Travis

Got it.

I grab the last part I need from the pile and toss it into the satchel with the rest. Then I pull out the pen I’ve tucked behind my ear and cross out the last item on my list.

As I fold Phil’s note, I glance at the satchel packed with everything I need. I smile.

With everything I’ve… well, stolen, the dome should last five to ten more years in mint condition, which just about guarantees the survival of Hope Creek—both the place and its wonderful people. And when that time is over, who knows? Maybe just as Grace said, there won’t be a need for a dome any longer. Maybe the world will have recovered by then.

As I stuff the satchel inside my backpack, I think of all the other things inside the room. So many parts, and yet no one knows what to do with them. In Phil’s hands, they could do wonders. They could make Hope Creek an even better place than it is. Maybe someday they can even make the world a better place than it is.

Grace’s other words come back to me.

Could Hope Creek really help save what’s left of humanity, of the world? It’s such a small town, though, with so few people, not even an eighth of the crowd I’ve seen here in City Q. Not to mention that City Q has so many brilliant minds like Dr. Scott’s while we only have Phil’s and Martin’s papers. If a city built by the Pioneers can’t save the world, how can Hope Creek?

My thoughts are interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps.

Shit.

I put my backpack on, pick up a metal rod to use as a weapon and stand against the wall near the door. Suddenly, though, a thought occurs to me.

What if it’s Grace?

Then I hear a man’s voice.

Definitely not Grace.

The voice becomes louder.

“Are you sure it’s her?”

I pause. The voice sounds familiar to me.

Yes. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard it before.

“I’m outside the storage room, but I’m going there.”

My heart stops as I recognize the voice, one I never thought I’d hear again.

No way.

“What? You lost her?”

The metal rod slips from my fingers.

“Who’s there?” the voice asks.

My heart begins to pound.

“Find her,” the voice orders. Then I hear a click.

Moments later, the door opens and a man enters the room—a man with the same dark brown hair as mine but brown eyes instead of black. As those eyes meet mine, they grow wide.

“Travis?”

I swallow the quivering lump in my throat so I can say his name.

“Michael.”

My younger brother, who I thought dead. He tried to come after me, to get me to board the Vessel. Still, I refused. I thought he didn’t make it back to the ship in time, but I guess he did.

“You’re alive,” I tell him as I step forward.

Michael chuckles. “I could say the same thing about you.”

I pull him into my arms and he squeezes me tight.

“Man, where have you been all this time?” he asks. “What have you been doing?”

“Staying alive.”

He pulls away. “You should have come here a long time ago. Mom would have been thrilled.”

“Yeah, Mom would have been,” I agree. “Dad not so much.”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you,” Michael says. “In case you haven’t noticed, a lot has changed. There’s no point in holding grudges over things that happened before the Icebreaker.”

“Listen to you talk.” I squeeze his shoulder. “You sound older than me.”

He grins.

“Wait.” I touch my chin. “You always did.”

Michael laughs and hugs me again. “It’s so good to see you again.”

“Same here.” I pat his back. “How’re Mom and Dad?”

“Same,” he answers as he steps back. “Well, Mom and I are having a bit of a fight at the moment.”

“You fighting Mom?” I give him a look of surprise. “That’s a first.”

“You’re the one who taught me to,” Michael tells me. “You’re the one who told me a long time ago to stand up for what’s right and fight for what I believe in. I just never had a good chance to apply it until recently.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “I told you that?”

He snorts. “You were a pretty cool brother, you know.”

“Yeah.” I nod. “I was the cool one. You were the smart, obedient one.”

Michael shakes his head and puts his hands on his hips. “Damn, I missed you.”

I smile. “I missed…”

The rest of my sentence vanishes as Grace steps into the room with a distraught expression.

“Grace?” I say her name at the same time Michael does.

I glance at him. He knows her?

It seems so, judging by how his eyes open even wider now than when he saw me, and how tears are forming at the corners.

Grace turns to him. “Who are you?”

“Grace, it’s me, Michael.” Michael reaches for her hands. “Don’t you remember me?”

“Michael?” Grace’s eyebrows furrow.

Mine do the same.

Grace knows my brother?

“Yes, it’s me, Grace.” Michael grips her hands in his.

Grace shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know you.”

She walks over to me and throws herself in my arms, and I see the devastation written all over Michael’s face.

“Michael,” I ask him, “how do you know Grace?”

“The question is, how do you?” He turns to me.

Grace looks at me. “You know each other?”

“He’s my brother,” I tell her.

Her jaw drops.

“Why does she know you?” Michael asks. “Where did you meet her?”

“We met after she lost her memories…”

“Yes, including her memories of me,” Michael says.

I hold my breath.

“Travis, Grace and I were going to get married.”

My eyes pop out as I hear Grace gasp.

“We were?” she asks in shock.

My hands fall from her shoulders. “Grace was your fiancée?”

Michael nods. “Mom and Dad didn’t like her, but I was going to marry her anyway because I loved her.”

His eyes glisten with tears and a fresh lump forms in my throat.

My brother and Grace were together. They were engaged.

I remember the impression of the ring on Grace’s finger the day I met her.

“You gave her a ring?” I ask Michael.

He nods. “Dad’s ring, but it was too big for her.”

“So you put it on her middle finger,” I mumble.

“But they took it off when she had the procedure,” Michael says.

“What procedure?” Grace asks.

“You wanted to have your scar removed. You had one across your face that you got from an earthquake just before the flood.” Michael traces a line across his face. “That was supposed to be all, but my mom did something and you ended up with a whole new face and some memories removed.”

Grace touches her face. “This… isn’t my face?”

“It is now.” Michael walks toward her and I slowly step away from them. “And you’re beautiful. Then again, you were beautiful even before, scar and all.”

Grace looks at him and shakes her head. “You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie?”

She glances at me, then turns back to Michael. “I’m not your fiancée. I’m Travis’s.”

The sound of Michael’s gasp and the pain in his eyes as he looks at me makes my chest tighten.

I draw a deep breath. “No, you’re not.”

Grace’s eyebrows furrow. “What?”

“I never said we were getting married.”

“But you said we were going back to Hope Creek together.”

“I promised Nancy and Phil I’d bring you back. That’s all. To that end, I would have done anything.”

She purses her quivering lips.

“You’re Michael’s fiancée,” I tell her, even though each word pushes the thorns in my chest deeper into my heart.

Grace shakes her head as tears spill out of her eyes.

I try to hold back mine. “Michael, tell her where her birthmark is so she’ll believe you.”

Michael’s eyebrows crease as he glances at me. Then he turns to Grace.

“Inside your left thigh. It’s shaped like a lily pad.”

Grace grows still.

I swallow. “See, Grace. Michael is telling the truth.”

“No,” she whispers as she wraps her arms around herself.

“You came here to City Q, to the Lab, to find out who you are. Well, as it turns out, you’re my brother’s fiancée. And this is goodbye.”

I turn on my heel and leave the room, ignoring the sobs behind me and my own voice in my head telling me I’m making the worst mistake of my life by walking away from the woman I love.

Maybe I am. Maybe I’m a fool. But I’d rather be a fool than be the man who steals the woman my brother loves away from him, especially when she loved him, too. When she loved him first.

She’ll remember it soon enough, and when she does, everything about her world will fall into place even as mine crumbles apart.

My hand clenches into a fist.

Damn. I suddenly wish I had amnesia, because I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to forget her.

And yet I’ll have to pretend. I pretended to live with her. Now, I have to pretend to live without her.

Goodbye, Grace.