He knows exactly what I’m thinking as I look at his gun.

“I’ll leave that for you,” I tell him. “But don’t come get it until I’m gone.”

“Deal.”

“All the way back to the building.”

He does as I say, no longer trying to change my mind.

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