“You think?” Hosea met each of our eyes in turn. “We all just got a crash course in how vulnerable we were to the system. Too bad it came too late. Hasn’t quite been a week and already so many have died. Plane and automobile accidents. Fires. Floods. Those who needed life-saving machines or medicine are gone or will be very soon. Elderly living alone and kids who got abandoned are next. Disease might wipe people out in large numbers. There’s already a cholera situation in Topeka. Sicknesses that have been all but eradicated for decades will start to return. Violence is going to erupt everywhere.”

My God. I stood up. “Can I go use one of those Porta Pottis?” I asked. I needed a second. I needed air. Plus, I’d been squatting in the woods as of late. A Porta Potti was going to feel positively luxurious. I almost laughed but held it back, worried it’d come out sharp and crazed. My, how a handful of days could alter a person’s perception.

“Is that water over there?” Charlie asked, perhaps needing a moment too.

“Yup to you both.” Hosea turned. “Kelvin, do you want to escort the lady to the powder room?” The man named Kelvin wearing military fatigues nodded and gestured for me to follow him.

“And help yourself to a bottle of water. It’s been boiled and filtered.”

Charlie stood and headed toward the water, and I followed Kelvin out the back door and around the building to the row of toilets. I did my business, deciding that despite the appreciation for the toilet paper, I preferred the outdoors to a smelly, windowless cube.

It’d made me think, again, of the prisoners locked in dark cells, my mind reeling to all the people who were probably trapped right now. Coal miners in lightless caverns under the earth…families on tiny cars at the peak of a roller coaster ride… I gasped out a breath and stumbled toward the light. Stop, Emily. Stop.

There was a table set up with a number of bottles of hand sanitizer and I doused myself liberally, the sharp scent of alcohol serving to still my careening thoughts. I pulled in deep breaths, calming as I stared up at the yellow moon, nestled in the deep-purple sky, a light breeze lifting the hair around my face.

When I reentered the building, my eyes landed on Tuck, who was looking my way. His shoulders seemed to lower subtly, and I wondered if he’d been tense while I was out of his sight. I felt a small tickle between my ribs and raised my hand as though I could scratch it from the outside. A hand latched on to my arm, and I startled, looking up to see Charlie. “Hey.”