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He was breathing heavily from the effort of the hike up the o for escape Especially in thesomeone else up there were sli she’d heard hi she hadn’t

Man, she was pretty Leaning back against a huge granite boulder that seeiant, she held a thick book in her lap She turned a page, her green eyes following the words She earing a black T-shirt and a pair of worn jeans, sneakers that looked a hundred years old Her short blond hair shifted in the wind, and she appeared the very definition of peace and coed in the world that had existed before everything was scorched

Mark had always felt like she was his as a simple matter of the situation Pretty much everyone else she’d ever known had died; he was a scrap left over for her to take, the alternative to being forever alone But he gladly played his part, even considered himself lucky--he didn’t knohat he’d do without her

"This book would be sohtest hint of a se and continued to read

"It’s just me," he said Half of what he said around her still ca duhed and finally looked up at hiot here! I was just about ready to start talking tosince before dawn"

He walked over and plopped down on the ground beside her They hugged, tight and war up

He pulled back and looked at her, not caring about the goofy grin that was most likely plastered across his face "You knohat?"

"What?" she asked

"Today is going to be a perfect, perfect day"

Trina smiled and the waters of the strea

CHAPTER 2

"I haven’t had a perfect day since I turned sixteen," Trina said as she thue and placed the book by her side "Three days later and you and I were running for our lives through a tunnel that was hotter than the sun"

"Good tiainst the sas in front of hilance "My birthday party or the sun flares?"

"Neither You liked that idiot John Stidhauilty look flashed across her face "Uo"

"It took half the world being wiped out for you to finally notice me" Mark s--even to joke about--and a dark cloud was fore the subject"

"I vote for that" She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the stone "I don’t want to think about that stuff for one h she couldn’t see He’d suddenly lost any desire to talk, and his plans for a perfect day washed aith the streao, not even for a half hour They always had to rush back in, bringing all the horror

"You okay?" Trina asked She reached out and grabbed his hand, but Mark pulled it away, knowing it was all sweaty

"Yeah, I’ taking us back I could be perfectly happy in this place if we could just forget Things are getting better We just need to … let it go!" He aler was directed He just hated the things in his head The ies The sounds The sain, and this tiet back down there" He always did this When the memories came, he always slipped into businessyour brain It was the only thing that helped "I’m sure Alec and Lana have about forty jobs for us"

"That have to be done today," Trina added "Today! Or the world will end!"

She ss up At least a little

"You can readbook later" He cli with hi for the e they called hooing to the Central Shack Rotting undergrowth, cookingthat defined the world after the sun flares Not unpleasant, really, just haunting

He and Trina wound their way past the crooked and sees of the settles on this side of the camp had been put up in the early months, before they’d found people who’d been architects and contractors and put thee Huts made of tree trunks and aps for s and oddly shaped doorways In soround, the bottoether to cover it when the rains ca skyscrapers and concrete landscape of where he’d grown up

Alec greeted Mark and Trina with a grunt when they walked through the lopsided doorway in the Central Shack’s log structure Before they could say hello, Lana ca briskly up to thehtly into a bun, she’d been a nurse in the arer than Alec, but older than Mark’s parents--she and Alec had been together when Mark had met them in the tunnels belo York City Back then, they’d both worked for the defense depart of soed

"And where have you two been?" Lana asked when she came to a stop just a few inches from Mark’s face "We were supposed to start at dawn today, head out to the southern valley and scout for another branch location A few et snippy"

"Good ," Mark said in response "You seem chipper today"

She set straight to business sole rooe? Yeah, you’re right"