Resistance

Chapter Nineteen

Nineteen

          Losing someone invokes the kind of grief that makes you want to curl up on the ground and sob until death finally comes to consume you. But in this case, when we lost Emily, it’s different. None of us other than Cole understand how to feel.

            Do we cry for someone we lost? In reality, Emily is still alive, living as a zombie.

            I let my hand hang out the window of the passenger seat and let the wind blow through the spaces between my fingers.

            In Cole’s eyes, she’s dead. At least, that’s what I’ve been assuming. How do you scale a loss of someone who is still moving and groaning? Are they still gone, or do you mourn the soul that is no longer there?

            Cole decided to leave Emily alive and loosened the fence so that if she really wanted to get out, she could. Of course we were already gone before we could see what she decided. Cole took the driver’s seat of the Hummer and started driving, not waking anyone up. Eventually they asked what was going on and why we had left, but Cole just said that we left her.

            Some part of me wanted to have a funeral, but what’s a grave with a body that is still moving?

            When we left the gas station, Cole turned to me, and made me make a promise. “If anything happens to me, Sloane,” he said, “I want you to come back here and find her. If I go, I want you to bring her to me. I don’t want to die without her up there with me.”

            I made the promise, but on the inside, I don’t think I’ll be ever to keep it.

            The drive is strangely quiet with the absence of Emily. If anyone speaks about her, we don’t address her by name. But most of the time, we just stay silent. Cole has finished up his crying; now opting for angry silence. Jack constantly looks as white as ghost and busies himself with Bullet or the toddler. Jagger watches me with curious eyes, knowing something’s changed, but he doesn’t confront me or speak.

            I still don’t know how I feel about him. In my past, he had a place in my heart. Now, in the present, I think he does, but it’s a different kind of presence. I still don’t have a name for it.

            I turn my thoughts to the future and wonder what’s going to happen when he get to Fort Saunders. Is it going to be safe? Will we be able to live there? Do they have food, clothes, everything we need to survive? More importantly, do they have room for us there?

            I debate asking these questions out loud but stop myself before I part my lips. Breaking the silence is not something I want to be the one to do.

            I lean my head against the seat and stare out the window, moving my hand different ways to catch the wind. For a while this entertains me, until the eyes looking at me from the backseat become too much. It’s like I’m a lab rat being constantly watched and observed. I can’t stand it anymore.