Page 12 of Evolved

It’s just a boring room now, mundane compared to the rest of the building—white walls, Federal moldings, an Aubusson carpet, an unlit crystal chandelier, a pair of wingback chairs the color of a fire truck, close to the kitchen—but we’ve shoved the furniture around, converted sofas into beds, and pulled the drapes closed tight, even added extra quilts to cover them, piled books in corners, coiled wires to run to the generator to keep things charged.

After Gina fell ill to avoid infection, back when the power went out and fuel was running out for the generator, so we decided to pare power usage down to only the strict necessities, we started sleeping in here.

And, thinking like Knox for the moment, I realize it’s also close to several exits.

It was a good choice.

Smart man.

Let’s build a future together,he wrote.

It’s a good slogan.

And I think about our interplay afterwards.

Were we flirting in a city of dead bodies?

Is that wrong?

Does it even matter? A certain nihilism has overtaken me since the moment Gina fell sick. And immediately, it pushes the thought further. If I’m compiling a list of wrongs—is it wrong to encourage people to join us? To manipulate them with words?

As if he heard the direction of my thoughts, he rounds the corner silently, stopping when he sees me still awake. “All locked up. Motion sensors on.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

His brows rise in silent question at my pensive tone.

“You said I could say anything. And it goes nowhere?”

He crosses the room slowly and sits in the chair opposite me. “Secrets out of Viola Wagner’s granddaughter might get me some serious cash if I sold them to the right reporter …” He cocks a shoulder, making his shirt cling to the swell of muscle there, and reaches into his pack to dig around. “They’re all dead though so I guess I can’t. Cookie?”

He holds a box toward me.

“Too soon to joke about the end of the free press. Where do you keep getting cookies?”

“Our friendship hasn’t plunged those depths. Yet.” He tosses the box at me, and it lands in my lap, making me flinch. “Shoot, little Wagner.”

“Little Wagner?” I toy with the flap on the cookie box—salted caramel.

“Wagner the Younger? Wagner the Blonde?”

“I’m a Viking?” I slip open the flap on the cookie box.

“You look like one.” He doesn’t embellish. He doesn’t need to. I never thought of myself that way, but it’s apt.

Taking another glance at Gran to confirm she’s still snoring, which she is, I say the thing that’s been weighing on me. “I’m afraid we’re going to invite people to join us, only for them to die. And every time I try to write something, I wonder who will come.Someone awful? Someone who will kill us? Because they can. Anyone can do anything now, and there’s no one to stop it. Or worse, will they come here and die like Gina? Sent off on some mission of Gran’s. So that’s why I can’t write. Because I don’t know if I trust her anymore. What if she sends you off next? Or me? Or what if people refuse to follow her? During the war, they wanted a strong man to lead us. Misogynistic maybe, but it was still what they wanted. What if that’s true again?”

I take a morose bite of the cookie.

He’s quiet for a long time, long enough I start to worry if I said too much.

Finally, he says, “You’ll write when you’re ready.”

“I’m not so sure. Everything I knew about how to win trust in speeches was designed for a different world entirely.” I hand him the cookie box.

He takes it, slides one out carefully. “You’ll evolve. Anything else to say?”

“It felt like too much.”

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