Page 1 of Citadel

1

Mornings come earlieras the season shifts into spring, and the sunrise on the ocean always wakes me up.

Today I blink into the growing light as I awaken. I must have shifted into a sunspot as I slept last night. We always arrange our blankets so the sun won’t hit our faces through the window openings when morning comes.

I turn over onto my other side with a grumble but don’t stay in that position for long. Once I’m awake, I’m compelled to get up and start the day. The fish are closer to the shore early in the morning, and if I can catch enough quickly, I might have time to make it to the beach and do some scavenging.

The ocean water is finally retreating after flooding the entire Eastern Seaboard for years. The climate upheavals after the asteroid hit Europe five years ago churned up hurricane after hurricane for nearly a year, submerging every inch of land within fifty miles of the coast.

My family used to live in Norfolk, Virginia—fifteen-year-old me, my parents, my older sister, and my baby sister not yet born—and we stayed there for months after Impact despite the warnings from scientists that both coasts would eventually become uninhabitable. After all, we had nowhere else to go.

We finally gave up after the third monster hurricane. Packed our car and drove west like everyone else. We ended up in a temporary shelter in Charlottesville until a militia group raided it, stole all the supplies, and killed anyone who tried to defend it.

My dad was killed in the raid. My mom and baby sister died a month later in childbirth.

Since then, it’s been me and my older sister, Breanna.

She’s still asleep, facing away from the sun with a blanket over her head. Vern usually wants to fuck her in the evenings, but she comes to sleep next to me afterward.

I get up, do a few stretches to loosen stiff muscles in my back and legs, and then pull on my jeans and a worn, oversized sweatshirt over my tank top.

Breanna shifts under the blanket and slides it down to reveal her pretty, freckled face and vivid red hair. She blinks at me groggily. “Mornin’, Del. You leaving already?”

My name is Delaney, but everyone has always called me Del. “Yeah. Sun’s coming up.”

“Okay. Be careful.”

“Always am. If I get an early catch, I’m going to scavenge some more, so I might be later than normal.”

“Don’t be too late. It’s not safe all by yourself.”

“There’s no one but us around anymore.”

“Maybe.” She makes a face. “But you never know who might be passing through.”

“Everyone thinks the coasts are unlivable. We’re the only ones crazy enough to be out here.”

“Maybe,” she says again. “But there might be a few others as crazy as us. If you see anyone, you run for the boat.”

“I will.”

“Promise me.”

“I promise.”

“Okay. Don’t be too late.” She smiles at me before she covers her head with the blanket and dozes off again.

She’s always liked to sleep in. I don’t blame her, and I don’t resent the privilege. She’s the one who has to fuck Vern. That was the agreement when he let us join up with his group of twenty-two various survivors and stragglers two years ago.

She says it’s not too bad. He’s in his fifties and not particularly virile or energetic. The fucking is usually quick and vanilla, and Breanna insists that it’s an easy trade for the protection Vern and the others give us.

I still don’t like it. I hate that she has to do it. But right now we have no other choices.

The breeze is strong today. It’s blowing through the window openings—brisk and salty and damp with spray from the waves. We’re on the ninth floor of a former high-rise beach hotel. It’s the only building still standing in this area, something about its construction allowing it to survive when all the others eventually crumbled. A few months ago, the water level was just below this floor. Now it’s down to the seventh floor, so I have to walk down two flights of stairs to reach the boats. When the summer comes, the now-exposed floors below us will be dried out enough that we can live down there and spare ourselves the stair climbing.

We keep descending floors as the ocean retreats.

We’ve got five different boats moored to the hotel, but I’m only allowed to take the smallest one.

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