by Stone, Kyla
“The meth heads are in a holding cell, remember?” Noah gave a helpless shrug. “Bishop is stubborn. He always has been.”
Julian gave a derisive snort. “They aren’t the only danger. You know that.”
Noah couldn’t see his friend’s expression in the dark, but he knew Julian was upset. Not just with Bishop, but with him. “Julian—”
Julian turned away from him, stomped down the snow-covered steps, nearly slipping, and headed for his Ski-Doo. His hands were still balled into fists at his sides, his shoulders stiff.
He paused at his machine. “He’s your friend. Get him to wise up to reality.”
Or what? But Noah didn’t want to ask that question. It hung suspended in the frigid air, unanswered.
A chill of unease spread through his chest as he looked out past the darkened road, at the empty streets and buildings he knew were there but couldn’t see—all of Fall Creek deserted, frozen, desolate.
39
Octavia Riley
Day Seven
“Someone’s coming,” Octavia said.
She sat up quickly. A wave of sour nausea flushed through her. Her skin itched with cold, prickly sweat. She scratched fiercely at her arms. She’d been half-asleep, half-hallucinating. Spiders crawling under her skin. Cockroaches and maggots.
“So what?” Ray hadn’t slept since they’d been in here. He’d sat and rested for a while, but now he was up and pacing again like a caged lion, tail twitching in suppressed rage. “Let them come!”
They’d eaten five meals now, but it had been hours since anyone had come down to feed them. It felt like an entire day. Their piss pot hadn’t been emptied either, and it stank something foul.
She shivered. “I can hear him. It’s real.”
“Shut the hell up,” Tommy snarled blearily. “We’re trying to sleep.”
They had no idea whether it was day or night. Not a single damn window down here. The world could be ending, and they wouldn’t even know it.
She let out a raspy snicker at that thought. Who was she kidding? The world had already ended. And here they were, missing out on all the fun.
Footsteps echoed dully in the stairwell. Everything down here was constructed with big old slabs of stone. Every noise was amplified.
“It’s real,” she whispered.
The footsteps grew louder. Someone stomped down the courthouse staircase into the basement. A figure appeared.
A man, by the height and girth of him, the broad shoulders. He wore a heavy black coat to his knees, the hood drawn over his face, the thick fur obscuring his features in the dim light from the single kerosene lantern.
“What the hell do you want?” Ray asked. “You here to spring us out of this hellhole?”
“You can’t keep us here this long without a lawyer and a phone call!” Nickel said. “I know my rights!”
“You haven’t fed us all day!” Bucky staggered to his feet. His massive scarred hands curled into fists at his sides. “We’re gonna sue your asses to kingdom come.”
“Nah,” Tommy drawled. “We’re gonna do better than that. We’re gonna find your families. And then we’re gonna carve them up into itty bitty pieces right in front of you.”
Billy said nothing. He sat on the bench straight-backed, his black gaze roaming slowly over the man standing outside the bars, his wandering eye seeming to stare right at Octavia.
“You want to get out of here?” the man asked. His voice was deep and raspy, like he was trying to disguise it. “Then shut the hell up. Otherwise, I turn around right now and head back up those stairs. And I promise you, these people will let you rot in here. They’re already discussing whether to feed you your next meal or not.”
The Carter brothers swore and cursed at him. Tommy spat a loogie that landed on the man’s boots.
“Shut up already!” Octavia managed to pull herself to her feet. Ignoring the sickening lurch in her belly, she teetered over to Ray and gripped the bars. The men were all blustering idiots. They needed a woman to handle this. “We’re listening.”
The man held up the rusty iron key. “This will get you out. Your guard is upstairs, snoring logs. But first, I need a favor out of you.”
Ray’s eyes bulged. He was seething. She’d seen that gleam of malice in his gaze before. He was furious enough to kill something. Or someone. “Why the hell would we do a thing for you?”
Octavia gazed greedily at the key. “We’ll do it.”
Billy and Nickel rose to their feet.
“We decide that,” Nickel said, scowling. “Not you.”
All of them had moved to the bars, even Billy. Five dangerous men tense and bristling, restless and hungry as wild dogs.
Octavia still couldn’t make out his face. The kerosene lantern was hung on the wall behind him, so he remained in shadow. All she could tell was that he was Caucasian and not old. He seemed familiar, though. Like she should know him, if her rattled brain didn’t feel like Swiss Cheese.
“A job, if you would,” the man said calmly. “At Crossway Church.”
“I’ll kill Atticus Bishop! He’s a dead man!” Ray cussed a blue streak. “Those pious asswipes are stealing food from good, upstanding regular folks like ourselves, then doling it out like they’re gods! Like they have a right to it over us!”
“They have more than food,” the man said quietly. “They have gold.”
Ray glared at him like he was blabbering nonsense. “Gold.”
“Yes, gold. Gold currency will remain even after paper money becomes worthless, like what’s happening right now. They have at least twenty gold bars worth thirty to forty thousand dollars. Can you imagine what you could do with that right now? What necessities you could purchase when everyone else is stuck with worthless paper and pieces of plastic?”
Octavia’s mouth watered. Her blood surged hungrily in her veins. She could imagine it. Oh yes, she could. She and Ray could store up a stash like they’d never had before, enough to last them months. Even years.
“Where?” Billy asked.
“Somewhere in the church. In a safe. That’s all the information I have. But I’ve gotten word they’re going to move it to a safer location. Now’s the time to strike.”
The man spread his gloved hands. “As you can imagine, I cannot form a team and strike myself. The way I see it, we can help each other. If you were to . . . break out . . . of this antique relic of a cell with its rusting, unreliable lock, and if you were to retrieve that safe and its contents, I would think you would be entitled to 60 percent of the bounty to split amongst yourselves.”
“Ninety percent,” Billy said. “Ten percent finders’ fee for you.”
“Seventy percent,” the man said.
“Eighty,” Ray said, “and you have a deal.”
“Done,” the man said.
“Hell, I’d almost do it for free.” Ray laughed, an ugly, malicious sound echoing off the damp stone walls. “That pastor has it coming. A reckoning like you’ve never seen.”
Octavia felt giddy. Not only were they getting out of here, they’d just struck a deal with the devil himself. They’d get rich. They’d live like lords and ladies.
She could buy a house for her and Quinn. She could buy her baby girl a freaking mansion.
That would get Quinn over her anger and resentment real fast. They could go back to being a family. They could be happy again, just like they used to be.
This was a brave new world. A world in which they could rule.
Who cared if the power was out for good? Law and order were crumbling. The way things had always been—that was all gone now.
Maybe the government would lose its hold completely. Maybe everyone would be free of stupid laws forever. It didn’t really matter.
Octavia thought only in the moment. For today, this week, this month, the whole town of Fall Creek was cut off from the world. It might as well not exist.
There were no consequences. No lawyers and judges, no courthouses and prisons.
They could do whatever they wanted. And they would.
Just as soon as she got her next fix.
The man put the key in the lock. He hesitated.
Octavia stopped breathing. Her body thrummed with electric energy. She wanted nothing more than to get smashed and take revenge on those self-righteous losers who’d humiliated her and Ray, who’d dared to withhold what was rightfully theirs, and then mocked them for it.
They would pay. They deserved to pay. Like Ray had said, the gold was just a bonus.
The man hesitated, as if unsure for a moment. “They won’t be forthcoming,” the man said. “They won’t just give it to you.”
Billy smiled for the first time. His lips spread over crooked yellow teeth. His black eyes glinted with anticipation. “Don’t you worry. We know just what to do.”
40
Quinn
Day Seven
“Show us again, Quinn! Please, please, please!”
Chloe grabbed Quinn’s arm, bouncing on her toes, her dark eyes wide, the plastic barrettes on the ends of her braids clacking.
Quinn rolled her eyes. “It’s too cold out here. I’m tired.”
“Just once more? Puh-lease?” Juniper begged.
Quinn glanced at Milo. He stood on top of a snow hill they’d built that day near the rear exit of the church, bundled in snow gear to within an inch of his life. He didn’t say anything, but he nodded with a shy grin, his eyes shining.
He was so much quieter than the girls. Almost like he was swallowed up by their energy and enthusiasm, their aura of bright spinning chaos.
But that wasn’t quite right. He didn’t disappear into their energy—he basked in it, like just being close to them made him brighter, too.
The four of them were hanging out in the overflow parking lot behind the church. The asphalt abutted a thick section of woods, the trees all bare and scraggly and heavy with wet snow.
A pair of angrily chattering squirrels chased each other across the branches, knocking chunks of snow to the ground with soft thuds.
The blustering storm yesterday had dumped another foot of snow overnight. Huge drifts several feet deep were everywhere. The vicious wind had finally died down sometime that morning.
Quinn had tried to make it a fun day. They’d built snowmen and crafted the most perfect snow angels, pulled each other around in an old-fashioned toboggan the Bishops brought from their house, and the kids had joyously and savagely attacked Quinn with snowballs.
In the afternoon, after several games of hide and seek, the girls had drawn her a pink and purple target on a huge piece of construction paper they’d scavenged from one of the Sunday school room’s supply closets.
Milo had found some tacks and suggested they pin it to a tree so Quinn could teach them her slingshot skills. The girls had brought some assorted marbles from home, and the rest was history.
The kids were utterly fascinated and loved it when she hit the bull’s eye from fifteen feet, twenty-five feet, and forty feet again and again.
They did not want to see her kill a squirrel, though. All three kids were adamant on that one.
Babysitting wasn’t as bad as Quinn had expected. Milo and even the rambunctious girls were sweet and funny and obedient. They followed her around like annoying little ducklings.
All her life, she’d thought she hated kids. Turned out, it was only the entitled, bratty, snot-nosed ones. Some of them were actually decent human beings.
“Please, Quinn!” Juniper begged again.
“One more, but that’s it,” Quinn said sternly, shaking the slingshot at Juniper. “Then we’re going in to help your parents prepare and distribute dinner.”
She shut out the sounds of the squealing girls, shut out every distraction. She fitted her wrist guard, loaded a marble in the pouch, and drew the tapered bands back to her cheek. She canted the frame horizontally, lined up her sight, exhaled, and released.
The marble struck the tree trunk with a thunk. Twilight was falling, but she knew she’d hit her mark. She usually did. “Well?”
Chloe, Juniper, and Milo all ran to the tree.
“I see it!” Milo squealed. “BAM! It ripped a hole right through the center! That bad guy is deader than dead!”
“Told ya.” Quinn shrugged and grinned. She shoved the slingshot in her pocket. “Now get your little a—I mean butts, inside!”
The next few hours were a bustle of activity—cooking huge pots of tomato soup and assembling a few hundred grilled cheese sandwiches (to use up the bread and dairy before it went bad), dishing everything out onto the last of the paper bowls and plates, supervising the kids as they eagerly—and sloppily—served the families staying overnight in the sanctuary.
There were anywhere from fifty to seventy people staying at the church. Daphne had taken Quinn’s suggestion to heart, and each family now helped hand wash the blankets and pillows, collect firewood, and other daily chores.
“Let’s play hide and seek again!” Milo said after dinner was finally cleaned up and Quinn had given Milo his meds.
Noah had given her a mechanical watch to keep track of the times Milo needed his meds. It wasn’t easy to remember without a timer on her phone, but she knew how important it was.
Noah was supposed to have picked up Quinn and Milo an hour ago. The man was working himself to the bone, deepening shadows beneath his eyes with each passing day. She couldn’t fault him for being late, even though she wanted to.
She just wanted to go home and hang out with Gran by candlelight, maybe curl up in front of the woodstove with a pile of cats purring in her lap and her dog-eared copy of Robert A. Heinlein’s Friday.
Quinn led them wearily back to the sanctuary. “I’m way too pooped for that, Small Fry. How about a story instead? Either that, or I whip you with cooked spaghetti noodles.”
Juniper made a face. “Eww, gross!”
“Like I said, your choice.”
“Story! I pick story! I know the perfect one!” Chloe ran off to get the book from one of the Sunday school rooms. Juniper hurried after her to “oversee” the process.
Quinn sank into one of the empty pews near the front of the sanctuary. The muscles in her legs ached and her eyes burned. She was exhausted.
Milo snuggled next to her, curling his small body against hers like a kitten. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes as she stroked his hair.
She felt different. Almost like a completely different person than a week ago.
Gramps had died. She’d survived a blizzard trapped on a chairlift. The whole state—maybe the whole country—had gone dark, but she was still here; she was making do.
All the things she’d let bother her before—mean girls, snobby former friends, bad grades, her tweaker mother, the horrible state of pretty much everything—none of it mattered as much anymore.
Her go-to defensive mode—sarcasm and snark, moody silences—had taken a back seat to actually doing something. She felt useful here. Wanted and appreciated.
Noah Sheridan was the first adult other than Gran and Gramps who’d treated her like a real person, with thoughts and feelings and ideas as valid as his own. Daphne and Atticus Bishop treated her the same way. Despite her natural cynicism, she liked them for that.
A distant scream echoed through the sanctuary.
Quinn opened her eyes.
She’d been subjected to screams and shrieks and squeals all day. Kids screamed all the time. But this was different.
This was an adult scream. High and desperate. It curdled her blood.
It came again, from somewhere outside. Or maybe the food pantry or fellowship hall on the other side of the church.
The back of her neck prickled. The hairs on her arms stood on end.
Quinn sat up straight. Milo murmured sleepily as she pushed him aside a little too hard. But she didn’t have time to worry about his comfort.
Around her, men and women were glancing at each other, puzzled and confused, unsettled. Another cry
—a high, hysterical shout.
A toddler started crying. His mother shushed him, pulling him close and rocking him on her hip. “What was that?” she asked the room.
No one had a chance to answer her.
The doors to the sanctuary burst open. Several figures dressed in black rushed in. Black ski masks covered their faces. Gripped in their hands were gleaming, wicked-looking automatic weapons.
For a terrible second, no one moved. Everyone in the pews stared at the figures in shock. Their brains couldn’t compute this bizarre new information. It made no sense.
These people didn’t belong here. The guns didn’t belong here.
They were here anyway.
41
Quinn
Day Seven
Quinn’s heart leapt into her throat. Her lungs constricted. Everything turned slow and jerky, so vivid and bright, the images seared the backs of her eyelids.
Milo started to sit up. Instinctively, she pushed him back down.
It all happened so unbelievably fast. Her brain didn’t have time to compute the stimuli firing through her synapses, to make sense of the scene unfolding right in front of her.
The figures with guns didn’t say anything. They didn’t make demands, didn’t scream insults or threats.
They simply raised their weapons and opened fire.
The sanctuary exploded into noise and chaos. The crack and boom of gunshots. Panicked screams and shouts split the air.
Rounds slammed into the stone walls. Shattered the stained-glass windows. Punched through wooden pews, spraying stuffing into the air. The cacophonous rat-a-tat blasted her eardrums. So loud, impossibly loud.
And the bodies. Bodies jittering like puppets on a string. Bodies jerking, falling, collapsing.
She could barely hear through the ringing in her ears, the panic overtaking her. For a horrible frozen moment, Quinn couldn’t move. She sat there, one hand on Milo, mouth open in shock, in silent horror as death announced itself all around her.
