Chapter Sixteen : Rath

The walk from the store to the farm is quiet. Chloe doesn’t say much, and I don’t know what to say to her either. My thoughts keep circling back to one person--one raven-haired woman I just can’t seem to get out of my head.


Chloe knocks on the farmhouse door, and a little girl--probably around ten--answers. She steps outside and wraps Chloe in a tight hug.
“How have you been, Lily?” Chloe asks warmly.
“I took care of everything while you were gone, Chloe!” the girl says proudly.

Chloe ruffles her hair with a small smile and walks past her. Lily gives me a cautious, skeptical glance before slipping back inside without a word. Great. Let’s hope the rest of them aren’t like that.

The house is bigger than I expected--modern, but still holding onto that rustic charm. I leave my shoes by the rack outside and step into a spacious living room. Plush couches arranged neatly around a low tea table. A massive TV spans nearly half the wall. A long island separates the living room from the kitchen, which looks even more expensive--polished wooden cabinets, glass panels showcasing delicate china.
I take it all in slowly, silently. This is where I'm gonna be living after all.

The living room is scattered with people, lounging across the large sprawl of couches like they’ve made this place their own. A quiet hum of conversation fills the space--until Chloe hauls the heavy bags of supplies onto the kitchen island.

In an instant, the atmosphere shifts. All eyes are on the food.
“No. Stop right there. None of you are touching this,” Chloe says sharply, holding up a hand. “Carter, come here.”
A guy about my age gets up and walks over.
“You're in charge of rationing now. Anything food-related, it goes through you. Make sure no one gets more than their share.”
Carter nods. Then Chloe glances over at me. “Uh--right. I didn’t even ask your name yet, with everything going on. Come here.”
I step forward. “That's alright. I’m Rath. Rath Ashford.”

She gives a small nod and places a firm hand on my back. “Everyone, this is Rath. He’ll be staying with us from now on.”
I try to look a little less like a wreck, forcing a smile to make myself seem… approachable? Acceptable?

Surprisingly, no one protests. There’s a general chorus of polite nods and lazy waves. No judgment. No tension in their expressions. And that’s when I realize--there are no adults here. Not one. Everyone in this room is either my age or younger. There are maybe eight of them, including Chloe.
I want to ask what happened, but now doesn’t feel like the time.

Maybe they’re just glad for another capable person around. Someone not afraid. Someone older. Maybe that’s why Chloe didn’t mind me tagging along. I’m not a threat--I’m a buffer against the unknown.

She starts introducing everyone. The little girl from earlier is Lily. Her twin brother, Dylan, looks just like her--same big eyes, same cautious curiosity. Both are ten. There are two middle schoolers: Alex and Daniel, both quiet but sharp-eyed. A girl who looks like she’s in high school--tall, guarded--is Ashley. Carter, the guy now in charge of food, seems grounded. Steady. And then there’s Millie--blonde, calm, eyes that flick to mine but give nothing away. Eight of them. No adults. No supervision. Just kids making it work in a world that clearly isn’t working anymore.


They don’t seem so bad. Once the rationing discussion wraps up--Carter nodding seriously, a few light jokes tossed around--everyone drifts back to what they were doing before. Laughter hums low from the living room and the tension fades like it was never there to begin with.

I’m left alone with Chloe, sorting through supplies, placing them in what I assume are their usual cabinets. The rhythm is easy, methodical. For a moment, it almost feels normal.

That’s when I ask it. The question that’s been chewing at the edge of my mind since I stepped foot inside.
“Why are there no adults here?”
Chloe pauses, fingers curling around a tin can she’s just pulled from the bag. Her eyes flick to mine, then back to the shelf.
“We come to this farmhouse every year,” she says, voice quieter now. “Cousins, siblings... it’s kind of a tradition. We watch movies, play video games, swim, get sunburned, eat junk food. It’s supposed to be fun. Our thing.”
She closes the cabinet door with a soft click
“The parents usually don’t stick around. They don’t care much for pool parties and Mario Kart tournaments, but they make sure we’re taken care of. Every year, two of them stay behind to watch over us. This time, it was Lily and Dylan’s parents.”
She hesitates.
“They left yesterday. Said they were going to look for help. I told them it was a bad idea, but…” Her voice falters. “They haven’t come back.”
There’s a flicker in her eyes--pain, or maybe fear, hidden behind practiced calm. Like she’s been holding the whole house together with duct tape and willpower.

I rest a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Hey. It’s okay. They’ll be fine. You won’t lose anyone else. They’re smart. They’re safe.”
She doesn’t answer right away.
“I hope so,” she says eventually, her voice barely above a whisper. Then she straightens up and continues unpacking as if she hadn’t just admitted her worst fear out loud.
We finish restocking in silence.
When we’re done, Chloe leads me through the house. It’s bigger than I expected--two full floors above the ground level, with around ten rooms in total. It’s quiet, except for the distant murmur of conversation. Each hallway we pass feels older, filled with years of summer laughter.

Finally, she opens a door near the far end of the first floor.
“This one’s yours,” she says simply.
The room is clean, simple--bed, dresser, a narrow desk by the wall. Sunlight spills through the window, painting everything gold. I step inside and open the window wide. Orange and pink streaks blur into each other, clouds glowing like burning embers. It’s the most beautiful sunset I’ve seen in years. Maybe ever.

I kick off my shoes and fall into bed. The mattress swallows me whole. After years of sleeping on those cement slabs they called beds back in the dorms, this feels like heaven. I set the box Cassie gave me on the nightstand. I haven’t opened it yet just like she asked me not to.

I need some sleep. Just a quick nap, I tell myself. I’m not even sure I make it to the end of the thought before everything fades. Today has been too much. Too fast.

“Rath! Can you help me with dinner?”
Chloe’s voice cuts through the fog of sleep, waking me up with a jolt. I rub my eyes, sit up slowly. It's dark outside now, which means I definitely slept longer than I meant to. My eyes land on the box again--the one Cassie gave me. But not yet. I’ll open it after dinner.
Right now, I need to help. Pull my weight.

“I’ll be down in a minute!” I call out and drag myself out of bed.
Downstairs, I help set up the table, passing bowls and plates across the long wooden surface in the dining room. Everyone’s already gathering, and the space fills with noise--banter, teasing, half-hearted arguments over who gets more food. It’s chaotic in the best kind of way. I sit with them, plate full, and for the first time in a while, I feel something close to... ease.

Then Alex speaks up. “Chloe, how did you find Rath anyway?”
The conversation dies down a bit. Everyone looks to Chloe for an answer.
She doesn’t bother looking up from her plate. “Rath, why don’t you tell them?”
Good call. Gives me a chance to talk.
So I do. I tell them everything--about the dorms, how quickly everything fell apart, the panic, the desperation. How I managed to escape on a half-broken bike, slipping through alleyways and dark roads until I found the convenience store. And how I met Chloe there. Right place, right time. Most of them seem fairly impressed, even if they try not to show it too much. They listen.

“You got out unscathed?” Carter asks, glancing up from his food.
“It was tough,” I say, a slight smile tugging at the corner of my mouth. “But yeah. I had my badass friend with a chainsaw by my side. So, I got lucky.”
The memories rise up before I can stop them--her voice, her laugh, the blood on her hands and the grin she wore like armor.
“Where’s your friend now?” Lily asks, her small voice breaking through the moment. She’s been slowly inching closer to me throughout dinner, like I’m something familiar she wants to hold onto.
“She had to go somewhere,” I say. “And I, for one, wanted to come meet the lovely Lily.” I ruffle her hair, and she lets out a giggle.

The table erupts in amused chuckles, a few playful groans. Dylan pretends to gag, and someone throws a bread crust at him. The moment is warm. Real. For a few minutes, the world outside this farmhouse feels distant. And maybe, just maybe, I’ve found something worth holding onto here.

None of them ask any more questions. After dinner is done and the dishes are washed, we all gather in the living room to play a board game. It’s fun--loud, messy fun--and I find myself genuinely enjoying their company. Hours slip past in a blur of laughter and playful bickering over rules and stolen turns. For a while, I forget everything. Even the box. The one I’m still supposed to open.

Eventually, the night winds down. One by one, everyone disappears into their rooms. The house grows quiet. I’m alone again. Back in my room, I sit on the bed, the small box resting in my hands. I turn it over slowly, trying to guess what she could’ve left inside. Something meaningful, maybe. Something that mattered to her--something she wanted me to remember her by.

I steady my breath and sit upright, the box warm against my palms. After a moment, I open it.
No.
No, it can’t be.
It’s not what I think it is.
But it is.
A Reese’s peanut butter cup wrapper. Crumpled, soft around the edges. From our first Netflix binge night. After all this time, she kept it.

My chest tightens, and my heart swells with an ache so fierce it knocks the air from my lungs. I want to see her. So badly, I’d walk back to that store right now if I thought she’d still be there. She told me to open it at night. She must’ve planned to be gone by then. She knew I’d wait. She knew I’d follow instructions. And now, I’m too late.

I should’ve opened it earlier.
Maybe I could’ve stopped her.
Maybe I could’ve held her just once more.
Maybe I could’ve said the words neither of us ever had the guts to say out loud.
And now I doubt I’ll ever get the chance to tell her.

Maybe it’s for the best. We never wanted the same things. We never quite aligned.
But I wanted her.
And does anything else matter if I can't have her?
A permanent home. Safety. Stability. It all fades when I realize--maybe she was my home all along.

I lie back on the bed, the wrapper still clutched in my hand, staring at the ceiling as more what ifs swirl inside me. But eventually, they begin to settle. Quiet down.
And I know what I have to do.
It’s time to let her go.
Our paths no longer run side by side.
And they probably never will again.