THE END AND OTHER BEGINNINGS STORIES FROM THE FUTURE Veronica Roth Illustrated by Ashley Mackenzie “Inertia” was previously published in Summer Days and Summer Nights in 2017 by St. Martin’s Griffin “Hearken” was previously published in Shards and Ashes in 2013 by HarperCollins Publishers “Vim and Vigor” was previously published in Three Sides of a Heart in 2017 by HarperCollins Publishers First published in the US by Katherine Tegen Books in 2019 Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Published simultaneously in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2019 Published in this ebook edition in 2019 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is: Text copyright © Veronica Roth 2019 Interior illustrations by Ashley Mackenzie Jacket art TM & © Veronica Roth 2019 Jacket art by Ashley Mackenzie and Erin Fitzsimmons Jacket design by Erin Fitzsimmons Veronica Roth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of the work. A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780008347765 Ebook Edition © 2019 ISBN: 9780008347789 Version: 2019-09-17 To the soft-hearted CONTENTS “There must have been some kind of mistake,” I said. My clock—one of the old digitals with the red block numbers—read 2:07 a.m. It was so dark outside I couldn’t see the front walk. “What do you mean?” Mom said absently, as she pulled clothes from my closet. A pair of jeans, T-shirt, sweatshirt, socks, shoes. It was summer, and I had woken to sweat pooling on my stomach, so there was no reason for the sweatshirt, but I didn’t mention it to her. I felt like a fish in a tank, blinking slowly at the outsiders peering in. “A mistake,” I said, again in that measured way. Normally I would have felt weird being around Mom in my underwear, but that was what I had been wearing when I fell asleep on top of my summer school homework earlier that night, and Mom seeing the belly button piercing I had given myself the year before was the least of my worries. “Matt hasn’t talked to me in months. There’s no way he asked for me. He must have been delirious.” The paramedic had recorded the aftermath of the car accident from a camera in her vest. In it, Matthew Hernandez—my former best friend—had, apparently, requested my presence at the last visitation, a rite that had become common practice in cases like these, when hospital analytics suggested a life would end regardless of surgical intervention. They calculated the odds, stabilized the patient as best they could, and summoned the last visitors, one at a time, to connect to the consciousness of the just barely living. “He didn’t just make the request at the accident, Claire, you know that.” Mom was trying to sound gentle, I could tell, but everything was coming out clipped. She handed me the T-shirt, skimming the ring through my belly button with her eyes but saying nothing. I pulled the T-shirt over my head, then grabbed the jeans. “Matt is eighteen now.” At eighteen, everyone who wanted to participate in the last visitation program—which was everyone, these days—had to make a will listing their last visitors. I wouldn’t do it myself until next spring. Matt was one of the oldest in our class. “I don’t …” I put my head in a hand. “I can’t …” “You can say no if you want.” Mom’s hand rested gently on my shoulder. “No.”
