Emily had promised herself that she would not cry when she spoke to Jacob; she had even considered not telling him about what had happened to Ben. She was sure Jacob had more than his fair share of problems to worry about, and she was not convinced she would be able to vocalize exactly what had taken place anyway. It was all such a mess.
That plan lasted right up until Jacob answered her call, his voice rigid with concern. “Emily? Thank God. Are you all right?”
At the sound of his voice, she began to sob, unable to even reply to his greeting for several minutes. The words just couldn’t make it past the paralyzing pain she felt. When finally she was able to speak again, she managed to slowly recount the story of Ben’s rapid transformation after the attack.
“I…I had to…” Emily was ready to confess what she had done to Ben, but Jacob interrupted her before she could fill in the remaining words.
“Emily, stop. I don’t want to know,” he said, his voice calm, comforting even. “For no other reason than I understand that you did what you had to do. This is not our old world—that one is dead and gone. The rules have changed for us all and we have to do whatever it takes to survive. All of us, Emily. Whatever it takes.”
“I had no choice,” she said, more for herself than for Jacob.
“I know,” he said. “It’s the past. You have to focus on the future now. You have to survive.”
When she clicked the Off button half an hour later, she felt somewhat more at ease with what she had done. But as she walked slowly back to the Durango, she wondered whether that acceptance would come with a price that she was willing to pay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
They passed through Saginaw (population 51,230, and the home of the Saginaw Sting), Saint Ignace (population 2,435, with the best view of the Mackinac Bridge, this side of the US border), and tiny Rudyard (population 1,315, named after the English poet and writer, Rudyard Kipling).
By the time they crossed over the US–Canadian border for the third and final time, the towns and villages along their route had become smaller, sparser, but no less empty than every other place they had driven through. They spent nights in hotels, homes, offices, and the back of the Durango. In Prince George they stopped for the night at what had been a railway museum, sleeping in the relative luxury of a refurbished coach car.
Gradually, with each new day and every mile farther north they traveled, Emily and Rhiannon began to feel the temperature outside the air-conditioned SUV drop, and the alien forests that had become so prevalent begin to grow thinner and sparser, a final indication that Jacob’s theory was correct. And yet, despite the slowing of the alien incursion, they saw no one and nothing to indicate that anywhere north of the border between the two countries had suffered any less of a tragedy than the rest of the continent, or the world.
The space between towns and cities began to grow larger the farther north they traveled.
And they saw not one other soul.
For the majority of the journey, Emily and Rhiannon had sat in relative silence, each numbed by their own despair, a sharp splinter of pain buried deep in each of their hearts.
When they reached Calgary, Emily pulled the SUV to a halt in front of what had once been a store of some kind but was now just a burned-out ruin of blackened beams and melted glass; the soot-strewn interior was littered with the unidentifiable skeletons of what could have once been furniture.
Emily climbed from the driver’s seat into the back next to Rhiannon, staring at the young girl, who seemed to be patently avoiding her gaze.
Emily paused as she collected herself; she wanted to get the words in the right order before she spoke them, so Rhia understood exactly what it was that she was saying. So there could be no mistake in her intent, because she knew she would only get one shot at this speech, so it had to be right.
“I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “I’m sorry that I couldn’t save your dad. And I’m so very sorry that I could not save Ben. If I could have traded places with them, I would have. But I promise you, Rhiannon, that I will never let harm come to you. I promise that I will always be there to help you, and that I will never leave you. We’re all each other has now. We are each other’s family, and we have to protect each other from now on.”
Emily wasn’t sure what she was expecting as a reply, but what she got was something as uncomplicated and yet as confusing as this girl on the waning edge of childhood.
“I know,” Rhiannon said softly, her lips parted in a sad slight smile as she finally lifted her eyes to Emily. “I know it wasn’t your fault, but it doesn’t stop me from being mad at you. Even though I don’t want to be. Is that stupid?”
Emily choked back a sudden flow of emotion that threatened to overwhelm her ability to even talk. “No, sweetie, no. It’s very normal,” was the best she could manage.
“I just wish…I wish you hadn’t found us. I wish you had just kept riding. Sorry, but I do. ’Cause then Daddy and Ben would still be alive and we’d all still be together.” Rhiannon’s hand crept across the space between them, grasping Emily’s. “But I know that won’t happen, and I know you’re sorry, so I just want to be safe.”
Emily squeezed Rhiannon’s hand in return, leaned in, and kissed her gently on the forehead. “I do, too,” she replied. “I do, too.”
They took advantage of the unscheduled stop and allowed Thor out to stretch his legs. Ten minutes later, as Emily climbed into the driver’s seat, she heard the front passenger door open, then Rhiannon pulled herself up into the leather seat and fastened her seat belt into place.
Emily turned and smiled at her. Neither said a word; none were needed, so Emily just slipped the Dodge into gear and drove.
ALASKA
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“It’s snowing,” said Rhiannon.
“What?”
“It’s. Snowing.”
Emily looked up from the road and saw fat flakes of white drifting slowly down from the sky. She had been driving for so long on this particular stretch of the Alaska Highway, mile after mile after dreary mile, that her mind had switched to autopilot and she hadn’t even noticed the blanket of gray clouds as they had moved in from the northeast.
According to the digital thermometer display, the temperature outside was thirty-two degrees. The temperature had dropped more than fifteen degrees over the past three days.
“Where are we?” Emily asked.
Rhiannon picked up the road atlas from the floor and thumbed it open to a dog-eared page. She traced their route with a finger, holding the book open and angled toward Emily so she could glance at it. “I don’t think it’s very far now. We just passed a sign for Eielson Air Force Base.”
Fairbanks was about another twenty miles or so farther northwest from the military base; another twenty minutes or so drive, Emily estimated.
The road they were driving was what passed for a two-lane highway but amounted to little more than two lanes of concrete with a median of brown grass between them. On either side of the road was an expanse of the equally dead grass. The grass terminated at a seemingly never-ending line of what she thought were silver birch trees. Whatever they were, their skinny trunks and naked branches became ridiculously monotonous after the first twenty miles or so.
When she had spoken with Jacob the previous night, he had told her to make sure her first stop was at a cold-weather outfitters.