Botanicaust

smiled until her blue eyes disappeared into crescents, and he felt sick to his stomach. They ’ d been through so much together. But he couldn ’ t take her to the Holdout. No matter what he owed her, he could not repay his debt by bringing her home. She would be much happier with the Fosselites.
    The rationalization didn ’ t make his stomach feel any better.
    Resolved to find joy in his remaining time with her, he brazenly clasped her hand and led her across the bridge, allowing her to look through the interior of a car on the way. In the city, they explored an old building together, and she translated the dedication on an ancient cornerstone.
    Before evening fell, they were both exhausted, and set up camp against a half tumbled-down brick wall. The nights were cold, and Tula had taken to sleeping with him while he was ill, sharing body heat. Tonight he spread his blanket for himself, and Tula shook out the robe for her bed. They didn ’ t build a fire.
    She glanced at his bed and a sad look washed over her face before she turned away to settle into her robe. “ Tula, ” he said before he could change his mind. He was a grown man. Surely he could bundle with her without taking things out of bounds. He just needed to avoid those luscious lips.
    He beckoned her to his blanket. With a smile, she nodded and crawled over to join him. As he wrapped his arms around her beneath the fabric, too tired for anything but sleep, he felt at home.

    The next day, they reached the wreckage of an enormous city, with buildings reaching skyward in imitation of the jagged mountains all around. Amarantox struggled upwards through the broken pavement. Tula followed closely as Levi picked his way between foundations piled with blown-in silt toward a mountain of broken concrete shored up on one side by rusted girders. Like a series of interconnected rivers, the roads curved and twisted amongst each other, crossing over and under as well as through. The largest spread of buckled pavement carved a straight line north through the ruins.
    Shading his eyes against the intense sun, Levi pointed along the stretch. In the distance, a tall, snow tipped peak arched toward heaven. “ That way. ”
    They followed the broken pavement for two days, leaving the city to climb higher into the mountains. Sheer rock walls of red stone rose around them. Nighttime temperatures dropped to freezing, and they woke with frost on the top of the blankets.
    Tula looked around, wondering how people could find food in such an austere landscape. The tamarisk disappeared, and pockets of soil that could support plant life sprouted nothing but amarantox or clusters of shrubs she didn ’ t recognize. A creek sometimes wandered by the road, but the gravel bottom and swift water appeared inhospitable to living creatures. The cattails had dwindled, and Levi scrounged big seeds he called acorns. Sometimes he found clusters of small black berries and made faces while he sucked the pulp from the seeds.
    “ Levi, you live here? ”
    He shook his head and pointed east, where the plains spread forever to the curve of the horizon.
    Frowning, Tula looked north along the road. She ’ d assumed he was going home. She pointed the direction they were walking. “ Why go? ”
    Stopping in his tracks, he sighed. The weight of the mountains seemed to press on his shoulders. “ My son. Josef. He needs doctors. ”
    “ Josef. ” Tula remembered the drawings of the laughing child. “ Sick? ”
    Levi nodded and began walking again.
    “ No doctors Levi house? ”
    “ Not this kind. ” He didn ’ t elaborate.
    They reached another city, and they turned west, following the cracked asphalt toward the mountain. Sharp rock and patchy amarantox reached for the sky. Swells of crumbling pavement climbed ever higher to the west.
    At the base of the mountain, the road narrowed and began a steep switchback climb. Parts of the street had sloughed off the mountain, leaving sheer drops to the trail below. The other side hugged the vertical rise of more rock. In one spot the path passed over a ridge with precipices on both sides.
    At a plateau, the way flattened, and a barbed metal fence guarded by a gatehouse blocked the road. Beyond, abandoned cars, bulky and square, sat in neat rows on cracked pavement.
    The gate was shut, but a hole had been cut through the fence next to the gatehouse. As they passed through, a slight whirring caught Tula ’ s attention and she turned to see a camera no