by Kyla Stone
The woman gave another imperious sigh, like she was already patting herself on the back for her boundless, saintly patience. “What kind of emergency, Ms. Sloane?”
Dakota couldn’t tell the social worker who she’d seen or what she feared it meant. She’d never explained what she and her sister had escaped from. To bring Maddox up now would expose them both to questions they wouldn’t—couldn’t—answer.
“I just need to see her, okay?”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Frustration bubbled up inside her. She was already doing her best to do everything absolutely right.
First: gain steady employment and stable housing. Second: petition the courts for custody before Eden’s rich, shiny foster parents sank their claws into her permanently and whisked her away with promises of a real family, vacations to the Keys, art and tennis lessons.
Until then, she kept to herself and stayed wary and watchful.
She saved every penny, spending nothing extra on herself other than her sessions three times a week at the gun range off Miami Avenue.
She carefully maintained a low profile—never attracting attention, avoiding conflict, even when she wanted to punch someone in the kidneys.
It was essential to remain under the radar at all times.
In two years, she’d begun to think that they’d escaped the horrors they’d fled, that the past wouldn’t follow them.
But she was dead wrong.
The fragile sense of security she’d built around herself had shattered the moment her gaze snagged on Maddox Cage among the sweating crowds outside the bar windows.
“I’m practically her guardian!” she forced out. “I’ll be ready to petition the court in a few months—”
“It would be foolish to make such an assumption, Ms. Sloane.” Mrs. Simpson sniffed derisively. “It’s not an appropriate—or healthy—frame of mind, especially considering your inability to maintain steady employment, your lack of a G.E.D. or high school diploma, and your…flexible…housing arrangements.”
Dakota could imagine her smug face, her cheap polyester suits, that awful chemical perfume that smelled like burnt rubber. The woman despised Dakota and her “negative influence” over her fifteen-year-old sister.
A helpless fury roiled in her gut. “I’ve done everything you’ve asked. Gotten a job—”
“Bussing tables hardly qualifies as a job—”
“I have an apartment!”
“In a highly dangerous and questionable neighborhood.”
She and Eden had been separated for almost two years, after they’d been caught sleeping on the sidewalks on Southeast First Street in downtown Miami.
With no parents and no family, the Florida Department of Children and Families—a terrible misnomer of a name if she’d ever heard one—had swallowed them up into its bloated, utterly broken foster care system.
After a slew of disastrous foster placements, Dakota was stuck in a group home for unwanted teens until she’d come of age eighteen months ago.
Her younger sister—beautiful, sweet, traumatized Eden—was placed in a specialized foster home for the medically fragile.
She swallowed back a curse. She couldn’t afford to piss off a woman who still held so much power over her life.
“Please,” she said instead, hating herself for begging, but giving it one last shot. If the woman still refused to help, she’d have to take matters into her own hands.
“You know I can’t do that even if I wanted to, dear,” Mrs. Simpson simpered. “And you know I only have your sister’s best interests at heart…”
Behind Dakota, someone at the bar gasped. Dakota glanced back at the flat-screen. Her arm fell limply to her side. Her fingers barely held onto the phone.
The social worker babbled something, but Dakota wasn’t listening anymore.
She could do nothing but watch the screen in stunned disbelief.
Cold went through Dakota all the way to her bones.
The screen was split now—one side displaying the bomb squad descending on the minivan in Chicago; the other side, a shaky cellphone video of a massive cloud rising into the sky over a city so hazy with smoke, she couldn’t tell which it was.
“...We repeat, we’ve just received reports from outside Washington, D.C. that there has been a massive explosion,” the male reporter said, his voice rising in agitation.
The female reporter tapped her earpiece. “Communication is down in the area, but we’ve received information that a fireball at least a half mile wide has been sighted over Capitol Hill. It appears this is—this is an attack, Gerard. An attack on American soil…”
The first reporter’s face drained of color. “It appears to be a bomb. A nuclear bomb.”
The shot cut to the reporter on the street in Chicago. “We also have an unconfirmed report that the Michigan Avenue bomb is likely an improvised nuclear device, Gerard.”
The newsdesk reporters didn’t speak for a moment, the shock and horror on their faces genuine. So often, the media seemed to feed on manufactured outrage or barely disguised gleeful delight in the “next big thing.”
This, though, was beyond imaginable.
Dakota’s own pulse thudded in her throat. Her chest tightened like some invisible hand was squeezing her heart.
“Ah,” Gerard stammered, “so I’m hearing that we have multiple bombs. Multiple nuclear bombs—at least two. One has detonated in D.C. already. We’ve heard nothing definitive yet from official sources.
“Social media is blowing up with reports of a terrible explosion, though all locations are at least a few miles from the blast. We’ve had zero communication from anyone at the White House or Capitol Hill…Massive casualties must be expected…”
The patrons in the bar—five at the bar itself, three more in the booths—sat staring at the screens, frozen, their mouths agape.
Dread coiled in Dakota’s gut. Slowly, she raised the phone to her ear. “Mrs. Simpson, are you watching the news? Check your phone.”
“Really, Ms. Sloane,” Mrs. Simpson huffed, “I don’t have time for your games today. Some of us have actual work to do—”
“Another bomb!” the female reporter gasped. “We’ve just lost contact with large portions of New York. Hundreds—thousands of reports coming in on Twitter and social media. People reporting a massive mushroom cloud seen from miles away, buildings collapsing, massive fires…” Her voice trailed off in disbelief.
The second reporter gestured at someone offscreen before turning back to the cameras, visibly shaken. “We have a video feed. Please brace yourselves. This is live—”
The aerial shot revealed an enormous pillar of smoke larger than Dakota had ever seen, dwarfing the skyscrapers. She could barely see the skyline through all the smoke and fire.
Dakota took a step back, and then another, until her butt pressed against the lip of the bar table.
Three bombs. Not just bombs. Nukes.
Three targeted cities. New York. Washington D.C. Chicago.
Were there only three? Or were there more?
She thought of Ezra. He’d warned her of something like this.
What was it he always said? That smart terrorists would engage in a coordinated and multi-pronged attack. They would simultaneously attack the infrastructure—the electric grid, import hubs, or several cities—all intended to eviscerate American morale.
Just like this.
Dakota was a pessimist by nature. Experience had taught her that. Life always kicked you when you were already down.
Worst case scenario, more bombs were just waiting to be detonated. Miami wasn’t the largest city in the U.S., but the metropolitan area was home to more than five million people. Seventh largest, her boss had said just last week.
Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami were also major hubs of commerce.
If there were more bombs, Miami was just as likely a target as any other.
An image bubbled up from somewhere deep insi
de her—a glimpse of a memory she’d shoved down deep. Something darkly, horribly familiar about all of this…
That feeling was in her, a cold dread creeping up her spine, tightening her chest, clawing at her throat. The hairs on her arms stood on end.
She’d learned to recognize it for what it was: a warning.
Dakota had to get out of the city. Right now.
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