Prologue
The air in the bunker is bitter and dank. The kind of air you’d expect to take your last breath in while gasping for help as you tried to saw zip ties off your wrists with a rusty nail.
An arched, corrugated roof is lit by a string of bare bulbs, crudely nailed along the spine. The hum of a generator reverberates, making the walls vibrate. It is not a place you’d want to spend time in.
But someone obviously has.
At one end, there is a small kitchenette stocked with packets of ramen and a Nespresso machine. A camping toilet is discreetly tucked behind a plastic curtain next to an army cot with weights and a chin-up bar underneath in a tidy row.
Further down, an eerie blue glow lights up the wall. A makeshift desk is propped up in front of a bank of sophisticated monitors. The screens are all on, lit with colorful images of empty stretches of desert, a cluster of pink buildings, and dark rooms. The screen in the center shows a vintage road sign, winking on and off, over and over,its letters stark against a sweeping, empty skyline: MOTEL LOBA, NO VACANCY.
Eyes on everything. Nothing moves, yet.
A corkboard hangs behind the desk. Eight photos are pinned on it next to a crumpled twenty-dollar bill. Eight smiling faces with a school photo background, heads cocked, posing for the camera. Attractive and well-groomed—these aren’t kids; they are young adults, with one foot already out the door of high school, ready to take on the world. Their futures ahead of them.
A small red light flashes on one of the monitors. There is movement in the corner of the screen. A bus pulls into view, caught in a sunset glow, slowing to a stop close to the flashing sign. The door opens and a figure slouches out, followed by another, then another. Teenagers, laughing, joking around, dragging bags and backpacks behind them. Chatting and jostling, oblivious.
Their photos on the wall watch them silently, smiling into the air, unable to speak, unable to warn themselves not to get off the bus. To go back to where they’d come from. To run before it is too late.
One by one they come, moving, spreading across the monitors, across the desert, into the motel. With each step, red lights flicker on, motion detectors wake up, cameras catch them. Silently tracking everything.
A loud creak cuts through the heavy air.
A lone figure stands up and moves out of the shadows where they have been sitting, watching. The blue light from the monitors catches the edges of their dark clothes, momentarily outlining them: well-built, average height, a gray hoodie pulled low over their face.
Stepping close to the desk, the figure studies the screens intently, identifying each of the kids, comparing them to the photos on the wall. Everyone accounted for. All present.
Taking a deep breath, they sink into the desk chair. So, this is it. All these long months—all the planning and preparation has led to this moment. The first move has been made, and so far, everything is going according to plan.
After three hundred and sixty-four days, it is finally time.
Payback.
1
Ana
Three hundred and sixty-four days.
Technically, it was three hundred and sixty-three days since the hospital had declared Danny Reyes dead, though they were wrong. His heart might have kept going for an extra day, pushed along by all the machines at his bedside, but he was already gone.
Ana Reyes knew it; she’d felt the exact moment her twin brother had curled up on the floor of the school locker room and just let go. Too much pain to bear, too little left to cling to. A softening—a gentle catch at the top of his breath, then gone. So quickly. So easily.
That was three hundred and sixty-four days ago, and tomorrow it would be a year.
Happy fucking anniversary.
Ana pulled her headphones down and stretched her arms out, shaking off the stiffness from the long bus ride. She looked around at her home for the next three days.
A vintage motel sign loomed over her, flickering on and off,red then yellow, the garish lights clashing starkly with the desert sunset sky.
WELCOME TO THE MOTEL LOBA.
The run-down old motel had obviously seen better days, if not better decades.
Two wings of baby-pink rooms stretched out on either side of a cracked asphalt parking lot with a cluster of lonely outbuildings scattered around behind. A lone palm tree stood sentinel over a fenced-off pool area in the middle of the lot. There were no cars, no people, no signs of life—only flat empty desert on all sides, the road they had arrived on ending just feet from the sign. Red dust coated every surface, weeds sprouted from the cracks. It had a post-apocalyptic appearance; all it needed was a zombie on the hunt for a busload of fresh meat.
Ana sighed.
