He leaves me on the deck, alone with the wind and the waves.
ZEPHYR
I find her on the highest part of the ship, alone.
She’s wrapped in an army coat, and from here, the Regulator is almost hidden. Her curls dance in the wind.
She watches the waves. I sit down beside her, close enough that our knees touch.
“Hey,” she whispers.
“Hey,” I say. “I heard about the Green.”
She nods. “Word travels fast on this ship.”
“We’re going to try and find it? We’re actually going to try?”
She takes a deep breath, releases it. “I’m tired of making the plans. If my father believed it might have been there, then maybe I should believe, too. It’s time we do something you want, for a change.”
“I want a lot of things,” I say.
I feel her lean in.
“Like what?”
She’s looking up at me through her lashes. She’s shaking, but I’m not sure it’s from the cold. I’m shaking, too.
“Do you want . . . this?” Meadow asks. “Do you want me, Zephyr? After everything that’s happened?”
She leans closer. Touches her lips to my cheek. Once, twice, and then suddenly I’m on fire.
“Yes,” I say. “Always.”
She smiles against me.
Our lips crush together, our breathing becomes one. We fall backward onto the cool metal of the ship, and oh, stars, she’s on top of me. My moonlit girl is on top of me.
She puts her hands in my hair. She’s kissing me so hard she’s eating me up, devouring me whole.
And I’m alive.
Her fingers are cold as ice when they slip beneath my shirt. I gasp, and she presses harder, almost like she wants to disappear into me. Become a part of my soul, and me a part of hers. I touch her skin, kiss her down the length of her neck, and she’s soft, so damn soft, even with her scars.
“Meadow,” I gasp, but she won’t stop.
I don’t think I want her to. Not ever.
“You want me to love you,” she whispers. I can see her struggling, see her fighting to say it. She looks right into my eyes, green and gray. “And I do. But I’m not good with saying the right thing, and I never have been. So let me show you, the only way I know how.”
She falls into me.
And under the sky and the stars, on a ship in the middle of an endless ocean, we become one.
MEADOW
We eat a full meal on the night before we leave for the Green.
There are about thirty New Militia members that will join us.
We don’t know what we will find once we cross the Perimeter. We don’t know if we are only chasing a dream, or if we will find reality, somewhere out there. A better place.
But tonight, we sit around and share stories about happier times. Better places, where the sea breeze sweeps across our faces, tickles our skin. Where the ocean waves tug at our toes, and gulls cry overhead, singing a sweet summer song.
The Shallows was hell. The Ridge was hell.
But I look at Peri, see her smiling, finally, for the first time in weeks. I hear Sketch’s cursing, her obnoxious laugh, her terrible jokes. She kisses Saxon out of the blue, and he’s so shocked that he just stares at her, openmouthed, until she slaps him in the face and he kisses her back. Koi finds a pen and paper and sketches images of trees that look real. Tox grins, and his walking stick is finally cast aside.
I can literally feel the freedom inside of my mind, the emptiness. All of the space. Without the Murder Complex, I can just be.
Zephyr looks over. Then he reaches out and takes my hand in his. Squeezes it tight, and this time, I squeeze back.
Family is everything, Meadow. It is my father’s voice that calls to me from the beyond. I can almost feel his presence right here, beside me. My protector, my guide.
He is gone, like all of the others we’ve lost.
But I look around at these people, these faces. This broken family come together to make a new one.
And I realize that I will never be alone again.
I think of the places we’ve come from, the things we’ve had to do, the monsters we have all had to become.
Maybe, in life, hell is all around, hiding in the shadows, whispering our fears in the middle of sleepless nights. But there is always a little bit of heaven, a little bit of sunlight, to melt the darkness away.
Happiness can always be found.
You just have to be strong enough, fearless enough, to open your eyes and really look.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book was incredibly difficult for me to write. The Murder Complex series has been a part of my life for so many years now, and bringing it to a close also meant having to let go of these characters.
Thank you to Meadow and Zephyr, for being so alive to me. Thank you for being my first characters ever. I will always love you.
Thank you as always, to God, for giving me the gift of writing. Thank you for giving me all of the wonderful people who have helped me get to this point.
To all of the amazing people at team Greenwillow, specifically my editor Virginia Duncan, for helping carry this series to the end. Thanks to team Epic Reads for the support!
A million hugs to Julie Scheina, for helping me save this story.
To my agent, Louise Fury, for rocking and being my voice of reason.
To my parents, Don and Karen, and my sister, Lauren, for praying me through so many drafts and releases and fears. My husband, Josh, for loving me in my moments of crazy.
To Alex Bowles, for being a super fan and friend.
To my in-laws and my three new little brothers. I love you guys!
My friends Rebekah Faubion and Cherie Stewart, for being like sisters to me. Nerdy, beautiful, book-loving sisters. Erin Gross, for helping me with so much!
Sasha Alsberg, who is my book pimp. Ben Alderson, who is adorably awesome. All the #booknerdigans, who love and support me and my work.
Thanks to all the amazing readers I’ve visited at schools, who have been such lovely audiences, and helped heal me of my public speaking fear.
Thanks to all the members of the YA Valentines, who are always there to hear my crazy fears. You and your books are beautiful. Patrick Carman, for his reassuring phone calls. The YA Binders, for their reassuring Facebook threads.
And because I’m almost 100% sure that I will forget to thank someone, here’s to YOU, whoever you are, wherever you are reading this. Thanks for supporting me, and for sticking with me through the Shallows and beyond. Here’s to future books, and future #booknerdigans.
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