Page 95 of Heart of the Sun

Something passed over his face, a discomfort that let me know I’d come somewhere close to the truth whether Tuck was willing to admit that yet or not. Or maybe his anger at Abel helped fuel his guilt. God, he was carrying so much. “What he did wasn’t right,” he said. “But I can only judge what I did that day. Only me.”

I got up on my knees and turned toward him. “Yes. But what you did then was influenced by so many things.” I reached out, and put my fingers on his jaw, turning his face my way, demanding that he look at me. He didn’t get to do this this time, retreat inside himself without letting me have a say. I was hurting here too. For him. For me. For the world and all the people suffering right now. And maybe this wasn’t the perfect time for this conversation, hiding in the back of an abandoned laundromat while outside the world burned. But I wanted Tuck to be whole so that he could let go of the shame he’d been stubbornly holding on to all these years. He believed the only way he could serve the world was to sacrifice his own happiness, and I could tell that the particular dead bodies he’d seen today had opened a wound in him and reconfirmed that. And if that inner narrative was going to be interrupted by outside rationale, my time to offer a voice of reason might very well be dwindling.

“I know you regret not being there for Abel in the way you now see he needed,” I said. “I get it.” I lowered my hand from his bearded jaw and lay it on his arm. “But so many choices were made, and they weren’t all yours. You’re carrying all of them, every single one, and no one’s shoulders are strong enough for that. You can’t bring them back. Even if you save a thousand lives or do a million good deeds, they’ll still be gone.”

His head fell back against the wall. “I know that, Em. But I finally have the chance to right some wrongs by putting my talents to use and doing something worthwhile,something necessary. Who would I be if I walked away from that?”

“No one’s asking you not to help where you can,” I said.Just do it closer to home. Do it without leaving me again.

The room had grown dim while we talked and now we were both in shadow. We’d need to sleep if we were going to wake up at dawn and begin journeying to my parents’ farm. Tuck sighed and gestured for me to come closer. I did, and he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me against him and kissing my temple. “I’m sorry,” he said. And though I wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying sorry for, it broke my heart anyway.

Was Tuck planning to go to battle for a collapsing society in honor of the deaths he felt responsible for? Or was he using that calling as a way to avoid staying with me? Or a vague combination of both even he couldn’t separate or explain? Suddenly, the words I’d spoken to him while standing at that substation weeks ago, before we had any real idea that we were walking into a changed world came back to me.I’m standing here too, Tuck, among the ashes.I’d meant it figuratively then, but it was literal too, wasn’t it? And something I’d experienced before.

And once again, I was losing my best friend. But this time, I was also losing the man I’d fallen deeply in love with. Once again, his pain was bigger than his love for me.

chapterthirty-nine

Tuck

Day Seventeen

We left the laundromat behind as soon as the sky had gone from black to platinum gray. The sound of engines roared in the distance followed by a pop, and a chill shuddered through me when I thought of what might be happening in all those downtown hotels that apparently had been taken over. Was anyone being helped or taken in? Or had those buildings all become magnets for crime and brutality?

“What are they doing down there?” Emily asked, obviously having heard the same distant sounds.

“They’re surviving the same way they always have,” I murmured. “Only now, the rules favor them.”

Dogs howled, and my heart gave a sharp knock when I wondered who was feeding them. Even people who loved their pets were going to prioritize their human family.Dogs can hunt if they need to,I told myself. There was only so much I could worry about at the same time. If I let my mind run away from me, I’d reel off into Crazytown.

“Fuck,” I hissed when we heard noise up ahead and looked around the corner. We’d taken this route here just the day before, but now part of it was blocked off by two cars parked hood to hood and a bonfire behind it where men with guns were conversing loudly, a cackle rising here and there. Beside me, Emily jumped when one of the men threw a bottle he’d been drinking from, and it shattered on the pavement.

“What will they do if they spot us?”

Maybe nothing. Maybe we’d get robbed. Or worse.“I don’t want to find out.”

Her eyes met mine. “We’ll have to travel around.”

“It’ll take hours longer,” I said. We leaned back behind the building, and I pounded it with my fist. “Fucking assholes,” I gritted. “We’re almost out of water. It was going to be just enough to get us out of the city and to a water source.” I swiped my hand through my unruly hair. “Let me think for a minute.” I started going over other routes we might take, but I was worried all of them might have similar roadblocks. The city was being taken over quickly, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now block by block.

We stood there, and I looked around, orienting myself, considering other places we might find some water. Where though, when the whole damn city must be hunting for the same thing? Emily suddenly grabbed my forearm. “I know a place where we might find some food and bottled water.”

“Where?” I asked skeptically.

“It’s a recording studio. It’s this nondescript building in the middle of a nondescript block. Artists who use it like it for its privacy and the fact that paparazzi don’t follow them there. Many of them record at night.”

I gestured for her to hurry and get to the point. Each moment now was crucial if we were going to get out of here.

“Anyway, there’s an entire room next to the booths that has snacks and cases of water.”

“How far?”

“About an hour’s walk from here.”

It was a risk. We might encounter other blockades. But there weren’t a lot of options and water was essential. I wanted to kick myself. I’d calculated and planned and determined we’d have enough to get in and out. I’d also hoped we might restock at my uncle’s when we picked him up. But I hadn’t anticipated having to take such long routes due to turf wars.

“Shit,” I murmured when we heard another vehicle approaching on the street with the men and the bonfire. I put my arm across her and pushed lightly, and we both plastered ourselves against the building, our eyes meeting in the gray light of dawn.

And then suddenly there was yelling and noise and the sharp pops of gunfire. “Run, go that way,” I hissed, and we both ducked and ran back down the block. I pulled Emily into a doorway when we’d gotten halfway and again, we pressed ourselves as close to the building as possible as the screech of tires came from the street beyond, the car turning onto the block where we were now hiding, tucked into shadow.

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