They stared at me, their faces equally drained of what little color they each had left.
“Why are you here?” Tony asked Logan. “Vibeke can have all the booty calls she wants, but could you schedule them before nine o’clock?”
No trace of a smile lingered on the soldier’s thin face. “Alyssa’s dead.”
For a few seconds the words didn’t compute. Dead? Strange thing to call your sister. She’s not dead, I just saw her…eight hours ago? Ten now?
A lot could happen in ten hours.
Dead.
A giant knot formed in my throat, blocking my air flow.
Joke. It’s a joke, right?
Why the hell would he joke about this?
“I really don’t care who’s dead,” our esteemed said. “But I must request that you keep it down or I’ll have Captain Keller—”
Logan’s rifle jabbed the man’s chest, stopping him in mid-tirade. His wife drew back, her hands pressed to her mouth. Logan used his gun to prod the man backwards until he reached the threshold. “You will get out of this house,” he said. “You will go home, and shut your fucking door, and pray to God that he takes care of you and yours, because He for damn sure isn’t taking care of me and mine!”
The man nearly tripped, then spun around and all but flew out the door. His wife raced after him, tearing her robe loose when it caught on the knob.
Logan slammed the door behind them.
He planted his hands on the doorframe and rested his head against the door itself, his entire body shaking.
Evie sat next to him, gazing up attentively with those liquid brown eyes.
“She died,” he said to the door. “She died. What the hell happened?”
I had to fight to make my voice work. “Logan…”
He straightened up and spun around. Suddenly that big gun was pointed right at my face, and the soldier looked just grief-crazed enough to use it.
I stopped talking.
“Hey,” Tony said.
“Tell me what happened!”
Tony reached for the gun and was rather rudely swatted aside. “Put that thing down!”
“It’s okay,” I said.
What the fuck, me? It’s not okay!
I tried to swallow my building fear.
Logan’s hands quaked harder, making the muzzle of the rifle jump up and down with each breath. “She was fine this morning!”
For all the constant horrors I had seen since the meteors fell, raw human grief had been something of a rarity. I didn’t deliver bad news to the families and friends of patients who didn’t make it: Samuels had still done that for me. By now, most people seemed to be in a permanent state of shock. If someone died, they died. It sucked, but at least they weren’t a zombie.
Logan’s very real despair shook me.
“She wasn’t fine, Logan,” I said quietly. “You know that. She was very sick, and getting worse. Renati was trying to—”
“Renati, that’s right, it was fucking Renati. Jesus Fucking Christ. Lattimore let Renati—she let him deal with patients…”
“He’s doing his best.”
“Renati is a fucking lab rat. Lattimore only put him on patients because we were out of staff and he knew how to inject people!” His voice shot upward, and the dog cringed away. I didn’t answer him; he wasn’t wrong, after all. “She doesn’t care at all, does she? Fuck the sick. Let the researcher take care of them. And now my sister is gone.”
None of us managed to speak up in the seconds after he said that.
Logan closed his eyes. “She’s gone,” he said. “She’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Logan,” I whispered.
“She’s dead! She’s fucking dead!”
He hurled his rifle across the room. It hit the wall and discharged; the bullet howled across the room, terminating in the kitchen somewhere. Evie yelped and hid behind Dax’s legs.
“Are you fucking crazy?” Tony demanded. He lifted his fist.
Oh, right, hit the crazy man with the gun. That’ll end well for us.
Logan silenced Tony with one single black stare, then stalked over to the wall where his rifle had landed. He swayed over it for a moment, and I thought he might pick it up and mow us all down.
Instead, he slammed his fist straight through the wall. Blood splattered across the cheerful blue paint and landed on the carpet.
“Goddammit.” Tony was a dark blur in a plaid robe, his hands landing on Logan’s shoulders and jerking him away from the wall.
Evie started in their direction. Dax instantly dropped to his knees and grabbed her. “No, girl. Not this time.”
It’s easy to jump to anger when something terrible happens. Anger and rage are easier to stomach than sorrow. Anger makes you feel like you can do something. Change something.
Sorrow doesn’t change. It destroys.
Logan reached upward and grasped Tony’s upper left arm with both of his hands. I thought he might twist himself loose, step aside, maybe calm himself.
Instead, he flipped Tony up and over his shoulder, sending him crashing onto the floor.
Tony lay there, seemingly stunned, for a few precious seconds. Then his right leg snapped out and caught the soldier behind the knee. Logan toppled forward and landed right near him.