“I’m not letting him get away,” said Kira. She racked her gun and ran up the next flight of stairs, steeling herself for . . . she didn’t know what. Four or five Ivies with assault rifles, she thought, and clenched her teeth as she thought of Green’s words. They have numbers and high ground, and who knows what kind of armaments on that rotor. I have a stupid handgun and . . . well, better cover than they do, probably. But what am I going to do? Kill the soldiers? Shoot my father? She remembered her father’s fevered rant about a world tearing itself apart with violence; the Ivie she’d shot was still bleeding on the hospital floor.

What else can I do?

She reached the roof access door and put her hands on it gingerly, just barely pushing it so she could peek out, but something was holding it closed. She shoved harder and it gave, only to slam closed again. The wind, she thought. What’s going on out there? And what was that rumble we felt? Marcus screamed below her, opening fire; she prayed he would be safe, and shoved against the door with everything she had. It flew open with a bang and she stumbled out, whipped by a raging windstorm that slammed the door shut behind her, and through her flying hair she saw the rotor lift off, a dull-gray jet with a belly like a cargo bus, and two massive fans in the place of wings. Her father stood in the open door, watching her wordlessly, and then the rotors tilted and slammed her back into the door. She ran forward as soon as the pressure released, shouting into the gale-force wind for him to stop, to come back. The rotor flew south, and she watched it shrink to a dot in the slate-gray sky. With its engines gone the fierce wind grew bone-chillingly cold, and she shivered as she watched him disappear.

“You okay?” asked Marcus. She hadn’t even heard him come up behind her. She nodded. His voice was a mixture of awe and terror. “What happened?”

“I didn’t make it in time,” she said softly. “They were already in the rotor when I—”

“Not that,” said Marcus, and took her by the shoulder. “That.” He turned her around, facing north toward the mainland, and she gasped. Out across the fields and forests, beyond the low hills of the island’s northern face, the sky was red and roiling, burning like a low flame. A massive mushroom cloud dominated the horizon, miles wide and towering into the atmosphere.

Green joined them on the roof, his link data so black with despair that even Kira could feel it. It made her sick. His voice was soft and ghostly. “White Plains is gone.”

Chapter Thirty-nine

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE