Team Lucas.
Let love end the war.
#reunitethem
Speechless, I took the nurse’s hand as he helped me into the car. I was only aware my face was wet when the car had cleared the crowd.
“You okay, miss?” the driver asked.
Sniffling, I nodded. My hands ached to hold a person who wasn’t there.
A person who no longer existed.
“It’s just… They don’t realize he’s dead,” I said.
The driver’s sorrowful gaze met mine in the mirror. “I’m sorry, miss.”
We drove for a long time, and finally, we entered a gated compound. A military base of sorts. He pulled onto a street of identical houses, then stopped at a grander one at the very end. When he opened the car door, I hesitated.
The pathway leading to the house’s entrance was straight and even, no cracks in the cement. The March grass was still brown and crunchy, but no weeds punctured its immaculate surface.The place was clean and wholesome, inviting me to come inside, to turn my back on all the dirt and grit of my past and start anew.
But Ihesitated.
Because I didn’t know if I wanted to.
This was the moment.
It was the moment I had to decide whether I’d let all the tragedy crumble me to pieces or if I’d instead find the strength to go on.
I didn’t want to be strong.
I wanted to disintegrate.
But my touch slid to the gold ring circling my finger, and in my mind, Lucas’s voice appeared.
The part of you that’s me will never die.
If I disintegrated, then his memory would go with me. He’d begged me again and again to protect myself. All he wanted was my safety, and he finally got it. Was I really going to sacrifice it for grief?
Grief was like snow. If I took it in my grasp, it would melt.
I set a foot on the asphalt. Then the second.
One step. Then another.
I stood tall against the gravity pulling me down and put one foot in front of the other all the way down the path. At the entrance of the two-story brick facade, I knocked.
Seconds later, the door swung inward, and, shocked, I stared into the dark eyes and catlike smile of Nia Williams.
“Miss Reeves.” She stepped back to let me in. “I wondered if you’d make it in time.”
Dressed in an ice-white pantsuit that gleamed against her brown skin, she was the very picture of political poise. Beyond her, a number of Defiance soldiers stood armed and ready to attack. She set her arm about my shoulders, guiding me deeper into the house. “I have fantastic news, Sophia.”
“You do?” Confusion stayed my tongue, but I took in the generic, well-appointed home with increasing interest.
We stopped at the entrance to a den, one wall dominated by a large TV, its screen flashing with an all-caps headline.
COMMANDER RICHARD HAYNES, LEADER OF THE NEW AMERICAN ORDER, ASSASSINATED
