Edge of Valor: A Post-Apocalyptic EMP Survival Thriller(59)

Quinn





Day One Hundred and Thirteen





Somehow, Quinn pulled herself to her feet, pushing against the pavement with her stinging hands, gasping, chest heaving, until she was upright.

The Black Hawk flew several blocks west, driven away by the machine gunfire. The great bird wheeled over Main Street, firing occasional bursts at empty buildings.

She dropped her gaze from the sky to the street. Her rifle had been flung several feet away. It seemed like an impossible distance. Her thoughts came thick and slow.

Jonas was there beside her, dust in his blond hair, streaking his face. She didn’t know how he’d gotten there, hadn’t seen him coming. Maybe he’d been there all along.

She thrust Joey into his arms. Jonas stared at her with a stricken expression. His blue eyes were huge in his face. He mouthed something she couldn’t hear.

“Take him,” she said, her only thought for Gran. Gran who’d pushed her out of the way. Gran who’d taken the hit, not her.

Jonas took the squalling child. “Quinn, we have to go—”

“Not without Gran!” she screamed.

“But Quinn, she’s—”

Quinn didn’t want to listen anymore. Didn’t want to hear what he had to say. The thing she feared in the deepest recesses of her soul. “No!”

She turned, her legs unsteady, and made her way around the delivery truck. Gaping holes punctured the sides and rear, holes that hadn’t been there two minutes ago.

Dread curdled her stomach, her guts turning to water.

Two yards away, a shape lay in the middle of the road. Small and gray. A listless lump shrouded in dust and debris. Gran’s cane rested beside it.

“Gran!” Quinn collapsed on her knees beside her grandmother. Bits of rock and debris dug into her knees.

She blinked grime from her eyes and felt frantically for a pulse. Gran’s wrists as fragile as bird bones, her skin thin and papery.

A thready pulse beat faintly against her fingertips. Gran wasn’t moving. Blood streaked her gray hair. Dirt and soot smudged her face and throat. Her legs twisted beneath her at an impossible angle.

There was more. More damage.

Quinn’s brain skipped away, refusing to see, to know.

“Gran! Answer me!”

Gran coughed weakly. Her eyelids cracked open.

“You’re alive!”

“Quinn…”

“We’ve got to get you out of here!”

“There’s no time…”

“Yes, there is!”

“I need to tell you…”

“We just have to get you to the medical ward. To Evelyn. She’ll fix you. She can fix this. Just hold on—”

“Quinn.”

“I have to get you to the bomb shelter. I can still get you there.”

“Hush, girl…”

Quinn tugged at her arm. “Come on! Get up!”

“Look at me, Quinn.”

Despite her best efforts not to, Quinn looked. Blood everywhere. Shredded clothing. Torn flesh. A glimpse of exposed bone.

A horrified whimper escaped her lips.

“I’m not going anywhere…that monster cut up my legs real good.”

“We’ll fix you. Evelyn can fix you.”

“I don’t feel a thing,” Gran mumbled. “No pain, bless the Lord.”

Quinn’s eyes burned. Tears seared her cheeks.

“Truth be told…thought I’d go out…in a blaze of glory.” Gran coughed up blood. A fine mist sprayed Quinn’s cheek. “Not like…this.”

“Don’t talk, Gran. Save your strength.”

“And here I had an amazing death speech all planned out…but I’m so tired…just tired.”

“No, Gran,” Quinn whimpered. “Please, no.”

Gran stretched out a trembling hand and attempted to wipe the blood away. It smeared Quinn’s face. She didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Gran.

“Don’t die on me.”

“You just remember…remember…”

Quinn wrapped her hand over Gran’s—weak and quivering, skin and veins stretched over thin bones. “You can’t die on me.”

Gran said something, too soft for Quinn to hear over the ringing in her ears. She bent low, clutching her grandmother’s hand.

“Lot of things to regret in this life…” Gran said. “Never you, girl…not for one second. Never you.”

Gran’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her papery eyelids fluttered.

Her chest hitched, shuddered, and fell still.

“No!” Quinn said. “No, no, no! Gran! Stay with me! No!”

Distant explosions rent the air. Gunfire like fireworks. Boom! Boom! Boom!

Rubble all around her. Fire and death and destruction. And the screaming.

The screaming would not end. It just went on and on until she understood that the scream was inside her own brain and still it would not stop.

Not Gran, not Gran.

This had to be another nightmare. It couldn’t be real.

But it was real. It was real and Gran was gone. The last of her family dead, and Quinn never even said I love you.