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Chapter One: Crisis

North was chopping wood when she heard a crash from the small cabin she shared with her father, Sam. He’d been feeling under the weather for the last few days, and she muttered to herself as she stopped chopping to scoop up the few pieces of wood she’d split. He needed to take better care of himself and also let her take care of him too. He was so stubborn, and he’d probably decided to spare her the trouble of looking after him by fixing his own soup. She just hoped he hadn’t fallen, because she wasn’t certain how she would get him up on her own.

“Are you up when you’re not supposed to be?” She called the question as she stopped by the bin in the mudroom to dump the wood and strip off her stocking cap. When he didn’t answer, her concern grew, and she rushed into the kitchen.

He was passed out in the middle of the floor, and his lips were blue. North rushed to his side, falling to the floor with a sharp jar to her knees that barely registered in her frantic rush to reach him. “I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t think you were actually hurt. I should have come right away.”

His eyes flicked open, fluttering for a moment before closing again. “It’s okay, baby. You couldn’t have helped this.” The words were little more than a rough rasp, and he was clearly having trouble breathing.

She placed her fingers against his carotid artery to check for a pulse. “What’s going on? What do I do?” Her dad seemed to be on the verge of death, but she wasn’t certain if that was a proper diagnosis. “Dad, open your eyes and tell me what to do.” He was a healer, having once been a doctor in the city before moving her out to the remote cabin to protect her.

“Nothing you can do.” His eyes opened briefly again, and it seemed to cost him a great deal to speak. “I’ve known this was coming for a while, North. You need to let me go.”

She shook her head as tears started to stream from her eyes. “I can’t do that. I have to get you help. We’ll go to the hospital in the city.” She trembled at the thought, gruesome stories of the fall of civilization rushing through her brain. Her dad had painted a grim picture of the remnants of humanity, but she would have to face them to see if she could find a hospital. Of course she’d read about them in her books, but her father didn’t seem to think they even existed any longer. She wasn’t willing to give up though.

Sam shook his head just faintly. “Just let me die, my dear, and stay here where you’re safe.” His lips curved into the ghost of a smile. “Know you won’t, but wish you would.”

She sat with him for another moment until his breathing became less raspy, though deeper than she would’ve liked when he seemed to slip into a state of unconsciousness. She couldn’t just sit there and watch her father die without trying to do something, and the first-aid kit and medicinal plants they kept on hand wouldn’t do anything to help if she didn’t know what was wrong with him.

Squaring her shoulders, she made the difficult decision to defy her father. It was the only firmly held rule that he had for her now that she was an adult—never leave the safety of their property high in the mountains. There would be predators wanting to prey on her, and she wouldn’t be safe.

She’d just have to risk it for his sake, and if he survived, he could be angry with her later. Resolved, she stood up and walked into her father’s study. It took her a few moments to search his items before she finally turned up the keys to the SUV he kept parked in the pole barn. Fortunately, she knew how to drive it, because she’d helped him gather logs and other supplies from the forest on their huge property for many years. She’d never driven it anywhere besides the woods, but it had to be basically the same. Right?

She rushed from the house, grabbing her stocking cap on the way, and used it to cover the brown curls trying to blow around her face in the whipping wind. Snow crunched under her boots, but at least it wasn’t actively snowing at the moment.

She ran as fast as she could to the pole barn and threw open the doors, so she could retrieve the vehicle. She had it back at the front of the house as soon as she could, lined up as close as possible to the porch. Now she just had to get her father in there.

That presented a dilemma for which she didn’t have an answer yet, but she slid out of the SUV and headed back into the house, going straight to her father on the kitchen floor, where he still lay. She shook his shoulder lightly and stroked a finger down his cheek. “Dad, can you hear me?”

There was no response, which made him completely passive. Perhaps that would make it easier to get him into the vehicle in the long run, because if he realized her intentions, he might try to fight and make it even worse for himself. And for her.

Almost experimentally, she tried lifting him, hoping perhaps to prop him up enough to wedge something under him, like the nearby rug, so she could drag him. To her amazement, she was able to lift him into her arms as she focused hard on doing so. It must have been the surge of adrenaline that came from knowing she had to act quickly, or he would die. She’d read stories of people lifting cars off loved ones in a panic, and that had to be what she was managing to do.

She grunted and strained under the effort of carrying him, but managed to half-carry, half-drag her father out of the house to the front porch. She wished she’d had the forethought to leave the door open as she laid him down carefully and opened it before going back to him.

North was afraid she wouldn’t have that same surge of adrenaline that would allow her to lift him, but it came easily, as though her muscles had already learned what they needed to do. She was just thankful that the adrenaline hadn’t yet faded and hoped it wouldn’t leave her fatigued and unable to help him when it did.

She propped him as carefully as possible in the front seat, though he still rested awkwardly. After snapping on his seatbelt, she rushed around to the cab and put on her own as well. Then she took a deep breath and started driving down the gravel road that served as their driveway. In a few minutes’ time, she moved past the farthest point she’d ever been before, and she was thankful the roads were clear enough for her to find and follow when she reached the edge of the property.

The road started out rough, but gradually grew smoother and better maintained the farther she drove. More than an hour after finding her father on the floor, she started to encounter heavy traffic. As North moved with the flow of traffic, she looked around for signs of devastation.

Her father had painted an awful picture of how humanity had ended up, but she wasn’t seeing ruins and rubble. What she saw looked like images she had seen in the books she’d used for her education. She was completely confused by the lack of chaos and briefly wondered if perhaps humanity had rebuilt faster than her father had anticipated.

As they got closer to the city, her dread increased, even as her confusion deepened. Sam’s breathing was raspy again, and she wasn’t certain if they were going to make it to anything called a hospital in time.

Confusion sprang from the fact that the city was much better designed and maintained than she’d expected. Dad told her people had ruined their environment and wrought destruction, turning humans against humans. He’d taken her into the mountains to keep her safe and sheltered from the chaos, to protect her from the predators people had become.

She didn’t see any evidence of that as she drove. She was afraid to look away from the road for too long, since she’d never driven in such conditions, but what she saw both intrigued and frightened her. It was nothing like she’d anticipated, and she found herself questioning the stories her father had told her for the first time in her life.

A blue sign with an “H” caught her attention, and she thought that was the symbol for a hospital, if she remembered correctly from the books she’d read. She merged to the correct lane and followed the signs until a large building came into sight. It was white and steel, with huge windows. Ambulances were parked around the area marked “Emergency,” and she found a spot to park the SUV, uncaring if it was okay.

North hurried from the vehicle and ran into the entrance of the Emergency Department. She stood for a moment, searching for someone to help. It was an overwhelming, almost disorienting, experience to be surrounded by people. She had literally only seen the occasional person from a distance. Had she even talked to anyone who wasn’t her father for years and years? Not since that time someone had taken a wrong turn down their driveway. She had said hello to the two men in the car, but when her father came out with his rifle, they’d driven off.

She recalled Sam being on heightened security for a time after that, even wondering if they should move. When no one else appeared, he’d finally dismissed it as someone genuinely taking a wrong turn.

Her voice refused to escape her for a moment as she stood in the middle of the room. Sick and injured people surrounded her, along with others milling about. They wore the same light-blue uniform. Scrubs was the word, right? She wasn’t certain, but did know it identified them as medical staff.

Feeling almost paralyzed by shyness and uncertainty, but prodded to move by the knowledge her father might be dying at that moment, she moved to the desk. The first one to look at her was a tall man with long brown hair, neatly confined at his neck, and vivid brown eyes that flared with heat. For just a second, gold rings appeared around the irises, but then were gone—leaving her to doubt the veracity of her senses.

He stared at her for a long second, and there was an intense expression on his face that she wasn’t sure how to interpret. He seemed…hungry.

When he flashed her a smile full of white teeth, that seemed to confirm her supposition. She shivered, but not entirely from fear. His look made her feel a myriad range of emotions she didn’t have time to identify.

“What’s wrong, miss?”

“My father.” Her voice was a timid whisper.

He frowned, leaning closer. That brought his musky masculine scent to her nostrils, which made her already-thumping heart race. “What, precious?”

“My father is sick. Maybe dying. He’s in the SUV.” Thinking about her father, and the urgency of the situation, helped her conquer her momentary timidity. “Please help him.”

He looked solemn. “I’ll do anything I can for you, precious.”

Even under the circumstances, North found it strange that he used the endearment twice in a row. It felt more personal than a casual “hon,” like her father was prone to using in conversation. Not unpleasant. Just unusual.

“I’m going to see her father, Liz. Could you make sure the young lady is settled comfortably?”

“Yes, Dr. Scott.” As the man now identified as Dr. Scott disappeared through the back, she came around the front and put a hand on North’s shoulder to lead her to the bank of chairs.