Part 11 (1/2)

”I'm sorry,” he murmured.

”I guess I . . . hoped you'd help me. When I saw you, when you picked me, I thought maybe you'd come to help.”

”I'm a b.a.s.t.a.r.d,” Nigel said tightly.

”No.” She shook her head. ”No, you're not.” The car thudded. She gasped.

Nigel smoothed back her hair, gritting his teeth to keep them from chattering. ”It's all right.”

But it wasn't. With dismay, he realized that tears slipped from beneath her lashes. She bit her lip, clutching his arm as if afraid he'd let her go.

He wouldn't. ”It's all right,” he said again, soft as he could. ”Why did you go back to the house? You were out, you could have run.”

”I couldn't leave them,” she admitted, turning her face into his chest. He cradled her cheek, bending his head over hers. ”All those girls . . . All those men. I couldn't leave them there. And now . . . now they're probably all dead anyway, aren't they?”

Ah. Now he got it. Nigel held her as she cried, staring into the darkness in silence. What could he say? He knew survivor's guilt.

As she sank again into a broken sleep, all he could do was thank G.o.d that she was here with him.

Not helpful.

The car shuddered again. Silence stretched across minutes, maybe hours.

He dozed fitfully.

Without warning, the car jarred hard. The impact knocked him backward. Katya shrieked awake, jolted out of his arms, and he barely managed to catch himself on the edge of the hood.

Katya grabbed her side, her eyes wild. ”Nigel?”

He looked down. Saw mud, rubble.

And a corpse. Another. Bloated, pallid. Sc.r.a.ped raw.

Fury lanced through him. ”No,” he gritted out. The waters had receded, sucked back into the ocean after the tidal wave had run its course, but he'd be d.a.m.ned if this was it for them.

”No?”

He rolled off the car, landed awkwardly in ankle-deep mud. ”Come here.” When she scooted near enough, he pulled her into his exhausted arms. His chest kicked as she looped her arms around his check. ”Stay with me,” he ordered hoa.r.s.ely. ”I don't care how cold you get, how bad it hurts, you stay with me, you understand?”

She leaned her head against his shoulder, but he felt her nod.

Slowly, mustering every ounce of energy he had left, he forced one foot through the mud. Then the next. One more. The other.

Step by step. Block by ruined city block. Past the skeletons of ruined buildings, past the corpses piled by the destructive, unfeeling currents.

He didn't know how long they walked. Tremors rippled through the earth beneath his feet, but as long as he could stay upright, he walked.

Katya clung to him, too spent to even shake.

He wouldn't die here. He wouldn't let her die here, either. She hadn't gone through years of h.e.l.l to lose it here.

He hadn't gone through everything he had to lose her to it.

Another vicious tremor rolled underfoot, and he paused, half-collapsing against a fractured telephone pole. Panting for breath, his legs and back screaming, he briefly rested his head against the sodden wood.

Katya cracked open a crusted, ash-smudged eye. ”Do you . . . Do you hear that?

He stiffened, adrenaline forcing a painful stream through his veins. ”Not again,” he rasped.

”No. No, it's-”

His head snapped up. ”An engine!” He scoured the horizon, for all he couldn't see much more than a few feet. Lights. Just give him lights. Search lights, tail lights. Was it an airplane?

No, not in the ash field.

A car?

Suddenly, a horn blasted across his senses, tearing jagged furrows through his control. He pushed away from the pole, letting Katya slide down his body. Her feet touched the ground, and she half-pushed, half-pulled him into the road. Or what he hoped was the road. ”Oh, G.o.d,” she said hoa.r.s.ely. ”Please. Please!”

He squinted, shading his eyes with a filthy hand. Was it his imagination?

No. ”Lights,” he said. And then, louder, ”Katya, lights!” With an arm around her shoulders, he waved wildly in the spark's direction. ”Help,” he shouted. ”Hey! Over here!”

”They're turning.” Tears thick in her voice, Katya sagged against him.

He looked down at her. Five feet and two inches of grim f.u.c.king determination covered head to toe in grime and soot, with her hair colored the same dingy gray as he was sure his was.

As a ma.s.sive truck rumbled into view, he caught her face between his palms and said fiercely, ”I love you, woman.”

Her eyes widened.

He bent and seized her mouth in a celebratory kiss. As her hand slid around the back of his head, he bent and swept her once more into his arms. Air brakes screeched. ”Hey!” he heard, and lifted his head to find a grimy, bespectacled man leaning out of the window.

He waved. ”Coming, then?”

Nigel looked down at the woman in his arms, her eyes filled with pain. But her mouth curved up. ”Let's go,” she whispered.

He forged through the ankle-deep sludge. The truck was large, some type of long-distance trailer attached to the cab. The man beckoned him back, and he heard the creak of a ramp being lowered.

”Thank you,” he said to the driver. ”You have no idea.”

”I do,” the man said. ”There's help back there, go on.”

As he rounded the trailer, a woman met him at the top of the ramp. She was young, maybe early to mid-twenties, with high cheekbones and ash-streaked red hair woven into a messy braid. Her brown eyes were serious as she beckoned them up. ”Here, bring her,” she said. Her voice was husky, her tone authoritative.

Katya held his s.h.i.+rt in one hand as he climbed the ramp.