Summer Ruins (The Last Year, #4) by Trisha Leigh

Author:Trisha Leigh [Leigh, Trisha]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Book Four, The Last Year
Publisher: Createspace
Published: 2013-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24.

“Wait.” It frustrates me, being behind, and I need to catch up. “They don’t hold the Summer Celebration in a Sanctioned City?”

Pax shakes his head. “No, it’s always in Dallas. I don’t know why.”

“It’s supposed to be exciting, to reinforce that it’s a nice thing the Others do for us once a year,” Deshi grinds out, his jaw clenched.

“It’s genius,” Lucas tells Brittany. “All the Others will be there, except maybe the ones at the Harvest Site. And the humans will be in one place for unveiling.”

“Everyone will be in one place if things go badly, too,” I remind them. It’s smart, and going on the offensive is unexpected, but putting everyone on Earth in the middle of this fight thrums anxiety through my heart.

Lucas holds my gaze in his as gently as his hands have ever touched me. “Things are going to go badly regardless. And what’s the difference if we die fighting or die when the Others leave? We’re all in the middle, and there’s nowhere else to go.”

“I agree with Lucas,” Leah interjects.

When I look up, the rest of the kids are nodding, their faces set with grim determination.

“We need a plan, though. We can’t be caught unaware again. This time we do the surprising.” It’s Laura now, and after a moment, everyone is murmuring ideas back and forth.

Pax whistles again, bringing silence back to the graveyard. “Yes, good. But we still need to leave. Now.”

“Wait,” I say quietly. “One more thing.”

I rummage in one of the bags until I find a notebook and a pen.

“What are you doing?” a tall thin boy with a crop of long curls asks. The seriousness in his face doesn’t seem at home there, as though he’d rather be laughing.

“What’s your name?”

“Christian. What are you doing?” he asks again.

I take a deep breath, willing my voice to stay steady. “A bunch of our friends died today. This is a cemetery. We should… they need to be laid to rest before we leave. We may never be back here.”

“What do you mean, ‘laid to rest’?” Jordan presses.

“I’m going to write down everyone’s names. There should be twenty-six. We can remember them all, together.” I pause, swallowing hard. “I’ll start. My friends Monica and Val, from Portland.”

I try to write down their names but my fingers shake too hard. Lucas takes the pen from me, his cool hand covering mine for a brief second before he starts writing. Everyone calls out names and he scribes them until there are twenty-six. Twenty-six people dead, because they helped us. Or tried to.

The names melt into the air, diffusing onto the breeze. It’s almost as though they belong to this graveyard now, too, as much a part of the air and earth as Wild Bill and all the rest.

Brittany returns to my side; I hadn’t even noticed she’d left. She hands me a heavy rock—smooth gray mottled with white and black flecks—and gives me a rueful smile. “Leave the list under it so the paper won’t blow away.

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