Fed

Six: Rick

It took five and a half months for the CDC to release their ashes. Shaun’s would normally have taken longer, and Georgia’s would normally have been released almost immediately, but there are protocols for suicides, and they kept her body for a lot longer than any of us were expecting. When we finally got the notice that she was going to be released, Dr. Wynne petitioned his superiors to release Shaun’s ashes at the same time, so that we could bury them together.

Georgia kept her word. She’d always said that she didn’t want to live in a world without Shaun, and she didn’t. A week after we broke the story of Tate’s actions, she returned to the house she shared with her family, locked herself in the bathroom, and slit her wrists in the bathtub. No one was hurt when she reanimated, and the house security system kept her from ever leaving the room. The Masons have threatened to sue the site three times for the cost of cleaning up the mess she made. We’re ignoring them.

Mahir is in charge now, of everything. I do what he tells me, I try to keep the Newsies in line, and I drink more than is strictly good for me—but there’s no one to tell me not to, so why does it matter? We all died on that campaign trail. One way or another, we all died there.

Shaun’s ashes arrived the day before the funeral. I wouldn’t have scheduled the funeral at all, but once Georgia was released, we had to make plans for interment, and this was the only day Senator Ryman could make it. He’d asked us to hold the service when he could attend, if possible. I might still have put it off, except for the part where our team couldn’t come out of the field if the Senator—who was fighting, and apparently winning, an increasingly vicious battle for his political position—was still out there. Magdalene, Becks, and Alaric deserved their chance to say goodbye to the Masons.

Mahir’s flight from London landed at eleven the day of the funeral. I drove to the passenger collection zone at the edge of the airport’s quarantine border, hoping I’d be able to pick him out of the crowd. I didn’t really need to worry. His plane had been almost empty, and I would’ve known him any-where. He looked as lost as I did.

“Rick,” he said, and took my hand. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. I just wish it could have been under better circumstances.”

“So do I,” I said, and led him to the car.

“What news?” Mahir asked, as we pulled onto the freeway. “I’ve been incommunicado for hours. Blasted flight.”

“Senator Ryman’s plane touched down about the same time yours did. They’ll be meeting us at the funeral home. Emily couldn’t make it, but she sends her regrets.”

“And how are you?”

He meant “Are you sober?”, and since I was driving, I couldn’t fault him for asking the question. “I’m getting by,” I said.

“Fair enough,” he said, and we drove the rest of the way without saying anything else. There was nothing else to say.

The parking lot of the funeral home was choked with cars. Packing the staff of multiple blog sites and a Presidential campaign, as well as friends and family, into a single building will do that sort of thing. I pulled into the last parking slot reserved in the “family” section of the lot. Today, we were family. We were the only family they had left in the world—the only family that mattered.

“Here we are,” I said, unlocking the door. I paused, then, looking to Mahir, and asked the one question I needed answered more than anything else: “Was it worth it?”

“No,” said Mahir quietly. “And yet… what is?”

The Masons did what they knew and loved best, and they died for it. Not before Shaun saved her one last time; not before Georgia found her truth.

Maybe that was enough. Maybe this was all over.

And maybe it didn’t matter, because our story ended with a razorblade and a bathtub full of water, and a girl who never knew how to cry weeping in the only way she knew how. Even if this wasn’t over, someone else was going to have to save the world next time.

We were done.

Rise up while you can.