Breathless - Swarm Book 2: (An Epic Post-Apocalyptic Survival Thriller), page 15
The limping man jerked around, his eyes wild—clearly unsure where the voice had come from. “Paul?”
Jeremy’s stomach dropped, as he looked between the limping man and the man hanging from the helicopter. “He followed the shirt.”
Max squinted. “Are you sure?” Then he gasped. “I see him, too.”
“Hey!” Jeremy shouted over his shoulder. “Is that your kid? Over near the helicopter.”
The limping man turned toward Jeremy and his eyes widened as they fixed on the free-for-all at the other end of Half Dome. “Paul?” he shouted again, hobbling forward. The boy’s head peeked through the mess of arms and legs, then was sucked back into the surging crowd.
“Son!” The man’s voice cracked as he barged across the rock. He wasn’t going fast enough.
The helicopter teetered off the rock again. The little boy, Paul, was nowhere in sight, but he had to be somewhere in the crowd.
“He’s going too slow,” Jeremy said to no one in particular—to himself—as the father dragged his right foot behind him. Seeing it tore at Jeremy, and before he’d fully thought it through, he pushed himself into a sprint.
A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, forcing him to slow. Max pulled up beside him, jogging. “I’ll help the dad,” Max yelled over the noise of the crowd. “You get the kid.”
“Can do,” Jeremy shouted back, passing the father who had stumbled to his knees.
“We’ll get him,” Max yelled from behind. “Don’t worry.”
Jeremy kept an eye on the swirling blades as he neared the helicopter. It hovered a few feet off the ground, just enough so people could leap up and hang off the skids. Others had thrown themselves into the doorway and blocked it from closing. Far more than six passengers were crammed inside. It was a recipe for disaster—anyone could see that. As the helicopter rocked, those left behind on the peak backed away, spreading out enough to let the boy through their ranks. He scuttled forward, his face red and streaked with tears.
“Daddy!” he shrieked, holding his arms up toward the man still hanging from the door, too busy scrabbling to get inside the helicopter to notice a child who wasn’t his own.
Smoke poured from the helicopter’s engine but the blades kept spinning. The machine shook and tilted, hovering out toward the open air, where the sheer face of Half Dome dropped five thousand feet to the canyon below. Screams pierced the air as the skids slammed into several people reaching for them, knocking them over the precipice. A woman tripped as she ran after the helicopter, knocked into the two people in front of her, and all three plummeted off the edge and into smoke.
A man dangled from the helicopter door with one hand, his body swinging like a pendulum above the little boy—another tragedy unfolding. Jeremy couldn’t let it happen. He flung himself toward the boy, his hands going protectively to the back of the boy’s head as he used his body as a shield to cover him just as the pendulum man swung and was thrown free. Jeremy braced himself and took the brunt of the impact, grunting as a hundred and eighty pounds slammed into his back. He barely kept himself from collapsing on the boy.
“Paul! I’ve got you, okay?” He wrapped one arm around the boy’s middle. When he looked up, the helicopter had gone into a spin, a spiral of black smoke spewing from the engine. Sunlight glinted off the metallic, black-and-white tail rotor as the helicopter’s deadly blade sped toward them in the form of a hypnotic circle. A shock of cold terror washed over him. It was headed straight for them.
He pressed Paul close. The child’s hummingbird heartbeats cut through his chest; his quick, shallow breaths filled his ears. But nothing overpowered the ominous, modulating whir of the blades.
Adrenaline surged through him. Easing the sharp sting of knees that had already been shredded raw from his first dive upon the rocks, Jeremy catapulted himself and Paul as far as he could. He rotated in the air and hit the rock, bouncing and flinging Paul well out of the reach of the blade. A brief, harsh burst of air buffeted him as the tail rotor sliced on by.
He rolled a few more feet and came to rest in full view of the disaster. The tail of the helicopter finished its wide sweep of Half Dome, brushing a dozen people off the peak and continuing its wild spin out over the sub dome, dangerously off-balance from the people who dangled from the skids and hung out of the open door—the second #1 DAD! still one of them.
Smoke poured out of the wounded bird and then the unthinkable happened; the engine cut. The helicopter hung in the air for an instant as its blades slowed, and then dropped from sight, the screams from its passengers echoing off the cliffs.
Chapter 15
ANAYELI ALFARO. SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA. EVACUATION CENTER
Anayeli was forever leaving someone, no matter what she did. She’d left the dogs, locked outside the evacuation center. She’d left Mama, screaming to protect her babies. She’d left Carlota and Bailey Rae back in the tent, no longer weeping, but curled up under the blankets they’d been given, unwilling to go outside.
Anayeli couldn’t let herself think about who else she’d left, how she’d left them. What she needed to do was check on Ernesto. And she couldn’t be everywhere at once, even though her mind darted from one worry to the next with such speed that she wasn’t really present anywhere.
She should have been as exhausted as the mother ahead of her—please not Savannah from the river—lugging a toddler up the hospital stairs—but instead rage spiked through her. Fury at the woman who’d wheedled her way onto their raft and taken the spot that should have been for Luz, at herself for being so trusting in the first place.
Anayeli’s body thrummed, even though she was still battered and spent from the time in the river and then fighting the guards who had taken Mama away. The burn and gash on her palm pulsed in time with her heartbeat. She hadn’t slept, really slept, since—she wasn’t even sure when. But keeping moving was the only way to calm her mind. If she stopped, even for one second… Well, she just couldn’t. She took the stairs two-by-two, dodging the exhausted mother, whose child’s head lolled on her shoulder in a way that spurred Anayeli faster, afraid of what that loose-limbed movement might mean. Don’t look.
She sped past a bent and frail couple, the man stumbling as he slipped on a smear of blood, his wife crying out, “Oh, honey!” her veined and spotted hands too slow to catch him, too weak to hold him.
Anayeli should’ve stopped to help—five days ago she’d never have thought of leaving an elderly man on his knees—but Ernesto. He needed her too. He might be awake and alone and afraid. She couldn’t let that happen. Carlota and Bailey Rae had each other, so did the dogs. Mama, wherever she’d been taken, was tough. And no way they’d have been able to deport her in the hours since they’d dragged her off. The whole state was on fire. She had to still be somewhere in the evacuation center. Besides, Anayeli was doing what Mama had told her to. Once Ernesto was better and she’d gotten some food down her sister and Bailey Rae, then she’d find Mama.
The hallway outside Ernesto’s ward had filled up even more in the time Anayeli had been gone. There were gurneys with bloodied sheets pushed against the walls. Near one, a young woman in a smudged mask sobbed. At another, a man her Papa’s age stood, his hand atop a terrible stain, his face blank, vacant, an orange bracelet with green stripes hanging loosely at his wrist.
At the other end of the hall, a tall man was pacing, pacing, pacing, only deviating from the straight line he walked to dodge the legs of a woman and teenager who sat slumped against the wall.
Nurses bustled in and out of doorways, shuttling between rooms and the nurses’ station and what Anayeli guessed was a supply closet. They all looked anonymous, clad in scrubs and surgical masks, but just as she slipped through the door to Ernesto’s ward, one of them came toward her, arms outstretched.
“Ernesto’s sister? Anayeli, right?” Her voice was too-chirrupy, too bright as her hands hovered just over Anayeli’s shoulders. It was Kerry. The nurse who’d bandaged her hand. “You’ll want to wait outside for just a bit longer.”
Anayeli’s stomach did a terrible twist like it had detached itself and she thought she might throw up.
“Oh, no, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you! He’s—”
Anayeli shoved past Kerry and into the curtained area where Ernesto lay. So many tubes. His eyes closed. The steady beep beep beep of the monitors. At his side, messing with his arm—the one that didn’t have an IV in it—was another nurse. This one rounded and comfortable in the way of middle age.
“What are you doing?” The words flew out of Anayeli’s mouth as the nurse turned, a blood-filled vial in her hand. The woman’s expression went somehow cold in the eyes, even as she pasted on a reassuring smile.
“Just bloodwork, hon. You shouldn’t be in here.”
“Bloodwork? What for?” No one called Anayeli hon. And just because this woman did, didn’t mean Anayeli was going to be sweet. “I never authorized that.”
“Are you his guardian?” The nurse tucked the vial—the label orange with red stripes, like Ernesto’s wristband—into the pocket of her Winnie-the-Pooh Rumbly Tumbly scrubs.
The question threw Anayeli for a second. But Mama was missing, taken. Which meant... “Of course I am. I’m the one who had him admitted. What are the tests for?”
“His treatment.” The nurse bumped into her as she passed, even though there was plenty of space. Anayeli fought her instinct to step back to make room. “Dr. Libby can tell you more when she’s back on shift, if you still have questions.”
“Oh, I have questions.” But if Rumbly Tumbly heard, she gave no indication as she breezed to the unconscious older man on the other side of the room, quickly and efficiently taking a blood sample from his arm too. She shot a glare at Anayeli, then bustled out.
Anayeli fitted her good hand over Ernesto’s, both of their hands so much like Papa’s: square-palmed and sturdy. Ernesto’s fingernails were ragged, with a line of grime darkening them. From the river—from clawing at the snag that had trapped Luz, then at Anayeli, to pull her away—
Not those memories. She could not let herself sink into them.
Instead, she swallowed against the painful tightening in her throat as she straightened Ernesto’s fingers. He was alive. His bedding wasn’t stained with blood like so many she’d seen in the hallway. She’d gotten him help in time. There was no squeak in his breathing anymore—the pump and whir of machines had replaced that. His chest rose and fell, his breaths even, his face smooth and calm. But maybe that was just the drugs in the IV talking. She couldn’t tell if he was any better than he had been when she’d betrayed Mama to force Ernesto into an asthma attack—
“You OK in here?”
Anayeli jerked so hard, she nearly knocked into Ernesto’s IV stand. Kerry, the helpful nurse—so different from the Rumbly Tumbly nurse—stood in the doorway, her eyes warm and soft and pitying—the way people looked at stray puppies.
“I’m fine.” She wasn’t, not really, but she had to be.
“He’s doing a lot better than he was. You should take care of yourself while he’s sedated.” She came up next to Anayeli, set a roll of gauze on the bed, a tube of ointment hidden inside. Anayeli pocketed it. “Get some food and rest, come back in the morning.”
“Tomorrow? I’m not leaving him for that long!” She took up his hand again, as if to prove it.
“You two are my star patients.” Kerry pointed to Anayeli’s injured hand, still swathed in the wrap Kerry had made the night before. “I’m going to take the best care of him, OK? And in the morning, we’ll do a little re-check of your hand.”
She shouldn’t have trusted a complete stranger, but the logic was undeniable. And something in Kerry’s voice made the fight go out of her. She was suddenly so tired. And hungry. And if she could just find Mama before Ernesto woke up— “I know you’re right, it’s just—that other nurse took a blood sample and I—”
“Bloodwork’s routine for everybody admitted for smoke inhalation. Nothing to be worried about. And Dr. Libby is top notch.” Kerry’s tone was so very different from Rumbly Tumbly nurse’s, that Anayeli felt a twinge of guilt for being so suspicious. Of course Ernesto would need to have tests run. It was part of taking good care of him. Part of why they’d come to the evacuation center.
“You’ll still be on shift in the morning?”
Something flickered across Kerry’s face. “Oh, I’m not going anywhere. This job is my life!”
What a nightmare life, Anayeli wanted to say. But then Kerry took her by the elbow. Anayeli didn’t resist even the slightest. It felt nice not to be the decision-maker for the first time in days. Kerry led her out and pointed her toward the stairs she’d just come up. “The cafeteria is down on the first floor. You can’t miss the signs. And—” Kerry leaned forward, her voice not quite a whisper—“the National Guard may be here, but we still run the hospital.”
Whatever relief Kerry’s statement had given Anayeli dissipated as she headed for the cafeteria. At each doorway a pair of armed National Guard soldiers stood, checking the wristband of everyone who tried to pass. In each hallway, another pair of soldiers patrolled.
“Excuse me?” Anayeli stopped directly in the path of one of the soldiers, his face a blank mask. If he hadn’t blinked, she’d have doubted he’d even heard her. But instead of responding, he just side-stepped her and kept going.
She tried the same thing with his partner, stomping down the hall to stand directly in front of him. “Hi. Excuse me. Hello? Can you tell me where I might find someone with an orange wristband”—she held up her own arm, shaking it so the wristband jiggled—“but with purple stripes?” Just like before, the soldier never even acknowledged her, but instead side-stepped and kept marching.
It was the same thing with every soldier she passed. None would answer her, no matter what she asked—What’s behind that door? Who’s the commander in charge? What’s the status of the fires? They wouldn’t even engage with her. The best she got was when she asked which way the cafeteria was, and a female soldier pointed, wordlessly.
The cafeteria was another nightmare, this one was a horror of long lines, armed soldiers standing at regular intervals along windowless walls, and dazed people so bedraggled they were practically zombified. She probably looked just as bad. Her shoulders ached with tension, and only when she actively forced herself could she stop clenching her jaw.
She took her place at the back of the line and as the bitter tang of unwashed human hit her, pulled her mask back over her nose, pinching the bridge tight. She hadn’t showered in days either—since before she’d tried to file her story. Her story: Matreus and Teff hay and controlled burns. She’d been planning to tell whoever was running the evacuation camp what she knew about Matreus—but that was before. Those concerns might as well have been a century old. Except Nurse Kerry’s voice echoed in her head. She’d said bloodwork was routine for all the patients admitted for smoke inhalation. If there was something in the smoke that was making people so sick, the bloodwork might hold some clue about what it was. If the people running the camp didn’t already know about Matreus and the Teff fields, they might not know what to look for—
“Arms out, please!” The order came from a woman near the front of the line.
Anayeli craned her neck as every single person in front of her stuck their arms out to the right, their wristbands dancing, a wave of orange. But there were stripes of different colors—not only the yellow or red she and her siblings wore, but green too.
A woman in a National Guard uniform and hijab strode down the line. It was the same woman who had turned Ernesto away from the evacuation center for not being sick enough. That’s why she’d had to betray Mama. Why Mama was gone now.
Anayeli seethed for about five seconds and then she was moving, marching right up to the woman without even having decided what she was going to do. “Excuse me. Can you tell me where I can find someone with purple stripes on their wristband?”
“Get back in line, ma’am.” It was an answer at least. Words instead of blank stares. The woman—KASSIS, the embroidered name on her uniform announced—stepped toward Anayeli. She was only a forehead taller than Anayeli, but her uniform and the squared-shouldered way she wore it made her intimidating. Or maybe it was the gun, its implicit threat.
“No. Absolutely not.” Anayeli straightened, her stance wide. Immovable. “I need to know where my mother was taken. She’s—”
“If you want a meal, get back in line.” Kassis had dark eyes and dark arched brows and even though her voice was dead calm and her expression was a mask, her round face could’ve been almost friendly. If she smiled, she might look sweet. But she kept her eyes locked on Anayeli’s, her mouth a grim straight line that barely moved even when she spoke.
Days before, Kassis had stared down the man who had driven right up to the entrance and stood yelling with his son bleeding and staggering, then turned right around and barred Ernesto from getting into the hospital. If the woman wanted, she could tell Anayeli where Mama might have been taken, no doubt.
“I just need some información—” The instant she said it, the energy in the room changed. Behind her, a few of the people waiting in the food line went to muttering and grumbling the kind of things about immigrants it was better to pretend not to overhear. There was the restless scuffing of shoes against linoleum that came from uneasy people shifting, craving distance but having nowhere to go if they wanted to keep their place. She could have kicked herself for slipping into Spanish. It was only because she was tired and the words were so similar. She changed tack, made her voice louder. “Look. I’m a reporter for the Sacramento Bee. Is anyone in this camp aware of the connection between the burning Teff fields and the extreme smoke inhalation reactions—”
If Kassis gave a signal, Anayeli missed it, but in unison, the soldiers lining the walls moved forward.
In the exact same instant, a man stepped out of line near the front. “Shut up, you illegal!” He pointed his finger at Anayeli. “You wanna be in this country, learn to speak the language!”
