@@@@@This pained me–to watch someone
@@@@@This pained
me–to watch someone actuallydying from something so easily fixedWalter tired easily but was
always cheerfulThe white-blond woman–her eyes contrastingly dark–who'd brought water to
the others that first day in the field was HeidiTravis, John, Stanley, Reid, Carol, Violetta, Ruth
Ann… I knew all the names, at leastThere were thirty-five humans in the colony, with six of
them gone on the raid, Jared includedTwenty-nine humans in the caves now, and one mostly
unwelcome alien
I also learned more about my neighbors
Ian and Kyle shared the cave on my hallway with the two real doors propped over the entrance
Ian had begun bunking with Wes in another corridor in protest of my presence here, but he'd
moved back after just two nightsThe other nearby caves had also gone vacant for a whileJeb
told me the occupants were afraid of me, which made me laughWere twenty-nine rattlesnakes
afraid of a lone field mouse?
Now Paige was back, next door, in the cave she shared with her partner, Andy, whose absence
she mournedLily was with Heidi in the first cave, with the flowered sheets; Heath was in the
second, with the duct-taped cardboard; and Trudy and Geoffrey were in the third, with a striped
quiltReid and Violetta were one cave farther down the hall than mine, their privacy protected
by a stained and threadbare oriental carpet
The fourth cave in this corridor belonged to Doc and Sharon, and the fifth to Maggie, but none
of these three had returned
Doc and Sharon were partnered, and Maggie, in her rare moments of sarcastic humor, teased
Sharon that it had taken the end of humanity for Sharon to find the perfect man: every mother
wanted a doctor for her daughter
Sharon was not the girl I'd seen in Melanie's memoriesWas it the years of living alone with the
dour Maggie that had changed her into a more brightly colored version of her mother? Though
her relationship with Doc was newer to this world than I was, she showed none of the softening
effects of new love
I knew the duration of that relationship from Jamie–Sharon and Maggie rarely forgot when I
was in a room with them, and their conversation was guardedThey were still the strongest
opposition, the only people here whose ignoring me continued to feel aggressively hostile
I'd asked Jamie how Sharon and Maggie had gotten hereHad they found Jeb on their own,
beaten Jared and Jamie here? He seemed to understand the real question: had Melanie's last
effort to find them been entirely a waste?
Jamie told me noWhen Jared had showed him Melanie's last note, explained that she was
gone–it took him a moment to be able to speak again after that word, and I could see in his face
what this moment had done to them both–they'd gone to look for Sharon themselvesMaggie
had held Jared at the point of an antique sword while he tried to explain; it had been a close
thing
It had not taken long with Maggie and Jared working together for them to decipher Jeb's ri