The Land of the Shadow by Lissa Bryan Page A

unit. A shadow unit, one not even acknowledged by the American government to exist. The kind that gets the jobs they didn’t want to give to anyone working under their name.” Justin turned to Pearl, and she met his eyes, glittering in the low light. “So, yeah, I know about not wanting to talk.”
    He sat back. “The Unit is what taught me survival skills. Not just about weapons, but how to find food, emergency medicine so we could treat each other in the field, even how to build some simple shit so we could survive if help was a long time coming. I learned a lot and, unfortunately, had to end up using a lot of it.”
    A few fireflies drifted into the yard and began sending one another their flashing messages. “But it taught me some other things. Things I wasn’t expecting. Loyalty. Honor. Friendship. That was my first real understanding of community, what I experienced in the Unit. We were dependent on each other, and that built strong bonds. I see what Carly is trying to build here, but—”
    He rubbed a hand over his face. “I was in the foster care system as a kid. That can kinda skew your definition of what a family is. I guess I never felt that . . . togetherness . . . until I was in the Unit. Lewis—he was our commander, or one of them, anyway—he wasn’t much of a father figure, but I suppose I may have thought of him that way.”
    “Lewis? One name, like Madonna or Adele?”
    “Kirgan Lewis,” Justin said with a chuckle. “But most of the time we just called him Lewis. He didn’t encourage familiarity. He was a cold bastard, but one of the smartest men I’ve ever known.” Justin heard Lewis’s voice in his mind, hitting on every one of Justin’s weak points and why he could never reach his full potential as a soldier: “ Your emotions, Justin. Your greatest weakness. ”
    “I guess I was seeking connection, though I didn’t realize it at the time.” Justin shook his head. “I dunno. But if I was, I was seeking it in the wrong place. We were encouraged to have honor and loyalty, but not emotional connections. He always said emotions make you weak, make you unable to make clear decisions, make you unable to do what you have to do to accomplish the mission.” Justin’s fingers trailed up to touch the tattoo over his heart, hidden under his T-shirt. “In the end, Lewis was right. My emotions led to some bad decisions. A decision that—”
    He stopped and looked over at her and cleared his throat. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I know what it’s like to carry those burdens, memories you don’t want to share. So, I’m not going to ask you about that. I’m going to ask you to tell me what you can.”
    He could hear her breathing in the stillness. She began to speak. Her words slowly wove a story around him in the darkness, which he could see as clearly as if it were a movie unfolding before his eyes. The darkened porch and the sounds of the southern spring night vanished, and he was right there with her.
    Pearl tried to leave LA while the Infection was still raging. Something had happened right before she packed up to go, something she said she did not want to discuss, but she realized was the reason why she hadn’t been thinking clearly at the time. If she had, she never would have attempted to take the freeway. LA was world famous for its traffic jams on ordinary weekdays. On that day, it seemed all three million residents were trying to leave the city at once.
    She managed to merge into traffic from the ramp, but moved just a mile or two before coming to a dead halt, idling with thousands of other cars, packed bumper to bumper.
    Hours ticked by. Pearl tried to use her phone to check her e-mail, but her Internet connection still wasn’t working, and every number she called returned the fast beeps of a disconnected line. She sighed and gave up, then tried to read a novel to pass the time, but her mind drifted and she couldn’t follow the plot.
    She turned off the ignition to