Page 101

At this point, why not?

Trish leans forward, eyes sharp. “Carlos? Are you okay?”

Carlos looks toward the wall map instead of at any of us. His dark eyes fix on a cluster of X marks near the mall. “They took my older brother. And I couldn’t save him.”

No one breathes.

He swallows hard, throat working twice before anything comes out. “He went out to help someone. Same kind of thing. Voice screaming. Said his daughter was trapped.” His jaw ticks. “I told him not to go.”

He scrubs a hand through his shaggy black hair, fingers catching in the knots, eyes shining in the lantern light, wet and furious.

“He went anyway. Turned out no one was there. Just them.”

No one moves.

“He was always like that. Always stopping. Always giving away food we needed. Always checking rooms twice because maybe someone was hiding. Always telling me Luis was watching, so I had to be better.” His mouth twists. “Like being better keeps you alive.”

The bitterness in his voice cracks over the last word.

Poppy flashes through my mind. Her life shaped by every choice I make, every fear I swallow, every time I stand straighter because she needs proof women can get back up.

I hate that I understand.

Carlos keeps staring at the wall. “We tracked him to the mall. Me and Luis. We thought maybe . . .” His voice thins, and he shakes his head. “I don’t know what we thought. That we’d get him out. That he’d be tied up somewhere. Hurt, maybe. But alive.”

He presses his lips together, and pain flashes across his face when the split skin pulls.

“We found them outside near one of the service entrances. They had barrels burning. Folding chairs.” His voice breaks. “Music playing from some battery radio like it was a fucking cookout.”

My stomach turns before he says more.

I don’t want the image.

My brain gives it to me anyway.

Firelight. Smoke. People gathered around something that should never have touched flame.

Carlos closes his eyes.

“They were barbecuing.”

The word is barely louder than a breath.

It still guts the room.

Joanie’s hand flies to her mouth. Lyla’s expression goes lethal, carved from a weapon instead of flesh. Jacob looks away first, jaw working. Trish’s face hardens, but her eyes soften. Leon doesn’t move, one hand curled at his side like he wants to reach for Carlos but knows Carlos would break before he let anyone see him need it.

Bile burns the back of my tongue.

God.

I can’t imagine standing there, knowing it’s someone you love. Knowing you’re too late. Knowing the world didn’t just take him. It made a meal out of him.

Carlos’s tan skin has gone ashen beneath the grime. His shoulders slump, hands fisted so tightly his knuckles pale. No wonder anger lives in his face. It isn’t attitude. It’s grief with nowhere safe to go.

“Motherfuckers,” Lyla mutters, her voice low and lethal.

Carlos keeps going like stopping might swallow him. His stare pins me in place. “I told him to quit. Told him it was going to get him killed.”