The Last Sanctuary Omnibus

by Kyla Stone

  He looked at the wolf again, meeting those yellow eyes that seemed to pierce his soul. After a long moment, the creature melted back into the trees, a shadow indistinguishable among shadows.

  Gabriel picked up a handful of dirt and crumbled it between his fingers over Nadira’s grave. He would stay. If there was such a thing as redemption—if it existed for someone like him—then he would find it. He had to. He would do everything in his power to earn it.

  He would earn it for Nadira and the little girl in yellow.

  He would earn it for Micah. His brother, his everything. It was his mother’s last wish for Gabriel to take care of Micah, for her boys to be good and brave together. The world had fallen to pieces, but he wouldn’t lose his brother, too. He would fight for Micah.

  He would earn it for Amelia. She couldn’t love him again; he knew that. He had no misconceptions, no false hopes. He’d betrayed her, nearly destroyed her. Nothing he could ever do would make him worthy of her love. But maybe, someday, she could forgive him.

  He glanced through the trees to the dark shape of his brother at the edge of the clearing. Micah still waited for him. It was something.

  It was a beginning.

  40

  Amelia

  Amelia stared up at the bowl of the night sky. She’d spent the last five hours lying on the back of the open truck bed, exhausted but sleepless. Too many anxious thoughts and endless questions hummed in her mind.

  Silas drove, with Finn sitting shotgun. Amelia shared the back with Willow, Micah, and Benjie and a half-dozen blankets. Willow sat facing the way they’d come, a rifle on her lap as she guarded the rear. Benjie curled up like a kitten against her side, his Star Wars backpack wrapped in his arms. Jericho, Horne, and Celeste rode in the other truck, with Gabriel in handcuffs in the back.

  They stopped at least a dozen times to clear a path, shoving dead cars and the occasional fallen tree branch out of the way. In five hours, they’d gone twenty-six miles, with another thirty to hit the city, and another hundred to go after that. Still, at least now they had a destination, a goal.

  They were headed for the Sanctuary to save her mother and find a cure. It was a place that represented safety, law and order, and hope for everyone. Though for Amelia, it was so much more.

  Beside her, Micah shifted. He didn’t touch her, but she still felt his presence, his warmth. “Do you want to see something beautiful?”

  She smiled in the dark. “Of course.”

  He pointed at the sky. “A falling star.”

  The night was clear. Without ambient light, the sky was a black like she’d never seen, rich and full of depth, limitless. The stars were sharp and bright, like tiny shards of ice or glass. She stared hard, straining her eyes until her vision blurred. And then she saw it: a streak of fire across black velvet.

  “As long as you can still find beauty, you know you’ll be all right,” he said. “That’s what hope is.”

  Did she have hope? She thought so, but the obstacles arrayed against her seemed insurmountable. For every enemy and fear she bested, two more rose in its place. Like the Hydra monster from the myths, she thought ruefully. The namesake of the virus that had destroyed the world as they knew it. “Sometimes, hope feels impossible.”

  He made a shape in the air with his fingers. “Hope is a thing with feathers.”

  She gave a half-smile. “I know that one. Emily Dickens.”

  “Good.” He traced another star as it arced through the sky. “We can’t give up. We won’t. We’ve come this far. We’ll figure out who the Headhunters trade with and find a way to rescue Elise. I know we will. And you’ll help the scientists find a cure to put a stop to all this.”

  Her heart twinged at the thought of her mother. She’d just found her again, only to have her ripped away. “You think so?”

  “I know so,” he said, without a shred of doubt in his voice.

  She admired his faith, his belief that there was something bigger than all this, a meaning behind the things they couldn’t see or understand. “I don’t get it.”

  “What?”

  Another falling star streaked across the sky, a shot of brilliant fire. “Why I’m still alive.”

  “My mother was Catholic.” Micah shifted again as the truck jolted over a pothole. “Her faith was everything to her. She would say that you have a purpose.”

  “But why me?” Why was she the only known survivor of the Hydra Virus? How had she lived when no one else had? What made her special? Did it have something to do with the illegal epilepsy medication her father designed? Or was it something with the epilepsy itself, some aspect of her brain that the disease irrevocably changed that made her different? “Maybe it’s just some freak improbability.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe it’s more than that.”

  She didn’t know if there was purpose or meaning to any of it. She did believe in beauty. She believed in music and art and literature and those things that awakened something deep inside her soul.

  Micah folded his hands behind his head and gazed up at the sky. “If the rumors are true, then the Sanctuary is a safe place, Amelia. A safe place for you, for Benjie, for all of us.”

  “I hope so.” But was it truly safe? More questions flared in her mind. Who was the real mastermind behind the bioterrorism attack that unleashed the Hydra Virus on the world? Her father helped design the bioweapon, but he wasn’t the ringleader. Her mother had feared high-ranking government officials were involved. Could President Sloane have orchestrated the whole thing?

  Amelia tugged the leather thong from beneath her shirt and rubbed her charm bracelet, her stomach tightening. She longed to talk to Micah about all this, but she couldn’t. Her mother had warned her. Trust no one.

  The Sanctuary might be even more perilous for Amelia and Silas than out here. They knew the New Patriots were used as patsies. They were targets for anyone desperate to cover up the truth.

  But maybe the Sanctuary would live up to its name—an oasis in a desert of sickness, terror, and death. They would rescue her mother. And they could all make a new start and rebuild their lives.

  Amelia didn’t know which version was truth and which was fiction. But her instincts were clamoring, her gut telling her that some way, somehow, there were answers waiting at the Sanctuary.

  And if the scientists there could use the antibodies in her blood to discover a vaccine or a cure, then she would do whatever it took to help them. She would do everything in her power to stop the Hydra Virus—but first, she had to live that long.

  She pulled her bottle out of her backpack and dropped the remaining two pills into her palm—the only thing that stood between her and the seizures that could render her unconscious, brain-damaged, or dead.

  Her emergency auto-injectors were gone. Without medication, the next seizure could come at any moment, in a day or three weeks or six months.

  Beside her, Micah stiffened. “Is that the last one?”

  She gulped down a single pill and placed the other one back inside the bottle. “I’m keeping one. In case I can find someone who can replicate the formula.”

  With every seizure, she would lose more and more of herself, her brain breaking into pieces as she forgot memories, forgot how to read, how to hold a fork, how to talk—how to be human. “My father might be the only person who can make more.”

  “Do you think he’s alive?”

  “I don’t know.” She wondered who’d created the antivirals that successfully delayed the onset of the disease. Was it someone with previous knowledge of the genetically engineered virus? Someone like her father? Could he still be alive? And if so, was he back in the States? The thought chilled her to the core.

  Her mind warred against itself in the same old battle she’d fought since she was a child. The man she feared and loathed was also her savior. She wanted him dead. She needed him alive. She hated him. And there was that small, childish part of her that still desperately loved him.

  He was her father. He wa
s the man who’d introduced her to the violin, who’d glowed with pride at her concerts and competitions, who’d worked so hard to save her life. Things were not always black and white. Love and hate and grief and joy could all be tangled up together. She thought again of her mother, the choices she made, the sacrifices. Her heart ached in the hollow place beneath her breastbone. She missed her mother.

  For most of her life, she’d believed her mother was weak. Only now did she realize how strong her mother was all along. There were different kinds of strength. Her mother had a quiet strength, a spine of steel hidden beneath her demure exterior. A strength that endured years of emotional abuse, all to protect Amelia.

  Her mother’s dauntless love saved her, and she hadn’t even known it.

  Even as she worried for her mother’s safety at the hands of the Headhunters, she knew her mother would never give up. Declan Black hadn’t broken her. The New Patriots hadn’t, either. Her mother would survive. She would endure.

  And this time, Amelia would save her mother.

  A brisk wind rustled through the trees on either side of the road. She shivered. Micah untucked the blanket he’d rolled beneath his head and handed it to her.

  “I can’t steal your pillow.”

  “I can use my backpack. Take it, please.” He flashed her a dimpled smile. “I insist.”

  She wrapped herself in the fleece blanket. She remembered how he sat with her for hours when she was sick, how she’d focused on his kind brown eyes to distract herself from the burning fever. “Thank you.”

  They fell silent as more falling stars cascaded across the sky. It was incredible. Micah was right. If there could be such beauty in the midst of so much chaos, fear, and uncertainty, then there must also be hope.

  And with hope came life, came finding a new way to live, to be. She didn’t want to be tough but alone, like Silas. Or strong but distrustful, like her mother. She refused to live in fear, afraid of touch, of connection. She wanted to rebuild herself, one block at a time.

  She touched her shorn hair. And she would start with trust. Tomorrow, she thought wearily. She would start tomorrow.

  They watched the sky for the next hour. Micah’s body was warm next to hers. She snuggled into the blanket and felt herself drifting.

  Exhaustion overtook her and she gave in to it, lulled to sleep by the hum of the truck and the songs of crickets and other creatures of the night. For the first time since the Grand Voyager, she did not dream.

  In the early morning hours, she drifted in and out of consciousness, only half-awake. As the truck crested a hill, Silas slammed the breaks. Amelia jolted, rolling against Micah.

  “Oh hell,” Willow mumbled. Micah gasped. She sat up, rubbing her eyes.

  The air seemed thicker. It smelled strange, like something charred or singed. “What is it?”

  “Look,” Micah said hoarsely.

  In the distance, she could make out the skyline of downtown Atlanta. The sky over the city was ash gray, the skyscrapers barely visible beneath dark pillars of smoke.

  Harmony had been right. Atlanta was burning.

  To reach the Sanctuary, they would have to travel right through the heart of it.

  Keeping reading for Burning Skies!

  Burning Skies

  1

  Amelia

  The night was a cold, black thing crouched just outside the ring of firelight. Eighteen-year-old Amelia Black shivered and wrapped her auto-warm blanket tighter around herself. According to the SmartFlex she kept in the side pocket of her cargo pants, it was a frigid forty-one degrees. It felt colder.

  For the last week, they’d been inching closer to downtown, maneuvering their two trucks around the husks of thousands of abandoned vehicles clogging Interstate 75 leading into the heart of Atlanta.

  “I still think a fire is too dangerous,” her brother Silas grumbled. His lawn chair was pulled as close to the flames as possible, his shoulders hunched, his hands held palms up for warmth. The glow of the firelight revealed his features sharpened from the hard living over the last three months. His face was lean and wolfish. His gray eyes sparked. “Anyone could see us.”

  “It was start a fire or freeze,” Micah said from beside her.

  They’d had to build a fire every night—the risk of freezing to death was worse. Where they couldn’t find firewood, they hacked up chairs and tables as kindling. Once, when they couldn’t find a fireplace, they opened the windows and laid on the floor to escape the choking smoke, just thankful to be warm.

  They slept with their weapons beside them, two people always on watch. They’d seen a few furtive movements from a distance, but they hadn’t come into close contact with anyone since they’d left Harmony and Sweet Creek Farm after the Headhunters’ attack, her mother’s capture, and Nadira’s death.

  Though Harmony had betrayed them, she’d also warned them of the dangerous killers known as Pyros. This was a brave new world. Danger lay in wait everywhere. But they couldn’t back down now. They were headed into Atlanta to ambush the Headhunters to rescue her mother before they reached the Sanctuary.

  Amelia missed her mother like a physical ache in her chest. She’d spent far too long resenting and misjudging her, barely getting her back before she was taken by the Headhunters.

  But her mother was still alive. She had to believe that. The Headhunters were violent but pragmatic. Her mother was worth more alive than dead.

  After they rescued her mother, they’d find the Sanctuary. Hopefully, the scientists there could find a cure for the Hydra virus with Amelia’s blood. There were answers waiting for them at the Sanctuary. It would be their salvation or their destruction; Amelia still wasn’t sure which.

  Willow slurped the last bite of her kidney beans and tossed the empty can at the fire. “That was filling. Not.”

  On Willow’s other side, eight-year-old Benjie sat next to Finn, teaching him a new card trick from the tattered Magic Tips for the Advanced Beginner paperback that Micah had found.

  Across from Willow, Celeste huddled on a stump, shivering in her lavender sweater, her mass of tightly coiled, cranberry-red curls bound in a ponytail. She was model-tall and svelte, but her cheekbones were sharp, the hollows beneath her eyes deep and shadowed. Her rich, earth-tone skin had a dull tinge to it.

  She’d been uncharacteristically quiet since Nadira’s death a week ago. They all had. Even Tyler Horne, the cocky former CEO, was more subdued. He obeyed Jericho without too much trouble, and took his watch shifts without complaining.

  He and Jericho were guarding the outskirts of the camp they’d set up for the night. Once they’d gotten as warm as they could, they’d head inside the abandoned house and take shelter until morning. They were in a nice neighborhood of stately homes, wrought-iron fences, and massive, overgrown lawns. But the only thing that mattered now was whether the place was safe and clear of decomposing, disease-infested bodies.

  Amelia tugged at the mask around her neck. She was immune, but she wore it anyway. They all wore them during the day, but pulled them off once they’d found a place to hunker down. They wore gloves, too—always careful, always mindful of the agonizing death that awaited from a single, tiny mistake.

  Across the fire, Gabriel Ramos Rivera met her gaze. His full mouth curled into a lazy, sensuous smile.

  Her heart gave that same treacherous jolt it always did when she caught him watching her. His broad shoulders and tall, muscular body cut an impressive form against the firelight. With his curly black hair, scruffy goatee, and bronze Puerto Rican skin, he was as roguishly handsome as ever.

  No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn’t forget his lips on hers, his dark eyes smoldering with desire and need and pain. Their desperate hours trapped in the belly of the hijacked Grand Voyager had linked them, connecting them forever whether Amelia liked it or not. She’d revealed her soul to him, and he’d turned around and betrayed her.

  She wanted to break her gaze from his, but she refused. He was the one in the wron
g. He was the one who should be filled with shame. As if reading her thoughts, his face contorted, a shadow passing over his features. He looked away first.

  She shifted her gaze to the fire. She wasn’t the same girl he’d handed over to the terrorists. She’d survived too much, come too far.

  “You okay?” Micah asked quietly. He was a warm, comforting presence next to her. His face had grown leaner in the last several months, but it was still round and boyish, his wavy dark hair falling haphazardly across his forehead. His eyes behind his glasses were a soft, gentle brown. “How are you feeling?”

  He meant her epilepsy. Anxiety roiled in her stomach. She’d gone without her medication for a week. Her mother had used the last emergency auto-injector on her when the fever from the Hydra virus had triggered a seizure.

  Out here, without medical intervention, another seizure could disable or kill her. She sucked in her breath, forcing herself to focus. Worrying about it wouldn’t change anything. “I’m fine, for now. Thank you.”

  “Are you sure?” He knew she was worried about what awaited them once they reached the Sanctuary, but he didn’t know exactly why. She hadn’t told him everything, not yet.

  Her old life of secrets, lies, and distrust died hard. Her mother had cautioned her repeatedly about how dangerous it would be for Amelia and Silas if anyone found out the truth. Trust no one, she’d warned.

  But Amelia was tired of fear. She’d lived in fear most of her life. A week ago, the night the falling stars streaked across the night sky, she’d promised herself she would open herself to hope. And to do that, she needed to trust. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Of course.” Micah placed the dog-eared copy of Call of the Wild on his lap.

  Everyone else was busy chatting, fitfully dozing, or staring at the fire, lost in their own thoughts. This was as much privacy as they’d had all week.