After I Fully Prepared for the Apocalypse, the Ungrateful Cried with Regret novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Heat

I did not decide to run. I was already in the lane.

Nolan pulled the inner gate open an arm's width behind me and shouted at Chelsea to keep coming.

She was fifty yards away. The Bloomed were thirty yards behind her.

I held both hands out in front of me and let go of whatever had been holding the fire back.

It came all at once. It ran down the middle of the lane in a long line of orange light.

It lit the faces of twelve men and women who had been my neighbors.

They stopped. They turned toward it, and they walked into it.

I made myself watch every one of them fall.

Chelsea reached me and collapsed against my legs.

"Don't look back," I said, and dragged her through the gate.

Nolan shut it and dropped the bar.

Then it was quiet.

The fire in my hands sank down to nothing, and I stood there shaking.

He sat Chelsea at the kitchen table and cleaned a deep scrape on her arm where the lane fence had caught her.

"No bites," he told her. "You're lucky."

"Is Mom here?" Chelsea's teeth were chattering. "Did they tell you?"

"Tell us what?"

"The train." She gripped the edge of the table with both hands. "Robin, the train sat there until nine o'clock."

"It was due at six."

"Calder's people stood at the platform with a list. They checked every wristband. There were hundreds of people at the barrier." She was crying again. "Mom had hers. Troy had his. They let them through to the platform, and then they stopped the whole line."

"Why?"

"The man with the list said no seats could leave without the priority." Chelsea looked up at me. "He said the train waits for Hartigan, Robin."

I felt Nolan go still behind me.

"They held it for three hours," Chelsea said. "Mom kept telling them you'd come. She told them you were on your way."

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