Her stomach fluttered. Her heart raced, her mouth dry, but it wasn’t water she craved.
Hannah turned to Liam and held out her hand. He laid Molly’s cane against a nearby camping chair and took a hesitant, cautious step.
And then the hesitation vanished, and he took her in his arms. She melted into him. They shuffled, awkward and clumsy at first, then they found their rhythm. They danced to the sound of Steve Perry’s iconic voice melding with the strumming guitar and lilting piano. I’m forever yours…
Liam took her hand and threaded his strong calloused fingers through her deformed ones. His hand closed over hers and held it. Gently, tenderly.
The song faded, and a familiar tune played next: U2’s “All I Want Is You.”
“Quinn’s grandpa had good taste,” Liam murmured into her hair. “I think he was a secret hopeless romantic.”
She felt herself smiling. “Are you?”
“I am now.”
He held her, and she held him. He was alive. She was alive.
They had more than they could’ve ever asked for.
After a while, Liam took a break and headed to the cooler for a glass of water, limping heavily but on his feet, moving with slow but dogged resolve.
Ghost trotted across the yard and pressed his snout against Liam’s side, his plumed tail gently wagging. They looked so regal, the two of them: wounded warriors. Every inch of them exuding strength, dignity, and valor.
Hannah watched him, the man she loved, something bright and glittering inside her chest. She stood back and surveyed Molly’s yard, taking in these people she loved.
Once, she’d been trapped, isolated, a victim. Now, she was part of a community. A survivor. A leader.
Sometimes the destruction of one thing could become the birth of another thing. New life, starting over, freedom.
In the middle of winter, with the scouring wind and brutal, shocking cold, you believed spring would never come. That spring had never existed in the first place. What else could possibly exist but this vast wasteland of snow and ice and darkness?
But that was a lie. It did exist. And it would come.
The sun returned, and beneath its nourishing warmth, the whole world opened up like a flower reaching for the sky.
You had to endure. You had to hold on. No matter what lay ahead, what challenges and hardships, she knew they would meet them.
They were a family.
They were together.
And, in the end, wasn’t that everything?
Liam glanced back at her over his shoulder. A slow open smile creased his features, his gray-blue eyes shining.
Hannah smiled back. And she lifted her face toward the sun.
I hope you enjoyed Edge of Valor, the epic conclusion to the Edge of Collapse survival series.
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If you knew the apocalypse was coming, what would you do?
I’ll have more updates on my next series in the next couple of months. Until then, please scroll to the next page for the Author’s Note and a list of my available books. Also, scroll past “About the Author” for a free preview of my completed post-apocalyptic series, Nuclear Dawn.
Author’s Note
Endings are bittersweet.
I admit, I shed a tear or two while writing a few scenes, particularly Quinn’s last scene when she fully comprehends what it means to be a warrior—how much it takes from you, how to live with the scars.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Collapse series. I hope it’s everything you wanted it to be and more than you expected.
I have worried over these characters for a year and a half. They’ve lived in my head and whispered in the back of my mind. It’s hard to leave them, but I feel that it’s the right time.
They’ve overcome so much—I have faith that they can face whatever comes next. I hope that they will live on in your heart the same way that they do mine. The characters may not exist in real life, but the emotions they elicit in us are certainly real.
I appreciate my readers more than I can ever say. I cherish your emails, FB messages, and reviews. It is such a special thing to be able to share the world and characters populating my brain with others who get it and love them as much as I do.