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this year. So she told Zane to take care of it.”
    Natalya ripped open the pouch, taking out the test stick. “She didn’t give him a budget. Instead of working his way down her checklist and updating our water and canned food supplies, which I’m sure is what Grace intended, Zane sent out an email to everyone in the company, asking what they thought we’d need in the event of the zombie apocalypse and promising a prize to the person who sent the most complete answer, quality of the prize to be determined by the quality of the answers.” Bending over the test, she carefully dripped blood into the test well, before looking at the clock on the wall to check the time. Almost one.
    “And?” Colin prompted.
    She yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “You know how people work here. The answers were in-depth. Thorough. A little crazy. We probably lost a solid couple of day’s work from every researcher on staff.”
    “You’re kidding. How much detail is possible?”
    “One person wrote a novel,” she told him. “I read it. It wasn’t half-bad.” She’d actually enjoyed the story of how Tassamara survived and thrived during the zombie apocalypse, although she had serious reservations about whether Max’s actions were at all plausible.
    “What?” Colin’s laugh held disbelief.
    “No, I’m not kidding. People got—well, they know Zane. Anyway, after he received all the answers, he had an admin compile the results, and order anything at least three people mentioned. We’ve got more than three doctors on staff, so—” She waved at the refrigerator. “In the event of an emergency, we’re stocked.”
    “Don’t you mean in the event of the zombie apocalypse?”
    “Not gonna happen,” she told him wryly. “Our next hurricane, however, is inevitable.” The words didn’t inspire foreknowledge and she frowned. But she’d seen it before: the tree branches, Millard Street, the window of the bistro shattering. With a shake of her head, she added, “As are our next tornadoes.”
    “What did you see?”
    Natalya turned away and picked up the plastic stick. “Nothing.”
    “Nat.”
    She glanced at him. “Nothing.”
    “I’m the sheriff. My job is to keep the town safe. If you know something that could help me do that, I want to know what it is.”
    Natalya stared down at the test stick in her hands, barely seeing it. “I don’t tell people what I know about the future anymore. It serves no purpose.”
    Silence.
    It dragged on, became pronounced. Natalya could hear the sound of the clock ticking on the wall, her own breath, even the tiny hum of the overhead light.
    And then they both spoke at once.
    “It isn’t because of you, because of what happened with us.”
    “You’re not responsible for what you see.”
    Natalya’s hand shook and she steadied it, consciously inhaling. Straight to the heart. Damn it. And then they both spoke, again talking over one another.
    “I know that,” Natalya said.
    “I’d be sorry if it was.”
    Colin half-laughed and Natalya started to set the test back down on the counter, then blinked at it and paused. “Damn.”
    “You go first,” Colin offered.
    Natalya shook her head. “Not that.” She offered him the plastic stick. “Pink line. You have excess troponin in your blood. It’s an indicator of heart damage.”
    “Ah.” Colin took the stick and looked at the line, his mouth twisting. “How bad is it?”
    “It’s not.” She crumpled up the waste from the test kit and dropped it into the nearby trash can, then took the vial with his remaining blood and walked back toward the scanner monitoring room.
    “What does that mean?” He followed her, of course.
    “It means I’m a radiologist, not a cardiologist, and I don’t know what I’m doing.” She set the vial of blood down on her desk next to the first one and stared at her computer screen for a moment, not really seeing it. She tried to think, tried to remember any facts that could make sense of