CHAPTER 1
AMELIA
Amelia Black thought she knew how to survive. She was wrong.
The world had changed drastically in only a few short weeks. She didn’t yet know how—the unknown possibilities flickered constantly in her mind.
So many questions, and she didn’t have the answers to any of them. Until now. Soon, they would see the outside world for the first time in almost six weeks.
Amelia leaned against the wall of the military transport. The hard metal bench beneath her vibrated. People pressed on either side of her.
The truck slowed, bumping over potholes and ruts in the road. “What now?” her brother Silas asked. He lounged on the bench
across from her, his legs draped over a plastic-wrapped cardboard box labeled ‘Medical Supplies: Syringes’. Dozens of similar boxes were stacked along the front end of the truck and secured with rubber straps.
There were no windows. Air conditioning piped through a vent near the front, but the air still felt hot and stuffy. They’d been riding for hours since departing the naval base in Jacksonville, Florida, early that morning.
The brakes squealed as the truck rumbled to a halt.
“What’s going on?” Amelia asked, though she didn’t expect an answer.
Their convoy included ten transport trucks: four filled with medical supplies, two filled with canned goods, MREs, and bottled water, and four for transporting civilians.
Four camouflaged military vehicles took up the front and rear of the convoy, the soldiers decked out with combat gear and pulse guns.
“How much longer?” eight-year-old Benjie asked beside her.
Willow Bahaghari squeezed her brother’s hand and grinned. But her grin was forced, her eyes tired. She pushed her thick black hair behind her ears. “It’s probably just something blocking the road. This will all be over soon, I promise.”
Amelia sighed. If only that were true. It still felt strange not to be quarantined, trapped in the same small space day after day, surrounded by the white walls of a medical tent.
They’d been quarantined for almost a month—five days on the naval ship that rescued them from the sinking Grand Voyager, then another twenty-one days once they’d arrived at Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville.
A few of the most high-value government officials and powerful CEOs had been airlifted to an undisclosed location the day they’d cleared quarantine. The rest of the one hundred and thirty-six survivors waited five more days for a supply transport to take them to Fort Campbell in Kentucky, a military base relocating the survivors of the Hydra virus.
“Can I have one of those?” Benjie pointed at the CDC epidemiologist sitting on Amelia’s other side. Dr. Martinez wore a bulky yellow hazmat suit, every inch of her covered by the suit, gloves, and a helmet sealed at the neck.
Dr. Martinez had taken bloodwork from them every day for the last three weeks. She was in her mid-forties and spoke little, her expression always grim. She folded her hands in her lap. “Personal Protection Equipment will be issued as needed when you reach your relocation destination.”
Benjie scrunched up his face. He was cute, with brown skin, large dark eyes, and black hair sticking up all over his head. “I don’t want a new home. I like my old one.”
Amelia’s gut tightened. She agreed with him. She missed her own sleep pod and her light-filled studio, where she practiced the violin for three hours every day.
But the world had changed drastically in the six weeks since they boarded the Grand Voyager—that much was clear.
She despised all this not-knowing. What was out there? What was happening? How many people were sick? Why wouldn’t they tell the truth?
“Why can’t I go home?” Benjie asked again. Willow squeezed his hand. “Benjie, hush.”
Dr. Martinez pressed her lips together behind her helmet. “They’ll explain more once you reach your destination. Until then, that information is classified.”
Benjie sighed and clasped his arms around his ratty backpack. “That’s what everyone says.”
Dr. Martinez hesitated. “I am sorry.”
Willow shifted uncomfortably. “I’ve gotta pee,” she said under her breath. “How long ‘til we get to wherever the hell we’re going?”
Amelia shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“It’ll take forever at this rate.” Willow gestured at the walls of the transport. “What do you think it’s like out there?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Amelia didn’t know how bad it was. None of them did.
The Grand Voyager survivors were all anxious and antsy, desperate to return to their homes, find their families, and figure out what the hell had happened.
Amelia knew what her mother would say. At least we have each other. Amelia had her mother and brother, which was more than most people.
Willow had lost her mother and sister. Willow’s friend, Finn Ellington-Fletcher, a giant black kid with a gap-toothed smile and a penchant for goofy humor, had lost his father. Others lost their entire families, gunned down by the terrorists, burned in the explosions, or trapped and drowned as the ship sank, consumed in smoke and flames and terror.
“I thought you might have a higher clearance or whatever,” Willow continued. “Seeing as you’re the daughter of Declan Black.”
The world knew her father as the founder and CEO of BioGen Technologies as well as the chairman of the Unity Coalition, a conglomerate of powerful biotech, communications, and defense corporations. BioGen had manufactured and distributed the universal flu vaccine to combat the raging bat-flu epidemic.
Only a few people still living knew the truth.
Her father had also designed the Hydra Virus, releasing it as an act of bioterrorism in a calculated attempt to pass his rights-reducing, citizen-tracking Safe and Secure Act. The new president blamed the attack on the domestic terrorist group, the New Patriots.
Consumed by fear, the government had passed the Safe and Secure Act in an emergency session, just as her father predicted.
But the plan backfired. The virus, meant to kill one hundred thousand people deliberately culled from the disposable poor, mutated instead. It underwent reassortment, recombining with the virulent bat- flu to create a deadly, highly contagious supervirus.
Declan Black—though not the mastermind—had designed and implemented the entire thing.
An international terrorist syndicate had taken her father hostage.
Was he still alive? Did she even care?
She did, in spite of everything.
She rubbed the diamond-studded charm bracelet on her left wrist, the one he’d bought for her thirteenth birthday. Part of her wanted to rip it off and throw it away, but for some reason, she couldn’t. Even though he’d betrayed her, betrayed them all.
“No,” she said finally. “I don’t know anything.”
Willow shot her a dubious look, shrugged, and turned back to her brother. “Suit yourself.”
The truck started again, jolting forward. Amelia’s shoulder bumped the wall. She rubbed her shoulder and scanned the people in the transport—Enrique López, the Mexican-American senator from New York; Tyler Horne, the hotshot inventor of the RFID microchip VitaliChip; her brother Silas and her mother, Elise; and Micah Ramos Rivera, Gabriel’s brother.
Gabriel Ramos Rivera rode in the first transport truck ahead of them, a prisoner in handcuffs guarded by a half-dozen soldiers and her father’s former head of security, Ed Jericho.
Gabriel. The guy she fell for against her better judgment. The enigmatic, brooding Puerto Rican hothead with the bronze skin, dark smoldering eyes, and irresistible smile.
The ruthless rebel and New Patriot who’d hijacked the Grand Voyager, taken her hostage, and betrayed her—who willingly and knowingly gave her up to Kane, a psychopathic terrorist who’d enjoyed killing. Who took pleasure in others’ pain. Who’d taken pleasure in her own.
Kane and his rough, scrabbling hands, his beady eyes, his vicious leer as he hovered over her. That asshole tried to break her. He almost succeeded.
Still, he invaded her nightmares every night. She always woke up gasping, her heart a wild, frantic thing in her chest, her thoughts a tangled knot of terror. Amelia closed her eyes, shoving those thoughts out of her head.
The truck slammed to a stop. Amelia crashed into Benjie and nearly knocked him off the bench. Across from her, Micah and Silas jolted awake, gripping the bench to keep their balance.
Outside the truck, someone shouted.
“What was that?” Benjie asked, eyes wide. Amelia and Willow exchanged nervous glances. Whatever it was didn’t sound good.
Dr. Martinez clutched her hands together in front of her chest. “I’m sure it’s fine. Just a routine checkpoint.” But her voice quavered.
Gunfire exploded outside the truck, somewhere to Amelia’s right.
Shouting filled the air. “Get down!” Someone screamed.
Her heart squeezed, her breath stilling in her chest. Why had they stopped? Why were the soldiers shooting? What was happening?
Tyler Horne leapt to his feet, his perfectly coiffed blonde hair matted against his head. “We’re being attacked, aren’t we?”
Dr. Martinez said nothing as more shouting filled the air. Something struck the side of the truck. The wall shuddered. Amelia jerked forward.
“Tell us the truth, damn it!” Horne took an aggressive step toward the doctor.
Senator López stood and blocked Horne with his outstretched hand. “Let’s stay calm. Panic won’t help anything.”
A bullet punctured the left side of the transport above Horne’s head.
The passengers screamed and ducked, scrambling off the benches along the walls and crouching low. Amelia covered her head with her arms, the hairs on her neck standing on end.
Beside her, Willow pushed Benjie down and covered his body with her own. “Stay down!”
More shots rang out. Loud bangs and thumps shuddered the truck, as if people were shoving it from both sides. Maybe they were.
Angry shouts filled the air. It sounded like they’d surrounded the truck. The back doors clanged and jerked, but they didn’t open. They were locked from the inside.
“They want the supplies, don’t they?” Micah adjusted his glasses nervously. His brown eyes were huge in his boyish face, his dark wavy hair damp on his forehead.
“Why the hell won’t you say something?” Willow asked Dr. Martinez, her voice rising. “This can’t be classified, too!”
“Yes,” Dr. Martinez admitted, fear and defeat in her voice. “It must be an ambush. The roads are—dangerous. There are no hospitals, no stores. People are desperate.”
Amelia’s mind couldn’t focus on the words. No hospitals? That didn’t make sense.
Another bullet punched through the transport walls like they were butter. The attackers were using armor-piercing rounds. The next stray bullet would hit someone. “Maybe we should give them what they want.”
“She’s right,” Silas said. He had their father’s intensity, the same sinewy frame and lean, wolfish face. “Open the doors.”
Horne pointed his finger at Silas. “You’re insane if you think you’re going to let them in here. They’re shooting people!”
Silas bristled, his smoke-gray eyes glittering. “You’re not in charge here.”
“Give them the supplies, and they’ll stop shooting,” Micah said. “You don’t understand.” Dr. Martinez twisted her hands. “We need those supplies for research and medical personnel at the base. We can’t just give them—”
“Screw this.” Silas leapt to his feet, crouching low and lurching over cowering bodies to reach the back doors.
Micah followed close behind. The truck rocked and they stumbled, righting themselves and lunging for the doors before anyone could stop them.
“Don’t open that door! You aren’t protected!” Dr. Martinez rose to her feet just as another bullet punched through the wall inches from her head. She shrieked and dropped to the floor.
Amelia craned her neck to watch Micah and Silas wrestle with the doors’ locking mechanism. Her knees ached from kneeling on the metal floor. A rivet scraped her shin, ripping a hole in her khaki cargo pants. The shouts and screams from outside the truck echoed in her ears.
A chill ran down her spine. Opening the doors might be a terrible idea, but they had to do something. They were sitting ducks, just waiting for the next bullet to kill somebody.
Someone gripped her arm. Amelia glanced up and stared at Dr. Martinez. Her mouth pressed into a grim line, her eyes hard and unreadable. “Whatever you do, don’t touch anyone.”
“How bad is it?” Amelia asked.
Dr. Martinez shook her head. “I wanted to tell all of you right away, but my superiors were concerned with suicide attempts and panicked rebellion. They thought you wouldn’t sit meekly in quarantine if you knew . . .”
Her voice trailed off as an ear-piecing shriek drowned her out.
Amelia’s blood turned to ice. “If we knew what? Tell me!”
Someone shouted as the back doors swung open. Daylight poured into the transport. The attackers yanked Micah and Silas from the truck. Four of them scrambled inside, black streaks across their cheeks and foreheads, assault rifles flailing.
Terror gripped Amelia. She couldn’t focus on the doctor’s words. Would these people actually kill them? What had they done to Silas and Micah? Was her brother hurt? Was he—
“It’s airborne, passed through coughing and sneezing,” Dr. Martinez said hastily, her words tripping over each other. She squeezed Amelia’s arm with her gloved fingers. “It lives on non-organic surfaces for twenty-four hours, organic surfaces for up to two weeks. Always wear gloves and protective gear—”
An attacker with long red hair bound in a ponytail reached them and lunged for the doctor. The attacker wasn’t a man but a tall, muscular woman, her face contorted in rage.
She seized Dr. Martinez by the throat, lifting her to her feet with one hand. She thrust the muzzle of her gun against the doctor’s stomach.
“You people!” she spat. “You just left us to die!” Amelia watched in shock, unable to move.
“Amelia!” Her mother moved to her, gripping her arm. “Go! Go!”
Amelia, Willow, and Benjie scooted from their seats and scrambled after her mother, weaving around the legs of a dozen attackers as they leapt onto the truck. They were just people, not soldiers. Men and women, some with combat gear, some only in dark clothes. Their faces were desperate and angry, their eyes blazing dangerously.
Amelia flinched as someone kneed her in the ribs. Hands scrabbled over her, scratching at her arms. Someone else seized her Smart- Flex and tried to rip it off her wrist.
“Let go!” She jerked free and kept moving, stumbling toward the back of the truck. The rest of the attackers ignored her. They were focused on the boxes of medical supplies.
The sound of a gunshot ricocheted inside the truck. Dr. Martinez moaned.
Amelia twisted in her mother’s grasp, trying to see what happened. But the icy dread in her gut told her she already knew. The woman with the ponytail had shot the doctor for no reason.
They ran for the wide-open doors.
CHAPTER 2
MICAH
The second the door flew open, angry hands grabbed Micah Ramos Rivera and jerked him from the transport truck. He fell, his spine and the back of his head cracking hard against the pavement, skewing his glasses and knocking the breath from his lungs.
For an agonizing moment, he tried unsuccessfully to suck in air as he stared helplessly up at a tangle of lunging, shoving bodies. Someone stomped on his hand. A sharp kick to his ribs sent pain exploding through his side.
He rolled to the right until he slid beneath the truck. He gasped for air, half-expecting someone to grab him, drag him out, and do whatever damage they intended. But as soon as he hid out of sight, the attackers forgot him. They scrambled into the truck, shouting and screaming.
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