A Single Light

by Tosca Lee

  PRAISE FOR THE LINE BETWEEN

  “VERDICT: Lee’s perfectly crafted dystopian thriller will keep readers up all night and have them begging for a sequel.”

  —Library Journal (starred review)

  “A tight, fast-paced thriller, with a winding, twisty plot and an intrepid protagonist.

  —Booklist

  “A fast-paced and deeply human story. Tosca Lee has put together a terrifying apocalyptic scenario, made all the more real through the eyes of a protagonist who comes to life on the page.”

  —Patrick Lee, New York Times bestselling author of Runner

  “The Line Between blurs the line between science fiction and terrifying real science. Tosca Lee gives us a cautionary tale that is beautifully written and deeply unnerving!”

  —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of V-Wars

  “The perfect blend of spellbinding and heart stopping, The Line Between is an absolute must-read. Tosca whips up a thriller that is emotionally wrenching yet utterly believable, the kind of story that is sure to leave readers breathless and begging for more. This well-written, carefully plotted tale is apocalyptic fiction at its finest!”

  —Nicole Baart, New York Times bestselling author of You Were Always Mine

  “Everything you want in a thriller: suspense, intrigue, and, best of all, a truly captivating protagonist to cheer on. Throw in a white-knuckled race from Chicago to Colorado over back roads that this author obviously and respectfully knows well. This one’s a slam-dunk that’ll keep you reading, non-stop until the very last sentence.”

  —Alex Kava, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Breaking Creed

  “[A] moving dystopian thriller . . . Lee gets readers to invest in the characters, particularly her well-defined and sympathetic lead.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Relevant and frighteningly real, The Line Between is an infectiously good read. Be prepared to lose sleep.”

  —Brenda Novak, New York Times bestselling author of Face Off

  “Tosca Lee nailed the twists and turns in this masterfully crafted thriller.”

  —Steena Holmes, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of The Forgotten Ones

  “Tosca Lee’s The Line Between is terrifyingly close to a future reality. An utterly immersive tale of apocalyptic cult manipulation and all-too-possible infectious epidemics, this story will have readers holding their breath on every page and dearly wishing for their own basement survivalist shelter. Perfect, chilling entertainment.”

  —Lydia Kang, bestselling author of A Beautiful Poison

  “An edge-of-your-seat, nonstop, apocalyptic rollercoaster of a thriller! As only she can, Tosca Lee pulls the reader in and refuses to let go until the final heart-pounding page!”

  —J.D. Barker, international bestselling author of The Fourth Monkey

  “Wynter’s daring escape draws the reader into a maze of intrigue and false realities, as a bona fide apocalypse grips humanity. This frighteningly topical page-turner from Tosca Lee is a wild ride that will leave you breathless.”

  —Maria Frisk, producer, Radar Pictures

  “A tremendous thrill-ride that is sure to linger long after you turn the last page. With compelling and memorable characters, this is a true run-for-your-life, end-of-the-world, amazingly realistic tale full of twists and turns that will have your heart pounding.”

  —E. C. Diskin, bestselling author of Broken Grace

  “Shades of The Handmaid’s Tale and The Walking Dead blend together in an epic novel of depth and power. Tosca Lee’s The Line Between is a breathtaking story of a woman who rises above her own dark past to stop civilization from descending into madness. Brilliant.”

  —K.J. Howe, international bestselling author of Skyjack

  “Smartly written, tautly paced, with an utterly irresistible protagonist, The Line Between is pure exhilaration on a page.”

  —Emily Carpenter, bestselling author of Burying the Honeysuckle Girls

  “The Line Between is a nail-biter . . . one horrific thriller fans will want to read. The conflicting urges rampant in the story resonate with our world today, making this both a great read as well as a cautionary tale.”

  —Nancy Kilpatrick, award-winning author of the Thrones of Blood series

  “The Line Between had me captivated from page one! I give this book five stars and plan to keep it in my bug-out bag, along with my MREs, first aid kit and Swiss Army knife.”

  —Merrie Destefano, author of Valiant

  “A true wordsmith, Tosca has crafted another page-turner, a nonstop thrill ride that will leave you breathless.”

  —Steven James, bestselling author of Every Wicked Man

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  For Kaya. I love you.

  (Future world, you’re in good hands.)

  DAY 14

  * * *

  I miss ice cream. The way it melts into a soupy mess if you draw out the enjoyment of eating it too long. That it has to be savored in a rush.

  I miss the Internet, my cell phone, and Netflix. I was halfway through the first season of Stranger Things when the lights went out.

  I miss the sky. The feel of wind—even when it carries the perfume of a neighboring pasture. The smell of coming rain.

  But even fresh air is a small price to pay to be sane and alive. To be with the people you love.

  The ones who are left, anyway. My five-year-old niece, Truly. My mom’s former best friend, Julie, and her sixteen-year-old daughter, Lauren. And Chase—my (what? boyfriend?)—who has made it his mission to keep me safe since we met three weeks ago.

  We’re five of the lucky sixty-three who have taken shelter from the flu-borne pandemic in an underground silo west of Gurley, Nebraska.

  I used to hate that word—lucky. But there’s no better way to describe the fortune of food and water. Amenities like heat, clothing, and a bed. Not to mention an infirmary, gymnasium, library, hydroponic garden, laying hens, and the company of uninfected others. All safe and living in relative comfort due to the foresight of a “doomsday prepper” named Noah, who thought of everything—including the pixelated walls and ceiling of the upper lounge aglow with a virtual meadowscape of billowing grasses and lazy bees beneath an artificial sky.

  We spent the first four days confined to two of the silo’s dorm levels with the rest of the last-minute arrivals, waiting to confirm the rapid tests administered upon our arrival. Mourning the loss of Julie’s husband and Lauren’s father, Ken, and my sister, Jaclyn—Truly’s mother. Stiffening at any hint of a cough across the communal bunkroom, fully aware that there is no fleeing whatever we may have brought with us; the silo door is on a time lock, sealed for six months.

  By which time the grid will be back up and the disease causing fatal madness in its patients should have died out with the flu season . . .

  Along with most of its victims.

  Luckily (there’s that word again), the tests held true and we emerged from quarantine to find our places in this new community.

  That was nine days ago. Nine days of meeting and learning about the others, of feeding chickens on the garden level, starting a formal children’s school, and assuming new responsibilities on the kitchen, laundry, and cleaning crews.

  Of speculating about wh
at’s happening in the world above as we watch the electric sunset after dinner.

  That first week I helped the children make calendars to hang by their beds so they could color in a square each night until Open Day—which is how I realized the scene in the atrium lounge is always attuned to the same sunny month: June.

  If we had come here in June, would we be looking out on a snowscape more closely resembling the December weather above?

  Yesterday was Christmas—the first one I’ve observed in fifteen years. I caught Julie crying and knew she was thinking of Ken, and wished, for the thousandth time, that Jaclyn was with us as Truly and I decorated a construction-paper Christmas tree.

  She asks questions at night. About why I took her away from the compound we grew up in. Why her daddy couldn’t come. Questions I answer with lies.

  • • •

  I TAKE A seat on the floor near the end of the L-shaped sofa in the atrium, one of the last to arrive. It’s become regular practice for the community to gather on the upper level beneath the pixelated stars after the children are asleep. To sing songs everyone but me knows the words to as Preston, who used to run a bait and tackle shop, plays the guitar.

  But mostly to share what we know about the disease. To mine hearsay for information in the absence of any real news, which is a scarce commodity.

  Especially down here.

  The chatter is lively tonight. I gaze up at the constellations I had no names for (I’d been taught it was a sin to see anything in the heavens but God) until the night Chase and I brought a sky map up from the library below and spent an hour lying on the floor, tracing their shapes in the air.

  I rarely speak at these gatherings. My story of growing up in a religious commune, while apparently fascinating, has little to offer these discussions.

  Julie, however, is the widow of the former field epidemiologist who caught the disease while traveling with the CDC team that linked its spread to the flu. As such, she’s routinely peppered with questions.

  “Do they have any idea of the virus’s origin?” Rima, our resident nurse and one of the first people here, asks. Her adult son, Karam, told me yesterday she used to be a doctor when they lived in Syria. “Is it a bird flu, or swine?”

  “Forget the origin,” Nelise, a retired rancher who oversees the hydroponic garden with an obsessive fixation that could give even my OCD a run for its money, says. “How long till there’s a cure?”

  She’s asked the same question every night since we were cleared to leave quarantine.

  “Too long for anyone sick,” Julie says. She’s changed in the three weeks since I left her in Naperville. The woman who suffered no idiots is gone. She’s thinner, her complexion ashen as the lusterless gray taking over her once-blond roots.

  But I know there is no cure. That the best anyone can hope for is a vaccine. That the fatal disease eroding the sanity of North America emerged with a caribou carcass from the melting Alaskan permafrost to infect a herd of pigs and mutated when an infected slaughterhouse worker also became ill with the flu.

  I know this because I carried the index case samples myself to the man who is, at this moment, involved in the creation of a vaccine.

  Truly’s father.

  “Winnie?” Piper, our resident fitness instructor, says, startling me. It’s what Truly calls me, the name I gave on our arrival—the closest I dare get to my real name, which I will never speak again.

  Piper is the thirty-something wife of Jax Lacey (also known as Jax Daniels for the cases of whiskey he brought with him), who preps meat in the kitchen—including a few hundred pounds of frozen game he shot himself. It’s apparently delicious, not that I would know; meat wasn’t allowed in the compound I grew up in.

  And these days I’m glad to be vegetarian.

  I glance at Piper and then follow her gaze across the room, where Chase has just emerged from the tunnel connecting the subterranean atrium to the silo itself. The short crop of his hair has grown an inch in the three weeks since we met, and he hasn’t shaved for days. I like the rogue scruff even if it does obscure his dimples, but the tight line of his mouth worries me.

  “How did you two meet?” Piper asks as I slide over to make room for Chase on the floor.

  She thinks we’re married. That my last name isn’t Roth, but Miller.

  “Oh, it’s a long story.”

  I can’t say that it was while fleeing with the stolen index case samples.

  Or that I’m wanted for murder.

  I wouldn’t have even revealed my history with the cult I grew up in except I couldn’t risk Truly, whom I took from there just fifteen days ago, contradicting my story. At least the only people who’ve seen my picture on the news were those who had generators—and then only as long as stations managed to stay on air.

  For now, I’m banking on the hope that by the time the lock opens and we emerge from the earth like fat cicadas, the hunt for me will be forgotten as the fugitive Wynter Roth becomes just one of thousands—possibly tens of thousands—missing in the aftermath of the disease. We have time to plan the rest.

  169 days, to be exact.

  In the meantime, I like to tease Chase that he’s stuck with me, which is more fact than joke. But at least he seems okay with that.

  “What’d I miss?” Chase says.

  “Piper wants to know how we met,” I say. I note the way she’s looking at him, taking in his fighter’s physique and olive skin. The mixture of ethnicities and striking blue eyes that would snag anyone’s gaze for a second, appreciative glance.

  Chase chuckles. “The short version is Winnie’s car broke down while she was learning to drive—”

  “After getting kicked out of that cult, right?” Piper says.

  “After she had gone to live with Julie’s family, yes,” Chase says, stretching his legs out before him. “So there she was, stranded on the highway without a valid driver’s license. In Julie’s stolen Lexus.”

  I roll my eyes. “It wasn’t stolen.”

  It kind of was.

  He leaves out the fact that it happened the morning after the grid went down as panic dawned with the day. That I barreled my way into his car—and his life—out of desperation to get the samples to Truly’s father at Colorado State.

  “Ooh, so you’re an outlaw,” Piper purrs, glancing at me.

  More than she knows.

  I’m relieved when Nelise starts back in about the time she caught a cattle thief on his way to the auction house with two of her cows.

  It always goes like this at night: speculation about the disease, and then stories from before. Some meant to impress. Some to reminisce. Others to entertain.

  All of them pointless.

  We will never be those people again. Julie, the Naperville socialite, whose money can’t buy her a single meal or gallon of fuel. Chase Miller, the former MMA fighter and marine, unable to combat the killer running rampant within our borders. Lauren, the popular high school junior who may never see her friends alive again.

  Me, just starting over in the outside world, only to retreat from it more radically than before.

  Today, a hospice center janitor is our chief engineer. An insurance broker heads up laundry. Julie runs a cleaning crew. Reverend Richel preaches on Sundays and is the only one Nelise trusts near the tomatoes. Chase works maintenance and teaches jujitsu. Delaney, who ran a food bank in South Dakota, plans our menus. And Braden, who flipped burgers at Wendy’s, oversees the cooking.

  I teach, as I did the last five years of my life inside the Enclave, and rotate between kitchen and cleaning shifts. I look after Truly. I am her caretaker now.

  Micah, the computer programmer whose son, Seth, has become Truly’s new best friend, glances at his watch. At the simple gesture, conversations fade to expectant silence.

  At eleven thirty-five exactly, the scene on the curved wall before us breaks, a shooting star frozen in midflight. And then the night sky vanishes, replaced by lines of static before the screen goes dark. A mom
ent later it glows back to life, pixels reconfiguring into the form of a face.

  It’s larger than life, the top of his head extending onto the curved ceiling. I’ve grown fond of the gray whiskers on his dark-skinned cheeks, the gaps between his front teeth. Even the rogue white hairs in his otherwise black brows that I wanted to pluck the first time I met him.

  They are as endearing to me now as the man himself.

  Noah.

  He’s a man resolved to save his own soul by saving the lives of others and one of the few people here who knows my real name. This is his ark.

  But he is not with us. The time lock meant to keep intruders, chemical weapons, or nuclear fallout at bay requires someone from both the inside and outside to set it.

  Noah sits in an office chair, plaid shirt peeking through the neck of a tan fleece jacket. The clock in the round wooden frame on the wall behind him shows just past five thirty. The usual time he records these briefings.

  “Greetings, Denizens,” he says, with the calm assurance that is as much a part of him as the creases around his aging eyes.

  “Hello, Noah!” Jax calls as similar greetings echo throughout the room.

  “If you can hear this, knock twice,” Noah says with a grin. Chuckles issue around me. Last night it was “If you can see me, blink twice.” It’s a running joke; the atrium is three stories belowground and video communication is strictly one-way. Our messages to the top have consisted of nothing more than a digital “all is well” and “thank you” once a week since Day 1.

  “What news we have is sobering,” Noah says. “Our ham radio operator reports dire circumstances in cities. Shortages of water, sanitary conditions, medicines, food, and fuel have led to more riots, fires, and the kinds of acts good men resort to when desperate. The death toll of those dependent on life-support machines will climb steeply in the days and weeks to come as those devices shut down, I’m sorry to say.”

  Preston, sitting across from me, rubs his brows as though his head hurts, and Julie sits with a fist to her mouth. I know she’s thinking about her grown sons in New Mexico and Ohio. About her mother, already sick by the time she and Lauren fled the city for her house. Who turned them away without opening her door.