Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 104157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 521(@200wpm)___ 417(@250wpm)___ 347(@300wpm)
Once inside, I closed the door, sat at the computer system, and followed the same steps I had a million times—all but the final step, a phase I’d never entered until now.
I put in my credentials, clicked all the systems into place, pressed my thumb to the final fingerprint scan, and waited for the facial recognition software to identify and approve my face.
We got the green light.
“Now what?” Natalia asked.
“Now, we wait.”
I pulled up security drone feed to monitor the progress of Belmonte-Ruiz and any other faction dumb enough to join them. I wanted as many of these motherfuckers as I could get inside the walls before I hit the button.
Natalia stood behind me, her hand on my shoulder, as the footage filled the screen.
They’d broken through the gates. They flooded the town, teeming into the alleys, filling up the arteries of the Badlands like blood.
“They move like a swarm of lame bees,” Natalia muttered.
They drove tanks through abandoned homes, stores and marketplaces, and set fire to structures and farms.
Watching proved difficult. No matter my gratitude for the fact that every human life in my care except Natalia’s had made it out, a piece of history would die today.
I chose the present over the past, instead, and stood from the chair to find my true home in Natalia’s eyes. I pulled her into my arms. Her heart slammed against her chest. She was scared. I couldn’t blame her. I was more terrified than I’d ever been. If I’d miscalculated anything, if the button didn’t work, if these fuckers survived—then all of this could be for nothing. It could go fatally, irrevocably wrong.
I tilted Natalia’s chin up and pressed my lips to hers. “We were lucky to have you. You have been everything I could’ve ever hoped for—and so much more.”
She slid her arms around my neck, whispering. “I was only getting started. I’m sorry that . . .”
I put my forehead to hers. “What?”
“I’m so sorry you have to watch it all burn, and that your family has been displaced.” A frown tugged the corners of Natalia’s mouth. She thought of them during her own imminent end. It was sad to know there’d be no rebuilding this tightknit community exactly as it had been—or, most likely, at all. Most of them would never see one another again. “What you did for these people will never be forgotten,” she said, “no matter that only ashes will remain.”
“None of it means anything without them. Without you.” I thumbed the corner of her mouth. “I promised I’d follow you anywhere, and I would’ve, mariposa. I thought you were gone. Forever. And I was right behind you.”
She tightened her hold around my neck, rising onto the tips of her toes. “Now we’ll go together.”
As the horde closed in and more and more of the enemy flooded our home, I took a breath. “What was it like to die?”
She tilted her head as if remembering, then shook her head. “I didn’t like it.”
“You don’t say.” I smiled at her. “But I heard the drug was supposed to be pure bliss.”
“It’s far better to be with you,” she said thickly.
Both of our hearts were slamming now, but at least it was against the other’s chest. I cupped her cheek. “You will be. This is not an ending, but the start of an eternity together. No one else. Just you and me.”
“Just you and me,” she said, but with less hope in her tone than mine. “I should’ve told you about the baby the moment I suspected—but I wanted to be sure.” She reached into her neckline and pulled out the sonogram. “To show you this and watch your eyes light up.”
I took it as my jaw tingled with emotion. “How?”
“Max picked it up with the syringe.” Her voice faltered. “I’m sorry you didn’t get to experience the bliss of fatherhood, even for a little while.”
“I’m sorry it was taken from both of us.” I tucked the image in my jacket pocket and smoothed back her hair, falling more in love with her for how deeply she felt my pain. “You redeemed your child. Diego murdered our baby, and he paid the price.”
“We will carry the loss with us when we go.”
“And it is time to go,” I said. “Are you ready?”
She bit her bottom lip. “I’m scared.”
“I’ve got you. We fall together.”
“We fall together.” She nodded, running her hand along my jaw, her thumb over the hollow of my cheekbone, smoothing my eyebrows as if we had all the time in the world. “I’m ready.”
I focused on the beautiful violet eyes in front of me. I’d fallen for them at the gala when she’d looked back at me from behind her mask. I’d fought against it. I’d lost.
There was no question I’d won.
Nothing else mattered now. I already knew I wouldn’t stay here without her. She didn’t want that for herself, either. We’d leave this life together, and I couldn’t ask for more than that.