Endurance Read Free

true. The survivors had to clean up the bodies before plague set in. Dead meat attracted bad things. If they didn’t act fast, the enclave would be swarming with Freaks. That might happen anyway, if the smell got to the monsters and drove them to frenzy.
    “Let me find Thimble to say good-bye. We were brat-mates.” That wasn’t the whole reason, of course. He meant to ask her to watch over Boy23 for him, but Silk wouldn’t get why. Farewell, she understood.
    “Fine. Locate her and say what’s needed. You’d be given time to collect your personal items under normal circumstances anyway.”
    Stone squared his shoulders, grateful he would be permitted this much. Living would be hard anyway, after the things he had done. Breeders gave life and preserved it; they didn’t kill.
    “Wait.” She seemed to reconsider, taking stock of the ruined common area. “Look, I’m the last elder. Which means I’m in charge. And I didn’t always agree with how they ran things.”
    They, meaning Copper, Whitewall, and the Wordkeeper? He waited to for her to go on.
    “If you swear your loyalty, the enclave could use you. I’ll do the elections like Twist wanted and everything, though rebuilding has to be my priority. Frankly, right now, we don’t have the numbers left for me to send people Topside for the sake of old traditions.”
    “I swear,” he said hoarsely. “I won’t fight you. I won’t plot anything.”
    “Then find Thimble. Do a headcount and let me know how many people made it.”
    “Including brats?”
    “Yes.” With that, she turned to her remaining Hunters and snapped terse instructions regarding cleanup, but Stone didn’t wait to hear more.
    He threw down the knife and sprinted with ever-increasing speed, hurdling bodies and smoldering piles of refuse. The neat organization of their enclave had vanished in a few, devastating hours. It would take weeks to restore order. When he passed Twist’s broken body, he paused. You got what you wanted, I guess, even if you didn’t live to see it. You changed things.
    With each moment that he failed to find Boy23 or Thimble, his heart pressed up into his throat. It felt like it would split into two meaty pieces and come up in a hot gush of sickness, worsened by the stench of the dead and dying. This place no longer felt like home; there was no safety. Just wreckage.
    If they’re gone, I will be too. I can’t survive this without them.
    Then he came at last to the brat dorm, where he spotted movement within a makeshift shelter deep in the shadows. Stone flew across that distance, hardly daring to hope. When he opened the curtain and found Thimble there, safe and whole, surrounded by brats, he smiled for the first time in what felt like forever. He’s there, my little Boy23. She saved him. Oh, Thimble.
    He dropped to his knees and wrapped his arms around all of them. He might never let go.

Three
    At first, relief wouldn’t let Thimble speak.
    She clung to Stone, inhaling the smoky scent of him. He trembled against her, his heart hammering like it would pound through his chest and into hers. He touched her as he never had, his hands on her hair, her back, not casual touches, but fierce ones, like he couldn’t believe she’d survived, like it meant everything.
    Don’t read into this , she told herself. You’re friends. Brat-mates. Nothing else is permissible between a Breeder and a Builder.
    “How did you find him?” he asked, when he sat back, a hand resting on a brat’s head.
    Thimble took a closer look and realized belatedly this was the Stone’s own brat. She should confess it had been accidental—that she hadn’t saved him through any special skill or effort. But she couldn’t lose the look in his eyes.
    “Just luck,” she murmured.
    “Thank you.” He pressed a kiss to the top of the brat’s head, and the boy went into his arms, nestling against Stone’s side as she’d seen so often. “I’m supposed to find out how many citizens made it and