“You have a type,” Ben adds. “Strong. Confident. Accomplished.”
“You’re all those things,” I reply, a little exasperated.
He just shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter. I know my place now, Brooke. Because you see, I tried to let you go and it didn’t work. I came running straight after you. My place is beside you. Whether you want me there or not.”
“I do want you there,” I say. “Always.”
Ben turns his face from me and looks out over the sparkling water. He doesn’t believe me and my heart deflates. I wish I was better with words, and that I could make him see how much it means to me that he’s here. But I don’t get the chance because Molly stirs.
“Brooke,” she whispers. “Why don’t I take this shift?”
It occurs to me then that she’s heard everything, that she hasn’t slept a wink. Like a good friend, she’s trying to protect me from my pain.
“Thanks,” I say. “I could do with the sleep.”
As we swap places, she squeezes my arm, as if to tell me that everything will be all right.
“Good night, Ben,” I say.
He doesn’t say anything back.
I’m woken by a jolt. I sit up sharply, and realize it’s morning. I must have slept all night. No one woke me to take another shift.
I drag myself to sitting and look around. The boat is lurching violently.
“What’s happening?” I shout.
Above me, Zeke, Molly, and Ryan are fighting with the sail.
“Storm!” Zeke shouts down.
I finally make it to my feet. The water is dark, churning violently. Waves several meters high rise up, dragging our little boat helplessly along with them. My stomach turns as we plummet down the side of a wave.
“I’m scared!” Bree cries.
I look back at her clutching the sides of the boat. She looks terrified, as does Charlie.
“It’s going to be okay,” I tell them hurriedly. “We can handle it.”
I help the others with the ropes and sails. There’s very little we can do, though, other than sit it out. We’re at the mercy of the water and can only pray that it doesn’t capsize us.
The sensation is horrible, like being on a terrifying rollercoaster or an airplane in turbulence. Molly loses her footing and gets catapulted across the boat. Zeke grabs her just in time to stop her falling overboard.
“Everyone hold on tight!” I cry, reaching for my friends.
We huddle together, keeping vigilant of any danger as our little boat is buffeted by the waves and thrown around. Even though my stomach is empty, I still feel like I could throw up.
The dogs whimper as we lurch sideways. Bree begins to cry. For the first time I wonder if we made the right call taking the river route. If Buffalo was completely deserted, maybe all the big cities along the lake’s edge are deserted as well. But just as I’m thinking it, I catch sight of a city on the banks, and what I see chills me to my core.
“Zeke!” I cry as the boat bobs up and back down again. “Where are we?”
“Must be Cleveland,” he replies.
“Do you see it?” I shout to Ben, my eyes transfixed on the city that the lake seems to be pushing us toward.
“I see it,” he replies.
There, in the distance, looming up in the middle of bombed out buildings, is the unmistakable outline of an arena.
“We have to MOVE!” I cry. “There are slaverunners in that city. If they see us, we’re dead.”
I remember the powerful speedboats the slaverunners chased us with before. Our little boat will be nothing against them. If we’re spotted, we’ll be captured in a matter of minutes.
“There’s nothing we can do!” Ryan shouts back as the boat makes another huge push up, followed by a stomach-churning plummet down.
I know he’s right but I just can’t accept it. There must be something we can do to put a bit more distance between us and the city crawling with slaverunners. We seem to be forced closer to the banks. From here, I can even make out the sight of the bright yellow school buses that are used to transport young girls to the sex trade. We’re far too close for comfort.
“Is there any gas at all?” I cry to Molly, who’s sitting by the engine throttle.
She tries it, and to my relief, the engine sputters alive.
“There must be a tiny bit left,” Ryan says.
“Good. Then use it!”
He powers the boat forward, heading away from the coast and farther into the middle of the lake. The waves here seem even stronger, and with the forward motion of the boat as well, we seem to be bobbing up and down even more violently. Charlie begins retching in his hole at the bottom of the boat. Bree holds onto him to comfort him.
“Come on, Ryan,” I urge, willing him to go faster, to get us out of sight of the dangerous city.
At last, the distance between us and Cleveland seems to grow. I can no longer make out the buses, and the tops of the buildings disappear over the horizon. The only thing that’s left in my sightline is the roof of the huge arena.
Just as the waves begin to lessen, the engine of the boat finally splutters to death. We’re sitting ducks again. Only at least this time we’re nowhere near the dangerous city of Cleveland. Instead, we’re closer now to the northern bank of Lake Erie. From here we can see the derelict city of Detroit. It’s another grand city reduced to nothing more than rubble. I shiver, desperate to make it to Toledo soon and put the danger and horror of mass destruction behind us.
But I have a feeling it’s only just beginning.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“So this is Toledo,” I say, looking around at the decaying harbor we’ve landed in.
Finally, we touch the shore and disembark. It feels strange to be back on solid ground after so long at sea. I am not sure whether I am relieved to be off the violent waters, or anxious to be back on dry land.
I look around. Toledo is more or less intact, but completely empty. It’s a ghost town, eerie in the pale morning light. The place is so thoroughly deserted, I can’t help but think slaverunners must have been through here, picking off all the survivors. The thought makes me shudder.
Zeke consults the map. “It’s this way,” he says, pointing ahead.
We all stop and turn and look at the boat. I have mixed feelings, knowing we are abandoning it. I can only hope and pray we find the train soon. And I can’t help but feel a sense of victory that we made it this far by water.
We turn and walk. We trek down a narrow road, tall trees growing on either side. There are young tree saplings that have clearly grown since the war because they look healthy and untamed. But the road itself has been ravaged by bombs. Every few steps we pass another crater, another burnt out car, and bits of twisted metal all over the asphalt from an explosion that ripped vehicles right apart from its force. Nature has attempted to reclaim the road. Tufts of grass spring out of cracks, and vines twist around street signs, hydrants, and lamps.
After a while, we turn onto a main road. Here there are houses dotted either side of the road, the wood siding rotting and falling off in places, their front gardens completely overgrown. Some of the houses have endured fires and have huge black smoke marks above the grubby windows. Others look almost completely intact, the bombs that fell here missing their properties by mere feet.
We pass a gas station, with a raggedy American flag still blowing in the wind. There are rusted trucks sitting in the parking lot, abandoned. We check them all for gas, to see whether we can use them to reach our destination more quickly, but they’ve all already been siphoned. It’s a sign that people lived around here after the war long enough to scavenge, but there’s no one to be seen now. No sign that anyone’s set foot on this road, in this part of America, for years and years and years.