Finding a Way - Marie Fitzgerald (top 20 books to read .TXT) 📗

Chapter One
Destruction follows us everywhere. It has no mercy on the people that stand in its path, death and mourning is all that you feel if you are one of those unfortunately people. The only way to stand anything anymore is to shut off any and all emotions, because if you don’t, all you yearn to do is die. Somehow I’ve managed to get over those feelings without turning all of my emotions off, because I have the astonishing people around me that makes life worth living again.
“What’s the point anymore?” Everyone’s attention turned from the blistering hot fire to me as I stood up. Right now, the only method to stay warm on an icy cold night like this was to sit or stand totally still so that the warmth would travel to you and you wouldn’t mix cold air with warm air. Unfortunately, I had forgotten about this as I stood up. Even underneath my thick jacket, I shivered.
There was a long, awkward silence for about thirty seconds. No one said anything, no one did anything. They just all gaped at me, not knowing what to say to me.
“Point of what, exactly?” My brother, Red, asked me. I should have known he would be the first to speak up, like he always does. But what I didn’t expect was that he would be the one that was challenging me. But then I realized that he wasn’t challenging me, he was asking me a simple question. I hadn’t exactly made it clear about what ‘point’ I was questioning.
“Point of life,” I replied. “We’re all sitting here. Just sitting and surviving, but what about living?” I pointed out. “When are we going to stop the pause on our life and press play?”
“We have to survive, until this is all over,” Red said, stating the obvious. “So it might take a while, but when it is all over, life will be even better than it was before.”
“We’re not just surviving. If we were surviving, we would stop at nothing just to keep living, and just for ourselves. But none of us here has done that, because we’ve all risked our life for another person in our group at some point or another. The point of living isn’t just about keeping our heart beating; it’s about living for each other, for our family.”
I looked at Grace, who was only seven years old. A little less than half my age. Yet, she understood everything I did. But at the same time, she still had that child insight on things that no one else did in this group had, giving us hope and audacity to get up and face the day ahead of us. None of us, even Jonas, had to deal with any of these issues until we were at least ten years old. But Grace? Grace has been around these things ever since she can remember, about four or five years old. But who really truly remembers a lot of things before they were four years old? Maybe a memory here and there, but nothing that really counts. So basically, Grace has been in this nightmare of a world ever since she’s been able to remember. And yet…she still clings to her childhood like it’s all she has to live for. And thank God she does, because the rest of us aren’t able to do the same that she does. She’s the reason that all of us are able to clutch any morsel of hope for the future.
“Yeah, you’re right sweetie. Thanks,” I told her. She smiled at me with that gaping hole in her mouth where her two front teeth were growing in at the moment, reminding me just how small she really was. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that we may not endure long enough to ever truly live life again. Or that by the time we were done running, she might not be a kid anymore. By the time she turns twelve, she’ll have lifetimes worth of horrors worse than nightmares or anything that you can envision (even if you have a really sick, warped mind). I would have given anything to prevent that from happening to her. Unfortunately, it was probably never going to be an alternative. If it ever was though, I would be sure to take it up.
That’s totally what I wanted, someone almost a decade younger than me making me look like a big idiot in front of everyone that I love in this world. But she did have a point. We were a family; a big messed up family, that’s for sure. There wasn’t any parents, or adults (though Red is nineteen, he still doesn’t count because he’s old enough to be a parental figure to any of us). We were all just kids, at least in age. None of us were here together by choice, but by chance. Two chances; chances of finding each other and chances of living. The more of us that were together, the more chances we had of surviving.
“Where are we headed next?” Jonas, Grace’s (step) brother asked. “I suggest not going to Mexico. The earth’s crust has been acting up over there lately, if my sources are correct.”
How he got cell reception in Middle Of Nowhere, Nevada, was beyond my comprehension. But one thing you learn after testing Jonas’s knowledge or judgment one time, you never do it again, or you’re incredibly stupid. All I knew was that 99.9% of the time, he’s right. Still makes me speculate how he’s pays for the cell-service, because he can make calls on it like he always has before the phone stopped being paid for. When anyone asked him, he just said that he made a little kink in the credit card service and somehow the phone bill gets paid for every month. Not only that, but he’s ‘acquired’ laptops and given one to each and every member of our little clan, and they get internet like no problem. I’ve never been to a place that my laptop doesn’t get internet. Then again, when it come to Jonas, there’s just some things that I might not want to know, ever.
“Greenland?” Micah suggested. Everyone gave her a look that told her to shut up. Like just about any other time that she ever pitched in one of her ideas. She’d only been with us for a short time, so she hadn’t exactly earned her gold stars yet. She wasn’t a veteran of this war like all of the rest of us, though she was the middle when it came to ages.
Apart from me, because I knew the real motive of why she was so fanatical with Greenland. It’s not just some stupid random fixation. Let’s face it, there’s basically nothing in Greenland that’s worth liking. All I really know about it is that it’s really cold up there. Anyways, there’s someone particular to her that’s there. A person that’s the last surviving member of her blood related family. Seven years ago her uncle left for Greenland when he was sixteen, to drive a tow truck, or a semi truck, I don’t remember the little details. Anyways, he essentially cut himself entirely out of her family. She hasn’t seen him for six years, and hasn’t heard his voice for three years. Not even one lousy postcard. Anyways, for some reason, Micah had the notion that if she could just get to Greenland, she could automatically find her uncle within a week. She knew, deep down, that she probably was never going to see her uncle ever again. But still, she just lost her whole family a little over a month ago. She was still in denial, so maybe she thought that if she just got to Greenland, she might find the rest of her family, along with her uncle. It may sound a little drastic, but in her mind, it makes perfect sense for her to find her dead family in Greenland. As much as I would love to help her find her uncle, it just wasn’t an option. There was no way in hell that everyone was going to Greenland, way too dangerous for travel. And now that she was already in our group, we weren’t letting her go alone, no matter how much she wanted to go.
“We have to go somewhere that none of us have ever been before or have any associations with. Within the U.S or Canada for now,” Jonas informed us. I’ve snuck through the border to Canada before; they don’t exactly have the finest border in the world. Of course, the U.S and Canada has good relations, so why treat each other like frenemies? It’s just like Europe, crossing borders to different countries is like crossing into another state.
I sat back down after I realized that I had been standing this whole time, feeling like an idiot.
“Oklahoma or Nebraska.”
The suggestion came from Shane. He never spoke during our planning discussions. Well, that’s because he really didn’t have the right to. So when Shane appeared from being hidden in the shadows of the RV, everyone gaped at him. What’s with everyone always being so amazed by every little spoken word tonight? He stepped closer, into the light of the fire. While everyone else gaped, I glared and glowered. Naturally, he noticed, like he always does whenever I do that. So…that’d be just about 24/7. Everyone else thought that it was just because of his dad that I hated his guts, but it’s much more deep and complex than that. Of course I can’t really tell anyone about it because I can’t be sure what he would do to me or my family if he knew that I knew what he did. As if his father wasn’t enough to hate him. His father was a ruthless killer, who ever thought to trust the son of that ruthless killer? That idiot would be my brother.
“Oh, is that where your father keeps his nuclear bombs. Or wait, is that where his illegal, immoral torture chambers are?” I sneered, reminding him of whom he really is and where he comes from. Plus, I was making it crystal clear that I didn’t trust him, if that wasn’t clear before.
I heard some others shift uneasily at my second outburst of the night. No one was honestly comfortable about who his father was, but nonetheless, they’ve received him into our family. But, whenever I brought up the subject of his family or his past, everyone got uncomfortable at least a little bit. When your father is responsible for your family’s death, it’s kind of hard to ignore that factor when getting to know you. In Shane’s case, everyone was sacrificial enough to just let it pass by without saying anything. Everyone except for me, of course. Even if my own flesh and blood brother trusted him, that made absolutely no difference to me. My brother makes mistakes just like every other human being, but trusting this guy was just not acceptable to me. So I decided early on that I was going to put extra effort into making him feel unwelcome here.
“No, that’s in Florida.” Shane corrected, and then added, “I was thinking one of those two states because they’re very rouge, and cut off from much of anything that goes on in this country. I would say Alabama, but that’s a little too far away from