Rivera fought uselessly against Terri’s iron-clad grip on her shoulders and tried to see past her, tried to see her husband as he struggled to breathe on the floor, but it was like pushing against a brick wall. 

She needed to see him

(I don’t want to see him),

needed to know how bad his injury was

(I don’t want to know how bad it is),

needed to know how long he had left before the life drained out of him and his heart gave out and his body went cold. It hadn’t happened yet, she knew that much because she could still hear him gasping, trying to speak but unable to get anything out.

Adrenaline flooded through her and she shoved hard against Terri, cords of muscle in her neck standing out. “Let me see him!” 

But Terri held firm. “Ryan, is he alive?”

Rivera stared at her, disgusted and enraged at the calmness in her tone, like her husband wasn’t dying on the floor just five feet away. She had never punched anyone before, but in that moment it was all she could do not to ball her fist and throw it at the woman as hard as possible.

Ryan snatched a flashlight from under a table and scrambled back to Carlos. “He is, but . . .” He trailed off, uncertain.

“But what?” Rivera half screamed at him.

“I–I don’t–” Ryan paused again and she could have strangled him for it.

Terri glanced back at him. “Use your words, kid. How bad?”

Ryan stood up and looked at her, flashlight trembling in his hand. “He’s . . . He’s fine.”

Rivera broke free of Terri’s grasp and rushed toward her husband.

“He’s fine? Jesus, Ryan,” Terri said, grabbing Beasley’s leash before the dog had the chance to pounce on Carlos. “I thought he got shot.”

“He did get shot,” Ryan said, confusion etched into his expression.

Rivera dropped to the floor by Carlos’ side and searched his face for the paleness she’d expected to find there, the image she’d been picturing of his skin after several pints of blood had flowed out onto the floor, but his color was the same as it always was. Not a drop of blood anywhere on him. He had a panicked look in his eyes that made it look like he thought he was dying, his mouth silently opening and closing like a fish out of water, but Rivera recognized the look and the fear of never breathing again that came with it: he’d had the breath knocked out of him.

“I saw him get shot in the chest,” Ryan repeated, as if everyone would think he’d made the whole thing up.

Rivera moved her fingers over the front of his coat until she found the bullethole punched through the fabric. She frowned, her slowing pulse starting to ramp back up again. “You were shot.” 

Terri squatted beside Carlos, letting Beasley just close enough to sniff him and give his face a few restorative licks. “But there’s no blood. How the hell are you still breathing?”

Carlos gritted his teeth and tried to inhale past his locked diaphragm. “I’m . . . not.”

Rivera felt something hard beneath the fabric of his coat and reached inside, where her fingers found the inner pocket and brushed over the edge of what felt like a . . . book? As gently as she could, she worked it free from the pocket and held the thick volume under Ryan’s light.

The book’s green cover now featured a crater in the center that had bored through most of the title. She flipped through the mangled pages and found the bullet flattened against page 279, where it had come to a stop after tunneling through the majority of the book. 

Terri grinned. “You lucky son of a bitch.”

“You had it?” she asked, a bit harsher than she intended, then dialed back her frustration when she remembered that her husband had just been shot in the chest. Then again he was alive and perfectly fine and  the book was ruined forever so it came back again.

“Forgot about that,” he croaked.

“I’ve been looking for this all night,” she said, knowing she was completely unjustified in feeling angry. She had found the book, after all, even if the last half of the index was the only part still intact, and it had saved Carlos’ life. Anger should have been the last emotion she felt, but all the nerves and stress she’d been bottling over the last few days had finally blown off its cap. Apparently anger was the dominant compound such a mixture resulted in after you shook the bottle hard enough. “How on Earth did you . . . .”

 Before she could finish the question, the dance she and Carlos shared in the auditorium replayed through her mind, the way he had stopped her at the door and pulled the book out of her hands to make sure she was focused on him. That was the last time she’d seen it–disappearing into the inside pocket of his coat.

She suddenly felt lightheaded. A dozen contradicting emotions flared through her mind, the events of the last two minutes packed with too many thoughts, too many feelings for a single mind to hold on to: fear, love, anger, worry, anticipatory grief, uncertainty, relief, frustration–all of it sparking along her neurons at the same time. All the what-ifs and seemingly insignificant decisions that had led to a bullet embedding itself in a book instead of one of Carlos’ lungs. If she hadn’t carried that book with her when he’d led her out into the hall, if she’d instead been reading a thinner one, if he hadn’t picked that precise moment to ask her to the auditorium . . . . Countless parallel universes spiderwebbed out through her mind, so many of their branches ending with Carlos dead. And she felt the emotions of every single one of them. 

“Are you OK?” Carlos asked, wincing as he pushed himself upright and took a slow breath in.

“Am I OK?” she fired back, and only when the words  escaped her throat, high and strained, did she realize she was crying. “I honestly don’t know,” she laughed and wiped her face, then glared at him. “But if you ever get shot again, I swear to God I’ll kill you.”

He nodded. “That’s fair.”

“We need to move,” Terri said, rising to her feet. “Seeing as you’re not–” Her gaze fell on something across the room and she trailed off, shoulder’s sagging. She walked over to a man’s body on the floor that Rivera hadn’t even noticed, blood on his face and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Terri sighed and knelt down. “Dammit, Howell.” She gently closed his eyelids.

“He saved our lives,” Ryan said softly. “Darren probably would have shot one of us if he hadn’t tackled him to the ground.”

“He still did,” Rivera noted as she helped Carlos to his feet.

“Darren didn’t shoot him,” Ryan said, nodding to Carlos. “Joey did.”

Rivera nearly lost her grasp on her husband’s arm. “Joey? Why would–“

Terri turned to them. “We don’t have time for this right now. We have to go.” She took Darren’s pistol from the floor and held it out to Ryan. “Know how to use this?”

Ryan hesitated but accepted it, holding it as if it might go off at any moment.

“Just try not to shoot any of us.” She walked to the door and peered out into the dark hallway, then glanced back at the others. “Auditorium. Let’s go.”

They crossed the hall quietly but quickly, Terri leading the way. None of Darren’s men were in sight, but Rivera thought she could feel eyes all around her watching from the shadows. A distant door slammed and boots thudded against the floor from upstairs, the noise seeming to echo around the hall from all directions, and it occurred to her how vulnerable they were out in the open like this. How easy it would be to get trapped between two advancing groups with nowhere to hide. Lucky for all of them, the auditorium was only a short walk from the library.

Terri reached the door and pulled on the handle.

It didn’t open.

She pulled the other one but it was locked too. Ryan tried the second set of doors a few feet further down. Also locked. Cupping her face against the glass, she looked inside. “They’ve already left,” she breathed.

Lights appeared to their left at the far end of the hall and Rivera felt her body go rigid, frozen like a deer when a car comes around the curve. The person with the flashlight called back to his companions, too much excitement in his voice, too much eagerness at finding four people sneaking through the halls. He shouted something, then started running at them.

“This way,” Terri said, no longer caring if her voice carried. Against all logic, she ran toward the light and the men who carried it rather than away. Ryan followed without hesitation, but Rivera only did after Carlos yanked her into motion.

The sight of the four of them charging toward him was enough to make the man at the end of the hall slow his pace, just as surprised as Rivera at their unexpected rush. It undoubtedly surprised him even more when Terri veered to the right halfway between them and disappeared down a dark hallway none of them had seen. But Terri had known about it. The strategizer that she was, she’d probably mapped out the whole school ahead of time in case something like this happened.

“Back parking lot’s just ahead,” Terri said as they ran down the hall.

Shadows stretched out ahead of them as the man rounded the corner, his light painting their backs. He shouted something back to the others and followed after them at a sprint. Rivera wondered what it felt like to be shot in the back and if it would be a quick way to die or not.

Terri yanked the door open and they all poured outside, frigid snowy air snatching the breath from their lungs. She pulled it shut just as a shot struck the door’s window and sent a web of cracks through the bulletproof glass. After a millisecond of consideration, she reached out and grabbed the flashlight from Ryan’s hand, Darren’s flashlight, one of those long, metal types, and slid it behind the handle so it would bar the door shut against the wall.

“Won’t hold them long,” she said, but Rivera was already helping Carlos over the thin layer of snow covering parking lot. She’d had a gun aimed at her too many times in the last half hour to wait around to see if the door would stay closed.

“Where’s the bus?” Ryan shouted over the wind.

“Already gone,” Terri yelled back, pointing her flashlight down at the wide tire tracks cutting across the parking lot.

“Now what?”

“Thunder!” Carlos said. He pulled Rivera in a different direction before she could ask what he was talking about, and a few seconds later they nearly ran into a white vehicle that blended in with the blizzard.

Ol’ Thunder.

Carlos got into the driver seat while everyone else piled into the Jeep wherever they could fit. Beasley made herself at home in between Terri and Ryan in the back seat, tongue out and all thoughts of danger in her little canine brain replaced with the excitement of a roadtrip.

The key found the ignition, the inside lights came on, and Carlos turned over the engine.

The Jeep wheezed once, twice, then fell silent.

“Come on, girl,” he said to the dash, “it’s just a little cold.” He tried the key again and worked the accelerator with his foot. More wheezing and then nothing.

Flashlight beams cut through the night from the direction of the school and scanned over the parking lot, searching.

“Get this piece of junk rolling, Carlos,” Terri warned.

“She’s not junk,” he said, turning the key once more. 

Wheeze, wheeze, wheeze, wheeze.

The beams of light all converged onto the Jeep as it gave a final pneumonic death rattle, then roared to life.

Carlos shifted into gear and Ol’ Thunder peeled out of the parking lot, fishtailing across the slick pavement as someone outside started firing. Bullets pinged against metal and everyone ducked their heads down, even Carlos, but he still managed to straighten the wheel and navigate out of the parking lot without wrecking into anything. Terri let out an excited whoop and clapped him on the shoulder once the Jeep slid out into the road and fell in line with the set of tire tracks the buses had made.

“Hell yeah!” she shouted, grinning as the flashlights and the high school faded out of view behind the blizzard. 

“Everyone OK?” Rivera asked. “Ryan, you good back there?”

“Might be carsick if he keeps this up,” he answered.

“Puke out the window,” Carlos said quickly, turning his mirror to check on him.

Rivera snorted. “God forbid you ruin the upholstery.” 

Terri patted the headrest in front of her. “Ripped seats or not, I’d like to formally apologize for what I said. Thunder, you are not junk.”

“Damn right she’s not,” Carlos said. “She’s been through a lot worse than a few gunshots over the years.” He took a right past the cemetery and made for the interstate past the Valero. Or what was left of it. In the glimpses she caught in the headlights, Rivera saw only blackened ruins where the pumps had been. All that fuel, wasted.

“You’re sure that van you saw was out of state?” she asked Ryan as they passed it.

He nodded. “Arizona plates. Why?”

“One of Darren’s men said we had to pay for what we did to the Valero,” she said. “He believed that we drove the van into the pumps. Intentionally. I think Darren told them it was us.”

“That would explain why they’re all so pissy,” Terri muttered.

Carlos frowned. “But why would he do that?”

Rivera shrugged. “No idea. Probably so they wouldn’t blame him for his own stupidity.”

“That sounds about right,” he said, slowing the Jeep as they approached the wall of cars blocking the ramps that Darren had spent so long building. The line had been broken like links in a snapped chain, two of its cars pushed aside by a single school bus. “I mean, he really thought a line of scrap metal would be enough to stop someone determined enough to get through.” He guided the Jeep carefully around the cars and followed the tracks up onto the interstate.

“Maybe he wanted a reason to take the school,” Ryan suggested after a moment. “If everyone thought we attacked them first, they’d be justified in retaliating.”

Terri slowly nodded. “Like a false flag. I didn’t think Darren was . . . , well, political enough to put together something like that.”

Carlos snorted. “He’s not. Don’t have to be a strategic mastermind to throw the blame at somebody else. And from the way he talked, his people are calling the shots now anyway. He told Howell he thought they would kill him if he tried to call them off.”

Everyone fell silent remembering Howell’s lifeless eyes, the way they had to leave his body there in the library in order to escape. It had been necessary, Rivera knew, but she felt guilty anyway. As much as she had her differences with the mayor, he didn’t deserve to be shot dead and left behind with Darren. They’d probably dump him out in the parking lot and be done with it. Let the snow bury him.

A wall of wind pushed against the Jeep and Carlos slowed, snow blasting over the windshield so hard the road disappeared from view.

“So what’s our plan?” Terri asked. “Once we catch up to the buses.”

Carlos sighed. “I don’t know. Look for a town we can stay in, maybe? Or, as much as I hate to even think about it, head for Dallas and see how things are there. Maybe those warming centers we heard on the radio are still up.”

An urgent but unwelcome wave of adrenaline surged through Rivera as she suddenly remembered her own plan, the revelation momentarily forgotten in the wake of all that had happened. “Oh, I may have figured out how we can survive this.”

Everyone looked at her, surprised and expectant to hear what she had to say. And why, no doubt, she was just now getting around to saying it.

“I guess I have Howell to thank,” she said. “He told me a hot shower would clear my mind, and it did. But it did even more. It reminded me of how all life needs heat and liquid water to stay alive, and how those two things are quickly disappearing from the world. We need both if we want to survive, heat and water, but how can you produce them indefinitely without the Sun, without a water cycle?” She realized she had slipped into the lecture hall voice she used when trying to keep a class full of sleepy students interested, attempting to draw them into the discussion with questions and flair. Old habits.

“Well, how do you?” Terri prodded.

Rivera smiled. “You don’t. You don’t need to, not when Earth’s been doing it by itself for billions of years.” She waited, unable to stop herself from being a bit dramatic with the information, unwilling to just come out and say it all at once. Where was the fun in that? Maybe it was from years of teaching, but she desperately wanted someone else to feel the satisfaction of coming to the same conclusion she had. 

Ryan let out a soft “Oh,” from behind her and she looked back at him. His gears were still spinning but his expression told her that he’d figured it out. “Hot springs.”

She nodded excitedly. “But not just any hot spring. The hot spring. One where boiling hot water escapes through steam vents and the ground is a comfortable 200 degrees year-round.” She looked between their faces as each of them came to understand. “If we want to stay alive, we have to get to Yellowstone.”

Carlos grinned and looked over at her. “I told you you’d think of something.” 

She smiled at him but felt worry creeping in again. “Of course, getting there is going to be a whole other problem.”

“You’ll think of something.” He abruptly pressed on the brakes and squinted out over the steering wheel at something up ahead. Rivera followed his gaze into the swirling blizzard and made out two sets of yellow lights flashing rhythmically beyond the haze.

Carlos brought the Jeep to a stop along a strip of black cutting across the interstate, the shadow of an overpass free from snow, where the buses had parked to escape the worsening weather. He shifted into park and looked at her.

“Think they’ll agree to go?”

She exhaled. “They have to. Anywhere else will be completely frozen over in a few weeks. There’s nowhere else they can go.”

Flashlights appeared outside the buses as several people stepped out to see who had followed them. Carlos turned off the engine and gave Rivera’s hand a squeeze. “Alright. Then let’s go invite them on a roadtrip.”