Page 59 of Fallout

Back exit. Side street. She hadn’t gone far before a car pulled up beside her. She glanced over, just slightly, enough to see if she recognized it. Beyond the edge of her hood, she saw the wheel stop spinning. Doors opened.

Run.

She made it two steps, and thick arms banded around her. He lifted her off her feet. She kicked against his shins and knees and screamed. Didn’t matter who heard, maybe someone would help her.

He turned her to face another guy. Tape slammed over her mouth.

They tossed her in the trunk of the car and drove.

How long she rolled around the back in the dark, smelling foul odors embedded in the scratchy vehicle carpet, swirled around her awareness like wind she couldn’t grab hold of.

The car stopped.

April’s nostrils flared as she tried to breathe with tape over her mouth. Tears leaked from her eyes. It didn’t matter. They could kill her, and it wouldn’t change anything. She had nothing to tell them.

It was already done.

Vanguard would win, and there was nothing these guys—or their boss—could do about it.

The trunk opened; the light far too bright, so she had to squint against it. She swung up her leg, trying in vain to hit anything and defend herself somehow. Her leg was blocked, shooting pain up from her shin and numbing her foot. He reached in and hit her.

She heard a crackling sound, and every muscle in her body cramped at once, like being struck by lightning.

A stun gun.

She woke up sometime later, lying on a dirt floor, half aware of her surroundings. She was alone. Pain stole her next breath. Bile touched her tongue, but if she threw up with tape over her mouth, she would choke on it.

That wouldn’t be her end, though.

She could feel it.

Blood. Warmth that seeped into the dirt under her. Lying in the dark, April shifted her bound hands to her body and touched her front. Her shirt had soaked through, and blood coated her fingers. It smelled metallic in a room full of the odor of fresh earth…and something rotten.

She cried into the dark. A tiny niggling voice told her to pray, but she never had before. At the last moment of her life, it would seem like a betrayal of all she’d lived for to go back on it now. Try one last shot at redemption on the off chance it might’ve been true, and she’d been wrong this whole time.

She lay there all alone until there was no life left in her. No warmth.

Nothing but black.

TWENTY-SIX

Jasper jumped out of the passenger’s side onto the sidewalk. Behind where Blake had parked on this residential street. Detective Jesse pulled up in her car.

She strode over to the two of them at the back of Blake’s department car. “Tell me what this is.”

“We’ve been searching for April for hours since we found out she was arraigned and released pending her trial.” Jasper couldn’t believe they’d missed her by hours.

Her home had turned up nothing. Her phone had no signal that Simon could trace, which meant she’d turned it off or it had run out of battery. Searching had gained them nothing.

“No sign of her?” Samantha asked.

Jasper stomped some feeling into one foot, then the other, just so his blood didn’t pool in his feet. “Someone called the PD anonymously. They couldn’t trace the call, and the person used a voice modulator, so there’s no way for them to figure out who it is. Said we’d find her in this house.” He pointed down the street. “Fifty-two sixty-four. It’s the cream and tan one.”

Samantha said, “I’ll get my vest.”

She started to turn away, and Blake said, “This is a trap. Why are we even entertaining that April is actually in here when someone just handed us the information?”

“You’re wondering why we haven’t been shot at by our sniper yet?” Jasper glanced over at his friend. Was he was genuinely worried? Blake hadn’t said anything. The Famous Ones were on guard at the medical center where Clare was in labor. “Why don’t you check if there’s an update from Violet?”

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