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  “Probably not,” he chose to say.

  A victorious grin spread across her face, accentuating her high, angular cheekbones. “Probably not?” she said. “Or just…not?”

  “What’s your point here?” he asked. “You mock me for being uptight and then lecture me about how I’m not uptight enough.”

  Gilda shook her head, the smile stuck in place. “I’m not lecturing you. And I’m not telling you to be uptight. I’m telling you who I am, why it’s good we met. There’s a distinct difference, Danny, between being uptight and being prepared.”

  He looked at her suspiciously. He wasn’t sure there was such a distinction. Then her expression softened, and she opened her mouth to speak but didn’t.

  “What?” Danny asked.

  “I don’t know,” Gilda said in a reflective tone Danny hadn’t heard her employ before. “It’s just that I’ve always thought of the apocalypse as some global meltdown, you know?”

  Danny wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical until she kept talking without awaiting his answer. It was just as well. As she’d so kindly pointed out to him, he’d never given the apocalypse any thought.

  “I’ve always thought I’d be preparing for some big nuclear war or a viral plague,” she said, staring off into the distance. “But now, with these fires, it’s clear to me that the apocalypse is like losing a job.”

  “How so?” asked Danny.

  “Harry Truman once said that a recession is when your neighbor loses his job,” she answered. “A depression is when you lose yours.”

  “So what’s the comparison to the end of the world, then?”

  “An apocalypse is what happens to you,” she said. “It’s when it’s the end of your world. Think about it. When we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was an apocalyptic event for the eighty thousand people who died and the countless others who survived. That was the end of their world. But for us, it wasn’t. Our clocks kept ticking. Our air was still breathable.”

  Danny considered it wasn’t a mistake she’d quoted Harry Truman since he’d been the only world leader in history to drop a nuclear bomb. He understood her point though. He offered a comparison of his own.

  “All politics is local,” he said.

  “Exactly. These fires, though confined to southern California and not part of some grander destructive force, are catastrophic for those who they affect.”

  Not part of some grander destructive force.

  Danny mulled over those words. He wasn’t convinced. Who set the fires? How did they start? Why did the city burn at the same time the wildfires took hold? He shook the thoughts from his head. They were the byproduct of his ex and Derek, beliefs that the world was secretly conspiring against him.

  They were marching steadily now, having picked up speed the farther north they walked. The sand was as challenging as it had been since they first stepped onto it, but the crowds were thinning. Beyond the Palisades was Topanga Beach, Pepperdine University, and eventually Malibu before the shoreline hooked into Point Dume. Beyond that, they’d be on their way to Ventura and then Santa Barbara, although that was a hundred miles up the coast.

  “How far are we going?” he asked her. “Where’s your prepper palace?”

  Gilda’s smile morphed into a smirk. She motioned up the beach with her chin. He followed the direction. More sand, more houses, more ocean, and off to the right on the other side of the highway, more smoke.

  The wind had picked up. Instead of gusts, it was now a steady chilling breeze off the water. Danny’s skin was covered with goose pimples.

  “Prepper, huh?” said Gilda. “Not a big fan of that term. Sort of pejorative, I think. Interesting that you used it, given that you said you’d never heard of TEOTWAWKI.”

  He shrugged. “You keep using the word prepared. It reminded me of hearing the term prepper on the news. Lane Turner talked about it. You know Lane Turner?”

  “The douchebag on the billboards?” she asked. “The one with the hair and the dimple?”

  “Yeah, I watch his news channel. I have the app on my phone. Anyhow, you reminded me that there’s a group called California Preppers. They get ready for…doomsday.”

  “I’ve heard of them. Still don’t like the name. I’m into preparedness, not prepping.”

  It sounded like semantics to Danny. While he understood the concept behind being ready for a disaster no matter what it might be, he didn’t fully understand how people could spend their lives worried about something that might never happen. Even in the midst of this disaster, he questioned it. Nonetheless, he was thankful that he was walking on the beach with someone who embraced it.

  “So, you didn’t answer me,” he said. “Where are we going? What’s going to save us?”

  Gilda stopped, focusing her attention on a large Italianate structure perched on a bluff overlooking the ocean. She stared at it longingly for a moment. The Getty Villa, of all things, was their escape plan.

  However, before she said anything, a spray of water descended upon them. The spray quickly became a shower. From seemingly nowhere, the rain had come. It was heavy, the cold drops pelting them and the sand and the ocean. It was cold, adding to the chill blowing in with a front, a low-pressure system that could be their salvation.

  Gilda opened her mouth wide and stuck out her tongue, relishing the cold rain like a child. Danny noticed Claudia and Arthur with their hands raised toward the heavens, also soaking in the sudden downpour.

  The rain drenched Danny’s head, and the water ran down his face, into his eyes. He blinked past the sheen of water, the blur of it all.

  Cheers erupted up and down the beach. In the distance, car horns beeped and honked. People shouted. The line of rain advanced farther ashore, crossing the highway and toward the first columns of now graying smoke.

  There’d been no forecast for rain. Nobody on the news that week had mentioned storms or clouds or any chance for a downpour. Yet there it was, a magnificent cavalry in liquid form riding to the rescue. Gilda took his hand. She held it tight.

  “That,” she said, looking at the leading edge of the storm. “That is what’s going to save us.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  West Los Angeles

  Keri was in the back of the ambulance, a mask on her face, oxygen streaming into her nose and mouth. Her body was cold, her mind numb.

  The rhythmic thump of wiper blades on the windshield of the ambulance didn’t register. Nothing registered except for the tightness in her chest, the lingering smell of smoke in her nostrils, and the image of her dead boyfriend’s lifeless legs.

  Was the ambulance actually moving? Keri couldn’t remember exactly how she’d gotten into the back of it. She’d blacked out, and someone had helped her. It might have been the paramedic in the back of the ambulance with her and the woman named Sonya. She was sitting against the wall, also wearing an oxygen mask. The condensation bloomed and evaporated on the inside of Sonya’s mask when the woman took breaths in and out.

  Sonya noticed Keri’s eyes open and pulled down her mask. She smiled, tears in her eyes. She reached over to touched Keri’s hand. “Thank you,” she said. “It’s not enough. I know it’s not enough.”

  The soreness in Keri’s throat thickened. She swallowed past it, tasting the remnant bile.

  “Your husband was so brave,” Sonya said, her voice peppered with the gravel of someone who’d inhaled too much smoke. “He stayed with my Stanley. He saved his life.”

  Keri didn’t know what to say. She didn’t feel like correcting the woman by telling her Dub wasn’t her husband, or that his actions had prevented him from ever proposing to her. Tears blurred her vision, and she blinked them down her cheeks.

  “When this is over,” Sonya said, “I want to thank you properly. I know I can’t really. Nothing can…”

  Sonya trailed off, perhaps because Keri was now sobbing, her body shuddering uncontrollably. The monitor keeping track of her heart ra
te was beeping—pulsing faster.

  The paramedic who sat across from Sonya on the opposite side of the ambulance inched closer to Keri. He took her other hand and said calmly, “Keri, I need you to look at me and breathe when I breathe.”

  Keri focused on his kind face. He sucked in a slow, long pull of air through his nose, his chest expanding. Then he held it, slowly letting go through his mouth.

  “Do that,” he said. He eyed Sonya, Sonya’s hand, and Sonya again.

  The woman took the hint, pulling away from Keri. She sat quietly on the bench, drawing her shoulders inward and her head down. Her chin quivered.

  Keri mimicked the paramedic’s instructions, taking several long, slow breaths. The beeping slowed. She calmed down.

  “Good,” said the paramedic. “You’re doing fine. We’re going to get you to a hospital and get you checked out. You took in a little too much smoke; then you passed out. We need to make sure—”

  Keri pulled the mask from her face. “I just want to go back to campus. I don’t need to go to the hospital. I want to go back to campus and go to my room. I want to sleep.”

  “I don’t think we can take you to campus,” said the paramedic. “We’re having trouble with communications, and we’ve heard that UCLA is on lockdown.”

  Keri didn’t want to hear that. She wanted to be on her bunk, under the covers, in the dark, grieving until she fell asleep. She craved solitude and sleep.

  The windshield wipers thunked back and forth. Then it registered. It was raining.

  Keri strained against the nylon strap at her waist. The front windshield was a filthy mix of water and wet ash that the wipers merely moved around from one edge of the glass to the other, leaving gray smears.

  Still, beyond the opaque sheen, the rain was falling in sheets outside. It was a heavy downpour that beat on the roof of the ambulance.

  “It’s raining,” she finally found herself saying aloud, repeating what she’d said to herself several times since noticing the beat of the wipers. “It’s actually raining.”

  “Yeah,” said the paramedic behind the wheel. “This is big. It could help us get a handle on things.”

  He was still dressed in his firefighter turnout gear. As he shifted in his seat, his clothing released a strong whiff of smoke.

  “Could it put out the fires?” asked Sonya. “Is it enough?”

  “It could,” said the driver. “I mean, not actually put out the flames, but the humidity goes up. That slows a fire’s growth, which helps us contain the flames better.”

  The medic in the back spoke up. “If this kind of rain keeps up, it could put out some smaller structure fires. Not the wildfires though.”

  The ambulance, which had been stopped, was moving slowly now, a few feet at a time. Stop and go.

  “Fires can actually create rain,” said the driver. “I mean, not actually create it. The fires stop the clouds from losing their moisture, so that moisture builds up more than it might have otherwise. That can cause rain. Kind of.”

  Keri wasn’t paying attention to the driver. She wasn’t interested in the science of fires, she was trying to listen to the noises coming from outside the ambulance. Above the thwack of the raindrops on the roof and the thump of the wipers, people were cheering. There was a chorus of car horns. People were celebrating.

  Keri laid her head back on the gurney and closed her eyes. She could see Dub. Instead of his dying moments, though, he was smiling at her. He touched her face and pressed his lips to hers. His heart beat against her bare chest.

  He’d loved rain. It was something he said he missed, living in southern California. It almost never rained here. However, in his native Houston, it was a daily summer occurrence. He’d told her that, despite the well-documented flooding in his hometown, he always relished a lazy weekend afternoon listening to the rain hitting the pavement outside his house. He’d loved the smell of the grass after the rain had finished and the oil-formed rainbows that marked the pothole-riddled asphalt on city streets.

  He’d loved her. More than anything, he’d promised her. He’d loved her, and she’d loved him.

  She opened her eyes. The back door to the ambulance was open. Sonya was gone. The paramedic was sitting at her side.

  “Where are we?” she asked.

  “You fell asleep,” he said. “We’re on campus.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “A while.”

  It was dusky outside. She couldn’t be sure if that was from the smoke or the time of day.

  “Why are we on campus?” she asked. “I thought—”

  “We made it to Reagan,” he said. “It was tough, took some maneuvering. I’d like it if you went inside and got checked out.”

  “I don’t have to?” she asked, leaning up on her elbows.

  He unbuckled the strap at her waist and began working on removing the IV from the back of her hand. He covered the injection point with a cotton pad and white medical tape.

  “You should,” he said. “I can’t make you, especially because the ER is packed. Like, ridiculously overcrowded. You’d be there a long time and, frankly, despite having some minor smoke inhalation, I think you’re okay to go.”

  Keri reached out to the paramedic for help sitting up straight. He took her hands, pulling her forward. She scooted to the foot of the gurney and stood, somewhat hunched over, until she gingerly stepped from the back of the ambulance out into the rain. It hit her instantly, drenching her by the time she’d taken her first full step outside the ambulance.

  “Thank you,” she said to the paramedic.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. “I wish we could have—”

  Keri wiped her hair from her face and held up her hand to stop him. “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t going to be okay. She didn’t want condolences. She tried to smile and rounded the corner, leaving the ambulance behind.

  She wound her way around the hospital’s exterior, soaked through, until she found a recognizable spot at the corner of Westwood and Charles E Young Drive. There were no people on the sidewalks, but the streets were still packed with cars. The traffic moved almost imperceptibly.

  Shivering, Keri took one waterlogged step after another, the water sloshing inside her shoes. She plucked at the fabric of her shirt to pull it free of her skin. It didn’t help. The faintest hint of smoke lingered in the air. Fires had burned or were still burning nearby along with something unfamiliar. It was like cooked cabbage or boiling onions.

  A uniformed officer was standing outside the campus police station, holding an umbrella over his head. As Keri approached, he stepped toward her.

  “Miss,” he said, “are you a student?”

  She nodded and stopped in front of him.

  “I can’t have you walking around out here,” he said. “Despite the rain, it’s still dangerous.”

  Keri was shivering. Her teeth chattered as she spoke. “Can I go to my dorm? I’m in De Neve.”

  “No,” said the officer. “We’ve evacuated the Hill. We’ve got a shelter set up in the Wooden Center. I can take you there.”

  She shook her head. “That’s okay. I’ll go there. I’m fine.”

  The officer offered her his umbrella. She politely declined and kept walking. She passed the guard gate at the main entrance to the school and looked over her shoulder at the officer. She waved at him and took another step.

  She was back on campus.

  She was home.

  CHAPTER 20

  Friday, October 17, 2025

  Westwood, California

  The volleyball gym inside the John Wooden Center was like a rave without the music, the strobing lights, or the ecstasy-laced, oversized bottles of water. It was shoulder-to-shoulder crowded, hot, and altogether uncomfortable.

  There were students sprawled out on the gym floor and on the wooden bleachers lining the walls. The overhead fluorescent lights were working thanks to emergency generators providing power to critical pa
rts of campus. They appeared overly bright to Barker as he entered the absurdly cramped space. If only the volleyball teams could always draw this size crowd.

  Overhead, amongst the shining lights, were retractable basketball goals that were stowed away shy of the ceiling’s rafters. On the wall next to the scoreboard was a large television monitor. During matches, it displayed live action and instant replays. Today it was showing the news.

  When they entered the gym, there was a pair of uniformed campus police officers standing guard at a metal detector and accompanying folding table. There was also a Los Angeles firefighter standing there wearing blue latex gloves. His expression soured when he saw the dozens of walking wounded entering the space. It softened as quickly when he spotted that some of the group were fellow firefighters.

  “I need you to empty your pockets, open your bags, and put them on the table,” said one the officers with the exasperation of someone who had already repeated it a thousand times. “One at a time, you’ll walk through the detector. I need to know ahead of time if you have any weapons—guns, knives, tasers, pepper spray, whatever.”

  Barker’s hearing had returned for the most part, though there was still an annoying, headache-inducing ring in his ears. It was a high-pitched tone, steady and constant. From his conversations with others on their way to the Wooden Center, he discerned that most everybody else was regaining their hearing and also suffering from the ringing.

  “Do we need to empty our bags?” asked Gem. She was standing right behind Barker and Becca. She ran her hands through her hair, straining the rainwater onto the floor. The sudden downpour had soaked all of them.

  The officer shook his head. “No, but we do need to check them. This is going to take a bit, so please be patient.” He raised his hands to get the group’s attention. “If you need medical assistance, please alert firefighter Anthony Reed. He will make sure you get help in the most expedient way possible.”