"Swear to me. Swear to me that everything you said about the Fireflies is true."

It was the hesitation. That fucking hesitation. That's how I knew he was lying when he said, "I swear."

If only he hadn't hesitated, I could have believed him. If only he hadn't lied...but he did. He did, and even though we never mentioned the Fireflies again, it was a wedge between us.

I stood up and cracked my neck, my scoped hunting rifle a comfortable and familiar weight against my shoulder. "Jesus, Maria," I muttered to myself. "These fucking night patrols suck." Everybody on wall duty had to take a night shift eventually, more fool me for actually requesting this one. But ever since I'd moved in with Tommy and Maria, I hadn't been able to sleep at night, so I might as well do somebody some good. I'd roll into the house at dawn after I was relieved at the wall, and I'd crash from pure exhaustion.

During the day, I could sleep without dreams. Night still brought dreams of snow, and fire, and David. The only way I'd been able to sleep through the night during our first year in Jackson was curled up against Joel, his strength and warmth like an anchor that kept me from drifting out into my nightmares. He'd kiss my hair and say, "Night, baby girl," and I'd pretend it was enough, because I loved him.

And for a while, it was enough. But over time, wedges become tears, and tears become giant fucking rifts. The air in our house every night was heavy with everything I wanted to ask him, but couldn't, and everything he wanted to say, but wouldn't. We didn't have any big argument, or anything. But one night I curled up next to him, and as soon as my eyes closed I was back in that burning restaurant, David's crazy eyes burning into mine, his weight holding me down, his hardness pressing into my abdomen while he choked me with one hand and ripped at my shirt with the other. I reached for the machete that I knew was there, but my fingers closed on empty air. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't breathe. David's foul breath was hot on my cheek, and I squeezed my eyes shut. No, this isn't what happened, I thought desperately. The pressure on my throat was suddenly relieved when he moved his hand down to his belt. "You have no idea what I'm capable of."

The voice was Joel's.

I was screaming my head off and I could still smell the smoke and the blood when Joel shook me awake.

I leapt out of bed like it was on fire, my breath coming in heaving gasps.

"Ellie, honey," he said, "what is it?" He moved toward me his arms out.

"No, don't touch me!" I could hear the hysterical edge in my voice, and I gripped my elbows hard in an attempt to hold in the sobs that were stuck in my throat.

"Ellie..."

Joel isn't David, I reminded myself. It's Joel. But the dream still clung to me, and I realized that the lie between us had grown to the point that he no longer made me feel safe. And that scared the shit out of me. For two years Joel had watched my back and taken care of me. What I felt for him was way more complicated than the love a daughter feels for her father. But for him to show up, even in my dreams, in the role of my most feared tormentor, the man who had violated me so terribly...well, it freaked me the fuck out.

You have no idea what I'm capable of. It still rang in my mind. But the thing is, with Joel, I was pretty sure I knew what he was capable of, and that's what scared me so much. "Joel, what really happened back in Salt Lake City?" The words escaped my lips before I could stop them, and once they did, they hung there in the room between us like an accusation. Which I suppose they were. It was the first time I'd said a word about it since we'd come to Jackson almost a year ago.

His eyes went hard, his jaw set and stubborn, and the silence felt like it stretched into years.

Finally he said, "Ellie, I already told you..."

"Don't." I couldn't listen to him lie to me again. It hurt too much. I took a deep breath. "I'm going over to Tommy and Maria's."

The hurt in his eyes was real, but he didn't stop me. Didn't say another word to me as I packed up my backpack and left the house. Tommy and Maria's place was just down the block from ours, and he stood on our porch and watched me until I was safe inside, his fists curled impotently at his sides.

It wasn't like I hadn't seen him every day since I'd left. We ate lunch together at the commissary most days, and even had some duty shifts together on the wall a couple times a week. But there were no more easy silences between us, and that's what kept me at Tommy and Maria's more than anything.

Maria told me more than once that I called out his name in my sleep. "Sweetheart," she said, after one of my nightmares left me shaking in her arms, "why don't you go home to Joel? I know he misses you, and you obviously miss him."

But I could be just as stubborn as Joel. I wasn't going back there until he admitted he lied, and he was never going to admit it.

That was when I started asking Maria for night shifts on the wall.

I yawned. This was actually my favorite time of night, around four in the morning, when it felt like the whole world got cold and quiet and the stars looked close enough to touch. One thing I could say about the night shift: It gave me plenty of time to think. I kept coming back to my favorite topic: How could I forgive Joel when he wouldn't tell me the truth? And if he did tell me the truth...could I forgive him? Every night. Every night I wrestled with this, and after almost a year I was no closer to a resolution.

I'd cornered Tommy a few months after moving in with them. "He told you what happened back in Salt Lake, didn't he?"

I could tell by the guilty way Tommy had shifted his eyes away from me I'd hit the nail on the head.

"Fucking tell me, Tommy! What did he do?" I'd pushed his shoulder angrily.

"Aw, Ellie." Tommy had looked supremely unhappy. "It ain't for me to tell you. I wish y'all would just sit down and talk."

I'd laughed, but there was no amusement in it. "I'm ready to talk to Joel whenever he wants to stop lying to me."

"I will tell you this," Tommy's tone was fierce as he pulled me into a hard and unexpected embrace, "he had good reason to do as he did."

I'd clung to Tommy. I missed Joel so much. I missed feeling his arms around me, and I missed falling asleep with my head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. I could feel my throat aching with tears I wouldn't let come. "Why's he so damn stubborn?" I'd mumbled into Tommy's chest.

I could feel Tommy shake with a laugh. "You can't out-stubborn a Texan, honey."

I'd drawn back to look Tommy in the eyes. "Watch me."

My eyes were drooping a little when the distant crackle of gunfire ruptured the silence.

I was posted on the eastern perimeter tower. The gunfire sounded like it was coming from the main gate, way over on the west side of the city, which was over a mile away. Protocol dictated that perimeter guards should stick to their posts unless they saw movement. I picked up my radio and keyed it. "Talk to me, Jones." Alan was posted closer to the west side than I was, and he might have heard something I hadn't yet.

"Hey, Ellie. Looks like a pack of infected decided to make a run at the gate tonight. It's a big group...looks like they're just climbing over each other to get past the electric fence. Don't worry, though—Crazy Tex is on duty tonight. He'll get the fuckers."

I frowned. I didn't know Joel was on duty tonight. Crazy Tex is what the guards started calling Joel after the first time they'd seen him in action against a horde of infected. They held Joel with a reverence that was half fear and half awe. I guess laughing about it was one way to defuse their discomfort at his efficient violence, but I knew the nickname bothered him. "Keep me up to date, Jones. Let me know if they need another gun."

"Just stay put. By the time you get there, it'll all be over." The radio clicked off.

I could see muzzle flashes by the main gate, and a bunch of our people grouped up to shoot at the infected through the fence. After twenty minutes or so, the gunfire stopped. I strained my ears to hear any echoes of what was going on down there, but it was too far away. All I could see was a jumble of lights and people.

The crackle of the radio broke the silence.

"Ellie." It was Tommy's voice, and I could tell right away from the strain in it that something was wrong. "I'm sending Sinclair up to relieve you. Come down to the west gate right away." I grabbed my pack. I didn't even need to hear Tommy's next words. "It's Joel."

I ran, Tommy's words echoing in my mind. It's Joel. Shit, shit, shit. Nothing could happen to Joel, I was still too pissed off at him. A memory of Joel lying on the floor of the Science Center, impaled on a piece of rebar filled my mind. I ran faster. I had almost lost him that winter, no way I was going to lose him now, not after everything I'd been through to keep him alive. Not when there was still all this stuff left unspoken between us.

I could feel panic bubbling up inside me, despite my best efforts to keep a lid on it. I wasn't there. I wasn't there to watch his back. What the fuck happened? I had myself so worked up that by the time I made it to the main gate, I was actually surprised to see Joel standing up, looking relatively unscathed.

"Hey, baby girl." He smiled faintly at me.

I drew a breath to yell at him for scaring the shit out of me, and that's when I realized he was standing on the other side of the fence. Outside. And that could only mean...

Wild-eyed, I swung around to find Tommy, and the sorrow in his eyes was all the confirmation I needed. "Ellie..." he said, his voice cracking.

I shook my head. No. Not Joel. Not Joel too. This was just a new nightmare, and I was going to wake up any second. I turned around to Joel again, and that's when I saw the blood on his arm, in an oval pattern that could only be a bite.

My eyes filled with tears and through the ringing in my ears I heard a moaning that didn't sound remotely human, but until I felt Tommy's hand on my shoulder I didn't realize it was coming from my own throat.

"Looks like it's the end of the line for me, baby girl," Joel said. The lines in his face had never looked more pronounced. "I just wanted to say goodbye, before..." He scrubbed a calloused hand over his graying beard. "Needed to tell you I love you."

"No," I said.

"Ellie," Tommy said, his voice gentle. "You know what we have to do."

I did. Six months ago, one of our hunters had come back with a bite, and they'd gunned him down outside the gate. No infected inside the walls, it was the rule.

"No," I said again.

"Ellie, believe me..." Tommy said, putting his arm around me. I could tell he needed comfort too, but I shook him off.

"I fucking said no, Tommy!" I was so angry I couldn't see straight. "Not like that. Not for Joel."

"Gimme my gun back, Tommy," Joel said, his voice even and calm. "I'll do it myself."

My Beretta was in my hand before I even realized what I was doing, and I was pointing it at Tommy and the other armed guards who were congregated at the gate.

"Jesus, Ellie." Tommy's voice was quiet, and infinitely sad. His hand was raised in a hold gesture.

I looked into a dozen gun barrels, held on me by men and women I'd come to like and respect over the past two years, and I slowly raised my hands, taking my finger off the trigger and laying it back against the barrel in good trigger discipline, just like Joel had taught me. I felt no grudge, I'd've done the same in their place.

Tommy's eyes were streaming, but his voice was calm. "You can go on back home if you don't want to see it."

I shook my head. Home was an empty house where Joel should be. Even though I moved out almost a year ago, I still thought of it—of Joel—as home. Oh, shit, I thought, my throat burning, How could I have wasted all this time? Why was I so fucking stubborn?

"Let me out." I said the words before the thought even formed in my head.

"Wha—" Tommy looked stunned. "No. No way, Ellie."

I rounded on him. "He...I…" I was going to lose it. I swallowed and tried again. "It should be family, Tommy. It should be me. I'll do it. He can't hurt me."

"What the fuck, Ellie?" It was Jones. He'd lowered his rifle and was staring at me, his heart in his eyes. "You can't risk getting infected too!"

Oh, Alan. I didn't know. I suppose all those late-night radio conversations should have been a clue, but I hadn't had a whole lot of experience with picking up on social cues. A moment of clarity, experienced too late. Too bad, Alan was pretty cute. "He can't infect me," I said.

"Ellie, shut up!" The warning in Joel's voice was unmistakable.

Tommy said, at almost the same time, "I don't think it's a good idea…"

How long had Joel known me? Like telling me to shut up had ever worked. I raised my voice. "He can't infect me, because I'm already infected." I pushed my long sleeve up to reveal the ugly white scar on my forearm and held it up to show the gathered crowd.

More than one of my fellow guards cursed and held their guns on me again. "You know about this Tommy?" Ingrid, one of the women on gate duty tonight, said. She'd never really warmed up to me.

"She's immune!" Joel said from outside the fence. "That bite is over three years old! Jesus, Ellie. You're gonna give me a fucking heart attack before the infection gets me."

"That joke fucking sucks, Joel."

There was a smatter of disbelieving reactions in the crowd. "Nobody's immune," Ingrid said.

"I am," I said. I didn't care if they didn't believe me. I turned to Tommy. "Now, you let me out of this gate right now. He needs me."

Tommy nodded and went for the lock. I could hear mutters in the crowd.

"...been here for two years, what if she's a carrier?"

"It's not like she's infected anyone, is it?"

"You don't know that."

I shut it all out. I'd deal with it later. If there was a later. I hoped it didn't make too much trouble for Tommy and Maria when it came out that they knew about me. All my attention was focused on the familiar bearded face on the other side of the fence. As soon as the gate was cracked, I slipped though it.

Tommy squeezed my shoulder when I passed him and said, in a voice thick with tears, "Thanks for...thanks, Ellie."

I didn't answer. All I could see was Joel.

In less than a second I was wrapped in his arms, pressing my head against the hard muscles of his chest and rubbing my cheek on his soft flannel shirt. This man meant more to me than anything else in the world, and I was just hours away from losing him. It wasn't enough time. I gulped for air and realized I was sobbing into his shirt, and judging from the size of the wet spot, I'd been doing it for a while. Shit. Gotta get it together.

I wiped my snotty nose on the tail of Joel's shirt, which brought a wry smile to his face. I turned around. There was still a silent crowd watching us. Alan looked like I'd ripped his heart out.

"See ya, Tommy. Tell Maria I'm sorry." I put my arm around Joel's waist and we turned away.

"Hey, Crazy Tex!" Joel turned back around at the voice. It was Elias Forth, another old-timer from before the pandemic. He and Joel had saved each other's asses a few times in the past couple years. I think he might have been the original source of the despised nickname.

"I just want to say that you're the best damn shot I've ever seen, maybe excepting that little girl of yours. It's been an honor to serve with you and your daughter," Elias said.

There were other murmurs in the crowd. "Hear, hear. We'll miss you, Tex."

Joel's arm tightened around me. I thought he was going to make another stupid wisecrack, but he just nodded. He looked at Tommy, who was barely keeping it together. "Bye, little brother. I got that brisket in my freezer...been saving it for a special occasion. You barbecue it up, Texas-style. No grilling."

Tommy nodded and covered his face with one hand. Joel looked down at me as we turned away again. "C'mon baby girl. Time's a-wastin'."

Yes. Time's a-wastin'.

We walked, arms around each other, not saying anything, until we were out of sight of the fence. I leaned against him as hard as I could without knocking him over. In the end, I was the first to break the silence.

"Joel..." My voice cracked. Damn it. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I'm so...I'm so fucking sorry, Joel. I should have come home." As hard as I tried, I couldn't stop the tears from coming again. When I thought about all the time I'd lost through my own stubbornness…

"Hey, now. Shh." He rubbed his big hand over the small of my back, but he didn't stop walking. "None of that matters now." He sighed deeply. "Besides, I should be the one apologizing. I shoulda…" He stopped, and we walked in silence for a few moments.

"They were gonna cut your brain out." His voice was almost too quiet for me to hear, but I stopped walking anyway.

"What?" I felt like the breath had been knocked out of me. And then I felt the anger hit me like a brick. "Now? Now you're going to tell me the truth? Jesus, Joel! You have the worst sense of timing in the entire goddamn universe." The burst of anger was just a flash, and it left me as quickly as it came, leaving the dull, heavy ache of dread. "And what the fuck do you mean, they were going to cut my brain out?"

Joel turned toward me, his face in shadow, the starlight gleaming faintly on the silver in his hair. There was more there, I realized with a shock, than when we'd arrived two years ago. "They were still looking. For a cure. You were the only one. Immune, I mean. Marlene…" I couldn't see his face, but I recognized the glower in his voice. "She didn't even wake you up, she just sent you to surgery without a backward glance, to let those butchers—" He stopped. "They were gonna kill you, Ellie, and I couldn't let that happen."

I shivered. "What the fuck did you do, Joel?" But I didn't even need him to answer me. I knew Joel. I knew what he did.

"I…" He ran his hand through his hair. "I got you out of there. And I...I made sure none of them would come looking for you."

"Jesus." I couldn't say anything else. I looked at his arm, and the circle of blood was black against his pale skin in the faint light. I could already see the little bumps of fungal growth swelling under his skin. Soon they would start to break through. "You...you…" the anger was back again, and I punched him in the chest. "You unbelievably stupid motherfucker! They could have found a cure? Isn't that worth my life? I could have saved you!" I was sobbing again, damn it.

Joel stepped back in surprise when I punched him, and then stepped back in, putting his arms around me. I struggled feebly for a few seconds, and then melted back into his chest. "Maybe." His voice was a deep, comforting rumble. "Maybe they could've engineered a cure. Maybe not. But save me? No. If I'd gone through everything we went through that year, only to let you be killed by the Fireflies…" His arms tightened around me. "I wouldn't have made it out of Salt Lake City alive. Losing you after all that...I would've eaten the barrel of my gun, make no mistake. You did save me, baby girl."

"Joel…" I felt shattered by my grief. "How can you leave me alone now?" It wasn't what I intended to say. I was seventeen years old. I was way too grown up to be so whiny. But that's what came out anyway.

He held me so tightly I could barely breathe. "Oh, sweetheart. Ellie." He kissed my hair. "I love you so much. You know if I could, I would…" he stopped talking as his body shook. With a shock I realized Joel was crying. I could feel his tears hot on my cheek when he kissed my forehead. "This time it's outta my hands, darlin'. I'm sorry. I'm so fucking sorry, Ellie. I wanted to see you...grow up, get married, have a family...I wanted to see you have a good life…" His breath hitched.

I didn't say anything, just held him while he cried into my hair. Finally, his breathing evened out and he patted my shoulder and moved away.

"C'mon." He started walking again.

After a few steps I followed. "Where are we going?"

"I know a little lookout where we can see the whole eastern valley. I got it in my mind to watch the sun rise."

I knew why. It would probably be his last chance to see it.

We sat on the rocky promontory side by side, my small hand folded up in his large calloused one. He was absently rubbing his thumb across my knuckles as the sun peeked over the eastern edge of the mountains, flooding the whole valley below us with light.

"Now that," he said in tones of quiet satisfaction, "is something worth seeing before you die." He raised my hand to his mouth and kissed it. I scooted over and leaned against his shoulder, resting my head against the green plaid.

"Man, what is it with you and plaid, Joel?"

He shook with laughter. "Hey, this was the height of fashion in 1992."

I rolled my eyes and poked his arm until he lifted it up and put it around me. I grabbed his left arm and rolled the shirt sleeve up, and I gasped in alarm; the bite looked even worse under the pale sunlight. Oh shit, it's going too fast. I blinked back tears again. Tiny white fungal plates were protruding from his skin now, and green and red streaks radiated out from the wound. What the fungus was doing inside his body was a mystery, but it couldn't be good. "How are you feeling?" I asked, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice. My Beretta was a heavy lump in the waistband of my jeans.

He grimaced. "Head hurts."

My blood went cold. For a man who wouldn't even admit he couldn't walk after being punctured with a piece of rebar through the fucking abdomen, this admission of pain meant he was in a lot of it. I was trying to think of something to say to lighten the mood, one of those stupid jokes from that book I'd found in Pittsburgh, maybe, when he said, "Hey, baby girl, I'm sorry you have to do this." He leaned down and kissed my forehead again, his beard scratchy against my skin.

I looked him straight in the eyes. "Joel, I wouldn't let anyone else fucking touch you. I've got your back. Always."

When he pulled me against him for another tight hug, I noticed something that almost made me scream. His scent had changed already. The familiar smell of unwashed skin and that specific smell that was all him—the Joel-funk, I called it—it was underlaid by a dark, earthy smell. The fungus. The smell of the infected.

I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Uh, thought I saw a scorpion," I lied.

He stared at me skeptically, but let it go. No sense using up the time we had left arguing. We sat next to each other, not touching for a few minutes, just watching the sun rise up over the eastern rim of the valley.

"So...you got your eye on anyone, back in Jackson?" he said finally.

"Oh," I said, surprised. This wasn't what I expected him to want to talk about. But then I remembered him saying that he wanted to see me have a family. Not that that was ever going to happen, because I was fucking infected, and there was no way I was going to risk passing it on to someone else. But I said, "Well, Alan Jones is kind of cute. And he's not too bad in a firefight."

"Jones?" I could hear the disapproval in Joel's voice. "Shit, Ellie, he's gotta be what? Thirty-two? Thirty-three? He's way too old for you."

"He's a good guy." I couldn't believe I was defending an imaginary, never-to-be-experienced boyfriend. "And he likes me." That at least was true.

"Least he's got good taste," Joel said, huffing out his breath.

"We'll name our first kid after you," I said. Imaginary, never-to-be-experienced kid, that was.

He smiled. "I hope it's not a girl."

"Ha! Me too. That name would suck."

"Hey, now. Be nice." He nudged my shoulder, still laughing. It was a good sound, and I grinned and hugged my knees, grateful for this small moment of happiness.

I nudged him back, and was surprised when he fell all the way over. "Joel!" I was up on my feet in a second, helping him sit back up.

"Sorry, sorry," he muttered. "My balance is all fucked…"

"Can you stand up? Can you walk?"

He looked up at me, his eyes clouded with worry that he couldn't hide. "Ah, I believe I'd like to just set here for a while longer. This looks like a good place to rest, you know?"

Panic clutched my throat, but I swallowed it down. He meant he couldn't walk. He meant...this was it. This was the place he was choosing to die. "Okay, Joel." I sat down next to him again.

"You, ah..." He looked down at me anxiously. "You might oughta sit over there," he pointed to a spot across from him. "I don't know how long..."

I grabbed his hand. "Shut up, Joel. Just...shut up."

He squeezed my hand hard, like it was a lifeline. We sat in silence like that for a long time before I said, "Joel?"

"Hm?" He was trying, but he couldn't completely keep the pain out of his voice.

"Are you scared?" I didn't know my voice could sound so small.

He sighed. "Yeah."

"Me too."

"I think..." he said slowly, a strange tone in his voice, "I think you better get that pistol out now, baby. My eyes started to go a few minutes ago."

I swore and jumped to my feet, fumbling to pull the Beretta out of my waistband. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely hold the thing. "Joel..." My voice was shaking too.

"Take a deep breath, baby girl. I love you. I'm ready. Don't miss."

"Joel, I c-c-can't do it! There wasn't enough time!" It felt like the entire world was falling apart. My anchor was spinning away from me, and I was falling to pieces.

"Never enough time." He grunted in pain. He groped with his hand and found the barrel of the pistol in my shaking hand, and he leaned forward until it touched his forehead.

"Ellie..." He was gritting his teeth now, his breath starting to get short. "Swear to me." He stopped for a second, a spasm of pain crossing his face. "Swear to me that you'll make a good life for yourself, a long one, with lots of love and kids and family."

This time it was me who hesitated. I'd never talked to anyone about my fears of being a carrier. Did I want my last words to Joel to be a lie? My heart breaking into a million pieces, I said, "I swear."

Joel looked up into the sky. He looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Okay."