But Blake still remembered the back door code for an urgent care right on the outskirts of a rich suburb. It would definitely have all the medications they needed.
And Alvarez knew it. “Could be ash.”
“Or it could have everything we could need, not just for us, but for the secondary sites,” Blake reasoned. “I think that would impress Irving.”
Beaumont choked, hiding his face from an unimpressed-looking Alvarez. He knew he was being manipulated. It was heavy-handed, but he could see Alvarez softening.
“I can’t guarantee your safety,” he said.
Blake bit back the urge to remind him thathehad survived in DC longer than any of them, but he didn’t think it would help his case. It was still early, but the unchecked wind was whipping through the parking lot. It bit through his clothes and burned his ears, and Blake tried not to imagine what it would feel like without gloves.
His sacrifice for his daughter won’t be in vain.
Alvarez sucked his teeth before reaching down into the bed and hefting a helmet. He had no idea where it came from, but he caught it when he tossed it to him.
“Lennox is going to be pissed,” Beaumont hissed.
Alvarez grinned. “Get in.”
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Driving down the suburban streets was eerie. If you looked past the overgrown yards, fallen leaves decaying in teetering piles, and the utter silence, it was almost normal.
Cars were still parked in the driveway. Garage doors were closed. The blinds were drawn. Basketball hoops were still standing tall, nestled up against the end of driveways—it was easy to imagine kids playing there, chasing a ball down the low incline to catch it before it hit the street.
Blake wasn’t as familiar with these streets as the city itself. Wrong tax bracket. But he could see the appeal. The houses had breathing room. The streets were lined with the big azalea bushes the area was famous for. Close enough to DC and its amenities, but far enough away that kids could play in the street safely, and you didn’t need to factor traffic into your morning commute.
As winter waned, bits of spring were beginning to creep through. A flash of a leaf on a barren branch or a patch of grass looking a little less withered and brown.
The noise from the truck echoed around the streets, and Blake winced. It was too obtrusive for the quiet Craftsman and Victorian architecture, the sweeping porches drenched withcharm.It felt wrong. Like they were disturbing a grave site, rather than homes abandoned before they could be destroyed.
The fact that they were still standing was impressive. Either the fighting was far more insular than they thought, or the aliens hadn’t yet expanded this far. Maybe they didn’t need to. Anyone with half a brain cell fled as far and as fast as they could. He could picture family SUVs two-wheeling it out of their driveways, making haste for the closest refugee camp they could find.
At least he hoped they did.
He was crammed in the back of the truck with Beaumont. They were squished together on the bench seat, hoping the press of their bodies was a suitable substitute for a seatbelt. He wasn’t even sure if the truck had them. Someone like Judd probably took them out to ‘make it go faster’.
Alvarez was in the front passenger seat, his gun trained out the open window as he scanned the streets. A man named Tyler was driving. He was wiry, in his forties, and were it not for his vivid red handlebar mustache and his bald head, he was completely forgettable. Until he opened his mouth. He had a thick Bostonian accent that was so unfamiliar to Blake. He had difficulty understanding anything he was saying.
Beaumont told him he had been a police officer when he hastily introduced them, but that was it. Tyler spent most of the drive with one hand on the wheel and the other playing with the ends of his mustache.
Zoe rounded out the team. She was a tall woman with dark skin, sharp features, and a look that made Blake feel small. Her hair was braided into neat rows, and she carried a couple of handguns under her puffy jacket. He thought she might be around his age, but he got the feeling she wouldn’t tell him if he asked. Beaumont didn’t give him any information on her, and he was glad he sat between them.
It was a very quiet ride south. Not that Blake minded. He spent the entire time with his breath fogging up the window. It was his first sight of the world since he stepped onto The Judge all those months ago, and he wasn’t sure if he was disappointed or glad to see it relatively unchanged.
There were definitely fewer people, although Blake was surprised to see some. They watched them drive by like wraiths, their brows drawn. He thought they should stop. Maybe offer help, but Tyler didn’t slow down, and Alvarez made sure his gun was noticed.
For the first time, Blake wondered if he’d been selfish not to ask Gabriel what things were like out here. He hadn’t told him much, and Blake assumed it was all like the cities—distant gunfire, explosions, and the stink of death and burning plastic. But he never considered that people werestillliving here. Outside of the city, in a purgatory of fear and survival.
He shifted in his seat and leaned into the whipping wind from Alvarez’s open window. It smelled clean. Like right before a storm, when the air was heavy with expectation. The sky gave no hint as to its next move—the clouds were gray, so uniform it was impossible to tell if it was just winter’s encore or an incoming storm.
No one else seemed concerned. If he had been in the truck with Team Oh Shit, he might have asked. No doubt Judd would have cracked some kind of joke.You made of sugar, sweetie? Afraid a little rain will melt you?And then Victoria, or Phin, would smack him, and Gabriel would pretend not to laugh.
But he wasn’t with them. He wondered if the tension was thick because of some unspoken disagreement or simply because he didn’t know how to read their silence.
Tyler braked, and the old truck shuddered around a curve. The suburban streets spat them directly into a commercial district. It was a single thoroughfare with massive parking lotson either side, strip malls lining the back, while standalone businesses cropped up like the city planner decided there was too much negative space, and the place needed a dry cleaner or a Mexican restaurant to break it up.