“I second that!” a woman cries.
“Only if he has a Westfall working with him,” someone in the back of the crowd says. “Ivy needs to be a part of it. That way things will be fair.”
I open my mouth to protest; I have no intention of running Westfall, even temporarily, but the man’s suggestion catches on and his words ripple around the room. Victoria looks at Bishop. “It’s a good idea,” she says. “You and Ivy can work together to stabilize things.”
Bishop turns to me. We both know what will happen if we agree. Bishop will become the new leader of Westfall. Or I will. I can see it so clearly: the two of us implementing the best ideas of our fathers, keeping people safe while allowing them their freedom. We could make Westfall the place it always should have been. A legacy we can be proud of. The promise of it snaps through my blood like lightning. But underneath that, the little voice I’m getting better at hearing is already asking if fulfilling my father’s dream is the same as fulfilling my own.
“What do you say?” Bishop asks me. He’s got a faint smile on his lips, and I know he’s seeing the possibilities, too. But I pause, really looking at him. Something in his face is weary, his eyes stoic instead of sparkling. Like he’s already bracing himself for bad news. My heart turns over in my chest.
I want to see the ocean. I’d rather explore than govern. I don’t care enough about the power. I stare at Bishop, hear his words, remember the dream I had for him when I thought I’d never see him again—that he would someday reach the ocean, taste its salty sting.
Bishop has always followed where I led—beyond the fence, back here to Westfall, and now, in this room, he’s willing to do it again. Not because he’s weak or because he doesn’t have his own ideas, but because he loves me and he wants me to have what I need. But I love him, too, and his happiness matters as much to me as my own.
It would be a lie to say a part of me doesn’t want to stay in Westfall indefinitely and carry out my father’s vision, turn it back into a democracy, a place where people are free in all ways. But then I wouldn’t be free. I’d be forever tied to this patch of land, these people, this way of life. Here I will always be Justin Westfall’s daughter, for better and worse. Before I was put out beyond the fence, I couldn’t imagine a life outside Westfall, but now, it’s hard for me to really imagine one inside it. Bishop was right; there’s so much of this world we haven’t seen. And I want to discover it. Westfall feels like my past. The whole wide world feels like my future.
“So, what do you say?” Bishop repeats, and I’d swear the entire room is holding its breath, waiting for my answer.
“Yes,” I say. “My answer is yes.” I pause. “But only for a few months. Just until spring.”
“What do you mean?” Victoria asks. “Why only through the winter?” Around us people’s voices begin to rise, everyone clamoring for more information. Bishop ignores it all, his eyes on me.
“Because I think Westfall will do better in the long term without a Lattimer or a Westfall in charge.” I glance at Victoria, remembering her innate fairness, her determination to try to do the right thing. She’s much better suited to the running of Westfall than either Bishop or I will ever be. “It’s time for everyone here to find a new way, a new path to follow.” I smile at Bishop, take his hand. “And besides, Bishop and I already have plans.”
“We do?” Bishop asks, brow furrowed, but that little dance of amusement flaring to life in his eyes.
“Yes,” I say. “We do. I seem to remember, once upon a time, you mentioning us taking a very long hike.”
“What are you talking about?” Erin says, but I keep my gaze on Bishop. “I don’t understand.”
But Bishop understands. He smiles, his eyes lit up like the sun at daybreak. He steps close to me, pulls me into his arms. “It’ll be rough, Ivy,” he says. “And dangerous.”
I shrug. “So is Westfall. So is life. It will be worth it.” My cheeks hurt from the force of my smile. I loop my arms around his neck and hold on. All around us, voices rage, people shouting over one another. But I don’t hear any of it over the sound of my own joy, the power of my own choice.
Epilogue
The waves are the same color as the sky, a stormy blue-gray swirl. When they hit the shore, it’s with an impossibly loud crash, thundering up the sand toward our bare feet. After so many months of relative silence, broken only by the sounds of o
ur own voices, birds overhead, wind through trees, skittering rocks under our boots, the enormity of the sound is overwhelming, reverberating through my chest. I can already taste the salt in the air, the smell of seaweed thick in my nose. It’s like being in another word, an alternate universe from anything I’ve ever known before. Westfall, and the life I once lived there, seems very far away.
“We’re here,” I say. “I can’t believe we’re finally here.”
Bishop doesn’t answer, his eyes on the far horizon, scanning the vastness of the water. Over all the endless days and nights it took us to reach this spot, I pictured our arrival with running feet and screaming voices, but now, in this moment, we are both subdued. Awed in the face of so much raw power.
“Do you think Ash and Caleb are all right?” I ask, turning my head to scan the bluff above the beach. I can just make out Caleb’s dark head. He gives me a wave, and I raise my arm in return.
“They’re fine,” Bishop says. “Don’t worry.”
When we’d gotten within sight of the ocean, Ash and Caleb had hung back, urging us to go on ahead. Caleb said he needed to scout out the surrounding area, but I know they just wanted to give us some privacy, a chance to be alone at the end of this long journey.
“We didn’t ruin it after all,” I say. That has been my biggest fear, that what Bishop and I talked about the day we looked at his grandfather’s photo album would come to pass—we would get here and the ocean would be spoiled, destroyed, or simply gone. Even knowing that other people had seen the ocean since the war didn’t alleviate my fear. I needed to see it for myself.
“No,” Bishop says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, the sheer relief. “We didn’t.”
I look at him, the line of his profile, the strength of his jaw outlined in dark stubble. He isn’t a boy anymore. The year and a half it’s taken us to reach this spot has finished the job of turning him into a man, sharpened and honed him. He was right that day in Westfall—getting here was rough and dangerous. Nature conspired against us time and again, starvation and exposure our constant companions. A rockslide almost cost Ash her foot; we spent three months waiting for her to heal before we could move on and begin crossing the desert toward what was once Southern California. She still walks with a limp, but she walks.
And people threatened, too. All of us have killed along the way, but not with any pleasure and always with the unspoken awareness that if we kill too easily or often we will become something we can no longer live with.
But along with the hardships, we encountered kindness in equal measure. A family that shared food with us, a small group that let us stay in their camp, an old woman in a remote cabin who fashioned Ash a crutch of gnarled wood. For every trial there has been an answering blessing, for every loss, something gained. And I was right, too, that day in Westfall, because looking out over the rolling waves I know that this journey was worth every step. It has given us time to mend our broken places inside, make peace with the losses we’ve suffered, and forgive ourselves for the impossible choices we made. And now we’re here, the foam-tipped waves nibbling at our bare toes. A reminder that no matter what damage we do—to ourselves, to each other, to the world—life can still surprise us with its depth of possibility.