She waves a dismissive hand. “They won’t. They could try, but I still have plenty of fans down there who will protect me.”
That might be true, but what if Fort Caroline doesn’t care about fans? Especially fans of a smutty romance writer.
“Get some sleep,” she says, patting my hand. Then she leans in and kisses me on the cheek. “But remember, if you see the chance, you take it and get the hell out of here.”
After I set my sleeping bag up next to Jamie’s, he reaches for my hand. I take it and hold it until he falls asleep, then I tuck it into his sleeping bag so he’s warm. But I can’t sleep. With Daphne’s words floating in my mind, I feel wired.
I’m looking for the chance she was talking about. Waiting to see if this could be it, and if Jamie and I could run.
But I don’t know if I can do it. As much as I love Jamie, I don’t know if I can leave all of them, knowing Fort Caroline is coming. I check that everyone around us is sleeping—six of Hickey’s people are still wide awake and watching me like hawks—and then bundle myself back into my own sleeping bag. I stare up at the night sky, the fire popping as it devours the fresh wood.
It wasn’t until the apocalypse that I realized exactly how many stars were out there. With zero light pollution left in the world, it’s pretty awesome. Awesome meaning evoking awe, not plain old cool. That’s a word that should be reclaimed in the apocalypse. Awesome. But only to be used in truly awesome situations.
I close my eyes, just for a second, but then someone screams. A woman.
It’s a chilling, bloodcurdling shriek that raises my hackles instantly. I jolt upright, my sleeping bag unzipping itself. I must’ve dozed off because the sky has changed. Dawn is on the horizon. But somehow I woke from a dreamless sleep into a nightmare.
Someone else screams, this time a man. The kids are up, Daphne, too. I hear them murmuring, and there’s more screaming. Even with dawn coming, I can’t see them in the darkness.
“What’s happening?” Jamie sits up, wide awake. I unzip my sleeping bag the rest of the way and crawl over to the orange embers of our fire. I throw more sticks on, trying to light the darkness that was so beautiful what felt like only moments ago. Cara is there in an instant, adding more to the fire. A gunshot cuts through the nightand I hear Hickey’s voice, and Daria’s.
The kids are all awake, asking what’s going on. The Kid is crying. Taylor asks what’s wrong, her voice sounding so much younger than she’s been allowing it to be.
I open my mouth to calm them, but the fire catches, lighting up the road as someone else screams farther away. So many screams. Including Cara, who points over my shoulder, wide-eyed with horror.
Because of the creature smiling at me from the grass on the side of the road. Pitch-black eyes, a long scaly snout, and a mouth full of teeth. A fucking alligator.
It leaps forward, snapping at me.
“Shit!” I fall back as the gator walks closer, snapping again. The guns! But Hickey took our guns. I reach into the firepit and grab the end of a burning branch. I put it in front of the thing’s face, and thank God, it knows what fire is. The gator turns away, snapping at nothing.
Hickey’s people are still screaming everywhere.
Rocky Horror helps me back on my feet, asking if I’m okay. I nod, and he turns to the kids.
“Taylor!” Jamie shouts. He moves quickly around the fire, grabbing a stick covered in leaves and Spanish moss and setting it ablaze. “Kids, all of you, over here.”
“Where’s Amy?” I say. My chest constricts as images of Amy and Henri-Two being mauled by an alligator flash in my mind. People are running, screaming. Dust flies up and gunshots ring out in the dark.
“Amy!” I shout. “Daphne! Kelly!”
“Here.” Amy runs out of the darkness toward us, Henri-Two crying in the sling against her chest.
“Where’s Daphne?” Jamie asks.
She shakes her head. I lunge at the alligator that came toward me, and it crawls off into the high grass at the edge of the clearing. I throw the stick back on the fire, along with every other piece of wood we have.
More gunshots, and someone else screams. A man stumbles forward, clutching his chest. Blood spilling through his fingers. He falls to his knees, then onto his face.
“Jamie, help!” I turn the man over. He’s gasping, and blood bubbles from the bullet wound in his chest. Jamie throws his flaming stick onto the fire and joins me.
“Leave him,” Jamie says, trying to pull me away from him.
I turn to him, my jaw falling open. “We can’t justleavehim.” I don’t have enough time to figure out how Jamie could even suggest such a thing—despite these people being here to drag us back to the Keys. Rocky Horror comes over and grabs under his arms.
“Help me get him to the fire.” We drag him closer. The man tries to gasp three more times before he stops breathing. The chest wound releases a few more bubbles, then stops.
Another gun goes off. Then another, and another.
