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

Belle didn’t always go. It depended on how she was feeling. On the days weariness won, she pressed an ancient pocketknife into his hand and pushed him into the back garden to cut four flowers to take with him, one for each of the graves she demanded be attended. He didn’t ask questions about who they were, and when Belle came with him, he always waited at the edge of the cemetery so she would have her privacy, but he knew from reading the markers they were all relatives. Her husband had died nearly three decades ago, while the other three came long before that. Parents, perhaps, or siblings. Those headstones lacked anything other than the name and years to further identify them.


Chapter 30