“Now what?” the blonde whispered.

“Follow me,” Elle replied.

She peeked her head around the corner of the building. There was no Klan in sight. They were probably making their way up the stairs of the other skyscraper, hoping to trap the kids on the roof.

“Run,” Elle said.

She sprinted swiftly across the street, ducking into the next alley. She checked to make sure they had no pursuers. There was only the distant sound of the Klan’s shouts as they barreled through the empty apartment building, searching for the children.

Elle didn’t take them home. Her apartment was her secret, and sharing it with total strangers would be stupid. Instead she took them to an old bakery. La Fresh was the name. It was a small shop hidden in an alleyway. At one point, Elle was sure that it had been trendy and hip. Now it was just impossible to find, camouflaged behind vines and creeping foliage.

Elle slipped through the front door. The brass bell on the door tinkled. Chairs and tables were mostly intact, but the glass case was empty. No more pastries. No more coffee.

“How did you know about this place?” Jay asked.

Elle didn’t answer. She didn’t trust them.

“We’ll stay quiet until tomorrow morning,” Elle said. “Then we can go our separate ways.”

She backed into the corner of the kitchen. A broken coffeemaker lay on the floor.

“What’s your name?” the blonde asked.

Elle cocked her head. Should she tell her? What harm could it do?

“Elle,” she said.

“Like the letter?”

“Yeah.” She held up her index finger and her thumb, making an L shape. “Elle for loser.”

Jay smirked.

“I’m Georgia,” the blonde said, thickening her southern accent for dramatic effect. “This is Flash.” She gestured to the Asian boy, then to his sister. “This is his sister, Pix. And the tall loner in the corner is Jay.”

“Somebody should keep a lookout,” Elle said, “in case the Klan tracks us here.”

“You know your way around the city,” Jay stated, turning to Elle.

“We just got here,” Georgia said, sitting on the counter. “I gotta say, this ain’t the L.A. I was familiar with.”

“Where did you all come from?” Elle asked.

“We were in a bunker. All of us.” She gestured to the rest of the kids in the room. “There was a big group of us at the beginning. After the chemical weapons…well, some people went to the surface too soon. A lot of them… died.” Georgia shrugged. “You can’t fix stupid.”

Elle blinked.

“You were in a bunker?” she asked. “For how long?”

“Until two months ago,” Pix stated. She had a pretty, singsong accent. “We didn’t know what we would find when we came up. The statistical probability of us finding an inhabitable urban environment—”

“—Don’t get so technical, Pix,” Jay interrupted. “The bunkers were underground. There were about twenty of us at the beginning — all young, like us. We had everything we needed. Food, water, radio contact, medicine. But it didn’t last. Some went stir-crazy, and we ran out of supplies. The bunker was never meant to support twenty people. We lost almost everyone.”

“Has the whole world gone crazy?” Georgia asked. “What’s the rest of California like?”

Elle could see the fear in their eyes. The confusion. She couldn’t imagine being locked away in the ground for a year, emerging into a world that was completely destroyed. It must have sucked.

“I don’t know what the rest of the world is like,” she said. “But I do know that most of California is dangerous like Los Angeles.”

“What about the military?” Georgia asked. “I thought the United States was all-powerful or something.”

“Apparently not,” Elle shrugged. “What do you guys know about Omega?”

“Not much. Only that they’re everywhere.”

“Almost everywhere. They leave Hollywood and Santa Monica pretty much alone — they like to stay in Beverly Hills and downtown Los Angeles.” Elle looked out the window. “I don’t know who they are or where they came from, but they’re bad. Really bad.”

“We’ve only been in Hollywood for a week,” Jay went on. “There’s no food.”

“There is if you know where to look,” Elle replied, a sad smile spreading across her face. “Some food is safe to eat, as long as it’s sealed. Don’t eat anything that’s been exposed to the air. The chemicals might have poisoned it. The same goes for water.”

Georgia shared a sideways glance with Jay.

“You know a lot,” Georgia said. “How do you stay alive all by yourself, shortstack?”

“I stay alive because I’m all by myself,” Elle answered. “The Klan hunts in packs, and the only way to stay off their radar is if I’m smaller, quieter and faster than they are. Which I am. And that’s why I’m still alive.”

“I have a question for you,” Elle said, turning the tables.

“Ask,” Jay replied.

“What kind of a bunker were you guys hiding in? How many people were there? Were you there with your families or what?”

This time, it was Pix’s twin brother, Flash, who answered:

“The bunker was built underneath a juvenile correctional facility. For emergencies. When Omega came, a lot of the kids in the facility died before we even made it into the bunker.”

Elle released a frustrated sigh.

“So you were all in juvenile hall before Day Zero?” she asked.

“What’s Day Zero?” Jay said.

“The day the power went out. When everything happened.” Elle narrowed her gaze. “You didn’t answer my question. Were you in jail?”

“Yeah, we were,” Georgia said, tossing her hair back.

So. These children were orphaned juvenile delinquents. If Elle didn’t trust them before, she sure as heck didn’t trust them now.

“I hope none of you were wanted for murder,” she grumbled as she retreated farther into the back of the building.

“Nah!” Georgia called. “I mean, before the Collapse? No. After?” A sly smile spread across her face. “Maybe.”

Elle didn’t believe her.

Like her mother always said, Where there’s smoke, there’s firewater.

“I don’t want to go with him,” Elle said. Tears were streaming down her face as she pleaded with her mother. She was standing in the kitchen. It was dark. The lights had been out for two days. Riots had begun in the city. Buildings were on fire. Women and children were begging for food in the gutters.

“You have to, Elle.” Mother was a tall, willowy woman with black hair. “We don’t have a choice. You don’t, either. This is the only way to keep our family alive.”

The kitchen was empty. The house was, too. It had been for a while.

When Dad and Johnny never came home…well, Elle’s mother had gone off the deep end. Panic controlled her every move. And now she was sending Elle away, out of the city. To a place that was supposed to be safe.

Supposed to be.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Elle begged.

“Because I have to wait for Daddy and Johnny.”

“But they’re not coming back, Mom. They’re dead.”

Mother slapped Elle across the face. Elle’s cheek stung with pain, but she didn’t cry out. She was too stubborn.

“Your uncle will take good care of you,” Mother said, but her voice was venomous. She was angry. Mad that Elle had pointed out the obvious: Dad and Johnny were dead, and Mother was staying in the city because she wanted to die, too.

She was giving in.

“You’re just going to give up,” Elle whispered.

“I’m accepting the truth, Elle. Someday you’ll understand.”

“I’m going to come back for you,” Elle promised.

“Don’t. Don’t you ever come back to this city. This city is death.”

Elle shook her head.

“I will come back,” she said. “I’ll find you.”