Book 2 Chapter 1 | Nowhere I Know

Chapter 1 of Book #2 - Nowhere Is Home

Published by Jamie York
Copyright © Jamie York

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to any persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The author holds exclusive rights to this work.

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Betrayed... And Moving On

Pant… pant… pant… in through the mouth… out through the nose… mouth… nose… as I skirt around the brush growing in the middle of the path, my feet falter at the effort. I right myself and continue on at a slightly slower pace. The humidity in the jungle seems to be twice as bad as normal. I can feel my tank top sticking to my back as the sweat runs in rivulets down my spine. Flyaway hairs from my ponytail continue to stick to my back and my neck as it swings back and forth. Even my running shorts are soaked from the moisture in the air.

I think to myself that rain is probably in the near future as I feel the now familiar tingle in the middle of my back. One of them is watching me again. I would sigh, but I don’t have the breath.

Pulling on the limited reserves I have left, I put even more effort into my run, wanting to make it out of the jungle before whoever is there decides to try and talk to me. As I push myself faster, I hear footsteps behind me keeping pace. The last thing I want is to have any sort of conversation with them right now, or anytime in the near future really.

The anger starts to bubble in the pit of my stomach and the hurt tightens my chest again as it does every time I think of what they did. I know that it has been two months and I need to move on, I need to forgive, but my heart still feels betrayed.

What happened was forgivable, just not yet. Maybe I’m being petty, but after everything we have been through, I feel like I have that right.

Seeing the edge of town through the thinning jungle gives me the push I need to go just a little harder. I hear the thump of footsteps continuing behind me and understand that they want me to know they are there. Otherwise, I would never hear them. That about makes it worse.

As I burst through the boundary the jungle makes around town, I can feel my breath coming out of me in sharp spikes. It kind of makes me wish I still had my fitness tracker to know what my heart rate was up to. Only occasionally do I miss technology, and running is one of those times.

Knowing they will not follow me any further, I let myself slow down. As I do, my hands automatically go up over my head to help my breathing to come back to normal. I’m tempted to turn and look, curious if it is Haki or Kiwi that was in the jungle with me. I really wonder if they will show themselves to me, but I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing I’m curious.

My heart rate continues to come back down as I pick my speed back up to a slow jog. The area I’m in is one of several abandoned parts of town and I take the time look around as the houses flow by. It is amazing that so much has changed while so much still stays the same.

In this part of town, all the houses now have two ‘x’s on the doors. The red ones are from the initial search for people trapped that lets others know there was no one inside. Most houses in town have that red ‘x’ which is further proof of the small number of us that were brought here, wherever here is. On the uninhabited houses, there are newer black ‘x’s that mean they have been cleared of any usable items. Both ‘x’s have already started to fade, a testament to actually how long we have been here.

Even though I know the ‘x’s are there, they are not actually visible on most houses in this neighborhood. Looking through the yards, essentially only the rooftops can be seen above the grasses that now wave 6 to 7 foot tall in the light breeze. Lack of regular maintenance is less noticeable in the middle of town, but here few see the overgrowth. Not many venture this far to the edge of the jungle anymore.

The stock of clothing, canned goods, and personal care items found in these homes have all been hauled uptown. They are now stocked away in the grocery store and should keep us quite a while. Especially now. So many of the survivors have started adapting to the area and figuring out how to use the things found naturally here.

Survivors. Never thought I’d say that of the people from my own hometown. Living in the Midwest of the United States who would think surviving would ever become something you had to do? But that is what we are doing, surviving. Even though most still don’t know exactly what we are surviving from.

But I do. Even if I don’t completely understand why.

The closer to the middle of town I get I can see more and more evidence of the adapting most have embraced over the last several months. Here, instead of yards full of tall grass, all the houses have gardens full of native vegetable and fruit plants. Then, looking up against the houses I can see the original flower beds over grown with strange new flowers peeking through. The largest gardens are in the yards of homes that are actually occupied and tended to on a daily basis. In these yards, I can see baskets of fruits and vegetables at the ends of the rows waiting to be taken inside or to the store. My heart gives a slight jolt at the sight of the overflowing baskets and I push it away trying not to think of what that could mean.

Most people have moved into the houses closer to the middle of town. No one lives on the outskirts anymore with the threat of the jungle and the animals that live in it so close.

Staying in my own home seemed natural to me since it is out of what is now considered the “Green Zone” or the danger area close to the jungle. Cam has moved in with me, taking over my parent’s room as his own. It was very awkward at first – knowing he was sleeping just across the hall in their room. Now it is just another part of this new life I have gotten used to.

Several groups of people have also moved into the larger homes together just so they don’t have to be alone. Pretty much everyone left several loved ones behind, so trying to live alone was hard to do, even impossible for some.

The search teams ended up finding four young kids aged two through eight trapped in their houses and two young teenagers hiding in theirs scared of what was happening and not wanting to come out. Thankfully none of them were seriously hurt, although most of them had several bumps and cuts. There was a lot of discussion at first as to what needed to happen in regards to the kids and where they should live. With no one knowing what tomorrow might bring, everyone was reluctant to take on that responsibility. Finally, a group of women that had moved into one of the largest houses in the center of town offered to take care of all of them.

My heart gives a painful squeeze remembering that two of those women left young children behind. I often wonder how they cope with the not knowing – not knowing about my parents is painful enough I try to not think about it much. As easy as it is to stay busy in this new world though, thoughts still tend to creep in when I least expect it. Makes me wonder how they handle it.

A few people in town have not been able to handle the stress. Some of them have barricaded themselves into their homes, refusing to speak to or see anyone. I think they are trying to hide from the truth. We take turns putting food for them on their porches. So far, the food continues to disappear daily like clockwork – not sure what we will do if it stops.

Others have walked into the forest and vanished. There was some talk of going to look for them, and one group even tried. They didn’t make it very far before they came running back with extraordinary stories to tell about what they had seen. A lot of their stories were eerily familiar to Cam’s and mine, but most people seem to have already forgotten our stories. Honestly, that doesn’t hurt my feelings much. If they don’t remember, they don’t ask questions.

Slowing back down to a fast walk as I head into the area of town that most now call Town Square, I look around and smile. It is actually just one of the bigger intersections in what was a residential area before The Move. Before though no one would have thought this place special as they drove through it several times a day. Now, several have made into a meeting place.

Since there is really no use anymore for the wide streets through town, it makes sense to repurpose some of the areas. And here they have done just that. They gathered up several fire pits and metal trash cans from the surrounding houses and put them in groups of seating throughout the intersection. Around the fire pits they have placed a motley collection of seating – there are metal chairs, folding chairs, kitchen and dining room chairs, and even a few recliners and hay bales scattered around. At the edges of the intersection, there are piles of lumber to be burned. Most of it has been gathered from the worst of the houses that are beyond livable or the privacy fences and decks that were destroyed.

Right now, in the light of day, it looks like a slightly organized mess. In the firelight at night, though, it looks warm and inviting with people milling in between groups and the light sound waves of conversation and laughter floating on the air. Just about every night you can count on 20-30 survivors gathered here talking about their day and trading ideas for how to make things work better.

When the evening gatherings first began it was just a scattered few that didn’t care if they were taken by the lights. Everyone that gathered had left someone behind and couldn’t handle our new reality. We all knew from experience that it was possible the lights would come back and when they did, more people would be taken. They would sit in the dark with no light, just waiting, only a few talking a little and about nothing important. The first night, the lights took five people from the intersection. It was completely opposite from the first time the lights appeared. There was no screaming or running. Those in the intersection sat in eerie silence and waited for the lights to select them or leave them alone. The second night was similar and three were taken.

Then it was an entire week before the lights came back and several more people had joined the original group in the street thinking it was safe. That night we lost nine people to the lights. Some of those taken left friends and family behind in the survivors. I had watched from the relative safety of a neighboring house watching as those that wanted to stay ran and were still caught.

After that, the lights never came back. Even so it still took a handful of weeks before the large gatherings started. Even now there are some that refuse to join in the gatherings not trusting that they will be safe.

I have never joined them.

Instead, I stand at the edge of the firelight watching and listening from afar. It is not my safety I’m worried about though. For the most part, I do my best to avoid the majority of those left. The exceptions are Cam, Jennifer, and Tom. Almost everyone has now heard that I had contact with the natives – the natives that no longer come into town – even if they don’t remember the rest of Cam and my story they do remember that part. Some have even heard about Kaelyn and Jayvon and that they are living with a different set of natives. From the questions I sometimes get thrown at me when I’m in public, I recognize that no one else knows the entire story except Cam and Jennifer. Tom is just respectful enough to not ask. I appreciate that from him. One day I will have to tell him just so that someone else knows, but not yet.

Even though I understand why everyone else wants to know the story about Kae and Jay, I just don’t have it in me to rehash the sorrow I felt leaving them in the other village… or the pain and betrayal I felt at what Haki and Kiwi kept from me.

Maybe that is selfish of me, but the truth is, none of it changes a thing for those of us left here. Not really. If anything, I’m afraid it would be a distraction for the nice life many are starting to build.

Slowing down even more as I come up to my house, I have to smile at the changes we have made. Like many in the last two months, Cam and I have put a lot of work into making our home livable again in between working in the gardens and learning about this new world.

All of the windows now have wooden shutters that actually open and can be closed and locked from the inside. Some we made from scraps of wood found around town, a few are actual shutters taken from abandoned houses. They give the house a cute patchwork appearance with the different colors they all have. They are much more effective to block out the night than the taped curtains we had in the beginning and the gaps in the boards help ventilate for the fire we use for light every night.

On the roof, we used the techniques we saw in the village where we left Kae and Jay. Using the vine found growing everywhere along the edge of the jungle, we strapped together the huge leaves growing in the tree next to my house and also found in most neighboring yards. Once we had large mats of five to six leaves, we hauled them up to patch the large holes made by the tornado. I want to continue placing the mats until the entire roof is covered just because it makes the house look like it belongs in this strange world. Cam just frowns at me when I mention it, though, so I don’t think it is going to happen soon.

Walking up to the porch, I notice patches of siding where the paint is falling off. Frowning I try to remember what the village had on the sides of their homes. From what I can remember it was natural wood, which I always thought could cause the wood to rot, especially in humid climates like this one. I remind myself to ask Cam about it once I’m in the house.

The closer I get I forget about the paint when I hear hammering from inside. Curious what Cam is up to now – I forgo my normal cool down stretches and quickly make my way up the steps and into the house.

Entering the kitchen, I’m shocked again at how normal everything looks. The table still sits in the corner and the refrigerator is still against the opposite wall by the other door. Until you start looking closely you would never know anything had happened, then you see the freshly burned candles on the table, the lack of glass in the windows, and the absolute silence from the appliances and it all comes back.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

The pounding from the other room brings me back to why I came directly into the house. I make my way through the dining room and down the hall.

“Cam?” I can’t think what he would be building now, especially without my help. He knows I don’t want to be dependent on him so we made the to-do list together and agreed to complete our list together. I mentally go over the list again and still can’t figure it out.

“In here!” I hear him holler back from the bathroom.

I’m really confused.

Walking up to the doorway I peek in, “what are you doing in here?” I find him standing on a ladder that is pushed up to a six-inch hole in the ceiling. He is in the process of nailing what looks like a bracket to the wall. Tubing is coiled on the floor and goes up the wall, through the bracket, and into the ceiling through the hole.

Now I am completely bewildered. I know this is nothing off of our to-do list.

“I was hoping to have this done before you were finished with your run. But since you are here now, you can help.” I just raise my eyebrows. “Trust me, you will love this when it is done.” He gives me a sideways smile.

“OK then, what do you need me to do?”

Crawling down off the ladder he turns to me, “I’m going up on the roof and I’m going to need to pull up some more of this tubing. Make sure I don’t pull too much. I don’t want it to come through that bracket.” I nod my understanding. I’m still confused, but this sounds like an easy enough job.

He leaves the room and left by myself I start to get nosey about the project. I look around, trying to figure it out, but I don’t see anything else different in the room. Eventually, I faintly hear Cam yelling from above me through the hole, “OK Rose – get ready.”

Not knowing exactly what to do, I just watch the tubing as it slowly moves up the wall. Well before the coil is close to gone it stops again.

After a few minutes, I hear Cam again through the ceiling, “Hey! Put the end of the tube in the tub for me and yell if anything changes.”

“OK” I yell back once the end of the tube is laying in the bottom of the tub.

I think I’m starting to catch on and it makes me pretty excited. As the water starts coming out of the tube, my excitement goes into overdrive. “CAM!! There is water!!” As soon as I yell the water stops and I’m nervous something went wrong. “CAM!” I move to stand right under the hole in the ceiling and listen but don’t hear a response.

Just as I start to worry, I hear footsteps behind me. I turn as Cam comes through the door. “I think something broke. The water stopped.” I turn back to the tub to make sure there was still no water. The disappointment is a rock in my stomach. A shower, a real shower, would be absolutely amazing. It has been months since I’ve had one.

When I hear Cam laugh under his breath I turn back towards him, “WHAT?” Frowning, I start to wonder what I’ve missed.

“I wasn’t going to waste a bunch of water, so I turned it off to come down here and finish.” He then walks over to the tube and starts snaking it up and over the shower rod to point down into the tub. I can’t stop the grin that is spreading across my face.

The leaves Kiwi taught us to use are great - I have even learned how to get my hair mostly clean using them – but not much replaces a nice shower even if it is a cold one. My confusion comes back when I see him connecting a shutoff valve to the end of the tubing – a shower will be great, but I would like more than just a stream of water on my head. Then I watch Cam as he loosens the shower-head off of the original plumbing and starts to connect it to the valve using duck tape and I start to understand.

“Where did the water come from?” I’m worried I’m going to start babbling, I almost can’t contain my excitement or my questions. So many are running through my head.

“If you will think about it” he turns and gives me a sarcastic grin, “it does rain here just about every afternoon. And even though we catch as much as possible for drinking, the majority of it goes into the ground. Gathering the water is the easy part. I just put a big tarp on the roof to catch the rain. Then I had to figure out how to get it down from the roof.”

“Where did you find the tubing?” I’m pretty sure that wasn’t something my dad had lying around. Anything is possible though.

He gestures to the tubing as he works, “Tom found this in the back room of the lumber yard – but it is all he had, so better not mention that part to anyone.”

As I watch, he uses the duck tape to attach the entire contraption to the pipe still sticking out of the wall from the original plumbing. It is the most beautiful sight I have seen in a while.

“And… how soon do I get to take a shower?” I say with a huge grin.

He laughs “let me go up and unblock the tube and you will be good to go.”

As he walks out of the room I start looking around for towels and the washing leaves. It has been a while since I’ve worried about a towel, but I find a one in the cabinet and there is still one washing leaf from this morning on the sink. With that gathered, I run into my room for clean clothes. I find the jeans and t-shirt I set out before going running still sitting on my bed. I grab them up and rush back to the bathroom.

As I’m dashing down the hall, I see Cam coming from the other end. “OK, you are all set. Just remember, you have a limited supply of water. If you run it out, you are done until it rains again.”

“Oh, yeah. I know… even a few seconds under running water will be wonderful!” A thought hits me, “wait… maybe you should take the first shower… you worked all of this up and deserve it more than I do.” Hard as that is for me to say, I know it is the truth and only fair.

“What? No way. I did this for you.” Shaking his head, he moves down the hall, “I know how much you’ve missed your showers.” And with a sideways grin he goes around the corner and into the living room.

So excited I can hardly contain myself, I do a little jump of excitement as I move the rest of the way into the bathroom and close the door. I stand a few seconds just staring at the new shower. Moving over to the edge of the tub, I tug the shower curtain until there is just enough room for me to step in. That done, I double-check the placement of everything - the towel on the hook beside the tub, my clean clothes on the shelf beside that and the cleaning leaf on the soap tray in the shower.

Everything in place, I walk back over to the edge of the tub one more time. It has been over two months since I had a shower and I’m savoring every second of the ritual that I used to rush through and take for granted. Undressing, I slowly step into the tub and pull the shower curtain closed.

Reaching up, I take a hold of the shut-off valve and close my eyes. I have to keep my focus and remember to not use all of the water. As excited as I am, I know I have to save water for Cam to have a shower too.

Raising my chin and turning my face towards the ceiling, I turn the valve. Cool water rushes over my face in a chilly blast. I let out a little squeal and hurriedly wet my hair and body. I reach up and turn off the valve while grabbing for the cleaning leaf. I start washing with the leaf, amazed by the amount of suds the leaf creates with the addition of so much water. Even though I know the leaves clean without water, my body already feels cleaner.

Saving my hair for last, I scrub down my entire body. Then I begin rubbing the leaf through my hair, starting with the roots and making my way down to the ends. Once I have everything suds up good, I do another scrub down using my nails to scour my scalp. It feels better than I even thought it could.

Once I have everything as clean as I am going to I wipe as many of the bubbles off me as best I can, running my hands back through my hair to squeeze out as many suds as possible. Then I turn the water back on and start rinsing my hair. Watching it disappearing down the drain, I am a little bit disgusted by the nasty brown water coming out of my hair. I was so proud of how clean I thought I was staying, and this is proving me wrong. My only consolation is, if I was dirty, so is everyone else and at last I didn’t stink.

Once my hair is rinsed, I do a super quick rinse on the rest of my body. Turning off the water, I hope I left enough for Cam to have his own shower.

Stepping out of the tub, I am astonished at how amazing I feel. I didn’t notice the foul gritty feeling my hair had gained until now that it is gone. Drying myself off with the towel, I feel like a new woman.

After putting on my clothes, I make my way down the hall to find Cam dozing on the couch.

“Hey, wake up sleepy head!” I nudge his arm and he jerks fully awake.

“Done already? I figured you would be in there a while, or have I been a sleep longer than I thought?” He gives me his oh so sweet sleepy smile and it makes me feel even better about not using all the water.

“As great as it felt, I hurried as much as I could… I wanted to leave some water for you.” He immediately finishes waking as he sits up on the couch and his eyes light up. It makes my heart feel good.

“You didn’t have to do that!” As he says this he is already rushing to get off the couch and making his way to the bathroom. I laugh to myself as he heads down the hall.

Suddenly, I remember what I am supposed to do this afternoon. As I move through the dining room I yell down the hall “I’m headed to the store to help Jennifer! Enjoy your shower!”

Cam pokes his head out of the bathroom “What is she doing?”

“We need to inventory all of the fresh veggies and fruits coming in. I’m a little worried a lot of it might go to waste if we don’t figure something out.” It has been my worry since Kiwi told me about how the plants provide what is needed and if you take too much you will eventually kill them. I haven’t got everyone else in the town convinced yet though and they continue to pick everything in the gardens as they get ripe instead of as needed.

Cam knows what I’m thinking and gives me a little frown. “It will all work out, Rosie. Try not to worry.”

Smiling back at him as much as I can, I give him a little wave while leaving the house.

Moving down the porch steps, I pause at the bottom, debating with myself on taking the long way to the store so I can check on a few of the bigger gardens. All that work, all that time – putting in new gardens, watering, tending, doing everything needed to get them to flourish – is going to go to waste. Unless I can somehow get everyone on board with not picking anything unless they are going to use it right then for a meal.

They all readily agreed when it came straight from Kiwi about the cleaning leaves, but for some reason they don’t listen when it comes from me about food. I don’t want to lose a bunch of plants before they realize I’m telling the truth.

Most are worried about the seasons here and weather changes that might be coming in the future since it is all unknown. I’m just not willing to talk to Haki or Kiwi about it yet. So far the weather has stayed a pretty consistent mid 70’s with the only variation being an afternoon rain shower/thunderstorm almost every afternoon.

Sighing to myself, I start down the street in the direction of the gardens. I know Cam would shake his head at me, but I can’t help it. I can almost feel the plants dying as I head down the street.

Along the way, I see several people, only a few of which acknowledge my friendly wave. I know I’ve made a lot of people mad with my refusal to talk about what happened. But right now I’m just not ready – and besides, it really isn’t any of their business. What happened then doesn’t affect anything happening now – I just wish they could see that without me having to talk about it all.

As I walk along, I think back to that day. I went inside my house with Cam while Haki walked away after promising to come back. I had no idea what was about to happen with Cam and I was so scared of what he was going to tell me. What he said, though, I would never have guessed before the conversation started.

Following Cam into the living room, I stood there waiting to see what he was going to say or do.

“You should probably sit down.” I eyed him warily wondering why he was being nice. He had not been happy with me the last time I had seen him. Something had to have changed drastically for this shift in his mood.

Walking over, I sat on the edge of the couch against the closest arm. Cam sat across from me in the chair he slept in. Was that really only two nights before? So much had changed and happened since then it seemed like it was weeks or even months ago.

“Rose, I have a lot to tell you and I need you to listen to all of it.” He was gazing at the cold fire pit as he talked, “keep an open mind for me.” He looked up and stared me straight in the eyes. The look on his face told me this is serious so I nodded my head in agreement. Cam had let out a huge sigh as if he wasn’t sure I would agree.

“Look, while you were gone with your friends, some of their fellow villagers came to talk to us – well you precisely. But since you were not here, they talked to me. Evidently, Haki has been waiting and dreaming about you for a long time.” He paused to get my reaction. Since that was something I already knew I just motioned for him to continue. “That doesn’t bother you?!” Again, I just motioned for him to go on with his story. I wasn’t ready to tell mine yet.

He had then proceeded to tell me the story Haki told me, with one huge difference.

“Rose! Hey, Rose!” I snap out of my memories with a jolt. I realize I am almost to the first large garden and Tom is walking out of it and towards me waving. I wave back and change my course to meet him.

“What’s up?” I’m still trying to bring my mind back from its journey down memory lane, but I don’t want Tom to know that.

“I’m worried what you predicted might be coming true. Some of the plants are starting to look bad.” This brings me back to the here and now with a forceful jerk.

“Oh, please don’t tell me that!” I can feel my shoulders start to sag with the weight of what was happening, “I was hoping I was wrong, but that is why I’m taking the long way to the store. How bad is it?”

He motions me to follow him, “not too bad yet I don’t think, but I don’t know if it can be reversed or not. If they will stop harvesting the plants now, will that be enough to save them?” As he talks, we make our way into the garden and he is motioning to some of the bigger plants along the way, but I would have noticed them anyway.

One thing about this new world – all the plants are always green. Unless a leaf or a limb falls off, or is cut off, of a plant or a tree, you will not see brown vegetation anywhere. The leaves on these plants are turning a dark shade of brown at the edges and there are very few that have anything on them to harvest.

All the good feelings from my shower are leaving me at a very rapid pace and my shoulders sag a little more. This is what I had feared, but had really hoped I would not see. I now know I was living in denial. Shaking my head I follow as he continues to point out dying plants.

“What are we going to do now? They just cannot stop the long time habit of picking things when they are ready.” I look around the garden completely helpless. Even if this makes them understand, how many other gardens are starting to die? How much is going to be lost? “Have you looked at any of the other gardens? Are others starting to die or is this the first one?”

“I’ve only looked at two so far and the other one still looks good. Maybe we will have caught it in time?”

“We can only hope. Would you mind looking at the other large gardens? If some of the smaller ones are starting to turn that isn’t a huge loss – bad but not devastating. The large ones could be a massive problem… I’m going to keep moving and see how things are at the store. I know Jennifer is feeling extremely overwhelmed.” Tom nods as he starts writing down which plants are dying in the notebook he always has on hand. I give him a little smile and wave as I head back down the road.

I decide there is no need for me to continue on to the other large gardens since I know Tom will give me a full recount on them tonight. I cut my route short and start back for the grocery store knowing that Jennifer will be wondering where I am. I’m also anxious to see how much we still have in stock for canned goods. Depending on how bad the gardens get, we may be more dependent on them than we were hoping to be.

My mind wanders again as I continue on my way and before I know it I’m back in my memories again, talking to Cam about what he learned while I was gone.

I listened to Cam through the entire story, nodding to let him know that he is not telling me anything I didn’t already know. I could see the frustration on his face making it evident he had been hoping Haki had kept all this information from me.

He finally let out a aggravated sigh and suddenly blurted out “I suppose he told you about the portal home too?!?”

I felt my heart stop in my chest as I sucked in a startled gasp. My eyes must also have widened in surprise because I could see as Cam registered the shock on my face. He sat back in his chair and looked to the ceiling.

“Of course he didn’t tell you. That is the one thing I didn’t want to tell you either.” When he looked back at me I could see the struggle going on inside him.

“Rose… there is a portal… in the jungle, not too far from the edge of town… it… they think it leads back to our world.” Here he paused, but I was still reeling too much from the unexpected blow to respond. “Like I said, they don’t know for sure, but what they do know is, it is a small portal. Even if we risked trying to go through – they don’t know if even one person would make it through OK…”

Nodding my understanding, I took a deep breath to try to respond, “Then why…” I had to stop and reorganize my thoughts before I tried again. I closed my eyes, attempting to slow down my thoughts, “If we can’t go through… or even if we could… why would Haki keep it from me?”

“Seriously Rose? Think about it – are you seriously not going to try? Will you just let that portal sit there and not do anything with it?” He looked at me like he already knew the answer… and I recognized he was right. There is no way I could just let it be. I had to know. “See, Haki was right – and he is terrified to lose you…” I looked back over at Cam and realized he knew me much better than I ever comprehended. He could read my face, and, therefore, my emotions and probably most of my thoughts.

“OK… yes… you are right. I can’t just leave it, but that doesn’t mean I’m foolish enough to try and send someone through – not unless they think it is safe.” felt my heart breaking in my chest, I almost whispered, “I can’t believe Haki didn’t trust me enough to tell me… this could mean we can let our families, our PARENTS, know that we are OK and safe… how could he keep that from me?” I looked up at Cam one more time and he just shook his head.

With only a block to go, I finally let go of the memory. I could continue down that path, but I have relived the memory a million times. Cam and I stayed up most of the night going over what the portal might mean for us, and the rest of the survivors.

The next day, when Haki showed up to talk to me, I never let him past the threshold into the kitchen. I unleashed such a barrage of words he wasn’t able to get a single word in. Once I was done, I told him to leave and never step foot in the town again, then I turned and slammed the kitchen door in his face.

Even though I have felt his presence in the jungle, I have not seen him since.

Walking up to the front door of the grocery store, I do my best to shake off the feeling of heartbreak. Jennifer has become extremely in-tune with people’s emotions since The Move and I don’t want her to have to experience what I’m feeling.

Plastering a smile on my face and in my heart, I walk through the door.

JAMES MARIE YORK

Chapter 1 of Book #2 - Nowhere Is Home