Half Lives Read Online Free PDF Page B

did I have to this secret safe place? I added guilt to the whirlpool of feelings ripping through
me.
    We marched right up to the security checkpoint. When we were nearly next in line, the security guard’s radio squawked. Mum’s eyes widened as we both heard a description of Dad come
over her radio. Maybe it wasn’t him. His description matched that of nearly every middle-aged man in America. Mum took a compact out of her handbag. She flipped it open and used the mirror to
look behind her. She dabbed the powder puff at the rays of wrinkles around her eyes. I couldn’t see the reflection but I could tell by Mum’s expression that she’d seen something
alarming. When she put the compact away, her hands were shaking.
    ‘You get to the gate, and we’ll meet you there,’ she whispered, so close that her lips touched my ear. She slipped a necklace over her head. It had been concealed under her
shirt. A strange-looking key dangled on the end of a sturdy silver chain, not like the dainty kind Mum usually wore, but the kind security guards had hanging from their belts. She slipped it over
my head and tucked it under my shirt. ‘This will open and lock the bunker.’
    I shook my head, dreads flapping. ‘No, no, no, no . . .’ If she was giving me the key to the thingy-whatsit then that meant she wasn’t sure if she and Dad were going to make
the plane.
    ‘This is just in case,’ Mum said.
    ‘I can’t, Mum.’ I couldn’t move. My body felt as if it had hardened in concrete.
    ‘You’ve got to, Icie.’ Mum’s expression was what Dad and I called her ‘Don’t Mess With Me’ face. Set jaw. Narrowed eyes. Flared nostrils. ‘Right
now you are your biggest obstacle. You’ve got to think positive. You can do this. Go to the gate and get on the plane. Your dad has another key. If worst comes to worst, we’ll meet you
at the bunker.’
    ‘Mum . . .’
    She leaned in again and whispered, ‘Icie, we stole the keys to the bunker. We did all this for you. There’s no turning back now. Don’t let us down.’ She dug around in her
handbag. ‘How silly of me,’ she said with too much false enthusiasm. ‘I’ve left my driver’s licence at check-in.’ She seemed to be putting on a show for anyone
watching.
    ‘Next,’ the security lady said, extending her hand for my documents.
    ‘Go ahead, and I’ll meet you at the gate.’ She hugged me. ‘I love you.’
    ‘Love you too,’ I choked out. Everyone probably thought I was some stupid kid crying when I had to leave my mummy. All these queues and queues of people had no idea. They thought
today was just like any other day – and maybe it was. Maybe Mum was wrong. Maybe someone would stop the attack.
    Mum walked away. She didn’t look back. Her shoulders straightened as she marched off.
    Suck it up,
I told myself. Mum and Dad had sacrificed too much for me to lose it now. I handed my boarding pass and driver’s licence to the security woman perched on a stool. She
looked from the documents to me, circled something on my boarding pass and then passed my stuff back. When my backpack and I were all scanned, I turned back, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mum. But
it wasn’t the final farewell shot I’d imagined. She was surrounded by security and being led away. Any shred of hope I was feeling vanished. Not only was the world potentially ending,
but now I was going to face it alone.

 
     
     
     
Chapter Four
     
     

     
    ‘Some things are just not meant to be.’
    – Just Saying 23
     
     
    HARPER
    ‘R ace you to the spot,’ Harper says, but doesn’t wait for Beckett’s reply. She zigzags around the Mountain. Every inch of her
skin is covered to protect her from the sun’s burning rays. Scraps of material are wrapped and tied around her body.
    She leads Beckett and Lucky to the Other Side of the Mountain. She needs to get Beckett alone. She slows when she sees the rocky outcrop up ahead, the place where Beckett found her
thirteen years