Scott to see Cuellar.
He’s climbed atop what’s left of the wavering barricade. Sitting up there, watching us leave, waiting for it. Making sure we’re safe.
Annie is crying.
“I’ll never forget you!” she yells to him.
Cuellar holds up a hand, puts two fingers to his lips, then holds the fingers out to us.
He lets himself fall, headfirst, off the barricade and over the guardrail.
Annie sobs as Hunter pulls the door closed behind us with a resounding bang.
33
Annie hides her face in her hands, not trying to stifle her tears so much as abandoning herself to them.
Simon touches her shoulder gently, and she turns to him, pressing into his consoling hug.
“Thank you, June,” Blair says. “For coming to get me.”
She’s looking at me with big eyes, and I feel a self-deprecating grimace crawl across my face.
It was all for nothing. I might have saved us temporarily, but now we’re trapped, zombies behind us, zombies below us, and there’s literally nothing else we can do. Nowhere else to go.
If we leave, we’ll just lose more people. And what would we even leave to do? All our plans are for nothing.
“You’re welcome,” I tell her anyway. “Wish I could have done more.”
Linus and Mia. Janet and Cuellar. And Scott. All gone.
Blair looks like she wants to say something more, to argue, or tell me it’s not my fault, and honestly, I don’t have the heart for any more reassurance in this moment.
I give her an apologetic smile that I hope she understands, that I’m not trying to cut her off, I just can’t, I really can’t, in this moment, I can’t think about it, can’t replay what happened to exonerate myself, I can’t. I need a minute to sit with it, literally.
I walk over to a cushioned folding chair, lying where the back row should be, knocked onto its side. I pick it up, set it back on its feet, and collapse into it.
I hear murmuring behind me, the others discussing, perhaps, what we do now, if anything, when the fact of the matter is we’re trapped. Boxed in. There’s nothing left to do.
The roof access, if there is one, isn’t here. Isn’t in the balcony.
There are zombies literally everywhere but this one balcony space.
A presence approaches me, and I know without looking who it will be, then confirmation as I smell her lovely, familiar scent. She still smells like fresh apples.
Imani turns another chair onto its legs and sits next to me.
Our arms brush.
She understands my need to be silent. Is there anything as pure and consoling as a friend sitting with you silently? Sharing your grief?
No. There isn’t. I’m sad to say I know that now, empirically.
Time passes, maybe just a few minutes, maybe a half hour. I don’t know and I don’t care. I feel untethered from everything, lost, until Imani’s voice calls me back.
“I love you,” she says.
She turns that beautiful, wistful smile to me. A smile that communicates that nothing has changed with us. With our friendship. That it’s steadfast, like a compass point. Like her ability to always find our way forward.
“I love you, too,” I tell her.
Another chair gets placed on the other side of me. Siggy sits and presses into my space, the three of us huddled together like kittens in a basket.
“I’m proud of us,” Siggy says. “I’m proud of you, Imani. I’m proud of you, June.”
Siggy’s blue eyes shine with tears, but she doesn’t look away. She doesn’t flinch or blink.
And she doesn’t crack a joke.
“I’m proud of us, too,” I reply. “I’m proud of you, Siggy.”
Imani leans around me. “Yeah. You didn’t even faint or get nauseous once, Siggy. When you fought them.”
Siggy sits up straighter, the praise making her grow from within.
“I’m still squeamish,” she says. “I’ll probably throw up later.”
“That’s okay,” I tell her. “You’ve earned it.”