by Toby Neal
JT didn’t slow down, just fired the Glock in the air over the mens’ heads, and the looters, faces comically surprised at the sight of the juggernaut headed their way at a full run, fled down the alley.
JT beeped open the vehicle without slowing down, but Elizabeth hated to let go of his hand even for a moment to run to her side, pop the door, and jump in.
They roared down the street.
“Get us the hell out of this city.” JT thrust the atlas at her.
Navigating an unknown city in the middle of societal breakdown at top speed was some unfair pressure, but Elizabeth’s instincts took over as she read the map, following each road out of the city with her finger.
“Left up here. We can take that a while to a more residential area and then hopefully there’s an on-ramp outside the city proper.”
“I don’t think we’re going to have much luck with 1-80 until well outside the city limits. Find us some back roads.” JT turned left, obeying her directions without question.
His trust in her felt good, but scary too. She didn’t want to mess this up, and now that they were safe for the moment, reaction was setting in: Elizabeth’s whole body was shaking, she was dizzy and her tongue was dry—those same old signs of shock. She knew them well.
Her vision was blurry, too.
Her glasses were filthy, coated with a film born of dirt and tear gas. She took them off and rubbed them on her shirt. Placing them back on her nose she peeked at JT’s profile, her eyes starving for something good to look at. Big, strong, and brave—his touch made her melt, and damn he looked good.
Why had he pulled away from her last night—had she done something wrong? Was it because her father was a senator? No, JT wouldn’t be so small-minded that he would judge her based on her parents. She hadn’t told him about how they’d wanted to cover up her killing—or their silence through all the accusations that followed, when she refused to go along with it.
“It’s better not to respond to false accusations,” her father had said.
“We just need to put this incident behind us,” her mother had agreed, the curtains pulled tight against the army of photographers camped outside their townhouse.
Elizabeth pushed those memories back down into the well and returned her attention to JT. His lush curls were shoved behind his ears and his black brows were drawn down over eyes focused on the road. His mouth, that mouth she loved to taste and touch, was set hard. She was no longer sure it was anger when he did that—maybe it was just determination. The line of JT’s jaw was tight with bunched muscle. A deep gouged scratch on his arm oozed blood down his biceps.
She could hardly believe they’d done what they’d done last night. Just remembering made her blush. She tore her gaze off him and looked at the atlas. “Take this right.”
He maneuvered around a stalled sedan, the couple inside yelling at each other.
“Now this left.”
JT took it fast, the wheels screeching.
“We’ll be on this for a few miles. Then we can turn right and we’ll be parallel to 80.”
The buildings were already looking more residential and within a few blocks the homes had porches and yards. The sun was setting. Elizabeth eyed the horizon warily.
“I think we should drive straight through, take turns at the wheel and get to Philly,” JT said. “I’m worried about Nando.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Yeah, that’s smart.”
He was right. They needed to keep moving. He was pulling away from her and that was fine, she needed to focus on her priority: getting to Washington with the cells. Judging from the state of Cloverdale, the journey ahead would be rough.
Once they got to Philadelphia, she still had to figure out how to get to DC on her own. A wave of anxiety washed over Elizabeth and she reached for her knife, rubbing the smooth handle in her pocket.
So hum, so hum, so hum. Her mantra wasn’t working.
Chapter Fourteen
JT
The next two days rolled by, filled with long silent miles and, mercifully, no further attacks. No radio was available and the towns they passed through seemed locked down, citizens staying in their homes. They were able to get back on I-80 for a good long stretch and buy another fill-up and backup tank of gas from a large dairy farm in Kentucky.
They navigated around all the major cities, keeping to back roads—which slowed them down further. The urgency of their mission, the titillation of their attraction, the adrenaline rushes of their first days gradually gave way to a functional ease born of the long hours in the truck, side by side. Conversation was minimal.
JT got hold of Roan and the relief of hearing that the Haven was fine helped JT relax a little. He told Roan to expect his brothers sometime, possibly before he returned, traveling with a woman.
“Describe,” Roan said, with his typical brevity.
“Tall, six four guy with blondish surfer hair. That’s Cash. Dante is six foot, long dark hair to the shoulders. Gamer dude. He’ll be traveling with the girl; she has black hair and is an actress.” That was all Elizabeth had told him about Melody.
“What’re they driving?”
“No idea. Last car Dante had was a Viper, but I don’t imagine that’s a very practical bug-out vehicle. Cash goes through cars like he goes through chicks, so who knows?”
“They packing weapons?”
“I told them to.”
“Good. I’ve been listening to the CB radio in the evenings, and it seems like things are getting bad out there. You two say alert. Eagle Feather out.”
As they approached the outskirts of Philadelphia, Elizabeth was driving. They pulled over to switch drivers in the heat and humidity of late afternoon.
“Let’s load all the guns and bring them into the front. Who knows what we’re going to need,” JT said.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you . . .” Elizabeth paused as she helped him move the weapons.
JT ducked his head into the front seat, tucking an extra pistol under the driver’s seat. “Yeah?”
Elizabeth climbed into the passenger side and took a deep breath. “Will you take me all the way to DC? I trust you. I know you can get me there. I know there’s a lot going on with your family, but . . . I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t so important.”
He’d been thinking about it. His conscience was yelling at him: only a selfish ass would let this girl go—at all—let alone to DC on her own, carrying precious, world-altering cargo. “Once we get to my Mom’s place, we’ll see.” JT pulled back onto the road.
Elizabeth bit her lip. “I just wish I could get hold of my parents. Must be a communication blackout for all the politicians. That’s all I can think of. Maybe they moved them to some kind of secure facility, I don’t know. But when I think of how they must be worrying about me . . .” Her lips trembled even as she tightened her jaw. “But I can’t think about that. Just have to keep putting one mile in front of the next and hoping I get where I need to go.” She looked over at him. Her eyes were the tropical blue of a summer swimming pool. JT returned his attention to the road—they were still in the countryside outside of Philadelphia but would hit the suburbs soon enough. “Hopefully your brother will be better, and you’ll feel okay about taking me. But if you don’t think you’re going to, then I need to leave right away. I can’t hang around to hear you say no.”
“Understood.” JT wished he could invite her to come stay at the Haven. Thinking of her in his house, in his kitchen, learning to milk the goats—it warmed a part of him he’d locked up in a deep freeze. Elizabeth had somehow popped the deadbolt and was using a crowbar to pry the damn thing open.
But she had her mission, and her parents. The senator would keep his daughter safe, and in the standard of living she must be used to. JT didn’t want her to stress over having to tell him no. Still, it couldn’t hurt to brag about his place a little, since she’d never see it—he couldn’t quench a foolish hope she’d want to be with him there someday, somehow.
“I
never told you everything about the Haven. It’s actually a former military survival and disaster training facility, built under my cabin. Got decommissioned ten years ago and I grabbed it up. It’s got a science lab full of supplies and equipment.” He shrugged, elaborately casual. “It’s just sitting there.”
“Sounds amazing.” Elizabeth’s voice was small, her attention on the road ahead. “I’m sure Melody will love it.”
So much for getting her interested in his musty old bomb shelter. JT cleared his throat. “I want you to be ready. Philly is known as the city of brotherly love, but it’s not actually that friendly. This could be ugly.”
“I’ve been to Philly before, JT. I grew up in DC. I almost attended Penn.”
“Yeah, well, that’s West Philly. We’re going to South Philly.”
“I went there to get cheesesteaks,” Elizabeth said.
JT snorted a laugh. “Don’t bring that up when we get there. Please. The locals will make you into a cheesesteak.”
The skyline came into view as they headed dead north. In the bright light of midday, the glass buildings reflected the blue sky, turning it a brilliant silver. Smoke rose up behind them. It looked like all of North Philadelphia was on fire.
JT navigated through narrow, single-direction streets lined with row houses, each intersection a four-way stop. They passed a woman lying on her stoop, her body draped over the steps. Her eyes were open, her face slack and devoid of color. “Oh no. She’s dead.”
“Don’t look.”
“Too late.” They saw more bodies. People had left the sweltering heat of their apartments to die on the street. Acrid smoke and the chemical stench of burning homes mingled with the sweet rot of decomposition.
JT turned down a street and stopped. Up ahead was a trash truck, a big, green behemoth, the back open wide. Two men in hazmat suits were carrying a white wrapped bundle that could only be a body. They swung the stiff figure up into the mouth of the truck, then hopped onto the foot rests, grabbing onto the sides of the truck. One banged the side, a hollow metallic clang, and it started rolling again.
The truck turned at the next block and JT continued on. The row houses were small and brick, with stone stoops five steps tall. Window boxes overflowed with flowers. Benches under the flowers were chained to the railings of the stoop for security.
Cars were double-parked, but the windows were all intact in this neighborhood. Up ahead in the street, they saw a group of men wearing tank tops with bulletproof vests and jeans. They carried baseball bats, crowbars, and shotguns.
Elizabeth
Spotting the Rover, the gang of street thugs spread out, blocking the street. Elizabeth tightened her grip on the shotgun and Pinocchio growled as JT came to a stop and rolled down his window, leaning out.
“Yo, Frankie, ya fat fuck. Watch out you don’t knock yourself out with that bat.”
The men burst out laughing, surrounding the vehicle. JT climbed out and began hugging and slapping backs. “JT! Where the hell you been! Jesus. You look like shit,” Frankie’s slicked-back hair gleamed like black shoe polish and his grin was huge.
“All that money making you into a real ripe bastard,” another man said as he kissed JT’s cheek. “Phew. You need a shower.”
JT was laughing. She’d never seen him grin so wide. He threw a few playful punches into Frankie’s solid paunch, and Frankie pulled JT by the back of the neck into an embrace and kissed his cheek. JT kissed him back!
“Who’s this gorgeous thing?” A man next to Elizabeth’s window asked. She jumped and pulled the shotgun closer. The man, all muscled shoulders and olive skin, raised his hands. “Whoa honey, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” He looked over the car at JT. “Skittish little thing.”
JT came around to Elizabeth’s side of the vehicle and shoved the man in the chest. “Step off, Tony. She’s got reason to be skittish. You notice what’s happening in the world?”
“Yeah, man. Sorry about Nando.”
“He’ll be fine.” JT said, pulling open Elizabeth’s door and offering his hand.
“You don’t know?”
JT looked back at Tony as Elizabeth placed her hand in his. “Know what?”
“Shut the hell up, Tony,” Frankie yelled over the car. “Let the man see his Moms.”
Tony stepped back. “We’ll catch up later.”
JT nodded as Tony blended back into the crowd. He locked the Range Rover and moved Elizabeth toward one of the houses, arm tight around her waist. The row home had purple pansies in the window boxes and white lace curtains. Before they reached it, the door flew open.
“JT!” A dark-haired woman about Elizabeth’s age ran down the steps and launched herself onto JT. He let go of Elizabeth to embrace the girl. Tears streamed down her face as she kissed both his cheeks. She finally let go of him and looked at Elizabeth.
“Elizabeth, this is my sister, Lucy.”
“You got a girlfriend, finally!”
Correcting Lucy seemed like bad manners as the young woman embraced Elizabeth, pulling her in close. “Great to meet you!” Lucy had an hourglass figure with dangerous curves, and long, bouncing curly hair that smelled like strawberries. Elizabeth felt the griminess of days on the road without a shower as she hugged Lucy back, patting the woman’s shoulder, overwhelmed by the physical displays of affection all around her.
This was not how her family greeted strangers. The neighborhood where she grew up in DC was townhomes, too, but built of limestone, four and five stories tall, with marble stoops and double doors that led to vestibules. People didn’t sit on their stoops or hang out on the street hugging each other. They socialized in tuxedos over martinis and canapés, and if a party wasn’t catered, it wasn’t worth attending.
Elizabeth glanced back at the Range Rover stopped in the middle of the street. “Shouldn’t we park the car?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lucy answered her. “The boys will look after it.”
“Jacob Teodoro!” An older woman with silver-streaked black hair stood in the doorway, arms outstretched. “You’re finally home!”
JT bounded up the steps and hugged his mom, lifting her off her feet. A man, shorter than JT but still physically intimidating, stood just behind JT’s mother. He gazed at Elizabeth, expressionless. His dark eyes, level brows, and tailored short black hair added up to handsome—but a terrible stillness cloaked him.
Pinocchio followed JT up the stoop, tail wagging, tongue lolling.
Lucy linked her arm through Elizabeth’s and escorted her into the house, past the dark-eyed man, clearly one of JT’s brothers, as JT kissed his mother’s cheeks and grabbed his brother by the back of the neck, shaking him a little as they rested their foreheads together.
“How is he?” JT asked, one arm around his mom, the other on his brother’s shoulder.
His mother burst out with a sob, hunching as if from a blow. Lucy squeezed Elizabeth’s arm, covering her face with a hand as she, too, erupted into fresh tears.
“He’s gone,” the brother said, voice flat and dry as a stretch of desert highway.
JT shook his head. “No, no. Where is he? I have to see him.” His voice vibrated. Elizabeth’s chest tightened. Oh God, poor JT.
“At his house,” Mrs. Luciano answered. “With Avital. She asked us to give her some time alone with his body.”
“You missed him by a few hours.” Lucy sobbed. “No one was with him.” She sniffled. “He was sleeping. Avital and Dolf were there but they were in the hall, discussing his care.”
The brother must be Dolf. The remaining twin winced at his sister’s words.
JT shook his head. “I can’t believe it.” His voice broke.
JT
Nando was gone.
The words refused to compute even as his mother and sister wept and Dolf stood there, his face a blank mask. Dolf was so like his twin, yet so different—colder and harder, more angled. Dolf was the athletic one, rock climbing and working out, while Nando ate with aband
on and considered his walk from the kitchen to the backyard his “exercise.”
Nando had glowed, while Dolf seemed to have a matte finish, absorbing light rather than reflecting it.
“I need to see him. I have to see him.” The truth of his brother’s death just couldn’t be processed until JT saw Nando.
“It’s awful, but we have to deal with his body or the truck will take him to the mass quicklime grave,” Lucy said. “Mama wants to put him in the back yard. Why don’t you and Dolf bring his body home with Avital? So we can bury him.”
The speed of all of this made JT dizzy, and he staggered. Elizabeth touched his arm, and looking down at her steadied him.
“I’ll take you to their house and we can use your vehicle to move Nando.” Dolf walked down the steps, JT following him, Elizabeth’s fingers fell away from him, leaving trails of comfort that faded too soon.
“Who’s that?” Dolf indicated Elizabeth with a flash of his eyes as JT beeped open the Rover. In the chaos, JT had neglected to introduce them, and he glanced back at her.
Elizabeth looked like an abandoned puppy, skinny and unkempt, gazing after him until Lucy closed the door.
“She’s a scientist who crash landed in my field with a cryocase of cells we’ve been trying to keep frozen all the way across the country.” JT said, getting back into the Rover. “She’s taking the cells to the CDC in Washington.”
“Oh.” Dolf’s reaction was muted. JT glanced over at him. His brother’s eyes shut as he sagged into the passenger seat. JT had never seen him look so flattened. Of all of them, Dolf would feel Nando’s loss the most keenly—the twins had been inseparable. They drove without speaking the few blocks to Nando and Avital’s row home, a fixer-upper near enough to Mama’s to walk on foot.
JT pulled up to the couple’s little house with its freshly painted trim. His heart rate spiked with dread, every beat a squeeze like a fist.
It couldn’t be true. Nando’s big smile, his laugh, his generosity, his love of stupid puns, and the man’s gravy. He was the only one who could make the traditional tomato sauce thick with meatballs and sausage like Pops used to. Nando even looked like their father had, a stained apron covering his wrinkled button-down shirt. He insisted that the reason his sauce was better than anyone else’s in the family was because he knew how to add love to the meatballs.