Chapter 60 Ashes And Iron

• The National Guard’s helicopters circled Willowbrook like vultures, their rotors slicing the sky into fragments. Barbed wire coiled around the town limits, and soldiers in hazmat suits patrolled with rifles slung low, their eyes hidden behind tinted visors. The air tasted metallic, like blood and battery acid.
• I crouched in the attic of the abandoned hardware store, my pirate radio rigged to a car battery, wires spilling like entrails across the floor.
• “This is Emma Evans,” I whispered into the mic, my voice crackling through the static. “If you’re hearing this, you’re not alone.”