Izabel shook the woman next, and she woke up. Izabel was beginning to cough. She thought she and the woman would work together to pull the daughter to the safe room. Instead the woman reached out for Izabel’s mask. She scratched Izabel’s face. But the woman’s grasp, her aim, everything was not as strong as it could be, and Izabel pulled herself away. She backed up and watched the woman struggle, scared to approach her. Izabel’s cheek stung.

The woman passed out again, but Izabel kept her eyes on her. She moved to the daughter and pulled her toward the front of the dome. Izabel was coughing harder.

Izabel dropped the plastic down and turned on the emergency air filter. It filled the small space with noise but did not turn green. She pressed all around the edge of the plastic to make sure the seal was good. She tried to calm herself.

That’s when she heard the voice over the intercom. The woman’s voice wasn’t as controlled as it was during the small fault at Izabel’s house—maybe it had started that way, but now the woman was crying between asking, “Is anyone okay? Please respond.” Izabel tried to respond but her voice was too hoarse. “Is anyone okay?” the woman asked again. “An ambulance is on the way.”

Izabel managed to say, “I’m here,” but the woman couldn’t hear her.

“Is anyone okay?”

The sirens came closer to the house. Izabel’s vision was growing blurry. Her cheek still hurt. When she wiped at it, her hand came back into focus streaked with blood. She had almost passed out when the EMTs pulled her and the girl out of the room, placed them on spine boards, connected their masks to oxygen tanks. Izabel watched the emergency lights flash red and white against the millions of specks of pollen in the air.

As they neared the ambulance, she saw that the car she’d come in was gone. She knew what had happened. The killer had taken it. And he wouldn’t have reprogrammed it. He would have let it ride out to her destination. He would have, for at least a moment, sat outside her house.

Adrenaline rushed through her body. She thrashed around on the board, yelling for them to check on her family. They gave her a sedative, and her limbs felt heavy.

Izabel watched the EMTs rouse the girl. They asked the girl if she knew who Izabel was. The girl turned and looked at Izabel and shook her head. The girl looked so much like her mother.

“I can explain,” Izabel said, still hoarse.

“We’re just EMTs,” said a near-boy. His nametag read an.