Chapter 5: Warehouse One

The words hit like a slap. I had told no one about the truck.

“That’s not possible,” I whispered.

“It’s the only thing that is.” Cole’s eyes were dark and exhausted, with something raw underneath. “I was a freight dispatcher on your grandmother’s old route. I tried to pull you back in. Your husband’s boot got my hand first.” He lifted his left hand. Three knuckles sat crooked. “I woke up three weeks ago with a number in my eyes. I’ve been trying to stand between you and everything that killed you ever since.”

The footsteps above us grew louder.

“Later. Two men on the stairs, two more on the street. They work for whoever wrote that affidavit.”

“Nadia?”

“Nadia doesn’t work for anyone.” His voice was flat. “That’s the problem.”

Every instinct from my first life screamed trust no one. But he had been right about the lobby, and the card had been right about Finch, and the stairs were running out.

“Priya. Your car.”

“Garage, level B.” Her nurse’s calm settled over her like armor. “Move.”

We ran. Cole took the rear and eased a stairwell door shut with a care that suggested practice. By the garage my lungs were burning. Priya’s old hatchback sat beneath a flickering light, and the engine was turning before I’d closed my door. Cole slid into the back seat, and nobody objected.

“Where?” Priya asked.

“Calloway Cold Storage. Warehouse One. East Industrial Road.”

Cole’s head came up. “You have the key.”

“How do you know about the key?”

His eyes met mine in the rearview mirror. “Because last time, you never opened that room. By the time you reached it, someone had emptied it.”

I didn’t ask how he knew. I already understood that he’d watched me die and then spent weeks piecing together everything I never learned.

The warehouse squatted at the end of the road, a gray concrete block under sodium lights, humming with the drone of refrigeration. The night watchman, a stooped man named Hollis, stared at my key and straightened as though someone had pinned him.

“Ms. Calloway. We’ve been told to expect you for three years.”

He led us through a maze of steel racks and drifting white mist. Behind the inventory office stood a plain steel door with no handle and a single keyhole. My key turned with an oiled click.

Lights flickered on inside, one by one.

The room was the size of a small chapel and smelled of old paper and machine oil. Crates lined the walls, labeled in a slanted hand I knew by heart. WATER PURIFICATION. FUEL STABILIZER. ANTIBIOTICS. SEEDS. RADIO. Heavy coats hung on pegs, with boots in my exact size beneath them. On a long wooden table at the far end stood a polished brass lantern, a folded note tucked beneath it.

My darling Rowan,

If you are reading this, it has begun. I wish I could have spared you.

I’ve gathered what I could. The Calloway women have always kept things safe, and the thing that keeps is also the thing that remembers. When your hands begin to glow, don’t be afraid. It’s yours. It always was.

Look at the calendar behind you, and at the first page. Then you will understand why I never came to your wedding.

Trust no one who tells you what you should fear.

Love, Grandma Ada

I turned.

A paper calendar hung on the wall, curling at the corners, crowded with tiny slanted handwriting. Ninety squares had been crossed off in neat red ink. One final square was circled in black.

I read the date on the first page twice, then a third time.

It was three years in the past. Three years before Grandma died. Three years before I’d ever heard of the end of the world.

“She counted down ninety days once before,” I breathed.

“Before what?” Priya asked from the doorway.

“Before it came.” My mouth had gone dry. “Or before it was stopped. Or delayed.”

“Rowan.” Cole’s voice had changed. “Look at the bottom.”

Under the last circled square, in handwriting that was not my grandmother’s, someone had added a line. The letters were sharp and square, as if pressed on in a hurry. The red ink still gleamed wet.

IT’S MOVED. DAY ZERO IS NOT WHERE SHE SAID. YOU HAVE LESS TIME THAN YOU THINK.

I touched the ink. It smeared across my fingertip.

Priya swept her phone light across the floor. Dust lay thick on the concrete, and the only footprints were ours.

“Hollis. How many keys to this room?”

“Two, ma’am. Yours, and Mr. Finch’s in his safe. The log says this door hasn’t opened in three years. Until tonight.”

“Cole.” I turned to him slowly. “Is that your handwriting?”

“No.” He had gone pale. His gloved hand hovered over the writing, not quite touching. “I’ve never seen it in my life.”

Which meant someone else knew about Day Zero. Someone who could write in a sealed room without leaving a single footprint.

Behind us, Hollis made a small, strangled sound.

I looked back at the corner of my vision, where the white numbers had hung all day. 90 DAYS.

They flickered.