Fear the Fallout
Fear the Fallout
Nuclear Dawn Book Three
Kyla Stone
Paper Moon Press
Contents
Also by Kyla Stone
1. Logan
2. Dakota
3. Logan
4. Dakota
5. Dakota
6. Dakota
7. Maddox
8. Dakota
9. Logan
10. Eden
11. Dakota
12. Dakota
13. Dakota
14. Logan
15. Logan
16. Maddox
17. Dakota
18. Dakota
19. Eden
20. Dakota
21. Dakota
22. Dakota
23. Maddox
24. Dakota
25. Dakota
26. Logan
27. Logan
28. Logan
29. Logan
30. Logan
31. Logan
32. Logan
33. Eden
34. Dakota
35. Dakota
36. Dakota
37. Dakota
38. Logan
39. Logan
40. Dakota
41. Dakota
42. Dakota
43. Dakota
44. Dakota
45. Dakota
Sneak Peek of Book #3: From the Ashes
Acknowledgments
Also by Kyla Stone
Author’s Note
No Safe Haven Sneak Peek
Fear the Fallout
Copyright © 2019 by Kyla Stone All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblances to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover design by Christian Bentulan
Book formatting by Vellum
First Printed in 2019
ISBN: 978-1-945410-29-1
Created with Vellum
Also by Kyla Stone
Point of Impact
Fear the Fallout
From the Ashes
Beneath the Skin
Before You Break
Real Solutions for Adult Acne
Rising Storm
Falling Stars
Burning Skies
Breaking World
Raging Light
No Safe Haven
Labyrinth of Shadows
To Jeremy, for holding down the fort while I made up imaginary people in imaginary worlds.
1
Logan
Logan Garcia stared down at Shay’s crumpled body, at the red-black blood leaking in an ever-widening circle across the concrete floor.
He stood in the Old Navy clothing store, his Glock 43 hanging limply at his side.
Heavy shadows swathed the checkout counter, the clothing racks, the toppled mannequins. Dim daylight leaked through the shattered windows at the front of the store.
A flashlight on the counter provided a beam of bright light, limning the frantic scene in shades of harsh black and white.
Logan felt nauseous. His stomach roiled. It wasn’t from the blood. He’d seen plenty before, including his own.
Shay was lying here because of him, because of what he hadn’t done.
He could have drilled a hole in the back of the thug Blood Outlaw’s skull. At the last second, he’d gone for the gangster’s shoulder and arm instead, taking out the threat without murdering him outright.
He’d succeeded, but not before the gangster squeezed off a volley of wild shots with his M4 carbine. One of the stray bullets had skimmed the nursing student’s skull.
Now, Blood Outlaw slumped against the checkout counter twenty feet away, unconscious and bleeding out. He was going to die anyway.
Because of Logan’s instant of hesitation, Shay was gravely wounded.
This is what happened, what always happened.
People got hurt around him. Most of the time, people that deserved it.
But there had been mistakes. Like the night four years ago that still haunted his dreams…
Who was he kidding, to think that a new city and a solitary, uneventful life after prison would make it go away?
The darkness was in him.
Even when he tried to escape it, it still managed to do harm.
“Get me shirts!” Dakota Sloane cried as she knelt beside Shay opposite Logan, still pressing a handful of clean flannel shirts against the side of the girl’s head.
Dakota’s features were taut with tension. Her long auburn waves were yanked back in a messy ponytail. Strands of damp hair clung to her cheeks and forehead. “The flannel ones!”
The middle-aged bartender, Julio de la Peña, scrambled to obey. He dashed around the counter and ran toward the back of Old Navy.
Dakota set the flashlight beside her and frantically searched Shay’s bloodied skull for the head wound.
In the wild shadows cast by the flashlight, all Logan could make out was Shay’s matted, tightly coiled curls and more blood. Blood splotched Shay’s face and stained Dakota’s fingers.
Shay’s eyes were closed.
She lay still. Too still.
Julio brought a handful of shirts and flannel sweaters and sank down beside them. “I—I grabbed them from some boxes in the storeroom. They were sealed in plastic, so they’re free of contamination.”
Dakota grabbed a shirt and tried to soak up the blood. It just kept coming. “Help me!”
Julio reared back on his heels, swaying a little. He looked ready to pass out. “I’m sorry—I’m not good with blood...”
Dakota swore. “Move aside!”
Logan pulled Julio to his feet and steadied him. “You okay?”
“Yeah, fine.” Julio sagged against the counter. He scraped his hands nervously through his graying black hair. His bronze skin was ashen. “Thanks, man.”
“Julio, take the flashlight. I need to see!” Dakota said. “Logan, I need your help to stop this blood!”
Logan turned back toward the rear exit. “What about the second hostile? I should go—”
“It’s too late.” Dakota gave a sharp shake of her head. “If he’s going for his superiors, I bet they’re smart enough to stay out of the hot zone. Which means he won’t be returning any time soon.”
Logan longed to go after him, but she was right.
A good forty-five seconds had already passed.
The second guy had fled. He could’ve turned down an alley, sought refuge in any of the businesses lining the street, disappeared into the same rat hole he’d come from.
The gangbanger was long gone.
Another error.
He was rusty. Too slow to react, to act swiftly and decisively, his senses dulled by the booze. He used to be sharp and deadly as a honed blade. Used to be.
Uneasiness lurched in Logan’s gut. He had the feeling they’d end up regretting that mistake—and badly.
It would cost them. He just didn’t know how much yet.
“I hope you’re right,” he said stiffly.
“Logan!” Dakota jerked her chin at him. “Come on! Help me staunch the blood!”
He crouched on the other side of Shay and set the M4 close beside him, the handgun next to it within easy reach. He remained on his feet, just in case.
Nothing and no one would take him by surprise again. br />
As he pressed the cloth to Shay’s head, he turned so he was perpendicular to both the front and rear of the store, keeping an alert eye on both exits.
Twenty feet in front of him, Blood Outlaw slumped, unconscious.
“Will she make it?” Logan asked grimly.
Dakota spared him a single searing glance. “How should I know?”
Julio aimed the flashlight at Shay’s head with one hand, his other clenched around the gold cross at his neck. His mouth moved in a silent prayer.
Logan didn’t pray. He didn’t know how. In that moment, he desperately wanted to believe in something, a higher power, hope, a miracle.
Instead, shame and dread and horror opened up beneath him like a gaping maw.
This is your fault, that voice whispered in his head. It’s who you are. The sooner you face it, the better for everyone else.
He shoved that thought down deep. There wasn’t time to stew in guilt and self-pity now.
He focused on the girl, every fiber of his being willing her to open her damn eyes.
2
Dakota
Dark liquid seeped into Dakota’s pants at the knees. The puddle beneath Shay’s head widened, gleaming blackly in the flashlight beam.
There was so much blood. It didn’t seem possible that so much could be contained within a single human body.
But it could. She knew that well enough. An image flitted through her mind—the dead body at her feet, blood spilling everywhere.
She should just run. Part of her wanted to get the hell out of here and forget these people.
She wasn’t responsible for them. She didn’t owe them anything.
Her sister was the one who needed her.
Guilt tugged at her. What was she going to do? Just leave Shay bleeding on the ground? Abandon them when they’d put their trust in her?
She couldn’t do that.
Sometimes she hated that part of herself. Maybe it was a weakness, that inability to shrug off responsibility for another human being.
It was the very thing that had kept her at the compound for so long. It would’ve been far easier to escape without Eden. Maybe the Shepherds wouldn’t have bothered hunting for her. Eden was the one they wanted.
But Dakota had never been able to leave anyone behind.
Not Eden, and not Shay.
“We need to take her to a hospital,” Julio said, distraught.
“Which one?” Dakota said tersely. “Miami North Memorial went up in flames. Aventura and North Shore are both in the hot zone, so they’ll have been evacuated. The next closest hospital is, what, a four-mile walk? And it’s been two days since the attack. They’ll be overwhelmed with all the bombing victims.”
“What about an emergency FEMA camp? I could go out and search for one,” Julio said, touching his gold cross with one trembling hand. “Maybe there’s one closer.”
Dakota rolled her eyes. “Where? Which direction? We’re still in the area affected by the EMP. Until we get at least three miles out, we’re running blind until we find a first responder, a radio, or someone who can give us information.”
“If we try to pick her up, we could cause even more damage,” Logan said.
He was right. Dakota stared down at the red gradually staining the teal and brown plaid shirt in her hands and chewed anxiously on her bottom lip.
They couldn’t call 911. There were no ambulances coming with screaming sirens. No hospitals or medical centers nearby with nurses and doctors waiting, a pristine, sterilized operating room at the ready.
It was up to her to save Shay.
“We’ve got to stop the bleeding and get her conscious,” Dakota said, “then we’ll reassess.”
Logan and Julio nodded tightly.
The seconds passed with torturous slowness.
“Come on, come on,” Dakota muttered.
“Check her pulse,” Logan said, a line forming between his thick brows. “Maybe she—”
Shay groaned.
Relief flooded through Dakota’s veins.
“Oh, thank God,” Julio said.
Shay thrashed to life beneath their hands. More blood gushed, leaking through the layers of fabric and wetting Dakota’s fingers.
Logan grabbed two clean shirts from the pile and tossed one to Dakota. “Stop moving!” he grunted.
Together, they pressed the new cloth to Shay’s head.
She writhed, and the shirt slipped, more blood leaking out.
“Shay!” Dakota cried. “Hold still!”
Shay moaned. Her eyelids fluttered, her eyes rolling wildly.
“Stay with us, Shay. Come on!”
She moaned again and twisted beneath Dakota and Logan’s hands.
Logan dropped the shirt and gently pinned her shoulders, trying to keep her from moving. “Hold still, girl!”
Slowly, her eyes stopped rolling back in her head.
Her frenetic gaze focused on Logan’s and Dakota’s faces above her.
She stilled and took several shallow, rasping breaths, her wide, stunned eyes showing the whites all the way around her irises. “My head—what…happened?”
“You got shot,” Logan said.
Shay’s features contorted in pain—and fear.
At least she was lucid. That had to be a good sign.
“Stay with us,” Dakota said. “Don’t panic. You’re fine. You’re gonna be fine.”
“We really need your medical expertise here,” Julio said from a safe distance, panic in his voice. He leaned unsteadily against the checkout counter. “Tell us how to help you.”
“How—how bad is it?” Shay forced out.
Dakota pushed aside a handful of Shay’s thick coils drenched with blood. Logan daubed the shirt quickly and lifted it even as fresh blood welled into the wound.
A long, jagged gash sliced her scalp a few inches above her right ear. Beneath the gushing blood and raw, mangled flesh, Dakota glimpsed a streak of white bone.
She let out a sharp breath. “I don’t see any holes.”
“How sure are you?” Julio asked.
Dakota scowled. “Do I look like a doctor to you? Not freakin’ sure at all.”
“A tangential…gunshot wound,” Shay murmured.
Julio blanched. “That sounds bad.”
“Hopefully, it didn’t breach the skull…or cause…herniation of the brain.”
“That sounds even worse,” Julio said.
Anxiety tightened in Dakota’s gut. There was far too much blood. If they couldn’t stop it soon, it wouldn’t matter whether the bullet pierced her brain or not.
“Mother Mary and Joseph,” Julio muttered frantically. “If we don’t do something, she’s gonna die right here.”
“No, she’s not.” Dakota stared straight at Shay, her hands steady, her voice even. “You’re not going to die. That is not an option, do you understand? I will not let you die.”
3
Logan
“Tell us what to do,” Logan said.
Shay lifted a trembling hand and gingerly touched the side of her head. Her fingers came back dripping wet. “Head wounds—they bleed a lot. All those superficial veins and arteries beneath the skin…twenty percent of the heart’s pumped blood goes to—the brain…”
Dakota threw aside a drenched shirt and grabbed a new one from the pile. “We don’t need an anatomy lesson. What do we need to do?”
“Elevate my—feet,” Shay forced out. “T-twelve inches.”
Logan jerked a huge armful of soft, oversized T-shirts off a nearby rack and thrust them gently beneath Shay’s feet.
Julio found a bunch of shoes to make the pile taller. Maybe the clothes and shoes were contaminated, but in the moment, it didn’t matter.
Shay’s walnut-brown skin took on a sickly pallor. She inhaled rapid, shallow breaths. “Lift my head…above my heart. Apply pressure to the wound…not too much…in case of skull fracture.”
“What else?” Dakota asked as she carefully stuffed some more s
hirts beneath Shay’s head.
“C-cold. Keep me warm…to prevent shock.”
“We need to cover her,” Dakota said.
Logan draped a few of the flannel sweaters over Shay’s arms and legs.
“How’s the…bleeding?” Shay asked.
Logan lifted the shirt. Fresh blood spurted from the long, ragged gash. “Like a hose.”
“Large scalp wounds with…persistent bleeding should be closed immediately…a running interlocking stitch is…most effective and will provide better hemostasis,” Shay said, as if reciting from a textbook.
She grimaced. “There’s no way I can do it myself…anyone sutured a wound before?”
“I have,” Dakota said.
Logan stared at Dakota in surprise. “You have?”
“Didn’t I just say that?”
“You have medical experience?” Julio asked, as astonished as Logan.
“Not exactly.” She looked down at Shay, her mouth pressed into a straight line. “It won’t be pretty, but I can get it done.”
Shay didn’t even blink. “Do it.”
Logan had seen more than his share of blood and guts, but sewing this girl up without anesthetic wouldn’t be fun for anyone.
Still, he found himself impressed with Shay’s level head and composure. He’d witnessed grown men weeping like children at lesser wounds.