In the After

“I’m so miserable, Amy. I can’t sleep. I can’t concentrate on my projects.” Tracey wiped the tears from her face.

“It’s okay. You need time.” I hugged her and hoped it helped a little.

“My psyche-eval is up. I don’t want to be sent to the Ward.”

“You won’t. It would be strange if you weren’t sad and distracted right now.” I thought about Dr. Reynolds and my body tensed. “If you’re worried, though, try to focus on the good of New Hope, like all the great things Vivian accomplished before she . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to say it. “Vivian was pretty kick-ass,” I told her.

Tracey smiled weakly. “Yeah, she was. I just miss her so much.”

“I miss her too.” My voice caught in my throat and I swallowed hard. “We’ll be okay,” I said. “We’ve already survived the end of the world. . . . We can get through this too. There’s nothing to worry about. We have a strong community here.” Tracey looked at me like she believed what I was saying. For her sake, I hoped she did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The next day, a girl with black hair and pale skin is wheeled into the common room. I stare at her until her face blurs. I know her, but I don’t know how. I try to concentrate, but it doesn’t come to me. Frustrated, tears well up in my eyes.

“Amy, why are you crying?” Dr. Thorpe bends down in front of me. “Are you in pain?” She holds my wrist in her fingers, checking my heart rate.

“No . . . I . . .” I look to where the girl sits in her wheelchair. “Who is she?” I ask, motioning toward the newcomer.

“Just another citizen who needs to get better. We’ve moved her from another floor.”

“Do I know her?” I ask, frowning.

“If she’s upsetting you, we’ll have her removed.” Dr. Thorpe finishes examining me and walks to the girl, swiftly wheeling her from the room.

I stare after her, but I can’t trigger a memory. I hope I can remember to ask Rice when he comes. Maybe he knows who she is. Maybe he can help me remember. I try to think back again, and this time Kay comes to mind. I let myself focus on her instead.

* * *

“They’re bringing in a group of post-aps if you want to tag along,” Kay told me a few weeks later. “I can show you our protocol for arriving survivors.” Something shifted that night when the sonic emitters broke. Her nasty edge was gone, and while she was still on my ass in training, she was more serious than sadistic. She even promised to take me out in the hover-copter so I could learn the controls. It was like she already considered me part of her crew.

We headed over to the hover-copter landing pad and waited for the post-aps to arrive. “Don’t touch them,” she warned me. “A lot of them aren’t used to human contact. And obviously, keep the noise to a minimum.”

“Obviously,” I confirmed. I remembered too well what it was like to emerge from the hover-copter, freaked out and helpless. It was only a few months ago.

“It doesn’t seem like you took this much care when you brought me in,” I commented.

“I already knew you were a special case . . . and I wanted to punish you for shooting me. Twice.”

“You’re never going to let that go are you?”

“Not anytime soon, sunshine,” she told me with a smirk.

“Kay, how did you make it here?” I asked. I’d never thought about it before.

“I was here when it happened, visiting my brother.” Her expression changed and I wondered what she was remembering.

“Your brother worked for Hutsen-Prime?” I asked.

“And now he works for New Hope. He’s such an overachiever. My parents always loved that about him.” I detected a hint of jealousy in her voice.

“They didn’t care that you were a superstar?” I had a Kay Oh and the Okays poster when I was twelve. I loved her blue hair.

“I was a joke.” She didn’t sound regretful exactly, more annoyed. “I’d rather be here, doing this.” It almost sounded like she preferred the After. “I mean, it was awesome at first, don’t get me wrong. They remade me, turned me into a sex symbol. I had stylists and assistants and assistants to my stylists.”

“Sounds awful,” I said sarcastically.

“It was, after a while.”

“I don’t understand,” I admitted.

“No one ever does. You know, I wanted to be a cop,” she told me. “When they started the Guardians, about a month after they announced the world was over, I was first in line to try out. It was great. Everyone thought I would fail horribly. People don’t expect a small Japanese girl to be able to break a man’s arm.”

“They didn’t assume you were a ninja?”

I was rewarded with one of Kay’s rare laughs. “No. Of all their assumptions, ninja was not high on the list.” She pointed toward the rising sun. “Here comes the copter. When they open the door, be prepared to detain the post-aps if they bolt, but only use violence as a last result.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that,” I told her.

The hover-copter landed almost silently, only making noise when its bulk hit the soft ground. The door slid open and a child stepped out. He was about ten, sickly and malnourished. It was clear he was frightened. I smiled at him and to my surprise he smiled back, relief evident on his face.

The next person off was a woman—young and pale, with black hair. She looked around, bewildered, then found me. Her eyes went wide and I froze. Betrayal and hatred instantly flooded my system. “You!” I barked out.

I covered the distance between us in a few strides and within seconds my hands were around her neck. My fingers squeezed, her face turned red. She couldn’t breathe but I didn’t release her. I saw nothing but the girl’s darkening face. My anger tuned out every sound but her last gasps for breath.

Like lightning, Kay’s arm shot around my neck and the other Guardians grabbed my wrists. Something hard hit the base of my neck and I fell into blackness. The last thing I saw before my vision blurred was her, gasping for air.

Amber.

“Let me see her,” I insisted from my hospital bed in the clinic. Kay brought me, told my mother I fainted on my morning run, that the heat was too much.

“You almost killed her. What the hell?” Kay asked.

I recounted all that had happened, a deep bitterness in my voice. I still despised Amber for her betrayal. I hated her for taking from me the one thing, the only thing, that was normal—my home.

When I finished, Kay whistled and shook her head. “Now I get why you wanted to choke her. There’s no way I’m letting you near that girl.”

I tried to sound calm. “I won’t hurt her, Kay.”

Kay raised her eyebrows at me.

“I want to hurt her, but I won’t. I promise. I just need to talk to her and ask why she did it. Baby loved her. I trusted her.” I couldn’t continue. I wanted to cry and it was hard to swallow after the choke hold Kay had put on me.

Kay considered me. “You can see her, but only if I come along,” she said at last.

“Agreed,” I said quickly. “Where is she?”

“Two doors down the hall. She needed medical treatment too.”

I stood, woozy. I held on to the bed for support until my head cleared. Eventually I was able to stand without fear of falling over. “Let’s go.”

“Be calm,” Kay warned, motioning to the door, and I walked inside a room identical to mine. Amber was in bed, her eyes closed tight.