Page 65 of Mayflower

Tsariuk’s container arrives later the same day. In the next several days, its contents are distributed through the bungalows, the hospital, and the Center. Ayana residents get a mass text with instructions and general info. A barge comes to Zion and parks off the shore. A number of boats go back and forth, bringing dry supplies and emergency medication that is stored in the Center’s basement.

It’s a throwback to the Cold War, or what we learned about it from history books. When we gather at Kai and Callie’s for dinner, Kai takes me out to the patio for a smoke.

He leans with his forearms on the railing, puffing on his cigarette as he studies me with a crooked smile.

“What’s up?” I ask him.

He looks away, smiling. “Maddy is a gem,” he says.

Maddy sure is, but no one besides Archer ever commented on my relationship with her. In public, I still feel like an imposter around her, like people think I’m forcing her to be with me.

His words make me smile. “She is. She is amazing.”

Pretty sure Kai hasn’t heard many compliments coming out of my mouth, because he laughs brightly.

“What?” I chuckle.

“Not sure I ever saw you smile.”

“Yeah, well…”

“Maddy can do that.”

“Maddy can do a lot of things.”

Kai’s cheerfulness fades really quickly though.

“I’m not involved in all that’s going on at the Center. But I think Archer is stressed out,” he says. “I think he’s scared for this island. Tell me we are not going to have another nuclear war.”

I’m not an expert in predicting the future. “Not nuclear. But a war? I think so. We need to be prepared. Just in case.”

“Just in case, yeah?” He huffs grimly. “Papa Tsariuk is ready to show off his military power, I guess.”

“Tsariuk is interested in protecting this island. Trust me.”

“And you trust him?”

“Maddy does. And I trust her.”

He nods, smoking in silence before he asks, “What do you think? You think it will all turn out okay?”

I don’t answer. I want to tell him we should all pray for that. But prayers only work when you believe in them. And the Change ruined that for us.

22

RAVEN

The moon sheds a faint light into my bedroom as I lie staring at the ceiling. Maddy cuddles up to me.

This place smells like her—her cooking, perfume, soaps. It smells like Sonny and his sweaty clothes and damp hair and ocean water. Before, my bungalow was just a house. To sleep in, to eat, to find solace. Now, it feels like home, and I’m wondering, just like every night when I fall asleep next to Maddy, “How is this my life?”

She kicked off the sheet and has her leg over my thighs, her body flawless next to my battered and scarred one.

I study her nakedness, the way the sheet is jammed between her legs, up between her thighs, so close to the split of her buttocks.

She murmurs in her sleep and moves her knee up, bumping into my cock and over it to my abdomen.

I feel myself growing hard.

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