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  Joel allowed himself to cry.

  They weren’t there. Joel's family was gone, and he had no idea where they might be. He’d come all this way, hundreds of miles, survived some of the worst of humanity, only to be rewarded with this. Where were they? What happened to them? His mind raced, full of possibilities, none of them good.

  Then it hit him. The basement. The same place where he kept all his supplies, the supplies he’d lamented not having nearby after the EMP. The food, the weapons, the ammo. It was all in the basement. If they were still here, if there was even a chance of it, that’s where they would be.

  Joel bounded back down the stairs, tripping more than once on his way, and tore through the kitchen. Ashley stood in the doorway, frozen, unable to set foot in the house. Joel only made eye contact with her for a brief moment before he continued on his way, crashing down the basement steps.

  His feet hit the concrete and thudded, echoing around the room. It was dark, and the lone window leading outside was wide open, letting the cool air blow through. Joel strained his eyes, looking left and right for any signs, but found nothing—until a glint caught his eye.

  There was something moving, something close to the ground, so Joel ran to it—and immediately wished he hadn’t. It was hair, long dark hair, blowing in the wind from the window.

  Shelby’s body laid before him, sprawled out face down, in a pool of dried blood. The gun he’d hidden in the hallway closet rested on the ground not far away. Screaming, Joel reached for it and threw open the chamber to find it empty. Whoever had used it, whoever had killed his wife, had done it with his gun.

  Joel flung the gun away, sending it skittering across the basement floor until it smashed into the wall. Kneeling beside her, he scooped Shelby’s lifeless body into his arms, turning her over to face him. She looked nothing like the woman he’d married, the woman he loved.

  She was gone. Joel would never get the chance to apologize to her, to tell her how much she meant to him, how much he valued their little life together. This new world had robbed him of that, taken away everything that mattered. He howled, his voice filling the entire house as he descended into his grief.

  It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It should’ve been Joel, the man who’d repeatedly run from his family when they needed him. It should’ve been him lying there cold on the concrete instead of Shelby. She was everything, full of life, full of love, always willing to give of herself when no one else was—unlike him.

  But she was gone. Joel couldn’t bring her back, couldn’t make her smile again, couldn’t hear her laugh again. It was unfathomable.

  A hand on his shoulder made him jump, and he whirled to find Ashley standing beside him, her other hand held over her mouth, tears shining on her cheeks. She didn’t need to say anything, didn’t need to speak. All that mattered was that she was there, that Joel wasn’t alone, or not nearly as alone as he felt.

  His wife was dead, and his kids were missing, but he wasn’t alone.

  “I’m so sorry,” Ashley whispered. Joel couldn’t respond. What could he possibly say?

  “We have to bury her,” Joel said after what felt like an eternity had passed while he stared down at her body, one arm dangling across his lap. Ashley didn’t argue, only nodded, and carefully Joel sat Shelby back down on the concrete. He kissed her forehead, winced at the coldness, and stood to find Ashley staring him in the eye.

  “Joel,” Ashley started, reaching out for his hand, but he stepped around her and went upstairs. If he stopped now, he would be lost, consumed with the grief of his loss. He had to do this, had to put an end to it if he did nothing else.

  Joel stepped through the living room and out onto the front porch, down the steps, and around the corner to the garage. The electric opener had never worked, even before the EMP, so he crouched down and placed his fingers in the crack beneath the door and the concrete driveway. With one heave, he sent the door crashing up.

  The garage was still full of their boxes, the things they hadn’t yet unpacked. This house, this neighborhood, was supposed to be their second chance. Joel and Shelby had never gotten the chance to make it happen, had never even gotten the chance to dream about it.

  They would never get that chance.

  With his blood pounding, Joel charged through the maze of boxes to the back of the garage and grabbed both of the shovels he owned. Shelby used to use them for gardening, at their old house. Again a pang of grief wracked him as he stared at the shovels.

  If he stopped now, he'd be lost.

  With both shovels in hand, Joel walked out of the garage, handed one to Ashley, and led her around the garage to the backyard. It seemed inadequate, almost offensive, to lay his wife to rest there, but they had no other choice. So, despite the screaming in his arm as he raised the shovel in both hands, Joel thrust the metal into the earth, the sound drowning out the choking of his tears as they poured down his face.

  By the time they’d finished digging a plot big enough to fit her, the sun had almost risen. It didn’t matter. Joel had to see this through. Wiping the sweat and dirt from his face, he jabbed the shovel into the earth one last time and left it standing there.

  Ashley followed him inside, and Joel went upstairs to tear the sheet off the bed, ruining the one piece of perfection in the house that remained. Shelby deserved better, something grand, but the cloth was all Joel had to shroud her.

  If he stopped now, he'd be lost.

  Wordlessly, the sheet dangling over both his shoulders, Joel led Ashley back to the basement and almost collapsed at the sight of his wife. It was too much. No matter how many times he saw her, no matter how much he tried to reckon with it, he couldn’t adjust. How could he? How could anyone deal with something like this, the loss of the person who mattered to them most?

  “Let me,” Ashley said, taking the sheet off Joel’s shoulders. Though Joel’s initial reaction was to yank it away from her, to tell her to leave him alone, he couldn’t do it. He didn’t understand why she was there, why she’d come with him, much less decided to stay and help him through this, but he was glad. Joel couldn’t have done it without Ashley, couldn’t have done any of it without her.

  Delicately, Ashley kneeled and wrapped the blanket around Shelby. Joel wept as he watched, allowing himself to feel the emotions he’d denied since the EMP. It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t right, but it was final. Together, they wrapped Shelby entirely and carried her upstairs and out the back door into the yard.

  They laid her in the earth with care, both of them crying, and Joel stood staring down at the lifeless body in the ground. He never imagined the last time he saw his wife would be like this. Husbands were supposed to go before wives, that was the way it worked.

  If he stopped now, he'd be lost.

  Reaching for the shovel, Joel tore it out of the earth before ramming it back into the mound of dirt they’d thrown aside to dig the hole. Together, he and Ashley threw shovel after shovel full of dirt onto Shelby, but it never got any easier.

  When they finished, Ashley hugged him and said some words Joel’s brain couldn’t process. He threw the shovel down on the ground and went into the house, up the stairs, and into his bedroom. It would never be the same again, nothing would ever be the same, but he was home.

  Joel collapsed onto the bed, inhaled his wife’s lingering scent on the sheets, and cried himself to sleep.

  24

  For the first time in days, Cass felt safe.

  In the back of a heavily armored military vehicle, surrounded by men with more guns and ammunition than Cass had ever seen gathered in one place at one time, it was hard to feel any other way. Nate sat beside her, his eyes wide, both of them sandwiched between two hulking military men.

  In the darkness, where no one could see, Cass reached for Nate’s hand and squeezed it when their fingers met. She had no idea where they were going, what waited for them on the other side, but it couldn’t have been any worse.

  Austin had been right after all. The joi
nt forces base was a haven, a place for people to go when they had nowhere else. More than anything, Cass was angry with herself for not insisting they go sooner, for not sharing the information with Nate and Shelby. If she had, her mother might still be alive.

  Instead, she’d written it off as paranoid panic speak—and she’d paid the price for it.

  But maybe this could be her second chance, her way to start over. At the very least, she and Nate would be safe, protected, and they could try to figure things out. If it was a military base, there was a good chance the people running it would know what was going on, or at least have a better idea than they did. It was the government, after all, they had to have better intel than anyone else.

  So why hadn’t they shared it? And why weren’t they out on the streets trying to control things, trying to bring order to chaos?

  There must’ve been a good reason for it. If there weren’t, then nothing in Cass’s world would make sense anymore. She had to believe there was something left, some structure or organization that could impose order. If the United States military couldn’t do it, then who the hell could?

  Cass looked up to find Scott staring at her from the front passenger seat; his intense blue eyes fixed on her. It gave her goosebumps, but she tried to ignore the feeling. Most likely, he was just sizing her up. He probably never expected to come into contact with her again—the feeling was mutual.

  When Austin had walked away, after he’d given Cass the brochure for the base, she thought she'd never see him again. Now, however, as they rolled along Katella Avenue toward the military base, she realized that wasn’t true—and she wasn’t sure how to feel about it.

  What would Austin have to say when he saw her again? What would she say to him? Would any of it even matter?

  “Everything okay?” Scott asked, his voice filling the cabin of the vehicle, making Nate jump.

  “As good as it can be, I guess,” Cass said. How else was she supposed to answer that question? Of course, they weren’t okay, everything was decidedly not okay, but she couldn't admit it to all these macho men.

  “Good. Sorry to scare you back there, it’s just protocol,” Scott said. Protocol? If having people get out of their cars, lay on the concrete, and swear they were up to nothing but good was protocol, she couldn’t imagine what the protocol was for people who misbehaved—and she didn’t want to find out.

  “I understand,” Cass said, though she didn’t. What could these guys possibly have to fear? Why were these heavily armed men afraid of passersby—people coming to seek refuge, no less?

  The gang. It hit Cass in the stomach, sent it flipping. That’s why they’d been so aggressive with she and Nate, why they’d grilled them about where they’d come from and why. The car they’d stolen had the gang’s logo. It wasn’t the people coming to seek refuge the military was afraid of; it was the people coming to take what they had. Cass didn’t blame them for that.

  “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I realized who it was,” Scott laughed. “Austin’s going to be over the moon when he sees you.”

  “Really?” Cass asked. She wasn’t in the mood to talk, but she also didn’t want to be alone with her thoughts, so she did everything she could to distract herself—and to cover for Nate, who couldn’t seem to find his tongue.

  “Yeah, he was distraught when you decided not to come with us,” Scott said, and Cass’s entire body went rigid. She turned to find Nate staring at her, his brow furrowed, all the questions he wasn’t able to ask forming as clear as day on his face. Cass had never intended for Nate to find out like that, had never meant for him to find out all, but he’d found out regardless.

  Cass looked at him, silently pleading with him to keep it to himself, and resolved to talk to him about it as soon as they were alone. She couldn’t leave that thread hanging, couldn’t afford to let her brother think that she was a traitor in addition to being a murderer.

  “I didn’t think he was serious,” Cass said. It wasn’t a total lie. Just five days ago, before everything had gone insane, Cass didn’t fully believe what they’d experienced was as bad as Austin said. He’d gone on about an EMP and all this other weird terminology she’d never heard, the kind of stuff her dad would talk about when he was three sheets to the wind, but now she realized how naïve she’d been.

  Five days had changed everything.

  If that was all it took to upend the world entirely, Cass could only imagine what the following five days might bring.

  The base swam into view, nestled behind a massive stretch of brick walls and steel fences. Lights shone inside despite the power outage, but Cass didn’t make much of that. If the US military didn’t have electricity in a blackout, then there was no hope for any of them.

  What did concern her, however, were the lines of people along the road she could now see. Some of them were standing outside tents; others were lying on the grass along the road. What were they doing here? And why hadn’t they been allowed inside? Wasn’t the whole purpose of the military to provide for citizens in a time of crisis like this?

  “I see you’ve met our friends,” Scott said, smirking from the front of the vehicle as he gestured at all the people they passed. “Whatever you do, from now until we get inside the base, don’t open your door for anyone. Understood?” A chill rippled through Cass. Why would Scott say that? Could these people be that dangerous?

  Cass laughed at herself. Of course, they were dangerous; she’d learned that the hard way. Maybe the military was just being safe, cautious, trying to keep their people safe so they could help the rest of the state.

  A circular piece of asphalt flanked the entrance, designed to send people away who didn’t pass the security check. When they reached the small shack, Scott flashed a badge of some sort and the line of men standing behind the closed gate raised their weapons, ready to fire if anyone besides the truck tried to come inside.

  “Do you need this much protection?” Cass asked.

  “I think you already know the answer to that,” Scott said. A few moments passed, anxious moments in which they waited for something, anything to happen. The people who lined the roads outside the base had gotten closer to the truck, and with each step they took, Cass’s pulse quickened. If the group of them decided they wanted the truck, and the people and things inside it, they could’ve tried to take it if they wanted to—though, with the amount of artillery inside the truck, Cass didn’t know how successful they would be.

  Regardless, she didn’t want to find out.

  Thankfully, the gate opened at last, and the driver of the truck stepped on the gas before the gate had fully opened, barely squeezing through the half-open gate, the line of armed men standing in the gap as it closed. Cass turned in her seat, looking over her shoulder to watch the crowd of people as they ran toward the base.

  Cass clapped a hand over her mouth to stop the scream burning inside her as she watched one of the armed guards mow down several people who’d gotten too close to the gate, too close to the men behind it.

  Why would they do something like that? What risk did those people, who were probably just hungry or thirsty, pose to the people inside here? They were obviously not part of the gang if that’s what the military was worried about, so why kill them?

  “Keep it down back there,” Scott said and climbed out of the truck, slamming the door behind him and making Cass jump. She looked at Nate, who looked back at her with wide eyes, and couldn’t find words. But it didn’t matter because she was yanked out of the car seconds later by the armed guy who’d sat next to her.

  “Why did you do that?!” Cass screamed as Scott came around the front of the truck to her. His hands rested on his hips, and he didn’t look pleased, but Cass didn’t give a shit. He had to answer for what he’d done. “Isn’t the whole point of people like you to protect people like them? Why would you just shoot them down like fish in a barrel?”

  “Newsflash, honey, this isn’t the kind of place you thought it was,” he said.

>   “They didn’t mean you any harm, they just wanted something, they’re dying out there, we’re all dying out there,” Cass continued. “Why wouldn’t you just give them something, water, food, something? You didn’t have to kill them.” But was that true? Even Cass herself had had to kill, and she might have to again in the future. Was she all that different from these guys?

  “I think you already know the answer to that too,” Scott said. “We’re here to survive, just like you are. There isn’t always enough to go around.”

  Cass’s blood turned cold in her veins.

  “Now, that being said, we are not here to impose martial law,” Scott said, pacing back and forth in front of her. He wore army fatigues just like the rest of them, his boots clicking across the pavement as he stepped. More than ever before, even during the time she’d dated Austin, Cass found him intense. Too intense.

  “As I’m sure you both have figured out by now, the shit has hit the fan outside. Now, being the world-class organization we are, we’re doing our best to figure out what’s going on and how we can manage the situation. Sometimes, that requires making decisions that aren’t always easy or nice.”

  Had someone above him commanded this? Was Scott merely following orders? And if he was, who the hell would tell him to do something like that? The people outside the gates had no weapons but even if they did they were no match for the heavily-armed men and women behind the gate. They didn’t have to kill them for trying to get in; they could've just pushed them back, maybe roughed them up a little bit to send a message.

  Or maybe Scott was trying to send a very different message.

  “Cass?” a voice asked, snapping Cass out of her thoughts. From the darkness ahead, behind Scott, a figure emerged, fully covered in armor with a gun in hand. It was Austin, but Cass barely recognized him with his hair under a helmet and his body covered by gear.