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"That will beto choose for Ellie, too? For Chris and Kincaid? For Jayden? For all the other children?"
Closing his eyes, he tipped his head back and spoke to the night sky "Iwill notleave you here" He lowered his gaze to hers "I refuse If you won’t coain"
"No" The shock rippled across her face "No, To you," he repeated "You’re not the only one who gets to choose Now, you either walk out of here with us, toood-bye to Ellie and Chris Period"
Her ash over her chin "To this harder for me?"
"You don’t think this is hard onto protect you?"
"And don’t you see that I love you?" he shouted To hell with this He gathered her in his ar on to soet away But she didn’t, although she was crying, wide-eyed and silent, her tears streaht
"Alex" And then he did what he’d ached to do for weeks: skimmed hair from her face, the better to see and touch and memorize every inch, each feature, frole of that stubborn jaw "Alex, I don’t care that you have cancer I don’t care if all or part of that cancer is a monster I care about you, and I have walked, alone, for a very long tihanistan, and I did it in the Waucaht have walked until I couldn’t anymore if we hadn’t found each other But we did, and I a alone Please, Alex, please ith h to walk out of here with hosts live here Co hand to her ot here"
"Me, too," he said "Just in a different way"
"But what if I’er, and I get sick again? It’s already bad enough to have a monster What if the cancer’s not all monster? What if it’s also cancer? I don’t kno much time we’ll have"
"Join the rest of the huh−and that loosened a terrible knot in his chest Yes, God, yes, please do this forabout which I am absolutely certain, is that I love you Walk with me, Alex Walk withher skin and wet salt--"and tomorrow"--and then he brushed her lips with his and felt theh in his mouth
"Walk withas we have"
What happened next was for theed her awake For a second, she wondered if it had been a drea Then she inhaled musk and sweet smoke and spice and Tom--To She eased her head until she couldthe tent A hand on her sto his hair
Her eyes drifted over his face There’d been this science fiction show her dad loved, pretty old, not Star Trek but so about a space station, and there was a number in the titlesix? No, five Anyway, there were these funky aliens with their funky rituals One was to watch a beloved as he slept, because that hen all the masks fell away and you saw a person for what he was Sounded pretty silly And yetTo well, was as he always had been: steady and sure, brave and stubborn Soh There was no difference, although--
Wait a second She resisted the urge to bolt upright She closed her eyes, opened the, and there was--
You watch Easing a hand froer It’s a crazy hallucination or so, she watched as the tip of her finger rolled out of the grainy darkness--and became visible Juht seeping through a thin sealitter over Toood hard stare as if expecting a se of luminous paint to show itself Of course, there was none Still careful not to wake hi--she tipped her head all the way back until she could see through that seah to the other side
Because the glow through the seaht
She heard her breath leave in a sudden rush, taking a s it over before carefully oozing fro Tom’s hand slip from her skin Thank God, she had the side with the zip It took her another few seconds to work into her parka Griainst her feet, she ainst the slight sss as she worked the zipper Then she ducked out of the tent--and stopped dead<ins class="adsbygoogle" style="display:block" data-ad-client="ca-pub-7451196230453695" data-ad-slot="9930101810" data-ad-format="auto" data-full-width-responsive="true"></ins>