The Other Life by Susanne Winnacker Read Free Book Online

should be fine.”
    I shivered. “But my father told them to find other people if we haven’t returned by tomorrow.”
    Joshua’s brows dipped in a frown. “Look, we need to spend the night outside the city. But we can search for your father and go back for your family tomorrow after sunrise.”
    I had no choice. “Okay,” I managed to croak out.
    The moment the word left my mouth, guilt pulled at my throat. Joshua touched my shoulder briefly. “There’s nothing more we can do tonight. And your family will be fine. The bunker
has kept you safe until now, hasn’t it?”
    I nodded. “We’ve spent the last 1,141 days there.” Surely it would keep them safe another night. Some of the pressure lifted from my chest, allowing me to take a deep
breath.
    “You counted the days?” He smiled.
    “There wasn’t much else to do.” I stared at my lap, where my jeans were smeared with blood. Dad’s blood. I ran my fingertips over the rough material.
    “1,141 days is a long time.”
    I glanced at him. He was staring at the road as he spoke.
    “I spent 515 days in a bunker.”
    I raised my eyebrows. “You counted the days too?”
    One corner of his mouth pulled up in a lopsided grin. “Yeah.”
    “Why did you leave your bunker? Did the military make contact?”
    His mouth set in a thin line. “The military never showed up – they just broadcast their useless warning.” His eyes flickered towards me. “It was a public bunker. Things
escalated pretty fast.”
    He turned his face away and stared out of the windshield.
    “My father and I left the bunker because we’d run out of food…” I began, but guilt and grief gripped me at the thought of Dad, and I slipped into silence, tension
crackling like static in the air.
    Joshua’s jaw tightened. I stared out of the side window and watched the landscape as it passed us by. Broken-down cars littered the streets, rusty and covered in dirt. Fallen debris lay
everywhere. Was Dad out there somewhere, waiting for me to help him?
    We slowed down and turned onto a narrow dirt track. We were driving away from the coast and into the surrounding hills. I still hadn’t seen any other human being except Joshua. He stayed
silent during the rest of the drive. I didn’t know what to say to him. It had been so long since I’d dealt with other people. Maybe I was out of practice.
    I sat up when we neared a huge villa with smaller cottages surrounding the main building. It must have been a winery; the surrounding slopes were overgrown with vines heavy with grapes. The
sweet smell of rotten fruit carried into the car, sweeter than anything I’d smelled in a while. We drove through a set of iron gates. A stone wall, overgrown with ivy, surrounded the
buildings, reminding me of pictures of France or Tuscany.
    We pulled up in front of the main house. The ochre paint was peeling off and a few of the clay shingles were missing. The white of the window shutters had faded to a dull grey, and two of them
swayed precariously in the wind.
    Joshua got out of the car without a word and slammed the door shut. I glanced at the small clock on the dashboard. The journey had taken us a little over an hour. No traffic, no stop lights, no
speed limits. Just us and the Lincoln flying over dead freeways. Los Angeles had turned into a still life.
    I got out of the car, but had to grab the door to steady myself. Joshua took my arm. “Don’t fall. Your head’s only just stopped bleeding. Come on.”
    He led me towards the main building. Every time my right foot touched the ground it burned with agony, and the pebbles covering the courtyard dug into my soles, sending jolts of pain through my
feet and up my neck.
    “Where are we?”
    The sun hung lower in the sky now, so it didn’t dazzle me when I looked up at him. He was almost a head taller than me. His skin tone reminded me of the honey Grandma used to make. The
buzzing of bees and the taste of homemade honey had once belonged to my summer,