Niki reaches out for me. Asking if I’m okay. I nod, but I don’t know if I am. Physically, I’m fine, but I also feel numb. It’s like I don’t know if I’m scared or happy or frightened. Empty is all I feel. I join Denton at Danny Rosewood’s side. Rosewood looks like, if he could, he’d strangle us both so hard our necks would snap.
“My boy...,” he gurgles, staring up at me, “shoulda killed you when he had the chance.”
“He tried,” I say. “Maybe that will make you proud of him. To know that the last thing he did before he died was try to shoot me.”
“Shoulda been you.”
I nod. “For a while I wished it was. And for an even longer while, I thought he deserved to die, but maybe he didn’t. I’m sorry he’s dead, but I’m not sorry I’m alive.”
Rosewood coughs up another clot of blood. “Well, I am. I hope you never have... a moment’s peace. Ever.”
He probably thinks this is supposed to make me feel worse, but it doesn’t. If anything, I feel bad for him. It also makes me feel bad for Harvey Rosewood. This spiteful, angry man was his father, and maybe all that hatred in Harvey Rosewood’s heart came from him. I’d like to think maybe there is another universe—one where the superflu never happened and maybe Danny Rosewood didn’t pass his own hate on to his son. Or if he did, maybe Harvey was able to end the cycle.
I’d like to think in that universe, Andrew and I still found each other.
“I hope...,” Rosewood continues, “you suffer.”
“Okay,” I say. I put my hand on Rosewood’s. It’s sticky with blood, and he’s already getting cold. I remember that feeling, thinking I was going to die. How scared I was. Even through the mask of rage Rosewood wears, I know he must be scared, too. It makes me pity him and every terrible decision he made. All the selfish hate he’s filled with.
I know I don’t want that same hate in me. The hate I had for Danny Rosewood drove a wedge between Andrew and me and ruined everything we built together. It made me someone I didn’t want to be.
And I don’t ever want to be that person again.
“I forgive you anyway,” I say to him.
“He doesn’t deserve forgiveness,” Denton says.
I shake my head. “I’m not forgiving him for everything. Just for me.”
Rosewood coughs again and I see his eyes change. First more anger, then frustration, then sadness maybe, then suddenly fear or adifferent kind of anger. Finally, he lets out a shuddering breath. And he’s dead.
Danny Rosewood’s blood has soaked through the knees of my jeans, and my hands are sticky with it. I don’t feel the relief I thought I’d feel from his death; more than anything, I just feel sad. Like I wasted so much time worrying for nothing, because he barely remembered me. At the end of the day, yes, I’m sure he was devastated that his son was dead. But it seemed like he would have reacted similarly if his son had died in an accident.
The Danny Rosewoods of the world only care for Danny Rosewood.
Denton fishes in Rosewood’s pockets but comes out with nothing.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“The keys.”
“The road is blocked,” Niki reminds him.
He nods. “Then we take the truck Cal drove in here.”
“What about the others?” Niki asks.
He shrugs. “I’m not worried about them. You came for Rosewood, right?”
I don’t know the answer to that anymore. Originally, yes. I did. But now I don’t know.
Denton takes my silence as confirmation and continues, “Whatever happens here will happen whether we’re here or not. Your part is done. As far as I’m concerned, so is mine.”
“So we just go back to Faraway?” Niki asks.
Andrew won’t be there. He and Amy will have moved on to Henri’s.
“You’re all safe now, right?” he asks. It feels like a non sequitur, and I don’t understand what he means. Then it all clicks. Wearesafe. At least as safe as we can be given the end of the world. Gunshots still ring out in Fort Caroline, and tomorrow morning when the sun rises, someone will be there to pick up the pieces. But they won’t be thinking of me or Andrew or Cara.
