Read Ashes, Ashes for Free Online Page A

like shimmering golden beads on a necklace. A crooked line of fires. Aidan’s fingers dug into her arm. She would have pushed him away, but she was afraid of falling.
    “Oww,” she said.
    He barely took any notice of her.
    “There are people out there who don’t have to hide. Who are just … living. That’s where I’m heading someday.”
    “So why don’t you go, then? What are you waiting for?” She tried unsuccessfully to keep the sneer out of her voice. He was probably one of those people who didn’t move without someone telling him it was okay.
    He looked at her, taking in her expression. He let go of her arm. “Oh, so you’re happy, right? You’re having fun hiding from everyone, playing survivor out here with the dogs, eating frogs and acorns, being cold and wet or hot and itchy? Bathing once every few months?” His voice was scathing. His nose wrinkled, and once again she became aware of the smell wafting from her grimy clothes and her hair, which must resemble a bird’s nest.
    Her face reddened.
    “I’m not leaving here.”
    “The Sweepers will find you sooner or later.”
    “I thought they were just looking for diseased people. Or the S’ans?”
    Aidan shook his head. “No. Now they’re looking for whoever they can find. And who’s to say the plague won’t come back again? Another wave that’ll take out more survivors? Maybe it’s breeding in the sewers. In the rats. Or in the birds again.”
    She pressed her lips together. “Sounds like a good reason to stay away from people.”
    “Nothing will get rebuilt without people,” he said.
    “ People ”—she put a snotty emphasis on the word—“are the reason we’re in this mess in the first place. Too many people, and most of them are a waste of oxygen.”
    She glared at the tree limb, dug her fingers into the cracks in the bark. He snorted. She could just tell without looking that his mouth was twisted in a sneer again. She felt heat flood the back of her neck. What a jerk !
    “The waters are rising,” he said. “Every season, they creep a little higher. You can tell by Alice.”
    She looked at him uncomprehendingly.
    “The Alice statue. Isn’t that how you keep track of the lake levels?”
    “How did you know about that?” She tightened her hold on her knife. “You have been watching me!”
    He rolled his eyes. “You don’t own the park, you know. It’s not yours.”
    Eyeing him suspiciously, she thought about what he had said.
    Alice ! That was the name of the girl sitting on the mushroom. Now that she heard it again she had no idea how she could have forgotten. She’d seen the animated movie, and her mother had read the book to her, stopping when it gave Lucy nightmares about having her head chopped off. There were so many things she had forgotten or blocked out, as if she couldn’t help squashing down all the memories with the ones that hurt still. She stared at the tower. And then at the water, knowing that what Aidan said was true. The rains would come again with staggering ferocity like something out of the Bible; the oceans would swell, devouring the new brittle edges of coastline; rivers would spill over; and the lakes would grow until they swallowed the land. They were due for something big and devastating, she could feel it. Locusts, maybe.
    “Where do you live?” Lucy asked, shrugging the crawling feeling from between her shoulder blades.
    He turned to look at her, one hand rumpling his shaggy hair until it stuck out in all directions. The smirk was gone. He pointed into the darkness. “See?”
    She shook her head.
    He grabbed her shoulder, turned her a few degrees to the east. Past the hollow where her camp was, a tall silhouette loomed. She recognized the Egyptian-style marble column which stood there, as out of place as a camel, and to the northeast of it a plateau and a series of gorges where a massive earthquake had caused the concrete slabs of a big road to slide and sink and bunch upward like a swathe