4

Chapter 4

Fifteen days after the dream.

I was at the warehouse with Mom, organizing medical supplies, when my phone buzzed.

A news alert: "CDC Issues Travel Advisory for Southeast Asia Following Mysterious Illness Outbreak."

My hands went numb.

"Emma?" Mom looked up from the inventory list. "What is it?"

I showed her the alert. She read it, her face going pale.

"Is this—"

"Yes." My voice came out steady, but inside I was screaming. "It's starting."

We spent the next two hours glued to our phones, watching the story unfold. Three countries now reporting cases. Flu-like symptoms at first, then aggressive behavior, then...

The footage from a Manila hospital made me sick. A patient attacking a nurse. Security trying to restrain him. The way he moved—jerky, wrong, like his body wasn't quite his own anymore.

"We need to accelerate everything," Mom said. Her engineer's brain was already working. "If this follows your timeline, we have less than two weeks before it reaches Seattle."

"We're not ready."

"Then we get ready."

That night, we moved into emergency mode. Mom told Dad everything. He took it better than I expected—probably because the news was backing up my story.

"The warehouse can hold thirty people comfortably," Dad said, studying the blueprints. "More if we convert the office spaces. But we need food, Emma. Enough to last months, maybe longer."

"I'll handle it," I said.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd been doing more than just stockpiling. I'd been watching David.

He was getting supplies too. I'd noticed the credit card statements, the charges to outdoor and camping stores. Large purchases he thought I wouldn't see.

He was preparing for something. Which meant he knew.

The question was: how did he know?

I got my answer when I followed him.

I know—it sounds crazy. But I had to know what he was planning.

He drove to an office building downtown, parked in the underground garage, and took the elevator to the fifteenth floor. I waited five minutes, then followed.

The office suite was unmarked. Through the glass doors, I could see about twenty people gathered in a conference room. All well-dressed, professional. And at the front, presenting on a large screen...

Melissa.

I couldn't hear what she was saying, but I could see the slides. Graphs showing disease progression. Maps with red zones spreading outward. Photos of the Bangkok facility.

She worked for a pharmaceutical company. One that did government contract work.

David knew because Melissa had told him. She'd given him insider information about the outbreak.

And he was planning to save himself and leave me behind.

I took photos through the glass, my hands shaking with rage. Then I left before anyone could spot me.

In the car, I sat frozen, staring at the photos on my phone. Then I noticed something on one of the slides I'd captured. A date circled in red at the bottom of a timeline projection.

Tomorrow.

They were predicting first domestic cases tomorrow.

Not in two weeks. Not in five days. Tomorrow.

My hands started shaking so badly I could barely hold the phone. That feeling from my dream came rushing back—the certainty, the bone-deep knowledge that something terrible was about to happen.

But this was worse. This wasn't just following my dream's timeline anymore.

This was a premonition. A warning.

The virus was going to hit tonight. I knew it the same way I'd known about the dream. The same way my grandmother had known about earthquakes and accidents.

I called Mom with trembling fingers.

"Emma? Did you forget something at the warehouse?"

"Mom." My voice came out as a whisper. "We need to move. Now. Right now."

"What? Emma, we still have supplies being delivered on Friday, and the—"

"Tonight, Mom. We have to get everything to the warehouse tonight. The virus—it's going to break out tonight, not next week. I can feel it."

There was a long pause. I could hear Dad asking something in the background.

"Emma, honey, the news says—"

"I don't care what the news says!" My voice broke. "I know how this sounds. I know. But I saw David's meeting. They're tracking this hour by hour. And Mom, I have that feeling. The same one from the dream. It's happening tonight."

Another pause. Then Mom's voice came back, steady and firm. "Okay. We're on our way to your house. Start packing. Everything critical goes in the cars. We'll—"

My phone buzzed with an incoming call.

David.