Page 34 of Last Light

I am fine.

Sex simply isn’t a priority right now. And it doesn’t matter that the irony is bitterly amusing.

A virgin at the end of the world.

Four

IT’S RAINING WHEN WEcome out of the drugstore.

In the year after the asteroid impact, half the world suffered from acid rain. We never had very much in the US, but rain doesn’t feel like it used to from my childhood. Clean. Refreshing. Natural.

Like the sky and the air, the rain now feels... dingy.

The drops that hit my skin aren’t as gross as they used to be, but I still run for the vehicle. The top protects us some, but the sides of the Jeep are open and the wind blows the rain right in.

“Damn it.” I wipe the moisture from my face, looking at my hands, relieved they’re not smeared with soot and dirt.

The rain’s definitely getting better. At least it doesn’t make you dirty anymore.

“It’s fixin’ to get dark anyway.” Travis wipes his face with his shirt. “Let’s find a house and call it a night.”

“Sounds good to me. We just need to find one that hasn’t been too damaged.”

We drive through the commercial part of town until we reach the residential areas. A lot of the houses are torn up from the earthquakes, but we finally come across a neighborhood in decent shape.

I’m soaked from the rain now and starting to shiver, and I frown at Travis as he passes by five or six houses that are damaged from the earthquakes but look like they’d be habitable.

“What’s wrong with all those?”

He’s got his head ducked, peering through the rain and fast-closing darkness. “Lookin’ for a more secure place if we can find one. That way you can sleep through the night.”

I feel the strangest tension in my chest. My eyes are wide as I stare at him.

He shoots me a couple of nervous looks. “What?” When I don’t answer, he asks more gruffly, “What?”

I clear my throat. “Nothing. Try up on that hill there. That location would have a great view, so there were probably bigger houses built there.”

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