Free Amplified by Alexia Purdy

took the one across from him and untied my boots so I could lie down. How he could relax so easily in a place like this was beyond me. I hadn’t felt safe to sleep without one eye open since I’d slept in my tiny cot bed in our mountain bunker. My mother had taken more than her life when she’d destroyed our home. My entire world had been there since everyone had died or turned into ferals. Now I had no choice but to plan a return to my old house in the city and scavenge for old stuff like photographs and what memories were left of our old life. It’d been so long since I’d been there, I was sure nothing was left to even go back to. We’d left it all boarded and locked up tight, but who knew if it had held against the end of the world?
    “We ’ll have to exterminate them.” Rye’s voice interrupted the cool silence that had enveloped me. I pulled the thin blanket over me and rolled over to face him. “We can’t leave them alive, not after all this.”
    “We could assimilate thos e who want to join Blaze’s hive,” I whispered across to him. Avoiding his eyes, I bunched the pillow under my head. I knew why he said those things. It was true. In this world, why leave alive those who wanted you dead? I wished there was a better way, but there just wasn’t.
    “Maybe. If there ’s too many, we’d never be able to control them if they don’t like it in our hive.”
    “Who ’s to say they won’t like it?”
    “Blaze won ’t allow them to join. It’s too risky.”
    I close d my eyes and hoped the darkness would allow me some rest. “I guess you’ll find out.”
    “I guess.”
    “You don’t oppose him much, do you?”
    “No.”
    “Why?”
    “You don ’t know him like I do. He’s only shown the surface to you and the others. He even suggested killing your friends, the humans.”
    I sat up but couldn’t fully since a bunk bed sat atop me. “What? Why didn’t you tell me before?”
    His liquid steel eyes flashed under the hum of the f luorescent light. “I wanted to, April, but he made me promise not to.”
    “And me? What about me? Did he ever suggest killing me?”
    “No.” Rye sat up, hunching down in the cramped space. “If he had ever suggested that, I’d have told him no way in hell.”
    “Maybe he ’s thought it.”
    “Maybe. But like I said, he didn ’t ever suggest it.”
    “Why not? I ’m a much a threat as these people are.”
    “You were alone, April.” A husky voice interrupted us, and we both turned toward the source. Blaze’s face looked tired and dark, and I held my breath. How long had he stood there, listening in and knowing what we knew? He’d been quiet and reserved this entire time, taking it all in to ponder and digest. I’d forgotten he was even with us.
    “One person can be more dangerous than an army,” I whispered, and my thoughts went back to the destruction of Christian’s hive at the Stratosphere. I’m not sure if I was angry, but tears formed, and I sucked in a breath to steady myself before I focused my eyes on the hive leader. “Just like you are more dangerous to others than they know.”
    Blaze contemplated my words quietly but didn’t move. The color seemed to drain from his eyes. I’ve never really spoken with him much, not since he’d opposed my search for the city of Vida. Ever since, I’d stopped talking to him altogether and done what I wanted anyway. He was not my leader, and I was not his follower.
    “No words have ever been truer.” He narrowed his eyes on Rye as though mentally reprimanding him for what he’d told me.
    “Don ’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be gone when this is all over.”
    Rye abruptly turned to me, his face masked in horror. “What?”
    “If you wish. No one will stop you. You have your own free will.” Blaze turned to walk away, as if he’d lost interest in our conversation.
    “April, what are you saying? Why would you leave? Where are you going? What about Jeremy?”
    “He’s fine. He’ll stay in