Page 52 of Ember Rising

He throws me to the ground, the back of my head pounding against the asphalt so hard I cry out.

I get my elbows beneath me and crawl back, the outline of my attacker fuzzy.

“Stop.”

He grinds the word out and points his gun at me, shooting at the ground between my legs. I feel the vibration of the bullet hitting the pavement.

This is a nightmare. A worst-case scenario I’ve managed to avoid until now. My luck has run out.

He keeps the gun pointed at my head as he gets down on one knee, using his free hand to grab the waistband of my pants and pull.

I scream, punching the side of his head and thrashing beneath him.

“Keep fighting. It turns me⁠—”

His eyes bulge and his hand stills. The gun clatters to the ground as someone pulls him off me.

My chest heaves with ragged breaths. I scramble to my feet. There are at least a dozen men looking at me, their expressions all somber.

I flick my gaze to the one who just stabbed my attacker. He uses the toe of his leather work boot to roll the man in the hat onto his back.

He’s not dead. The man who saved me looks down at him with narrowed eyes, the foot-long knife in his hand dripping with blood. He bends, using the tip of his blade to nudge the man’s lips open.

I shake with fear as he easily pushes the knife through the man’s mouth, blood pouring out. My attacker goes still, dead.

After pulling the weapon out and wiping it on the man’s shirt, he looks at me. He’s average height, built lean, but his arms are corded with muscles. His eyes are the blue of a springtime sky.

“You’re safe with us,” he says, sheathing his knife. “We’re the Deadmen. I’m Donovan.”

17

“I’m directing all available resources to fight the wildfires. The loss of our capital would be devastating.” – electronic message from New America President Soren Whitman to New America’s top commanders

Pax

My breath clouds in front of me as I peer out a frost-framed plane window at the jagged, snow-covered mountains. When I was on Blue Arrow Island, I never thought I’d be this cold again. I don’t mind it.

We were luckier than Briar, Marcus, Amira, and Evander. The ILF was able to choose a destination for me and Olin to meet up with our handler, so they chose a place and a route within their controlled airspace.

The Twin Otter plane we’re on reminds me of all the trips I took on my dad’s jet growing up. I skied the best ranges in the world and had no idea how fortunate I was.

That was forever ago. Not just because of the way the virus changed the entire world, but because it showed me who my parents really were all along.

My father is a manipulative, controlling prick, and my mom is his quiet, complicit accomplice. They tricked me into spending the months the virus was ravaging the world with them locked inside the secure mountain fortress my father had built in Vermont. My fiancée, Hannah, thought I was coming for her, but I never showed up.

That’s when I found out the top-secret research my father was helping fund was to develop a universal antiviral or vaccine for viruses being made by other countries. To do that, they had to first create a similar virus. When that virus escaped the lab, Pandora’s box was opened.

“Want some?” Olin asks, holding out the paper bag of hard candy he got at the ILF base.

I shake my head, the roar of the plane’s engines making talking nearly impossible. The candy is sticky pink chunks, probably made of pure sugar, rolled in a dusty sugar coating. Olin nearly starved to death on the island; he needs to keep putting on weight. I haven’t been able to stomach anything with much sugar since leaving the island.

We’re in what used to be Colorado, close to the Aspen lodge I used to spend holidays at with my family. A memory of bringing Hannah there hits me like a punch. I taught her to ski during the days there and we spent evenings playing board games and drinking with my extended family.

I can still picture her rosy cheeks and warm smile as she sipped hot chocolate while curled up beside me on a sofa. Her face is fuzzier now. Time will keep stealing the details and memories that are all I have left.

The ILF knows everything now. When we were sheltering in my parents’ luxury bunker as the world burned, my father shared all the details of the work he was funding. The virus, aromium, and other experiments. Rumors have flown about where the virus originated, but very few people know the truth.

Until now. It’s my mission to make sure everyone left knows Aldous Thatcher and his billionaire buddies started the fire, then swept in pretending to be the firefighters. Soren Whitman claimed his goal was to save everyone from deadly airborne viruses, but I don’t think the virus’s escape from the lab was an accident. Whitman was too well positioned to take over in the chaotic aftermath.