But Hana just bends her head, hiding her face from me.
Their living room smells like garlic and onion, maybe remnants from that night's dinner. I lean my shoulder into the white wall by the doorway. Hanging crookedly next to me is a picture of the family—Zeke as a toddler, Uriah as a baby, balancing on his mother's lap. Their father's face is pierced in several places, nose and ear and lip, but his wide, bright smile and dark complexion are more familiar to me, because he passed them both to his sons.
"He has been in a coma since then," I say. "And . . ."
"And he isn't going to wake up," Hana says, her voice strained. "That is what you came to tell us, right?"
"Yes," I say. "I came to collect you so that you can make a decision on his behalf."
"A decision?" Zeke says. "You mean, to unplug him or not?"
"Zeke," Hana says, and she shakes her head. He sinks back into the couch. The cushions seem to wrap around him.
"Of course we don't want to keep him alive that way," Hana says. "He would want to move on. But we would like to go see him."
I nod. "Of course. But there's something else I should say. The attack . . . it was a kind of uprising that involved some of the people from the place where we were staying. And I
participated in it."
I stare at the crack in the floorboards right in front of me, at the dust that has gathered there over time, and wait for a reaction, any reaction. What greets me is only silence.
"I didn't do what you asked me," I say to Zeke. "I didn't watch out for him the way I should have. And I'm sorry."
I chance a look at him, and he is just sitting still, staring at the empty vase on the coffee table. It is painted with faded pink roses.
"I think we need some time with this," Hana says. She clears her throat, but it doesn't help her tremulous voice.
"I wish I could give it to you," I say. "But we're going back to the compound very soon, and you have to come with us."
"All right," Hana says. "If you can wait outside, we will be there in five minutes."
The ride back to the compound is slow and dark. I watch the moon disappear and reappear behind the clouds as we bump over the ground. When we reach the outer limits of the city, it begins to snow again, large, light flakes that swirl in front of the headlights. I wonder if Tris is watching it sweep across the pavement and gather in piles by the airplanes. I wonder if she is living in a better world than the one I left, among people who no longer remember what it is to have pure genes.
Christina leans forward to whisper into my ear. "So you did it? It worked?"
I nod. In the rearview mirror I see her touch her face with both hands, grinning into her palms. I know how she feels: safe. We are all safe.
"Did you inoculate your family?" I say.
"Yep. We found them with the Allegiant, in the Hancock building," she says. "But the time for the reset has passed—it looks like Tris and Caleb stopped it."
Hana and Zeke murmur to each other on the way, marveling at the strange, dark world we move through. Amar gives the basic explanation as we go, looking back at them instead of the road far too often for my comfort. I try to ignore my surges of panic as he almost veers into streetlights or road barriers, and focus instead on the snow.
I have always hated the emptiness that winter brings, the blank landscape and the stark difference between sky and ground, the way it transforms trees into skeletons and the city into a wasteland. Maybe this winter I can be persuaded otherwise.
We drive past the fences and stop by the front doors, which are no longer manned by guards. We get out, and Zeke seizes his mother's hand to steady her as she shuffles through the snow. As we walk into the compound, I know for a fact that Caleb succeeded, because there is no one in sight. That can only mean that they have been reset, their memories forever altered.
"Where is everyone?" Amar says.
We walk through the abandoned security checkpoint without stopping. On the other side, I see Cara.