Kate said, “Hey.”
He looked back.
“This isn’t your fault.”
That night, Ethan lay next to Theresa in a warm, dark room, deep inside the superstructure.
Ben slept on a rollaway at the foot of their bed, the boy snoring quietly.
The nightlight across the room put out a soft blue and Ethan stared into the glow. The first night in ages he could actually sleep in warmth, in safety, without a camera spying on him. Sleep was there for the taking, but he couldn’t find his way in.
Theresa’s hand moved around his side and across his stomach.
She whispered, “You awake?”
He rolled over to face her, and by the illumination of the nightlight, saw the glistening in her eyes, the wetness on her face.
“I need to tell you something,” she said.
“Okay.”
“You’ve only been back in our lives for barely a month.”
“Right.”
“We’d already been here for five years. We didn’t know where we were. If we were.”
“I already know all this.”
“What I’m trying to say is . . . there was someone before you came.”
“Someone,” Ethan said, a sudden pressure building in his chest, a weight pressing down on his lungs, stopping him from drawing a full breath.
“I thought you were dead. Or that maybe I was.”
“Who?”
“When I first came to town, I didn’t know a soul. I woke up here just like you did, and Ben wasn’t with me, and—”
“Who?”
“You saw that Adam Hassler is here.”
“Hassler?”
“He saved my life, Ethan. He helped me find Ben.”
“Are you for real?”
She was crying now. “I lived with him in that house on Sixth Street for over a year, up until the day he was sent away.”
“You were with Hassler?”
A sob caught in her throat. “I thought you were dead. You know how this town can mess with you.”
“Did you share his bed?”
“Ethan—”
“Did you?”
She nodded.
He rolled away from her onto his back and stared at the ceiling. No idea how to even begin to process this. All he had were questions, images of Hassler and his wife, and a raw, combustive pool of confusion, anger, and fear coalescing deep inside of him that was accelerating toward supernova.
“Talk to me,” she said. “Don’t shut down.”
“Were you in love with him?”
“Yes.”
“Are you still?”
“I’m confused.”
“That’s not a no.”
“Do you want me to protect your feelings, Ethan, or do you want me to be honest?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I wasn’t prepared to have this conversation. You’d only been here a month. We were just starting to reconnect again.”
Alan sat at the console, watching the screens.
He looked back as Ethan entered, and said, “You’re up late.”
Ethan took a seat beside him.
“Anything?” he asked.
“I disabled the motion sensors that powered up the cameras, so they’re running all the time now. I’m sure the batteries won’t last much longer. I’ve spotted a few dozen abbies back in town. I’ll take a team down in the morning first thing to finish them off.”