"Eleanor Nadez," I said.
"Yes." She held my eyes without flinching. "Abram Nadez."
"Is he—"
"Yes. Ethan was your father."
I let go of her hands.
They slipped from mine and moved slowly through the water, fingers trailing ripples as she ran them back through her wet black hair, giving me space. Droplets slid down her neck, over her collarbones, and back into the bath with soft plinks.
My whole life I had wondered. My mother had told me he was taken by the infected, the way the plain eventually took everything, and I had accepted it because there was nothing else to do. I had stopped asking. I had kept running.
How did you survive the plain for twenty years, Abram?
Running.
