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“No, you get it together. You’re tougher than this, you have to be. No way you made it as long as you did alone if you can’t adapt.” He steps close again, his words rapid and low. “Those two girls I’m with, I can’t count on them. Nats is solid but she’s no fighter and Brea
“Maybe they were in the colony that fell.”
He nods grimly. “Maybe. Right now you’re my only sure thing. I watched you fight when they tried to take you. Even when they had you and you knew it, you didn’t hesitate to put your knife in someone. So, please, tell me that girl is go
I glare at him, surprised to find myself breathing deeply. Evenly. Angrily.
“Can you handle it?” he presses.
“I can handle it.” I growl.
He grins at my a
I make it through lunch because I have to. Vin doesn’t say anything to Brea
After lunch we get “The Grand Tour” as Caroline laughingly calls it because she is just hilarious and I find that the Colony is everything I dreamed it would be.
Absolute. Pure. Torture.
This building is huge and we don’t even see all of it. Apparently a lot of it is used for “storage”, though storage of what we aren’t told. We also aren’t invited to ever find out. Most of the interior is broken up into work rooms though quite a bit of it is sectioned off as living space. There are bathrooms, though not all of them work so you have to be careful, the showers, a common area that looks like it used to be an exhibit with a large TV and some seating, the kitchens beside the cafeteria and a large open area that was probably once the main exhibit but is now filled with beds. An old green airplane hangs high above in the ceiling, something I imagine could easily snap and crash down on unsuspecting sleepers, but what do I know? There’s also a pink truck shaped like a foot. I don’t ask. In fact, I don’t ask anything. I don’t say anything at all because with each step I take through this building I panic a little more. People are everywhere, talking so loudly, constantly walking by, brushing past me, touching me to say hello as Caroline introduces us. I’m sweating rivers under the thin material of my prison clothes.
She shows us a large maintenance room where the electrical side of things is run and I finally get a reprieve from the crush of people. The generators are here, the solar batteries being charged by the panels on the roof and another set of batteries being charged by a small wind turbine set up outside in the yards. It all looks intricate and confusing to me but this is how they live. This is how they have hot ru
Outside is the small agricultural area we saw before. I also notice that they’ve taken the time to bring in high fences that run the three water sides of the property. No waiting for summer and swimming for freedom. How did they know? It’s almost like they’re as accustomed to keeping people in as they are to keeping zombies out. There are gardens and a greenhouse out here to be tended with small fruits and a lot of vegetables. There are also sections designated for various crops and they have livestock to be looked after; cows to be milked, eggs to be gathered.
Inside there are meals to be prepped, fruits and veggies to be ca
When they showed me the giant room full of beds, I almost vomited. I can’t take this. It’s too crowded, too closed in. It’s too clean. Don’t get me wrong, I like being clean. I loved that hot shower and I will happily drink their milk until I get sick and die, but my problem with a lot of this is that it’s like they’re playing at normal. They’re trying to pretend that they can hide behind these concrete walls and the world outside isn’t dead and rotting at their doorstep. Their backyard is flooded with sewage and their solution is to draw the blinds.
People like me and Vin and Ryan, we live out there in the ugly and we look it in the eye every single day. We’re out there trying to reclaim what was lost while these people are hiding away, pulling us in and trying to make us part of the fantasy that all can be bright and beautiful again if we just close our eyes to everything that’s real.
I can see it on Vin’s face too. As we walk through the tour Brea
“I want to watch this place burn.” I say to myself.
Vin chuckles softly beside me. “You and me both, sister.”
“Is this like what you guys have at The Hive? Is everyone sitting pretty these days but me?”
“No, not even close.” He glances around the common room we’re standing in, his eyes landing on the 50in TV and brightly colored bean bag chairs. “This is almost grotesque.”
“It’s messed up, right?” I ask, glad he sees it the way I do. “It feels obscene somehow.”
“Kinda disrespectful.”
“Exactly. They’re delusional.”
“This one especially.” he mutters, gesturing to Caroline.
As though feeling his eyes on her, she turns to face us.
“Everything all right?” she asks sweetly, the hard set of her mouth not matching her tone.
Vin grins at her. It’s the same one he gave me in the van; all sex and charm. “It’s amazing.”
“We were just talking about how nice it is to be warm and dry.” I agree, smiling at her.
“Wonderful.” She doesn’t believe a word of it. “Well, that’s the end of the tour. Let’s move on to di
We start to file out of the room, Brea
“’New people’?” I whisper to him. “They’re going to separate us again.”
“You cold and wet a lot, Kitten?”
I frown at him, startled by the question. “What are you talking about?”
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know. Yeah. Everyone is.”
“No,” he replies, his tone low. “Not everyone is. Nats isn’t. Brea
“You’re in The Hive, that’s completely different. That’s practically a Colony.”
He glares at me. “We’re not the Colonies.”
“You know what I mean. The size of your gang compared to the others is huge. You don’t have to hide like a lot of us do. In fact, you pretty much advertise your location. We all know where you are but none of us are dumb enough to come at you. I can’t light fires half the time because someone is bound to see the smoke and in case you haven’t noticed, this is the Pacific Northwest. It tends to rain a bit. So yeah, I’m cold and wet a lot.”
He shakes his head, looking a