He pushed through the door and held it open until Olin had passed through. Not much smoke had gotten in. Connor was still coughing, his ears were still ringing, but at least he could see again.
Dylan climbed off Olin’s back and opened her eyes. Somewhere along the way, much of her hair in front had slid out of the bobby pins, which made her seem even younger than she had before.
The three shared a look, an unspoken confirmation from each to the others that they were okay. Then they hurried down the stairs and through the door that led them outside.
They ran until they were on the far side of the parking lot, where Connor slowed to a stop and leaned over to cough some more. It was getting better. So was the ringing in his ears. But neither was completely gone yet.
He turned around to see the mall. Olin and Dylan did the same. They weren’t alone. There were people all over the parking lot, some standing dangerously close to the building. From here, the damage didn’t look as bad as it was. Sure, the windows along the food court were shattered. You could see the restaurants closest to them in flames and smoke billowing out. Glass and debris were scattered across the parking lot nearby. Some tables, fully intact, had landed on cars, crushing hoods and shattering windshields. But you couldn’t see the hole that had been blown through the floor, the small fires that burned all the way back to the escalator. You couldn’t see the bodies.
And thank God for that.
Connor hardly noticed when Dylan turned away from the mall and toward the road beyond. “Guys.”
“Yeah?”
“Look.”
They did.
It wasn’t fully dark yet, but it was on its way. The streetlights along the alley in front of them and the buildings beyond it should be lit up. They weren’t.
“The whole city’s gone dark,” Olin said.
Hopefully not the whole city, Connor thought. Then he remembered the comment someone had made about the 1977 blackout.
But this wasn’t like that. This wasn’t some random blackout caused by ancient and overworked equipment. This was planned. It had to be.
Now Olin was pointing off to the left. “What’s that?”
Connor strained to see. There was a flicker. Maybe smoke. Another fire, he thought.
He remembered the boom he had heard outside the mall. That had to be where it had come from, which meant there had been two explosions, at least.
“There were riots in 1977,” Dylan said. Apparently, she was also thinking about the comment Connor had heard in the mall.
Connor turned to face her. “How do you know that?”
“I read stuff.” Then her eyes grew wide. “Tom. We have to get help.”
That took Connor by surprise. In the mall, he had thought she understood Tom was dead.
Dylan pulled out her phone. She dialed nine-one-one, but the call wouldn’t go through. From where he was, Connor could hear a message from AT&T telling her all lines were busy and to try her call again later.
Since now was later, even if only by seconds, she tried again, and got the same message. “Everything’s tied up.” She sounded desperate. “What about you? Can you reach anyone?”
Connor and Olin, who had both seen Tom’s body, dutifully pulled out their phones, tried to call nine-one-one. They were not able to get through either.
Then there was a flash of lights and sirens that caught their attention and all three turned again to a see a pair of firetrucks pulling into the parking lot. Firemen hopped off, even while the trucks were still moving. They worked fast, hooking up hoses to fire hydrants, suiting up, sending men in to look for survivors.
Connor hadn’t realized he had put a hand on Dylan’s shoulder to comfort her until he spoke. She didn’t pull away. “They’ll get him out,” he said. He hated lying to her, but there would be plenty of time to grieve Tom’s death later. Right now, they had a more pressing matter. “We need to leave.”
“But, Tom—”
“We don’t know if this is over. We need to get somewhere safe.”
Dylan didn’t seem convinced.
“Your parents would want us to do that,” Olin said.
Dylan scoffed.
“So would Tom,” Connor added.
She looked down at her shoes. Red Nike sneakers. Later, Connor would wonder if she had picked the shoes to match her hair, if the outfit that looked thrown together had actually been thoughtfully coordinated for her date. Right now, he wondered only what she was thinking.
When she spoke again, she said, “You’re right. We need to go. I can’t do anything if I stay here.”
“But where are we going to go?” Olin said. “I don’t think we can make it back to the suburbs. Traffic’s—”
“Going to be terrible.” Connor had already considered that. “I’ve been staying with a guy. A friend. I don’t think his apartment’s too far from here.”
He hoped Dylan wouldn’t ask any questions. He didn’t want to tell her what had happened to his parents. Or Olin’s. No matter what she was capable of doing with a computer, she was still just a child. She had enough to deal with right now.
CHAPTER 42
Traffic was worse than they thought it would be. The first block had taken them twenty minutes and, since then, they hadn’t moved at all.
By the time Connor turned around in the passenger seat so he could see Dylan, the sun had set, and the street was lit exclusively by headlights. “You said you found out Matthew Jones was my dad from my birth certificate. But you must have gotten it mixed up with something else. I’ve seen my birth certificate.”
She shrugged. “I know what I saw.”
In the silence that followed, Olin turned on the radio and was met with static. He tried several stations. None of them were transmitting. Then he gave up and turned it off. “I saw a documentary about adoption once,” he
