“Like she was yours. That’s how safe she needs to be. Like she was your sister, your whatever. You put her first. Above anything else. Got it?”
Ely dropped his hands to his side. He jutted out his jaw and bumped up his chin. “I’m insulted you even think you have to say it.”
I studied him. The outrage in his expression, the anger.
Yeah, I was taking a huge risk in sending him with Lily instead of bringing him with me to San Angelo, but if I couldn’t go with Lily myself, then I wanted Ely with her. No one had been on his own longer than he had. No one knew how to stay alive like he did. There was no one in the known world who could keep Lily safer than Ely could.
And when it came down to it, Ely would be able to protect her in a way I couldn’t. If it came down to protecting Lily—not the body, not the life, but the person she was, Lily the
She’d said it herself more than once. If she was exposed, she’d all but begged me to take the next step. To do what was necessary. Today, she’d realized exactly what that meant.
But would I do it? If it came down to it, would I be able to kill the girl I loved and mutilate her body? Probably not.
But Ely would do it.
I just hoped that it never came to that.
“Listen, if you make it up to Canada—”
“We’re gonna make it,” Ely interrupted.
“If you make it and there’s still something there. If there’s any kind of civilization, if there’s any guarantee of safety at all, you make sure she stays.”
Ely studied me for a second, like he was trying to figure out just how serious I was about this.
“I mean it. If you find someplace she can be safe, you leave her there. Got it?”
“What about coming back for everyone else? Isn’t that what you said she should do?”
“Yeah, well, I lied. If you find safe haven for them, then that’s where I want them to be. You can come back yourself, but you leave them there.”
“You really think Lily’s going to put up with that?”
“You say or do whatever you need to do. If you find a place she can be safe, then I never want to see her again.”
I didn’t wait around to see if Ely responded after that. He understood just what I meant.
Ely was the one person I trusted to keep Lily safe and to kill her himself if he didn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Lily
Lily waited for Ely and McKenna just outside Base Camp. She couldn’t say good-bye to Carter more than once.
Ely had pulled the sleek SUV right up to the front gate. He hopped out as she walked toward him with her bag. They both stood there awkwardly while McKenna hugged the last few people who’d come to see her off.
After a minute, Lily said, “Nice car.”
He nodded. “One of the perks of surviving the apocalypse: you get your choice of rides.”
She cringed. She didn’t like to think about the people whose stuff she was borrowing. Using. Whatever.
Ely must have noticed. “What? You squeamish about that kind of thing?”
“Yeah, I am.”
“Why? You think the guy who drove this Porsche would have given a shit about you in the Before? ’Cause I can tell you right now that he never once thought about what your life on a Farm was like when he was parking this Porsche at the airport in Houston and taking that last flight out to LA or wherever the hell he went. All those people, all those so-called responsible adults, they bailed on us. They shoved their kids into Farms and just left.”
“You don’t know that,” she argued. “You don’t know that the guy who owned this Porsche left. Maybe he died trying to protect his kids. Maybe they all left together.”
Ely snorted. “Yeah, right. And maybe the UN is rallying its forces right now, ready to swoop in and take the world back. Wahoo.”
Okay, so Ely was a jerk. And he’d been alone a long time. He’d probably seen shit that was worse than anyone could even imagine, but his attitude still bugged her.
Maybe she wasn’t as cynical as she’d once thought, but there was a tiny part of her that needed to believe that there were other people still out there, who were trying to fight against the Ticks and the Farm system. Maybe it was just a silly fantasy, but it was one she needed to believe in, just like she needed to believe that someday she might be reunited with her mother or her uncle Rodney. Until she had proof, she would continue to believe.
Because the truth was, they had no way of knowing. In a time without radio or TV, without even a postal service, all you had were the people in front of you. All you knew was what you saw with your own eyes. She couldn’t help wondering if this would be the last time she saw Base Camp. The last time she saw Carter, standing off by the door, his hands crammed into his pockets, his shoulders sloped.
The thought brought such crushing grief she almost couldn’t breathe.
Thankfully, Ely didn’t seem to expect her to say anything else. A moment later he said, “Your girl’s finally done.” He slapped the roof of the SUV. “Load up.”
Sure enough, McKenna was waddling over. Her smile was strained as she rubbed her hand over the side of the belly.
“You okay?” Lily asked.
“Yeah. Sure.” She smiled at Ely. “Are we ready to go?”
“Been ready, sweetheart.”
“You take the front seat,” Lily told her.
Ely’s Cayenne looked like he’d been living out of it, which he probably had. Candy wrappers littered the front floorboard, cans of food rolled around in the back, and a hand-crank can opener sat upright in one of the SUV’s many cup holders. The floorboard on Lily’s side held about a case of canned energy drinks. She shoved a pile of trash onto the floorboard to make room, then carefully laid her bow and quiver flat on the seat beside her. With her arm in a sling, she wouldn’t be using it anytime soon, but she wasn’t willing to leave it behind. Her backpack she kept on her lap. Most of the backseat was taken up by Ely’s crap. The entire cargo hold of the SUV was filled with plants. Most of them looked like houseplants. Some she recognized. There was a pothos ivy, like her grandmother used to have in her living room, and a little bonsai plant. Some she’d never seen before.
Something striped and grasslike draped over the back of the seat, tickling her neck.
“What’s with all the plants?” she asked, swatting away the leaf. “You taking up gardening?”
Ely met her gaze in the rearview mirror and smirked. “You’ll see.”
“You don’t throw them at Ticks as you drive around, do you, hitting them like bowling pins?”
Ely just laughed.
Which was great. Nothing like putting your life in the hands of someone who was clearly bat-crap crazy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Lily
