Luna's Arc

Chapter 29 of 29

Luna's father was dying on the floor, and the house held nothing to save him. She let go of his hand and ran. Out the door, across the swept porch, past the bus where the children waited. She tore through the rooms of a shed by the yard, throwing boxes, searching for anything clean. Her hands shook. Behind her, she heard Luke crying and Harper shouting Keith's name. She found nothing. She had spent weeks keeping everyone alive, and now she could not stop her own father's blood. Then a small figure sprinted past her toward the house. It was one of the Ghost Kids, a dark-haired girl who had followed the group in silence since the hangar. She carried a white box with a red cross on the lid. She had found it somewhere the panic had blinded the rest of them to. She did not slow down. She did not ask permission. Luna chased her back inside. The girl dropped to her knees beside Keith and flipped the box open. "Move your hand," she told Harper. Her voice was flat and sure. Harper stared, then lifted the soaked cloth. The girl pulled out a thick pad of gauze. She pressed it into the wound and held it down with her whole weight. "Harder," she said. "Both hands." Harper obeyed. The girl packed more gauze around the first. Blood soaked through, then slowed. Luke pressed against Luna's side, too young to help, only watching. Luna knelt frozen, her clever mind empty for once. The girl worked like she had done it before. Minutes passed. The stain under Keith's ribs stopped spreading. His breathing steadied into something slow and even. The girl sat back on her heels and wiped her hands on her pants. "He'll last the night," she said. "If he stays still." She looked at Luna, and Luna saw it then, how much this child had already survived to know these things. "Thank you," Luna whispered. The girl only nodded. Harper waved the older Ghost Kid in from the bus. One by one the children filed into the farmhouse, out of the cold and away from the woods. They spread along the walls of the living room. For the first time in days, they were all under one roof. Luna crawled back to her father. His eyes had opened again. They found her face and held there. He was weak, but he was awake, and he was hers. The wound was closed. The bleeding had stopped. He would not take his answers into the ground tonight. She leaned close to his cracked lips. "Dad," she said. "You know why they left us. You know how the harvest started." Her voice did not shake now. "I need you to tell me everything. Start at the beginning." Keith drew a slow breath. His hand closed weakly around hers. And he began to speak.