In the year 2184, the US is divided. Half the country has moved on with the rest of the world, while in middle America, the survivors of the terrorist biological attack that split the country struggle just to stay alive. Though a century has passed, few people brave going behind the borders meant to contain the danger. Even the privatized military is reluctant to do so.<br><br>But that doesn’t stop recently discharged Sullivan Eberle. Only one thing drives him anymore -- the need to find Raphael Hamada. He doesn’t know why. He only knows he must. If that means a lifetime behind the borders, then so be it.<br><br>Rafe Hamada ran away from the real world when he was still a kid. The last thing he wants is to be found, especially by a soldier who can’t even tell him why it was so important to locate him in the first place. He’d like nothing more than for Sullivan to leave, but turning his back on a man alone and friendless is against everything Rafe stands for ...

Penny Candles

Mama had. He’d knew she do it all over again, too. And just because she’d never admitted it to his face, he knew why she so fervently smuggled him out of the city. Because she didn’t want her only child in Strike’s hands. Because as the offspring of a Strike soldier, Raphael Hamada would have no choice about the path of his future.


Rafe leaned forward. “If you didn’t trust him,” he said in all earnestness, “even a little bit, would you really be giving him work and dinner at the restaurant? Be honest, Mama. At least with me.”


Her shoulders sagged, the fight in her fleeing. When she sank back into her rocker, it struck him how much older she was getting. Still in her prime, but every year brought a new line to her face. “He’s so young,” she said. “When I think about Miami, I don’t think about them being like boys.”


Chapter 29