“Yeah.” She looked up, and I followed her gaze.
The wrought dome was there looking like a dark gray cage, swallowing our freedom. Most of the time I felt safe under it, but there were rare times when the air was gone and I suffocated. Like now. I took a long breath, willing the heavy arms of the dome to melt and let in the fresh air and the sunlight—as if both things were hiding behind it.
Breaking my daze, Raisa said, “I’m not sure I’ll go home next week for Thanksgiving.”
What? She had been talking about Thanksgiving break for weeks now, longing for a little vacation from our classes. She would go home, enjoy her family. I would stay here and work double shifts at Langone.
“Why not?”
“My father gave me an ultimatum last night. If I don’t come home to stay when this semester is over, he’ll cut me off.”
“What?” My shock made me slip on the snow. Raisa held on to my arm, keeping me steady.
“He was serious. The thing is I’m afraid if I go home for Thanksgiving next week, he won’t let me come back to finish this semester.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” Maybe he would. I didn’t know her father well enough to know what he would or wouldn’t do.
“It sucks. My hometown sucks. Everything is closing or dying there, and the colleges nearby aren’t as safe as this one. But he and my mom are worried. If I was a mother, I would be too.”
I tilted my head, watching her. “Wow, that is so unlike you.”
“I know.” She smiled, but it was a sad one. “They got me thinking, you know. Even if I stay and graduate, what will I do later? Things are getting worse. It’s not like I can walk out of these gates and have a normal life. Whatever normal might be. I’ll have to go back to my parents or try my luck in a city like this.” She gestured to the walls.
She was right. I had plans to work at Langone after I graduated from med school, but that wasn’t a done deal because getting into med school wasn’t a done deal. They could reject my application—fear gripped my chest each time I thought about it, making me sick—and housing did worry me. I was used to spending most of my time inside these walls. It would be hard and incredibly dangerous to live outside of them. I thought about bringing my family to live here with me, there was nothing left for them where they were, but I wasn’t sure here would be much better.
“It’s hard watching it get worse and worse, isn’t it?”
“I wish there was something we could do about it,” she muttered.
I glanced at her. “What did you say?”
“I know presidents and governors and all those big guys get together all the time to come up with solutions and ideas, but nothing they do is working.” She paused. “I wish we could do something, but I don’t know what. If the government can’t do anything about it, we certainly can’t, right?”
“Right,” I said automatically.
I wish we could do something.
That thought stuck in my mind. I shook my head, but the thought stayed there in the back of my head, taunting me.
We reached the door of the science building, and a siren blasted through the entire campus.
My heart stopped for a second and fear locked my muscles.
“What the hell?” Raisa asked, squeezing my arms.
We whirled around. Red lights flashed from all corners of campus and above the walls. Guards appeared out of nowhere and ran to the gates. Students rushed out of the buildings, their faces lost and scared.
“What’s happening?” they asked each other.
But nobody knew.
I looked up to the dark sky.
It seemed different. Darker. Heavier.
My knees shook, and I held on to Raisa. I saw them before anyone else. Just like that day at the hospital, but many, many more. A huge cloud of demons descended onto the city.
“This is Mr. Cornell, your dean,” the voice boomed from the speakers strategically installed around the campus. “All students proceed to the basements in their residences at once. Please respect the guards and police officers doing their job and follow their orders.” He sighed. “New York City is under attack.”
He turned the microphone off and chaos erupted.
3
I dared glance up as the demons landed on the electrified cables.
The zapping sound was sick, but not as sick as their shrieks. Even with all the zapping going on, the demons didn’t give up. They clawed through the cables.
Fear crawled up my spine.
Guards ran among the students and yelled at them to back away before turning their guns up. They shot the demons. More shrieks resonated through the frigid air.
The students and faculty members seemed frozen in place like me, entranced in the horrific sight above us. I tried counting, but I got lost before I reached twenty demons.
Holy shit.
A determined demon closed its claw around a cable, shrieked, and snapped it.
Everyone jerked into motion. High-pitched screams and shouts of terror echoed the crackling hiss of the cable, and students and faculty members ran looking like lost ants in a water-filling tank. Loud, ringing shots flew over our heads causing more frantic screams.
One of the guards, holding a fancy rifle, stopped before our group. “Everyone back to your dorms. Now!”
“Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God,” Raisa muttered. She stood beside me, pale and trembling.
Pushing my fear aside, I took her hand in mine. “We’ll be okay,” I said, pulling her to walk with me.
A sea of desperate students engulfed us. Shoulders bumped, feet stepped on one another, and short people—like Raisa and me—suffocated. I didn’t like it, but I pushed too, not wanting to see Raisa or me squashed. We went with the flow, a death grip locking our hands together.
Then the crowd dispersed a little. They were entering the buildings.
I looked up. “This isn’t our building.” We were on the south side of campus, near the gates.
Raisa’s eyes bugged. “Oh no.”
I squeezed her hand. “It’s okay. We can still make it.”
Wingless demons pushed against the gates. They were large, nasty creatures with pointed teeth and crippled bodies. Slobber dripped from their slanted mouths, and sharp claws protruded where fingers should be. The creatures looked like the ones I had seen at the pub in Wichita, and at the school where Brock locked me up a few months ago. Panic rushed into me at the memory of the pain their claws caused.
“Wh-what are those?” Raisa asked, her voice a thin whisper.
What I wouldn’t give to have my visions back so I could see a way out of this mess.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
One of the wingless demons locked its yellow eyes on mine and snarled. Goose bumps covered my arms.
I tugged Raisa’s hand and we turned, taking long steps away from the south gate. My mind raced, trying to think of a plan to escape this, any plan.