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“How do you know that’s what it is?” Christopher asked, even though Terrence had just told him.
 

“Shut up, Christopher,” said a new voice.
 

Morgan looked up to see Vincent enter the kitchen. Vincent was all muscle, with tattoos on dark skin like Terrence. Vincent had run the group before Morgan arrived to show them what a real boss looked like. He usually fell into line under Morgan’s orders but bore watching. A big guy like that, clear military background, having been the previous leader? Morgan knew to watch his back. Once they finally breached this bitch of a door, it might be smart to put a bullet in Vincent’s face. Just to make a point.
 

“Got something to say, Vincent?” Christopher asked.
 

“Just shut your fucking hole.” Vincent stepped closer. “Your problems with all of this are duly noted. You still don’t think there’s a bunker under this place even now, even while staring at a hidden door at the back of a closet with a motherfucking Fort Knox lock? Fine. Go run off and play with someone else. That’s one less share to split of whatever’s down there.”
 

Christopher exhaled loudly and stepped back. Vincent turned to Terrence, nodding at Morgan as if urging him to continue.

“So the generator doesn’t look like it’ll kick on now that the main is cut,” Morgan said to Terrence, setting aside the twin problems of Christopher and Vincent for another time. “So that means you did it right.”
 

“I told you I had it figured out. What, you don’t trust me?”

“You said you couldn’t be sure,” Morgan said. “Fake wires and all.”
 

“There were a lot of decoys,” Terrence said. “The phone box over there’s a decoy. Same for the Internet. I don’t even think the net here is wired at all, but someone tried to make it look like there’s a fiber line running to it. There were two decoy power lines from the windmill, and that’s on top of the bullshit wire running up to the pole and then just
stopping
, which flat-out insulted me. But like I said, I got it. There’s a legit line buried up to the windmills on the hill and another to the solar — one on the roof and another to the panel farm in the clearing. Then there’s the one that goes through the wall. Again, some decoys. But I pinched it off with the inverter and battery, Morgan. That generator in there doesn’t realize there’s no power coming in.” He stopped short of adding,
Just like I fucking told you ten minutes ago, asshole.
Morgan didn’t like that. Nobody called Morgan Matthews an asshole.

“So if the power is out, why isn’t this door open?” He tapped the big, complicated computer lock on the hatch at the back of the broom closet.

“It’s impossible to be sure without going inside, but it could be a few things. They may have a failsafe power supply inside that we can’t see. If I were designing a system, that’s how I’d have done it: put a self-contained, probably rechargeable short-term power source inside the walls that doesn’t rely on anything outside. So it’s possible they still
have
power, even with the generator off and the mains cut. Even so, there are still some obvious precautions I’d have taken even if there’s no power down there at all, and they’re knocking around in the dark.”
 

“Like?”
 

“A contained power source for the lock itself. A battery inside the mechanism.”
 

“Can you unplug the battery?”
 

“Not without getting inside.”

“What else?”
 

“There’s plain old physical barriers to consider: deadbolts, lock bars — even something jammed behind the door.”
 

“We can break through that kind of shit,” Morgan said.
 

“Maybe.” Terrence rapped on the door. “But this? It’s a motherfucker. If we want to get inside, we’re going to need more than a lock pick.”
 

Morgan eyed his all-purpose electrician, mechanic, and computer hacker. “I assume you’re up to the challenge.”
 

Terrence crossed his arms and nodded. “I think so, but it’ll be tricky.”
 

“Tell me what you have in mind,” said Morgan.
 

So Terrence did.

CHAPTER THREE

At first, Lila couldn’t see a thing.

She took a shallow breath, her heart beating like a tiny, frightened animal. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered if she might be hyperventilating. Another part of her mind wanted to let it happen if she was. Passing out, with lights gone and danger real, might be a blessing.
 

Panic’s fist gripped her heart and squeezed tight. She was in free fall, maybe trapped, unable to take it.
 

Seconds ticked, excruciatingly slow, and for the first few moments Lila could barely get from one second to the next.
 

It
’
s just a power outage,
said her reasonable mind.
You
’
ve spent three months trapped in this tiny box, pretending it isn
’
t a coffin. But it is, and even if Dad thought to hide the air intakes as well as Piper said he did, those intakes are still the only line you have to fresh breath. You
’
ve known that all along. What
’
s happened now is only bringing it front and center.
 

Relax, Lila.

It
’
s just fear, with nothing at the root.
 

You
’
re in the dark, not dead.
 

But Lila didn’t believe it.
 

As she stumbled in the dark, feeling Mom leave her side in an unmotherly (but very Heather-like) way, Lila imagined herself not in the bunker but in empty space. There were portals in the main room where sunlight reflected down from skylights, but none in the bedrooms. Besides, she was pretty sure it was after dark. There had to be some electronic light down here somewhere; her eyes simply hadn’t adjusted.
 

Or not.
 

Because as much as Lila’s rational mind had to say about sensible power failures and the safe dark in underground bunkers, a larger part thought she might be telling herself what she wanted to hear.
 

Piper had told them all: there were redundancies on redundancies.
 

The power shouldn
’
t go out.
 

Thanks to the strange, flickering visions in her dreams, Lila knew what this
really
was. She knew what was actually happening — and it was more than a simple failure of electricity.
 

Inside Lila’s mind, she saw the tall man in a long overcoat, his hair black, his nose cruel, his voice tinged with a slight accent, British or maybe Irish. A man whose very movements iced her blood the minute her internal vision displayed him, which it had been doing for weeks.
 

Lila first thought the man in her mind was a paranoid nightmare: the ominous fellow outside like a boogeyman. It even made sense. She was a silly pregnant teenager. The apocalypse hadn’t changed that. She had too many hormones. Of
course
she was afraid, and of
course
she’d created a spook to give her fear something to focus on.
 

But then she’d seen the man on the cameras, same as in her head.
 

She’d known this would happen. Even now, she could hear five men’s voices arguing over the best way to seal their doom.

Cut the power.
 

That won
’
t open the door, boss.
 

Just cut it. Do as I say.
 

Beside Lila, lying back on the bed with pillows stacked against the headboard, Heather had been laughing too hard at a
Three
’
s Company
rerun when the power had gone. Laughing if she were stir-crazy — the only reason her mother would laugh so hard at shows she’d seen hundreds of times, from well before she was born. The only reason she’d ignore the presence of the men outside, hip deep in a hole they’d dug against the foundation, twisting wires and readying clippers.
 

“Mom?” Lila yelled into the darkness, her voice wavering.
 

“Right here, Lila.”
 

“Where?” Lila was halfway off the bed. She came the rest of the way and stubbed her toe on something unseen. Her outstretched hands met the closet door before she’d known it was remotely nearby, jamming her wrists and eliciting a cry.
 

“I’m at the door. Stay on the bed.”

But Lila was forward in a second, grabbing at something that did, in fact, turn out to be her mother.
 

“Dad has guns,” Lila said. “Where are the guns? Did you find them? Did Piper?”
 

Heather laughed.
 

“
Where are they, Mom?!
”
 

No answer. Lila could imagine her mother’s insulting look. Then: “Yeah. That sounds like the voice of a person I’d trust with a gun in the dark.”

Propped on the bed, watching Jack Tripper stumble awkwardly through yet another misunderstanding with Mr. Roper, Lila had wanted to say something to her mom about what she felt increasingly certain was happening outside — what she’d seen in her dreams and could feel coming like a mass of cold air. But speaking up would only earn her mockery.
 

Besides, Lila didn’t need her mother to tell her she was being ridiculous. It was possible she was just jumping at shadows, even as sure as she felt that her vision was true. They’d all been too long underground, and Lila was surely losing her mind like the rest of them. A pregnant girl with too much estrogen. Heather said as much when Lila had pointed out the man in the overcoat on the monitors days ago and called him frightening.
Just another New-Age hippie dipshit,
Heather had answered. But to Lila, he didn’t look New Age at all.
 

And Lila knew he had a gun, even though she never saw it on the cameras. The gun’s presence had been whispered in her ear. It had been shown to her in dreams — where she’d seen it point blank, staring straight down its blue steel muzzle.

“Someone cut the power,” Lila said, panting. She felt like she was talking into a box of black velvet. For an insane moment, she was sure her missing mother wouldn’t reply because she’d vanished. Lila was alone, in a featureless void.

“It just went out,” Heather said. “A loose wire or something. It’s been flickering for days.”

“Mom, it’s not just — ”

There was a yell from the other room: either Piper or Raj. Lila wasn’t sure, and not being able to tell was embarrassing. For Raj. He hadn’t been at his manliest lately. The screech came from the right side of the door as she left the bedroom (Lila thought). But she wasn’t sure.
 

“Heather!” said a voice.

“I’m right here, Piper.”
 

“Are you and Lila okay?”
 

“We’re baking cookies. How about you? How’s the family?” Heather replied.
 

Lila could hear her mother’s feet pacing closer, then away. They exited the bedroom and were now in the bunker’s central room, which they all thought of as the living room. After three months underground, Lila’s ears had attuned to the difference. The larger room held an echo despite the carpet and subtleties of design meant to soften sounds.

Lila still felt lost.

Where had Piper gone? Lila wished she’d reply to her mom’s stupid joke, just so she’d be audible. More words from the responsible one — the person who knew where the guns were and had proved she was willing to pull a trigger if needed.

But Piper said nothing. And still, Lila’s eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark.

The living room wasn’t much brighter than the bedroom. But at least Lila could see shapes, if she focused. It might only have been thirty seconds since the power had gone out. Since it had been
cut
by the tall man and his group — at least five other men determined to get inside. Maybe
exactly
five.
 

Someone shuffled across the far end of the room. Lila’s keyed-up mind imagined a giant insect trundling by unseen. A shiver ran through her.
 

“Piper!” Lila yelled.

“Lila?”
 

But it wasn’t Piper’s voice. Nearby, a shape in the gloom. A male voice: Raj.
 

Lila wanted to feel comforted or rescued, but she found herself annoyed instead. Raj had never been particularly macho, but bunker living had turned him downright whiny. Right now, he sounded almost pleading. Like he wanted
her
to rescue
him
and tell
him
that everything would be fine rather than the other way around.

Lila’s voice came out sounding annoyed more than frightened. “I’m right here, Raj.”
 

“Oh, good. I thought you were Trevor.”
 

“I’m not.”

“Why did the lights go off?”