“Not if she doesn’t have to walk here,” Amy says, her smirk growing. She beckons us toward the back door with her head. I open the door for her and she walks out onto the deck, looking west along the beach. She points. “See that?”
About a half mile down, there’s a marina. Six large sailboats are docked at the entrance and another larger ship is anchored farther out from the shore.
“We’ve been sailing up the coast since March for supplies. The farthest north we’ve gone has only been southern Virginia, though. We’ve actually been running the Gulf since November of last year. We also have a little trade route with a small community in Cuba.” Anxiety floats alongside the pain in my abdomen. I wonder if they’ve met Fort Caroline. They seem to be traveling along the same routes, pillaging the same areas. Maybe they will eventually begin trading with them.
“So much for an embargo,” Andrew says, and Amy laughs while Baby Henri fusses in her arms.
“If you want to stick around, maybe we can send you and a few others north to pick up my mom? They’re suggesting we wait to go out on extended cruises until after hurricane season ends. But we’ve been lucky with that this year, too.”
Stay? They invited us in; they gave me antibiotics and let me rest in their hospital. “How do you know we’re safe to have around?”
“Why wouldn’t you be?” she asks. “Have you killed people?”
She means it as a joke, but Andrew and I share a glance that makes her smile drop. Then she nods as if she understands.
“Did you have a reason? No, that’s a terrible way to ask thatquestion. I don’t know a good way to ask it.”
I look into Andrew’s eyes, and I know I would have killed Harvey a second time if I had to. I don’t know what kind of person that makes me. Or what kind of person that makes Andrew for loving me. I don’t answer but Andrew does, and he doesn’t look away from me when he says it.
“We do what we have to in order to survive.” Something in my chest hurts when he says it because I know he doesn’t mean it about the Fosters. He still carries that guilt, even after all this way. Even after completing the mission we set out from Alexandria to accomplish.
I want to pull him close and hold him and tell him I love him. I want to take all that pain from him. If I needed to get shot once a week to take that pain from him, I would.
“Forgive me, but that doesn’t give me much confidence,” Amy says.
Out of the corner of my eye I can see Cara getting uncomfortable. It’s like she wants to help—she knows we’re good—but maybe she also knows we need to tell the truth ourselves.
“We probably don’t have a good answer for you,” I say. It’s true. There’s no right way for Amy to ask the question and there’s no right answer for us to give. Everyone is different now because the world is different. “They were going to hurt us, so we stopped them before they could.”
“One of us still got hurt. And almost died.” Andrew’s looking at my arm, which I still hold across my stomach to brace the muscles.
Amy nods once, then looks back down at Henrietta in her arms. “Would you say you’re happier for it? With those people gone from the world?”
I should be happy because I saved Andrew. They most certainlywould have killed both of us, but it didn’t change anything. It made things worse, and even after we escaped, we’re still dealing with the fallout. It’s like something inside me was taken away, taken from both of us.
“No,” I say.
“Then I think you’re safe. You came all this way to tell me my mother’s still alive. You gain nothing from telling me, yet you did anyway. And not even knowing if I survived. I think if there’s one thing the new world needs, it’s people like you.” She watches my face, gauging my reaction. “So what do you say? Want to hang around for a bit, go on a boat trip?”
Andrew speaks for us. “That actually sounds like a great plan.”
“Fantastic. We’ll have to get you guys settled into a house. It might be with a few other people, but it’s not like it’ll be a frat house. I’ll get Dave to come by later. And when you’re all settled, we can bring in a couple of the boat crews and talk routes and timelines.”
Cara pipes up, maybe a little too eagerly, “I can help with that.”
“Perfect. So, it’s settled. Right now, though, I must refill the poop machine here.” She nods down to Henri-Two. “Will you be all right by yourselves a few minutes?”
I look out at the ocean and the sailboats and smile. “I think we should be okay.”
When she goes inside, I turn toward the blue ocean. Andrew reaches for my hand and puts his head on my shoulder. I kiss his forehead. Cara gives me a smile over the top of Andrew’s head. Small waves crash against the barnacle-covered pilings of the dock ahead of us.
It’s not until we’ve been standing in silence together for almost aminute that I feel something in my chest. Like it’s easier to breathe. I take the salty air into my lungs, deeply. It’s relief.
We’ve finally made it; after everything, we’re here.
But before I can get too excited, I remember everything that brought us here and my shoulders slump. My eyes sting with tears and suddenly a sob racks my chest. I clamp a hand over my mouth, trying to stifle the sound, and fail. Andrew and Cara both turn to me and for a moment I’m embarrassed. I don’t want to explain the mixture of relief, love, and sadness I feel all at once.
But when I look at them, I know I don’t have to.
