It was unusual for my sleep to be broken by something other than sunlight leaking through the thin cracks in the wooden walls, making it too hot to remain unconscious. But here I was tonight, opening my eyes in the pitch black, hearing voices across the room. I stayed perfectly still, trying to listen.

"…intruders in the camp."

"Intruders?" This voice was my dad's, and the surprise didn't belong to only him; intruders? It had been years since a new person had come onto our grounds. Intruders were absolutely unheard of.

"They're locked in the hospital. Jacob found them, trying to steal from the dry supplies."

"Wait for me outside," my dad replied. I didn't immediately know the voice of the man talking to my father, but I knew it was one of his officers. My dad had been a sheriff before the sickness, and that role had followed him into this new life. He was the leader of the camp, the top boss. I remembered when he had been shy, avoiding conflict and always keeping his mouth shut. I had been that way, too. The epidemic's occurrence had changed everyone individually, but my dad and I were very similar in that we had really found ourselves in times like this. We were strong now. I had never known fear like that of watching my family members and friends die all around me; since then, I had decided never to feel fear again.

I waited until I heard the catch of the door after my father followed his officer outside the house before I slid off my mattress, padding across the floor. I put on an old pair of sandals that would let me follow them in mostly silence, deciding that my pajamas – a t-shirt and loose running shorts – would suit this exposition just fine.

They headed toward the abandoned hospital, which was just beyond the overgrown trees that hid our camp. I stepped where they stepped, watching for twigs. I knew these woods better than I'd known roads before the sickness. I had spent the last ten years of my life in them.

I waited outside as they entered the tucked away side door, counting slowly to ten and then trying the handle. It was locked, of course; as the chief's daughter, I had my own ring of keys, but I'd left them back in the house. If I ran back and got them, I would miss all the action.

Another luxury of being the chief's daughter was that I had my own supplies that were rare among the other campers – specifically, in this case, bobby pins. I always kept one in my hair for lock-picking purposes, and dropped carefully to my knees, picking the old and dented lock and pushing the door open. It was nearly as black in the hall as it was outside, but a long way down the hall I caught sight of light streaming under a door. I jogged toward it, kneeling on the tile without blocking the light. I didn't know this room. It was very, very rare that we had to lock anyone up.

I heard my dad's voice, pressing my ear against the lock. "Explain to me exactly what happened again, please, Jacob."

I recognized the next voice immediately, too. My dad's second-in-command, an eighteen year old named Jacob. He was gorgeous, I had to give him that; russet skin, dark brown eyes, long black hair. It was rare to have long hair in the camp, since it was too difficult to take care of. Jacob and I had some of the longest hair out of all of the campers.

His attitude, however, was quite a turn-off.

"I was patrolling, as usual, and heard noises coming from the supply shelter at the back of the hospital. I managed to surprise the intruders, discovering them looting our dry goods. I incapacitated one of them and the other two surrendered. I brought them in here and immediately went for help." I could almost hear the holier-than-thou sneer on his face as he spoke.

"And you believe that they were trying to steal our supplies?"

"What else would they have been doing?"

"In your opinion, what's the best choice of punishment for these…intruders?" I could tell my dad didn't like the word. New faces were less common than any kind of supplies these people might have been trying to steal. No one is invaluable in this life, I could hear my father telling me.

"In all honesty, we can't trust anyone we don't know. Not in times like these." Wrong answer. My dad wouldn't like that.

I began picking this second lock, the voices loud enough that I wouldn't be overheard. "Are you suggesting we kill them?"

"With all due respect, Charlie—"

I burst through the door, shoving past two more officers I didn't bother looking at so I was in the middle of the room. My father and Jacob were immediately in front of me, and on the floor to my left were the famous intruders, bound and sitting against the wall with ties around their mouths.

"Bella," my father growled, stepping toward me. "What are you doing in here?"

"You can't kill them," I insisted right away, glancing at Jacob angrily and then looking down at the intruders. "No one is invaluable in this life, dad—Chief Charlie. You know that. How often do we see strangers? How rare is it to see anyone besides our campers alive? The exact way that we managed to build our camp up to this size was accepting everyone and taking in anyone that we could. If we didn't give anyone second chances, none of us would be here." I brought my gaze back to Jacob, who was the only one of four people that survived a bear attack several years ago. Animal sightings were unlikely, considering the sickness didn't only harm humankind, and it had attacked his group from behind. Many campers had blamed him, as he was the oldest of the group at the time.

The attack had left him scarred, three thick pink lines traveling from underneath his chin down below the collar of his shirt. I didn't know how far the scars actually went, but I remembered all the blood when they had brought him back to camp. Don't look, Bella, my mom had cooed.

Will Jacob be okay?

He'll be fine, my love.

What about the other boys?

They…they went away, like grandma and grandpa.

And Aunt Dana?

Yes, like them.

"Spoken like the chief's daughter," another of my dad's officers said. He was smiling, but Jacob looked incredibly unhappy. His eyes were on our prisoners now, and I looked down at them too, seeing one of them was staring at me. He looked young, around my age, his hair a strange orangey bronze in the candlelight. I could see right away that he was beautiful; it had been a long time since I'd seen a boy more beautiful than Jacob, but here one was, tied up on the floor right in front of me.

"Let them go," I asserted. "At least listen to what they have to say."

"Why are we listening to her? She doesn't even understand half of this," Jacob said, angry that he was being so openly questioned, and I rolled my eyes, kneeling in front of the prisoners and reaching for the knots around the beautiful boy's wrists. His eyes followed me, and then moved to look over my left shoulder as Jacob leapt forward to stop me.

My elbow shot backwards, catching him hard in the stomach, but his warm hands found my arms anyway, trying to pull me away. I landed on my back and brought my knee up in the air fast, just barely missing Jacob's nose.

"Enough!" Charlie shouted, and Jacob dropped me quickly, backing up. I scoffed and returned to what I'd been doing, my eyes on the prisoners.

"Which one of you is the leader?" I asked them, and a blond man nodded, the other two group members looking over at him. He was on the end, the tallest, a light dusting of blond facial hair scattered on his cheeks and chin where I could see the skin there. I carefully pulled down the cloth around his mouth, letting him speak.

"My name is Carlisle," he said quickly. "We didn't mean any harm. We were simply curious, and it was disrespectful of us to interfere with your supplies without knowing who they belonged to. It has just been so long since we've seen others," he added. "I don't remember the last time I saw another face besides my son's or wife's."

"Your whole family survived?" I asked immediately. My father, mother, and I had all managed to avoid getting the sickness. Some people were just immune to it, we'd heard. We had done our best to help our friends and family survive. None of them had. Nearly every family on earth had been completely torn apart. "You are the only other ones I've met."

"Yours did as well?" Carlisle asked, looking from me to Charlie. "How many of you are there? Even in this room, there's what, six of you? And that supply closet – you must have close to fifty survivors living together. Wow." He let out a slow breath.

"What's it to you?" Jacob demanded, and I turned around to glare at him. He was moving closer to the prisoners, and I immediately straightened up, my chest to his.

"Keep your mouth shut," I growled.

"You do not tell me what to do." Anger sparked in his dark eyes, and I saw Charlie's hand clamp on our shoulders, pushing us apart.

"Let the man speak," he told both of us. "Carlisle, how did you find us?"

"We came all the way from Washington," he said, looking up at us from the floor still. "That's where we lived before. We happened upon your camp in our travels. We've been looking for others for so, so long. It's like everyone in the world just disappeared."

"No, everyone in the world died," I said, dropping back to my knees. "So what, you want to stay here?"

"Bella," Jacob warned, more anger in his voice. I rolled my eyes.

"Humans need each other to survive. We would be happy to offer our skills. I was a doctor before the sickness. I worked at a hospital. I could assist in the healthcare of your citizens. My wife and son have their own skills, as well. We would be good contributions to your camp."

"You were a doctor?" I asked, stunned. Almost every doctor in the country and beyond had died from the sickness. My mom had been a nurse, and she was the only one in her whole hospital who had been immune. Every doctor had died, as well.

"I was."

"Dad?" I asked Charlie, turning back to look at him. He looked contemplative, whereas Jacob just looked plain pissed. It was quiet for several moments before my dad finally spoke, uncrossing his arms.

"You can stay," he said, and Jacob opened his mouth to protest just as Charlie held up his hand. "You'll be staying here in the hospital with guards at all hours. You'll be assigned duties. If you step out of line, Jacob will get to decide your fate." This seemed to appease the angry officer, whose dark eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. "You'll be retrieved at sunrise. Bella." Charlie stepped forward, and I straightened up, letting him lead me out of the room. The other officers followed, one staying behind to untie the prisoners. They were led to a room with three beds, and Jacob and another officer, a young woman named Avery, waited outside as guards.

We left the hospital still in the dead of night, and I tipped my head back to look up at the stars and crescent moon before they would be swallowed up by the trees. Charlie and I walked together, the other officers following. They had all been woken up, I assumed.

"Do you feel good about this?" I asked him as we walked, and he glanced at me slowly, frowning.

"I don't think you should have been in there at all. That was very irresponsible of you."

"What would have happened if I hadn't been there?"

"You don't think I could have handled it without you? Sorry, your highness."

"That's not what I meant. I just mean – well, we both know who's taking over this place when you're gone. Not that that will be any time soon, but…" I trailed off, looking at my father. His facial hair was much darker than Carlisle's, and a lot thicker. Razors were virtually nonexistent after ten years of sickness and death, so the men trimmed their beards as well as they could with scissors or knives, and women weren't expected to shave anything. That was one bright side, out of several million dark ones.

"I understand, Bella. You just have to be careful."

"Why, is the big bad Jacob gunna kick my ass or something?" I grimaced. "He wishes he could."

"Jacob would never try to hurt you," my dad said quietly. "Don't assume that about him just because he's a bit abrasive. He means well. He's a good person."

I had heard this too many times. I could tell my dad really valued Jake as a person, and he was a great officer and all, but that was it. I had a feeling sometimes that my dad wanted me and Jacob to have some kind of future together, where the two of us took care of the camp and got married and rode horses off into the sunset. It was the fucking end of the world, for crying out loud. I had bigger things to worry about than whether my dad wanted me to date Jacob or not.

I returned to my cot, hearing my dad's familiar snoring shortly after. He and my mom slept in the same bed, and I shared the other end of the house with my little brother, Isaac. He didn't snore, so I had no way of knowing whether or not he was asleep.

I should have guessed that he wouldn't be. I felt his nudges not even a minute after my dad was out cold, and moved over so he could slide into my bed with me. I really didn't like when he did this. It was hot enough alone in my own bed, especially in the summer. But he was my little brother. Only five, he had no memories of anything before the sickness.

"You have a nightmare, Isaac?"

"What did you and dad leave for?"

"Nothing major, silly. Go back to sleep."

"Is it bad? What are intruders?"

"New people," I sighed, not knowing how to avoid it. I wasn't one to sugarcoat the truth with him. "New good people, who are here to help us."

"We don't need help," he said quickly, and I smiled at the determination in his small voice. I was positive he'd gotten it from me.

"Mom needs some help in the garden sometimes, doesn't she?" I asked him, and he seemed to think about it for a while.

"Well, yeah," he conceded. "And Jacob needs help putting on his knife belt, sometimes."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Jacob knew my little brother was fascinated with the work he and my father did, and never hesitated to show off to Isaac all the weapons he held and all the different ways he knew how to use them. It annoyed me. He was five. He didn't need that in his head.

"Jacob can put his own belt on."

"You don't like Jacob?"

"You know I don't."

"Well, he likes you," Isaac said, yawning and turning the opposite direction on my pillow so he was facing away from me. "He talks about you all the time. How pretty your hair is. How your smile is like stars in the sky."

"He said that?" I scoffed, wishing it was easier for me to stop making my dislike so obvious. I didn't want Isaac feeling like I hated his idol.

"One time I went with him when he was doing laundry, and he said that when you go swimming at night, you'll sing. And he said it's the prettiest singing he's ever heard."

I paused, unaware until now that anyone knew about my nightly swimming sessions. I swam all the time; it was one of those things that I had loved before and after the sickness. Our camp had been chosen specifically because of the convenience of our location: we were right behind a totally empty hospital, which was full of supplies, beds, and other useful things, including a place for us to stay when the weather got bad. Also, we weren't even a mile from a natural spring, which was naturally occurring, ice-cold fresh water that we could use for nearly anything. My dad didn't like us swimming in it, and Jacob knew that. I would expect him to reprimand me for breaking rules like that.

"What else does he say about me, Isaac?"

I had apparently taken too long to reply to him, his tiny breaths elongating, and I sighed, letting him sleep. I carefully climbed over top of him and moved onto his cot, not bothering to bring a blanket. I had always tried to keep track of months, and I was pretty sure it was May. Already about a month into the Florida summer.

—

As usual, my parents had already woken up and left the house before I even opened my eyes. I glanced over, seeing Isaac tangled in his shirt in his cot, and smiled despite myself. He had my same chocolate hair, but he'd gotten my mom's blue eyes. They reminded me of the cold blue spring, which in turn reminded me of what Jacob had allegedly said about me. I highly doubted it had any truth to it, but Isaac would have no reason to make that up.

It still bothered me that he was that creepy, to actually watch me at night without my knowledge. Granted, I usually wore clothes while I was swimming, but still. It was a private moment, obviously. I'd never be able to enjoy those late night sessions the same way ever again.

I got dressed and left the house, immediately in the middle of our tiny camp's center. Not only did we choose a clearing in the forest to camp in because of its proximity to places we needed, but we also hadn't wanted to take over some empty neighborhood. It made most of us more comfortable to be this close to each other, and to everything we needed. That was why we'd spent years building houses out of trees from our huge forest and cots from the hospital. We were like a big, fifty-person family. People had come from everywhere; there was one person from as far north as Canada, another pair of strangers from Mexico who had met on their way up here, and subsequently gotten "married." My dad brought all of us together. He took care of us. Everyone looked up to him, loved him.

Which was why he was the one explaining our new members. He stood in front of Carlisle and the other two prisoners, or campers, now. The beautiful boy was there, and he met my eyes as I approached the scene, tossing my hair over my shoulders. His were bright, emerald green.

"This is Carlisle, Esme, and Edward," Charlie was saying, and I brought my gaze back to the beautiful boy. Edward was his name, then. "They're a family from Washington who has come a very long way to be with us. I'm expecting all of us to welcome them with open arms. For the time being, they're staying in the hospital. Jacob and Avery are their escorts." I assumed that escort was a nice word for prison guard, but said nothing. I spotted Jacob, too, standing with his back to me, facing my father. My stomach twisted at him hearing me sing, and I picked a spot far from him to stand and watch.

"Carlisle was a doctor before the sickness, so he is going to be assisting Renee with her nursing duties," my dad explained. He waved to my mom, her messy auburn hair blowing in the breeze, dirt already coating her arms. Not only was she the main nurse of the camp, but she also was the head gardener. She said it made her feel free.

"Esme will be helping as a teacher. And Edward will work with the others of his age doing regular chores, until he begins his training as an officer." This was a very, very honorable position, one that Jacob certainly hadn't expected any of these strangers to be offered. I saw his shoulders tense and anger flash through his dark eyes as my father continued speaking, and I ignored it, looking back at Edward. The boy seemed confused, but not at all afraid.

We would get along just fine, I decided.