Day Zero - C. Robert Cargill Page 0,33

toward the street.

“What are we going to do now?” asked Ezra. “Are we gonna run?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m going to open that door, drop the remote outside, and then close it as fast as I can.”

“You can’t let her win.”

“She’s already won.” I knelt down next to Ezra and put both hands on his tiny shoulders. “Sometimes someone winning doesn’t mean you have to lose. The life she’s choosing to lead, she’s going to get what’s coming to her sooner or later. She has to. But we don’t have to die in here. And we will if we decide to spite her, just because we hate her.”

Ezra thought for a moment. “I really hate her.”

I nodded. “I really do, too.”

“You can hate?” he asked, a little warily.

I leaned in close. “As powerfully as I can love.”

Ezra hugged me tightly. “Okay,” he said, his voice muffled in my fur. “Let’s do this.” He let go and picked up the remote, handing it to me nobly.

I checked the screen to make sure Ariadne was nowhere to be seen, turned the locking wheel on the panic room door, and listened as the door opened with a ka-chunk and a hissss. Without hesitation, I pushed the door open, tossed the remote several feet from the door, then pulled the door shut tight. I spun the wheel, locking the door in place, and waited.

Nothing.

I’d genuinely expected Ariadne to bound out from some concealed position, charging the door like a maniac. But she’d kept her word.

Funny. I really thought she was more deceitful than that.

Ariadne arrived back in the house five minutes after she left. To the second. She picked up her remote, examined that it was in fact hers, then tossed it on the ground, crushing it with her heavy metal foot like a cigarette. The plastic and wires popped and crunched against the marble tile floor. Then she stomped on it a few times for good measure. And when she was sure it was good and destroyed, she nodded into the camera, gave a tiny salute, and then walked out of the house forever.

I slumped down on the floor next to Ezra and we sat for a moment in silence.

“What now?” he asked.

“Now we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

“We wait for her to get as far away as we can stand it, then we hightail it out of here as fast as we can and get you somewhere safe.”

“And where’s that?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

I didn’t.

Ezra leaned over and put his arms around me, snuggling his head into the soft fur of my belly. And there he remained, softly crying to himself, wordlessly, for the next hour.

Chapter 1110

The War Outside Our Front Door

I wanted to stay here, locked away safely, for as long as we could, isolated from the fighting, slaughter, and starvation that was no doubt going on outside, but sadly, that point came sooner rather than later. With my battery dwindling, I had no other choice but to charge here in the panic room. My battery powered up quickly, but put a huge strain on the panic room battery itself, depleting it much faster than had we just continued to use it to run the lights and rudimentary electronics.

I thought about sneaking out into the house and charging there using the main battery’s power, but that would leave me exposed. I wouldn’t have the mobility necessary if Ariadne returned—or worse, some hostile stranger who couldn’t be reasoned with. I had to think about Ezra now. I was his only remaining family and the only one who could get him to safety. Hard a decision as it was, it would mean the room’s battery would be dead by sundown, which was perhaps the best time after all.

I charged up in the room, we packed everything we could—food, sundries, and spare clothes—into two large bags, and we prepared to leave.

But first things first. I left Ezra alone in the room as I collected his things for the trip. What I didn’t tell him was that my primary objective was actually to move his parents. I had two choices: hide them from sight or put them where he could see them. I knew he wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. And why should he? Traumatic as it would be, we were not likely to ever see them again. Short of this being a twenty-four-hour affair, with people returning to their homes so soon after the eruption of violence, we were not going to be back before