Page 98 of Devotion

Gabriel is waiting by the passenger door when I walk down to the curb. I turn around once to wave at my family gathered in the doorway before he helps me into the seat.

He strides quickly to the driver’s side and gets in behind the wheel. Glances over at me. “You sure about this?”

There’s no hesitation in my heart at all. “I’m sure. I told you before—I’m your partner forever.”

23

The drive takes mostof the day. Gabriel obviously knows the way. He explains that until this year, he went to visit his family three or four times each year, so he’s made this trip many times.

The roads outside Saint Louis are all in good condition because the government there maintains them, but after an hour or so, their condition significantly deteriorates. Eventually the pavement is so crumbled and rocky that he pulls off the roadway completely and drives on the scraggly grass alongside it.

We stop midmorning to stretch our legs, go to the bathroom, and eat a snack from the provisions Gabriel packed for the trip. Then we get back in the vehicle and start driving again.

As we travel, we talk. He tells me about his hometown—his father was the mayor until Gabriel was ten. Then his dad resigned for an easier position supervising perimeter guards. His younger sister is married with three children. She must have married young because her eldest daughter got married last year. The wedding was the last time Gabriel visited them before he moved to the Capital.

The region is safe enough, he explains, that it’s not necessary to live behind walls. His parents moved to a lake cottage near their town ten years ago, declaring themselves retired.

His mother is in her early sixties, his father in his early seventies. There are very few people as old as seventy in the Central Cities—my grandfather has always been one of the oldest people I know—but Gabriel says his father is still in good health and that age isn’t so unusual in their region.

He asks if I’d rather stay with his parents when we get there or ask for a room in the town’s guesthouse. Either would be fine, he tells me gravely. He wants me to choose what would make me most comfortable.

I have no idea why we’d stay anywhere except with his family, and I say that. If things are awkward for some reason, we can reconsider at a later point.

Gabriel agrees. He says his parents are going to love me.

And it’s then—only then—that I start to get nervous.

Because it’s suddenly become real to me. In a few hours, I’m going to meet Gabriel’s parents. He didn’t spring out of the ground fully formed. He was a baby. A little boy. A supersmart and likely opinionated teenager. These people have known and loved him all forty years of his life.

My claim on him is next to nothing compared to that.

What if they don’t like me? What if they don’t understand or respect the job I used to have? What if they’re ashamed of the lifestyle I led Gabriel into? What if they judge me for the choices I’ve made?

I do my best to hide it because Gabriel has been so happy all day, relaxed and warm and laughing and talkative and affectionate.

Happy.

I don’t want to bring him down with my silly, nonsensical insecurities.

There’s a lot of wide-open land for two-thirds of the journey, the hills and pastures broken by the occasional farming community. But eventually we reach an area that’s clearly been more developed. There are a number of towns in sight of our route. Most of them are walled like all the cities I’m familiar with, but they’re much smaller and have sprawling neighborhoods and farms outside the walls.

As the afternoon passes, the settlements get closer together. There are far more people in this area than I would have imagined. It’s not a city. Nothing close to a city. All the communities are small, and the individual houses have a lot of space around them.

But it’s not the wilderness like I’ve been told all my life.

This isn’t a wilderness at all.

It’s a thriving rural area with a good-sized population who all appear safe, secure, and content.

It’s surreal. Like something out of a dream. Or out of a pre-Fall novel. It’s hard to even wrap my mind around the fact that this is real.

“What do you think?” Gabriel asks after we’ve driven for thirty minutes in silence.

“About what?”

“About all this.” He gestures toward the outside. There’s a large farm in the distance, surrounded by a fortified wall. We’re close enough for me to see a sign with the name near the front gate.

NEW HAVEN FARM.

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