Rebel Heart

She continued walking down the middle of the road. The destruction disappeared by mile marker five, only a few hundred meters from the turnoff to her condo community. She looked back at the lines of those who fled, overwhelmed again.

If not for Mr. Tim, this would've been her fate.

Inexplicable anger at the politician surged through her. He'd used her and saved her, not for her, but for his own purposes! And here she was: back where she'd been the night he called her away. Only this time, she'd lost everything: her belief in him, her Guardian.

She'd meet the same fate as those on the road to the bridge. There was no one to protect her now. All she had was herself.

Wiping away angry tears, Lana trotted to the entrance to her community then slowed to a walk when she became breathless too fast. She was weak and chilled. To her surprise, the condo community was as quiet as the night she left. Moonlight spilled over triangular roofs into grassy front yards. The parking lot was empty, and the only sign of unusual activity was the open gate.

The grisly scene leading to the condos likely dissuaded anyone from visiting, she rationalized. She went to her condo and walked up the stairs slowly. She paused to look around again, caught in the surreal sense that everything that happened the past few months hadn't touched the condo community. She could almost pretend nothing occurred.

Pressing her thumb to her door, she realized there was light lining the windows of the condo beside hers. Lana's hand dropped. The occupant of the neighboring apartment was Mrs. Watson, a retired fed. She was an older woman who may not have gotten the same communiqué that sent all the other feds in the community to their deaths trying to escape. Still, Lana wasn't convinced she wanted to discover what lay behind the door after the travesty along the road. She hesitated until recalling Jack, the shepherd mix she'd left with Mrs. Watson.

Lana walked down her stairwell and up Mrs. Watson's stairs. She knocked and inched away, not wanting to find her neighbor and dog dead. The door opened, and Lana gripped the railing to keep from fleeing.

"Lana?" Mrs. Watson's features registered surprise. Her brow knitted together as her eyes took in Lana's clothes.

"I'm sorry," Lana said quickly. "I shouldn't-"

"You're drenched. Come in."

Mrs. Watson left the doorway. Lana hesitated before following. The apartment was almost as she'd last seen it: comfortable and crowded with oversized furniture and rugs coating every carpeted space. The only difference was the boards hammered over each of the windows, and the weapons sitting beside Mrs. Watson's rocking chair and stacked on the couch. The woman was armed as well as Brady, Lana noted.