Chapter 6

Wasn't that the shelter my parents and Jayla had gone to?

Apparently, the warm refuge they'd been counting on wasn't exactly paradise.

I looked at Uncle Xavier. He was focused on recording data from the thermoelectric module, completely ignoring the desperate cries coming through the radio.

The firelight illuminated his calm, concentrated face.

One afternoon, during a brief break in the blizzard, we went out to look for sealing materials near the edge of the villa complex.

That was when we spotted three figures staggering through the deep snow, looking as though they were on the verge of freezing to death.

It was my parents and my sister, Jayla!

Wrapped in every scrap of fabric they could find, their faces were blue with cold, their lips cracked and bleeding, and their eyes hollow with despair. They looked at least ten times worse than they had when they left.

Jayla's expensive down jacket had several large tears, with feathers sticking out and dirty snow clinging to the fabric. One of her boots was missing, and she'd wrapped that foot in a filthy piece of cloth.

They spotted me, along with Uncle Xavier standing behind me. He looked calm and composed. I was carrying a bag of supplies we'd just scavenged.

The three of them froze as though they'd seen ghosts. Their expressions were a complicated mixture of shock and disbelief.

"Z-Zara?!" Mom's voice cracked. Her eyes were bloodshot. "You're still alive?! You... you didn't freeze to death?"

Jayla's gaze locked onto the bag in my hand like a hook. "Zara! You found supplies! Is there food in there? Give it to us! Dad's barely hanging on!"

Dad, meanwhile, stared fixedly at Uncle Xavier, the very man they'd personally chained up and abandoned.

He was alive. And more than that, he actually looked... composed?

Mom scrambled toward me, trying to snatch the bag. "Sweetheart, please save us! The shelter is finished! The boiler exploded, and people are freezing to death! Give me those supplies!"

I stepped aside, letting her fall into the snow.

I brushed the snow off my bag and replied calmly, "Mom, doesn't Shelter 3 on Westcliff have geothermal heating? Why has your whole family come back to this frozen basement looking for me?"

Jayla was sobbing uncontrollably, tears and snot running down her face. "Zara, it was all a lie! The heating barely worked! We only got a little warmth for a short time each day. When the boiler broke, it became even colder inside than outside. So many people died! Stop talking and just give us the supplies!"

Dad's lips trembled. He looked at Uncle Xavier, then at the basement door behind me, where a faint yellow glow shone through.

"Zara... Xavier... how... how did you..." He seemed unable to make sense of what he was seeing.

I weighed the copper wire in my hand, then glanced at Uncle Xavier, who stood quietly beside me as though none of the commotion had anything to do with him.

"Oh, it's nothing. We just survived with the help of the 'useless burden' you left behind and half a bottle of water. By the way, he put together a little contraption that lets us generate just enough heat to stay alive."

The wind swept through the silent villa complex.

The expressions on my parents' and Jayla's faces looked as though reality had just slapped them hard across the face.

Their humiliation and despair seemed even more chilling than the -58 degrees surrounding us.