Her muscles were stiff, her back and shoulders sore from two days lying in the tub, even with the cushions.

  Her throat burned with thirst. Her mouth felt dry as a desert.

  She’d been lost in a restless sleep, dreaming of monsters again, crouched and waiting, ready to pounce from the darkened corners of her mind.

  Her empty, knotted stomach lurched with a wave of nausea.

  She turned her head and spat. Only a few strings of saliva dribbled out.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her arm and sat up. She inhaled deeply, taking in the fetid stench that hung in the air. It was different than the acidic stink of urine from the toilet.

  This smelled like rotten eggs.

  From the fridge? But no. The fridge didn’t have electricity, but it was sealed. There shouldn’t be any smells escaping from it.

  Could she be so hungry that she was smelling imaginary food? If that were the case, surely she’d smell delicious scrambled eggs or eggs-over-easy, or better yet, decadent roasted turkey or freshly baked cinnamon buns…

  This was different. The stench was like rotten eggs, but also like something else she’d smelled before.

  Last summer, Gabriella and Jorge had taken her to Florida Bay, which had stunk so bad she’d begged them to leave.

  Jorge had explained the smell was hydrogen sulfide, produced by the natural decomposition in organic-rich marine mud. Something about the large amounts of organic material combined with low oxygen concentrations.

  The explanation had gone over her head, except for the part about how small amounts of sulfide gas were added to propane gas so people could smell it in case of a gas leak in their home.

  It was gas she smelled.

  Gas leaking from somewhere inside the house.

  She clambered to her feet, stepped out of the tub, and felt along the toilet and the counter to the sink.

  She flipped the handles. Still no water. The sink was still bone dry.

  A helpless sob ripped through her, wracking her ribs, choking her throat. She clutched the edges of the counter, staring into a mirror she couldn’t see, trying not to panic.

  But the panic was coming for her anyway, just like the monsters of her nightmares, the monsters who’d stolen her voice, who came creeping back every night, seeking the only thing they hadn’t yet taken—her life.

  Something terrible was coming, and she couldn’t stop it by herself.

  She wanted to scream and shout for someone to come and rescue her.

  She opened her mouth, but only that terrible rasping breath came out—a mangled, ruined sound that no one would hear outside of the tomb of this awful, claustrophobic bathroom.

  Her eyes stung. Tears leaked down her cheeks. Her chest hitched as she tried to hold back the waves of fear and worry and doubt.

  Eden was afraid to stay. But she was terrified to leave.

  Indecision gripped her.

  She was used to other people telling her what to do—her real father, Maddox, then Dakota and Ezra, her social worker, now her foster parents.

  Other people made the decisions, and she was content to follow. But now there was no one to give her direction.

  No one to tell her which choice was the correct one, which led to suffering and death and which led to life.

  She needed Dakota. She needed her sister.

  Instead, she was stuck here, crying and scared like a little kid, alone in the silence and the dark.

  34

  Dakota

  “What can we do?” Dakota knelt beside the female responder, who crouched beneath the shade of the sagging gas station overhang. Logan stood behind them, standing guard, his pistol in his hands.

  The pump next to her was filmed in white dust, the nozzle hose drooping off its hook, dark liquid drizzling from its tip. The air stank of gasoline and smoke.

  The smoke stench was stronger now. The fires were getting closer.

  The male responder—a short, slight Korean man in his thirties—lay on the oil-stained concrete between them, his legs sticking out straight in front of him and elevated by a medical bag.

  He had a round, youthful face, his full cheeks slightly pockmarked from old acne scars, the fuzz of a faint mustache above his upper lip. His eyes were closed, but he was conscious, grimacing and hissing labored breaths through gritted teeth.

  The rebar blow had missed his skull but struck his right forearm instead. He cradled the arm to his chest. Dakota couldn’t see the damage through his bulky PPE suit.

  “I need to cut his suit off to get a look at that arm,” the woman said briskly.

  Dakota unsheathed her knife and handed it to her. She watched as the woman cut through the rubbery suit material and freed the man’s right arm from his shoulder to his wrist.

  His arm looked deformed. A sharp sliver of bone protruded from the skin halfway up his forearm. Blood dripped to the dusty concrete, the droplets bright red against the muted, ashy gray.

  “Holy crap,” Harlow muttered.

  The man groaned. “How—bad is it really?”

  “Don’t look, Park,” Harlow said. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Son of a motherless bastard,” Park mumbled. “It hurts.”

  “Just don’t pass out on me. You may be small, but I’m not about to carry you.”

  He grunted, his lips pulled back from his teeth from the pain. “Not making…any promises.”

  The woman looked at Dakota. “All of our medical supplies are gone. Do you have anything we can use to help him?”

  “We have water and some basic first aid in our bags,” Logan said as he peered over Dakota’s shoulder. “I’ll get them and bring Shay.”

  As he jogged off, the woman met Dakota’s gaze. Wisps of ash-blonde hair clung to her temples, the rest of it yanked back in a tight bun.

  “You saved our lives.” She removed her mask and safety goggles and wiped her sweaty face. In her late forties, she was a sturdy, broad-shouldered woman with a heavy jaw and a wide forehead, a spray of freckles spanning her weathered cheeks.

  “They were crazy,” continued the woman, half in anger, half in disbelief. “They almost killed Park. We can’t thank you enough.”

  Dakota nodded tightly, momentarily forgetting about the goose egg swelling the right side of her head. A fresh wave of pain radiated across her skull, down her neck. She winced.

  “I’m Nancy Harlow, by the way,” the woman said. “Everyone calls me Harlow.”

  “Dakota Sloane.”

  The man only grunted.

  “This is Yu-Jin Park,” Harlow said, hooking her thumb at him. “I just call him Park.”

  “I apologize…for my lack of manners,” he said through gritted teeth.

  “I’m a security guard, or gaming surveillance officer if you will, at Hialeah Park Casino in Hialeah. Park works the tables as a poker dealer. The man loves gambling so much he made it his job. He has a temper on him, too, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “They…started it,” Park said.

  Harlow rolled her eyes affectionately. “We met eight years ago during our smoking breaks, and we’ve been fast friends ever since. When I took the Emergency Medical Responder certification three years ago, he tagged along. He’s an adrenaline junkie, is what he is. Jumps out of airplanes in his free time. Can you imagine? Who would jump out of a perfectly good plane?”

  Dakota just stared at her.

  Harlow didn’t even seem to notice. She jabbered on, unfazed. “Anyway, after the attacks, it only made sense to volunteer. I’ve only got my two cats at home, and my apartment is well clear of the hot zone, so they’re fine as rain. We’re both single and childless, so…”

  “Who better to volunteer…for radiation poisoning?” Park wheezed.

  Dakota glanced at her watch. It was already 6:22 p.m. They were past the initial threshold for acute radiation sickness themselves.

  The sun had begun its descent across a sky hazy with distant fires. The humid air still smelled burnt. Her back prickled with heat.

  How much radiation had their bodies soaked up in the last six hours? One gray, at least. Maybe as much as one and a half.

  The side of her skull pulsed with pain, but that was from the blow to the head. She didn’t feel any different—other than sore, tired, and hot, her limbs heavy beneath the weight of constant anxiety and fear.

  Radiation was an insidious, invisible poison they couldn’t feel or see, even as it invaded their flesh, their bones, their internal organs. Not until it was far too late.

  They hadn’t even reached Eden yet, still a half mile northwest.

  She was so close, and yet Dakota still felt like a vast canyon separated her from her sister. Her chest squeezed like a winch winding tighter and tighter.

  Logan strode back toward the gas station. Shay and Julio trailed behind him, Julio still steadying Shay with his arm slung around her waist.

  Julio handed Harlow several sealed bottles of water, while Shay pulled a handful of fresh packages of gauze and medical tape out of Julio’s sequined bag.

  Shay introduced herself as a nursing student. “May I take a look?”

  “By all means,” Harlow said, moving aside.

  Julio helped Shay sink down beside Dakota. She bent over and examined the man’s injured arm. “An open fracture. Looks like both the ulna and the radius are broken.”

  “We’re going to have to try and set the bones, right?” Harlow asked Shay.

  Park blanched. “No freakin’ way.”

  “I’m going to take that as a yes,” Harlow said.

  “Yes,” Shay said. “We’ve got to set the bones or he risks more damage with every movement. Plus, I need to irrigate the wound to flush out the dirt and bacteria, then splint it.”

  “Please tell me you know how to do all that,” Harlow said.

  “I have some experience with splints, though not outside of a medical setting. But the same theory applies.”

  “Oh, thank heavens,” Harlow said. “That wasn’t covered in our two-day training. I was gonna have to make it up as I went along.”

  Park gritted his teeth. “Think I’m gonna just…pass out now.”

  “I think I might, too.” Julio’s face was tinged a sickly shade of green. He shuffled back toward Logan, shaking his head. “I’m really sorry I can’t help.”

  “We’ve got this,” Shay said with confidence. “We just need the materials to make the splint.”

  “Ugh.” Park’s eyes rolled back in his head for a moment. “Just do it…fast.”

  “I saw a couple of short, broken pipes in the debris by the third gas pump,” Dakota offered. “Maybe a foot long, half an inch thick? And we can cut off the straps from one of our bags.”

  “My backpack is empty,” Harlow said. “You’re welcome to use it.”

  “Perfect,” Shay said as she gathered her supplies. Dakota found the pipes, scrubbed them free of contamination with one of the bottles of water and soap, and cut the straps of a bag with her knife.

  Shay told Park to wriggle his fingers. He did, but only slightly.

  She frowned. “You could have pinched nerves or punctured blood vessels. Once we set the bones, we’ll try again.”

  “What now?” Dakota asked. She wanted to get this done as fast as possible so she could get to Eden. She felt every second ticking by with agonizing slowness.

  “We need to provide gentle traction to keep the bone ends apart and minimize pain as we splint the arm.”

  “That sounds…like torture,” Park wheezed. “Please tell me you…have a tranquilizer in that bag.”

  “Sorry.” Shay scrunched up her nose. “We’ve got to do this the old-fashioned way.”

  35

  Dakota

  Dakota watched as Harlow helped Shay stabilize the fracture, Shay’s hands perfectly steady as she kept the jagged bone ends still by holding his arm above and below the fracture and exerting gentle traction in opposite directions.

  “Son of a motherless—!”

  Park cussed a blue streak, but Shay didn’t even flinch. “Hold still or it will hurt more.”

  “You ready?” Harlow asked Park.

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Just pretend it’s another thrill like leaping out of an airplane at twelve thousand feet,” Harlow said in a soothing, motherly tone. “You like to live dangerously. Imagine the story you can tell all our co-workers.”

  “Go to hell,” Parker mumbled.

  “You first. Steady now. Here comes the hard part.”

  Harlow held his upper arm while Shay pulled gently on the lower arm below the break. Park groaned, the tendons standing out in his neck.

  Slowly, the broken bones fitted back into place. His deformed forearm straightened.

  Park squeezed his eyes shut, whimpering between gritted teeth. He didn’t pass out, even though he probably wanted to.

  Harlow patted his healthy shoulder. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  Park murmured an unintelligible response.

  While Shay kept the arm immobilized, Dakota irrigated the wound carefully, dried the undamaged flesh with gauze, then covered it with a sterile dressing.

  “He needs something soft for padding so the metal pipes don’t rub painfully against his skin,” Shay said.

  “How about we remove his PPE suit and cut it into strips?” Julio offered. “He won’t be digging around in the rubble, so surface contamination shouldn’t be an issue before he gets out of the hot zone.”

  “Good idea.” Dakota and Harlow carefully cut off the suit while Shay held Park still. Shay gently wrapped it around his injured arm.

  They placed one of the pipes against either side of his arm and tied the straps of the shoulder bag just below his wrist and above his elbow to keep the break stabilized.

  “Now, wriggle your fingers,” Shay instructed.

  They barely twitched.

  Shay touched his fingertips. “Can you feel that?”

  “Through the…pulsing agony? Not really.”

  Shay’s frown deepened. “We need to get him to an experienced surgeon.”

  “Let’s go, then,” Dakota said.

  “First, we need to make sure everybody’s okay. You’re bleeding,” Shay said to Logan. “Let me see.”

  Logan stood with his back to one of the poles, pistol in hand, half-listening while keeping watch. The midsection of his black shirt was wet with blood.

  He gave a weary shake of his head. “I’m fine.”

  “Like hell you are,” Dakota said.

  She’d seen the ugly gash across his ribs when he’d lifted his shirt earlier to check his injuries. It didn’t look lethal, but it probably hurt like hell.

  “You must have misheard me.” Shay stood, swaying only slightly, and brandished the Neosporin at him. Her mouth was set in stubborn determination. “That wasn’t a request.”

  Logan tensed. Dakota expected him to argue further, but he simply lifted his shirt with his free hand and let out a resigned sigh. Shay could be quite persuasive when she put her mind to it.

  His abs and chest were lean but muscled. A dozen faint white scars crisscrossed his bronze skin. A purple bruise marred his left pectorals; another shadowed his right hip.

  Logan saw her looking and flashed a tight grin.

  She jerked her gaze away, her cheeks warming for some ridiculous reason.

  Shay didn’t even blink. She cleaned up the laceration, smeared his scrapes with topical antibiotics, applied two large squares of fresh gauze, and wrapped his ribs with medical tape.

  “There’s no reason to risk serious infection when we don’t need to,” Shay said sternly. “That’s what I’m here for.” She turned to Dakota. “Your turn.”

  Shay checked her head, prodding with gentle fingers, and made her follow Shay’s finger with her eyes. “Your pupils are fine. Any dizziness, confusion, ringing in your ears, nausea?”

  “Nope.” Dakota’s skull felt like someone had nailed it with a hammer, which was close enough to the truth. But Shay didn’t think she’d suffered a concussion.

  They’d escaped rather unscathed, considering.

  Except for Park.

  “Can we get out of here now?” She rose to her feet, too anxious to keep still any longer. Her entire body was a bundle of nerves strung taut. All she could think of was Eden.

  Julio wheeled over the all-terrain stretcher with oversized, eighteen-inch

  wheels. Together, Julio and Harlow carefully helped Park to his feet, then loaded him

  onto the stretcher.

  He hissed out a pained breath with every shift and bump. Harlow elevated his legs with her backpack at the foot of the stretcher.

  “Where’s the nearest operational hospital?” Shay asked.

  “Hialeah Hospital and Palmetto to the west and Coral Cables and Doctors Hospital to the south are already inundated,” Harlow said. “Jackson Memorial, North Shore, and Aventura had to be evacuated. Kendall Regional set up emergency triage tents in their parking lots, but they’re flooded beyond capacity, too. We need to get him to—”

  A loud beep shattered the stillness.

  36

  Dakota

  Instinctively, Dakota tightened her grip on the Sig, heart hammering in her throat.

  Logan dropped into a defensive posture. He kept his pistol in the low ready position and scanned the area warily.

  Dakota did the same, taking in the sagging, debris-strewn gas station, hunched, empty buildings, and desolate street.

  Heat shimmered off the asphalt. Fifty yards ahead, several palm trees clumped in the island in the center of the street sagged listlessly. Humidity hung thick and heavy in the stagnant, smoky air.

  No movement. No people. No threats other than the fires burning in the distance. Nothing she could see, anyway.

  “Oh, sorry,” Harlow said sheepishly. “That’s just the alarm from my PERD, my Personal Emergency Radiation Detector.”

  “Your PPE suits don’t protect you from gamma rays,” Dakota said. With the attack and its aftermath, she’d forgotten the first responders were willingly exposing themselves to radiation, too. “How long have you been out here?”

 

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