For lunch, the remaining nutritionists have prepared protein balls for us, packed full of everything our bodies would need to continue through the day. Each person gets three, which they say is plenty. My rumbling stomach would disagree.

I grab three for me and three for Declan before heading to the Captain's dining room.

During the day, the family is scattered. Daniel is out training with the troops by now—though I'm still not sure where he was this morning—Celia and my mom usually work in the Mechanics sector through lunch to get our armor ready, Eleanor is often taking her early afternoon nap around now, and my dad is usually away from camp with the group of hunters, finding food for dinner.

"Declan?" I call, entering the dining room, but when I fully open the door, I see the entire room has been transformed. There are blankets over the couches, and burlap sacks over the chairs around the dining room table. The tapestries have been torn down, and in their place are the spray painted words, "Happiness, Love, Life," in white spray paint. Even Declan has changed. His hair is messy again, and he wears his usual uniform of jeans and a flannel shirt.

"Um?" I ask, laughing.

Declan smiles, walking over to me from the table where he's been looking over maps and electronic tablets. "I knew you'd likely come back to see me, since—you know—we're an awesome team, so I decided to break up some of the red. You said something about red when you were freaking out this morning, so I figured I'd just go ahead and get rid of it. The color wasn't really my taste anyway. I like rooms to have a spray painted eclectic feel," he says with a smile.

I laugh. "Well... I'm not sure you'll be winning any design awards, but I really appreciate it."

He shrugs. "No problem."

I present him with the bowl I've carried from the cafeteria. "I got your balls."

"My whats?" he asks, pushing his glasses up.

"Protein balls. For lunch. Perv," I joke. He laughs. "How can you act so professional as president, and so goofy as a friend?"

What I really want to ask is how he could be so playful so soon after Hugh died.

"Code switching, dear friend. You've got to know how to play the crowd." He chuckles to himself, and continues, "So listen... I was thinking if you came for lunch today, we could go up into the lookout above the control room to eat. Not a trace of red there. I guess, except for some of the terrain around here kind of looks red."

I smile. "Yeah, that would be nice. I've never been up there."

"Then we must." He takes one of his protein balls and pops it in his mouth. Mid-chew he says, "Follow me."

He leads me out of the dining room and down the hall, outside past the patio, and into the hall of labs. Across the hall from the infirmary is an unmarked door I never really noticed since it's the color of the walls. He flips up a grey cover hiding a keypad and types in a code on. The door unlocks with a thud, and we walk inside.

The far wall is one large window looking out over the terrain. At the center of the room is a control panel, mounted on a podium beside a large steering helm. Buttons of controls cover the walls on either side of us, and at the back of the room is a clean door leading only to a sunlit ladder. One solitary soldier stands on duty at the helm, despite the fact we're completely stopped. He salutes Declan as we enter. "Mr. President," he says.

"C'mon, I told you, loosen up with the 'Mr. President' stuff. This isn't going to be like how it was at the bunker or Cooper's estate, okay?"

"Yes sir," the soldier says, though he doesn't seem to ease up at all.

"Alright, thanks buddy," Declan says, smirking in defeat. "Isla and I will be up in the lookout. Let me know if anything comes up, okay?"

"Yes sir," he says, again saluting.

Declan laughs and slides a glass door at the back of the room open. As soon as he does, wind pours into the command room from the tunnel up to the lookout, so Declan closes the door and says, "Now that I think about it, we better eat those things now so they don't fly away or something."

I laugh. "Okay. Whatever you say Mr. President."

He gives me a look and, without warning, shoves a protein ball into my mouth. "Hey," I laugh, crumbs falling down my face. I retaliate, but he's prepared and his clenched teeth block the food. It crumbles onto the floor.

"Sir," the soldier says.

"Sorry, sorry, I'll clean it up," he says, half-laughing. He bends down to get the crumbs, and I pop the remaining two protein balls into my mouth.

When Declan has finished dumping the crumbs into the waste bin beside the command panel, he throws his last protein ball into his mouth, takes the bowl from me, and sets it on the ground beside the wall.

"C'mon," he says with a mouth full of food and opens the door again.

Wind rushes over me as we climb into the tunnel and up the ladder into the lookout. It's a round space with bench-like seating around the diameter and a small railing so that we can rest our arms over the side without falling off the Immortal. I take a seat after Declan, and let my feet dangle into the tunnel.

From where I sit, I can see the Immortal's entire body stretch in front of us. I see the lake behind us, and the greenish grey plants that grow around it. Beyond the lake, I can see the rounded mountaintops protecting us to the east. They look like hundreds of giants under a blanket of earth, who were suddenly frozen in place with their knees and heads poking up from beneath it. At least now, it's harder for anyone to attack us from that direction, which is where someone might, should they find us.

"It's nice up here," I say.

"A little windy," Declan adds, holding his scrawny arms.

"My dad always says that the wind is made up of people we've lost, showing us they're still with us."

Declan opens his arms and tilts his head back. "All the souls," he says, his voice catching in the wind.

He takes a moment to sip the wind into his lungs and push up his glasses, his smile falling. "How are you doing?" I ask him.

He groans. "I'm not going to pretend I don't understand your question. I'm... I'm struggling, Isla. We were so close, you know?"

I shake my head. "No, I don't. What do you mean?"

"If we had left even a day earlier, Hugh could be here with me, and you wouldn't have that implant in your brain. We had to get our people together, though. There was no other way. I keep going over it, trying to think if there would have been any way to get there a day sooner, but I can't come up with anything."

"Hugh's death isn't your fault, Declan. It's Gunther's."

He bites his lip, rubbing his hands together for warmth. "You never told me what happened."

"You want to know?"

"If you're ready to tell me. It would be better to hear it while we're alone up here, removed from everyone."

I scoot closer to him, wrap my arm around his shoulders, and reach my other arm to take his hand.

"Oh God, it's going to be one of those stories?" he tries to joke, but his voice is weak.

"If not for you, for me," I say. "His death was hard for me too."

He looks away, and I feel his body expand with breath. "Okay. I'm ready."

"So... I'll start when I first met him in the bunker." I tell Declan about how Hugh was left behind in the bunker to die, and how I carried him out. I tell him about how Gunther made concessions for me at the estate because of what I had done for Hugh, and how Gunther created new lungs for him. I tell him about the surgery and Hugh's rocky recovery, and then I tell him about when I first actually met him.

"He was so kind to me, even though Gunther told him I was dangerous. He let me out of the estate's infirmary so that I could save everyone. You know, I told Jane to get everyone out, and she was the one to actually get everyone to safety, but Hugh is the reason any of that was possible. He could have kept me there, but he listened to me. From what I gather from the books I read growing up, in the old world, people didn't listen to teenagers much, did they?"

Declan smiles. "No. They didn't."

"Yeah... Hugh was surprised I was so young, but it didn't stop him from valuing me. So I got out, created a distraction so Jane could get everyone out, and then Hugh joined me. He had found Gunther's secret room where he kept this crazy audio file about world domination and how he rose to power, so he came upstairs to where Gunther and I were. Hugh held a gun to his head and told Gunther to choose between world domination or family.... I guess Gunther didn't think Hugh would pull the trigger."

Declan shakes his head. "Hugh never backed down from anything. He was the only reason I ever stood up to Gunther."

I'm not sure what to say, so I tell him, "Hugh thought you were dead. He probably didn't want to live without you, and he seemed so ashamed of Gunther."

Declan expels all the air from his lungs, but he's otherwise calm. "At least I know now he died standing up for what he believed in. Thanks for telling me," he says, squeezing my hand before releasing it. He pushes himself out of his seat and away from my arms.

"Where are you going?" I ask.

His feet wait on the ladder rungs. "If it's cool with you, I'm going to take some time to be alone."

"Is it something I did? You're not mad at me, are you?"

His face softens. "No, not at all. I just need to be alone right now."

I remember how he tried his best to hold back his tears until I left the library at the Hoover Dam, and I know why he needs to be alone now. He needs his privacy while he falls apart.

"But hey," he says, his voice cracking, "the pink hair is really working for you, I meant to tell you earlier. It's different, but I kind of like it. Oh, and I met Daniel, did I tell you? He's a good guy. I'm glad you found him, and he's okay. You tell me if he hurts you, though. I'll figure out a way to win a fight against him, and handle it, okay?"

He's already halfway down the ladder, and I think I see a small tear escape the corner of his eye. "Okay, I'll tell you," I say. Should I tell you that things are weird between Daniel and me? I think, but don't dare ask. I don't want to admit anything is different.

Declan's at the bottom of the ladder now, and he slides the door open. Without looking back, Declan leaves me alone on the lookout.

All the souls. Declan said it sarcastically, but I think about it. The wind isn't harsh, it's gentle. It brushes over my skin and through my hair like a passing embrace. I imagine all the people who must have died in the blasts that began all this, and all those we've lost so far in this war. With each gust of wind, I envision all of them holding me.

I remember when we decided to have a small funeral for Ben before we left home. Dad said, "Funerals are important, we need to have one for Ben." Not should, need. "Not only to respect Ben's memory, but for closure. We have to say our goodbyes."

All of those who pass around me now would want to know they're remembered, and I think all of us still living would need to know they're remembered too. Maybe it could help the camp move past what happened to us at the estate and the bunker. Maybe it would help take my mind off of the monster I almost became under Gunther.

I start down the ladder, through the command room, down the hall, and back into the Captain's dining room, where Declan sits on the couches, his face pressed into his hands as he shakes.

"Declan...?"

He sniffs, not lifting his head. "Yeah?"

"I think we should have a funeral. I think the camp needs it."

"A funeral for who?"

"For everyone. We can all take the opportunity to say some words and honor the memory of whoever we've lost in whatever way we'd like."

He sniffs a few more times, clears his face, and looks up at me. His cheeks are red, and his eyes are puffy. "Okay," he says. "I have an idea for what we can do. But you'll have to make sure it's safe, because it could draw attention to us here. You'll have to check in with Ian, and someone will have to check in with Mitchell to make sure he doesn't know about any side plans Gunther may have."

"I'll check on Mitchell," I say, feeling a flicker of anger bloom in my chest at the sound of his name. "I'll see what Ian is doing, and then I will talk to Mitchell. I owe him a visit. I haven't seen him since he killed my friend."

"Just don't kill him," Declan says. "Remember, he still gets a trial."

The thought of more blood nauseates me. "I won't," I say, swallowing away the thought as I head to the door. Before I leave, I look back, and ask, "Remember that last time we were together? Back in the dam's library?"

"How could I forget?"

"Would it be weird if I said...," I say, purposely leaving out the words I love you, just in case it would be too much for him to handle right now.

He shakes his head. "Would it be weird if I said it?"

I smile and shake my head.

"Good, because...." He, too, trails off on purpose.

"I know," I say and close the door behind me.