A World Apart

Chapter One

Chapter One

Stella

The water around me has turned red. I watch as gentle waves lap against my body and leech the blood from my clothing. The ring circling my waist is a deep crimson, fanning out into a lighter pink and then diluting into nothing. Spending a day at the beach is something I once looked forward to. Lying on a bed of sand, roasting beneath the sun before cooling off in the ocean. But the water which was once refreshing is now uncomfortable and cold.

I look over to Logan. He's standing in his own ring of blood, scrubbing it out of his shirt. I splash water at him, hoping it will elicit a reaction. Splash me back, at least. But he ignores me completely. He's become distant and quiet since he found out Rocket died. I can't imagine how he would react if he found out I'm the reason she's dead. That I could have saved her but instead I let her die.

The thought makes me shiver, and I turn my attention towards washing the blood out of my hair before guilt overcomes me completely. Once all the dried clumps have been scraped off, the salt water begins to sting. The gash along my hairline burns the most, but the back of my head is also throbbing painfully. I'm still recovering from the concussion Peter gave me. My thoughts come slowly and tangled together. It's an effort to sort them out, so I try to keep things as simple as possible.

We're at the coast. Joey and the others from the school have gone to Canada, where we will meet them after I find Max.

Max. . . Is he even alive? Has this all been for nothing? I stop that train of thought before it takes me somewhere I don't want to go. There's only one way to find out if Max is still alive, and that's finding him.

Once my clothes have stopped turning the water red, I make my way back to the beach where Maisie and Gale are waiting for us. The sun is so hot it'll only take minutes before I'm dry. While I wait, I sit down next to Maisie. She's playing with the sand, trying to make castles. Gale stands beside us, cleaning his glasses with the tail of his shirt as he looks out at the horizon.

It's hard not to despise them. With him a coward and her a lunatic, there's no reason for either of them to be alive, to have survived up to this point when other people, better people, are dead. But hating them won't change anything, so for the most part I just try and pretend like they aren't here. A difficult task considering neither of them can stay quiet for long.

"Can we sleep in here for a night?" Maisie asks, pointing to the mound of sand she's put together. Gale looks down at her.

"N-no, I don't think so," he says.

"Is it not big enough? I can add a backyard," Maisie says.

I tune them out and focus instead on forming a plan. We've reached the coast. That was the main hurdle. We're somewhere between Los Angeles and San Fransisco. Now all we need to do is make our way up. Stick to the beaches and follow the coastline. Since we have a car it shouldn't take long for us to get there. I could be with Max by tomorrow.

If he isn't dead.

Again, that thought is smothered. As long as nothing goes wrong, things should be simple. Get in the car and drive straight up. Years of being anxious have taught me that things won't go this smoothly. But a part of me can't help being hopeful. As long as Logan can hold out for a little while longer, then I can see no reason as to why things shouldn't go as planned. We haven't even come across any infected since we left Las Vegas. And if that's a testament to anything, it's a sign that things should be smooth sailing from here on out.

By the time Logan leaves the water and joins us on the sand, I'm almost dried and it's clear that Maisie has become restless. She's abandoned her project of building us a castle to sleep in for the night and is instead shifting around anxiously.