2

Chapter 2

I didn't sleep for the rest of the night.

By the time David left for "work" at eight—probably to meet Melissa—I'd made a decision. If the outbreak was coming, I needed to prepare. And I couldn't tell David. Not after what I'd seen in those emails.

"Emma's completely dependent on me," he'd written to her. "She wouldn't last a week on her own."

We'd see about that.

I called my mother as soon as David's Mercedes disappeared down the street.

"Emma? Honey, it's so early. Is everything okay?"

"Mom, I need you to come over. Now. And don't tell Dad yet."

There was a pause. My mother, Margaret Sullivan, had always been sharp. She'd worked as a civil engineer for thirty years before retiring. She heard something in my voice.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes."

She made it in fifteen.

I met her at the door, still in my pajamas, my laptop open on the kitchen counter showing article after article about emerging diseases, disaster preparedness, and—I'd gone down a dark rabbit hole—zombie survival guides.

"Emma, what's going on?" Mom set her purse down and took my hands. "You look terrible."

"I had a dream," I started. Then I told her everything. The virus. The dead walking. David locking me out. Finding Melissa's emails.

I expected her to tell me I was stressed, that I needed therapy, that dreams were just dreams.

Instead, she sat down heavily at the kitchen table.

"Your grandmother had dreams," she said quietly. "Before the Loma Prieta earthquake in San Francisco when she was young. Before your uncle's car accident. She always knew when something terrible was coming."

I stared at her. "You believe me?"

"I believe you believe it. And I believe in being prepared." She looked at me with fierce determination. "Show me what you found about this facility."

We spent the next two hours researching. The Bangkok incident was being downplayed, but if you knew where to look, there were concerning signs. Three more researchers hospitalized. The facility had gone completely dark—no updates since yesterday morning.

"Even if it's not... what you dreamed," Mom said carefully, "something's wrong. And David..." She pressed her lips together. "I never liked how he looked at you. Like you were a prize he'd won, not a person he loved."

My eyes burned with tears. "I was so stupid."

"No. You were in love. There's a difference." She squeezed my hand. "But now we need to be smart. If this outbreak happens, where would we go? This house is in a neighborhood—too many people, too many potential vectors."

I thought about that. "There's the property."

"What property?"

"Dad's old storage facility. The one out in Enumclaw, near the mountains. He's been trying to sell it for years, but no one wants it because it's so remote."

Mom's eyes lit up. "The industrial complex? Emma, that place is massive. It has its own well, doesn't it?"

"And solar panels. Dad installed them years ago, thinking it would help sell the place." I felt a spark of hope for the first time since waking from the nightmare. "It's isolated. Fenced. Built like a bunker."

"We need to see it. Today."

We drove out together, taking my car so David wouldn't question the mileage on Mom's. The facility sat on twenty acres of nothing, surrounded by forest on three sides and a ravine on the fourth.

It was perfect.

The main building was a 30,000-square-foot warehouse with concrete walls two feet thick. Dad had bought it from a failed prepper collective five years ago. They'd reinforced everything, then gone bankrupt before they could use it.

"This could work," Mom said, walking through the cavernous space. Our footsteps echoed. "We'd need supplies. Food, water, medical equipment, weapons."

"And we'd need to do it without David noticing."

Mom pulled out her phone. "Leave that to me. Your father plays poker every Thursday with his buddies. I've been squirreling away cash from my 'shopping trips' for years. He thinks I'm buying shoes." She smiled grimly. "I've got about fifty thousand dollars he doesn't know about."

I hugged her, overwhelmed. "Mom..."

"You're my daughter. And if there's even a chance this is real, I won't let you face it alone." She pulled back and looked at me seriously. "But Emma, we need a plan. A real one. Starting with getting you away from David before this all starts."