Page 12 of Before Their After

“Here I was thinking you’d mention having a nice view.” Prescott faced me, an exasperated look on his face.

A hearty laugh pressed past Jax’s rose-tinted lips. “And you call her ‘sweet girl’ because?”

“Because he squirms every time I call him Pops,” I teased.

Prescott huffed sarcastically in response. “I could never take ownership of the work your father did on a headache like yourself.”

Silence fell as the weight of my decision hung heavy in the air.

“Only right we follow tradition, I guess,” I said, searching for the right words. “So, Monterey next then?”

Jax and Prescott grinned at each other. Jax handed him the extra bag of coffee he’d found from his pack. A bet clearly having been made behind my back. Harley came bounding over, dying down from a spell of zoomies, her muted barks demanding, causing Jax to reach back in and toss her a piece of dried meat.

I rolled my eyes. “Et tu, Harley?” A giggle escaped my lungs as I bent down to rub between her ears. I was outnumbered, but for once, in a way that made me feel safe.

The company around me was hopeful. Promising. I pushed back the feeling of unworthiness that crept up every time I experienced a tinge of happiness.You deserve this. There is no shame in being a survivor, in living despite the odds.The pain I harbored didn’t have to consume me.

If history showed anything at all, when one empire falls, another stronger one would rise in its place. But only if the conditions were right. If the people that picked up the pieces used the knowledge of the past, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the downfall and chose to learn from it. Chose to create a more perfect version. I could do the same, could give the same to others. Could atone for the sins of my past and never let another life end before it had the chance to truly begin.

I flipped them off, pretending to be annoyed with the way they always managed to team up. They were fit to create a placefor the hopeful, for those seeking a new place to call home. Butterflies filled my stomach at the thought, happiness filling the once bottomless pit of despair. Shaking my head, I picked my bag off the ground and walked toward the center of a city made of ash.

And we began to build anew.

Part Three

THE SHADOW

Lessons Hard Lived

RILEY

I couldn’t save her.

That was my biggest fear. One I’d prayed never came to fruition. Yet, as I watched her in her fitful sleep, I knew that I could not hold on forever.

She was sick. We had no food, no weapons. Only weapons of our minds. The freakish shit reality had erupted around us that day as I’d made my way back to the market bench. I’d been prepared to explain to my sister why the courts had shot down custody for the third and final time.

London had no home to go to. No place for us to gather what we would need to run for what seemed like the rest of our lives. I had failed her in more ways than one. My own home life had been unstable. After being kicked out of the group home when I aged out of the system, I’d spent every dime I’d earned on legal fees trying to get my sister out. It’d screwed me over in the end. What I was able to afford with the spare change of my checks wasn’t survivable according to California law.

None of that mattered anymore. Except it did. I still couldn’t provide for her, protect her. She was weak now. Dying. We were starving and had been for a while now. Supply out on the road had run dry. Over a year into the end of the world and anything easily accessible had been thoroughly raided in the area. So I’d said screw it. The Bay hadn’t had much left for us, anyway. Not for a long time. Heading south seemed to be a good idea in the moment, but I’d severely underestimated the vast geography California possessed. We weren’t equipped to make the journey—it was a lesson I was finding hard lived.

Figuring out how to control my magic should have remained my focus. Earth had powered me, but the ability to make it bend to my will remained impossible. I’d not had success in using it for any meaningful purpose. Only if we came across an edible plant could I make it grow. Once I depleted the source of its nutrients, that was it. Forget duplicating it or growing it from the conjures of my imagination.

It’d been my idea to stay near the road for the night. The woods on the other side of us were far too dense to find our way back out with the amount of energy we had left. Tomorrow, I would leave her tucked away and scour a few miles for something edible. Anything that could fill our stomachs. At least this place had makeshift weapons, though it bore no food. The fireplace poker would do well enough, and I could break the legs from the chair and carve out some spears once we came across another knife.

London had beat herself up for leaving behind the pack that contained our weapons, but she was hardly to blame. It was on me just as well for not noticing. My primary focus had been getting us off the road with the herd. Going back for it wasn’t worth the risk.

I placed my palm on the hardwood floor. The fire ants surrounding a sticky splotch raced toward my fingertips. Thetickle of them against my skin was soothing. This gift of mine confused me. Prior to the fall of civilization, I’d never minded bugs per se. There tended to be a lot of them in the homes we’d stayed in throughout our life, but the comfort they brought me now made no sense. In some moments, it felt as though they whispered to me.

Impossible.

Except it wasn’t. In fact, it was expected. That’s how my luck went.

Not much was known about our father outside of vague memories and what the files our social worker kept was able to relay to us overtime. One thing was consistent. Voices. He always heard voices. Eventually, the voices became too much. 911 was the first number my mother had taught me at the ripe age of eight. I’d put it to use that same year. Still, I was too late. I could not protect her. I could not protect him. I protected my sister, but everyone else, I’d failed.

Never again.

The world was so quiet now that the dead and the walking ruled it. It’d made the skill I’d learned early on in life easier to tune. The gravel at the edge of the driveway clanked under the pressure of heavy footsteps. Several footsteps. Fast ones. A man was through the door before I made it to my feet. He was fast, strong, one of the freakishly large ones. Like a feral cat, he pounced and sent us tumbling to the floor. Defending myself was instinctual, but in this weakened state I found myself useless. Slow. I was too damn slow for it to be an even match.

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