Chapter 2

Aaron, Charlie, Danny, and Nora followed Miles and Rachel into the woods, passing rivers and startling lots of animals. They finally came upon a small cabin and it looked desolate and lonely, like it hadn't been occupied by humans in hundreds of years. Then again, it probably hadn't been lived in since the blackout. Aaron sighed, thinking of all the dilapidated houses he had passed to get to Sylvania Estates, and then to get here. About a thousand, perhaps? So many people had been uprooted from the Blackout.

Miles stepped up first to the door, and pushed it open with a creak. He pulled out his swords and walked in, looking around the house. "Coast is clear." Miles said, sheathing his swords again. Everyone rushed in and dropped their stuff on the floor. Danny sat down on the couch, releasing a cloud of dust and immediately started coughing. Rachel and Charlie started soothing him, rubbing his back and trying to get him to breathe normally. Miles and Nora and Aaron froze, watching Danny convulse, his lips turning blue. Once again, Aaron wished Maggie were here. Eventually Danny stopped and took deep breaths. Rachel visibly relaxed. Charlie remained alert, in case of relapse.

"Miles, we need to talk." Rachel said, standing up.

Miles's expression didn't change. "Okay." He said. "Now?"

Rachel looked at him. "Yes, Miles. Right now."

"Mom." Danny coughed. "Just tell us all here. I can't take the secrets. First you're dead, and then you're alive. Someone has to start talking." Everyone looked at Danny. Aaron noted that this was the most Danny had said since they'd rescued him for the Militia. Rachel looked at her kids, who stared defiantly back at her. Nora and Aaron didn't get involved. They stepped back. "The beginning, then?" Rachel's voice shook. Charlie nodded, and so did Aaron. He wanted to hear this-this monstrosity of a story that had taken his life and smashed it into a million pieces.

"When I left you, I wasn't going to get supplies. I was going to turn myself in to the Militia. It was the only way to protect you, to prevent the Militia from taking you away and turning you into soldiers. So I went, and turned myself in.

"Bass-Monroe wanted me because he thought I knew something about the power going out. And, well, he was right. But I wasn't ever going to tell him until he threatened to hurt you, Danny."

"But he did hurt me, Mom." Danny croaked. Aaron's heart ached for the poor kid.

"I know, Danny." Rachel said. "But me and Dad- before the blackout, we were working with the Department of Defense, trying to create renewable green energy with those pendants. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect. It caused a blackout-"Aaron gasped out loud, "-in a localized area." Rachel finished. "Randall Flynn, our boss, he promised us contracts to work further on it. But I had my doubts about it. Randall tried to bribe me when I found out that Danny was going to be born with some heart defects, and he succeeded. He got Danny's fetus into a maxxed out research center, and we all continued working on the pendants. Still, I thought, for sure, this was gonna be used as a weapon."

"And you were right." Aaron said, surprising himself. Everyone looked at him. "Rachel. Are you saying that the pendants caused the blackout?" Rachel nodded, slowly, tearing up. "It's all my fault. I helped create the pendants. I helped create the world that we live in." Charlie and Danny looked shocked. Nora's mouth dropped. Miles, surprisingly, looked unperturbed, like the news was absolutely irrelevant.

"You caused the blackout?" Aaron asked in shock.

"I didn't cause it, so to say. My own hand didn't turn the lights off. But I did help cause it." Rachel said quietly. "And now Monroe has power. I built the amplifier. It's my fault that he has helicopters now."

Aaron wanted to scream, to rage, anything at this woman who had had the nerve to interfere with his life, the woman who had turned the world upside down. Rachel Matheson was a monster. But Aaron didn't have it in him to admit it. Nora looked like she wanted to stick a bomb in Rachel's pants and watch it detonate. Miles looked like he already knew everything.

"Mom. This was…all your fault?" Charlie said slowly, measured, but she had an undertone of ferocity. Rachel nodded. Danny lunged forward a little, but Charlie held him back.

"Okay." Aaron started. Everyone looked at him again. "What, Mr. Tubbs?" Miles spat out. He looked livid, and Aaron thought, Maybe I shouldn't get into this. But he pressed on.

"Monroe has power. Those pendants carry it. How many does he have?" Aaron asked Rachel.

"Just one, Aaron. But why-"

"Rachel, everyone, trust me. If those pendants carry power, then we need to get some. How many are there?"

Rachel's face began to light up. "Twelve."

"You created twelve?" Aaron repeated, shaking his head. "That's-wow. Twelve. Anyway, we need our own power. If Monroe has a pendant, then we need those other eleven."

Rachel, Charlie, and Danny smiled a little, even Nora and Miles looked pleased at having a prospect of a plan.

"You heard Aaron." Rachel said crisply. "Monroe has power. Let's get some of our own."

Aaron flashed back to two months after the blackout.

He and Priscilla were walking out of St. Louis and into the wilderness. It is before they had met Sean. "Aaron, do you think the power will ever go back on?"

"It's been two months; I don't think the power is coming back. People have given up on hope; it's turned us into who we would have been if we were born in this society. Our people don't have compassion anymore; it's all about self-preservation from here on out." Aaron replied.

Priscilla looked worried.

End of flashback.

Aaron had clung to hope for years, even after this conversation. He had wished for the power to turn back on, that somehow, the rest of the world wasn't going through what America was going through. He'd hoped that there was a chance, no matter how slim, that the rest of the world would show up in planes and boats and that everything would start working again. Now there was actually a chance of that! If they got those pendants, then the world would come back. Everything would come back.

"Rachel. Where to?" Miles asked. "It's all you from here on out."

Rachel's gaze didn't waiver when it landed on her brother-in-law. "I need help. That's what I wanted to tell you. I can't do this on my own, Miles."

Miles looked like he wanted to laugh. "Okay then."

"Did you try Grace Beaumont? Her place is in Indiana." Rachel tried.

"Maggie and I went there." Aaron said. "Ben's pendant turned on for a few seconds. It made a CD player work, and Maggie's iPhone turned on. But Grace wasn't there."

"Okay," Rachel said, thinking. "There were a few more. Percy McCormick. He lives in New York."

Aaron let out a sigh he wasn't even aware he was holding. "New York, here we come."

"Can we at least stay the night?" Nora whined. "We've been running all day, and I think we need our rest before heading out to New York." There was a general murmur of assent. Everyone sat down, started to relax a bit. Charlie still looked tensely at her mother, but didn't say anything. Danny coughed every now and then, but otherwise breathed normally. Miles went out and hunted for a while, returned a bit after dark with a few deer, a meal fit for a king. That night they all stayed in that decrepit cabin.

Aaron lay on his sleeping bag, his arms crossed beneath his head, his glasses resting next to his backpack. The power is coming back, he thought before nodding off. Life is coming back.

Thanks to the few that have reviewed me, I found it in me to post another story in the Am I Needed? 'verse. If you haven't read my other one, please read it. The more reviews the better, and I will update if the count goes past five reviews.

-Boa