3|A stronghold we’re not strong enough to hold

3| A stronghold we're not strong enough to hold

OTTILIE

About a month later …

Jimmy is dead.

Frankie and Auden have left for the farmhouse.

Yorke is roaming the city alone, helping strangers die

I HOIST MYSELF UP onto the ledge with every ounce of strength I possess, stifling an ugly grunt and trying not to breathe like I'm dying. I've been working out since high school, or I did before the plague, but lifting myself up five feet above the ground is hard. No matter how I kick my feet or strain my arms, it's not working.

So here I am, attempting—and failing—to break into the United States Capitol Building to leave a note in an attempt to rejoin any surviving tattered remains of the government.

Losing Gina did something to me.

Gran still hasn't told me where she sent her and why.

Each of us has our missions—she's set Knox to work raiding government buildings and confiscating guns, which he does, and me to writing, which I cannot do.

I haven't written a single sentence since she got sick.

I put a little extra rage into my biceps as I try to lift myself a couple more inches. Nothing happens—until … up I go.

High.

Higher.

And I'm up, one hip on the ledge to cling to the uprights of the balustrade.

Panting, I look down to see Knox releasing my shoe.

He lifted me.

Without a word, he curls his palms over the ledge and hops up to the portico that rims the Capitol, lifting himself up cleanly, like he does it every day.

He's not even out of breath.

"Ready?" he asks, hopping over the balustrade with ease.

"Yeah." I follow him, up and over, heavy breathing, to a corner office window made of ballistic glass.

He smashes it with three sharp jabs with a crowbar, the noise exploding outward into the damp winter air, disturbing the city's silence, echoing chillingly.

I climb in after him, careful to avoid cutting myself on lingering shards, and stand inside the office—polished wood furniture, navy carpet, fussy drapes—a place I used to know well, a busy place, glutted with interns and ringing telephones, keyboards and politicians in back-rooms deal-making, a central ventricle in the heart of America.

There are no phones or emails or keyboards anymore.

I tuck my hands into my coat pockets reflexively and feel the sharpie and the post-it notes we brought.

That's the best we could figure out to leave a clear message that will hopefully draw in other survivors to join us.

That's what sits in for centuries of inventions now; that's us playing surgeon to get the heart of the country beating again, and it feels like cavemen rubbing sticks together to make fire.

Knox pulls his gun and gestures with his chin for me to go behind him.

I do, pulling my own gun since now I carry one everywhere, and together, we slip silently into the darkened hallway.

Enough feeble gray light comes in through the open office doors that we don't need a flashlight as we walk down the painted Cox Corridor.

If a mouse moved across this massive building, we might hear it, and that's not an exaggeration.

I finger the edge of the sharpie cap as we walk toward the center of the building.

Gran didn't even ask what I intended to write on the post-it notes when we got here, just waved us off as she scrolled through channels on her ham radio. She just assumed I'd have a solid persuasive argument tucked into my sleeve, but I'll be goddamned if I can think of one good reason any of them should join us.

Of the four people in our little group, one is already dead, one is sick, one is Knox, and one is me.

T EN MINUTES LATER, I hover in one of the grandest rooms in North America, the Great Rotunda, holding a pack of assorted colored neon post-it notes, the sharp chemical scent of sharpie singeing the inside of my nostrils, and my mind draws a blank.

It's like I've lost basic command of fine musculature. My fingers know how to pop the cap, and they understand how to hold the marker, but every time I settle on a phrase, they freeze up, refuse to comply, and by then, I've decided how stupid the words were.

Knox watches me silently—at first, I think with patience, then confusion, then dawning understanding.

He's figured out my secret.

The speechwriter can't write.

"Maybe just go with something basic," he says quietly, his voice a low rumble that takes the curve of the walls, the paintings of US history, and echoes like a motorcycle up to the dome above. "‘The President survived' or ‘you're not alone.'"

"It's not enough. Imagine you're a senator or a congressperson." I glance up at him in the dim gray light flicking from the cloudy day outside through distant clerestory windows above, my voice echoing like it's spinning up a drain instead of down. "You just buried your family, and you're facing the rest of your likely sad and confusing life without them. What would inspire you not just to join someone but to follow them? Maybe fight for them?"

His lips curl sideways in amusement. "That's a big ask of some marker scrawled on post-its."

"It's what we need, though. A slogan or a quick phrase that will instill hope and confidence."

"Okay, we need it, but we don't have it. What can we make now? A back-up sentence. Simple. How about ‘help us rebuild.'"

I shake my head. "They'll think that sounds laborious. Easier to wander off or follow the first crackpot they meet."

"Viola talked about a clean slate. Can you work with that?"

"Maybe." The slate is clean. Now we decide what to add? A fresh start? Let's build the world we want? The future is here? Slogans have a way of writing themselves. You have lines you like on the campaign side. Sometimes they land and sometimes they don't. Other times, they soar and take on a life of their own. The pressure feels too big, though, to create the right one, right now, on the fly, to prepare them for following a tiny sick old person.

What if I get it wrong and people don't join?

Worse, what if they do, only to show up and decide they won't follow her?

My fingers start shaking, the sharpie tip waggling back and forth.

I keep seeing Gina's face when we went in to bury her, dead and bloated and a hundred colors no skin should be.

A choking sound leaves me.

Knox takes the marker very carefully from my hand.

L-E-T--S B-U-I-L-D A F-U-T-U-R-E T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R he writes in clean block letters, one per post-it, and sticks them up in order on a painting of Washington signing the Declaration of Independence, right over his shiny black knee-high boots, a cacophony of neon squares no one who comes here can possibly miss.

He writes instructions below to return every third day at noon here in the Capitol Building to join President Viola Wagner in the rebuilding of the New America.

It's too risky to invite strangers to the White House. Even just declaring in public that Gran is alive feels terrifying, like inviting risk and attention, but we have to do this.

This is us, trying to resuscitate the nation.

With every scrape of the marker, shame settles inside me.

That was my job.

My one job.

" T HANK YOU," I finally manage to say as we walk away, leaving the post-its and his message on the wall, along with the shreds of my dignity.

"No problem," he says with an easy shrug as if he didn't just save my integrity.

We try the front doors, but they're locked and breaking open the door seems like more work than just going back through the window, so that's where we head.

"Really though. You just helped a lot." I distract myself by staring at the overbright murals that cover the walls of the Cox Corridors in this part of the building. This one is sky blue and bold green, and reads TROPICUS CANCRI at the top and TIMUCUAN VILLAGE at the bottom. A man in large gold jewelry holds a lowered bow and arrow while women walk with baskets on their heads. "I'm grateful," I say.

"No need."

"You're doing more than you should have to for us." We wouldn't have been able to bury Gina alone, and navigating the vacant post-apocalypse streets and buildings, scaling walls as high as my shoulders, listening for sounds, unsure if I'm more afraid or more hopeful that someone else is there, feels far less terrifying with his big, overly capable, easy-going presence by my side.

And beyond that, he generally has a smile. I don't know where he finds them. I almost never manage it. He also often has cookies. He's like a fire always burning to ward away the cold.

We're silent as we enter the office we came in through, and before I can attempt to boost myself over the window ledge, he moves in behind me, hard hands closing over my hips as his lifts, and then I'm through, hands finding purchase on the ledge, shimmying out onto the balcony, and into a damp wind.

He climbs out behind me. "When you say ‘we,' you still mean you and Gran."

I glance sharply at him. The sky is gray behind him, drizzle coming down and dusting his coal-black hair like dew drops.

"No, I … don't." Or do I?

He shrugs again, always shrugging, and normally, I suppose it's a good gesture in the apocalypse since it can mean almost anything, but now it rankles, like it was a criticism. "Teammates don't thank each other for doing their job," he says.

"I wouldn't know. I've never played team sports. Saying thank you," I say stiffly as I climb over the balustrade to hover at the edge of the balcony, "in my world is polite."

He hops down lithely, like jumping down five feet—more if I count the railing he just vaulted—is as easy as cheesecake. At the bottom, he tips his face up toward me. "And that's what you want between us? Polite?"

There's no clear answer, so I say nothing, preparing to lower myself down, but the second I'm within reach, he grabs me again, lifting me down, again cheesecake-easy, like he bench-presses tall women every morning before coffee.

He sets me down, my sneakers sinking into the wet grass. "Every once in a while, I think I see a real person in you, and then you smash her down flat and shove a sock in her mouth."

I jerk my gaze away from his eyes and his eyelashes, which have caught raindrops, too. Somehow, my focus lands on his lips. They look soft. "Whose mouth?"

"Your own." He backs up a couple steps and surveys the dead city around us. From here, you can see the Newseum, the Botanic Gardens, the National Gallery, the Natural History Museum, the Museum of African American Heritage, and, in the distance, the Washington Monument piercing the sky. All empty. "Are you afraid of me?" he asks quietly.

To buy myself time, I head in the direction of the car we parked at a crossroads less than a block away. "Would it be all that strange if I were? General apocalypse mythos stipulates it won't be a kind world for women, and forgive me for mentioning, your half of the species has a poor historical track record with mine."

"Fair." He falls in beside me.

"But I'm less afraid of you hurting me than I am of you leaving me and Gran alone." My voice flutters on the last word.

It's something that keeps me up at night. I'm not defenseless—one of the first things we did was arm Gran and me—but every malignant narcissist and sociopath just lost the best reason they had not to hurt people. And even the gentlest among us have untold new reasons to grow fangs now. A trained secret service agent is a massive bonus in this world.

"I wouldn't."

I glance sharply at him. He has a way of being gentle when I expect him to be hard, and it's disarming. "I don't mean to be rude. I just struggle with people."

We're quiet until we get to the car, stow our bags in the back, and climb into the front. I reach for the heat immediately. These days, cars are the only places where we're warm now that the power is out and the generator is dead.

"You seem to be pretty good with just about every other person you've ever met." He slips the car into gear.

He's right.

I can talk to almost anyone—provided I understand the terms of the conversation, what they want from me, what their angle is, how I can provide it. But when it's not clear … like with him, I freeze.

"Perhaps if you tell me what you expect, I'll know how to act."

He sighs, a quiet noise in a quiet car as we drive up a silent wet hill through a silent wet city. "What about if you just treat me like a friend?" When I don't respond, he adds, "You ever had one?"

Gina, but she was thirty-six years older than me and a coworker. I did love her though. Gran, but she's my grandmother and my boss. "Not really."

His face sobers, though he doesn't look away from the road as he drives past Judiciary Park with its statue of Abraham Lincoln, long and lean and vaguely censorious. "How's that possible?"

"I was homeschooled. And I lived at home during college, then went straight into internships, started working, and … I … all I know is work." There weren't ever a lot of women my age looking to befriend me. At least not genuinely. Usually, people just wanted a favor from the granddaughter of Viola Wagner. "Have you had many friends?"

"Mmmhmm. Friends. Family. I was a busy guy at one point."

I brush imaginary dirt off my knees. "How do we start? If we were to decide to be friends?"

"Call me Knox." I swear there's a laugh hiding in his words.

"Call me Ottilie. Or even Tilly. Might be faster in an emergency."

He wets his lower lip thoughtfully. "Ottilie."

That has my heart doing something stupid. "What else? What do friends do in the apocalypse?" I ask.

"They take any remaining socks out of their mouths for a start."

I pantomime removing a sock from my own mouth and tossing it away.

A dimple I've never noticed before appears on his left cheek, just to the side of his lips, and a second later, he laughs, and my skin warms at the gentle, chuffing sound.

I realize I'm smiling too, almost grinning, like I didn't just fail to write a single word on a post-it note, like he didn't just fix it for me.

"Good," I say, though I'm not sure if I mean it as a way to end this conversation or a way to keep it going.

"Good," he says back, and then neither of us talks for a long time.

Not until we go through the empty gates at the White House, close them manually behind us, drive up the hill to park in a place no one ever did before, near the South Lawn, where we climb out.

He meets me by the door to the Palm Room, and just before we go inside where Gran will be waiting, dinner ready since it's her day to cook, he extends his hand, palm up, fingers spread wide, and after a slow moment, I drop my hand into his. It's firm and warm, big, hard. Very different from mine. And while I've shaken thousands of hands, this feels different.

And up close, his eyes make me lose track of the conversation if there is one. Though maybe there isn't. He's not talking. Neither am I.

I can smell him, too, and the air of him in my lungs makes me feel… deeply … alive, like every breath is full of vitality and virility.

We stand like that, hands together, not a handshake, more like if hands could hug.

"So what happens next?" I ask.

"Whatever you want. Just …" His pause makes me think maybe he was about to say something to the effect of treat me like a friend , but remembered I've never really had one who was my equal for age and position. "Just talk to me, say what you need to say. And I'll do the same."

"Okay."

W E'VE TAKEN TO SLEEPING in the Map Room—so named because during World War I, Franklin Roosevelt, a cousin of the man in the painting in the Roosevelt room, had massive maps pasted all over the walls. I saw black-and-white photographs of it once, a weary-looking man in uniform, the western front mapped out behind him.

Ripping those maps down must have felt good when they did, but now I can't help but regret that they're gone. It reminds me of what we're doing now—using a formal room in a utilitarian way, an unusual one, unique to the time, born of emergency.

It's just a boring room now, mundane compared to the rest of the building—white walls, Federal moldings, an Aubusson carpet, an unlit crystal chandelier, a pair of wingback chairs the color of a fire truck, close to the kitchen—but we've shoved the furniture around, converted sofas into beds, and pulled the drapes closed tight, even added extra quilts to cover them, piled books in corners, coiled wires to run to the generator to keep things charged.

After Gina fell ill to avoid infection, back when the power went out and fuel was running out for the generator, so we decided to pare power usage down to only the strict necessities, we started sleeping in here.

And, thinking like Knox for the moment, I realize it's also close to several exits.

It was a good choice.

Smart man.

Let's build a future together, he wrote.

It's a good slogan.

And I think about our interplay afterwards.

Were we flirting in a city of dead bodies?

Is that wrong?

Does it even matter? A certain nihilism has overtaken me since the moment Gina fell sick. And immediately, it pushes the thought further. If I'm compiling a list of wrongs—is it wrong to encourage people to join us? To manipulate them with words?

As if he heard the direction of my thoughts, he rounds the corner silently, stopping when he sees me still awake. "All locked up. Motion sensors on."

"Cool. Thanks."

His brows rise in silent question at my pensive tone.

"You said I could say anything. And it goes nowhere?"

He crosses the room slowly and sits in the chair opposite me. "Secrets out of Viola Wagner's granddaughter might get me some serious cash if I sold them to the right reporter …" He cocks a shoulder, making his shirt cling to the swell of muscle there, and reaches into his pack to dig around. "They're all dead though so I guess I can't. Cookie?"

He holds a box toward me.

"Too soon to joke about the end of the free press. Where do you keep getting cookies?"

"Our friendship hasn't plunged those depths. Yet." He tosses the box at me, and it lands in my lap, making me flinch. "Shoot, little Wagner."

"Little Wagner?" I toy with the flap on the cookie box—salted caramel.

"Wagner the Younger? Wagner the Blonde?"

"I'm a Viking?" I slip open the flap on the cookie box.

"You look like one." He doesn't embellish. He doesn't need to. I never thought of myself that way, but it's apt.

Taking another glance at Gran to confirm she's still snoring, which she is, I say the thing that's been weighing on me. "I'm afraid we're going to invite people to join us, only for them to die. And every time I try to write something, I wonder who will come. Someone awful? Someone who will kill us? Because they can. Anyone can do anything now, and there's no one to stop it. Or worse, will they come here and die like Gina? Sent off on some mission of Gran's. So that's why I can't write. Because I don't know if I trust her anymore. What if she sends you off next? Or me? Or what if people refuse to follow her? During the war, they wanted a strong man to lead us. Misogynistic maybe, but it was still what they wanted. What if that's true again?"

I take a morose bite of the cookie.

He's quiet for a long time, long enough I start to worry if I said too much.

Finally, he says, "You'll write when you're ready."

"I'm not so sure. Everything I knew about how to win trust in speeches was designed for a different world entirely." I hand him the cookie box.

He takes it, slides one out carefully. "You'll evolve. Anything else to say?"

"It felt like too much."

His teeth flash, a quick, half smile, that dimple doing a dance, and then it's gone. "It was fine. Good to hear your unfiltered thoughts."

"It felt good." It did. It really did, especially since he's still sitting there, smiling warmly, sharing his cookies. "No sock. It's your turn. What random stuff are you thinking?"

He lets loose one of his apocalyptic shrugs, bites into the cookie, and chews it slowly. "I'm thinking … this place is a problem."

I've had that thought, but I want to hear it from him. "Why?"

"I was going to wait to bring it up with Viola until morning. I saw a group raiding the mansions on the hill yesterday." He must have gone out after we got back, which he does often. Gran has tasked him with using access codes to enter weapons lockers and move guns in his spare time.

"How many?" I ask.

"Not a lot. Seven or eight. But they weren't the kind of people we want on our team. And if they're raiding mansions, how long until they shift focus to the biggest mansion of all?"

That's a chilling thought.

America doesn't have a crown or a throne—it's got this building right here—and everyone else knows it. It's the flag in the coming game of capture the flag.

"It's a stronghold we're not strong enough to hold," he adds.

It's true.

And Gran knows it.

Ballistic glass isn't impenetrable, anyone can climb over the walls, an F-150 and a hitch could rip the gates off, the basements are flooding now that the sump pumps aren't running, there's water pooling in them, and flooding could happen anytime.

"She would say that inviting them here could give us the upper hand," I say halfheartedly. Especially if I manage to write her rousing talking points that inspire loyalty and determination, fill them with vision and a sense of unity. "We need the dialysis machine."

His hand tightens on the armrest of his red chair. "I can't guarantee her safety in a fight."

The way he says it, I can tell he feels the way I do about writing. Like that makes him a failure.

A fighter who can't fight and a writer who can't write.

"No one expects you to single-handedly fend off a hoard of invading crazies if they come," I say, but I know it's a half-lie. Gran would prefer that he did—just like she expects me to write—and she expected Gina to do whatever she did, even if she had to die.

"What do you propose?" I ask.

"That we keep our essentials packed and ready, so if anyone comes, we can leave."

"Ok," I say quietly. "I agree with that."

His feet shift slightly on the carpet, legs spreading just a tick wider.

He doesn't say it out loud, but I know what he's thinking—we just agreed to override the wishes of the president.

That's pretty close to treason.

I should feel guilty or maybe ashamed, but I don't.

I stand. "I'll make a bag."

I'm over at my sofa-turned bed when he says, "I'm glad you removed the sock."

I glance back at him over my shoulder and catch his eyes about two feet south of my face. He was looking at my butt.

"I'd say thank you, but apparently that's rude," pops out of my mouth, and he smiles like it was the cleverest thing in the world, even though it wasn't.

I pack my backpack with the things we can't live without—which it turns out, isn't much. Gran's pills, my laptop with all my notes through the years, the charger, a few protein bars and water bottles, spare ammo. Everything else can be replaced.

When I'm done, we take turns in the bathroom and we pass in the hall.

I catch his scent, and it lingers, crisp, bold, warm, nothing like his dark hawk's eyes, and I long to say his name in the dark, feel its shape in my mouth, the long pull of the O, the hard snap of the X, and I wonder what would he do if I caught his hand in mine, traced the calluses on his palms?

I can imagine it so clearly, that mouth of his, parted lips, the touch of his tongue, breath on my skin, the feel of his beating heart.

And I feel afraid.

Even without the sock, risking changing the way things are is terrifying.

The moment passes, and so do we.