“You think you’re entitled to a condition?”

“Theresa never hears about what really happened.”

“You’d just be doing this so she goes on loving you.”

“She chose you, Ethan.”

“What?”

“She chose you.”

Relief swept over him.

His throat ached with emotion.

“Now that it’s over,” Hassler said, “I don’t want her to know. Respect that wish, and I’ll make an impossible situation possible.”

“There is another option,” Ethan said.

“What’s that?”

“I could kill you.”

“Do you have that in you, old friend? Because if so, knock yourself out.”

Ethan looked at the cold woodstove. Into the evening light coming through the windows. Wondered how this house could ever feel like home again.

“I’m not a murderer,” Ethan said.

“See? We’re both too soft for this new world.”

Ethan got up. “You were out there for three and a half years?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“So you know more about this new world than any of us.”

“Probably so.”

“What if I were to tell you that we couldn’t stay in Wayward Pines any longer? That we needed to leave this valley and go someplace warmer, where crops could be grown? Do you think we’d have a chance?”

“Of surviving as a group on the other side of the fence?”

“Yeah.”

“That sounds like mass suicide. But if we truly have no choice? If it’s stay in this valley and die or take a chance heading south? I guess we’d have to find a way.”

On his way up to the cafeteria, Ethan stopped again at the cage of the female abby. She was sleeping, curled up in a corner against the wall, thinner, frailer even than the last time he’d seen her.

One of the lab techs who worked in the abby holding facility moved past Ethan, heading toward the stairwell.

“Hey,” Ethan called after him. The white-jacketed scientist stopped in the middle of the corridor, turned to face him. “Is she sick or what?” Ethan asked.

The young scientist flashed an ugly smile.

“She’s starving to death.”

“You’re starving her?”

“No, she refuses to eat or drink.”

“Why?”

The man shrugged. “No idea. Maybe because we made a bonfire out of all her cousins?”

The scientist chuckled to himself and continued down the corridor.

Ethan found Theresa and Ben at a corner table in the packed cafeteria. When she saw the bruises on his face, her eyes—tear-swollen and red—went wide.

“What happened?” she asked.

“Have you been crying?”

“We’ll talk later.”

Dinner consisted of packages of freeze-dried horror.

Lasagna for Ethan.

Beef Stroganoff for Ben.

Eggplant parm for Theresa.

All Ethan could think about was how much food this single meal was costing them.

One meal closer to nothing.

And no one had any concept of how fast the supplies were dwindling. Just took for granted that they could walk into this cafeteria, or down to the community gardens, or the town grocery, and find food.

Where would the civility go when it all ran out?

“You want to talk about what’s going to happen later tonight, Ben?” Ethan asked.

“Not really.”

“You don’t have to go if you don’t want to see it, sweetheart,” Theresa said.

“I want to see it. This is his punishment for what he did, right?”

“Yeah,” Ethan said, “and we have to do it, you understand, because there aren’t courts anymore. No judges or juries. We have to watch out for ourselves, and that man hurt a lot of people. It has to be made right.”

After dinner, Ethan sent Ben back to their quarters and asked Theresa to take a walk with him.

“So Hassler and I had it out,” he said as they trudged up the stairs.

“Jesus, Ethan, what are you, in high school?”

Three doors down on the right-hand side of the Level 4 corridor, Ethan swiped his card at the reader and pulled open a heavy steel door.

They stepped onto a small platform.

Ethan said, “Hold onto the railing,” and pressed the up arrow button.

The platform accelerated through the rocky tube at the speed of an express elevator.

Four hundred feet straight up.

When it finally shuddered to a stop, they stepped off onto a catwalk that ran for twenty feet until it terminated at a second steel door. Ethan swiped his card again. The lock buzzed. He pulled open the door and they moved outside into a wall of shocking cold.

“What is this place?” Theresa asked.

“Discovered it a few nights ago when I was up and couldn’t sleep.”

The clouds from earlier had blown out.

The stars were stunning.

Bright and sharp.

They stood in a path that had been carved three feet down into rock. On either side, the mountain fell away into oblivion.

He said, “I think people come up here to smoke, to get fresh air. It’s the fastest way to see actual daylight without having to take the tunnel into town. They call this trail the sunroof.”

“How far does it go?”

“All through these high peaks. If you stay with it, I’m told it winds down into the forest west of the cirque.”

They strolled the knife-edge ridge.

Ethan said, “After we beat the shit out of each other, Adam and I talked.”

“That sounds like borderline adult behavior.”

“He said you chose me.”

Theresa stopped, faced him.

He could feel the cold nibbling at the edges of his cheeks.

“It came down to a pretty simple choice for me, Ethan. Would I rather love or be loved?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Adam would do anything for—”

“So would I—”

“Will you listen? I told you I’d never been loved the way Adam loves me, and I meant that. But I’ve never loved anyone the way I love you. There are times I hated myself for it. Because I felt weak. When I wished I could’ve just hardened myself to you and walked away, but I could never do it. Even after Kate. It’s like you’ve got some kind of hold on me. It’s a precious thing, Ethan, and you’d better care for it. You’ve hurt me before. Badly.”