Without warning, Lucy leaned over and wrapped her arms around Galen’s upper body. She held on as tight as she could. He rocked backward under her impromptu hug and then laughed.
“So, you missed me too, then?” Galen asked as Lucy sat back, her eyes glistening.
“I never wanted to believe that any of you were gone,” she said and swallowed the rest of her snack. “And then when Ethan let me listen to mom’s voicemails and there was hope—”
“You should’ve seen her,” Galen said with wide eyes, remembering. “She went crazy.”
Lucy didn’t admit that the news was refreshing. That somewhere in the back of her mind, even still, she wondered if any of them had tried to come for her, tried to save her.
“She wouldn’t stop crying,” Galen added.
“Good,” Lucy said. Then she sighed, regretting the knee-jerk reaction, and shot a look to her brother. “No, I didn’t mean that. I thought everyone left me to die…”
“Have you ever seen mom throw a punch?” he asked with a smirk.
Lucy shook her head. “I don’t believe you. She didn’t.”
“She did.” And Galen laughed at the memory. “Some men-in-black type. Sunglasses, suit. Right in the jaw. Bam.” He mimicked the man’s head tossed back from the force, complete with sound effects. Then his smile disappeared. “The guy said fine. She could go get her children. But that this plane was leaving with or without her…and that per Mr. King’s orders, the children who already boarded would have to stay. There was no time to wait.”
“She had to choose,” Lucy stated the obvious conclusion, just to hear it out loud.
“We didn’t even know what was going on outside.”
Lucy raised her eyebrows. “The virus?”
“We thought we were at war.”
“It was a war.”
“You know what I meant.”
They were silent for a moment.
“It hasn’t been good,” Galen said again. “They’ve been fighting. About you. About Ethan. I know that you don’t want to be here—”
“That’s not it at all,” Lucy interrupted. “It’s just…” she weighed her words, “this place…it isn’t what I thought it would be. It’s all so…strange. I need time to adjust to it.”
“This place isn’t so bad,” Galen said. “I thought so at first. But—” he hesitated. “I’ve heard Mom and Dad talking. I’ve listened to them at night. Everyone else is too young to understand…but I get it. And because I get it, because I understand…I think I can appreciate this place.”
She raised her eyebrows. “What do you understand?” she asked.
“The world was going to end no matter what. Dad saved us. He really did, Lucy. He saved us from dying out there…saved us from everything that was going to happen in the world. This place is only temporary and then we get to start over. I don’t know,” Galen trailed off. “I’m glad Dad did this for us. I think he made the right decision. And I kinda like it here.”
Lucy bit her lip and looked up to the ceiling. “You wouldn’t feel that way if you were the one left behind. Trust me. I didn’t get saved from anything. My best friend died. I spent a week trapped in my school. I just traveled here with another friend…who is going to die. What exactly was I saved from?” She instinctually rubbed her wrists. The battle wounds of her night with Spencer had healed, but there was a patch of bright white new skin, where the handcuffs had cut the deepest: a permanent scar.
“You’re not dead,” Galen offered, but he was tentative. He rubbed his temples and didn’t look at his sister. “And I bet Dad will get Huck to go get Ethan. Now that things have settled down? I bet he will.”
“That’s great,” Lucy said, and she meant it. Ethan needed to come to this place, needed the doctors and the help. “What do you know about this Huck guy?” she asked, shifting her body on the bed to face him—her knees touching the side of his legs as he dangled them off the bed.
“He runs this place. He’s nice.”
“Why do you like this place?”
Galen turned a bit, “They have a game room. A gym called the Center. Things for us to do, like movie nights and stuff. It just feels…I don’t know…the people are nice here. It’s…I can’t explain it…it’s not like it would seem. We all know we’ve survived something big and we’re all in this together. Maybe it’s hard to explain. But I’ll take you on a tour when you’re up for it.”
“You wouldn’t want to go home?”
He processed her question and thought for a bit. Then he shook his head. “I miss some of my stuff, I guess. But like I said, we’re not staying here.”
“We’re moving back?”
“Home? No. I’ll have Dad tell you. He can show you the blueprints. It’s awesome. Huck’s building floating cities! Six of them. One city for each of the six underground Systems.”
“There are six of these things?” Lucy pointed upward.
Galen nodded and smiled. “All over the world! It’s great, Lucy. You’ll think so too. I know it.”
Lucy didn’t say anything. She just stared at her brother and wondered if he would have felt the same unbridled enthusiasm for her father and Huck’s plan if he had seen the bodies and the destruction; maybe he didn’t even know the reality of the outside world—the crumbling cities, the devastated earth.
Galen thought he was at a type of summer camp.
She knew better.
Beyond that, she couldn’t wrap her mind around why Grant would be a threat to any of this. Was the System so weak, so brittle, and unreliable that one extra person could send it plummeting into destruction?
“I want to find my friend,” she said. “Do you know your way to the tanks?”
Galen’s eyes grew wide and he shrank away from her. “No, Lucy. I can’t. We’re not supposed to snoop.”
“Does Dad have a lab here?”
He nodded, “But I can’t take you there either. I don’t know where it is.”
Lucy handed him the plastic cup. “Thanks for the milk. I want to be alone now,” she said and then she tipped herself back over and crawled under the comforters, pulling the blankets over her head until she heard Galen let himself out.
CHAPTER NINE
Grant opened his eyes. He stared at the man standing near his shackled body and recognized him in an instant. For a second, he tried to place himself—there was the tank, then the guards, the injection, and now, this bland hospital room, his body flat against the hard bed. He knew he was incapacitated, so he didn’t even try to move or fight. Instead, he followed with his eyes as Mr. King moved around the room; the scientist adjusted vials, and syringes, slapped on latex gloves, and hummed a jaunty little tune. He hadn’t seemed to notice Grant was awake and just now coming out of his sedation—which was a bit unnecessary; Grant wasn’t throwing any fits, and he would have gladly climbed up on this bed and let them strap him down if it meant that Lucy could be reunited with her family.
It wasn’t out of some chivalrous desire for self-sacrifice either. She just deserved a happy ending; he really felt that way.
Somewhere in Idaho, Grant had the realization that this may not end well for him.
He had kept his alarmist opinions to himself. Lucy had written a whole new chapter with him as her newly minted brother; he’d just become one of their family—it was all smiles and pep, with the TV soundtrack of a 90s family comedy, complete with laugh-track and a moral at the end.