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Katie flicked her gaze at him and shook her finger at him. “Oh, no! I’m not dying. ”

“Keeping it positive, huh, babe?”

“Or just annoyingly optimistic,” Juan decided.

“Or she knows something you don’t know,” Nerit teased as the doors opened to the foyer off the ballroom.

It was crammed full of people leaving off their small children, the elderly and the disabled. It had been planned that anyone not involved in the battle would remain at the highest point in the fort. Despite the tension flowing through the room, the so

unds were muted and tender. People held their loved ones one last time as they said goodbye.

Katie stepped out and to the side as the others filed out. Everyone was not only saying goodbye but eating breakfast tacos laid out on the buffet tables and drinking coffee. Jack came bounding up to her and she leaned down to hug him.

“Hey, boy,” she whispered, and he licked her face. She flashed back on the old days on the road with Jenni, the dog tucked between them as they rode into the west in their beat up truck, and she smiled a sad smile. “Who thought we’d come this far, huh?”

Jack woofed at her, then took off to weave his way through the crowd back to Juan’s four children. The kids were in the ballroom sitting around Juan’s grandmother’s wheelchair munching away on tacos.

“She gave me four kids,” Juan said to Katie.

Looking toward him, she lifted an eyebrow. “Hmm?”

“Loca. She couldn’t have anymore kids, but she found a way to give me four. Two boys, two girls. ” Juan grinned. “That woman had a way of getting her way, huh?”

Katie smiled with bitter sweetness. “Yes, she did. ”

Pulling her close, Juan held Katie, then kissed her cheek. “Thank you for bringing my Loca to me. ”

Tears sprang instantly into her eyes and she couldn’t speak.

Juan seemed to understand and patted her cheek, then headed over to his kids.

Her husband drew near and smoothed her golden hair back from her eyes. Cupping her face, Travis kissed her lips, then pressed his forehead to hers. “We’re going to make it. ”

Katie nodded vehemently. “Of course. ”

The elevator doors slid open behind them and an ungodly smell hit them.

Wincing, Katie looked toward Calhoun, satellite dish hat intact, looming in the opening.

“Calhoun, what is--” Travis started to ask.

“One of the traps is disconnected on the east side,” Calhoun exclaimed, waving his hands in front of him. “Gawddamn mind waves of the clones are disrupting my instruments and--”

“Cal, hold on,” Nerit said from nearby around a mouthful of taco. “What do you mean--”

“I lost one of the traps. The controls are dead! Something got disconnected out there!”

“Shit,” Kevin sputtered as he tried to talk and drink coffee at the same time.

“They’re not arriving on the outskirts for another thirty minutes,” Nerit said firmly.

“Sorry, Amazon lady, I don’t trust your dead incubus of a husband!”

“Calhoun,” Katie chided. “That wasn’t nice. ”

“I don’t trust these ghosts with their mysterious ways,” Calhoun retorted.

“Especially that crazy Mexican one. She was loca in real life and sure as loca in death. ”