It’s a soft, gray nothingness that cocoons the railings, wraps gentle tendrils around the caution cones, swallows up the blocky supports entirely. That smoky haze goes all the way to the mainland. All the way across most of the world, far as anyone around here knows. On a clear day, you can look out over the sound and see it swathing the horizon where there used to be the distant hotels and condos of a normal Florida coastline. Nothing but the occasional ham radio signal from London and Singapore—the only other cities still out there—manages to get very far through it.

I stare grimly at the fog. I can smell it from here: something acrid and chemical on the breeze, almost like ozone. It makes me nervous to be this close to it. Not because it’s dangerous. The fog itself is harmless.

It’s what’s in the fog that fuels my nightmares.

A woman’s voice cuts through the crowd’s nervous chatter. “No one wanted today to happen,” she says, and everyone falls immediately silent.

Hate shoots through me like adrenaline, mingling with the dread in my gut until it forms something leaden and horrible. I trace the voice to its source. Blond hair tightly pulled back, eyes a blue so dark they’re almost violet. She’s wearing a crisp white blouse and a holstered gun. Her gaze sweeps the crowd like a scythe. Everyone freezes in place instantly.

My hands curl into fists. I’ve only seen her a few times and always at as much of a distance as I can manage, but I recognize Mayor Ackermann’s voice from the radio broadcasts. There’s a transmitter here today too—a chestlike box sitting at her feet, looking harmless with its rows of switches and dials, sending out her voice to the city she protects. City Hall keeps some working radios scattered across the island at well-guarded spots so everyone can have the chance to hear her warnings.

I search behind her for the person on the receiving end of today’s punishment. There’s a row of cops at her back, guns in their hands or tucked into their waistbands. Only about half of them wear uniforms. The police department must’ve finally run out of stock, which is no surprise with the way they’ve been recruiting. Too bad they haven’t run out of weapons, too. I scan over the row, looking for whoever they’re guarding.

I find him kneeling at the bridge’s entrance, hands zip-tied behind his back, his skin gray and pulled taut over his cheekbones like he’s already a corpse. Sam Garcia. I know him by reputation only. He is—was—the island’s only other remaining dealer.