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

Time disappeared. Though Sullivan lit fewer candles, his prayers spent with each stretched to minutes upon minutes. Rafe’s knees ached when Sullivan finally lifted his head, and his left foot had completely fallen asleep.


More candlelight meant a clearer view of the man beside him. Now that he could see better, Rafe noted the scratches on the back of Sullivan’s hands were mirrored on his palms, thin and ragged in random, mindless patterns. His clothes weren’t torn, either, just dirty from labor. He hadn’t been in a fight like Rafe had originally thought. The tension inside him slowly unfurled.


He took Sullivan’s hand as he had before. No protest met his efforts, and they rose in tandem, fingers interlaced, bodies close. Their shadows preceded them to the front door, cast in amber from the flickering candlelight behind them, to be absorbed by the night once they crossed the threshold.


Chapter 48