by Kyla Stone
The burn pulsed with searing pain, but she took several deep breaths and forced herself to ignore it. Eden needed her more.
The girl’s eyelids fluttered. Her skin was dead-fish white. Scarlet streaks stained her blouse from her neck to her waist.
And her throat—the shirt Dakota had tied around her neck was saturated with blood.
Dakota was afraid to remove it.
“Stay with me, okay? Stay awake.” She squeezed Eden’s hand and rose to her feet, turning to take in the contents of the shed.
Dozens of shelves were crowded with canned vegetables, fruits, and beans; sealed containers labeled with oats, flour, and other grains; water purification tablets and jugs of bleach; packs of batteries in all sizes; matches, hand sanitizer, and N95 air filtration masks; bottles of shampoo and body wash; even a bunch of tubes of toothpaste and plastic toothbrushes wrapped in plastic.
Everything was orderly and labeled and clean. She ran her finger along the shelf. Not even dusty.
Medical supplies lined the top shelf just above her head. Boxes of gauze, bottles of iodine, rubbing alcohol, and hydrogen peroxide, a suturing kit, sterilizing spray, topical antibiotic tubes, and a row of white medicine-sized bottles emblazoned with brightly colored fish. They were labeled “amoxicillin.”
She swallowed, her throat raw with thirst. First, they needed hydration.
She snagged two cans of peaches, tugged back the lid of one, and lifted it to Eden’s parched lips. “Drink. You need the energy.”
Eden swallowed with a ragged moan.
“Get it down.” Dakota slurped down half the can herself, syrup staining her fingers and lips. The peaches were the juiciest, sweetest things she’d ever tasted.
She pushed the can into Eden’s hands and moved back to the shelves, searching for something to carry supplies in.
A few dozen reusable grocery bags were neatly folded on a lower shelf. She opened one and scooped a container of peanut butter and two more cans of peaches off the shelf. She dug into a box labeled MREs, high-calorie meal replacement pouches used in the military.
Eden made a contorted, rasping sound.
Dakota glanced at her. Eden gave a weak, barely perceptible shake of her head. Dakota knew what she meant. No stealing.
Dakota was no thief. But she was desperate. “Just enough to get to Copeland or Everglades City, okay? I promise.”
The owner of this place had invested time, effort, and cost into procuring and storing all this stuff. Taking any of it made her feel ill.
Stealing was a grave sin at the compound, punishable by a visit to the mercy room. The welt on her back burned like it was still on fire, like drips of acid or boiling water was searing her skin.
To please Eden, she put three of the MREs back and kept only two, along with the two cans of peaches and four bottles of water. There was still plenty of room in the bag.
Eden moaned.
Dakota glanced down at her. “I know, okay? We don’t have a choice.”
With trembling fingers, Eden reached into the pocket of her long, filthy skirt, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and gazed beseechingly up at Dakota.
With a sigh, Dakota bent and grabbed it.
It was one of Eden’s drawings—an eagle perched atop a cypress tree, its wings outspread just before it lifted into flight. Like all of her drawings, it was a nearly perfect rendition, shaded and rich with depth and beauty.
Eden wanted her to leave the drawing behind.
Dakota placed it in the empty space where she’d taken the peaches. “Like a trade, right? So it’s not stealing.”
The corner of Eden’s lip twitched. Then her head slumped toward her chest, her eyelids flickering.
Panic clawed at Dakota’s insides. She didn’t know much about medical stuff, but she knew falling asleep now was a terrible idea.
She paused to shake the girl awake.
“We can’t rest, not yet. We’ve got to get out of here.” She seized a box of gauze from the shelf, a wheel of medical tape, and a tube of antibiotics. “I won’t take anything else, but we can’t leave that dirty shirt on you.”
She stuffed the supplies into the grocery bag. “You need a fresh bandage and more water, and then we’ll figure out the next step. But we shouldn’t stay here. It’s too dangerous—”
“That’s one thing you got right,” a deep, raspy growl boomed through the shed.
7
Dakota
Instinctively, Dakota had stepped in front of Eden, shielding her with her body. Terror coursed through her veins. She tasted her heart in her mouth.
A man stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the motion sensor light outside, a sawed-off shotgun pointed at her chest. “You little rats think you’re gonna rob me?”
Ezra Burrows was a grizzled man in his late sixties, dressed in worn jeans, work boots, and a threadbare red-and-black plaid shirt. Instead of the bent old man she’d imagined, he stood tall and straight-backed, still thick and muscular, his broad shoulders straining his shirt.
“You broke into my property and stole from me,” he growled in a deep, gravelly voice. Wrinkles creased his leathered face like lines in cement. “Caught you red-handed. Means I gotcha dead to rights.”
He meant the Stand Your Ground law. Odds were, he could shoot them and walk away free and clear, without jail time or even a fine.
Her lungs constricted. The room blurred.
She blinked and lifted her hands slowly into the air to show she had no weapon, the bag of stolen food digging into her right shoulder.
“We did steal, sir,” she stammered. “No more than we had to, but it’s still wrong. Shoot me but leave her out of it. My—my sister, she’s innocent. I did the stealing.”
He kept the gun aimed at her chest. “I don’t generally shoot little girls, not unless they got guns and are shootin’ right back. I’m fixin’ to call the cops to put you in a jail cell where you belong.”
Her heart splintered in her chest. “I’d rather you shot me.”
“What kind of answer is that? Do I look like I’m in the mood for tricks?”
“No tricks.” She lifted her chin defiantly. “I’d rather be shot dead than go back to that place. Me and her both.”
His eyes narrowed. A rich, vivid blue, they seemed to pierce straight through her. He took in their torn and dirty skirts and long braids, Eden’s button-up blouse with the lace collar, the once-pristine fabric now soaked a bloody red-black.
His stony face betrayed no emotion. “You’re from that River Grass Compound. You’re those Shepherds of Mercy freaks.”
“Was.” She spat out the word like it was poisoned.
He gestured at the bag with his shotgun. “Spill it.”
“We’ll give it back—everything but the one can of peaches and bottle of water we already used. We’ll get out of your hair and be gone, and you won’t ever see or hear from us again, I promise you that.”
“Shut your yammering and let me see exactly what you stole from me.”
Dakota dumped the bag. The cans and waters rolled across the wooden plank floor. A bottle of water came to rest against the man’s steel-toed boot.
“We took just enough to get by. No more. We’re not thieves.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” His hard gaze flicked over her head. “What’s that on the shelf?”
“My—sister, she wanted to give you something, a trade so it didn’t feel like stealing. I know it still was—”
“Show me.”
She reached behind her for the shelf, her quivering hands betraying her fear, and held up the drawing of the eagle.
For a long moment, he didn’t say anything, just stared at it.
She stood there, not daring to move, willing the paper not to shake in her hands. She was sixteen, damn it, but she felt like she was six again and terrified of the boogie man beneath the bed.
Ezra Burrows scratched his heavily whiskered jaw. “The little girl did that?”
“Yes,
sir.”
Eden opened her eyes and let out a ragged gasp. She coughed, nearly choking, and made a terrible anguished, gurgling sound.
Dakota nearly stopped breathing. It was like all the air had been sucked out of the room. How badly wounded was she? What had Dakota done?
“What’s all the blood from?” the man asked.
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
A vision of the body flashed before her eyes—the blood spraying everywhere, the wide staring eyes, the knife clattering to the floor, covered in dripping red.
Shame and remorse wormed inside her gut. She would give nearly anything to go back and relive the last several hours over again. She saw every glaring mistake, every misstep, with blood-red clarity.
All the ways she could have done better. The truth she should’ve seen a long time ago. She’d been too stupid, too naïve to see the facts staring her straight in the face.
Trusting the wrong person had cost her nearly everything.
It had nearly killed Eden. Would kill her, if Dakota didn’t do something soon.
What was done was done. She couldn’t go back and fix it. There was only now. There was only moving forward.
“What happened?” he asked.
The old man stared at her like he could see every lie and secret tangled in her heart laid out plain as day. She sensed that if she lied, he would know it somehow.
And that would seal their fate.
Better to be vague and hope he didn’t demand the truth.
“She’s hurt,” Dakota forced out. “Pretty bad.”
He hesitated, as if weighing whether to require a more thorough answer. His jaw worked like he was chewing tobacco. A shadow passed across his craggy features.
Dakota’s heart felt like it would pound right out of her chest.
After a moment, he dropped his eyes and glowered down at his shotgun. “Suppose I should call an ambulance.”
“No!”
That intent, penetrating gaze focused on her again.
“Please.” Her chest wound tighter and tighter, her lungs compressed in bands of iron. Her breath came in sharp, shallow gasps. “No hospitals.”
A hospital was exactly what Eden needed.
But Solomon Cage and his Shepherds had a far reach. One was a local county sheriff. Another a doctor at the nearest hospital.
As soon as Eden was entered into the system, they’d know.
And they’d come for her.
Dakota hadn’t risked both their lives just to go back. Sister Rosemarie hadn’t risked so much to get them out for it to end like this.
She hadn’t exaggerated. Death was better than that place for Eden. And for her. She’d rather die right here.
At least they’d be free.
“Please.” She hated herself for begging, but desperation spurred her on. “We need your help.”
His shrewd gaze skipped from the drawing to the bottle at his feet to Eden.
Eden tried to sit up. Her movements were slow and clumsy, her pallor gray. Fresh blood leaked through the cloth wrapped around her neck. Her lids fluttered, and her eyes rolled wildly into the back of her head.
Dakota could barely make out the rise and fall of her chest. She looked half-dead.
There wasn’t a thing Dakota could do to stop it, nothing except put her life—and Eden’s—in the hands of a hostile, possibly dangerous, stranger.
She held her blood-streaked hands palms up, beseeching, pleading with every fiber of her being. “She’s gonna die if you don’t help her.”
“That’s none of my—”
“I’ll work to earn our keep. I know how to clean, mend clothes, and cook well enough to get by. I’m not afraid of hard labor. Whatever you say, I’ll do it—”
“Can she walk?”
She glanced down at Eden. She was unconscious now, sagging against the shelves. Her head lolled. “I—I don’t think so.”
The old man worked his jaw again for a moment, as if he were engaged in an internal debate with himself. The shadow cleared from his features.
With a heavy sigh, he leaned his shotgun against the wall. “Come on, then. Keep yourself in plain sight, right in front of me at all times. Any funny business and I’ll be shooting now, askin’ questions later.”
Dakota tensed, frozen, unsure whether to believe what she’d just heard.
Ezra had lifted Eden in his arms as easily as a kitten and strode out of the barn. “Take your filthy boots off before you get in the house. I just waxed the floors.”
Hope jolted to life within her chest. “Yeah, okay. I can do that! Thank—”
Ezra hadn’t broken his stride as he’d growled over his shoulder, “And bring the suture kit on the shelf behind you.”
She still remembered the palpable relief that had flooded through every cell in her body as she’d hurried after the old man, too consumed with concern for Eden to worry about her own safety.
Dakota smiled grimly at the memory. She’d been terrified of Ezra that first night.
Now she couldn’t wait to get back to him.
She missed him and that cabin with a physical ache beneath her ribs.
Her foot struck a chunk of drywall the size of a large screen TV, thrusting her sharply back to the present.
She nearly tripped, her heart juddering, arm flailing, and caught herself with the side window of a platinum gray Volkswagen Jetta parked sideways in the middle of the road.
“You okay?” Shay asked from behind her.
“Fine,” she lied. Heart still banging against her ribs, she glanced up as the group veered around several abandoned cars.
Off to the right, a billboard was broken off halfway up the side of a large, three-story office building. The advertisement was for a dentist’s office, the image of a young blonde girl with a blinding white smile split right down the center.
Something about the girl reminded her of Eden.
Dakota kept staring at the broken sign, at the tragic, splintered smile, kept seeing it in her mind—even after they’d left it far behind.
They crossed a side road and turned onto West Biscayne Street, a wide thoroughfare lined with art boutiques, specialty shops and cafes, and hip, low-rise condos.
Or at least, it used to be.
Dakota jerked to a stop, stunned.
8
Logan
Logan stared in shock.
Shay gasped and covered her mouth with her fingers.
“Mother Mary and Joseph,” Julio murmured.
As the initial blast had radiated outward from ground zero, the shockwaves rebounding off varying surfaces—tall buildings, the terrain, maybe even the atmosphere—had struck this section of the city much harder than the Beer Shack on Front Street.
Without the protection of the larger, taller buildings, the smaller shops, restaurants, and apartments here had suffered significant damage.
Half of them were destroyed. The remaining buildings were hunched and broken. In the distance, at least a dozen structures were only burned and blackened husks, smoke pouring into the sky.
Rubble heaped here and there: concrete in jagged mounds, ruptured asphalt, scattered fragments of plastic, paper, and detritus; fallen electric lines.
And the bodies—bodies were everywhere.
The foul, reeking stench of decomposing flesh in the blistering heat was nearly overwhelming. And beneath that was the scorched odor of burnt plastic, rubber, and other things Logan didn’t want to think about.
Behind him, Julio retched.
“Go,” Dakota whispered, her voice raw. “I know it’s awful, but we’ve got to move.”
Jolted out of his shock, Logan made his way carefully down the street. He scanned to the left and right for signs of potential trouble. The more he saw, the more he longed to turn and flee.
Gingerly, they moved around the skeletons of cars and mounds of still-smoking rubble, picking their way through the debris—more glass, chunks of twisted metal, crumbled brick and maso
nry.
A few groans and agonized cries echoed weakly ahead of them.
People were still trapped inside the buildings. They were wounded, in terrible agony, likely dying.
Dozens, maybe hundreds of people.
The terrible realization struck him like a swift kick to the balls. He felt like the air had been knocked right out of him.
Logan jerked out his flask, unscrewed the lid, and knocked back a long swallow.
Dakota shot him a scathing look. “Now? Really?”
He didn’t bother to answer her, just downed another drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his arm. As far as he was concerned, the faster the booze blunted his senses, the better.
He’d choose a coma over this hell.
“Where are the first responders?” Julio’s eyes widened in dismay. “Where are the firefighters and EMTs and the National Guard? Where is the help?”
Dakota pointed at the stalled and crashed vehicles surrounding them. “How can an ambulance or fire truck even get through? Every road is impassable. Closer to ground zero, you can add mountains of rubble and collapsed buildings to the mix. Responders will have to hike in by foot or drop by chopper.”
“I’m sure they’re out here,” Logan said. “But they’ll need personal protection equipment. Otherwise, they’re sacrificing themselves.”
“The suits only shield them from alpha and beta rays that can’t penetrate clothing,” Dakota said, “not gamma radiation. Any responders who brave the hot zone are risking their own health.”
“It’ll take weeks—months, maybe—to sift through all this.” Shay’s voice trembled.
Gone was the perkiness, the trite positivity. Whether it was the gunshot or the horrors surrounding them, reality seemed to have finally hit her—and hard. “So many people will die waiting for help…”
Help that wouldn’t come in time.
The numbers were mind-numbing. And there were more bombs, more devastated cities. How would Miami ever recover from such a catastrophic blow? Washington D.C.? New York City?
