by Kyla Stone
Willow gaped at her. “Wait—is that lipstick you’re wearing?”
Celeste grinned. “It sure is.” She fluttered her long, slender fingers in Willow’s face, her fingernails painted a sparkly scarlet.
“And nail polish? Really?”
Celeste sniffed airily. “There’s no reason not to look your best.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, the world just ended.”
Celeste pursed her perfectly bowed lips. She swept out her arms in either direction. “But it hasn’t. We’re still here, aren’t we? That’s something. That’s an accomplishment we should celebrate, if you ask me.”
“No one asked you,” Willow muttered. She kicked a rock and sent it tumbling into a snowbank melting against the garden shed.
Finn grinned at Celeste. “I think you look very nice.”
Celeste swept into an elegant little bow. “Well, thank you.”
Jealousy flared in Willow’s chest. Why was Finn looking at Celeste? Did he like her? Of course he did. Who wouldn’t? She was tall and thin and beautiful, and Willow was short and dumpy and…ugh, she hated this feeling, like some dark and ugly monster sucking at her insides. She hated that she felt it, hated how small and petty it made her.
She’d survived an apocalypse, damn it. This wasn’t who she was, who she wanted to be.
Celeste shot Willow a sharp look. “At least someone remembers their manners.”
Willow sighed. “What do you want?”
Celeste fisted her hands on her hips. “Y’know, a little kindness wouldn’t kill you. I came out here to help you.”
Willow leaned back against the fence, one eye still on the guards at the gate. “Thanks, but no thanks. Don’t you have somewhere to be? Like in front of a mirror?”
“Willow,” Finn said reproachfully.
“Before you scoff,” Celeste said with a self-satisfied smirk, “I know what you’re doing.”
Willow stiffened. All the casual sarcasm drained out of her. If Celeste decided to tell someone, it was all over. The Patriots would double the guards or lock them back up in the quarantined barracks with the Headhunters.
Then they’d be stuck here, surrounded by enemies, helpless and utterly useless. “We’re not doing anything—”
Celeste gave her a knowing look. “You’re planning to escape.”
12
Amelia
Amelia stood in the center of her containment cell, fighting down panic. She touched her charm bracelet beneath her clothes, searching for the tiny violin charm. She pressed her finger against the pointy edge through her sweater. Breathe. Just breathe.
It didn’t matter. There was no reason to panic. Micah and Silas were right next to her, even though she couldn’t see them or feel them.
They wouldn’t be in here long. It was only a matter of time. She believed that. She had to believe it.
She sank down on the narrow cot. The mattress was sealed with some sort of soft, impenetrable plastic shell. She imagined all the people who’d sat here before her. Scared, alone, worried for children, parents, and friends, possibly sick, possibly dying.
Time passed. Maybe an hour, maybe two. It felt like much longer.
A woman appeared in front of her cell. The woman wasn’t wearing a hazmat suit. She was dressed in a cranberry-red wool skirt and fitted suit jacket. Latina and roughly in her late twenties, she seemed pleasant and well-groomed, her black hair pulled back in a neat bun at the base of her neck.
The woman smiled. “Amelia Black. How wonderful to meet you! Let’s get you out of here, shall we?”
Amelia stood up slowly, her hands clasped in front of her.
The woman stepped up to the biometric scanner, placing her palm on the bottom half of the scanner. She stilled, unblinking, as it also scanned her retinas. The door hissed open.
The woman held out her arm. Amelia took it politely as she stepped out of the containment cell. “Thank you.”
“My name is Vera Longoria-Castillo. Call me Vera. I work directly for President Sloane and the Coalition.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Amelia said automatically.
“President Sloane is very eager to meet you.”
Amelia nodded mutely, not trusting her own voice. She’d suspected President Sloane was here. Now she knew for sure.
Vera tugged her away from the row of cells. “I’m sure you’re tired and would like to rest. As we speak, a room is being prepared for you right in the capitol, and—”
Amelia halted. “What about my brother and my friend?”
“They’ll join you soon enough, but now—”
“I’m not leaving without them.”
Micah and Silas both stood behind the transparent doors of their cells. Micah’s hands hung limply at his sides, his glasses slipping down his nose. He smiled at her, offering steady encouragement like he always did.
Silas looked like he was barely containing his rage. His jaw was rigid, his gray eyes sparking, his hands balled into fists at his sides.
“Oh, honey,” Vera purred, “they’re not immune like you. They’ll be released after the quarantine period. Coalition rules, for the safety of everyone.”
Her throat closed. She swallowed. “I don’t want to leave them behind.”
Vera only smiled wider. A smudge of red lipstick marred her symmetrical white teeth. “I’m sure you understand. President Sloane knows they’re here. She’ll make sure they’re given special priority.”
“But—”
“They aren’t immune, and they aren’t chipped.” Vera’s voice cooled considerably. “If we let them in before ensuring they aren’t infected, we would endanger thousands of innocent men, women, and children.”
Amelia forced herself to nod, when what she really wanted to do was lunge past Vera and the soldiers and rip open Silas and Micah’s cells. But that wouldn’t help anything.
She focused on their mission, their purpose: to get the cure. To save everyone. She knew it would require sacrifices and risks. Still, she hated the thought of abandoning them in this place with every fiber of her being. “May I at least say goodbye?”
“You’ll get to see them in only a few days, so don’t worry your pretty little head!” Vera patted her back, her smile bright and friendly again.
Amelia repressed a flinch. She still disliked being touched, especially by strangers.
Amelia gave Micah and Silas a small wave, the only thing she could do. Silas snarled something, his face contorting, but she couldn’t hear him. Micah tapped his chest, that warm, comforting smile still on his face, telling her it was going to be okay.
Her hand flitted to the bracelet around her neck. It was attached to the leather thong Micah had made for her. She still had a piece of him. It would only be a few days, like Vera said.
She steeled herself, fighting down the flicker of apprehension, of panic. She could do this. She had to do this. If she had to do it alone, then so be it. “I understand.”
“Good girl!” Vera steered her past a cluster of soldiers and several sealed compartments. A blast of cold air struck her as they exited the containment center. She shivered, drawing her jacket more tightly around herself.
“Impressive, isn’t it!” Vera gushed as she led Amelia through the towering, fifteen-inch-thick steel city gates that controlled access to the Sanctuary. Dozens of armed soldiers, military drones, and several tanks flanked the entrance. The plasma wall rose on either side, impossibly tall and imposing. The electrified plasma crackled and hissed.
The gates closed behind them without a sound.
“We could have taken a transport, but I thought you’d want to see our glorious city,” Vera said eagerly. “This is a government-operated safe zone, like Raven Rock, Cheyenne Mountain, Mount Weather. But people can’t live for long underground. It’s just not natural.
“I’ll tell you a secret. When I first heard we were coming here, I thought it was going to be just another awful underground bunker of concrete and stale air, but
I was so wrong! The government built this place to last not for months, not for years, but for decades. And who would want to leave? We have everything we could possibly need!”
Vera guided Amelia onto a moveable sidewalk. They passed people walking, chatting, studying their Smartflexes. Just like before—though even in here, many still wore masks.
The Sanctuary was laid out in a series of expanding concentric rings, like the cross-section of a tree, only shaped more like an oval, Vera explained. Each ring was tiered and separated further into districts. The outer rings were for food, energy, and manufacturing production, the middle rings for worker and soldier housing, the inner rings for “critical infrastructure elements and our most important citizens, of course.”
As they walked, Amelia couldn’t stop staring. The luxury apartments on her left were column-shaped, with large, circular terraces jutting out on each level. Transparent spheres curved over the terraces, enclosing a riot of colorful gardens and lush, verdant plants.
Only a few hundred yards from the gates, an enormous square with an impossibly green lawn spread before them, flanked on either side by business and luxury apartment buildings. At the far end rose three impressive structures, taller and more beautiful than all the rest. “What are they?” Amelia asked.
“BioGen headquarters, City Hall, and the Capitol,” Vera said. “The heart of the Sanctuary. Pretty much everything is controlled within those three buildings.” She gestured at a manicured rose bush, delicate petals of primrose-pink, deepest ruby, and flaming orange in full bloom. “We use the latest genetic modifications to keep the foliage flourishing even in winter. Amazing, isn’t it?”
Drones zoomed through the air above their heads—delivery, security, surveillance. Auto-transports hummed to and fro. Emblazoned on the sides and fronts of nearly every building were giant holoscreens playing ads for VR games, popular vlogs, designer brands, holofilms, and networking apps.
Amelia gaped. After months of no or very little power, the gleaming lights and vibrant pixels and shimmering holos danced in front of her eyes like vivid, almost grotesque apparitions. Did those commodities even exist anymore? Were the ads simply a comfort thing, a promise that the world was still the same, even though everyone knew it wasn’t?
“No dinosaurs or outdated tech here,” Vera went on briskly. “Everything has been built to the latest safety and tech standards. Residences and offices are designed to be ultralight, modular, and made from eco-friendly organic material, mostly quartz and bamboo. They run all the new applications and appliances. Plug-and-play, hot-swapping peripherals, all of it with a twenty-four-hour wireless uplink to the Net. Energy lines, plumbing, security, fire, structural integrity, indoor air quality, lifestyle data —it’s all built-in, all auto-maintained. If you misplace your designer shades, your house will tell you where to find them. Wicked cool, huh?”
Amelia didn’t know the correct word for it, for what she was feeling. She was used to the silence of a broken world, not the hustle and bustle of so much busyness, so many people all at once and so close together. She was used to the roads and highways cluttered with the carcasses of dead cars and trucks, the decomposing bodies of their owners still locked inside. She was used to hulking buildings empty of all life but rats and vermin, used to houses and apartments and businesses with busted windows and shattered doors, every surface filmed in dust and dirt and rubble. She was used to scavenging and hunger and a constant, wary fear.
She didn’t know if she could ever get used to this again. After so many months of destruction and ruin, all this order and beauty was almost too much to bear.
Vera patted her shoulder. “Listen to me patter about nothing when you must be exhausted! Luckily, we’re here!”
A brick circular driveway arced in front of a palatial mansion reminiscent of the architecture of a century past—four stories of majestic white stone, towering fluted columns, a multitude of ornate terraces crowned by a steep, turreted roofline.
Amelia followed Vera up the stone steps to the cedar doors inlaid with panes of stained glass. Eight secret service guards flanked the doors. One of them scanned Vera’s wrist, then moved aside as the doors opened.
Amelia stepped inside. An ornate crystal chandelier gilded everything in a golden glow. She took in the grand hall, arched ceilings, the black granite floor so highly polished she could see her own ragged, unkempt reflection.
A smartwall to her left greeted her while an unobtrusive door slid open in the wall to her right, a service bot appearing to take her coat and gloves and store them in the hidden closet.
Vera turned to Amelia, that wide smile still pasted on her face. “We’ll get you cleaned up for dinner with President Sloane and the Coalition chairman!”
She reached out and fingered Amelia’s short, jagged hair.
Amelia couldn’t help it. She jerked back.
Vera didn’t even notice. “It must have been so horrible out there in the Outerlands! But don’t worry. We can fix your hair. Get you bathed and dressed and looking back to your best in no time!”
A shower sounded more wonderful than she wanted to admit. “Thank you.”
“Anyway, I bet you’re just ecstatic!”
“To meet President Sloane?” She was still half-numb, in a mild state of shock. Everything coming at her at once. “I’ve met her before. When she was vice-president, of course.”
Vera squeezed Amelia’s arm, bouncing on her heels in excitement. “Oh, didn’t I tell you? So sorry! What an ‘oops’ on my part!” She leaned in close, like she was imparting a vital secret. “Someone else will be at dinner. And he cannot wait to see you! You’ll just be tickled pink, I just know it. Your father—Declan Black—he’s here at the Sanctuary.”
13
Gabriel
Halfway back to the compound, the second transport’s tire blew, punctured by a rock hidden beneath the snow. Jamal and another Patriot worked on changing the tire while the rest of the group grabbed a water break and stretched their legs.
The first transport continued on, hurrying General Reaver and the dead rat back to the infirmary to be tested and examined.
“Is your mother okay?” Gabriel asked Cleo in a low voice.
She scowled at him, her scar twisting the left side of her face. “She’s fine. If you think a filthy rodent can take down someone as formidable as my mother, then you’re more stupid than you look.”
“If the rat that bit her was infected—”
“It’s just a scratch!” Cleo whirled away from him. “I’m gonna take a piss. Try to keep a lid on things until I get back.”
Gabriel leaned against the vehicle, scanning the hills above them. He breathed in the sharp winter air. Rafts of white clouds drifted over the sun. Behind him, a couple of Patriots joked about something he couldn’t hear, laughing among themselves.
Twenty yards ahead of the transport, a streak of movement snagged his gaze. Cerberus. His white pelt glinted as he slipped into the shadows between a clump of pine trees.
Gabriel glanced around, scanning the road in both directions. No one else was watching.
Silently, he followed Cerberus into the woods. He kept a safe distance, winding between maple and birch trees, stepping over roots and jagged rocks. A twig snapped beneath his boot.
Cerberus spun around. A slow sneer spread across his face. “Can’t a man piss in peace anymore?”
Anger flared through him like an electrical current. His hand strayed to the rifle slung over his shoulder. “How can you live with yourself?”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
He clenched his jaw so hard his teeth rattled. “You’re the problem with the world. You buy and sell human beings. You trade in suffering and slavery.”
“You think they don’t?” Cerberus gestured behind them, in the general direction of the Sanctuary. “Their city—our entire civilization—was built on the backs of others’ suffering. You know it as well as I, better than I. Your choices are to die a v
ictim or see the world for what it is and adapt to fit that world, to dominate that world, to take what’s yours by force and violence.”
“There’s another way.” Gabriel struggled to restrain his anger. “That way leads only to destruction and suffering and death. Violence is sometimes necessary, but it is not the answer. Domination and force are not the answer.”
“Those are empty words you don’t really believe,” Cerberus sneered. “We’re the same.”
Gabriel bristled. “I am not.”
Cerberus leaned against the slim trunk of a birch tree. “You want to kill me right now.”
“That’s no secret.”
“You would kill an unarmed man who’s not an immediate threat. That’s murder.”
“I am not a murderer.”
Cerberus’s lip curled. “I heard what you did on that ship. You’re a killer. That’s who you are. No one changes.”
Gabriel’s fingers tightened on the stock of his rifle. He could do it right here, right now. No one was close enough to stop him. He could drench the ground with this psychopath’s blood. He could finally avenge Nadira. The desire was so strong he was nearly blinded with it.
He took a deep, shuddering breath. He was no murderer. “I’ve changed.”
“Have you?” Cerberus smiled, revealing his sharp teeth. “We shall see.”
“Rivera!” Cleo called sharply. She stepped between the trees into the clearing, her glare lethal. “A word.”
They stood on a rocky outcropping, overlooking a shallow valley about fifty yards below them. The Blue Ridge Mountains loomed in the distance, huge and shadowy blue, like great sleeping giants.
“I know what you’re doing.” Cleo lit a cigar and stuffed the lighter back in her cargo pocket.
Gabriel watched her warily. “Is that so?”
“You’re planning to kill the Headhunter,” she said flatly. “And I can’t let you do that.”
