Page 178 of Everything Under the Sun

Everyone said their good-byes. Jeffrey hugged me so tight. It broke my heart to let him go. Esra let us fill up our backpacks with as much as we could carry from the supply cabin; and he gave Atticus another baggie full of bullets.

It was dusk when Atticus and I made it back to the cabin. We packed the rest of our belongings and prepared to leave.

“I’m going to say good-bye to Mr. Graham and his family,” I said with heaviness in my voice.

“Okay, love.”

I went out onto the front porch and talked to Mr. Graham’s skeleton for a few minutes, and then went to his wife and son’s graves and told them how sorry I was they had suffered so terribly. Then I went to the backyard to look for George, but my little friend was nowhere to be found.

“I’m going to miss you, George,” I called out. “Stay out of the open, and hidden in the tall grass so no one finds and eats you.”

Lastly, I carried the canteen down to the pond to fill it up for our trip.

I sat down on the grass.

And in the quiet, surrounded by darkness and water and trees and the summer breeze, I looked up at the star-filled sky and spoke. To God? To the glowing moon? To myself? To my dead sister and mother and father? In the moment, not even I knew.

“I am afraid,” I spoke softly. “This journey so far away is risky, I know, but I also know that what Atticus said is right. We can’t stay here; we can’t live alone the way things are, and the only way we’re going to survive, our only chance at any kind of life is in a place surrounded by other people like us. People who believe in equality, who are compassionate and moralistic and just, who will fight for each other against the darkness that has spread across the world—we are those people, Atticus and I. He is a good man; he is strong and kind and honorable and incredibly flawed but incredibly human, and to still be human is a feat in and of itself—he is sostrong. But so am I.”

My gaze fixed on one star in particular in the heavens, the blackness around it staved off by its immense light, and my eyes ceased to blink. I pressed a fist to my chest.

After a moment, I plucked the canteen from the grass and stood.

“Help us get to Shreveport,” I said, looking at that solitary star again. “Guide us, light our way so that we move in the right direction; help us get there safely and I will always follow your light.”

God? Family? Light? I still did not know. All I knew was that I would never break that promise.

I moved silently over the grass and away from the pond; the water licking the shore lingered in my ears as I drifted farther away.

Making my way back to the cabin, I grabbed the clothes from the clothesline and tossed them over my shoulder. I went up the back steps and pushed open the door; it didn’t dawn on me immediately that I didn’t have to turn the knob; the door had been left cracked. And it didn’t strike me as odd right away that the candles left burning on the kitchen counter had been snuffed out, leaving the space in a dark blue haze lit only by the moon.

My feet moved softly over the cool floor; the wood creaked beneath my steps.

“Atticus?” I called out as I passed through the kitchen. “I filled the canteen. Though we might want to fill—”

The rest of my words evaporated before they could form sound. The canteen fell from my hand, clashed against the floor as my wide, frightened eyes took in the sight of more than ten armed men standing in the living room, staring back at me.

Atticus lay unconscious—or dead—on the floor at their feet.

PART

III

~THE SWEET LIE~

56

THAIS

“So, he was lying,” said a tall man with stringy red hair. He lifted his foot and pressed Atticus’ head beneath his boot. Atticus didn’t stir against the pressure; he made no sound. Was he even breathing?

I made a run for the wall where my staff was propped, but was grabbed from behind and lifted into the air before I could reach it. My arms went out in front of me automatically; I screamed so stridently I felt a pop inside my ears.

The arm tightened around my waist the more I fought, and I twisted around in his grasp, dug into his face with all ten fingers.

“Feisty little bitch!” my captor brayed as my hands tore at his head like a wild cat.

I hoped he would drop me; I even braced myself mentally to hit the hard floor, but instead I felt the white-hot bite of his open hand against my face. Black spots sprang before my eyes, and my head swayed side to side before I could gain control of it again.

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