"This child likely isn’t going to make it."

"She’s burned with fever for three days and three nights. It just won’t come down."

"That Hartwell family really is heartless. The girl’s half dead, and not one of them has come to look."

"Auntie, when you carried her down the hill, the wound on her head was still pouring blood."

"Maybe that’s for the best. Better to bleed out than stay in this world and suffer."

Celeste Thornton’s brow twitched faintly.

What child? Which Hartwell family? What did they mean, down the hill?

Wasn’t she already dead?

When the apocalypse collapsed in on itself, she had stayed behind alone to buy time and save others, fighting the zombies head-on. In the end, she and that whole pack of monsters were blown apart so completely there shouldn’t have been anything left of her, not even ashes. So how could she still hear people talking?

Then, all at once, something seemed to smash hard into her skull.

Pain.

Not the kind on the skin or in the flesh. This came from deep inside her head, bursting open from the very core, like someone was driving nails straight into her forehead.

Images.

Voices.

Hunger.

Cold.

Pain.

Fear.

A full twelve years of memories came rushing at her like floodwater after a broken dam, crashing over her all at once.

Her name was Cindy Hartwell.

Ever since she was old enough to know things, that was what people called her.

Nobody had ever given her a proper name.

Grandma called her Cindy. Her aunt called her Cindy. Her mother called her Cindy. Her older girl cousin and younger boy cousin called her Cindy too.

And every time they said it, not one of them looked at her straight, like they were calling to some beast in the yard.

She lived in the worst shack on the Hartwell place.

Calling it a woodshed was already being kind. It was really just a lean-to for stacking firewood, open to the wind on all four sides. The roof had several big holes in it, and when it rained, she had to set out cracked basins to catch the water.

Her bed was a heap of moldy straw in the corner, squeezed up beside the old yellow watchdog.

In winter it got so cold she couldn’t sleep. She would curl up around the dog, and the dog would press back against her. The two of them, one girl and one mutt, shook till dawn.

What had she eaten? Wild greens mashed into rough little lumps, corn buns soaked in the water left from rinsing the pot, bones other people had already gnawed clean, rotten cabbage leaves floating in the slop bucket.

From the time she was small until now, she had never once eaten her fill.

What work had she done? Cutting firewood in the hills, hauling water, feeding pigs, washing clothes, scrubbing bowls, sweeping the floor, emptying Grandma’s chamber pot at night, pounding her aunt’s legs, helping her mother stitch shoe soles.

She had started at six and never had a single day off. Some nights she worked till midnight. Her hands split open from the cold, blood smearing onto the firewood, and nobody spared her so much as one glance.

What beatings had she taken? Grandma hit her with a cane. Her aunt used a broom. Her mother used a shoe sole. Her boy cousin threw stones at her.

Afterward, nobody ever asked if it hurt. They would just toss out one line: "Quit crying. You’re making a racket."

What names had they called her? Jinx. Useless girl. Freeloader. Bad luck star. Living’s a waste of grain for the likes of you.

That last one, she had heard more times than she could count.

Her aunt had said it. Grandma had said it. But her mother said it the cruelest.

Her mother, Mildred Hartwell.

There was also one older girl cousin who would sometimes, when no one was looking, sneak her a bite to eat.

The memories were still turning over, page after page.

Three days ago, over by the gully.

She was carrying a bundle of firewood on her back, heading home, when her little brother, Tommy Hartwell, came running up from behind.

Tommy was nine that year, the apple of Mildred Hartwell’s eye. She had fed him till he was fair and plump. Standing next to her, he didn’t look like her brother at all. They looked like they came from two different worlds.

"Cindy!" he shouted from behind her.

She stopped and turned around.

Tommy ran up with that smile on his face, the one that always made her chest tighten. Every time he was about to pull something rotten, he wore that same look.

"Come here," he said.

She didn’t move.

Tommy’s face dropped at once. "I said come here!"

She still stood where she was.

That set him off. He bent down, grabbed a stone from the ground, and hurled it at her. She twisted aside fast, and the stone flew past, grazing her ear.

"You still dare dodge?" Tommy glared, eyes wide. "I’ll go home and tell Ma. I’ll have her beat you to death!"

She lowered her head and edged one step forward.

Tommy grinned, pleased with himself. He walked right up to her and tipped his chin up to look at her. She was half a head taller than him, but he had never once been scared of her.

In this house, if he hit her, she didn’t dare raise a hand back. If he cursed her out, she didn’t dare answer him. That was just how things worked here.

"My ma said," he went on, spitting the words out one by one like he was reciting from memory, "you being alive is just a waste of this family’s grain."

She tightened her grip on the rope biting into the bundle of wood and said nothing.

Tommy took one step back, the smile on his face spreading wider and brighter.

"You might as well just die."

The moment the words left his mouth, he rushed forward and gave her a hard shove.

She was standing right at the edge of the gully, loose gravel under her feet, and behind her was a steep drop several yards deep.

She didn’t even get the chance to dodge. Her foot slipped, and her whole body tipped backward.

Down she went.

The wind roared in her ears. Branches whipped across her face, stones slammed into her back, and the whole world spun before her eyes.

Then she crashed hard onto something below.

Pain.

Pain everywhere, from head to toe.

She wanted to scream, but no sound came out. Blood ran down from her forehead, blurring her eyes.

She saw a small figure standing at the top of the slope, peering down at her for a moment, then turning and running off.

And as he ran, he was still shouting,

"Cindy’s fallen to her death! Cindy’s fallen to her death!"

She closed her eyes.