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As the lightning receded and the thunder faded into silence, I said, softly to him and the night, “I love you, Wastelander.”

John kissed my head, but didn’t say anything. Still out of reach.

The rain kept coming, unrelenting and indifferent.

“You don’t believe it’s over, do you?”

That finally made him put a finger under my chin, lifting my face to look at him.

“What’s over?” he asked, frowning.

I stared right into his amber eyes, which, despite his words, held recognition in them.

“You know what I mean.”

His heavy sigh told me he did. It was a long time before he answered; he stroked my hair, as though distracting himself from something difficult but nonetheless inevitable. Finally, as the sky lightened with the first signs of dawn, he spoke to me in a low voice, like the words were a secret he was afraid fate itself would hear.

“No, sweetheart. I don’t.”

END OF BOOK THREE