Nuclear Dawn Box Set Books 1-3: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Series Read online

  Her younger sister—beautiful, sweet, traumatized Eden—was placed in a specialized foster home for the medically fragile.

  She swallowed back a curse. She couldn’t afford to piss off a woman who still held so much power over her life.

  “Please,” she said instead, hating herself for begging, but giving it one last shot. If the woman still refused to help, she’d have to take matters into her own hands.

  “You know I can’t do that even if I wanted to, dear,” Mrs. Simpson simpered. “And you know I only have your sister’s best interests at heart…”

  Behind Dakota, someone at the bar gasped. Dakota glanced back at the flat-screen. Her arm fell limply to her side. Her fingers barely held onto the phone.

  The social worker babbled something, but Dakota wasn’t listening anymore.

  She could do nothing but watch the screen in stunned disbelief.

  2

  Dakota

  Zero Hour minus four minutes…

  Cold went through Dakota all the way to her bones.

  The screen was split now—one side displaying the bomb squad descending on the minivan in Chicago; the other side, a shaky cellphone video of a massive cloud rising into the sky over a city so hazy with smoke, she couldn’t tell which it was.

  “...We repeat, we’ve just received reports from outside Washington, D.C. that there has been a massive explosion,” the male reporter said, his voice rising in agitation.

  The female reporter tapped her earpiece. “Communication is down in the area, but we’ve received information that a fireball at least a half mile wide has been sighted over Capitol Hill. It appears this is—this is an attack, Gerard. An attack on American soil…”

  The first reporter’s face drained of color. “It appears to be a bomb. A nuclear bomb.”

  The shot cut to the reporter on the street in Chicago. “We also have an unconfirmed report that the Michigan Avenue bomb is likely an improvised nuclear device, Gerard.”

  The newsdesk reporters didn’t speak for a moment, the shock and horror on their faces genuine. So often, the media seemed to feed on manufactured outrage or barely disguised gleeful delight in the “next big thing.”

  This, though, was beyond imaginable.

  Dakota’s own pulse thudded in her throat. Her chest tightened like some invisible hand was squeezing her heart.

  “Ah,” Gerard stammered, “so I’m hearing that we have multiple bombs. Multiple nuclear bombs—at least two. One has detonated in D.C. already. We’ve heard nothing definitive yet from official sources.

  “Social media is blowing up with reports of a terrible explosion, though all locations are at least a few miles from the blast. We’ve had zero communication from anyone at the White House or Capitol Hill…Massive casualties must be expected…”

  The patrons in the bar—five at the bar itself, three more in the booths—sat staring at the screens, frozen, their mouths agape.

  Dread coiled in Dakota’s gut. Slowly, she raised the phone to her ear. “Mrs. Simpson, are you watching the news? Check your phone.”

  “Really, Ms. Sloane,” Mrs. Simpson huffed, “I don’t have time for your games today. Some of us have actual work to do—”

  “Another bomb!” the female reporter gasped. “We’ve just lost contact with large portions of New York. Hundreds—thousands of reports coming in on Twitter and social media. People reporting a massive mushroom cloud seen from miles away, buildings collapsing, massive fires…” Her voice trailed off in disbelief.

  The second reporter gestured at someone offscreen before turning back to the cameras, visibly shaken. “We have a video feed. Please brace yourselves. This is live—”

  The aerial shot revealed an enormous pillar of smoke larger than Dakota had ever seen, dwarfing the skyscrapers. She could barely see the skyline through all the smoke and fire.

  Dakota took a step back, and then another, until her butt pressed against the lip of the bar table.

  Three bombs. Not just bombs. Nukes.

  Three targeted cities. New York. Washington D.C. Chicago.

  Were there only three? Or were there more?

  She thought of Ezra. He’d warned her of something like this.

  What was it he always said? That smart terrorists would engage in a coordinated and multi-pronged attack. They would simultaneously attack the infrastructure—the electric grid, import hubs, or several cities—all intended to eviscerate American morale.

  Just like this.

  Dakota was a pessimist by nature. Experience had taught her that. Life always kicked you when you were already down.

  Worst case scenario, more bombs were just waiting to be detonated. Miami wasn’t the largest city in the U.S., but the metropolitan area was home to more than five million people. Seventh largest, her boss had said just last week.

  Miami International Airport and the Port of Miami were also major hubs of commerce.

  If there were more bombs, Miami was just as likely a target as any other.

  An image bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her—a glimpse of a memory she’d shoved down deep. Something darkly, horribly familiar about all of this…

  That feeling was in her, a cold dread creeping up her spine, tightening her chest, clawing at her throat. The hairs on her arms stood on end.

  She’d learned to recognize it for what it was: a warning.

  Dakota had to get out of the city. Right now.

  “Mrs. Simpson, are you there? We’re under attack. D.C. and New York just blew up.”

  “See? This is exactly what I mean. With your constant lying and toxic sarcasm, you’re no proper role model for a child—”

  “Where is Eden?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that.”

  Dakota struggled to remain calm, but all she wanted to do was reach through the phone and strangle the woman. “Where is she now? Call her foster parents. Tell them to get out of the city. Right now. Miami could be next!”

  “That is simply ridiculous. Even if something’s happened, it’d be irresponsible to incite a panic. The media does enough of that. I’m sure they’re exaggerating as usual—”

  “Just get her out, you good-for-nothing—” Dakota swallowed the curse and simply hung up on the social worker instead.

  She’d get no help from the Florida Department of Children and Families. She was just wasting time.

  She’d get Eden herself.

  Luckily, she knew the foster parents’ address, even though Mrs. Simpson had tried to keep it from her.

  However, it was July seventh: smack-dab in the middle of a sweltering, unbearable Florida summer. Eden might be at her foster parents’ home, at tutoring, or one of a half-dozen extracurriculars the fosters had signed her up for.

  With shaking fingers, she punched in the number for the burner phone she’d smuggled to her sister last year.

  She could only pray Eden had it with her.

  No answer. She couldn’t warn her about Maddox. That wouldn’t work. She sent a quick text: Ezra right. Bombs. Find shelter. I’m coming for you.

  When she looked up, most of the patrons were still sitting slack-jawed and stunned.

  Only one had risen to his feet.

  He was looking straight at her, frowning.

  Logan Garcia was his name. Colombian, in his mid-twenties, he was a regular; always chatty with Julio, the bartender, but he’d never said much to her.

  Logan was tall, lean, and muscular. He usually dressed in a loose black T-shirt and worn jeans. He had a tough, weathered look to him. His scruffy goatee lined a hard jaw beneath unkempt hair black as oil. Tattoos spiraled up both arms.

  He always sat in the stool on the far left against the wall so he could watch the room. She’d seen him walk in, pause, scan the bar, and leave if that stool was already taken.

  He had a sharp alertness about him—even with three or four drinks in him, even half-drunk—like he could snap to attention at the drop of a hat. The kind of guy who missed nothing.
>
  He was also packing heat. She’d recognized the small bulge in the center of his back beneath his shirt. Logan Garcia wasn’t exactly threatening, but he was powerful. Of that, she was certain.

  He stared intently at her for a moment. It was unnerving, like he was seeing straight through her, sizing her up, taking in her anxiety, her apprehension.

  She recognized a glint of something. A familiar wariness in his eyes, an awareness.

  He was thinking the same thing she was: best to get the hell out of Dodge.

  She nodded at him as she untied her apron. Julio wouldn’t like it, but she was leaving. At least she had her bug out bag in her locker back in the staff room—the black, nondescript backpack she took everywhere with her, including work.

  The bag carried her Springfield XD9, holster, spare 9mm ammo, and a grand in tens and twenties.

  It also contained a Lifestraw water filter, water bottle, roll of duct tape, space blanket, solar electronic charger, fire starter, radio/flashlight combo, a compass and paper map of Florida, a few dozen meal replacement bars, and a medical kit.

  The tactical knife, she kept on her person at all times.

  She’d grab the bug out bag from the staff room and head the two and a half miles north to get her sister—social workers and foster parents be damned.

  And then they’d do what they always did.

  Run.

  The double threat of Maddox Cage and now the bombs was too much. They weren’t safe.

  It wasn’t how things were supposed to be. It wasn’t the plan. But they’d survived by running twice before. They could do it again.

  Her phone buzzed in her hand. It was from Eden. Three words: Okay. At home.

  She was halfway down the aisle between the booths, heading for the staff room in the back to dump her apron and collect her things, when she felt it.

  An icy breath on the back of her neck. A cold slither up her spine.

  And then the world exploded.

  3

  Logan

  Zero Hour minus ten minutes…

  Logan Garcia’s main goal in life was to forget. The more you forgot, the better off you were.

  Nothing helped him forget better than a stiff, cold drink.

  The Beer Shack on Front Street was his go-to dive, though he visited numerous bars on a regular basis, sometimes more than a few in a single night. His pantry was stocked with Jack Daniels, Smirnoff, Bacardi, Johnny Walker—all his favorite friends.

  He’d had a particularly vicious nightmare the night before.

  Obviously, he hadn’t gotten drunk enough. Usually, he was content to keep himself in a constant state of mild stupefaction.

  He’d called in sick to his job at Thompson’s Supply Chain Enterprises, where he worked as a forklift operator, loading and unloading delivery trucks from the main distribution center warehouse to various big box stores throughout Miami.

  It was banal, mind-numbing work. But considering his circumstances, it was the best he could find. Not many companies wanted to hire him once they’d run the background check.

  As soon as he’d dragged himself out of bed, still nursing a hangover, he’d headed to his favorite bar, thirst burning the back of his throat, red bleeding behind his eyes.

  He could always drink at home—and often did—but there was something about social drinking that served as that last tenuous thread connecting him to humanity.

  He wasn’t ready to sever it quite yet.

  He swiveled toward the bar but kept his body angled, half-turned toward the door, facing the rest of the room to keep his sights on everyone. The usual regulars; a few suits killing time before another board meeting or flight. No threats.

  He caught his reflection in the mirror behind the bar—his dark eyes were hooded, shadows bruising the hollows beneath them.

  Without his usual mask of an easygoing smile, he looked like a man haunted.

  He turned away, tilted his Corona, and drank half of it in one go.

  He focused his attention on the highlights of the Marlins’ game, chatting with bartender Julio de la Peña about his latest project: the 1968 Chevy Camaro he was restoring and repainting an electric lime green in his garage.

  Beside him, Walter Burton—an ornery, grizzled regular with a ring of white hair fringing a pale, age-spot-speckled pate—started in on his litany of complaints against his ex-wife.

  It was a typical Wednesday in July: the Miami humidity oppressive, the traffic awful.

  Though it was earlier than he usually arrived, he easily slipped into the routine. A routine he’d come to appreciate, even enjoy.

  At least, with what little joy he could still muster.

  He hadn’t paid attention to the news at first. It was all bad—what was the difference?

  Not until seventy-year-old Walter halted mid-curse and raised his eyes to the screen. Not until Julio spilled white rum over the sides of the glass of the mojito he was making, liquid splattering all over his hands.

  “What the living hell is this?” Walter growled in his raspy smoker’s voice.

  He lifted his Bud Light by the neck with a thumb and forefinger, tipped it back, and took several shaky gulps before smacking his lips and pointing the bottle at the flat-screen.

  “Not since nine-eleven…” Julio stilled, just holding the mug, not even bothering to wash his hands.

  His salt-and-pepper hair glinted beneath the bar lights, highlighting the tense lines around his mouth. In his early fifties, Julio’s easy smile and open, earnest face kept him youthful, but he looked like he’d aged a decade in the last sixty seconds.

  “I have a feeling this is going to be much, much worse.” Logan felt sick, dread crawling up his throat, sucking at the corners of his mind. He knew that feeling well. He hated it.

  It was the feeling he’d spent most of the last four years trying desperately to escape.

  He swallowed down a gulp of Corona. He wasn’t nearly drunk enough to survive this day.

  “It’s gotta be ISIS!” said a woman in her forties sitting at the end of the bar. “Who else hates us so much?”

  “Or Russia,” Walter rasped. “Those commie bastards have had it in for us since—”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Julio soothed, wiping his hands on a towel, but he looked shaken himself. His hand strayed to the gold cross on a chain around his neck.

  Then the news announced the third bomb.

  No one said anything after that.

  They watched the explosion filling the screen in dead silence. All those people—tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands—gone in an instant.

  How many thousands more were injured in the middle of that devastation? How could the hospitals and first responders handle that many dead and wounded?

  They’d be overwhelmed. It wasn’t just one bomb, but two. Three if you counted the one Chicago PD managed to diffuse.

  There will be more. Logan felt it with a certainty he couldn’t shake. The booze in his stomach turned to acid. Adrenaline iced through him.

  “We should go,” he said.

  But no one heard him. They were glued to the news, too numb and shocked to respond.

  He forced himself to stand. Part of him wanted to drown himself in whiskey until his mind was so pickled he didn’t even remember his own name, let alone that hundreds of thousands of people had died—were dying—this very instant.

  Another part of him burned with that survival instinct he’d never been able to fully shake, no matter how often he’d tried.

  At least he had his trusty Glock 43 nestled in its concealed, inside-the-waistband holster at the small of his back.

  Little good that would do against a bomb.

  He needed to leave, to get out of the city, at least for a couple of days, until the danger had passed.

  No city in America was safe right now.

  He took another drink and set down a twenty beneath the bottle. His gaze swept the bar one last time and landed on the waitress he’d notice
d before.

  Average height, slim but strong, with a proud, defiant set to her shoulders. Strands of long auburn hair slipped from her messy ponytail. She wore sensible sneakers and a simple gray tank top with black cargo pants.

  There was something compelling about her features: sharp cheekbones, flinty eyes, but a softness around her jawline.

  She looked tough, like the kind of girl who never backed down. The kind who’d sooner tell you to go to hell rather than take anyone’s crap—especially a man.

  The kind of girl he would have wanted to get to know back before everything happened, before he’d become a danger to himself and everyone around him.

  The girl met his gaze. Her eyes were wide and scared, like everyone else’s, but also grimly determined.

  He’d seen her almost every day for three months since she’d started bussing tables. Suddenly, it seemed wrong that he’d never bothered to learn her name.

  He opened his mouth to say something, maybe to warn her, but she didn’t look like she needed to be warned. Her whole body was tense, one hand gripping a cell with whitened knuckles, the other curled into a fist.

  She looked ready to run. Or fight.

  Maybe he was paranoid, but at least he wasn’t the only one. Maybe he should—

  A flash of incandescent light brighter than the sun seared his eyes.

  4

  Eden

  Zero Hour minus eight minutes…

  Eden Sloane should have been working on her math homework for summer school. Instead, she perched on the wooden stool at the huge gray-and-white marble kitchen island, her drawing pad open and her artist-quality colored pencils arrayed in a rainbow-hued arc around her elbows.

  Her notepad was filled with pages and pages of portraits and landscapes. She took practicing seriously; she dreamed of attending the Fine Arts Academy of Greater Miami.