Chapter 24: New Year's Eve

At ten minutes to midnight on the thirty-first of December, the dead were out in the valley and the lights were on at Ashbourne.

Jessa stood at the window of the long hall with a mug of cocoa and watched the field behind the wall.

They had been out there for six weeks.

The wall had been raised twice, and Emmett's wire ran its whole length now, humming faintly in the cold.

Nothing had gotten through.

Forty-one people lived in the house now, counting the six from the annex and the technician with his daughter.

A family of five had walked up the gravel road in November, half frozen, and been taken in without a question.

The Director sat in cell one under Ironhold.

The general had kept his word, and so had Jessa.

A truck of food went across the causeway every Friday, and every Friday the soldier at the gate told Rhys the same thing, flatly.

She still would not count.

Jessa had stopped asking.

"Hey," Corin said behind her.

She turned.

He had been on the wall since dusk, and his cheeks were red from the cold.

He leaned on the window frame beside her and did not say anything, and that was one of the things she loved about him.

Six weeks was not long enough to be sure of anything.

It was long enough to know that he woke before she did, every morning, and lay watching her sleep until she opened her eyes.

It was long enough to know that he still flinched when she touched his wrist.

She had not forgiven him in one night.

She had forgiven him a little on a Tuesday, when he repaired the stove without being asked.

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