He gripped her hand one more time and forced a smile. But there was a deep sadness in his eyes. He let go, moved back, and stepped out into the storm. She watched him walk down the street. He stopped at a corner and turned back to look at her. Something stirred within her, a strange kind of longing. She wanted to run to him. He stood there for a long moment, gazing back as if memorizing her features. Then he raised a hand and gave a sad wave. She did the same. She watched as he reached the end of the street, gave her one last glance, and rounded the corner of a building.
And then he was gone.
She stood alone, shivering in the doorway, the howling wind cutting through her clothes. She’d never been so cold before. The city was always too hot, too humid. She watched the rain pelt the cracked pavement. She pulled on the jacket Rowan had given her, huddling in its dry warmth.
As she stared out at the gray, she noticed something green poking up between the cracks of the crumbling black road. She pulled the jacket tightly around her and crept outside. She reached out, touching the wet, green strands. They were flexible. It was a plant, she realized, not the flat-leafed ones she’d watched the food workers grind up into food cubes. This was something different. She looked down the stretch of the road, seeing more tufts breaking through the asphalt.
The loneliness sank in. The ancient road stretched into the abyss, the crumbling buildings immense and empty, their brick guts spilling from their decaying bodies. She shivered in her jacket. Hurrying back to the doorway, she checked her PRD. Noting the direction of the weather shelter, she turned off the device, tucking it into the weatherproof pouch he’d given her. Then she walked out into the storm, not knowing what lay ahead, or if she’d even live to see the next day.
Chapter 10
She walked alone, listening to the howling wind and the rain lashing at the shattered windows around her. She thought back to that feeling of sitting in the tiny room where she’d first encountered Rowan. When he’d left, disappearing into the night, she hadn’t realized the full gravity of her situation. Now she did. She was alone in the middle of a torrential storm, with only a spot on a map to guide her.
She rechecked the PRD. The arrow still blinked in the direction she needed to go. She’d walked a few miles now, her surroundings never changing. The ruins of crumbling buildings loomed in the distant glow from the city dome. Strange sounds hung in the air, the drumming of the rain, the whistling of the wind through empty windows. Nothing sounded or looked familiar. She’d always been acquainted with her own company and a vague sense of loneliness that plagued her some nights when she lay in her narrow bed. But this was true solitude.
Somewhere out there, above those swirling clouds, doom sped toward Earth.
She took another look at the blinking arrow, then powered down the PRD and replaced it in the weatherproof bag. She estimated another five hours of darkness. The lights from the city reached this far, but as she stared into the distance, she saw only an endless black cluster. At least she had her headlamp. She could recharge it in five hours with UV. Her PRD too.
She didn’t think the Repurposers would come out this far to get her, but she felt exposed this close to the city, so she didn’t use the headlamp just yet. She wanted to get out of this creepy, desolate area, these decomposing ruins of a people who had come before.
She walked where the arrow pointed her, winding down streets between immense skyscrapers.
She stared up in awe of them. Most had only one or two standing walls. Crumbled brick lay in piles at their bases. Some, comprised of steel and glass, stood like skeletal monuments to a long dead people. Crunching under her feet, dirty, shattered pieces of glass littered the ground. She saw more tufts of the green plant in cracks along the road. She passed a teetering steel structure reaching up into the sky. Wind shrilled around its exposed girders.
Wild gusts shoved at her back, while the rain soaked her legs beneath her coat. Her chest stayed warm and dry, though. She was grateful to Rowan for the jacket. She nestled into it more, bringing the hood closer around her face while the rain drummed on it. She caught a hint of his scent in that hood, the same spicy smell she’d caught back in the city.
A sudden draft hit her so hard she flew forward, knees landing on the run-down pavement. She struggled to her feet again, hurrying down the road. Rounding a corner, she escaped the brunt of the wind. She waited for a few minutes for the squall to abate. Rowan had said this was a break in the storm. When the loud whooshing died down a little, she continued on. Monstrous metal poles lined the roads. Many had toppled, but some still stood, with shattered glass at their crowns.
She kept checking behind her, half expecting to see the Repurposers, half hoping she’d see Rowan coming to take her safely to his people.
But there were only shadows.
She kept moving, walking until her feet dragged. She opened her water bottle and let the rain fill it. She sealed it and drank through the filter. It tasted cleaner than the water in the city. Purer, somehow, without a chemical tang. She saved the food, not wanting to eat until she felt too weak to go on. She didn’t know how long it would take to reach the weather shelter, and she didn’t want to waste her rations.
Thinking she couldn’t take another step without falling asleep on her feet, she slowed to a stop.
The pavement ended beneath
