Wayward Pines #2 - Page 74

“It kills me not to understand.”

“Look at me.” He held her face in his hands and stared down into her eyes. No one had ever loved her like this man. “We’ll get through this.”

She nodded.

“How long?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“Yes.”

“Are you coming back?”

“Of course I am. Is he upstairs?”

“He’s not home from school yet.”

“I tried to talk to him about it, but—”

“He’s gonna have a real hard time.”

He put his hands on her waist.

Said, “Look, it’s done, and there’s nothing we can do about it, so let’s enjoy the time we do have. All right?”

“Okay.”

“Should we go upstairs for a little while? I’d like a little something to remember you by.”

“I don’t want to burn dinner.”

“f.u.c.k dinner.”

She lay in bed, in his arms, watching the sky darken through the windows.

“I can’t even imagine what it’ll be like,” she said.

“You’re strong. Stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

“What if you don’t come back to me?”

“Then know this. The time I’ve spent with you here in this valley, in this house, have been the best of my life. Better than all my time in the world before. I love you, Theresa. Madly and forever and—”

She kissed him and pulled him on top of her.

Into her.

She was crying again.

“Just be right here,” she said. “I love you. G.o.d, I love you so much, Adam, don’t leave me, please, don’t leave me…”

V

26

In the last shreds of daylight, Tobias opened his leather-bound journal and read the first page inscription for possibly the thousandth time.

When you come back—and you will come back—I’m gonna f**k you, soldier, like you just came home from war.

He flipped the pages three-quarters of the way through the volume to where he’d last left off.

The pencil was down to its last inch.

The pipe was getting low.

He crushed down the ashes and took a deep draw, collecting his thoughts as the river murmured past.

From where he sat, the sun had left the building, although it still struck the summit of the mountain across the river, a half mile above him.

That swarm of abbies appeared to be on the move.

He could hear them screeching and screaming as they pushed on up the valley, leaving him a clear path to home.

Tobias wrote:

Day 1,308

I’ll keep this short and sweet. My last night in the wild and so many emotions. I can see the mountains that surround Wayward Pines from my camp, and with any luck, I’ll come out of the cold tomorrow afternoon. There are so many things I’m looking forward to. A warm bed. A warm meal. To speak to another human being again. To sit down with a gla.s.s of whiskey and tell people everything I’ve seen.

I alone have the key to what will save us all. I’m literally the one man in the world who can save the world. I carry that knowledge on my shoulders, but none of it really matters.

Because the closer I get to Wayward Pines, all I can think about is you.

Not a single day has pa.s.sed when I haven’t thought about you. About our time together. About how it felt to hold you that last night.

And now, tomorrow, I’ll see you again.

My sweet, dear angel.

Can you feel that I’m close? Don’t you know it in your bones somehow, that in a matter of hours, we’ll be together again?

I love you, Theresa Burke.

Always.

Never thought I’d get to write these words but…

This is Adam Tobias Ha.s.sler…

Signing off.

27

The torched car was still smoking. The traffic light was dark and the streetlamps had gone out. Absent a single light in operation in the entire valley, the stars burned down with a vivid, icy intensity.

Ethan walked out into the middle of the street, Theresa clinging to one arm, Kate on the other side of him. If it irked Theresa for the three of them to be so close, she didn’t show it. Truth be told, Ethan wasn’t sure how he felt walking between them.

So much love and pa.s.sion and pain.

Like he was caught between repelling forces.

The same poles of two magnets in dangerous proximity.

People were beginning to filter out of the theater.

Ethan handed Kate the bullhorn, said, “Do me a favor. Keep everybody here. I need to go check on something.”

“What’s happening?” Theresa asked.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

He pulled away from her and headed toward the Bronco.

The abby had wrecked it. There was a large hole in the center of the windshield and the front seats were covered in gla.s.s and eviscerated, foam padding spilling out. He couldn’t even see through the windshield, so he climbed up on the hood and stomped out the rest of the gla.s.s.

He drove south up Main, wind streaming through the open window frame and his eyes watering against it.

When he reached the curve, he veered off the road and followed the tire tracks from his last foray into the forest, high beams shooting through the trees.

He found his way back to the dead pine stump and turned off the engine.

Stepped out into the dark forest.

Something was wrong, and as he approached the fence, he realized it was the silence that unnerved him.

It shouldn’t be this quiet.

Those conductors and studded cables should be humming.

He walked west beside the dead fence.

Began to jog.

Then run.

After a hundred yards, he came to the gate—a thirty-foot, hinged section that provided egress from the valley. It was how nomads left, and—rarely—returned. Pilcher sometimes sent trucks through it into the wild to harvest firewood or obtain short-range reconnaissance.

Until this moment, Ethan had never actually experienced the terror of seeing it locked wide open.

As he stood staring through the gate into the unimaginably hostile country beyond, he was gripped with the cold, sinking conclusion that he had misread Pilcher completely.

A scream rose up out of the woods.

No more than a mile away.

Another scream answered.

Then another.

And another.

The noise expanding and growing until the ground seemed to tremble with it, as if all of h.e.l.l was running through the forest.