by Kyla Stone
Her father always said punishment was merciful. It saved the soul from eternal hellfire. Wasn’t that preferred to a little pain on earth?
Eden touched the scar on her throat.
Something bad had happened there. That’s what Dakota said. Something so terrible that they couldn’t go back.
She didn’t remember the event itself—only waking up afterward on a stranger’s sofa in a strange cabin, bleary and disoriented, her throat seared with agony, her voice gone.
Whenever she tried to think back to that night, dread clutched her mind in its steel talons, filling her with a rush of hollow terror.
Trying to remember felt like staring into a vast, bottomless black pit.
If you summoned the courage to leap in, to swim down deep—oily darkness sucking at your arms and legs, worming into your ears, your eyes, your mouth—you’d eventually reach that vital, pulsing heart that contained every memory, bright and dark, good and terrible.
It was dangerous, that place where answers were found. Where memory was treacherous. Where the answers you got weren’t always the ones you were looking for.
Where the monsters and demons were real.
Dakota told her it was a mercy that she didn’t remember. That she didn’t want to remember. That it was better to forget everything that had come before their time at Ezra’s.
But Eden couldn’t forget her father or her brothers—not Jacob’s easy laugh or the way Maddox could make her feel like the only little girl in the world.
No matter what her memory was hiding from her, she couldn’t forget that she still had a family out there.
She wasn’t worried about them. She knew they were safe.
The Prophet had promised the faithful would be spared.
Now though, as she licked her cracked lips and tasted blood, she began to worry for herself.
21
Dakota
Dakota tensed, instantly on alert. “What was that?”
Beside her, Logan stiffened. He slid his flask into his back pocket, pulled his Glock and held it in the low ready position. “It’s just ahead, around the corner of that coffee shop.”
“It’s someone needing help?” Shay whispered it like a question.
“We’ll see.”
More voices echoed in the still air. Tense, angry. One, a female voice, was pleading. The hairs on Dakota’s neck stood on end.
Maybe they should backtrack and give whatever this was a wide berth. Or maybe this was a chance to make at least one thing right in this horrible, upside-down hell.
Either way, they needed to know what kind of trouble might lay ahead.
“I’ll check it out,” Logan said.
His hands tremored ever so slightly. It was hardly noticeable, but she caught it. She knew the signs. The alcohol was getting to him. If he wasn’t already drunk, he was close.
There was no way in hell she was leaving this up to him. “I’m coming with you. Shay and Julio, find shelter and stay here, just in case.”
“Be careful,” Julio called softly after them.
He helped Shay ease down along the curb behind a vehicle parked at a 45-degree angle, half on the street, half on the sidewalk. It was an old, burnt husk of a car; only the trunk remained a pristine, glossy pumpkin orange.
Julio touched its side reverently. “A classic 1968 Pontiac Firebird. I restored one like this a few years ago. Such a shame to see it like this.”
Another scream rent the air.
“You sure you got this?” Dakota asked Logan doubtfully.
“I’m fine,” he muttered and stalked past her.
She didn’t believe that for a hot second.
Dakota removed her shoulder bag and lowered the scarf around her neck. Logan followed suit. Together, they moved slowly and carefully around the corner of the coffee shop.
They paused, keeping most of their bodies hidden behind the brick façade, and took in the scene. The air was hazy with smoke. Somewhere beyond their line of sight, more fires burned furiously.
Sixty feet ahead and to their left stood a sagging gas station, the entire right side of the roof collapsed in on itself. Five people crowded around one of the still-upright poles.
They were filthy with dust and soot. The bare skin of their faces, arms, and legs were deep red, like they’d been badly sunburned. Some were pocked with blisters as large as tennis balls.
They wielded improvised weapons—jagged spears of torn rebar, tire irons, a kitchen knife. One Hispanic man, short and stocky but muscular as a boulder beneath his torn and blackened tank top, carried a pistol.
Two people dressed in PPE suits were backed against the pole, their hands up defensively, trying to ward off the impending attack.
Dakota couldn’t make out any identifying characteristics through their safety goggles and respirator masks, but the taller one held a medical kit and wore a backpack over one shoulder. A wheeled stretcher stood next to the second, shorter one.
First responders.
“Give us what’s ours and you’re free to go,” said one of the aggressors—a fat Caucasian man in a too-tight Hawaiian shirt with bloodied cuts all over his body. He gripped a large butcher knife.
“They’ve left us here to die!” spat another Hispanic guy in his late twenties, a red bandanna tied around his head. Burns maimed the entire right side of his torso and tattooed upper arm, his T-shirt hanging in ragged tatters.
He paused to hack up yellow-tinged spittle and blood. He held a three-foot length of twisted rebar in his right hand.
“We’re American citizens!” Hawaii snarled. “We have rights!”
In the quiet of a city devoid of car engines, horns, rumbling construction machinery, and the hum of humanity, Dakota and Logan could hear every word clear as day.
“You can’t treat us like this, man,” Hawaii said. “We paid for those ambulances and fire trucks with our tax dollars. I don’t see a single one anywhere!”
“We’re here to help,” said one of the first responders, the taller, heavier one—a woman. “Others are coming behind us. I’m out of supplies, but I’ll go back for more and return.”
“We’ve set up a field hospital a mile west of here,” the second responder—a guy—said. “It’s just outside the hot zone at Miami Jordan High School off 36th street. You’re all mobile. Come with us.”
He pointed at the leg of one of the aggressors. “We’ve even got an extra stretcher for that thigh wound.”
A burly black man in a gray pinstriped suit limped closer to the responders. A hunk of twisted metal jutted from his left thigh. He held a pair of tire irons in each hand.
“My wife was trapped in our Toyota,” he said, wincing. “She was crushed between a bus and a damn SUV. Where were you then? Huh?”
“We’ll come back and help her—”
“She’s dead,” Pinstripe said, his features contorting with grief. “We waited two days for you people, and you never came.”
“I’m sorry for your—” the woman started.
“Too little, too late.” His eyes hardened. “You left her out here to die. Just like Hurricane Katrina. Only the rich are worth saving, is that it?”
“Of course not!” the woman said, sounding affronted.
“We’ve been searching for people for over twenty-five hours,” the male responder said. “We couldn’t get in until the radiation levels fell—”
“But you could leave all of us out here to be poisoned?” Bandanna scowled. He gestured with the rebar at their suits and masks. “While you have all the protection you need? That doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
“Dude, we’re doing everything we can,” the male responder said. “Come to the high school. We’ll get you hooked up with water, a hot meal, and medicine to help with those burns. You’ll feel like a new person, I promise you.”
Even in his PPE suit, Dakota could tell the male responder was shorter and thinner than his partner. Straight black hair stuck out above the rim of his goggles. His right
leg jittered nervously.
“You promise? I think we’ve had our fill of government promises,” the guy in the black tank top spat.
Dakota’s heart banged against her ribs as she watched. Adrenaline spiked through her veins. This situation was going sideways fast.
“You got food in that pack?” A white woman in her twenties with cropped wheat-blonde hair stained crimson kept wiping blood from her eyes. An ugly, weeping gash arced across her right temple all the way to her chin.
Both of her ears, her nose, and her upper lip were studded with several silver hoops. Her bare, heavily tattooed arms were red and blistered. “How about pain meds?”
“We ran out, but we’ll get more—” the female responder started.
Blondie waved a tire iron aggressively at the woman. “You holding out on us? Keeping it all for yourself?”
“We have work to do,” the female responder said evenly, though her voice was shaky. “I think it’s time for us to go.”
“We’re just talking,” Hawaii said. “That’s all. Just asking some pertinent questions of our government representatives. We have a right to know why you’re failing so utterly.”
Tank Top grunted an affirmative.
Bandanna took a menacing step toward them. “Maybe you should strip off that fancy suit and give it to someone who can actually use it.”
“That’s a hard pass.” The male responder shook his head emphatically. “Harlow’s not touching that suit. You people are taking a ride on the crazy train.”
“Take it off,” Bandanna said in a low, threatening voice. “Now.”
“Okay,” the woman said, her hands up, trying to placate them. “Just remain calm. We’ll do what you ask. We can work this out—”
“No way.” The male responder stepped in front of the woman, keeping himself between her and the aggressors. “Dude, you’re already almost out of the hot zone. Don’t lose your sh—"
“Excuse me?” Bandanna stalked closer. He was less than ten feet away from the responders now. His lip curled in a vicious sneer. “What the hell did you just say to me?”
22
Dakota
Dakota watched in tense silence as the group slowly closed in around the first responders. She had hoped the altercation would play itself out without escalating, but it didn’t look promising.
She and Logan were still barely visible at the corner of the building, but the attackers’ backs were turned to the street; the responders were too busy fending off the crazies to notice them.
“This is certifiably insane!” The male responder jabbed his gloved finger at Bandanna. “I’ve had it with you people! Take your circus somewhere else!”
Dakota agreed with him. Every word he’d said was correct, but it wasn’t the right move. Instead of defusing the situation, the tension ramped up tenfold.
He was trying to be the hero, but he’d just made things worse.
The tough, muscled Latino in the black tank top who’d been hanging back, mostly watching, shifted and lifted his pistol slightly. His face darkened. “You people? What the hell does that mean?”
“That a racist remark?” Pinstripe growled. “You a bigot? That why you couldn’t bother yourself to get down here before now?” His voice rose. “Is that why you let my wife die?”
“What the hell? No!” the male responder sputtered angrily. “I’m volunteering for this, you festering buttholes—”
“Park!” the female responder warned sharply.
“You threatening us now?” Bandanna stalked up to him, halting a couple feet away. He towered over the short first responder, whose head only reached Bandanna’s bulky chest.
Still, the guy didn’t back down an inch. His gloved hands were balled into trembling fists. He was losing it.
“Enough!” he exploded. “Everybody back the hell up, right now!”
“No, I don’t think I will.” Bandanna lifted the length of rebar like a sword and pressed it to the guy’s throat. “I’ll take that radiation suit you’ve got, right now.”
They were crazed, out of their minds from pain, desperation, and shock. Logic and reasoning weren’t even making a dent.
They were going to seriously hurt someone.
Instinctively, Dakota started forward.
“What’re you doing?” Logan hissed. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back around the corner of the coffee shop.
“Those are first responders!” she whispered fiercely. “They’re risking their lives to help people.”
He blinked at her. “Still not a good idea.”
She lifted the M4 carbine and pressed the butt against her shoulder. “We should help them.”
“We’re not in danger. If we get involved, it’ll waste time, energy, and someone will get hurt. Likely us. Those people are psychos. They could attack for no reason at all.”
“Like they’re doing now—to innocent people.”
Even as she spoke, part of her agreed with him. It was past 5:40 p.m. and they hadn’t even reached Palm Cove yet, though they were close now.
They’d already been out here longer than planned. Every minute they spent in the hot zone exposed them to more radiation.
Every minute wasted might be the difference between life and death for Eden.
In a crisis, you only took care of yourself and your own.
That was the first rule of survival.
Ezra hadn’t taught her that. That one, she’d learned on her own.
And yet…
Ezra helped you. He took her and Eden in when he could have turned them away or even shot them.
Sister Rosemarie saved you, too. The woman had risked her own safety for Dakota and Eden when she smuggled them the key to the compound gate and helped them escape.
Sometimes, there was nothing you could do for someone, and you just had to push forward and find a way to shed the guilt.
But sometimes, you could do something. This wasn’t like the trapped, grievously wounded victims they could do nothing for. They could actually stop this.
All her life, she’d loathed the people who witnessed her suffering and stood by and did nothing. She sure as hell wasn’t going to let the apocalypse turn her into one of those assholes.
“We’re not animals,” she said, as much to herself as to Logan. “And we’re not the bad guys.”
Logan gave an indifferent shrug. “Speak for yourself. I signed up to help you get your sister and win myself a safehouse, not play vigilante against armed crazies.”
She grasped for anything. “What about honor?”
“Honor isn’t so much a motivating factor for me. Try something a bit more appealing—like a naked woman, or better yet, a vat full of vodka.”
She glared at him. “Your morality?”
He stared back at her, blinking rapidly. His eyes were bloodshot. “Alas. I must have misplaced it.”
She restrained herself from punching him in the face. “Fine, be a worthless drunk. I’m not leaving them.”
Logan seized her upper arm. The careless, nonchalant mask dropped from his face. His expression was tense, his mouth tight. “Wait—you don’t have any bullets.”
She shook him off. “They don’t know that, do they?”
Dakota turned away from him, rounded the corner, and marched toward the group, her empty carbine lifted and ready.
She was reasonably confident she could control this. She’d scare them with the M4, startle them into backing off—and quickly.
She was outnumbered, but they were wounded, and only one of them had a gun.
That put the odds a little more in her favor, at least.
She didn’t know the best play in this situation. She hated winging anything. But there was no time; the ragged mob was closing in on the two first responders.
Blondie and Hawaii were pawing at the woman, trying to rip off her respirator mask, while Bandanna pressed the jagged edge of the rebar against the male responder’s suited throat.
These people weren’t th
inking clearly about anything anymore. They were crazed with grief, pain, and shock. They only wanted blood.
She was out of time.
For an instant, she hesitated. Maybe this was a mistake.
There would be a cost to getting involved. There always was.
Maybe the price for helping these people would be higher than she knew, higher than she could afford to pay.
But she had to do something. How could she live with herself if she just walked away?
Icy adrenaline surged through her veins. She tasted fear on her tongue, sharp and metallic as blood.
One, two, three. Breathe.
Go.
“Hey!” She planted her feet and leveled the muzzle of the carbine at the center of Tank Top’s spine. “Stop right now!”
23
Logan
Logan watched the waitress march out to face the deranged maniacs like some kamikaze cowboy.
She was as insane as they were.
This wasn’t his business. Wasn’t his problem. He should just walk away, hightail it out of the hot zone, save himself and find someplace to hunker down…
And then what? Get good and drunk, that’s what. Even more than he was now. And stay punch-drunk until the world fixed itself again.
But that wasn’t going to happen.
Besides, his world was already fractured. Bombs and anarchy had nothing to do with his own damaged soul.
He’d been spiraling the drain for years. And he knew it.
He glanced back at Shay and Julio, who waited as instructed, huddled behind the burned-out husk of the classic Firebird, Julio fingering his gold cross and murmuring prayers, Shay chewing anxiously on her fingernails.
Shay was a healer; Julio, a kind and gentle soul, was a peacemaker. Neither of them was cut out to be a warrior.
He was, though.
He hadn’t lied to Dakota, but he had allowed her to assume what she’d wanted to. She knew the truth now. He was no soldier.
But he was a fighter. And a damn good one.
