The Ruins
T.H. Hernandez
(The Union #2)
Publication date: June 16th 2015
Genres: Adventure, Dystopian, Romance, Young Adult
T.H. Hernandez
(The Union #2)
Publication date: June 16th 2015
Genres: Adventure, Dystopian, Romance, Young Adult
Heartbroken, grief-stricken, and wracked with guilt, seventeen-year-old Evan Taylor returned to the Union, leaving behind the boy she loved.
Now, she and her friends must find a way to do the
impossible – warn the citizens of the Union about an impending rebel attack
without alerting the government and risking retaliation against her friends in
the Ruins.
When every move Evan makes is thwarted, it soon becomes
clear she’s being watched. Faced with a daily fight to stay one step ahead of
her pursuers, she returns to the Ruins. But life in the Ruins has its own
dangers, and soon she’s fighting a different battle – to stay alive long enough
to discover the truth.
—
EXCERPT:
Grief, guilt, heartbreak, fear, loss, and abandonment
all swirl in my head, creating a vortex of pain and confusion keeping me
awake.
Three days ago I was planning a future with the boy I
love. Cyrus was going to come back to the Union with me. We were going to
figure out a way to warn the citizens here or stop the attack. Together. Now
his brother is dead and Cyrus stayed behind, unwilling to abandon the rest of
his family.
The scents of honeysuckle and fresh-cut grass float on a
late summer night breeze. I stare up at the clouds from the chaise lounge on the
balcony. A thick marine layer inched its way in from the coast hours ago,
blanketing the sky and obscuring the stars I was hoping to see. With the moon
hidden and the Union lights off for the night, darkness envelopes me.
Over the soft murmuring of desalinated ocean water
burbling through the aqueduct, I hear the door slide open behind me and sit up.
My bio-dad, Eddie, walks out and takes the spot beside me.
“Can’t sleep?”
I shift to my right, giving him more room. “No. You?”
He shakes his head, his cinnamon-colored wavy hair
sweeping across his shoulders. “My grandmother used to say if you can’t sleep,
it means you’re awake in someone else’s dreams.”
That’s a comforting sentiment. Is Cyrus dreaming about
me right now? Or is he like me, too afraid of the nightmares to close his
eyes?
Eddie presses his lips together and studies me for
several long seconds. “Are you ready to tell me where you’ve really been all
summer?”
His question catches me off guard. I thought he bought
my story, the one I told him when I came back. The one Lisa fed him while I was
in the Ruins. Posing as me, she texted my mom and Eddie from my tablet with
regular updates on our fake adventures sailing off the southeastern coast. When
I first showed up here yesterday afternoon, he didn’t seem to care where I’d
been or what I’d been up to, only that I was here at all. I’m definitely not
ready to have this conversation with him.
“I don’t know, are you ready to tell me where you were
for the first twelve years of my life?”
He shifts his weight on the chaise next to me and sighs.
“I don’t know how many times I can apologize.”
“You think another ‘I’m sorry’ is going to fix
everything?”
He rubs his palms on his thighs and stands. “You’re
welcome to stay here as long as you’d like, but you might want to ratchet the
anger down a few notches.” He moves toward the door before turning back. “You’re
going to have to forgive me some day.”
I raise my head and turn toward his dark silhouette. “Why?
You think sending me a ticket and letting me hang out with your new kids makes
up for everything?”
“No,” he says quietly, “because hanging on to all that
anger and resentment isn’t healthy.” He walks back into the house, sliding the
door closed behind him.
With a heavy sigh, I fall on my back and stare back up
into the blackness. Seriously? After being nothing to me for three-quarters of
my life, where does he get off being all parental right now?
Author Bio:
T.H. Hernandez is the author of young adult books. The
Union, a futuristic dystopian adventure, was a finalist in the 2015 San Diego
book awards in the Young Adult Fiction category.
She loves pumpkin spice lattes, Game of Thrones,
Comic-Con, Star Wars, Doctor Who marathons, Bad Lip Reading videos, and all
things young adult, especially the three young adults who share her
home.
When not visiting the imaginary worlds inside her head,
T.H. Hernandez lives in usually sunny San Diego, California with her husband
and three children, a couple of cats, and a dog who thinks he's a cat,
affectionately referred to as "the puppycat."
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