From the Ashes

by Kyla Stone

  How long has it been?

  Logan cleared his throat. “Three days.”

  Her eyes widened in shock. It felt like three hours. Where is D?

  “D for Dakota? She’s fine. Everyone’s fine, I guess. Park’s recovering from surgery on his arm. Shay had a few bone shards floating around in her scalp and some bleeding issues, but they gave her a blood transfusion and fixed her up.” He tapped the IV bag. “We all got this concoction, too, but your case was more serious because you didn’t have as much protection in that house.”

  Eden looked down at herself, expecting one of those thin, papery hospital gowns, but she wasn’t wearing one. She wore an oversized pale pink T-shirt she didn’t recognize. She pointed at her chest and raised her eyebrows.

  Logan let out a nervous chuckle. “They ran out of hospital gowns, can you believe it? Or maybe they’re saving them for the patients who really need them. Who knows? The Red Cross hooked up with a bunch of Goodwill and Salvation Army stores outside the hot zone. A butt-ton of church volunteers sorted through all the clothes and handed everybody those tiny shampoos and soaps and some plastic toothbrushes and toothpaste.”

  I don’t remember anything.

  “You blacked out in the army transport on the way here.” He spoke rapidly, almost stumbling over his words. He kept raking his hands through his hair, his knee shaking, antsy and restless. “When you went in the decontamination tent, they took your old clothes and gave you these. Same with all of us. These jeans are a size too big, and this shirt is scratchy. The shoes fit like crap. But they’re not contaminated, so that’s a win.” He hesitated for a moment. “How about you?”

  She shifted, careful to keep her arm still, and lifted the hospital sheet. She didn’t have a blanket, but she didn’t need one. It felt like it was over eighty degrees inside the hospital tent.

  The T-shirt was adult-sized and too big, but the soft pine-green jersey shorts fit okay, though the elastic band dug into the baby fat around her middle. She tugged on the shirt collar and checked beneath the shirt. Her cheeks went hot. She was wearing a bra and underwear she didn’t recognize.

  He cleared his throat uneasily. “Your—ah, Dakota—she helped with the girl stuff.”

  She wrote on her notepad. The clothes r fine.

  “Uh, great,” he said, clearly relieved.

  “Can I have a moment?” A nurse stopped at the foot of Eden’s bed. She was in her late forties, short and chubby with a kind smile. Her blonde, highlighted hair was angled in a crisp bob at her chin.

  Eden nodded.

  The nurse glanced at Logan and frowned. “Sir, are you family?”

  Logan stood up hastily. The nurse’s eyes widened as she took in the full view of him. He looked like he belonged on the streets or in an MMA cage, not a clean, sterile hospital.

  “Uh…” he stammered. “I’ll just take a leak and…I’ll be back.”

  He lowered his head, brushed past the nurse, and hurried out.

  37

  Eden

  The nurse stared after Logan, then looked back at Eden. Her puffy, bloodshot eyes narrowed. She looked like she’d been crying. “You okay, honey? You sure you know him?”

  Eden bit her bottom lip. Yeah, he looked a little terrifying, all burly and glowering and dangerous, but she remembered how he’d shot those bad guys. He’d stayed back and kept fighting right alongside Dakota so Julio could rescue her and carry her to safety.

  Didn’t that make him a hero, no matter what he looked like?

  Once upon a time, her brothers or her father told her who was good and who was evil, who to trust and who to fear. They seemed to know without a shadow of a doubt, like God Himself had told them. Maybe He had. But he wasn’t telling her, and none of them were here.

  Indecision and anxiety swirled inside her. She hated making decisions. She wasn’t any good at them, even now, three years after the compound.

  Jorge and Gabriella had worked with her on that. Standing up for herself, making her own choices, finding her voice. That’s what Gabriella always said—find your voice—without even a hint of irony. Chiquita, she’d said once, It’s still there. You just have to work a little harder than everyone else to make it heard.

  “Honey?” the nurse prodded.

  Eden forced a smile. Yep, she wrote. He’s good.

  “Okay, well, you can never be too careful. Especially at a time like this…” Her voice trailed off. For several long seconds, she simply stared down at her table, a vacant expression in her eyes.

  “Sorry about that.” She cleared her throat and wiped brusquely at her eyes. When she looked up, she was all business again. “Let me give you an update, honey. We’ve taken several blood tests over the last several days to help us look for drops in your disease-fighting white blood cells. We also looked for abnormal changes in the DNA of your blood cells to determine the degree of bone marrow damage. Luckily, you’re a healthy young girl. The permanent damage should be mild.”

  That sounded good. Or at least, not bad.

  “In addition to a cocktail of fluids and electrolytes, we gave you a protein called granulocyte colony-stimulating factor to promote the growth of white blood cells to help counter the effect of radiation poisoning on your bone marrow…”

  The nurse kept speaking, but Eden couldn’t follow. It was too overwhelming.

  Everything was still slow and fuzzy. The woman’s words all jumbled together in her foggy brain. Radiation. Abnormal DNA. Bone marrow damage. She could barely make out the words, let alone understand their meaning.

  Back in the compound, she never saw a real doctor. The Prophet said hospitals usurped the will of the Lord, that only God could decide who lived or died. Dakota said he was full of hogwash, only she used a different word.

  Eden didn’t know who was right. Her social workers and foster parents had taken her in for exams and check-ups, and no bolts of lightning had struck her down in punishment. Not yet, anyway.

  The nurse glanced down at her tablet and swiped a few times. “While I would love to keep you for a few more days to monitor your progress, we have thousands of people waiting to be treated. You’ll be discharged in the morning. We’ll send you with instructions for medical care when the onset of the overt illness stage begins, okay?”

  Eden gave her a blank look.

  “You’ll feel better for a few weeks, but then the symptoms will return even worse, I’m afraid. Acute radiation syndrome can last for months. You have a good chance of recovery, but you may experience lifelong complications and an increased cancer risk.”

  Eden thought of Ezra and all his dire predictions. This was the kind of stuff he’d always warned them about. It’d seemed like the same doom and gloom that the Prophet and her father preached, just in a different way.

  It had always scared her so much that she blocked it out and promptly forgot it, imagining the facts and statistics and probabilities draining out of her brain like a strainer.

  Now it was real. The thousands of bodies burnt to ash. The radiated ruins of a dozen cities. The poison inside of her, eating away at her internal organs.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said in a strangled voice. She looked so, so tired. Dark shadows rimmed her haunted eyes. “We just don’t have the resources to treat everyone who needs it.”

  Eden nodded again. She didn’t know what else to do.

  “You’re lucky, honey,” the nurse said finally. “The things I’ve seen in the last few days…just…awful, awful things. The suffering…you’re sick, but you’re going to live. Life is a gift. A precious gift.”

  She stepped to the side of the bed and squeezed Eden’s hand.

  Eden forced a smile she didn’t feel.

  “Are you hungry? I’ll have someone bring you dinner.”

  Eden realized she was hungry. Her empty stomach rumbled painfully. The sour, wrenching nausea seemed to be gone. For now.

  The nurse squeezed her hand again and left to tend to the next patient, faltering a bit as she
walked. She was probably exhausted from multiple shifts tending to the sick and dying, on her feet for hours and hours.

  A few minutes later, Logan returned. He sat stiffly in the plastic chair, as tense and uneasy as before, a pained expression on his face.

  A different nurse brought her a plastic tray with a Styrofoam plate. There was a lump that looked a little like meatloaf, some cold, clotted gravy, a pile of shriveled peas, and a dollop of crusty mashed potatoes.

  Eden prodded the mashed potatoes with her fork. They didn’t move.

  Logan let out a snort.

  Eden looked at him in surprise. A couple of nurses glared his way.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders sheepishly and leaned in closer to Eden’s bed. “They say hospital food is always gross, no matter where you live or what hospital you’re at. Guess the apocalypse doesn’t change everything, huh?”

  The smallest grin tugged at the corners of her mouth.

  “Maybe it should give us comfort that some things never change.” Logan pulled something out of his jeans’ pocket and surreptitiously slipped her a king-sized Snickers candy bar. “It’s half-melted, but it beats this slop.”

  Her smile widened. She took the candy bar and wrote on her notepad. Thank you.

  He gave her a tight smile in return. It looked strange on his face—but it wasn’t bad. He should smile more. Then maybe people wouldn’t be scared of him.

  What’s the worst food you’ve ever had? she wrote.

  He sat back and raked his hand through his unruly hair. “Hmm. A lima bean sandwich covered in tomato sauce. How about you?”

  She wrinkled her nose. Alligator-meat sandwich.

  “Nah. Gator’s good. Tastes like chicken.”

  Pickles dipped in ketchup.

  His stiff shoulders eased a little bit. The hint of a wry smile tugged at his lips. “You clearly haven’t lived, kid.”

  BBQ sauce dripped over oatmeal.

  “Now you’re getting a little more creative. How about strawberries dipped in mayonnaise? Or chicken on waffles sprinkled with hot peppers? Or ice cream and French fries?”

  Yum.

  “Okay, that one’s not bad.”

  Cheetos mixed with broccoli and covered in soy sauce.

  He made a face. “Gross. You win.”

  She took a bite of the candy bar. The chocolate, nuts, and caramel melted on her tongue and stuck in her teeth. She wrote, Dakota puts ketchup on rice.

  He smiled. “That should be a crime against humanity.”

  She tried to smile back, but it slipped off her face.

  She wasn’t brave or strong like Dakota. She couldn’t kill bad guys with guns. She’d just hidden when all the shooting started, like a coward. Someone else had needed to save her. Again.

  She felt useless, a burden, Dakota risking everything again and again to save her.

  The truth was, she’d forgive Dakota anything, no matter what she’d done. She already had. Just like she’d already forgiven Maddox in her heart. She loved her brother. She loved Dakota.

  She couldn’t allow herself to be angry or bitter toward either of them. She didn’t want to feel all those horrid things or think terrible thoughts about the people she was supposed to love, who were supposed to love her.

  That dark thought was there in her head again, niggling in her brain. She couldn’t ignore it this time. Confusion, dread, and guilt twisted her insides in a tangle of knots she couldn’t unwind.

  If it was true that Maddox had done bad things, if he’d really tried to hurt Dakota…then Eden had made a mistake. She’d messed up.

  If Dakota knew the truth, it was Dakota who’d hate Eden, not the other way around.

  And she couldn’t handle that. Not after losing everything and everyone else. Even the thought made her sick with apprehension.

  She was terrified of being alone.

  Tears stung her eyes. She started to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” Logan asked hastily. He looked mortified. “What’d I do?”

  She shook her head. It wasn’t him. It was her. It was Dakota. It was everything.

  “Do you want me to get the nurse?”

  She shook her head again, sniffled, and wiped her nose with the back of her arm. She picked up her notepad.

  I’m afraid.

  He hesitated for a moment, his jaw working, like he was unsure what to say. “We’re all afraid, kid.”

  Of everything.

  Logan gave a heavy sigh. He sat there, big hands bunched uselessly in his lap, his shoulders hunched like he alone bore the weight of the whole broken world. “That, too.”

  38

  Dakota

  “They’re late,” Dakota muttered.

  “Relax,” Logan said. “They’ll be here.”

  Hawthorne had asked them all to meet him after lunch without providing a reason.

  Logan sat at the table next to her, finishing a cheeseburger. They were in Terminal D in the American Airlines Admirals Club lounge. They both sat stiffly in black cushioned chairs angled against the wall, facing the room and the airy terminal beyond them.

  Neither of them liked open air at their backs. They were both alert and watchful, constantly scanning their surroundings.

  Logan took a huge bite of his cheeseburger and washed it down with a Coke. Dakota had already finished her sandwich and fries. When you were a foster kid, you learned to eat fast or not at all.

  The food was from Shula’s Bar and Grill. Several of the restaurants in the airport had remained open to serve the hundreds of staff that made up the Emergency Operations Center, free of charge. At least to the people. She was sure the restaurants were keeping a tally for the government. The hotels, too.

  Hawthorne had set them up in a couple of the rooms in the Sheraton next to the airport alongside hundreds of government workers and officials. Hawthorne told them the Hilton, the Marriott, the Hyatt, and nearly every other hotel surrounding the airport were already over capacity.

  Including the support staff, there were almost two thousand officials not including medical and military personnel. Additionally, she’d seen hundreds of agents with badges designating DHS, FEMA, ATF, Army Corps, EPA, and the Department of Defense.

  Apparently, Hawthorne had some clout or serious connections, because the visitor’s pass security badges he’d obtained enabled them to move freely around certain sections of the airport where most regular civilians weren’t allowed. Hence, the government-funded hot meal in the Admirals Club lounge.

  Dakota shifted restlessly in the leather chair. All this waiting around for days was driving her nuts. She was eager to get back on the road, to finally reach Ezra and his safehouse, to go home.

  Here, she felt inert and unproductive. Like everyone had a purpose but them.

  Well, everyone but the Wilburns. Carson and Vanessa had spent the majority of their time lazing around in their hotel room, apparently “recovering.” Every time Dakota saw them, Vanessa was crying or curled in the fetal position, Carson bent over her, murmuring sympathetic encouragement.

  They were both utterly useless.

  Dakota barely even registered their presence. Maybe it was cold, but it was the truth.

  Shay was somewhere in one of the hospital wards doing something helpful, but she’d promised to make it for Hawthorne’s meeting. Julio was with Eden in Ward F. He’d insisted Dakota take a break from her vigil and shooed her out. The nurse had said Eden would be discharged in the morning.

  Park hadn’t been discharged yet, either. He was still recovering from his surgery to repair the shattered bones in his right forearm. The doctor had explained that they didn’t have the capabilities to perform microsurgery to repair the severed tendons.

  Since almost every trauma center in the country was already overwhelmed with patients, they’d triaged him. Park’s injury wasn’t life-threatening. They’d chosen not to expend the resources to airlift him to an actual hospital. Permanent nerve damage and limited mobility was the most likely outcome.


  It all sucked. But at least he was alive.

  Dakota swirled a fry around the ketchup on her plate and sighed. “I should go check on Eden—”

  “Did you not hear the part about relaxing?” Logan asked wryly.

  “Yeah, yeah.” She scowled at him. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.”

  He shrugged and gave her a lazy grin. It was the only lazy part about him. His body was tense, his shoulders stiff, his relentless gaze roaming the lounge and the concourse beyond. He hadn’t let down his guard, not even here.

  Her hand drifted to the empty spots on her belt. She missed her tactical knife and her pistol. She felt almost naked without them. Judging by the disgruntled expression on Logan’s face, he felt the same way.

  Her knife was back in the hotel room—security had let her keep it, but she couldn’t bring it onto EOC grounds. She’d scrubbed the knife thoroughly in the decontamination tent upon arrival. The map, too, which had miraculously survived.

  Before they’d arrived, Hawthorne had taken their firearms, including the two AR-15s, so they wouldn’t be confiscated by security. He and Captain Kinsey had taken the F-150 somewhere as well.

  He’d promised to keep everything safe.

  They’d been forced to trust him. What choice did they have? But no one could make them like it. Dakota hated every second.

  She’d rather be out on her own, controlling her own fate.

  She glanced at Logan. He’d half-twisted to eye the bottle of Bacardi white rum sitting on the counter of the drinks bar behind them. There was a look on his face she recognized—craving and regret, mingled with a sour desperation.

  The look of an addict jonesing for a fix.

  But he didn’t rise to the bait. He didn’t make a move to get out of his chair.

  She respected that. She’d known more than one drunken foster parent who never refused their baser instincts. Once sloshed, the slurred curses and sloppy punches started up, faithful as clockwork. She rubbed her jaw, recalling a long-healed bruise.