I chuckle, knowing full well I would let them stay even without an addition. “All right. But what if she’s here?”
He doesn’t answer at first. “I think she might be.”
I turn, flinching as the muscles around my stomach stretch. I pull my feet from the sand, standing above him, and turn all the way around.
“What do you mean?”
“While you were knocked out, I asked one of the nurses if she knew of the bookshop Henri’s Hideaway and the woman who owned it.”
“They don’t really have a bookshop operating?”
“Course not. Anyway, this settlement goes from Key Largo to Islamorada and down to Key West. There’s a lot of people here.”
“So, needle in a Florida-size haystack.” I have to say I’m disappointed. It was always a long shot, but I was kind of hoping we would stumble upon her like we stumbled upon her mother.
“No, Jamie. The settlement is huge, but they have a census. There was some influx of people over the past year, but they know everyone who comes through that gate. Our names are even in it now.”
I hold my breath.
“If it’s the right Amy, she’s here. Still in Islamorada.”
I’m giddy with excitement. “Did you go see her?”
He laughs. “No. I was waiting for you, stupid.” I want to dance, but since I’ve been shot, I settle for a deep, long kiss.
It’s amazing. Up until Andrew says, “You have really bad hospital breath,” and then I’m mortified. He laughs and kisses me anyway.
They let me leave the hospital two days later, with a week’s worth of antibiotics in pill form. We’re riding in the back of a guy named Dave’s truck for a minute or so before I see someone else. A man on the side of the road with a rifle. He waves to the two men in the front of the truck and they wave back. About half a mile down the road, I see the beach again to our right.
Some houses have solar panels on their roofs. I glance at the beach and see a large structure that looks like a greenhouse that extends out into the water.
Andrew knocks on the back of the truck window. The center of the window slides back and Andrew points to the beach.
“What’s that thing?”
“Desalination house,” the passenger, Eddie, shouts back. “We duga little pool so when the tide comes in, it fills it, and we can collect the salt-free water from condensation. There’s one every few miles. Not the prettiest things, but they’re easy to rebuild if they come down. It’s just till the engineers figure out how to restart the water treatment plant and plumbing.”
Engineers. Water treatment plant. Plumbing.
Then there are more people. Kids, teenagers, adults. I start counting and lose track at around sixty as we pass a group of kids between the ages of three and ten in a playground to my left.
I watch them play and my vision turns blurry with tears. I open my mouth to ask when the last infection of the superflu was, but I can’t even get the words out. I don’t want to know anymore. This many people, either they’re all immune or the superflu burned itself out.
I finally look away and meet Andrew’s gaze. He’s as thrilled as I am. Therearepeople here.Differentpeople. We even see a few who must be close to eighty years old. I lock eyes with an older woman wearing a straw hat as she glances up from a garden. Only it’s not a garden; it looks more like a miniature crop farm. She smiles and waves at us. Andrew and I wave back.
Cara just seems to be taking it all in, but her face looks more at ease than I’ve ever seen it.
This all feels different from Fort Caroline. Everyone we see seems to have an actual purpose. They aren’t emptying buildings one by one or doing repetitive busy tasks to show their worth. I don’t need to count here.
After a few more miles, and many more people, we come to a stop in front of a large pink beach house. Dave turns around and saysthrough the window, “Wait here.”
He knocks on the front door of the house and I spin around to look at the community around me. People are coming out of houses and walking down the road to look at us. They don’t look scared; maybe nervous or apprehensive. The door to the house opens and the driver speaks in hushed tones to the woman standing there. She has long brown hair past her shoulders. When she looks at us, her face scrunched in puzzlement, my heart leaps in my chest.
“Holy shit,” Andrew says, though it sounds more like a gasp.
It’s her. The only picture we saw of Amy was when she was an awkward teen. Now, in her mid-thirties, she looks just like Henri did in her wedding picture.
Andrew stands and hops down from the back of the truck.
