CHAPTER FIVE

I took the stairs slowly, one hand on the rail, because I didn't trust my legs. The smell of onions and butter got stronger with every step, and by the time I reached the bottom my eyes were already stinging.

Mom was at the stove with her back to me, wearing the green apron with the burn mark on the pocket. She was humming off key like always, flipping a pancake with a fork because she could never find the spatula. I stood in the doorway and just looked at her. The last time I saw her, there had been screaming and smoke and no time to say anything at all.

Dad was at the table with the newspaper held up in front of his face, his reading glasses pushed up on his forehead where he'd forget them for an hour. Lily sat across from him picking blueberries out of a bowl, one at a time, like nothing in the world could ever go wrong.

"There she is," Dad said, lowering the paper. "Sleeping Beauty. We were about to send a search party."

I didn't answer. I crossed the kitchen in four steps and wrapped both arms around Mom from behind, and pressed my face into her back. She was warm. She smelled like soap and fried onions and home, and my chest hurt so badly I couldn't breathe around it.

"Emma?" Mom twisted, trying to see me without dropping the fork. "What's gotten into you? You'll make me burn these."

"Sorry," I mumbled into her apron. "Just give me a second."

Her free hand came up and patted my arm, slow and a little confused. Then she went still. "Are you crying?"

"Onions," I said.

Dad chuckled behind his paper. "She's been in the onions upstairs? Impressive."

I laughed, a wet, cracked sound, and wiped my face with my sleeve before I let go. Mom looked at me for a long moment with her head tilted, the way she did when she knew something was off but wasn't ready to ask. I felt my stomach twist. *Not yet, Mom. I can't tell you yet, you wouldn't believe me, and even if you did, I'm not sure I could watch your face while you did.*

I sat down and Dad pushed the syrup toward me without being asked. A stack of pancakes landed on my plate, slightly burnt on one side, exactly how I remembered. I took a bite and nearly choked, because it was the best thing I had eaten in two years, and it was only pancakes.

"So," Dad said, folding the paper at last. "What's the plan today, kiddo?"

I put my fork down. I had been rehearsing this on the stairs and every version sounded crazier than the last.

"I'm going to spend some of my savings," I said. "On supplies for the house. Food, mostly. Bottled water, canned stuff, medicine, batteries. Probably a generator too."

Nobody said anything. Mom's spatula, the one she had finally found, hovered over the pan. Dad's eyebrows climbed slowly up his forehead until they disappeared under his glasses.

"A generator," he repeated.

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

My mouth went dry. I looked at his face, at the lines around his eyes that I had forgotten the exact shape of, and everything I'd planned to say fell out of my head. "Call it a feeling. I think something bad is coming, and I just want us to be ready. That's all."

"Emma." Mom came over and sat beside me, her voice gentle in a way that made my throat tight. "Sweetheart, that's your savings. You've been putting that money away since your first job. Is something wrong? Are you in some kind of trouble?"

"No. I promise. I'm not in trouble."

"Then why..."

"Please," I said. It came out smaller than I wanted. "Just trust me on this one. I'm not asking you to understand it yet. I'm only asking you not to stop me."

Dad studied me for a long while. I held his gaze even though my hands were shaking under the table, and I watched him weigh it, his daughter who had never once asked for anything strange, sitting there asking for exactly that. Something softened around his mouth, and I let out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding.

"A feeling, huh," he said at last, and rubbed his jaw. "Your grandmother used to get those. She'd pack the whole car before a storm and everybody laughed at her. Then the storm came."

"Dad, seriously?" Lily snorted and dropped a blueberry into her mouth. "You're going to let her blow all her money on canned beans? Emma, you're turning into one of those doomsday people. Next you'll be building a bunker in the garden."

Her laugh was so light, so easy. I looked at her across the table, at her small pink mouth and the sweet crease at the corner of her eyes, and for a second the kitchen went far away. *You said I'd be doing everybody a favor by dying. You said it with that exact same mouth.*

"Maybe I will," I said, and smiled right back at her. It cost me everything I had.

The doorbell rang.

We all turned. Mom glanced at the clock over the stove. "That's early, who on earth..."

"I'll get it," Lily said, and she was out of her chair so fast it scraped the tiles. A little too fast. I noticed, and I kept my face perfectly still.

She came back a few seconds later with Daniel behind her, a bunch of grocery store flowers in one hand and that easy grin on his face, like he owned every room he walked into. He was wearing the blue shirt I'd bought him for his birthday, the one he said brought out his eyes. My skin crawled all the way up to my scalp.

"Good morning, everyone! Sorry, I know I'm early. Couldn't wait." He turned his smile on me and held out the flowers. "For my girl."

"Daniel!" Mom was already on her feet, delighted. "Have you eaten? Sit, sit, there's plenty."

"I'd never say no to your pancakes, Mrs. Hayes."

He leaned down and kissed my cheek. His lips were dry and warm, and my whole body went rigid, every muscle locked, like a deer that hears a branch snap. I felt the old Emma inside me trying to melt, and I hated how strongly she wanted to. I made myself lift my hand and take the flowers.

"Thanks," I said. "They're pretty."

"Not as pretty as you."

Dad shook his hand across the table and started asking about his job. Daniel answered smoothly, laughing at the right places, and I sat there with the stems crushed in my fist, watching him. It was so strange. He was exactly the same man. Same crooked tooth when he smiled, same habit of tapping the table when he was thinking. Not one thing about him told you what he was.

And then it happened, so quickly I almost missed it.

His eyes slid sideways, just for half a second, and landed on Lily. She was leaning against the counter, twirling a strand of hair around her finger. She didn't look up. But the corner of her mouth moved, a tiny curl that was meant for nobody except him, and then she dropped her gaze to the floor.

That was all. A look. A smile. Nothing anyone else would ever notice.

My blood went cold, and then very, very clear.

*It didn't start in the apocalypse. I'd told myself it was the end of the world that did it, that fear and hunger turned good people into strangers. That was a lie I'd been telling myself for two years, wasn't it? They already had this. Right here, in my mother's kitchen, while I was passing them the syrup.*

"Emma?" Daniel's voice cut through. "You ready? I made a reservation."

I stood up. The chair felt very far away. "Yeah. Let me grab my bag."

I kissed Mom's cheek, and then, before I could stop myself, Dad's too. He blinked at me, surprised, and patted my shoulder like he was afraid I'd break. Then I followed Daniel out the door into a morning that smelled like cut grass and bus exhaust and a whole world that had no idea what it was about to lose.

His car was parked at the curb, and I slid into the passenger seat while he rounded the front. The engine started. He pulled out with one hand on the wheel, talking about the restaurant and some movie we should see this weekend, and I nodded at all the right places and watched his phone light up in the cup holder between us.

I didn't mean to look. I swear I didn't. But the screen was right there, and the name at the top made my heart stop.

**Lily.**

And under it, the preview of a message, still glowing in the daylight:

*Did you tell her yet? You promised me, Daniel. Tell her today, or I will.*