Sky on Fire

EPILOGUE

WE DESERVE A HAPPY ending. All of us do. And I think we’re going to get it. But I’m not exactly sure yet.

We’re lucky to be here in Quilchena. Yes, we sleep in rows on cots in giant tents. Yes, armed guards patrol the perimeter. And yes, we have next to no contact with the outside world. But some of the American containment camps are much worse.

We hear stories of refugees being locked in prisons and denied all rights. There are some crazy rumours floating around about medical experiments being performed on O types. The Canadians at least treat us like human beings. They’re polite and everything.

I feel bad for the poor Canadians. They had no idea what they were in for when they allowed refugees to be air-lifted here.

It turns out that the survivors of the Four Corners disaster, as they’re calling it on the news, are violent and unstable.

The first refugees they airlifted to Calgary and Vancouver started leaving the temporary housing and tearing through towns and cities – looting and rioting.

Now they have us all collected in containment camps and they’re negotiating with the American government to see what will happen to us. The Canadians should never have taken us in. Alex has a theory that they felt partially responsible for the chemical weapons programme at NORAD because it’s a joint venture between the US and Canada.

It’s one p.m., and normally at this time, all the refugees gather in the dining hall. After lunch, they let us watch TV for one hour. Any more than an hour, they’ve found that the refugees get too hostile and shaken up.

There are a few mini-tabs being passed around, but there’s less interest in them than you might think.

Alex got ahold of one and discovered that all the data’s gone. All our e-mails. Our photos. Texts. Contacts. Accounts. It’s all gone and we have no way to find our parents, because their accounts are gone, too.

It’s creepy being online – a few stupid sites are up, but mostly there are missing pages and endless redirects. It’s like the network has been struck with amnesia.

Alex has set up new accounts for us. If our parents are out there, they will find us. I have to believe that.

In the meantime, at two p.m., the guards post the most recent refugee listings and we all pour over the lists, searching for the names of the people we’ve lost.

They’re listed by zip code and then alphabetically.

I keep praying to see our parents: 80132 Grieder, James. Or 80132 Grieder, Leslie. But so far nothing.

No sign of Heyman, Lori, either. Or any of Astrid’s younger siblings.

Ulysses, incredibly, found his whole family. And they have agreed to legally adopt Max if his parents don’t show up. Max lives with them now and he loves it. Somehow, I feel certain that the Dominguez family will give him a more traditional and morally sound upbringing than Max’s biological parents.

They are in Tent G, which is all families with young children.

Mrs McKinley lives there with the twins. The scene when Captain McKinley brought Caroline and Henry to their mom was joyous and heartbreaking and made everything – everything – worth it.

(Astrid reminds me of it every time I wake up shouting in the night. I still see Payton’s face after I shot him. And the pallet loader guy I cut to pieces.)

Captain McKinley had to return to duty. Mrs McKinley took Chloe and Luna in out of the goodness of her heart. If we had to have Chloe with us in Tent J, I think I’d go nuts.

Mrs McKinley and the kids sometimes take Luna on rounds through the infirmary. Luna has taken to the role of therapy dog like a pro. When people hold our face-licking, tail-wagging Luna and hear the story of how she got rescued, all the way from Monument, it seems to give them hope. Luna has sort of become the Quilchena mascot and no one is more proud of that than Chloe, who grooms Luna incessantly and walks her about eight times a day.

Captain McKinley told us he saw Mrs Wooly at the Fort Lewis-McChord Air Force Base. Apparently when she saw him, she was so happy that he was alive and that we’d made it out safely that she first kissed him on the mouth and then insisted on buying him and everyone else in the canteen drinks all night long. She drank them all under the table, of course.

I can’t believe Mrs Wooly made it. Hearing about the moment when Ulysses spotted her at DIA is one of my favourite parts of the story. Captain McKinley says she’s trying to get leave to come and visit us.

Alex, Astrid, Sahalia, Niko, and I live in Tent J. Tent J is basically for orphans age 8–17, but since I get to be with Alex and Astrid and Niko, I don’t feel like an orphan at all.

Today we’re not at the listings. Today we’re having a party.

Mrs McKinley has made a picnic and requested permission for us all to go out on the community outdoor area on Hole 3. Everyone else is at the listings, so we have the whole green to ourselves.

It’s the twins’ birthday and they’re turning six.

It’s a beautiful day. There’s a pond on this hole – a water feature, I guess they call it. And behind it are trees blazing in gold and orange and chestnut brown. This is a very nice golf club here, that they’ve turned into a prison for us.

Mrs McKinley has laid out a bedsheet as a picnic blanket and has clearly been saving her food and bartering so there can be treats for the kids. There’s a bag of potato chips (everyone is careful to only take one or two) AND a bag of cheese doodles AND somehow, she’s wrangled a package of chocolate-covered doughnuts. Pretty impressive.

Caroline and Henry are playing with their present – a soccer ball. Ulysses and Chloe join and they start playing a little game with two of Ulysses’s older brothers serving as goalies. Luna is running and barking and generally getting in the way.

The grown-ups sit on the parched grass and watch the game.

This feels almost like real life again.

Max is watching from a very comfortable position on the generous lap of Mrs Dominguez. I can tell he’d like to join in, but his feet still aren’t a hundred percent yet. Mrs Dominguez takes him to the clinic and waits in the long queue with him every day so he can be seen. She’s been doing that with him for the two weeks since we got here.

Mrs Dominguez is combing Max’s hair with her fingers and that cowlick of his just springs up every time. I bet she never thought she’d be the mother of a towhead.

‘Where’d they get the ball, do you think?’ Astrid says as she comes to stand beside me.

She puts her arm around my waist and I draw her into me.

Think I’ve gotten used to having her as my girlfriend?

I haven’t.

She glows in the sun. I don’t know whether it’s the pregnancy or if it’s just that I love her so stupidly much, but every time she comes near me, I basically have to shade my eyes, she’s so bright and beautiful.

But I’m not so shy around her anymore, which is good, and I don’t try to pretend to be anything I’m not.

I figure she knows who I am by now.

‘The Captain must have smuggled it in,’ I say, nodding toward the ball. ‘No way Mrs McKinley could have bartered for it in here.’

Alex and Sahalia are sitting on the grass. They’re too far away for me to hear what they’re talking about, but Alex says something that makes Sahalia roll her eyes and punch him in the shoulder. Then they both laugh.

It’s weird. I don’t know what happened between them on the road. It’s not like they’re a couple, but they hang out almost every day. Sahalia watches Alex fix electronics that people bring to him and Alex hangs out while Sahalia roots through the charity bins for clothes. Her birthday’s coming up too and Alex has been bartering to get her a pair of black biker boots she’s coveting.

Right now Sahalia’s wearing white painter’s coveralls rolled up to the knee, with the sleeves cut off and a red bandanna tied around her waist.

She’s got flair, all right.

I feel Astrid go tense.

It’s Jake. Jake’s coming up the faded green hill with his dad.

He and his dad found each other the first day we arrived.

I’m jealous of him (because of his dad).

But that’s okay, because he’s jealous of me, too (because of Astrid).

We give each other a wide berth.

‘Hey, y’all,’ Jake calls out.

‘Uncle Jake! Uncle Jake!’ the kids screech and yell. They abandon their game and run to him, tackling him. They all roll down the hill together in a big dog pile.

(You’d think Max would be feeling left out, but no, he just buries himself deeper into Mrs Dominguez’s willing arms and lets himself be mothered and fussed over.)

‘Now, where’d I put that present?’ Jake says to the kids. He tickles Henry and then Caroline. “Is it under your neck? Maybe it’s here in your armpit!’ The kids are all laughing.

Jake pulls out a package of Gummi bears and the kids go nuts. Gummi bears were no big deal back at the Greenway, where we had dozens of bags of them, but now that they’re scarce, the kids covet them.

‘He’s doing better,’ Astrid says.

‘Yup,’ I say.

I don’t tell her what Alex told me – Jake is on antidepressants and seeing a counsellor.

Jake can tell her himself. They talk sometimes. She tries to explain why she chose me over him. He probably tries to persuade her to get back together with him.

But that’s not going to happen. Our plan is that the baby will call Jake ‘Daddy’ and will call me ‘Dean’ and that’s fine with me. I don’t need the title. I want the position.

‘Hey! Hey, everyone,’ Mrs McKinley sings. ‘Is everyone here?’

‘Where’s Niko?’ Astrid asks me.

‘Probably at the listings,’ I say.

Niko’s the one who’s doing the worst out of all of us. He wanders around, not really engaging with anyone. He’s not been able to find any word of anyone from his family.

And he’s still mourning Josie.

He sketches sometimes, but he won’t show anyone the drawings.

‘Gather around, please,’ Mrs McKinley calls to us.

Mrs McKinley has put two birthday candles in the centre of two of the tiny doughnuts. They share one thin paper plate.

Before she lights them, Mrs McKinley pushes her long auburn hair out of her eyes. She looks just like the twins – wall-to-wall freckles, light blue-green eyes. She especially looks like them when she smiles and her eyes crinkle up in the corners.

‘I just want to say thank you, for taking care of my babies. I will never stop being grateful to you kids. I owe you… I owe you everything,’ and she stops because she’s so choked up.

I don’t know how we did it, actually. I don’t know how we managed to save them.

Alex and I take long walks during the outdoor period for Tent J. We do laps and we recount what happened to us in each other’s absence. There’s no older/younger between us anymore – we’re equals now.

We talk about the future.

We can’t believe we even have one.

Looking around our little circle, I wish that Niko was with us and I worry about him. I wish Brayden had made it. I will always regret the way that he died. And poor lost Josie – her last hours must have been horrible beyond what any of us could imagine.

I look at Mrs McKinley and her grinning twins.

I look at Sahalia, who is still, somehow, cooler than the rest of us, and Chloe, who is still, somehow, a brat.

And at the brothers, Ulysses and Max, standing with the rest of the Dominguez family. I wish Batiste could be here to stand with them, for he’s also our family, but he’s in Calgary, we think. I bet Batiste thinks about us all the time.

I look at Jake and his dad, who are going to be okay in the end, I think.

And at my brother, Alex, who I will never, ever leave again.

And the beautiful Astrid, who I would kill for, and already have.

The gratitude I feel swells up and tears come into my eyes. But that’s okay, because as Henry and Caroline blow out their candles, everyone else is crying, too.

A figure is approaching over the hills and grass. It’s Niko and he’s running.

‘Guys, guys!’ he shouts, breathless. ‘Look!’

He holds up the front section of a printed newspaper. Printed papers have made a comeback with the interruption of the Network. We all pull in close to see.

A headline reads: CLOUDS OF WARFARE COMPOUNDS RUMORED ADRIFT

Reading that gives me a pit of cold dread in my stomach.

But that’s not what Niko’s so excited about.

He points to another, smaller headline: RIOTS AT UMO!

The subheadline reads, Refugees rise in rebellion at the University of Missouri containment camp

Niko puts his finger on a full-colour picture.

It’s an old guy being protected from a guard wielding a nightstick.

‘It’s Mr Scietto!’ Alex yells.

And next to him, shielding Mario Scietto from the blow, is a girl with her hair up in two giraffe bumps.

It’s Josie.

The girl in the picture is Josie!

‘I’m going for her,’ Niko says, eyes flashing between me and Jake and Alex.

‘Who’s coming?’