Chapter 3

Six hours later, the radio clicked on.

It was Evan.

"I'm back."

His voice was as flat as ever.

The old me would have screamed and thrown myself at him in front of everyone, blood on him or not, hitting his chest and kissing his face.

"You're back. I was so worried. Let me look at you. Are you hurt? Why is there dirt on your face? Why are you in black again? Is that blood? I told you to wear the light one."

Today, I picked up the radio and kept my voice low.

"Okay. Good work."

There was silence on the other end.

Evan didn't say anything else.

I was close enough anyway, because he was already through the gate.

I caught a fragment of his thoughts.

'Good.'

I set the radio down.

Good.

He didn't have to sit through my calls anymore.

Anyone would have been relieved.

I went back to the cans.

At thirty-seven, I lost count and started over.

The second time, I lost it at fifteen.

The third time, I didn't count at all.

I sat in the middle of the cans for a long while without moving.

I used to have a habit of forcing Evan to talk.

It wasn't ordinary nagging. I had a hundred tricks, I never let up, and I didn't stop until he gave me something.

"Are you happy today?"

"Mm."

"What does that mean? Happy or not?"

"Happy."

"About what? Because you saw me?"

He didn't answer.

"Silence means yes, you know."

"Mm."

"Then kiss me."

He said nothing.

"One kiss won't take a chunk out of you. I've kissed you a hundred times, and you've never started it once! Do you even love me?"

He still didn't answer.

"Kiss me."

He bent his head and brushed my forehead so fast it barely happened.

"That's a kiss? You kissed a mosquito. Do it again."

Back then, I thought every word I dragged out of him and every kiss I forced was a trophy.

Looking back, it looked more like a man paying interest on a debt.

I stopped asking, and I stopped pushing.

We didn't talk over meals, and we didn't talk while walking anywhere. He sat beside me, and I did my own work.

I counted supplies, wrote up scouting reports, and screened the new survivors. I had plenty to do, and I wasn't some decoration that orbited one man.

Though I had looked a lot like one before.

That went on for five days.

For five days, people around the Haven felt something was off. The cafeteria used to be my stage.

I sat beside Ethan and filled his plate, poured his water, and wiped the corner of his mouth, one smooth routine.

Now I ate alone in a corner and left the moment I finished.

On the sixth day, Evan was going over the Haven's defense map. I came in to drop off a scouting report and turned to leave.

"You've been quiet lately," Evan said.

I stopped.

He didn't look up. His tone was as level as ever, the way another man might mention the weather.

I smiled, "Aren't I too loud for you?"

His pen stopped for half a second.

A fragment of his thoughts drifted over.

'True.'

I kept the smile where it was.

True?

So he did think I was too loud.

Well, now he'd admitted it himself.

"I'll watch it, then." I nodded at the desk. "The report's there. Don't forget to read it."

I turned and went out the door.

I walked fast, and I didn't look back.

In the third year of the apocalypse, there were no secrets in the Haven.

Three hundred people lived on top of each other, and word about who was close to whom or who had a grudge traveled faster than a mutant beast could run.

I never really cared about any of that. With my ability, what people said didn't matter, because I already knew what they were thinking.

Some things came through without any ability at all.

I went to the greenhouse for seed stock that day. A few of the women who ran the crops were talking inside and didn't notice me come in.

"Why is Commander Stone so good to Claire? What's he getting out of it?"

"Getting out of it? Richard saved his life. He's paying off a life with a life, that's all."

"True enough. Take away the mind reading, and there's nothing special about her. Honestly, that power is unsettling. Who wouldn't feel twitchy around her?"

"Right? She throws herself at him, kissing and hugging, and what does he do? Stands there like a block of ice. He's settling a debt. You think that's romance?"

"Did you see his face last time she kissed him in front of everybody? He looked sick."

They all laughed.

I stood in the doorway with the seed slip crushed in my hand.

I should have walked in. I was a core member of the Haven, and none of them would have said a word of it to my face.

But just because they didn't say it to my face didn't mean they weren't thinking it. What was on their minds was exactly what they said behind my back.

It wasn't only them. Most of the Haven thought the same thing.

"Claire's power is creepy. I can't hold a thought straight when she's around."

"What kind of relationship is that? Commander Stone clearly isn't into it. She's the one glued to him."

"She's Richard's daughter. He can't exactly throw her out."

Three years.

I'd been in that Haven for three years.

Out of three hundred people, not one of them ever took me for a friend.

To my face, I was Ms. Sutton. In their heads, I was the mind reader.

That was why I'd poured everything I had into Evan.

The more they talked, the harder I showed him off, and the harder I worked to make everybody see that he liked me the way I liked him.

Looking back, I still couldn't tell whether I was proving it to them or to myself.

In the end, I didn't go in.

I turned and walked away.