by Kyla Stone
“Me and her together,” Logan said grimly.
“I’m impressed.”
Dakota dipped her chin at him in acknowledgment. Then she turned to Kinsey. “There are six others in our group. All civilians and unarmed. Three are wounded, and several of us have acute radiation syndrome. We were heading for the emergency center at the airport when we were attacked. We crashed our truck trying to escape.” She cleared her throat, shifting uncomfortably. “We…we could use some help.”
34
Logan
Kinsey rubbed her chin and frowned. “We’re not a rescue operation. That’s not our mission.”
“They saved my ass,” Hawthorne said. “And yours.”
“Yeah, I know. I was there.”
“It’s the least we could do.” Hawthorne elbowed her playfully in the side. “Come on, now.”
Kinsey sighed. “Okay. Let’s get the rest of your group. We’ve got a military transport a few blocks back. We’ll provide you and your group an escort to the EOC.”
Logan felt relieved—but also wary. Less than five minutes ago, these people had guns trained at his head. He was still strung taut with nerves—his body hadn’t received the message that the threat was over yet.
“Thank you,” Dakota said. She whistled and shouted for the rest of the group. They shuffled cautiously out from beneath the overpass and made their way to Dakota and Logan.
Carson slung his arm around his wife, holding her up. Vanessa’s eyes were wide and stunned. She kept clutching at her bare neck, unconsciously seeking the pearls that were no longer there.
Park and Eden weren’t doing so well. Julio had to hold Shay steady to keep her on her feet.
Maybe help was a good thing. They needed it.
“What’s it like?” Julio asked. “Is it safe?”
“It’s a chaotic mess, but it’s better than anywhere else right now,” Hawthorne said. He was looking at Shay with a big, dumb grin on his face. “We do have power and warm food, at least.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Shay said weakly.
Hawthorne’s smile brightened, then faltered as his gaze strayed to the blood seeping through Shay’s bandaged head. “Looks like we need to hurry.”
Dakota swayed on her feet. She looked as weary as Logan felt. “Sounds good to me.”
“Is there room for us?” Julio asked.
“We’ll make room.” Hawthorne winked at Shay. “I know a guy.”
Kinsey rolled her eyes. “Kill me already, why don’t you?”
“What about our truck?” Carson asked.
“We hit the Jetta at less than ten miles per hour,” Julio said. “It hurt us more than the F-150, I think. The grille and fender are beat-up, but it should still run.”
“Great,” Hawthorne said. “We can provide medical transport for your injured and escort the rest of you in the truck.”
They kept talking, but Logan didn’t hear them.
He bent over, resting his hands on his thighs, breathing deeply to fight the dizziness rushing through him. His legs felt watery, like his muscles couldn’t hold him up anymore.
The aftereffects of the battle were on him now—the utter exhaustion and the nausea, both made worse by the radiation sickness. Plus, a blistering headache and tremors in his hands.
He had no idea which symptoms were from the radiation and which were from alcohol withdrawal. The thirst was in him. The need. To feel that familiar, welcoming warmth buzzing through his veins. To give in and forget the pain and suffering and the constant, torturous whispers of the demons lurking in his own mind.
It was all he could not to bolt for the nearest liquor store he could loot. He raised his arm to wipe the sweat from his brow and froze, staring at the Latin words strung around his forearm, bristling with inked barbed wire: et facti sunt ne unum.
Lest you become one.
The faces of the teenage boys he’d just killed flashed through his mind. Their frightened faces, their weapons pointed at the ground. Then the images of the other bodies crashed in—the blood and guts and shattered bones, the agonized expressions frozen forever in death.
The regret and remorse came then. The shame, hot and wrenching, washing over him in excruciating waves, the bitter self-loathing clawing at his throat.
He was nothing but a killer. Twisted and ugly at his very core. Barbaric and savage. He’d never escape the brutal violence. It was the only thing he was any good at. The only thing that fed the ravenous darkness inside him.
There was no shutting it out now. No drowning it in the bottom of a bottle.
This was the monster, who slaughtered without guilt, hesitation, or remorse. Who mowed down anything and everything in its path, including children.
Including the little boy of his nightmares.
Tomás Canales-Hidalgo was his name. Tomás: the neighbor kid with the musical laugh and the too-big head and those tousled black curls always falling into his eyes.
You did this. He saw the kid clear as day, heard him like he was standing right there in the sunlight and the heat and the carnage. A hallucination from his detox. It must be. The boy watched him with those dark, accusing eyes. Judged him and found him wanting. You murdered me.
Tomás, who loved Nascar and Hot Wheel cars. Tomás, who always snuck Logan the orange from his lunch box when he got home from school, so the boy’s mother wouldn’t find out he never ate his fruit.
Tomás was seven years old when Logan shot him in the back of the head. That boy’s face had haunted Logan every day and night since.
“Logan?” Shay asked. “Are you okay?”
Logan turned his head and vomited.
35
Maddox
Maddox Cage drifted in and out of consciousness. His body burned with fever. His skin was seared a blistering red, radiating heat and pain. Blisters burst on his arms, legs, and face.
He dreamed of fire, of charred corpses, of destruction and ruin and death.
Someone was murmuring to him. An angel? Was he in heaven? Had he finally received the reward he deserved?
But no, the fire returned, a raging inferno ravaging the world, burning everything as the people screamed and shrieked for mercy. There was no mercy to be had, only a scorched and blackened wasteland devoid of all life.
Hours passed. Days passed. There was light, then darkness, then light again.
He floated in a sea of blazing fire, flames devouring him, consuming him piece by piece, cell by cell, bone by bone.
But he’d been promised eternity. This was a cruel trick, a betrayal. And why shouldn’t you burn? A voice whispered in his fevered mind. Just like the Prophet warned you would? After all, you failed, didn’t you?
“No!” he rasped.
His eyes snapped open. Everything was too bright, blindingly white. He blinked rapidly. The world was a fuzzy, indistinct haze.
Pain wracked his body. He licked his cracked, blistered lips as his bleary gaze slowly focused. It felt like coming to the surface from a deep, deep lake.
With great effort, he turned his head and took in his surroundings. He was lying in a bed with a mattress and a pillow. A thin sheet covered his body to his bare chest. An IV hooked to a pole fed into a vein in the crook of his elbow.
The room was simple, with a wooden floor, four plank walls, and a low ceiling. Daylight streamed through high windows on three walls. A row of cabinets was set against the fourth wall beside a small fridge.
A cart with a stainless-steel countertop stood in the middle of the room. There were baskets, tubs, and containers filled with scalpels, trauma shears, rolls of gauze, and other medical supplies.
Maddox recognized the medical clinic. He had spent many days of his youth here, recovering from his beatings.
He was home.
He let out a low, painful breath.
A figure in white bent over him. “You’re awake.”
The answer was obvious, so he said nothing. He focused on the blurry figure: a plump woman in her sixties
, with a kind, wrinkled face and blue eyes still sharp with intelligence. She had the deep, raspy voice of a former smoker.
Though all were prohibited from speaking of the past before the compound, Maddox had overheard his father talking—he knew she’d both lived in sin as a heathen and in idolatry as a Catholic nun before finding The Way.
She’d lived at the compound as long as Maddox could remember, caring for the children and nursing them back to health when they were sick. With her sharp wit, easy smile, and the forbidden candies she’d smuggle them, she was every kid’s favorite sister. Well, almost every kid.
“Sister Rosemarie,” he croaked.
“So, you remember me.”
He attempted a grin. “How…could I forget…my favorite Sister?”
She frowned. Less gullible than the others, she had never been taken in by his charm. “And where are you right now?”
“River Grass...Compound…”
She sniffed. “I see you have your mental faculties, at least.”
“How…long?”
She dropped a clean washcloth into a bowl of ice water on the counter, squeezed it out, and placed it gently on his forehead. “You’ve been out for four days.”
“Four…?” His heart jolted. He tried to push himself into a sitting position but collapsed onto the bed. Fresh pain exploded through him. It felt like his back was being scraped raw. “That’s too long…I need to speak to the Prophet—”
“I know, and I will call him. You have much to do, but not until you rest. You have radiation sickness. You’re lucky you’re still alive.”
“I feel better. I can get up.”
“You’re not well, yet. Your skin is red as a lobster, with blisters and sores. It will hurt to move.”
He snorted. He wouldn’t let her see his pain. She’d seen enough of it as it was. She’d seen him weak, crying and blubbering like a child. He loathed that weakness. “I’m strong enough to handle a sunburn.”
“This is like no sunburn you’ve ever seen,” Sister Rosemarie muttered. “You had a high fever along with vomiting and diarrhea. You were bleeding from your gums. I’m no expert, Maddox, but you should go see a real doctor, in a hospital. Radiation damages your stomach and intestines, blood vessels, your bone marrow and red blood cells…”
He pushed himself into a sitting position, willing his shaky muscles to hold him up, gritting his teeth against the pain. “That is blasphemy, Sister Rosemarie,” he hissed. She knew as well as anyone that outside hospitals—hospitals run by heathens—were forbidden. “Surely you didn’t say what I thought you did.”
Sister Rosemarie’s face contorted—not in fear, but in concern. Wrinkles appeared between her graying eyebrows. “Maddox Cage, I’ve cared for you since you were a toddler. You and I both know you were a troublesome boy, to say the least. But I’ve always treated you like the child of God that you are. I’ve no desire to see you die, or to see your father lose both of his sons.”
Maddox flinched at the mention of his brother’s death. “That is not for you or any man to decide. God chooses who lives and dies. Everything else is a test. To suggest otherwise is a grave sin, isn’t it?”
Sister Rosemarie frowned like she was going to say something else. Then she bit her lip and simply nodded. She knew the punishment for blasphemy as well as he did. A visit to the mercy room—if his father was feeling gracious.
“I’m not of my right mind right now,” he said. “I must still be hallucinating. I was mistaken.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she murmured, her raspy voice appropriately docile and meek. But she watched him with those clear blue eyes, with that gaze that always unnerved him, like she could see straight through to his traitorous black heart.
He jerked back the sheet and forced his legs to the side of the bed. He wore only boxers. His skin was raw and blistered. It hurt even to look at himself.
He glared at Sister Rosemarie instead. “Bring me clothes. And notify the Prophet that I wish to speak to him on an urgent matter.”
Sister Rosemarie moved briskly around the room. She opened a cupboard and brought him a folded stack of clothing, with socks and a pair of hiking boots. She hesitated, hovering beside the bed.
“What now?” he snapped.
“Did you find the girls?”
Maddox suppressed a wince as he tugged the IV out of his arm and let the tube-attached needle drop. Sister Rosemarie would take care of it. He carefully eased his arms into the crisp white shirt and buttoned it.
She had always favored Dakota over any of the other girls. Protected her, even. Lied for her once. Maddox had overlooked it out of compassion and nostalgia. Maybe he shouldn’t have.
“That’s none of your concern,” he said. “Do as I ask of you, Sister. That’s all you need to worry about. Find me the Prophet. Now.”
36
Eden
Eden woke up groggily. She’d been dreaming, though she didn’t remember the specifics. Only that her foster parents had been with her, Gabriella sitting at her side, holding her hand; Jorge pacing in front of her bed, telling lame jokes until she finally laughed.
But when she opened her bleary, unfocused eyes, they weren’t there. And she didn’t feel like laughing. Her head and stomach hurt. Her arms and legs were weak and so, so tired.
She blinked up at the ceiling. The ceiling wasn’t a ceiling—it was a white tent. She turned her head and looked to either side. She was lying in a hospital bed. A long row of identical hospital beds stretched out on either side of her. There was a narrow aisle at the foot of the row of hospital beds, then another row on the opposite side of the tent.
Each bed contained a person. Men, women, and children. Some were unconscious or sleeping. Others moaned in agony. IVs hung from hooks and dripped into tubes attached to their arms.
A man was missing both his legs. Ulcers marred his lips. A woman’s skin was seared a deep red, her eyes a filmy white—she’d been blinded by the light blast from the bomb. Her skull was knotted and bony, completely devoid of hair.
In the hospital bed to Eden’s right, a five-year-old boy’s arms, neck, and face were pocked with a spray of shrapnel wounds. Another girl cried as two doctors worked over her burned body. The raw, red flesh of her left leg looked boiled.
Eden looked away. Tears stung her eyes.
The bomb did this. A bomb that someone built and detonated on purpose. How could there be so much hate in the world? How could anyone do such a thing?
She glanced down at herself. An IV was inserted in her arm, too, attached to a bag of clear liquid. Her heart thumped against her ribs. How did she get here? Where was Dakota? And why was she alone? What happened?
Faint images swirled just below the surface of her memory. She reached up and touched her neck. The ugly, ribbed scar was there, and just above it, a slim butterfly bandage to cover the cut from her brother’s knife.
She remembered the gangsters with guns, the car accident, remembered crawling beneath the truck and freezing, unable to move. The terror lodged in her throat. The blinding panic.
Doctors and nurses in white lab coats scurried back and forth between the aisles, carrying tablets, tending to the patients, and pushing strange-looking medical equipment around.
A nurse paused at the foot of her hospital bed. “Hey, you’re awake. How are you feeling, honey?”
Eden signed, Where am I? What happened?
The nurse pursed her lips. “Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I don’t know sign language. But I believe someone you know is waiting outside for you. Let me go get them.”
Dakota. Eden’s heart surged with happiness and relief, then plummeted as more memories flooded in, everything Maddox had claimed she’d done. Dakota’s betrayal.
“Hey,” said a voice. But it wasn’t Dakota.
Eden stiffened as Logan Garcia strode in and sank into a blue plastic chair next to the bed. He held a notepad and pencil awkwardly in his lap. In his big, scarred hands, it looked like a toddler’s toy.
She couldn’t stop staring at the tattoos snaking up his muscled arms. His bronze skin was damp with sweat, his jaw scruffy, his eyes dark and intent.
There was something intimidating and even frightening about him. He’d killed all those people in the ambush. They were bad people, but still…he was formidable. He looked like he knew ten ways to strangle someone in their sleep.
“You want Dakota. She’s finishing up some oxygen treatment for her smoke inhalation. She sent me instead.” He shrugged as if embarrassed. “Actually, she sent Julio. He’s got a better bedside manner for kids, I guess. But Julio is sitting with Park in one of the other patient wards, so you’re stuck with me.”
She gave a small nod.
“Oh.” He thrust out the notepad. “I guess you’ll want this, right?”
She took it gingerly, careful not to graze his large, calloused hands. His knuckles were all scarred. His hands, arms, and face were covered in small cuts, scrapes, and bruises.
He saw her looking and drew his hands back into his lap, curling them into fists. His knee juddered. He was tense, his face taut, his body rigid. He looked as immensely uncomfortable as she felt.
She didn’t want him here. She’d rather be alone staring at the ceiling.
That was a lie. She hated being alone. She’d hated every second she’d been trapped in that horrible bathroom. If she ever saw that bathroom again, it would be too soon.
Then she remembered that it had burned to the ground, along with the house she’d lived in for two years with Gabriella and Jorge.
They were probably dead now. Along with a hundred thousand other people in downtown Miami.
She looked down at her notepad. It wasn’t hers. There was no rainbow or unicorn on the cover, none of the pages were filled with sketches. It wasn’t bent and worn from hours and hours of use.
“Ah, they took your notebook thing during decontamination,” Logan said. “Julio found you another one in a kiosk at the airport.”