by Amy Braun
“Yeah, I guess it does.” I tried to smile, but it felt wrong on my face.
We sat in silence until the truck pulled to another stop. I stayed in the truck bed, wanting to look over the side, but too scared of what I would see.
“Ava,” prompted Piper. “We’re here.”
“I know,” I said. “Just… give me a second.”
She nodded and said nothing. I closed my eyes and sent out a silent prayer to any deity that was listening.
Please, please, please, let my family be okay. Please don’t take them away from me. I can’t be alone. I won’t know what to do. Please let them be safe. That’s not too much to ask, is it?
Knowing there was no point in delaying any longer, I opened my eyes and dragged myself to my knees. Piper let down the truck bed then turned and turned to face me. Her eyes dropped to my chest and she frowned.
“Where did you get that?”
Bewildered, I looked down to the spot over my heart where her eyes were locked.
Peeking out from the top of my tank top was a white, circular scar with jagged edges. Exactly the kind that would have been left if I’d been stabbed.
Panic welled in my chest again. I clenched my fists and my jaw, willing the memory away.
“Ask me later, okay?” I whispered.
Piper nodded slowly. Her hand rubbed over her own heart, as if guarding it. She looked like she wanted to say something, but chose not to. Silence was what we both needed.
Piper opened her arms and wrapped me in a hug. We both needed that, too.
“I’ll come see you as soon as I can, okay?”
I nodded and hugged her tight. I didn’t know what happened to her parents, and I couldn’t help her without knowing what happened to my own family. We had no idea what kind of state we would be in when we saw each other again. If we’d both be whole, or broken.
“Be safe, Piper.”
We let each other go and I slipped out of the truck bed onto my old street. I think the truck drove away, but I didn’t notice. All I could see was my house.
Or what used to be my house.
My eyes noticed irrelevant things, like how the ruins of my house were bunched together like a flat pyramid. Shingles were everywhere, slipping through cracks of the caved in walls. Tattered, snapped furniture was piled on the waterlogged grass behind warped metal appliances. The garage was completely flattened into the driveway. I couldn’t see Mom or Dad’s cars, and had no idea where the mailbox was.
I walked forward in a daze, my aching, soggy feet dragging heavily through the grass. I went toward the furniture, touching it and stupidly wondering why it was outside on the lawn. It wasn’t supposed to be here. It was supposed to be inside–
“Ava?”
I turned around and looked at the people standing in the middle of the road. I hadn’t looked back when Piper dropped me off. I went straight for my house, thinking that’s where my parents and little brother were. I didn’t think to look back, where they were standing now.
My eyes took in all of them. My Dad’s wide, shocked eyes as he held my little brother’s hand. My mother’s joyous tears as she ran for me.
Fresh tears slipped past my own eyes. I choked on a sob and ran for my family.
Mom met me in a crushing hug. I shuddered and cried into her chest, like I was a lost baby. She soothed me like I was one.
“Oh, thank God, Ava, thank God, thank God.”
Hearing the fear in her voice only made me cry harder. When I felt my Dad and brother wrap their arms around me, I was almost screaming.
It was eternity before they pulled away. I didn’t want to let go. I was still a shaking, crying mess.
Mom cupped my face in her hands and looked in my eyes. “Where have you been? We were looking for you everywhere.”
Speaking past my tears and the released pressure in my chest was harder than I thought it would be.
“I couldn’t get the door closed,” I sobbed out. “I tried, but I couldn’t so I tried to get to my school because I didn’t want to drown, and I… I…”
I couldn’t tell them about the Stormkind the way I had with Piper. I’d gotten too upset to know if she believed me or not. With my family, I was just too relieved they were alive to care. I would tell them later.
Just as I would tell them about that other part. I would have to tell them eventually. If Piper had seen the scar on my chest, there was a chance my family would too.
“When I woke up, I was in Palm Beach. I got a ride with Piper.”
“Did you stay with her?” my Dad asked.
Confused, I turned to look at him, but a crying baby caught my attention. I looked past him to where a young mother stood, holding her child. She was talking frantically to SPU soldiers. All across the road, my neighbors were standing together, moving debris and talking to authorities. They were everywhere, packed on the road like homeless sardines.
That’s what we were now. Fish out of water.
My eyes went back to the crying baby. To the woman that held her.
To the patch of street they were standing on.
Where Mr. Cortez had died. Drained of his life force by the Stormkind. I saw its skeleton glow bright in my mind. Watched it glow brighter as it stood over me, reached for me.
Saw a shadow and a pair of cruel eyes.
Felt a sharp punch in my chest before the world exploded into agony.
“Ava? Ava, sweetie, what’s wrong?”
I barely heard my mother. Hardly felt James touch my hand. The memory was clouding my mind. It hurt to breathe.
“Sit down, honey, sit down.”
I couldn’t make myself move. Dad had to help me. He knelt next to me with his arm around my shoulders. Steadying me. The ground felt wet. Everything was drenched. I felt like my very soul was soaked.
“It’s okay, Ava. You’re safe now.”
It was what I needed to hear. It was true.
It didn’t keep me from shaking.
I stared blankly ahead, unaware that I was still holding James’ hand until I noticed the white papers in his hand. Relieved to have something to focus on, I nodded to them.
“What are those?”
James frowned, then turned the papers over.
My smiling face stared back at me, printed on a piece of white paper. The girl in the photo seemed like a stranger now. I barely recognized her.
Blocky, capitalized text glared over my photograph.
MISSING.
I looked at my Mom, confused and a little hurt. “You were going to declare me missing? After a few hours?”
Mom froze. Then her jaw began to droop, her eyes bulging. James had a similar expression on his little round face.
“Ava,” my Dad said. “You haven’t been gone for a few hours.”
I looked at him, alarmed by the confused, scared look in his eyes. A look I’d never seen my father wear.
I understood why when he said, “You’ve been gone for a week.”
Chapter 3
Before the Centennial, I liked routine. There was comfort in the familiar. I woke up, had breakfast, showered, went to school, went to work, came home, went to bed. That’s all I ever did, and while I complained about it, I secretly craved it. I knew exactly where I was and what I had to do.
Having a week of my life disappear threw all of that out of whack, and even though three weeks had now passed since the Centennial, I was struggling to catch up.
To the dismay of every student, all schools and colleges would resume in September. Temporary structures would be built until the real schools could be solidified. The road and streets were still– mostly– intact, so once the rubble and debris could be safely moved, sorted and recycled in the landfills, reconstruction would begin on the original spots. Park Vista would be in the same plot it always had been, like it had never been gone at all.
At least, until the next Centennial.
The federal government enforced mandatory volunteer laws to help rebuild the country. For
the next three months, every able-bodied man, woman, and child over thirteen was required to help their city. The kind of work they did depended on what they were capable of. The government provided the SPU with a list of medical and employment records– which caused no small amount of outrage from basically everyone– to determine what skills people had. Carpenters and engineers would build houses, though the amount of work they did was dependent on their physical limitations. Nurses worked round the clock in makeshift hospitals. Athletes became messengers. Seniors without serious memory problems or senility watched over young children. Technicians and electricians worked to get power back up. Business executives oversaw everything from construction sites to food distribution, labor and rations became the new currency.
Even people like me who worked the leftover jobs– retail workers, clerks, baristas, and waitresses– went back to our regular jobs. Granted, there were a few changes. Retail workers were required to take sewing courses. Fabrics would be sewn by hand and traded until we could rebuild the country and begin imports again, since the post offices were still shut down and there were no longer airports to allow planes to land safely.
In a way, waitresses had it easy. Sure, we didn’t get tips anymore, but we were at least able to pretend we weren’t back in the Stone Age. Large tents were set up for restaurants and cafés. Barbecues were placed outside along with the canned food brought up from the underground. The cooks were challenged to make food with whatever was left from the stores, and we basically turned into soup kitchens. Or barbecue kitchens, since my restaurant didn’t serve soup.
Rescue and construction workers could lumber in and ask for something from the limited menu, and they would eat free. Obviously we got freeloaders, but my boss, Mikey, was a big Hawaiian guy who had no problem tossing out anyone who wasn’t volunteering nearby. Or who didn’t have any beer to trade.
All of this was primitive, but necessary. I was told that the military had used Morse code for the first week to communicate with the SPU. The radios were getting back into working order, but they were only short range. The wealthy and important were still working underground with the Lottery winners to communicate with other countries to assess the global damage and determine how to offer aid. The entire planet was a mess. The most we could do right now was work at piecing ourselves back together, and hoping we could return the States to what they had been before dozens of storms had ravaged it.
Florida had been one of the states hit worst in the Centennial and was still soaked in water from high tides and light rainstorms, but it was by no means the only area affected by monster storms. Typhoons and tsunamis ravaged California. Dust storms spiraled through Arizona and Nevada. Tornados obliterated Kansas and Nebraska. Floods had half of Mississippi submerged. There were even blizzards in North Dakota and Michigan.
Blizzards. In freaking July. Anyone who thought that this was something natural was either really stubborn or really stupid. There was nothing natural about the Centennial, no matter what the SPU and their professional climatologists and meteorologists claimed. The only thing I believed from them was the guarantee that there would be no more repercussions from the Centennial. Whatever force was behind it was gone now.
True enough, there hadn’t been a cloud in the sky for two weeks.
No– three weeks. Three. Because I’d been missing for one.
“Order up, Ava!”
Crap. I lowered my hand from my chest, alarmed that I’d been touching my scar. The panic attacks had stopped, but I’d been having nightmares almost every single night. Well, not really nightmares. More like blurring flashes through my mind, and a scorching pain in my chest when I woke up. I told myself it was just my memories screwing around with me, that the rigid white scar over my heart couldn’t hurt me now because it was healed over.
Lying to myself wasn’t as comforting as it should have been.
I scurried through the tent, weaving through the mostly empty tables to the second flap. I was happy the construction workers two blocks down were close friends of Mikey’s and loved his cooking. It meant that the Papaya Cantina was getting first dibs on rebuilding. Right now, it was nothing more than a skeletal wooden frame draped with a thick blue tarp, but Mikey made the most of it. Ten mismatched and scuffed tables and foldout chairs were propped in the center. At the far left corner was a counter top for the hot food, served on paper plates. In the far right was the trading box, where customers could leave donations of supplies for payment and tips. Money stopped meaning anything. At least for now. I imagined the wealthy bankers and celebrities still underground were going crazy without their fancy cars and overpriced clothes.
I stopped at the counter and peeled back the second flap of the tent. Beyond it, Mikey stood at the barbecue, flipping mouth-watering burgers with metal spatula. The framework was bare of a tarp, so the smoke flowed freely and there was no real risk of fire. His wife Maci worked behind him, pulling freshly cooked potatoes from the stone fire pit. I tilted forward, breathing in the smell of heaven.
Now these were freshly cooked French fries.
“Smells great, Mikey,” I remarked, grabbing a paper plate and a freshly cut hamburger bun from the table at my side.
“Yup,” the robust Hawaiian said with a cheery smile. “And it’s not for you, Ava, so don’t sneak the fries.”
I pouted. “We’ve only got one customer right now.”
“Right now, are the key words, darling. We’re gonna get a rush soon. Ryan’s crew will be coming in soon.”
“So you’re telling me I need to take my break now?” I smirked, piling small packets of salt, pepper, ketchup, relish, and mustard on the plate before giving it to Maci.
“Nice try, honey,” she replied. She was a plump, friendly woman with sparkling eyes. “You’ve already had your break.”
“Not that you did anything,” spat a voice to my left.
I frowned at the other waitress, a tall, doe-eyed blonde named Carrie. She got the best tips and trades, mostly because her shirt was too tight around her ample chest, the edges rolling up to reveal a toned stomach, and her shorts were so small I could honesty see the edges of her butt cheeks hanging out of the denim. Carrie complained they were the only clothes she had left.
I called bullcrap on that.
“All you did was stare at the door and rub your chest.” Carrie’s eyes flicked down. She grinned maliciously. “Rubbing them won’t make them grow, honey.”
My cheeks flared with embarrassment, but Carrie just flicked her bleached blonde hair over her shoulder and sauntered out into the restaurant.
“Ignore her, Ava,” muttered Mikey. “You know that if it were up to us, you’d be our only waitress.”
I nodded grimly, going back to the table and piling on processed cheese and pickles. Those were the only other condiments we had, since fresh food hadn’t been found yet. A year prior to the Centennial, farmers and factories had been required to provide a portion of their output to SPU mandated warehouses that would freeze, dry, and dehydrate the food so it could be rationed. The food was placed in highly secured bunkers underground with locations known only to the government and top SPU personnel. Anyone withholding portions of food would be fined and even threatened with jail time once the Centennial was over. There had been protests, lawsuits, job losses, and even small riots, but the SPU refused to abandon their protocols. They assured us that this food would be necessary, since the Centennial would bring all food production to a brutal, screeching halt.
My diner was almost closed down because of those mandates, but I couldn’t really fault them now. All that food was divvied up and sent to restaurants that had filled out the required forms to be turned into non-profit retailers. Requests were granted based on location, food and safety regulations, and the amount of profit earned by customers.
We were lucky, so we didn’t complain.
Before the Centennial, the Papaya Cantina had been fully staffed. Now there were only four of us. Mikey was right about the con
struction guys. We were swamped during the rushes and no matter what I thought about Carrie’s use of her figure, there was no denying that she brought in more business.
“Here,” Maci said. She plucked the plate from my hand and finished loading it with fries. Mikey put the burger on the bun, closed it, and let Maci hand it back to me. “Take this out to your table. I’ll fix you up a plate of fries. Once you wipe down the tables, you can have another five minutes, okay?”
I smiled. “Thanks, Maci.”
I carried the plate out of the kitchen and into the restaurant to where our one customer was sitting in my section. He was one of the doctors at a first aid station by one of the construction sites, and he looked half awake. I was actually happy to drop off his food, and told him he didn’t have to trade anything. He was already working his butt off to treat the wounded, one of whom had been Piper’s dad, who suffered a broken leg in the Centennial.
After I dropped off his food, I started wiping down the tables. Carrie was somewhere in the back, probably doing her nails or cutting off more of her shorts or something, so it was just me and the doctor. I was debating going back to talk to him about the scar on my chest, if only to ask why it healed so quickly, when the front flap of the tent was pulled open, and Adonis walked in.
Okay, so he wasn’t exactly Adonis– more like Adonis’ dark cousin– but he was so damn gorgeous that I actually froze.
He was tall and muscular without being blocky. He stood like a warrior, his perfect blue eyes tracing over the tables like he thought they might attack. Thick black hair brushed the shoulders of his rugged leather motorcycle jacket. High cheekbones and sharp lips gave him a regal appearance. He looked like a prince trying to disguise himself as a biker.
I gotta say– the look suited him.
Mystery Man’s eyes stopped their assessment and locked on me. My heart skipped a beat once, then again when he gently smiled. The smile didn’t reach his eyes, but damn, was it ever sexy.