Broken Roads: A Tale of Survival in a Powerless World (Broken Lines Book 2) (15 page)

When the group noticed him standing quietly in the hallway, they all stopped what they were doing and watched him. They looked to him with the hope that he could keep them alive.

When Katie turned onto 24
th
Street her jaw dropped. The cars along the streets were trashed with bullet holes and broken windows. The houses were violated by looters breaking in and stealing whatever they could find. A few trashcans smoldered from the remains of firs started, then left alone to burn out.

Sam walked behind her, his pistol at the ready, on alert for any signs of danger. When they walked past Mike’s house she covered her mouth. It was nothing more than a burnt pile of wreckage.

Katie looked at the two crosses sitting in the Beachum’s yard. The two mounds of dirt rising from the Earth caused her heart to sink in her stomach.

“Your house?” Sam asked.

“No.”

Katie pulled the front door to her own house open. The door creaked, as it swung open. She lingered there in the doorframe, afraid of what she’d find inside. When she finally crossed the threshold, she tiptoed gently.

Most of the house was intact. When Katie walked past the living room she stopped. All of the furniture was rearranged.

Sam stood patiently in the foyer, watching her examine the living room. He could see pictures of her family along the walls leading up the staircase.

The couch legs squeaked against the wooden floorboards when she pushed it aside, allowing herself into the circle of furniture. The empty space in the middle suggested there was something there before, but whatever Nelson and Sean had left her was gone.

Katie sat down on one of the chairs. She looked up at their family portrait hanging above the fireplace. The photo was taken last fall. On their way to the studio that day she remembered the leaves falling from the trees and gathering on the road. The faded browns and oranges of fall decorated the black pavement. She could hear Sean laughing in the back seat from Nelson’s singing, begging for him to stop.

Katie forgot Sam’s presence until he spoke very quietly.

“Mrs. Miller,” Sam said.

Katie continued to look at the family portrait. That day she was thinking of in her mind seemed so far away.

“I’m never going to see them again, Sam,” Katie said.

“You don’t know that.”

“I do. Look at the rest of the neighborhood. They either died when everything collapsed on them, or they ran off. Either way, I won’t be able to find them.”

“Maybe they headed back into the city looking for you.”

“I hope not. I hope they got as far away from this place as they could.”

Katie leaned forward, burying her face in her hands. She didn’t cry and she didn’t feel angry, she was just tired. She was foolish to think she could find them, to think that they were still here. Of course they left, just as she should have left the city the first day the blast hit.

“I’m going to look around, make sure the rest of the house is secure,” Sam said.

Katie nodded her head. She leaned back into the chair, sliding down against the burgundy velvet seat. Her eyes focused lazily on the fireplace. She could feel her eyelids drooping down, the exhaustion from the day of traveling hitting her all at once. She tilted her head down, and that’s when she saw the crumpled up ball under the couch.

Her head perked up. She dropped to her hands and knees and reached under the couch, grasping the ball of paper in her hands. She smoothed the crumpled sheet out on the couch. After reading it, a few tears fell and stained the edges.

Sam came back downstairs and stopped when he saw her crying.

“Mrs. Miller?” he asked.

Katie looked up at him. She was laughing through her sobs.

“I know where they are.”