by Kyla Stone
Harlow sidestepped a silver Ford Fiesta parked at the curb at a forty-five-degree angle. One of the rear passenger doors hung open, two pink car seats stuffed in the back.
“He sent out emergency broadcasts instructing entire neighborhoods that were safer sheltering in place to evacuate instead,” she said angrily. “Blake always was an idiot. He gave them evacuation routes directly within the path of the fallout! People had no clue what to do!
“I knew the broadcasts were wrong as soon as I heard them. I was in the middle of dealing with a belligerent guest who’d just lost five grand at Blackjack when the emergency alert came over my comm. I told my co-workers—Park included—to stay put, and I tried to call all my friends and family, but the phones were already down. There was no way to warn anyone.
“Thousands of innocent people were trapped in their cars on US1. Every highway was clogged with bumper-to-bumper traffic with no way to escape the radiation.”
Harlow balled her gloved hands into fists, her eyes flashing with helpless rage. “Such a waste of human life. A tragedy of ineptitude on a monumental scale. I hope Blake loses his job over this.”
“Better yet…a lifetime appointment in prison,” Park said.
“It’s the least he could do,” Harlow said.
Park grimaced. “Common sense is like deodorant…the people who need it most…never use it.”
“He thinks he’s Yoda.”
“Don’t cramp…my style,” Park mumbled.
Logan suppressed a grim smile. He liked this guy already.
They turned off Bay Point Drive onto a side road.
“It’s only a quarter mile to Eden,” Dakota said as she lengthened her stride. Logan hurried to catch up.
“Dakota, you need to slow down,” Shay said, but Dakota didn’t seem to hear her.
“I thought the government would be prepared for something like this,” Julio said.
Harlow snorted. “In theory. The Department of Health and Human Services does have a Strategic National Stockpile. They’ve got twelve designated units and classified points across the country with huge supplies of antibiotics, vaccines, gas masks, and IV solutions.”
“Great,” Shay said. “When will they get here?”
“They won’t. They can’t.” Harlow blinked, holding back tears of exhaustion and frustration. “At least, not for a while. We’ve begged for aid, but how can they help? There are twelve other devastated cities.”
“They triaged the cities,” Park said. “Miami…didn’t make the list.”
“What about FEMA? The National Guard?” Julio asked.
Harlow only shook her head.
“What does that mean?” Logan asked.
Harlow stared at them bleakly. “We’re on our own.”
Logan felt like he’d been kicked in the chest. The ground seemed to roll and buckle beneath him, like a sinkhole was about to crack open and swallow him up.
He glanced at Dakota. She strode beside him, silent and tense, her jaw set, her dark eyes flinty and unreadable.
“That can’t be right,” Shay murmured. “It must be a mistake.”
“It’s not,” Harlow said flatly. “Oh, they’ve promised us help, but we’re not the priority. It’ll be days before any aid comes. Maybe weeks.”
Dakota said the words no one wanted to hear. “Maybe longer.”
For a long moment, no one spoke.
“Americans are strong,” Shay said in a soft voice. “We’re resilient. We’re not gonna let anyone break us. Right?”
She looked at Logan and Dakota hopefully, her gaze pleading, desperate.
No one could answer that question. Not yet.
36
Logan
Logan ignored the burning in his throat, the need pulsing against his skull, and quickened his pace. He forced himself to concentrate on the conversation around him.
“Yoselyn, my wife, is in West Palm Beach,” Julio said. “How far did the fallout cloud reach?”
“West Palm Beach is, what, seventy-five miles north?” Harlow asked. “The radiation didn’t hit them. The news reported the plume drifted almost sixty miles north and west all the way to Boynton Beach, radiating everything between the coast and the Everglades north of Fort Lauderdale.”
“All of which is uninhabitable now?” Shay asked softly.
Harlow tightened her grip on the side of Park’s stretcher. “For a while, anyway. All those schools, hospitals, factories, refineries, and businesses no one can use now. Multiply that by thirteen.”
“That’s…hard to imagine,” Julio said.
“There was a frantic run on the banks within an hour of the attack. Now every bank in the country is closed. I can’t pull out anything from the ATMs. The stores still open are cash only. Luckily, I had a few hundred dollars for a sofa I was planning to buy on Craigslist. Who carries money around anymore?
“With Wall Street destroyed in New York City, there’s no NASDAQ or New York Stock Exchange. Every other exchange plummeted so steeply within a couple minutes of opening, they’ve closed them all.”
“What does that mean?” Logan asked with a sickening feeling in his gut. “Long-term.”
Harlow shook her head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“It means the end of the world…as we know it,” Park said, grimacing. “Cue the music.”
“Cue you shutting up,” Harlow said, not unkindly. “You need to conserve your energy, not blabber on about useless predictions. No one knows. That’s the point.”
“Do you have a phone on you by chance?” Julio asked. “I just want to hear her voice. I need to know she’s safe, you know?”
“I’d love to help you, but I can’t,” Harlow said. “I’ve only had coverage twice in the last fifty-six hours, and only for a few seconds or so. Towers are so overloaded, no one can connect. No calls are going through. Maybe a text message if you’re lucky.”
Julio’s face fell. “So even after we get out of the EMP range, we won’t be able to call our loved ones?”
“Millions of people are in the dark,” Park said. “Literally and figuratively.”
“What do you mean?” Logan asked.
“Rolling power outages are widespread in a lot of places,” Harlow explained. “Some in states that weren’t even hit. A bunch of substations were damaged in the blasts. Others are located in the hot zone and had to be evacuated. At least Governor Blake claims everything will be back online in several days.”
“No.” Julio shook his head. “I’ve read about this. Those large boilers, turbines, and transformers are custom-made. It’ll take months to repair. The electric grid is so interconnected that a few lost substations could cause extended blackouts over several states.”
“Fantastic,” Harlow said bitterly. “Our illustrious governor is wrong again.”
Park shifted on the stretcher, wincing. “Or lying to us…that butt-ugly moron.”
Logan glanced at Dakota. Everything she’d said back in the theater about the potentially devastating ripple effects were already coming true.
Everything depended on power. What would happen if huge regions of the country were forced to struggle without it for weeks or months?
Coupled with the enormous nuclear disasters, could it be enough to bring the entire country to its knees?
Maybe they really would need that safehouse after all.
His breath quickened. He forced himself to focus on the here and now, on every step and breath and beat of his heart.
It was the only way he knew how to get through this moment and the next, and the next. One damned thing at a time.
“Do we know who did this yet?” he asked.
“The CIA, FBI, and Homeland are chasing down leads, but they haven’t reported anything yet,” Harlow said. “Homeland Security is working with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to investigate the source of the highly enriched uranium used in the bombs. But honestly, I’ve been out here every spare second bringing in survivors. I’m not as up
-to-date as I should be. I’m sure we’ll find out more at the EOC.”
“What’s that?” Julio pointed east over their heads. “What happened there?”
A massive column of thick black smoke billowed into the sky above a cluster of nearby homes, much larger and darker than the hazy smoke they’d seen all day.
And closer.
“Whatever it is, it looks bad,” Logan muttered.
“Another rescue unit retreated from that direction right before those crazies attacked us,” Harlow said. “They had to evacuate early because a gas line broke in some gated community. A bunch of houses caught fire, just like that.”
Beside him, Dakota halted abruptly.
Logan stopped and glanced down at her. “What is it?”
“What did you say?” Dakota asked Harlow.
“They cleared the area as best they could,” Harlow said, “but there are hundreds of fires burning all over the city. We can’t get fire trucks in with all the roads blocked by rubble.”
“What subdivision?” Dakota asked in a strangled voice, her face drained of color. “What street?”
“I’m not sure, they all start to run together…”
“What street?!”
Tension twisted in Logan’s own gut at the urgency in Dakota’s voice, the desperation in her eyes.
“I remember,” Park said. “Bellwether or something…I think—”
“Bellview?”
“Yes, that’s it—”
Park didn’t get to finish his sentence.
Without a word, Dakota broke into a sprint, running toward the rising pillar of black smoke.
37
Dakota
Dakota sprinted down the road toward the palm-lined side street that led to the Palm Cove gated community, her legs pumping, pulse racing.
Even in the heat, her veins turned to ice, cold terror flushing through every cell in her body.
She heard voices behind her, yelling at her to stop, their shouting shattering the thick, eerie silence.
She didn’t slow down. She couldn’t.
She hadn’t prayed in years, but she prayed now. She recited the same two urgent sentences again and again in her mind: Please be there. Please be safe. Please be there. Please be safe.
Her heart closed like a fist, clenching tighter and tighter with each pounding footfall. The fear she’d been holding at bay all this time struck her now with a blind panic.
She’d told Eden to hole up and stay inside no matter what. If the house caught fire, she might be trapped or overcome by smoke inhalation.
Eden wouldn’t be able to speak or scream or call out for help.
If something happened to Eden, it was because of her. It would be her fault…
It’s too late.
No. It couldn’t be too late. Dakota refused to accept that possibility.
Her breath came in ragged gasps, the thick, smoky air clogging in her throat and stinging her nostrils.
Her swollen scalp felt like it would burst from the pain. Her weary thigh muscles burned.
But she wouldn’t slow down, not for anything.
She pushed on, panting, clutching at her side. Come on, come on. Run faster, damn it!
And then, finally, the Palm Cove gated community appeared ahead of her, clusters of regal palm trees surrounding the pompous “welcome” signage and high stucco walls, the wrought-iron gate at the guard station hanging wide open.
She sprinted past the empty station, dashed through the gate, and turned off the main road, running across several manicured lawns.
She dodged between two houses, barely noticing the tumbled lanai furniture; the pools littered with blown debris, elephant palm leaves, shredded shrubs and flowers; the screen over a paved lanai half-collapsed across a brick outdoor kitchen.
She scrambled over a fallen portion of white plastic picket fence, skirted a large manmade pond, and broke through a row of chest-high bushes into the backyards of the stately homes lining Bellview Court.
Fire consumed several houses, windows and roofs blazing, black smoke pouring into the air. The acrid stench seared Dakota’s nostrils and the back of her throat.
Coughing frantically, she pressed her scarf tighter over her nose and mouth as she ran.
The back of Eden’s house came into view. She recognized it from the Google Earth imaging she’d done when Eden first smuggled her the address.
It was a big, tan two-story house with powder-blue shutters and a Spanish tile roof.
Cultivated roses and magnolias rimmed the massive covered lanai. Large ceramic pots sprawling with some kind of purple and white flowers framed the huge pool, the water still sparkling and vivid blue.
It was beautiful except for the shattered windows and broken French doors—and the roaring flames licking the window sills.
Her heart jerked, bucking against her rib cage.
Eden was in there. The only thing that mattered.
Panic clawed at her throat. She forced her frenetic thoughts to focus. Think! Be smart.
Where would Eden hide? Where would Dakota hide, if it were her?
The center of the house, no windows, on the first floor to escape the radiation penetrating the roof, just like Ezra had taught them.
A bathroom.
She imagined the layout the way Eden had described it. A large, open kitchen and living and dining areas to the right—that’s where the fire burned. The master bedroom sprawled at the other end of the house on the left, along with some offices, guest rooms, and a theater room. Three more bedrooms were located upstairs.
She jerked the bent lanai screen door. Locked. Whipping out her knife, she slashed the screen with a single swift motion and scooted inside.
At the French doors, she hesitated. A blast of heat struck her, solid as a wall. Ribbons of smoke writhed through the air. Every breath she inhaled singed her throat. Her eyes watered.
Fear stuck like a hook in her belly. Her chest tightened, her throat closing, cutting off her breath.
In an instant, it all came back.
The scars on her back smoldered like they were fresh burns. The memories seared through her—the hiss of the white-hot embers as they branded her skin, the stench of her own charred flesh, the tormented shrieks of agony wrenched from her anguished throat.
Maddox leaning over her, that sharp, ravenous look in his eyes, his lip curled in twisted delight. Are we not merciful? Fire is judgment…fire is mercy…only fire burns away the impurities of the flesh…
She hated fire. Feared it with all her being. Every cell in her body screamed at her to stop, to turn around, to go back.
She squeezed her eyes shut, trying in vain to block out the boiling smoke, the crackling, seething flames.
It was Eden who’d sat with her each time after the mercy room.
It was Eden who sang comforting hymns in her sweet, soulful voice as Dakota lay on her bare belly on the bed, moaning and gripping handfuls of sheets so hard she ripped her nails.
It was Eden who bent over her raw, boiled back, who gently flushed the wounds, applied antibiotic gel, and dressed the weeping burns.
And it was Eden who refused to leave her side even once during the endless, agonizing nights.
I’ll never leave you, Dakota had promised her in return. Never, ever.
This was her choice.
For her sister, she would brave anything, even if it meant being burned alive.
One, two, three. Breathe.
That’s how you got through the hard stuff, Sister Rosemarie had told her after the first branding. That’s how you endured.
Breathe, damn it, breathe!
She inhaled sharply. She opened her eyes.
Dakota stepped through the French doors.
38
Dakota
Intense heat blasted Dakota. She tightened the scarf over her nose and mouth, but it didn’t matter.
Acrid smoke scorched her throat and lungs and she coughed, struggling not to choke as tears stung her ey
es.
Smoke churned and boiled beneath the high ceilings, turning the house dark and hazy. Flames roared on Dakota’s right, crackling and popping as it devoured the walnut cabinets, the chic Pottery Barn farm table, and the Brazilian hardwood flooring.
“Eden!” she screamed.
It came out like a croak. She cleared her throat as best she could and tried again.
“Eden! Where are you!”
She paused, trying to get her bearings. Stinging tears leaked from her eyes. The air was shimmering with heat, everything distorted like a desert mirage.
To her left, the breakfast nook seethed with noxious fumes. But it wasn’t on fire. Not yet.
Directly ahead past the kitchen, she glimpsed white leather sofas, a glass coffee table, and a glossy grand piano across from a huge picture window in the formal living room.
She turned to her left and staggered farther in, her hands out as she bumped against some weird tufted bench against the wall. She made her way past a pair of closed French doors leading to an office filled with black bookcases and an oversized desk.
And there, finally, was the hallway: long and narrow and filled with closed doors on either side.
Smoke curled along the ceiling ahead of her. She ducked to a crouch and felt the first closed door on her left, then the bronze handle—it was warm, not hot.
She opened the door to a home theater with six leather La-Z-Boy chairs and a giant screen, the walls decorated with old movie posters that had probably cost a fortune.
She moved on. Behind her, the fire was a crackling, popping cacophony, a pulsing roar in her ears.
Another door, a second office, this one sleek with metal and glass.
Double doors on her right led to a guest room with a bed nicer than any she’d slept in her entire life, a half-dozen plush, embroidered pillows scattered across the silky, coral-pink duvet.
It didn’t matter. None of it mattered.
“Eden!” she shouted. “Show me where you are! I’m coming!”
Another hacking cough tore through her lungs, strangling her breath. Her brain screamed at her to get the hell out of there, but she couldn’t. Not yet.