Page 33 of Heart of the Sun

It was well into the evening now and though the vibrancy of the sky had dulled, the orange hue still remained, just like the day before. I’d never seen anything like it, and it kept making me wonder if my internal clock was off. The moon had been different too, unusually bright so that the nighttime hours seemed like eternal dawn. “I don’t know what to think about what happened—” I waved my hand around “—here or to our plane. I’m not even sure they’re connected, although…it’d be a big damn coincidence if they weren’t.”

“Any guesses at all?”

I shrugged. “I thought about an electric storm, or something bigger like a meteor that worked to alter the weather in some way.”

“The skyis…odd,” she said, voicing the same thought I’d had. “It’s like a forever sunrise.”Eternal dawn. Forever sunrise.Despite the somewhat romantic wording, a strange chill wound through me. I didn’t like the idea of the sky remaining in any state permanently.It meant the natural order of things had been severely interrupted at the very least. Bywhatwas the question.

“I also considered an attack of some sort.”

“Like a bomb?” she asked, eyes widening as her lips formed an O. I looked at her, taking her in more closely. The full face of makeup she’d been wearing had started rubbing off and one of her false lash strips was sort of hanging crookedly. “What?” she asked, obviously noting my gaze not moving from that spidery-looking thing clinging to her eyelid.

“Your lash…” I said, tipping my chin toward it. “It’s coming off.”

She went sort of cross-eyed as she tried to look at it, color rising in her cheeks. She reached up and used two fingers to try to straighten it. Instead, it stuck to her fingers when she pulled them away. Her lips thinned, and she looked briefly angry, and a little embarrassed. She huffed out a small breath and then removed it entirely and then peeled the other one off as well, tossed them both on the ground and then brushed her hands together as though she’d just won a mini battle and was proud of the achievement. My lip quirked against my will. What was it about this damn woman that had my emotions swinging so dramatically moment by moment? And why, despite my best efforts, was I still thinking about the feel of her satiny skin beneath my fingertips?

I cleared my throat, moving my mind back to her question about a bomb. “We won’t have any way of knowing what happened until we make it somewhere.”

She nodded slowly. “Where do you think it goes?” Emily asked, pointing out to the road.

“There’s only one way to find out,” I said. I dropped my duffel bag on the ground. “But not tonight.”

“What? We’re going to camp here?” she asked, her voice rising into a whine.

“I’m not walking into anything unprepared in the dark,”I said. “We have a road in front of us now, and all roads lead somewhere. But it’s warm here from the residual fire, and so we might as well take advantage of it.”

She sighed and turned her head, her eyes meeting mine. “All we have left are a couple packs of crackers. And some chocolate.”

“It’ll do. We still have water, which is the most important thing. We’ll start out fresh at first light.”

“More walking,” she said. “How far do you think?”

“I don’t possess an internal map, Emily,” I said. “I’m just going with my gut.”

“Oh, your gut. Great.”

My jaw tensed at the insinuation that my gut was less than trustworthy. Again though, maybe she wasn’t wrong—if the state of my life was any indication—so I chose to bite my tongue.

She glanced back at Charlie still doing his little circle-dance and then gestured to the remains of the station. “This is a power station, right? But our phones should have satellite service. So it must mean our phones just aren’t working. Unless the satellites are down too?”

Or both.I squinted up at the sky as though I’d be able to see one of the satellites she spoke of. Because we might be too far out in the wilderness right now but the phones should at least turn on. I was beginning to think that whatever had affected the plane, had affected a lot more. “There’s no way to tell right now,” I said.

Charlie came up beside Emily, stuffing his phone in his pocket and taking her suitcase from her so he could place it on the ground and sit on it. I saw the irritation flash in her eyes as she watched him and stifled the laugh that threatened. The weird thing was, he didn’t seem to notice her emotions or reactions. Or maybe he just didn’t care.

Not my problem.

He scooted over slightly and patted the suitcase in invitation, and she let out a breath on a smile, perching herself next to him as best she could. I turned away. Those two deserved each other, and they could curl up together with their useless designer shit.

I needed to start turning my attention to myself because the road in front of us led to the destination where the three of us would part ways. I had an actual visual of the beginning of the end of this unpleasant threesome.

chapterseventeen

Emily

Day Three

Once again, we set out at the break of dawn. I’d actually slept decently next to the smoldering substation that cast off enough heat to ward off the winter night chill. That and my exhaustion had meant I hadn’t stirred and for that I was grateful.

There was also a buzz of hopefulness inside because of the fact that we were setting off on a road. A road that, like Tuck said, led somewhere, and I hoped to God that somewhere arrived quickly. I wasn’t sure how many more blisters I could sustain and still walk. My slippers and socks were brown from the mud and dirt we’d been trampling through, but I refused to utter a word about the state of my feet and allow Tuck to look at me like I was the greatest burden that had ever been foisted on his broad shoulders.

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