by Kyla Stone
The rebar blow had missed his skull but struck his right forearm instead. He cradled the arm to his chest. Dakota couldn’t see the damage through his bulky PPE suit.
“I need to cut his suit off to get a look at that arm,” the woman said briskly.
Dakota unsheathed her knife and handed it to her. She watched as the woman cut through the suit material and freed the man’s right arm from his shoulder to his wrist.
His arm looked deformed. A sharp sliver of bone protruded from the skin halfway up his forearm. Blood dripped to the dusty concrete, the droplets bright red against the muted, ashy gray.
“Holy crap,” Harlow muttered.
The man groaned. “How—bad is it really?”
“Don’t look, Park,” Harlow said. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
“Son of a motherless goat,” Park mumbled. “It hurts.”
“Just don’t pass out on me. You may be small, but I’m not about to carry you.”
He grunted, his lips pulled back from his teeth from the pain. “Not making…any promises.”
The woman looked at Dakota. “All of our medical supplies are gone. Do you have anything we can use to help him?”
“We have water and some basic first aid in our bags,” Logan said as he peered over Dakota’s shoulder. “I’ll get them and bring Shay.”
“Hurry,” Dakota said. “You need medical attention, too.”
As he jogged off, the woman met Dakota’s gaze. Wisps of ash-blonde hair clung to her temples, the rest of it yanked back in a tight bun.
“You saved our lives.” She removed her mask and safety goggles, careful not to touch her reddened, sweaty face with her gloved hands.
In her late forties, she was a sturdy, broad-shouldered woman with a heavy jaw and a wide forehead, a spray of freckles spanning her weathered cheeks.
Dakota nodded tightly, momentarily forgetting about the goose egg swelling the right side of her head. A fresh wave of pain radiated across her skull, down her neck. She winced.
“I’m Nancy Harlow,” the woman said. “Everyone calls me Harlow.”
“Dakota Sloane.”
The man only grunted.
“This is Yu-Jin Park,” Harlow said, hooking her thumb at him. “I just call him Park.”
“I apologize…for my lack of manners,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I’m a security guard, or gaming surveillance officer if you will, at Hialeah Park Casino in Hialeah. Park works the tables as a poker dealer. The man loves gambling so much he made it his job. He has a temper on him, too, in case you didn’t notice.”
“They…started it,” Park said.
Harlow rolled her eyes. “We met eight years ago during our smoking breaks, and we’ve been fast friends ever since. When I took the Emergency Medical Responder certification three years ago, he tagged along. He’s an adrenaline junkie, is what he is. Jumps out of airplanes in his free time. Can you imagine? Who would jump out of a perfectly good plane?”
Dakota just stared at her.
Harlow didn’t even seem to notice. She jabbered on, unfazed, almost manically calm. Like she was determined to carry on a regular conversation as if her life depended on it. Or maybe it was her sanity.
Dakota felt like she was barely holding on to sanity herself. Her hands were still trembling, no matter how hard she balled them into fists.
She hadn’t lied to Logan. She didn’t feel an ounce of guilt for killing Tank. But Logan was still right. Killing another human being, even someone who deserved it, always took something from you.
Three times she’d killed now. The ghost of her first kill still haunted her. Would this one? In her mind’s eye, she kept seeing the jerk of the thug’s head, the tiny spray of red mist, the way his dead marble eyes remained open after he’d died, staring straight through her. Just like Jacob’s had.
She blinked back the terrible images and forced herself to focus on the present. No time for those thoughts now.
“Anyway,” Harlow continued, “after the attacks, it only made sense to volunteer. I’ve only got my two cats at home, and my apartment is well clear of the hot zone, so they’re fine as rain. Park and I are both single and childless, so…”
“Who better to volunteer…for radiation poisoning?” Park wheezed.
Dakota glanced at her watch. It was already 6:22 p.m. The sun had begun its descent across a sky hazy with distant fires. The humid air still smelled burnt. Her back prickled with heat.
How much radiation had their bodies soaked up in the last six hours? One gray, at least. Maybe as much as one and a half. They were past the initial threshold for acute radiation sickness themselves.
Her clothes should have protected her from the ground contamination during the fight, and she’d been careful not to touch her skin. It was Logan who’d exposed himself the most.
The side of her skull pulsed with pain, but that was from the blow to the head. She didn’t feel any different—other than sore, tired, and hot, her limbs heavy beneath the weight of constant anxiety and fear.
They’d done their best with what they had, but radiation was an insidious, invisible poison they couldn’t feel or see, even as it invaded their flesh, their bones, their internal organs. Not until it was far too late.
They hadn’t even reached Eden yet, still an eternal half mile northwest.
She was so close. Dakota still felt like a vast canyon separated her from her sister. Her chest squeezed like a winch winding tighter and tighter.
Everything would be okay once she found her sister. Eden was her focus point, the thing that let her blot out everything else—the exhaustion, the fear, the dull horror of the fight and its aftermath seeping into her bones.
She looked up as Logan strode back toward the gas station. Shay and Julio trailed behind him, Julio still steadying Shay with his arm slung around her waist.
Shay pushed him gently away. “I’ll be fine now.”
Julio handed Harlow several sealed bottles of water, while Shay pulled a handful of fresh packages of gauze and medical tape out of Julio’s sequined bag.
“Wash yourself,” Dakota said to Logan. “Use the alcohol wipes.”
She was concerned about him. It surprised her a little, but she didn’t have time to think about it. She watched as Logan grabbed a couple of waters and flushed out his eyes, then wiped down every inch of his exposed skin with the wipes.
Julio helped Shay sink down beside Dakota and Harlow. She introduced herself as a nursing student. “May I take a look?”
“By all means,” Harlow said, moving aside. “Here. I’ve got extra gloves.” She dug into the medical bag tucked beneath Park’s feet and pulled out two pairs of plastic, disposable gloves. Shay took one pair, Dakota the other.
Shay bent over Park and touched his uninjured shoulder gently. “Are you hurt anywhere other than your arm?”
“Just…my head.”
“He smacked it against that metal pole,” Dakota explained.
“I’m going to do a quick assessment, okay?” She examined him swiftly, checking his vital signs, his pulse and breathing. “His level of responsiveness is good. He’s aware and able to communicate. But his pulse is low. His breathing rate is ten breaths a minute, also a bit low.”
Her gaze dropped to his bloody, injured arm. She didn’t flinch. Her expression remained calm and capable.
“Give it to me…straight, Doc,” Park muttered.
“I’m not a doctor,” she said with a tight smile. “But I can still help you, okay? You’ve got an open fracture. Looks like both the ulna and the radius are broken.”
“We’re going to have to try and set the bones, Park,” Harlow said.
Park blanched. “No freakin’ way.”
“Yes,” Shay said. “We’ve got to set the bones or you risk permanent damage with every movement. Plus, I need to irrigate the laceration to flush out the dirt and bacteria, then splint it.”
“Please tell me you know how to do all that,”
Harlow said. “This is beyond my pay grade.”
“Yes, though not outside of a medical setting.” She glanced at Dakota. Dakota nodded back at her. “But I can do this.”
“Oh, thank heavens,” Harlow said. “That wasn’t covered in our two-day training. I was going to make it up as I went along.”
Park gritted his teeth. “Think I’m gonna just…pass out now.”
“I think I might, too.” Julio’s face was tinged a sickly shade of green. He shuffled back toward Logan, shaking his head.
“We’ve got this,” Shay said with confidence. “We just need the materials to make the splint.”
“Ugh.” Park’s eyes rolled back in his head for a moment. “Just do it…fast.”
“I saw a couple of short, broken pipes in the debris by the third gas pump,” Dakota offered. “Maybe a foot long, half an inch thick? And we can cut off the straps from one of our bags. It’s almost empty anyway.”
It was the bag that held their bottled waters—they were almost out.
“Perfect,” Shay said as she gathered her supplies. Dakota found the pipes, scrubbed them free of contamination with several alcohol wipes, and cut the straps of a bag with her knife.
Shay told Park to wriggle his fingers. He did, but only slightly.
She frowned. “You could have pinched nerves or punctured blood vessels, or both. Once we set the bones, we’ll try again.”
“What now?” Dakota asked. They needed to get this done as fast as possible. She felt every second ticking by with agonizing slowness.
“We need to provide gentle traction to keep the bone ends apart and minimize pain as we splint the arm.”
“That sounds…like torture,” Park wheezed. “Please tell me you…have a tranquilizer in that bag.”
“Sorry,” Shay said. “We’ve got to do this the old-fashioned way.”
32
Dakota
Dakota watched as Harlow helped Shay stabilize the fracture. Shay blinked several times. Her eyes were red and bloodshot.
“You okay?” Dakota asked.
“Stupid contacts,” Shay muttered. “I’ve never wanted glasses so bad in my life.”
“You’re about to move my broken bones around…and you can’t see?” Even more blood drained from Park’s face.
Shay’s jaw tightened. “I’ve got this. Don’t worry.”
“You ready?” Harlow asked Park.
“Absolutely not.”
“Just pretend it’s another thrill like leaping out of an airplane at twelve thousand feet. You like to live dangerously. Imagine the story you can tell all our co-workers.”
“Go to hell,” Park mumbled.
“You first. Steady now. Here comes the hard part.”
Shay’s hands were perfectly steady. She kept the jagged bone ends still by holding his arm above and below the fracture and exerting gentle traction in opposite directions.
“Son of a motherless—!”
Park cussed a blue streak, but Shay didn’t even flinch. “Hold still or it will hurt more.”
Harlow held his upper arm while Shay pulled gently on the lower arm below the break. Park groaned, the tendons standing out in his neck.
Slowly, the broken bones fitted back into place. His deformed forearm straightened.
Park squeezed his eyes shut, whimpering between gritted teeth. He didn’t pass out, though he probably wanted to.
Harlow patted his healthy shoulder. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
Park murmured an unintelligible response.
While Shay kept the arm immobilized, she walked Dakota through the process of caring for the puncture wound. Dakota irrigated the laceration carefully, dried the undamaged flesh with gauze, then covered it with a sterile dressing.
“For the splint, he needs something soft for padding so the metal pipes don’t rub painfully against his skin,” Shay said.
“How about we remove his PPE suit and cut it into strips?” Julio offered. “He won’t be digging around in the rubble, so surface contamination shouldn’t be an issue before he gets out of the hot zone.”
“He’s been lying on the ground,” Dakota said. “The suit is contaminated. If we washed it, it would be wet against his skin. Seems like that’s not the best option.”
“True. Luckily, I have a spare shirt.” Shay pointed to her bag, which Julio wore slung over his shoulder. “In Old Navy, I packed an extra just in case.”
“Good thinking, Shay.” Dakota and Harlow held Park still while Shay gently wrapped the bright pink long-sleeved shirt around his injured arm.
“Sorry it’s pink,” Shay said.
“My…favorite color.”
They placed one of the pipes against either side of Park’s arm and tied the straps of the shoulder bag just below his wrist and above his elbow to keep the break stabilized.
“Now, wriggle your fingers,” Shay instructed.
They barely twitched.
Shay touched his fingertips. “Can you feel that?”
“Through the…pulsing agony? Not really.”
Shay’s frown deepened. “We need to get him to an experienced surgeon.”
“Let’s go, then,” Dakota said.
“First, we need to make sure everyone else is okay.” Shay stood, leaning against Dakota for balance, and surveyed the rest of the group. “You’re bleeding,” she said to Logan. “Let me see.”
Logan stood with his back to one of the poles, pistol in hand, half-listening while keeping watch for any other dangers. The midsection of his black shirt was wet with blood.
He gave a weary shake of his head. “I’m fine.”
“Like hell you are,” Dakota said.
She’d seen the ugly gash across his ribs when he’d lifted his shirt earlier to check his injuries. It didn’t look lethal, but it probably hurt like hell.
“You must have misheard me.” Shay stepped toward him, swaying only slightly, and brandished the Neosporin at him. Her mouth was set in stubborn determination. “That wasn’t a request.”
Logan tensed. Dakota expected him to argue further, but he simply lifted his shirt with his free hand and let out a resigned sigh. Shay could be quite persuasive when she put her mind to it.
His abs and chest were lean but muscled. A dozen faint white scars crisscrossed his bronze skin. A purple bruise marred his left pectorals; another shadowed his right hip.
Logan saw her looking and flashed a tight grin.
She jerked her gaze away, her cheeks warming for some ridiculous reason.
Shay didn’t even blink. She cleaned up the laceration, smeared his scrapes with topical antibiotics, applied two large squares of fresh gauze, and wrapped his ribs with medical tape.
“There’s no reason to risk serious infection when we don’t need to,” Shay said sternly. “That’s what I’m here for.” She turned to Dakota. “Your turn.”
Shay checked her pulse, her breathing, and her head, prodding with gentle fingers. Shay made Dakota follow her finger with her eyes. “Your pupils are fine. Any dizziness, confusion, ringing in your ears, nausea?”
“Nope.” Dakota’s skull felt like someone had nailed it with a hammer, which was close enough to the truth. But Shay didn’t think she’d suffered a concussion.
They’d escaped rather unscathed, considering.
Except for Park.
“Can we get out of here now?” She rose to her feet, too anxious to keep still any longer. Her entire body was a bundle of nerves strung taut. All she could think of was Eden.
Julio wheeled over the all-terrain stretcher with oversized, eighteen-inch wheels.
“Pick him up gently and keep him in the recovery position,” Shay instructed. “His vital signs need to be checked every five minutes. He’s at risk for shock. Can you do that, Julio?”
“Happy to finally be useful,” Julio said ruefully.
Together, Julio, Harlow, and Dakota carefully lifted Park, then loaded him onto the stretcher. He hissed out a pained breath with every
shift and bump. Harlow elevated his legs again with her medical bag at the foot of the stretcher.
“Where’s the nearest operational hospital?” Shay asked.
“Hialeah Hospital and Palmetto to the west and Coral Cables and Doctors Hospital to the south are already inundated,” Harlow said. “Jackson Memorial, North Shore, and Aventura had to be evacuated. Kendall Regional set up emergency triage tents in their parking lots, but they’re flooded beyond capacity, too. We need to get him to—”
A loud beep shattered the stillness.
33
Eden
Eden smelled something.
She sniffed again. It was still there.
She opened her eyes in the pitch-blackness, blinking hard.
She’d barely moved the last several hours. Her limbs felt heavy, like they were weighed down with cement.
Her muscles were stiff, her back and shoulders sore from two days lying in the tub, even with the cushions.
Her throat burned with thirst. Her mouth felt dry as a desert.
She’d been lost in a restless sleep, dreaming of monsters again, crouched and waiting, ready to pounce from the darkened corners of her mind.
Her empty, knotted stomach lurched with a wave of nausea.
She turned her head and spat. Only a few strings of saliva dribbled out.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm and sat up. She inhaled deeply, taking in the fetid stench that hung in the air. It was different than the acidic stink of urine from the toilet.
This smelled like rotten eggs.
From the fridge? But no. The fridge didn’t have electricity, but it was sealed. There shouldn’t be any smells escaping from it.
Could she be so hungry that she was smelling imaginary food? If that were the case, surely she’d smell delicious scrambled eggs or eggs-over-easy, or better yet, decadent roasted turkey or freshly baked cinnamon buns…
This was different. The stench was like rotten eggs, but also like something else she’d smelled before.