In The Afterlight

“You should have woken me up!” He squinted at the glowing dashboard console. “Wait...where the hell are we? Why are we going east, not north?”

“I have a hunch,” I said.

“Yeah, and I have a pain in my ass—and surprise, it’s you,” he said, glaring at me over Clancy’s prone form. “What’s this about?’

“I think—” The trees suddenly pulled back, and I saw that the road we’d come in on hadn’t really been a road at all, but a long driveway up to what once must have been a gorgeous mountain home. The thing was massive—two stories, a double-wide garage. The face of the house was stone and wood, as if despite its hulking presence it was still meant to blend in.

“Still waiting on that answer,” Cole said as I threw the car into park.

“I think there may be some kids hiding here,” I said. “I just want to have a quick look around—I swear, I swear I’ll be fast.”

Cole set his jaw, and I wondered what kind of expression I had that ultimately made him nod and say, “Fine, but take Vida with you. You have two minutes.”

The others had opened their doors, but only Liam had stepped out into the rain. “What’s going on?” he called.

“I just need Vida for a second,” I said. “No, just her. Her. It’s a quick...thing.”

Chubs groaned. “What kind of thing? A Ruby-walks-into-mortal-danger thing?”

I shut the door on any further questions, wincing as I saw the hopeful look Vida shot me as she walked over.

“Is this about...is it Cate?”

Her whole face was glowing with hope, almond eyes wide, full lips parted as if she was uncertain if she should smile. God—if Cate hadn’t made it, if she wasn’t there waiting for us, I didn’t think I’d be able to put Vida back together.

“I think there might be kids hiding out here.”

That perked her right up. I saw her hand slide back into the pocket of her sweatshirt, reaching for the gun hidden there.

“All right, cool,” she said. “How do you want to play this?”

The front door and the first-story windows were all boarded over—the back and side entrances were, too. Vida’s initial excitement quickly faded as we trampled through the mud and tall grass in the dark, slipping and sliding our way around the house a second time. There were no ladders that I could see to help someone up to the second floor. No lights on, no sounds coming from inside the house. The odd, shadowy shape on the garage door took form the closer we got, stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a crude crescent moon, cut out of some kind of metal. Someone had hammered it up with a single nail.

Safe place. I took a deep breath and reached for the cold metal of the garage door handle. Vida hung back but brought her gun up, aiming—

At nothing at all.

No cars, no bags, no kids huddled on blankets. Aside from rows of gardening tools and trash cans, there was only trash. The bright wrappers were scattered in heaps around the dark space.

Vida dragged her boots through the trash, scattering it. Now that my eyes were adjusting to the light, I could see other signs that there’d been at least one person here recently. A small pile of blankets and an abandoned duffel bag.

“Come on,” she said. “If anyone was here, they must have peaced out days ago.”

“There were tracks in the mud on the drive in,” I said, wondering if my words sounded more solid than my thoughts did. I started toward the door that led into the house, only to be stopped short by the sight of the padlock hanging from it.

Cole honked the horn, and it was the slap in the face I needed.

You are acting crazy, I thought. Pull yourself together. There are more important things—

No. No there weren’t. Because the truth of it was, I would have walked here. I would have walked here all the way from Los Angeles, alone in the dark in the pouring rain, if it had meant finding Zu again. I wanted it that badly—I needed to know she was safe and that she was okay, and that I hadn’t failed her the way I’d failed all of the others.

Even the part of me that had expected this felt sad and small and foolish as I followed Vida out. I was glad for the rain now; anything to hide the fact that one wrong word, one bad stray thought, would push me to tears.

Vida put her hands on her hips, surveying the dark line of trees that formed a high wall around the house. “This would be a good place to crash for a couple days. I saw the signs too, you know. And I think if you hadn’t come and looked, it would have bugged the shit out of you forever.”

“Sorry to drag you out here,” I mumbled. Vida waved me off as she moved back toward the other car. Liam had left his door open, and the light inside gave me a clear view of two very concerned faces.

Vida stopped in her tracks, slowly bent down at the edge of the driveway, and picked something up—something white and filthy with mud. “Hey boo,” she called, tossing it over to me. My fingers were shaking and slick with rain, but I somehow managed to catch it.

It was a small shoe, clearly kid-sized. The white fabric was nearly black with mud and grime, but the laces were still a rosy shade of pink, like not even dirt could put a damper on it. I studied it, running my fingers over the swirled stitching along its side.

Cole made it perfectly clear my hijacking of our drive was over. He’d taken my place behind the wheel, and was in the process of rolling down his window when I tossed the shoe back onto the ground and said, “I know, I know.”