Lovers in the Great Collapse ◊ NOVELLA

ii. » Station 111

ii.

STATION 111

Two months before the ice crusted before my eyes and my stream of consciousness slowed to rolls of honey, my family and I rotted in the endless line to Station 111's front gates. It had taken a week just to get inside the scuffed, dirty entrance hall, little more than a cattle call of unwashed, hungry people in a rainbow of earthen shades.

"Stick out your arm," commanded the Station 111 guard. I still remember his eyes, sunken; his uniform, threadbare. The yellow lights still flashed, the droning voice on the PA urging us forward.

"Wait," I said, disheveled, but the crowd was jostling at my back, pushing us forward: me, my father, and my little brother.

I was first. The guard grabbed my elbow through the bars. The prick was swift. He passed the blood sample through the window for testing, just like everyone's, for my entrance to the safehouse to be decided. "Wait!" I tried again, twisting. "Dad! Owen—"

"Go on, Gilly-Bean, we'll be right along," said Dad, trying to muster up an expression of optimism. Bedtime stories, driving lessons, grilling on Sunday afternoons—tall, rust-haired, mouth set in a firm line.

He used to shave his face every day. Now it was covered in stubble. It aged him.

I was wrenched away from the line, pushed into the trembling crowd of people who had also already been tested and were waiting for their lab reports, masses of refugees with their ragged clothes and dirty faces. I anxiously stood on my toes, watching as Dad and Owen, too, reached the front of the line and the guard with the syringe. Owen was crying, squirming; Dad had to hold him still for the needle to go in.

Owen—pudgy in the hospital, bruised from coming out facedown; Owen, smashing my copy of Purple Rain on my thirteenth birthday; Owen, hugging me like we'll never each other again as the nuclear sirens wail, and he's right, he's right—

The guards pushed them over to my side of the room. I breathed for what felt like the first time in an eternity, suppressing my stinging tears as Owen threw his arms around my waist.

"Hey, buddy, you were really strong over there," I said, hoping he couldn't feel my heartbeat going wild.

"Assholes," he said tearily into my shirt. Dad was so startled that he barked out a laugh.

I had no time to tease. The gates swung open. A man in a rumpled white coat appeared, rifling through a clipboard.

"Ah..."

He cleared his throat and ran his finger down his papers. Owen squeezed my hand so hard that I lost feeling in my fingers. Dad's lips moved wordlessly. Praying?

The Larchwoods. The Larchwoods. Call the Larchwoods, please. Let us inside.

The man's eyes flicked up.

"May I have Larchwood?"

"Thank God," my father croaked,

pressing his hand to his chest.

The man fixed his eyes on us. Striking eyes: hazel gray in the middles, ringed with deep green. Their heavy bags did not diminish their intensity. When he spoke, his voice was authoritative, yet gentle.

"Just Gillian."

And then:

"I'm sorry."

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