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“What’s that?”

“Seems to be a book where somebody writes down thoughts.”Advertisement

“And it belonged to someone who lived here?”

She nodded. “Let me read you some of it. ’Mom and Dad think we’ll be safe down here. They bought a bunker in the city sublevel, where it’s supposed to be clean and disease-free. They’ve been saving since the first outbreaks, and now, here we are.’”

She understood most of it, though some words, like “bunker” and “outbreak,” she hadn’t seen before. This had been meant as a hiding place, where these others were supposed to be safe. But something must have gone wrong

or the bodies would still be here if they’d died naturally of old age. Someone had hauled them away.

Thimble turned the page. “This is later, I think. The numbers on the page are bigger. ’Mom got sick. There was a problem with the ventilation system. Dad’s trying to hide her illness when they do status checks, but since we’ve all been exposed, they’re going to dump us down below. I’d hoped to live to see sixteen.’”

“The writer was young,” he said softly. “Like us.”

“He—or she—hid here, until her dam got sick. The disease spread. Then they ended up in the bone room. Will that happen to us?” She didn’t know nearly enough about diseases—where they came from, how or why they made you sick, or how long they lasted. Could this room still be full of invisible, lethal things?

“No. Whatever made them sick is gone. They died, and the sickness with them. We’re safe.” He sounded as if he believed it. “We’ll stay here as long as you like, until you feel up to going on, and then we can explore. See what the world holds for us

and find out what’s true.”

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“Together?”

He nodded. “Always.”

With a fingertip, she drew an invisible line inside the cover of the journal. “This says ’Property of Robin Schiller.’”

Stone canted his head, looking thoughtful. “That’s what we should call Boy23.”

“Robin Schiller?” She wasn’t sure naming the brat after someone who had died was a good idea. Some enclave beliefs stayed with her, which was why the thimble she’d been named for would always remain safely on her person. So long as that object was safe, she should be too. Maybe it was just more lies, but it offered some comfort when the world was all uncertainty.

“Just Robin. Remember the alphabet book?”

“Oh!” she said, remembering. “’R is for Robin, a beautiful thing, when the bird brings the promise of spring’?”

Growing up, she’d read the alphabet book to Stone more than once. To repay him for thumping the brats that mocked her.

“Do you like it?”

“I do,” she said, leaning down to nudge the brat gently. “What do you think? Does that work?”

“Bah,” Robin said.

Stone drew her into his lap and kissed her breathless. A shivery breath escaped her when she pulled back. “I’ve wanted you forever.”

“You have?” He gazed at her with blue, blue eyes.

“It killed me to know what

you had to do in the enclave. With so many girls who weren’t me, and that I could never have you. Because I’m—” In the enclave, people didn’t kiss or touch or mate because they wanted to. They didn’t pick their partners. The elders had been in charge of population and breeding schedules. This much freedom was amazing

and terrifying.

If the world hadn’t ended, they couldn’t be together like this. Ever.

“You’re not,” he said sharply. “You’re the reason we survived. With your amazing mind, and incredible ideas. The fact that you could feel

anything for someone like me, it’s—”

“Inevitable,” she cut in. “Don’t belittle yourself. I won’t hear it.”

“Maybe we should accept that we make the perfect team,” he said with a half smile.

“Bah,” Robin said.

Once they uncovered its secrets and left the safety of this place, there would be more danger. But whatever came, Thimble knew they could endure it. Together. pqdm.com