Free Impact by Chrissy Peebles Page A

we’ll see each other again.”
    Speechless, I just looked at her, battling tears of my own.
    She continued, “I understand why Claire wanted to stay in that compound when we left. She wanted a happy, safe life, and that’s what I want too.”
    Nick looked at Claire. “So what about you? Are you coming with us?”
    “I still want the same thing Val does, but I won’t be separated from you, not ever again. I love you, Nick, and I’ll go wherever you go. I don’t see any point in surviving unless I know you’re safe as well. We’ll fight together, and I’ll always be by your side.”
    Nick gave her hand a squeeze and was too choked up to speak, entirely uncharacteristic for a tough guy like him.
    “I’m coming with you guys too,” Jackie said. “The first day you met me, Dean had to convince me to go, but I don’t need any convincing now. I’m in this for the long haul. You guys are my family, and I love you.”
    I hugged her, and she squeezed me tight. I remembered that first day. Back then, I never would have dreamt that she would be my girlfriend or that I would fall in love with her. Now, with Jackie at my side, I knew anything was possible.
    “I can’t leave my family,” Asia said.
    “Me neither,” Kate said. “We’re coming too.”
    Lucas wrapped his arm around Kate. “Thanks for sticking with us.”
    She smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
    Nick looked at Val, still shaking his head in disbelief, his voice wavering. “So we’re really losing you?”
    “Not permanently, Nick. I’m so sorry, but I have to do what’s right for me. I’ve been through so much pain and heartache. I just can’t take any more of it.”
    “I can’t believe you’d choose a man over your own family,” Nick said.
    “My heart was torn out when Travis died. I fell in love with Kyle after that, and he was ripped away from me too. I refuse to lose yet another love of my life. I have to stay with Max.”
    “But we’re your family,” he said.
    “I love him, Nick.”
    Nick pulled her aside, closer to where I was.
    I looked over at Max. “We need a minute alone, if you don’t mind,” I said.
    “Uh...sure.”
    “What about Sammy?” Nick asked Val. “The girl you traveled with to the island, the girl who was ripped from your arms when they booted her off the island? Lucas told me how awful it was, that she kept screaming your name as they dragged her away. She left thinking you were dead. So did Kyle and his daughter.”
    “I’m sure they moved on and have already grieved my loss. There is no sense in opening old wounds.”
    “They’d want to know you’re okay. We can go and find them and—”
    “And what?” she retorted. “For all we know, they’re dead too. I’d rather not know.”
    “Is that what you’re afraid of? You just don’t want to hear about another tragedy? You’d rather stay here and pretend they are alive and well, spending some fake happily-ever-after in Never Never Land? If they are alive, I’m sure it’s not all unicorns and marshmallows for them. It would do them good to know you are okay, too, for them to see you again. It would be best for you.”
    “And what makes you some kind of shrink?” she snapped.  “What do you know about what’s best for me?”
    “Listen, if they’re alive, we can find them.”
    “How? It’s not like you can just ring them up or Skype them. In case you haven’t noticed, Facebook’s been down for a while. Besides, who knows where they would have gone? They could be anywhere on this godforsaken planet, holed up in some cave somewhere even deeper than that one Saddam Hussein was hiding in all those years ago. Heck, it took military intelligence months and months to find him, and that was with complex communication systems working and the whole world looking for him. For all I know, they took off back to Cleveland, where his family was. That was where he was heading when I first met him, but I talked him out of it. With me gone,