by Megan Crewe
“This is really it?” she asked, over and over, as Ed prepared the needle. “It’ll work?”
“It will,” he replied with a smile.
A few figures lurked in the shadows, marking our movements but never coming within range of the soldiers’ rifles. The Wardens weren’t the only gang around, just the biggest. But apparently Dr. Guzman had taken my words the other day to heart, and passed the sentiment on to her colleagues. “Whenever you’re ready!” Ed called out. “The vaccine’s for everyone.”
Only one of the skulkers emerged: a teenaged boy with tangled hair and a scabbed-over cut along his jaw. His thin shirt barely disguised the bulge of a weapon wedged in the waist of his jeans, and his hand twitched toward it when Ed got out of the car. But he stood still and held out his arm, and when the needle came out his expression was so relieved I thought he might cry.
“Thanks,” he muttered, and bolted back into the alley he’d come from.
“What’ll you do when you run into people who are already sick?” I asked Ed after we’d given out the last dose and were driving back.
“We’ll bring them in, do the best we can for them,” Ed replied. “We may be able to make use of the antibodies produced by people who’ve taken the vaccine. At very least, we can keep them as comfortable as possible.”
So we didn’t have a perfect solution. But it was so much more than I’d dared to imagine a few months ago, while I’d watched the virus tear apart the island.
We pulled back onto the CDC grounds unscathed. I stepped out of the car and looked around, and the knowledge hit me all at once. I’d done it. Maybe only temporarily, maybe not quickly enough to help everyone I’d wanted to, but I’d seen my mission through to the end.
Which meant it was time to move on.
Dr. Guzman provided us with a car—a creaky sedan that had belonged to one of the doctors now listed on the wall—as well as a week’s supply of food and a tube and bucket for siphoning gas. We were going to have to scavenge fuel along the way, but I imagined it’d be a lot easier without murderous pursuers on our tail. We said our good-byes to Justin with hugs and a repeated promise to pass word of his exploits on to his mother. He accepted a note from me explaining where I was going, to pass on to Drew if he got the chance.
I stopped by the memorial corner before I headed out, and touched the four names I’d added. My eyes welled up. But when I got into the car beside Leo, and the soldiers pulled open the gate, all I could think of was Meredith, calling out my name as she raced to welcome me back.
Leo leaned over to kiss me before he started the engine. There was going to be a little weirdness, too, returning to the colony. Tessa had broken up with Leo when she’d decided to stay there, but I didn’t know how she’d feel seeing the two of us together. I couldn’t even be sure, until we reached it, that the colony had stayed safe the last few weeks. But I had enough hope to live with that uncertainty for now. The world outside already felt like a far brighter place than the one I’d left when I first stepped inside these walls.
“I’m happy,” Leo said. “It seems almost wrong, with all the awful things that’ve happened.”
“I don’t think it is,” I said as we eased past the gate and turned north, toward home. “I think that’s how we stay alive.”
I am exceedingly grateful to the following people:
Amanda Coppedge, Saundra Mitchell, Mahtab Narsimhan, and Robin Prehn, for being my first readers for this trilogy and helping steer the early drafts on course.
Jacqueline Houtman, without whose scientific expertise my explanations of viruses and vaccines would make much less sense.
My editor, Catherine Onder, for pushing each book to be as good as I could make it and championing the trilogy from beginning to end.
My agent, Josh Adams, for being the books’ first champion and expertly guiding my career before and after.
The readers here and around the world who’ve let me know the series has found a place in people’s hearts.
My friends and family, for being there when I needed them and not being there when I needed to hole up and write.
And my husband, Chris, for patience, belief, and love I hope I match.
Like many authors, MEGAN CREWE finds writing about herself much more difficult than making things up. A few definite facts: she lives in Toronto, Ontario, with her husband and three cats (and does on occasion say “eh”); she tutors teens with special needs; and—thankfully—the worst virus she’s caught so far is the garden-variety flu. She is the author of The Way We Fall, The Lives We Lost, and Give Up the Ghost. Visit her online at www.megancrewe.com.
