“Is Al alive?” I ask.
“Barely.”
“Oh God.”
“Get downstairs. Turn the ovens on. Make coffee. Pack anything hot and edible. I’m sending two kids to carry.”
The call ends.
For a moment, I stand in the middle of my bedroom wearing one boot, one sock, and a heart that feels like it has been beaten with a pipe.
Then I move.
The bakery below smells wrong again, but this time wrong is urgency instead of vandalism. Cold ovens. Damp floorboards. Rain pushed through the weak seam near the side panel. Old coffee grounds in the trash. I flip lights on and the room glows sickly gold against storm-gray windows. Sweet Tooth looks wounded and waiting.
I throw myself into work because if I stop, fear will eat me whole.
Coffee first. Then ovens. Then soup stock from the freezer, bread from yesterday’s trays, rolls warming under foil, clean towels piled into crates. My hands know what to do even while my mind keeps screaming Kauss’s name. The bakery fills with heat by degrees, yeast and coffee and soup pushing back against the storm smell.
People arrive before I am ready.
They come wet, frightened, and talking over each other. Renn’s brother with blood on his sleeve. Mrs. Pell’s grandson carrying two soaked blankets. Doreen’s friend looking for a dry place to lay supplies. A child I recognize from the tunnels wrapped in a coat too large for him. He smells like sewage and fear.
I crouch in front of him with a mug of sweet milk. “Hey. What’s your name?”
“Javi.”
“Javi, I’m Evie. You’re going to sit by the heater, okay?”
“My mom?—”
“Who’s your mom?”
“Maren.”
My throat closes. “She’s alive?”
He nods hard. “She told me stay here.”
“Then we’ll stay here.” I hand him the mug. “You drink this. It tastes better than it looks.”
He stares at it.
“It has sugar,” I add.
He drinks.
That nearly breaks me.
By midmorning, the bakery becomes an aid station with pastries. Darlene arrives soaked through, smelling like rain, smoke, and antiseptic, with her bad shoulder strapped tight beneath her coat. She takes one look at my face and does not say I told you so, which is how I know the world is truly ending.
“Al?” I ask.
“Nara transported him to Saint Orra’s emergency ward.”
“Alive?”
“Alive.”
