by Kyla Stone
The bathroom smelled like the lemon cleaner the maid used. Her spine dug into the bottom of the hard porcelain tub. Her shoulders and neck ached. Her knees were bent awkwardly, her bare feet pushed against the far tub wall beneath the faucet.
The oversized sofa cushion she’d pulled on top of her was scratchy, one of the zippers digging into her neck. Beneath it, she clutched the notepad to her chest, her fingers like claws.
But she didn’t dare move.
She knew what the bright flash was, what it meant.
A nuclear bomb.
Was this the judgment her father preached about? Armageddon plunging down from the heavens in a raging onslaught of boiling smoke and fire?
Dakota had warned her.
So had Ezra, all those years ago, when he’d let them stay in his cabin on the edge of the swamp. It had seemed so far from civilization, it might as well have been located at the edge of the world.
That was how she felt now—like she’d slipped off the edge of the planet and was lost somewhere in another dimension, or maybe a black hole.
She didn’t know how bad it was. She didn’t know anything.
Outside her tiny, claustrophobic bathroom, the whole world could be destroyed. The entire house could be buried beneath a ton of rubble so deep no one would ever be able to dig her out, even if they could hear her screams.
Which they couldn’t. Because she had no voice. No way to reach out to anyone beyond these four cramped walls. She was stuck in here in the darkness, with only the tub, the sink and toilet, the chilly tile floor.
All she knew was that she couldn’t leave until someone came for her. If they came for her. Dakota promised.
She was all alone. All alone in the darkness she feared, the darkness where the monsters could creep in, both imaginary and real.
She moaned, her throat making a rough, ruined sound. Tears leaked down her cheeks, snot bubbling in her nose.
She wanted her foster parents.
She missed them. She missed them with a hollow ache in the center of her chest, almost as much as she missed Dakota, her father, and her brothers.
She wanted Gabriella’s warm, comforting presence sitting next to her as she fell back into a bruised, restless sleep, brushing her damp hair back from her face and humming some Spanish pop song Eden didn’t know the words to.
She wanted Jorge to bring her another one of his favorite books—1984 or Animal Farm—and read to her long into the night, even when he had to get up early for work the next day.
In those first weeks at the Rosses without Dakota, the nightmares had stalked her every night.
She couldn’t cry out after a nightmare. She had no way to alert them to her distress, her terror.
She’d thrashed in her bed in the dark, choking on her own whispery, rasping moans, silent sobs shaking her whole body, too frightened to leave her room.
Only when she’d fallen out of bed one night did they glimpse her night terrors. Instinctively, she’d cowered against the wall, scrambling for her notepad to babble an explanation, to frantically apologize and promise to never wake them again.
They hadn’t responded like her real father used to, with belittling anger and shame. The next day, Jorge rigged an alarm button on her nightstand. When she pushed it, his phone buzzed, alerting them.
The Rosses always came together, both of them.
Eden liked them. Loved them even, though she didn’t dare tell Dakota that.
Gabriella was a kind-hearted poet; Jorge, a pediatrician with a wicked sense of humor.
It was Gabriella who gave her the gift of language, signing her up for American Sign Language classes, who bought her artist-quality pencils and drawing supplies.
Jorge opened up a world of books and reading—books that would’ve been banned in her old life at the compound. But Jorge let her read anything she wanted to.
She dreaded telling Dakota the truth—she wanted the Rosses to adopt her. Even though she loved Dakota with every beat of her heart. Even though she knew Dakota desperately wanted to be named her legal guardian.
She longed to be part of a real family again.
She felt torn between her affection for the Rosses and her loyalty to Dakota. Fear and guilt and loss snarled inside her.
Maybe it didn’t even matter. Maybe her foster parents were already dead. Maybe Dakota was, too. Maybe every single person in the whole state of Florida was already dead.
Her mind shied away from that thought.
No. Gabriella and Jorge were still out there, trying to find their way home. And Dakota was coming for her, too.
Slowly, her sobs subsided. She dried her salty tears with the back of her arm. Her hitched breaths slowed.
She clutched her notebook to her chest and stared up into the thick, looming blackness, imagining the shape of the ceiling above her.
Dakota was the toughest person she knew. She never gave up.
Eden loved her foster parents, but it was Dakota she put her faith in.
18
Logan
“You got people out there?” Julio asked Logan quietly.
They were slumped against the wall, staring out at the silent, darkened theater. The few flashlight beams cast everything in an eerie, ghostly glow. Time was passing, but Logan didn’t know how much. It couldn’t go fast enough.
But when he finally got out of here, where would he even go?
Logan had no girlfriend at home, no dog waiting eagerly, tail waving. No friends, really. Whatever family he’d had once had disowned him long ago.
He went to work, he went to the gym and the bar, he came home to a nondescript apartment, empty of anything but the bare essentials—a mattress, a fridge full of beer, and a cabinet lined with wine and booze.
The next day, he did it all again. It was a small, careful, barren life.
But it was the life he deserved, wasn’t it?
Now, just when he thought he was getting his equilibrium back, he was knocked on his ass again. Big time.
“Nah,” he said. “There’s no one to miss me.”
“My wife’s in West Palm Beach visiting her sister.” Julio’s voice was shaky. His left knee was juddering like crazy. “Never had kids. Never could, you know? I’m thinking now, maybe that was a blessing.
“My wife’s sister though, she’s got two little Cuban hellions. Five and seven. One’s into princesses and ponies; the other one’s always got dirt beneath her nails, bests every boy in her class at soccer and softball. Don’t know what I’d do if we lost those girls…”
In the bar, it was always Julio who soothed everyone else, always offering a listening ear, a comforting shoulder to cry on. Logan didn’t know what to say. That it was better to have no one, to only need to worry about yourself?
It was the only way he’d survived. Don’t give an enemy a single point of vulnerability. No one and nothing could hurt him.
But he couldn’t say that to Julio, whose face was drawn from worry over his family. At the bar, all Logan had to do was drink until he was good and boozy and then drink some more. He left the serious talk to Julio and the others.
He wanted a drink right now. He slipped his silver flask out of his pocket, unscrewed the lid, and allowed himself one long, sweet swallow.
He’d have to make it last, but damn if he didn’t want to down the whole thing now.
“I’m sorry, man,” he said. The silence between them had suddenly deepened like a pit he’d fall into if he didn’t say something, no matter how lame.
“I’m no hero.” Julio gazed forlornly down at his phone. “I’m scared to death, to be perfectly honest. But I can’t just leave her out there. She’s—she needs me. What kind of man would I be if I didn’t go after her?”
“One that’s still alive.”
Julio gave a pained snort. “I feel so guilty. Every second that passes…it just gets worse.”
It always surprised him how easily and openly Julio discussed his feelings. Like it was perfectly normal,
like guilt wasn’t a heavy, clanking chain choking his throat, wasn’t a ruinous cancer slowly poisoning him from the inside out.
Logan’s guilt was a dark, toxic murk he buried deep and thought of as little as possible.
He opened his mouth, though he had not a clue what to say.
“What about iodine?” Rasha asked from a few yards away. Her question offered a blessed respite from the strained conversation. Logan shifted slightly, giving the woman his full attention.
Rasha perched on the edge of her seat, her ankles crossed, absently tapping the useless phone she still held with her fingernails, as if it might magically power up.
She frowned as she adjusted her hijab. “I read this apocalyptic novel once where China nuked us, and everyone was rushing to take iodine to protect against the radiation. Do we need to worry about that?”
“I’ll take that one,” Shay said, sitting cross-legged against the far wall. “It’s kind of a myth that it’s some lifesaving medicine, actually. A nuclear bomb or power plant meltdown releases radioactive iodine into the air, which people then inhale. It’s absorbed by the thyroid and could potentially cause cancer.
“Ideally, if you take potassium iodide, or KI, right before or right after exposure, it blocks the radioactive iodine from the nuclear blast from entering your thyroid. If the thyroid absorbs all the iodine that it needs from the nonradioactive KI, then the radioactive iodine won’t be absorbed, and gets eliminated through urine.”
“Eww,” Piper squeaked.
Shay popped her gum. “Exactly.”
“So, it doesn’t cause cancer?” Zamira asked.
“If radioactive iodine does build up in your thyroid, it could cause cancer, yeah. But people over forty have almost no risk of developing thyroid cancer from radioiodine. They’re more likely to suffer side effects from taking the KI, though, like rashes, nausea, and allergic reactions. Kids, too.
“Besides, even if you took it in time and kept your body from absorbing it, radioiodine is just a tiny fraction of the overall radiation exposure. The iodine doesn’t protect your body from any of the other 99% of radioactive nuclides.” Shay hesitated. “You’re much better off concerning yourself with finding an adequate shelter. Otherwise, you’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.”
Rasha nodded, her shoulders sagging slightly, and stared down at the phone clenched in her manicured hands. “I feel like that’s what we’re doing anyway. Rearranging furniture on a sinking ship.”
Logan grunted. “It’d be a faster death.”
Dakota shot him a hard look.
He shrugged. It was the truth, wasn’t it? All this depressing talk just made him want to bury his head in a bottle.
“We’re fine,” Shay said brightly, her voice too loud and chipper in the somber auditorium. She popped her gum as she grinned appreciatively back at Logan and Julio, then Dakota. “We’re gonna be okay. You guys saved us.”
“It was Dakota,” Julio said. “She did it.”
Shay beamed at Dakota. “Thank you.”
The waitress shifted uncomfortably. She cleared her throat, like she wasn’t used to the praise and didn’t care for it. “I did what I had to. Anyone else would do the same.”
Somehow Logan doubted that.
He would have left them all.
19
Dakota
“Hey,” Julio said quietly as he came up beside Dakota.
She sat in the first row of seats with her knees drawn up to her chest, staring dully at the big white screen as if it could give her the answers she desperately needed.
It hadn’t given her anything.
She kept replaying the scene with the woman and her son over and over in her head, trying to change the scenario so the woman stayed.
It didn’t work.
Just the thought of that woman’s smug, arrogant face filled Dakota with fury. It wasn’t right. It was a parent’s job to protect their child, no matter what.
Dakota had never understood those kinds of people, the ones who’d put a child in danger for their own selfish, irrational desires.
Some of her foster parents had been like that—only in it for the money, their cruelty driven by indifference, greed, or willful ignorance.
And Maddox, Solomon, and their ilk—they were a whole different breed of cruel.
Acid burned the back of her throat. She swallowed it down. Those were the bad memories, the ones she didn’t think about anymore.
She couldn’t bear to think about what was happening to that little boy outside, the toxic radiation invading his skin, his cells, his bones.
The same thing was happening to tens of thousands of people who hadn’t found shelter, who hadn’t known what to do.
So many people without the knowledge to react quickly, to save their lives and the lives of the ones they loved.
And then there were those given the facts, who still chose to ignore the reality right in front of them. They just didn’t want to face it. They were cowards at heart, cowards and fools who endangered the lives of everyone around them.
She clenched her teeth, her hands balled into fists. She needed to calm down, to focus. One. Two. Three. Breathe.
“Hello? Earth to Dakota.”
She glanced up at Julio. “Yeah?”
He sank into the empty seat beside her with a groan. “You okay?”
He looked older than he had just that morning. Shadows bruised the skin below his eyes, and deep lines bracketed his mouth. His hair seemed grayer, his face strained. Two dozen large Band-Aids peppered his arms, neck, and left cheek.
She hated seeing Julio like this. He was a decent guy, easygoing and good-natured. Kind when he didn’t have to be.
She had no patience for most people, but she liked him.
“I should ask you that,” she said. “You feeling okay?”
“Don’t worry about me.” He gave a tight smile and lowered his voice. “Tell me the truth. How bad is it really? How protected are we in here?”
She sighed. “Protection levels vary based on building type, construction, location within the building, even time from detonation. It’s impossible to say for sure.”
“You’re a smart girl, and you know your stuff. What’s your best guess?”
She leaned her head back against the seat and squinted until the white screen blurred. “Well, there are three main types of radiation. Alpha particles can’t penetrate human skin. They can only hurt you if you inhale or swallow them.
“Beta radiation can’t penetrate a sheet of aluminum foil, but it can cause bad burns if the particles come in contact with bare skin. Regular clothes provide a good barrier.
“But gamma radiation is the most dangerous threat. Gamma rays penetrate almost everything. Think of each gamma particle as an LED light shining brilliantly in all directions. Now multiply that by millions. Any light that reaches you is radiation.
“We need to shield ourselves from all that light, and from all directions—from the ground, the sides, and the roof. Mass is what matters; the denser the material, the better.”
She closed her eyes, recalling the faded charts old Ezra had told her to memorize. “Shielding is measured by the fraction of gamma rays that it blocks. If a certain thickness—say two inches of concrete—blocks half of the incoming radiation, it has a protection factor, or PF, of 2.”
“Like the SPF of sunscreen.”
“Exactly.”
Julio groaned. “I can’t believe you’re making me do math. Math and the apocalypse do not go together.”
She shrugged. Math had never been difficult for her.
“What do you think we have? We’re on the ground floor, but there’s a floor above us. At least five decent-sized stores on either side of us. The whole complex is heavy construction.”
“The FEMA minimum-required PF in public shelters is 40, I think. I hope this is at least 40 PF, but I don’t know for sure.”
She squinted at the huge blank screen above them. What had Ezra alway
s said? When you need to know this, it’ll already be too late.
“And a regular house?”
“A wood-frame house only has a PF of 4 at most. Not enough.”
She thought of Eden, who hadn’t had time to shelter anywhere better than a two-story house. At least it was a big one.
Would it be enough? She could only hope the fallout cloud stayed to the east and Eden escaped the worst of it. It was her sister’s only chance.
“Mainly, you want to take shelter underground. If you can’t, then the middle, inner rooms of a large building away from doors and windows will work. A house sucks, but it’s better than nothing.”
Julio gestured toward the hallway leading to the auditorium doors. “And out there? How bad is the radiation?”
She closed her eyes and sighed heavily. “That’s the question, isn’t it? Without a Geiger counter, I have no idea. All I know is, it’s high. I wish I could tell you more.”
“You did great.” Julio patted her arm. “You saved us. You’re a hero.”
Dakota shook her head, heat creeping up her throat. It was Ezra who’d given her the knowledge to survive. She hadn’t done anything special to deserve it.
And she hadn’t done anything heroic to save these people. She hadn’t even been able to save that kid from the idiocy of his mother.
In the end, she was just as helpless as everyone else.
20
Dakota
An hour or so later, Shay came up to Dakota and Julio as she popped a stick of gum in her mouth. She offered it to them; they shook their heads.
She stuffed the package in her back pocket. “Sorry to bother you guys, but what do you think about the food? Travis’s already complaining of hunger. He’s a stick, but he’ll eat a fridge-worth of food. Maybe we should divvy it up?”
“Good thinking,” Zamira said. “If we’re here for at least a week, then we need to make sure we have enough food to last.”