“Just give her some more time,” Flash pleaded. “We can afford to wait.”
“We’ve been here for four days,” Elle pointed out. “That’s long enough.”
“But anything could happen out there on the road. Pix might get more sick if we try to travel.”
“We have a jeep,” Elle snapped. “We also have gas. We can do this.”
“Yes, we could do that,” Jay answered. “But we can also stay here. We don’t need to keep moving if we don’t have to. We can wait until Pix is better, then we can move on. At least until she’s conscious.”
Elle stared at the sky. Jay was right, of course. They both were. They could stay here, relatively safely, and wait for Pix to regain consciousness before they moved on. Or they could keep working their way toward Sacramento.Elle hated the thought of sitting here, waiting. She wanted to be in Sacramento. She was tired of the day-to-day stress of survival. She was tired of arguing with them, tired of pointing out the obvious, only to have them ignore her advice. She wanted to be safe. She was exhausted, traumatized, shocked. She’d been through so much since Day Zero.
Elle didn’t want to wait for a happy ending anymore.
She wanted to grab it.
Georgia, Jay and Flash continued to bicker, their voices getting higher and louder. Elle hated the arguing. It was stupid. To stay alive, they needed to pull together.
“There is no reason for us to keep moving on,” Jay said, turning to Elle, his voice harsh. “When Pix stabilizes, we’ll leave.”
“But I don’t want to stay here!” Elle yelled.
“Then leave!” Jay snapped.
Elle flinched.
There was a long, tense silence. Georgia swallowed.
At last, Elle said, “Don’t be your own worst enemy. Omega might try to kill us, but in the end, you can do a pretty good job of getting yourself killed.”
Getting killed was easy.
Staying alive… that was the hard part.
Elle left during the night. Jay and Georgia had argued for hours. Flash had withdrawn, and Elle had removed herself from the conversation. They were being stupid and petty. All they had to do was drive, but no one could agree to move forward. There was no majority decision, just factions of disagreement.
I can’t believe this, Elle thought.
She had taken her share of supplies and ammunition and disappeared into the night, leaving them behind. She wanted to get to Sacramento. She wanted to do it now, and she couldn’t bear to wait any longer. The last year had been hell, and she had no intention of stretching the torture out any longer than she needed to.
She covered mile after mile, stopping to rest when the sun rose. She ate a quick meal, drank some water, and continued. The freeway extended endlessly, but the mountains were beautiful. Elle was exposed on the highway, so she kept a sharp lookout for any unsavory characters. She avoided rest areas and roadside restaurants. It wasn’t worth the risk.
She heard something slap against the concrete. She checked her shoelaces. Nothing. She heard it again, and this time she recognized the sound, snapped out of her daze.
Gunshots.
She looked behind her. A small pillar of black smoke was rising into the air in the distance.
She froze, slowly rising to her feet.
The kids, she thought.
The anger was gone, replaced with concern. She started walking back, toward the pillar of smoke. She kept going, jogging. It took several hours to reach the campsite again, and by the time she did, the black smoke had mostly dissipated. She ran forward. The bush that they had been hiding behind was gone, charred to the roots. The jeep was overturned, smoking. The supplies had been grouped into a pile and the remains were smoldering.
“Jay!” Elle cried, dropping her backpack to the ground. “Georgia?”
She rounded the jeep.
Pix was lying on the ground at an unnatural angle, her arm thrown to the side. A ribbon of red blood trailed down the side of her mouth. Elle dropped to her knees and checked Pix’s pulse. Nothing. Her skin was cold.
“Pix?” Elle sobbed. “Pix, no. Please…”
Tears streamed down her face. Pix’s shirt was stained with blood. She had been shot. Elle hugged the dead girl to her chest and rocked back and forth, weeping. She laid her body in the dirt and crawled to her feet. The world spun around her. She vomited on the gravel, clutching her stomach.
She crawled to the other side of the jeep, away from Pix’s body. She stood again and stared at the hood of the jeep. It had been spray painted with gold stars. Georgia, Flash and Jay were nowhere in sight.
The militias couldn’t have done this, Elle thought. They would never kill innocent people. They’re meant to defend us from Omega.
Something had happened.
Elle looked at the freeway. Thick, rubbery tire tracks led away from the scene of destruction. An Omega Humvee was lying on its side, blown apart. A dead Omega soldier was lying on the ground. Elle didn’t move, afraid to get near the vehicle.
A militia group must have stopped Omega, Elle deduced.
Omega had clearly found the children. They had succeeded in killing at least two of them, until a militia group — at least that’s what Elle assumed they were — stopped them. But where were the other kids?
Taken. The militia must have taken them.
But why?
Elle studied the tracks on the road.
And she started following them.
Epilogue
The old man shoved his flight cap into the pocket of his leather jacket. The wind whipped his gray hair into circles as he climbed out of the seat of an aged biplane. He could taste the salt in the air. The spray of the ocean waves hitting the rocks.
“Manny?”
The old man turned, his face dissolving into a maze of wrinkles.
“Cassidy,” he said. “What is it, my girl?”
The woman was small, dressed in combat fatigues. Red hair fluttered against the breeze. “You’re not going to believe this,” the woman said. “But I think we found your niece.”
Manny’s hand dropped to his side, limp.
“Elle?” he said.
The woman nodded.
More Titles by Summer Lane
Book One: State of Emergency
Book Two: State of Chaos
Book Three: State of Rebellion
Book Four: State of Pursuit
Book Five: State of Alliance (COMING JANUARY 2015)
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Day Zero
Day One: COMING MARCH 2015
End of Day: COMING OCTOBER 2015
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Acknowledgements
Day Zero is different than The Collapse Series in that it shows the survival situation of the most average citizens: children. These kids are not militia members, not snipers, not Navy SEALs. They are the average of the average — the nerdy, the troubled and the self-conscious.