The light splintering through the busted windows was growing weaker by the moment. Soon, it would be dark in the valley.
“His group was run down in one of the tunnels,” Ethan said.
Still no tears came.
She just breathed in and out.
“I want to see him,” she said.
“Of course. We’ve been gathering up the dead all day, doing what we can to prepare them for—”
“I’m not afraid to see him torn up, Ethan. I just want to see him.”
“Okay.”
“How many did we lose?”
“We’re still recovering bodies, so right now we’re only counting survivors. Out of forty hundred sixty-one in-town residents, we’re down to a hundred and eight. Seventy-five are still unaccounted for.”
“I’m glad it was you who came with this news,” she said.
“They’re bringing all the survivors into the mountain for the next few nights.”
“I’m staying right here.”
“It’s not safe, Kate. There are still abbies in the valley. We haven’t gotten them all. There’s no power. No heat. When the sun drops, it’s going to get very dark and very cold. The abbies still inside the fence will come back into town.”
She looked at him. She said, “I don’t care.”
“You want me to sit with you for a while?”
“I want to be alone.”
Ethan rose to his feet, every inch of his body sore, bruised, done. “I’ll leave this shotgun with you,” he said, “just in case.”
He couldn’t be sure that she’d heard him.
She was utterly elsewhere.
“Is your family safe?” Kate asked.
“They are.”
She nodded.
“I’ll come back in the morning,” he said. “Take you to see Harold.” He moved toward the front door.
Kate said, “Hey.”
He looked back.
“This isn’t your fault.”
That night, Ethan lay next to Theresa in a warm, dark room, deep inside the superstructure.
Ben slept on a rollaway at the foot of their bed, the boy snoring quietly.
The nightlight across the room put out a soft blue and Ethan stared into the glow. The first night in ages he could actually sleep in warmth, in safety, without a camera spying on him. Sleep was there for the taking, but he couldn’t find his way in.
Theresa’s hand moved around his side and across his stomach.
She whispered, “You awake?”
He rolled over to face her, and by the illumination of the nightlight, saw the glistening in her eyes, the wetness on her face.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
“Okay.”
“You’ve only been back in our lives for barely a month.”
“Right.”
“We’d already been here for five years. We didn’t know where we were. If we were.”
“I already know all this.”“What I’m trying to say is . . . there was someone before you came.”
“Someone,” Ethan said, a sudden pressure building in his chest, a weight pressing down on his lungs, stopping him from drawing a full breath.
“I thought you were dead. Or that maybe I was.”
“Who?”
“When I first came to town, I didn’t know a soul. I woke up here just like you did, and Ben wasn’t with me, and—”
“Who?”
“You saw that Adam Hassler is here.”
“Hassler?”
“He saved my life, Ethan. He helped me find Ben.”
“Are you for real?”
She was crying now. “I lived with him in that house on Sixth Street for over a year, up until the day he was sent away.”
“You were with Hassler?”
A sob caught in her throat. “I thought you were dead. You know how this town can mess with you.”
“Did you share his bed?”
“Ethan—”
“Did you?”
She nodded.
He rolled away from her onto his back and stared at the ceiling. No idea how to even begin to process this. All he had were questions, images of Hassler and his wife, and a raw, combustive pool of confusion, anger, and fear coalescing deep inside of him that was accelerating toward supernova.
“Talk to me,” she said. “Don’t shut down.”
“Were you in love with him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still?”
“I’m confused.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Do you want me to protect your feelings, Ethan, or do you want me to be honest?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. You’d only been here a month. We were just starting to reconnect again.”
“You never were. Your lover showed up out of nowhere and forced your hand.”
“That is not true, Ethan. I swear I would’ve told you. I was assured that Adam was never coming back. And by the way? I was with Hassler when I thought you were dead. You f**ked Kate Hewson while I was still very much alive. While I was your wife. So let’s keep this shit in perspective, shall we?”
“Do you want to be with him?”
“If he hadn’t found me, I would’ve kept running and running until they murdered me. There is no doubt in my mind. He supported me, he took care of me when there was no one else to do it. When you weren’t around.”
Ethan turned back onto his side and faced his wife, their noses touching, her breath in his face and a roiling mass of emotion inside of him that he wasn’t completely certain he could keep tied down.
“Do you want to be with him?” he asked again.
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Does that mean maybe?”
“I have never been loved the way that man loves me.” Ethan stopped breathing. “If this is hard for you to hear, I’m sorry, but I was his world, Ethan, and it . . .” She let the words go, let them trail off into nothing.
“What?”
“I shouldn’t say any—”
“No, finish your thought.”
“It was like nothing I’d ever experienced. Since the first time you and I met, I have loved you with everything I have. Can I just be straight up with you? I have always loved you more than you loved me.”