Page 44 of Into the Mist

Gemma shrugged. “Yeah, well, anyone who’s been in school knows girls are more mature than guys, and now some of us have superpowers.” She lifted the potato that rested beside her and turned it so that the women could see the green sprouting proudly from its bloodstained skin. “I think we should tell Dr. Hilary about this.”

Mercury and Stella exchanged a long look, and then Stella nodded slightly.

“Sounds like a plan,” said Mercury. “But not tonight. Tonight we drink and sleep. Tomorrow we start our new world.”

“Okay.” Gemma nodded and then held her glass out for a refill. “You’re right about the red chalk. It’s more like weird vinegar now.”

“Child, you blaspheme, but I won’t hold it against you.” Stella poured a little more wine into Gemma’s cup. “Instead, I’ll make it my mission to educate you. So, let’s talk about tannins…”

Mercury leaned back on the mound of pillows she’d propped against the head of the bed and listened to Stella explain red wine to Gemma—with occasionally semi-helpful comments from Jenny and Imani while Karen put her empty glass down, curled up, and fell instantly to sleep.

Mercury sipped her wine and stared at the crackling hearth fire. The flames reminded her of the firepit in her parents’ yard, and longing washed over her so thick, so dense that she almost couldn’t breathe. She missed her family. She missed Oklahoma—the smell of her mom’s butterfly bushes and the fireflies that lit up the yard on warm nights. She ached for the heat of a clear summer day and the thunderclouds that would roll in from the west to bring rain to washthe thirsty prairie and put the green in Oklahoma’s nickname, Green Country.

How am I going to live without my home? I’m never going to see Dad and Mom or my brothers again. Are they all dead? Even my little nieces and nephews? What about my tribe of friends? Teresa, Kim, Robin, Shawn, Lola, Sher, Sharon, Kristin, Bridget, Gena, Jill, and Kresley. I can’t say it out loud yet, but inside I know it. I know they’re as gone as my home—my Tulsa.

Without missing a beat in her wine lecture, Stella reached out and took her hand. She didn’t look at Mercury. She was just there—warm and alive and solid. Mercury clung to her hand and promised herself solemnly.We’ll make a better world. For everything—everyone we’ve lost. And make sure this never fucking happens again.

CHAPTER

13

PISSED OFF VOICESwoke Mercury. For a moment she didn’t know where she was, and then Karen snored softly and Gemma murmured something in her sleep.Oh shit! The apocalypse.Mercury sat straight up. Imani was gone. Stella was gone. Raised voices drifted through the cracked door to the suite, which made Gemma stir in her sleep. Mercury quietly got out from under the covers she’d burrowed beneath and tiptoed to the door and opened it.

“Shh! Y’all are gonna wake up Gemma and Karen—” Mercury swallowed the rest of her admonishment when she realized the two people who were arguing in the hall were Imani and Sadie—Gemma’s mom. “Oh, hi, Sadie. Gemma’s inside, but she’s sleeping. She got up several times last night to check the wounded, so we should probably let her sleep, but if you—”

Imani stopped Mercury’s words with a lifted hand. Then she turned to Sadie. “Tell Mercury what you just told me.”

Sadie sighed heavily. Her shoulders were bowed. Her hair was lank and greasy, and dark circles made her eyes look bruised. Sadie looked a decade older than she had the day before when they’d met her on the side of the road. She reluctantly lifted her gaze from the floor and spoke in a hushed voice. “I know Gemma was up most of the night, so I figured she’d still be asleep. I came by to ask you ladies to give her this for me.” The hand Sadie lifted held an envelope that hadGemmawritten in bold letters across it.

“Wait—why? She’ll be up in a little while,” said Mercury.

Sadie’s gaze shifted back to the floor. “I won’t be here.”

“I don’t understand,” said Mercury.

“She’s fucking leaving with Ken to go to Government Camp—which no longer fucking exists—and then they think they’re just going to take a day trip or whatever to Gresham, a suburb of Portland, which alsodoes not fucking exist anymore,to try and find her husband.”

Mercury closed the door softly behind them. “Sadie, you will most likely die if you head into Portland, though I don’t know how you’re even going to get there. The highway west of the turnout where our group was when the bombs hit is destroyed.”

“Yes, I understand that,” said Sadie.

“Do you really?” Mercury asked. “Portland was on fire. Leveled. Gone. For miles and miles. Not to mention that there was some kind of biological agent released in that green fog. You’ve seen what it can do—how it makes people dissolve. So heading into a huge area that’s on fire, with a biological agent drifting around, is not a rescue mission. It’s a suicide mission.”

Sadie’s grief-shadowed eyes lifted to Mercury. “I have to go to him. He’s myhusband.”

Imani shook her head and let loose a verbal attack on the woman. “Gemma is yourchild! Do you know what I’d give to see my babies again?Anything.Literally I would giveanything. And you’re just going to walk away from yours on a fool’s chase.”

Sadie slowly took one of Imani’s fisted hands in both of hers. “Then if I don’t come back, I know you’ll be there for my Gemma.”

Imani yanked her hand from Sadie’s grasp. “This is the stupidest white woman shit I’ve ever in my life experienced—and that’s saying something because white women do some stupid shit.”

“She’s not lying,” said Mercury.

Sadie turned to Mercury. “Will you give Gemma this?” She held up the envelope with her daughter’s name on it.

Mercury nodded and took the envelope.

“You don’t understand, but Gemma will. And thank you. I know you’ll look after her.” Then Sadie turned and walked away without looking back.