"Wasn't luck," Chip said. "Not as hard as we worked. Now you need to be quiet."
Ellie was going to protest, but she forgot what she was going to say. Her stomach hurt very badly, but her head grew warmer and warmer. She wasn't seeing too well. Chip said something she didn't catch. Her feet stuck in the sludge and tripped over ties. She could barely smell the stink of the dead. After a while, she could no longer feel her feet.
She didn't want to die. She tried to call out, but it was as if her voice belonged to someone else. She regretted—not one thing, but all of it, a universal yearning to have done different and done more—and then she stopped.
* * *
Light shimmered, little blades that cut between her eyelids and nicked her corneas. A cool hand touched her forehead. A man murmured.
Dark pressed down on her. A silver window. The hoot of a hunting owl. Her stomach hurt. She wanted to hide, to pull herself beneath the blankets and wait for the owl to pass her by, but she had no strength.
Light again, in flickers and bright bursts. Light on the waves of a deep blue lake. The window was open and a mountain breeze chilled her face. She pulled up the covers. Her stomach tugged, but the pain was blunt. Breathing felt too good. She was on painkillers. Something strong. Carefully, she pulled away her blankets. Stitches ticked her stomach, the flesh around them swollen and pink.
"We did surgery," Dee said. "You're really gross inside."
Ellie tugged the blankets back, wincing. It took three tries to find her voice. "Where's your dad?"
The girl looked at her hands. "Sleeping."
"We're in the mountains, aren't we? How did he get me out?"
"He carried you."
Ellie closed her eyes. He'd carried her for miles through the tunnels, past the piles of bodies, skirting along the narrow platforms, step by step. Then, in some order, he'd given her emergency treatment, driven six-odd hours to a cabin he'd never visited, and performed surgery to remove the bullet. No wonder he was tired.
"Take this." Dee passed her a knuckle-sized pill. "Dad's afraid you'll get septic."
She swallowed the pill. Without meaning to, she fell asleep again, waking in the afternoon. She wasn't sure it was the same day. Chip had rigged her with an IV. She detached it, then sat down to fight off a wave of nausea. She staggered to the bathroom, where she remained seated several minutes after she was done.
She wandered room to room, then went to the window. Dee sat on the dock, hugging herself, a brisk wind rippling the lake. Ellie went to the closet for a coat and made her way down the grassy slope to the shore. Her feet clumped over the dock.
"Where's your dad?"
Dee didn't turn. "Sleeping."
"He's been asleep a while, hasn't he?"
The girl shrugged her narrow shoulders. "Maybe he's awake now. He's in the other cabin. The door's locked."
Ellie gazed over at the guest cabin, a three-room thing she hadn't cleaned in years. Drapes concealed the windows. She went inside for the key, made sure Dee was still on the dock, then circled around to the back door and went inside.
The room was dark, but she could smell it. She clicked on the light to be sure. Chip lay in bed, his face as pale as the bodies stacked in the tunnels. She closed the door and locked it. She didn't have the strength to do more just yet.
Dee sat on the dock, legs dangling, watching the sun on the water. Ellie wasn't the girl's mother. She doubted she ever would be—an aunt, perhaps, or an older sister of sorts, or simply someone there to care for a person who wasn't yet ready to care for herself.
A gust shook the pines. Or she could just leave. There were dozens more cabins as isolated as this one. Thousands, if she wanted to risk living on one of the larger lakes. She didn't owe the girl a thing. If not for the girl, Chip wouldn't have stayed long enough to get the disease.
But that had been his choice, not Dee's.
She hobbled down to the dock and lowered herself next to the girl. Weeds swayed in the water. A part of her wondered whether they were edible.
"Things have changed," Ellie said. "We'll be living out here for a while. There won't be any school. We won't have any neighbors, and if anything bad happens, or anyone bad comes for us, we'll have to protect ourselves. I've got plenty of food, and we've got the lake for water, but I don't think the electricity will last much longer. We're going to have to work very hard."
Dee gave her a look. "You talk like the whole world blew up."
"Nope," she said. "It just fell down."
"But we're okay?"
"I think so. Who knows how things might change tomorrow." She watched the sunlight on the water. It was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen. If she'd let herself, she could have gotten lost in it. "But one thing will never change. Your dad always loved you, and he always will."
Dee looked up, brow furrowed in confusion. Then her eyes went bright. Tears spilled over and fell off the dock, disappearing in the wind-blown waves. She leaned over and hugged Ellie as hard as she could.
After a moment, Ellie hugged her back.
OUTCOME is a story from the beginning of the BREAKERS series. If you liked it, please check out Breakers and Melt Down. (If those links aren't clicky, just visit smarturl.it/breakers and smarturl.it/meltdown-az)
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Table of Contents
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Outcome Page 9
