Then, the automated operator voice.The subscriber you are trying to reach is not available.
"She's gone dark," Daniel said, his voice hollowing out.
"Or she's running,” I said as I looked at Anders. His knuckles were white on the steering wheel. He was driving like a man possessed, taking the curves of the coastal road at speeds that should have been impossible.
We were racing back to the fortress. But this time, we weren't the saviors. We were just three men who had failed to lock the gate.
TWENTY-FOUR
Tessa
I was folding a t-shirt, one of Daniel’s spare grey ones that hung to my mid-thigh, when the world ended for the second time.
It was a quiet moment, or it was supposed to be. The house was settling around me, the timber and steel contracting as the temperature dropped back to its usual coastal chill. I was alone, but for the first time in a decade, the silence didn't feel predatory. It felt full. It felt like the pause between heartbeats.
I smoothed the fabric over my knee, my fingers lingering on the cotton. It smelled of him. Warm yeast, sandalwood, and heavy spice. It was a scent that made my stomach flutter with a ghost sensation of weight and friction.
I looked at the satellite phone Anders had placed on the nightstand. It sat there like a brick of black plastic, ugly and industrial and utterly reassuring.
Two hours.
That was the promise. They were just going to town. They were buying eggs. They were buying heating pads. They were coming back to box up my life and move me to a brownstone with a library and a lock on the door.
For years, I had believed that safety was a wall. Last night, three men had dismantled that wall brick by brick and showed me that safety was actually a formation. A phalanx.
I picked up the sat-phone, just to hold it. To feel the weight of Anders’ protection.
Bzzzzzzzt.
The sound came from the living room.
I froze, the phone heavy in my hand. It wasn't the phone vibrating. It was a distant, mechanical hum, like a wasp trapped against a windowpane.
I walked out of the bedroom, my bare feet silent on the hardwood corridor. The living room was bathed in the flat, slate-grey light of mid-morning. The fire Daniel had built was down to embers, glowing faintly in the hearth.
Bzzzzzzzt. Whirrrrr.
It was louder now.
I looked at the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that overlooked the ocean. The view I had paid millions for. The view that was supposed to be endless, private, and empty.
Something black rose up from the cliff edge.
It hovered there, suspended against the grey sky like a severed head. Four rotors spun in a blur of violence. A camera lens, bulbous and unblinking, swiveled on a gimbal, locking onto the glass.
A drone.
My breath hitched in my throat, a sharp, ragged sound.
Go away,I thought, a childish, frantic instinct.It’s just a land survey. It’s just the DOT checking the bridge.
But then a second one rose up beside it. Then a third.
They moved with a jerky, synchronized aggression, buzzing closer to the glass until they were hovering only ten feet away. They looked like giant, angry insects, their mechanical whirring penetrating the insulated glass.
I took a step back, clutching Daniel’s t-shirt to my chest.
The center drone dipped lower, the camera lens adjusting, seeking focus. I saw the red tally light blink on.
