by Ryan Casey
But she pushed those thoughts out of her mind and kept on swimming deeper.
Sensed her surroundings getting darker, even though she saw nothing but brightness.
She felt something, then. She couldn’t describe it visually because she couldn’t see… but it felt like dizziness. Faintness. A feeling of it, right at her core.
She was losing consciousness. That’s what it was. Her illness. Her exhaustion. Her dehydration. All of it was catching up with her, right when she needed consciousness not to betray her most.
She pinched her forearm. Dug her long nails in deep, focused on the pain of that sensation, begged it to keep her awake.
And then she swam further down.
Legs in the air.
Arms below.
The further she swam, though, she saw horrible visions in her mind. She saw herself passing by baby Holly. Baby Holly floating there alongside her. She saw her looking at her mother passing by—if she could even still see herself—and feeling a sense of betrayal right at the end of her short, miserable life.
She saw all of these things flashing by her like slides in a presentation, and she tried to fight against them, tried to ignore them.
And then she felt something.
Right at the tips of her fingers.
An object.
No.
Not an object.
Her daughter.
She swam further down, the excitement taking grip of her. She tried to reach out for her even though it felt like she was getting further away, like she was sinking like a stone.
She tried to grab her even though she only had a loose sense of where she was.
Tried to hold onto her.
And then finally she felt her hands wrap around her and pulled her close.
She held her, then. She could still feel her little heart beating away. She held her close and looked up. She was too weak. Too exhausted. Too tired to make a move.
She held her tightly and imagined herself shooting up, up out of the water, up out of the skies, up into another world…
And then she felt something.
Something grab her arm.
At first, she froze.
She pushed back. Kicked away. Because whatever it was, it was biting her.
A shark.
Some kind of sea creature.
But then she realised something else.
That mouth.
A mouth she’d felt before.
A mouth she’d felt when she was play-fighting. That she’d felt when she was a pup. That she’d felt when they were laughing and joking back at home, throwing balls for her, comforting her.
Arya Jr.
She felt those jaws wrap around her arm, and she thought it was a dream at first. Thought it was a figment of her imagination.
But it wasn’t.
It was real.
She was here for her.
She’d come into the water—her bravest moment—and she was trying to save Kelsie and baby Holly.
Kelsie smiled, tears creeping out of the corners of her eyes and into the water. She smiled, and she let Arya Jr lift her up. She let her pull her along, up towards the surface. Even though she didn’t know what was waiting for them up there. Even though she knew that man would probably still be there—and even less happy than before.
She let her lift her up and up as her consciousness continued to wane, as everything continued to drift, as it all—
Air.
She gasped. Gasped as she bobbed around the surface. Coughed out the water that’d crept into her lungs.
And then she tried to get a sense of where she was. Tried to get her bearings. Baby Holly in her arms, crying. Arya Jr paddling alongside her.
She put a hand on Arya Jr’s back. Let her lead her across the water. Because she knew where she was going. She was a clever dog. She knew where some sort of surface was.
She just had to hope her boat was far enough away from that man that he couldn’t get to her.
She followed Arya Jr’s pull, for just a little longer.
And then she felt something.
The side of a boat.
Only it wasn’t her boat.
And it didn’t feel like the man’s boat, either.
She held onto the side of this boat, tension building, heart racing, a sense of the unknown crippling through her.
And then she heard a voice that changed everything.
A voice that convinced her she had to be dead. Or at least close to dead.
A voice that convinced her she’d lost her mind, completely.
“Kelsie?” the voice said.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Fifty Hours ago…
Mike pulled the trigger and felt the blast engulf him.
He flew back. Further than he’d been expecting in all truth. Part of him expected to just disappear into the flames. To just lose consciousness right away. Like a switch had been flicked off on his life. Like a sudden ending to his story. Not a cliffhanger, but a solid abrupt ending.
Except that wasn’t the case.
He was flying through the air.
Flying back away from the explosion.
Towards the buildings.
He wasn’t sure how long he flew for. Only that the last thing he heard was something he regretted. Something he wanted to put right. Something he didn’t want to allow to be the case, not for too long.
He heard Kelsie screaming out.
But before he could do anything, he slammed against the buildings, head first, and passed out.
When he opened his eyes, Mike knew a lot of time had passed right away.
He could smell burning. The burning of the Wright Green Hospital. Only most of the fires had gone out, now. Smouldering. He figured a few hours had passed at least. Judging by the state of the bodies on the ground around him, he’d been lucky. Lucky he’d fallen in line with the blast.
He was still here.
But then he thought of that time limit. That ticking clock. And then he thought of Kelsie, and baby Holly, and Arya Jr and Tate and all those other people.
He thought about the time running out, and he stood up, even though he was in pain all over, even though his head ached and bled, and even though he could barely walk.
He had to get moving.
He had to walk.
He couldn’t have Kelsie thinking this was his ending.
He couldn’t have her believing he was gone.
Not since he’d heard the way she’d cried for him.
She’d suffered enough loss already. Far, far too much for a person to handle.
He took a deep breath, and he started to walk.
But first, he turned towards the area of flats where Kelsie used to live with Siobhan.
And he made his way there.
Climbed the steps. Past the bodies. Past the devastation.
And right there in her flat… he saw it.
Kelsie’s music box.
He walked over to it. Saw it lying on its side. Like it had been used so recently.
He picked it up. Put it under his arm.
And then he stepped out of the flats and out into the open.
It was time to start his journey.
It was time to walk.
He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking when he came across the vehicle.
The people inside it were dead. Looked like they’d been shot. Outsiders, by the looks of things, too.
Mike didn’t know what’d happened here. He couldn’t pretend to.
He just knew that he needed to go to Blackpool. He’d heard the communication. He needed to get there—fast.
Only then could he rest.
He took a deep breath, got behind the wheel, and he turned the key.
The engine spurted to life.
He revved it up.
And then he departed.
Blackpool in his sights.
When he got to Blackpool, he felt a combination of emotions.
Mostly a loss of ho
pe. Because this place, it had been destroyed. It had been ransacked. Something had gone down here—and it didn’t look good.
He looked around the bodies, and he dreaded the moment he laid his eyes on Kelsie or baby Holly or Arya Jr or any of the others.
But it was a search he had to conduct.
It was something he needed to know.
He took a deep breath when he’d checked every body. Scanned every single spot around here.
And then he tensed his fists.
They weren’t here. That much he was sure of.
Which meant there was a chance.
It meant there was hope.
Somewhere out there, there was hope.
That’s when he saw the little speedboat waiting by the side of the shore.
Mike was sleeping when he felt the bang.
His instinct was to open his eyes and look, but on the other hand, he felt himself squeezing his eyes tighter. He didn’t want to face up to the inevitable. He didn’t want to see what was coming.
He didn’t want to see the brightness that was burning through his eyelids.
So he covered his eyes as he sat there on the boat, and he held his breath and waited for whatever was about to follow.
When the brightness receded, he opened his eyes.
And when he looked back at Britain, he saw something haunting.
Haunting, but peaceful.
He saw burning.
A line of burning, right in his sights.
And then off in the distance, he saw another boat.
When Mike got to the other boat, he saw two things.
First, a man. Dishevelled. Sitting in this little wooden fishing boat, bobbing around. Eyes didn’t look like they were totally there. Like he was in some alternate reality.
But then Mike saw the body, and his fears were confirmed all over again.
The woman was lying in the bottom of the boat. She wasn’t in a good state.
And judging by the state… this man had been eating her. Surviving on her. Piece by piece.
He was leaning over the boat at something. Another boat.
Only then Mike saw this dog. This familiar dog.
He saw her jump into the water.
Saw her disappear into the depths.
“Ar… Arya?” he said.
But she was gone.
Just like that, she was gone.
He climbed over onto the other man’s boat. Because he could hear something. This man, muttering things. Muttering what he was going to do to some girl. To some girl and her baby. Awful things.
And then Mike saw it.
The knife.
The Becker BK-2.
On the floor of this boat.
He froze for a second, not believing what he was seeing, not quite understanding his luck.
Then he lunged for the knife.
And right then the man looked around and glared at Mike.
Mike wasn’t waiting around anymore.
He got that bad feeling, and he knew he had to act on it.
“What—” the man started.
But it was too late.
Mike slammed the knife against his neck.
He watched him fall off the side of the boat, bleeding out into the water.
And then he stood there, and he waited.
He wasn’t sure what he was waiting for. Only that he knew what he’d seen. Unless he’d lost his mind, he knew exactly what he’d seen.
And if he’d seen what he’d seen—who he’d seen—he knew what it meant.
He pulled up his sleeves. Prepared to jump into the water. Into whatever was down there.
But before he did, she appeared.
They appeared.
All three of them.
He watched Arya Jr pull them both towards him, and he stood there. Tears in his eyes. In total disbelief.
He saw her reach the side of the boat, eyes glassy, like there was something different about her, something not right.
He saw her fumbling around at the side of the boat.
And then he reached out for her hand.
“Kelsie?” he said.
Chapter Fifty
“Kelsie?”
The moment Kelsie heard Mike’s voice she knew she was imagining things.
She knew she was dreaming. That Arya Jr hadn’t really come down to the depths of the ocean for her and baby Holly, rescuing them both. That she’d passed out, and now she was seeing what she wanted to see. Feeling what she wanted to feel.
Except if this really was her imagination… she still couldn’t see a thing.
She could still only see that brightness. That bright light blocking her vision.
And if that was the case… what she felt had to be real.
What she’d heard had to be real.
She felt the warm, tight grip of his hand, and she knew it was him.
She just knew it was him.
“Mike?”
He pulled her up, then. Dragged her out of the water. Arya Jr jumped alongside her. She fell into this boat. This boat she hoped was really his. This boat she hoped wasn’t just a figment of her imagination.
But then she heard his voice again, and everything started to feel all the more… real.
“But I… It can’t be you.”
“It’s me,” he said, his voice shaking, his words breaking up. “Don’t worry. It’s me.”
“But I watched… I watched you die.”
“I didn’t die,” Mike said. “I’m here. I—I survived. I found a vehicle. Drove to Blackpool. Realised I wasn’t going to stand much of a chance at extraction. So I took a boat, and I hoped for the best. But I never stopped believing you might be okay out there. I never stopped hoping you’d reached the extraction point before something happened. Before it fell.”
Kelsie shook. She was still filled with disbelief. Still filled with shock.
None of this felt real.
And yet at the same time… as much as she knew she was blind… as much as she was coming to terms with the very real fact her sight probably wasn’t coming back any time soon… she was okay.
Because she was in Mike’s arms.
She was with him.
Baby Holly was in her arms.
And Arya Jr was by their side.
“We… we lost so many,” Kelsie said. “So many.”
Mike didn’t say anything back. She knew he didn’t have to. The fact she was here alone, that must tell a tale itself.
But there was something she wanted to say. Something she wanted to point out.
“Gina,” she said. “I… I ran into her again. We all did.”
She could sense Mike’s confusion even though she couldn’t see his face. “Wait. But I thought—”
“She… she travelled with us. She stuck with me right to the end. And then she sacrificed herself. She sacrificed herself for me. For Arya Jr. For baby Holly.”
Silence followed. And in that silence, Kelsie found herself coming to terms with what had happened with Gina, too. The sacrifice she’d made. The decision she’d made.
For all the bad she’d done… she’d shown in her final act that she was stronger than she ever realised.
That she was more selfless than she ever realised.
And for that, Kelsie owed her everything.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. Took a deep breath. Looked at where she knew Mike was, hovering above her.
“And the Outsiders. They… they were just running from a worse group. Just running, like all of us. They said there’s some virus we have. Some reason we couldn’t go out into the outside world. Some—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mike said.
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.”
Kelsie felt a sense of relief, then. Relief and release.
Because Mike was right.
Nothing mattered.
Not now they were here.
Together.
“I thought I’d lost everyone,�
�� she said.
“You’ve not lost everyone.”
“I thought… I thought I’d lost it all.”
She felt a hand, then. A hand touch the side of her face. Warm against her cold, damp skin.
“You haven’t lost it all. Because you’re still here. We’re both still here. You. Me. Baby Holly. Arya Jr. We’ve lost. We’ve lost so many. But we’re still here.”
She wiped away a tear, then, even though it wasn’t blocking her vision or anything.
“You know it’s not true,” Kelsie said. “My diabetes. My illness. I can’t… I can’t go on like this forever. I can’t even go on like this for much longer.”
But she just felt Mike’s hand against her face again.
She just felt his warmth against her.
And the warmth of her baby in her arms.
And he said something simple.
Something that didn’t really mean anything deep down.
But something that she felt, deep within.
Resonant.
“We’ll find a way,” he said.
She felt at ease as she lay there, bobbing around in the open water of Mike’s boat. And she knew he was right. She didn’t know what lay ahead. She didn’t know what the future held. She didn’t know what was coming. She didn’t know how long she’d be here, or how long either of them was going to be here.
But they were going to find a way.
“Sounds good to me,” she said.
She held onto baby Holly then as sleep crept up on her. She felt the warmth of Mike’s hand as she lay there, growing gradually more comfortable. And she didn’t feel afraid about drifting off anymore. She didn’t feel any fear. She didn’t feel like she had to stay awake anymore.
Because she wasn’t alone.
She was with Mike.
And no matter what happened, he was going to be there for her.
For her baby.
For Arya Jr.
“Want to hear something?” Mike said. “Something that’ll… that’ll make everything okay, even just for a moment?”
Kelsie frowned. She was smiling now. Laughing, a little. Delirious. But it was comforting. It was inviting. “What could possibly make everything okay?”
