The moment Peyton saw her father’s face, she closed her eyes. Tears flowed. Her legs gave way. She sank to her knees, letting them dig into the ash-covered floor. Her eyes settled on a half-burned picture frame. The picture was of a short, white-haired man with a cold, blank expression. He matched Desmond and her father’s description of Yuri Pachenko—and Peyton had no doubt that was exactly who it was. This was Yuri’s office. He killed my father.

Her entire life, she had blamed fate and bad luck for the loss of her father. Now she had a name to put with the rage that consumed her: Yuri Pachenko. He had taken her father from her. She would make him pay. Yuri had wanted to change the world—and he had certainly succeeded in changing her.

She would be the end of him. In the burned remains of the building, with her father lying dead ten feet away, she swore it.

Another soldier’s voice called into the night. “Got another one.”

Chapter 131

Chapter 131

Elliott held his wife’s head in his lap. The RV sitting in an alley off Marietta Street was warm from the small heaters and the people crammed inside. Ryan was with them, as well as Sam and Adam, and a dozen of Elliott’s neighbors and their loved ones. At the table, a mother was reading Charlotte’s Web to four children packed in around her. The kids were leaning in, gazing at the pictures. Two teenagers were stretched out on opposite ends of a couch, playing games on tablets, headphones in their ears. Three adult couples snacked on protein bars and sipped bottled water while they tuned a handheld radio, searching for any signal on the AM band.

The chorus of coughing never ceased. The X1-Mandera virus was ravaging all of them, some to a greater degree than others. It was only a matter of time before their bodies began surrendering to the pathogen. Elliott feared Rose would be the first casualty.

A series of beeps sounded from the radio—the prelude to an emergency message. One of Elliott’s neighbors tuned the dial. The static cleared, and the beeps came into focus, then stopped. Every eye turned to the radio. Even the teenagers jerked their earbuds out and sat up.

A man’s voice spoke slowly, in the solemn, deliberate tone of someone reading a statement.