“I need a break.” Cassie announces, and pushes herself out of the chair. She heads straight for the door, and I follow close behind her. Neither of us say anything as we head up the stairs and onto the roof of Silver’s.

  Cassie leans against the railing and looks through the dome and into the endless desert.

  “You didn’t have to share.” I say, joining beside her. “But thank you for doing so.”

  “Someone needs to remember them.” She shakes her head and lets out a shaky sigh. The two of us stay quiet, just feeling the wind and the heat from the afternoon sun. “I hope Daisy is alright.”

  “The girl we helped in the underground city? Me too.”

  “We should check. As soon as you figure out if your idea to join us in the field will work, we should go.”

  “I actually already sent a caravan that way.” I admit. “Just to check on them, and to offer them to come live here, in safety.”

  “Really?” Cassie’s eyes shine with both excitement and the remnants of her tears. “Any news?”

  “Nothing yet, but it’s a far drive. I’m hoping they’ll be back in the next few weeks.”

  “Tell me as soon as you hear something.” She stresses. “Why didn’t you tell me about it?”

  “I wanted to surprise you with something nice.” I answer. “And I was afraid they might come back with bad news.”

  “Don’t try to protect me. I’ve lost enough people to know how to handle it.”

  “I know. I should have thought about it more, I think it also slipped my mind with everything that’s been happening.”

  “Look, I’m not mad, and I know you’re doing a fuckload. Just try not to let it happen again. Anything else you’re hiding from me while we’re up here?”

  My immediate reaction is to say no, of course not. I should make sure that’s true though. I take a minute to go through every in-progress project I have. Oh, right, there is one thing she doesn’t know. Something I can’t tell her the answer to.

  “I know where Ivy gets those little figurines she gives you.”

  “You what?” She asks, stunned.

  “C-1 overheard her and Vince talking about it once. I didn’t mean to snoop, but I can’t just choose to forget it.”

  “I knew he knew! That fucker!”

  “I don’t think I can tell you though.”

  “Yeah, for sure. She’d be pissed.” She turns her head away from me to avoid gaining anything from my face. “She has to make them in batches, carry them around all the time, and just give them to me when it’s funniest. There’s no other answer.”

  I don’t say anything. She’s right, but I can’t give her any hints that she’s right.

  “Come on, let’s get back to everyone.” She takes my hand and heads towards the door.

  “You want to keep going tonight?”

  “Yeah. I just got in my own head. I want to keep going.”

  I check our living room, and find everyone still there, talking idly amongst themselves. I connect to the speaker.

  “We’re coming back.”

  Ivy just smiles, satisfied in being right yet again.

  The two of us take our place in the living room, surrounded by our family, and Cassie begins her story once again.

  I woke up in Silver’s lap, staring at the ceiling of the car. Vince was driving, his blood still dripping into my arm.

  Silver said something, but it was too dull to understand. Their words were drowned out by blood pounding in my ears, and this fucking ringing. It kept me up until I got my ears replaced.

  I tried to ask where we were, but it just came out as a small squeak. It all hit me at the same time, everything that happened. That everyone I knew was dead. That I was stuck with these strange people.

  I started to cry, to fight. I reached for my knife, and found nothing. I weakly pounded on Silver’s vest.

  They let it happen. They just took the little energy I could muster. I could only keep it up for a couple seconds before I got light headed. I went mostly limp, trying desperately to stop my tears.

  Silver reached for their tablet and held it up in front of me, displaying text.

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  “Can you read?” They asked.

  I could barely even nod.

  “Good, that makes things easier.” The words changed instantly, without them even touching it. “What’s your name?”

  “Cassandra.” It was interesting. I could hear my own words, even if my voice sounded weird, but barely anything else.

  “Good. You’re safe, and you’re going to be alright.”

  “Where- Where’s Dad?”

  Silver paused for a moment before saying anything.

  “I’m going to treat you like an adult. I'm sorry but there weren’t any other survivors, and honestly, I’m surprised you’re not dead too.”

  I found more energy to cry after that. I can't honestly say I was surprised by the news but I was hopeful.

  “We're going to help you out. You're injured but that's temporary. We’ll get you fixed up and we'll get some revenge, all right? The people responsible for what happened are already dead, but we’ll find anyone else who was with them.”

  It was only then that I realized how bad of a state I was in. I reached up to my ear, and felt wet cotton. I still had pain just below my waist. I reached down and found only open air.

  I could still feel my legs. I could try and move them and the ghosts of them would feel how they should. They would feel like they're there. Silver had to grab my hand to stop me from touching my stumps

  “Things are still pretty fragile down there, try not to touch anything. You don't want to reopen any wounds.”

  They couldn't stop me. I touched the bandages and pulled up my hand only to see them coated in red, the same red that my mom bled.

  I'm sure I screamed.

  "You definitely did.” Vince adds. “And it took a lot to hide how much it was breaking my heart.”

  “It's all right. We can fix that." Silver reassured me. "I've seen people recover from worse. Just give me a week, we still have some work we need to do.”

  I didn't know what they were talking about, although I figured it out quickly. They couldn't get back to Vegas before the next storm hit. And I'm sure Mara would have attacked if Silver stopped helping. They couldn't take that risk, not when I was injured. So instead they dragged a half-dead kid up and down the canyon fighting whenever we came across AI.

  I'm sure that fucked me up in all sorts of ways.

  Silver stayed with me in the car while Vince and Mara did their work. I was lucky I couldn't hear the gunshots, but a few times stray shrapnel hit the car. I freaked out every time.

  Silver was distant every time they fought. Doing some bullshit in the Digital I guess.

  After a day of fighting, we found a crevice to hide out in. Silver and I stayed in the car the first night, and I spent a lot of time talking with them.

  “I want to go home.” I said.

  “You really don't and it's no place for a kid.”

  “You said you were going to treat me like an adult.”

  “It's no place for an adult either. I can go in if you want something to remember everyone by though.”

  “I promised my dad I would take care of his knife. And I want my books.”

  “If you want to read, I have a friend with some.” Silver's tablet shifted as soon as I finished, pulling up endless text.

  I snatched the tablet out of their hands with a speed that surprised even myself. I got lost in that book, managed to forget my worries for a few minutes.

  I just wouldn't stop. Silver tried to offer me dinner, reminding me to drink, reminding me I needed medicine. But the moment I stopped reading, reality pressed on me again, and the only place I could hide was in fiction.

  Even when exhaustion tried to take me, the tablet would slip out of my hands. I'd jolt and dive right back in before I could think.

  Silver eventually thought of a solution. I could hear things if they were loud enough. They had a radio headset that was way too big for me. But with that at max volume, I could just about make out their gentle words.

  They read me to sleep.

  Or at least, until the nightmares started. They were fucking awful. Pretty sure it was a year until I got a full night of uninterrupted sleep. Silver was always there though.

  The next day was more of the same, but that night Silver and I took a car a little ways up the canyon.

  They made me cover my eyes before we made it to my old village.

  I still regret peeking.

  I saw raids before then of course. I'd seen the aftermath of raiders taking a neighbor’s life. But that? It was something else.

  The AI didn't want the place. They didn't need the place. They just wanted people dead, and explosions are real fucking good at that.

  I could walk you through every part of that bloodbath. I could paint every pool of blood seeping into the sand. Every scrap of discarded cloth, blown off my friends and families. Every piece of brain matter painting the walls. Every bullet hole. Every dead body spread across the desert. Every piece of shrapnel lodged in them and the walls. Every casing left behind.

  Dad was in the bunker, slumped against the wall, visible clearly through the door. His armor was holding his ruined body together. From the robot bodies inside? He took two of the fuckers with him.

  Mom had been tossed off the railing where she laid, likely by the same explosion that took my legs and blew out my eardrums. Her dress, always spotless, was utterly ruined. She never left so much as a stain on it for more than a few seconds.

  Silver picked me up, not judging me for looking. We walked over to the edge of the canyon, surrounded by a little bit of cover.

  Do you know how fucked it is to see fragments of your own shredded legs sitting in a pool of your own blood? Ones that had been out in the sun, baking for a day?

  My knife was beside them, embedded hilt-deep in the sand.

  Silver grabbed it and handed it to me. I slid it into its sheath, pulled that off my hip, and clutched it tight.

  They forced the tablet in front of me with a simple question.

  “Which one's your house?”

  I pointed up the wall, and they set off. They let themself in, and followed my gaze to my room.

  We didn't have many books. Those things are worth more than gold to the right person. But we grabbed what I had and headed back outside.

  We buried my parents before we left. I was so drained, I didn't even care about my neighbors.

  We left that place behind, and joined back up with Vince and The Bitch.

  We stayed in the canyon for another few days, until the end of the next storm. The whole time, Silver never took their eyes off me. Never slept, never forgot my meds, never forgot to make me eat and drink. Always reacted instantly when I needed medical attention, which was pretty often. I took a lot of Vince's blood over those few days. I was still convinced they were an angel.

  Finally, after the storm broke, we headed back to Vegas.

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