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step back from him. “Andrew? Stop, Drew,” she ordered. She put up both of her hands in a defensive posture as she slipped sideways to put the bed between them. Andrew continued to move toward her, slowly, his eyes tracking her every movement. Cade was reminded for a terrible moment of a predator stalking its prey, a wolf circling a rabbit, and it didn’t take a genius to guess which one of them was the rabbit. She shuddered and glanced at the phone. She wondered if she could get to it fast enough to call for help.
    Before Cade could consider making her move, Andrew lunged at her. Cade fell to the side, trying to dodge his attack. Her hip banged into the table beside her bed, and the pain drew a gasp from her throat. A flash of memory flipped through her mind, an image of something she had shoved into the table’s drawer just before Lindsey brought Josie for her visit the week before. Cade fumbled blindly for the drawer’s handle and pulled it open. She kept her eyes on Andrew as her hand felt for and found the loaded Jericho 941 handgun she’d stashed inside.
    “Drew! Stop!” Cade ordered as she pulled out the handgun. She swung it up to point directly at him. Her thumb flipped the safety off, even as she put one hand up to warn him off. Her mind fell onto thoughts of Josie, lying seemingly dead in the next room, and her eyes fell onto the blood that still stained Andrew’s hands and face. Cade gritted her teeth to brace herself. She suspected what his next move would be.
    Andrew snarled at her, baring his bloodied teeth and curving his fingers into claws. The muscles in Cade’s back stiffened in reaction, and she steadied the gun with both hands. As he took another step toward her, she squeezed the trigger.

Chapter 4
     
     
    Ethan paced back and forth in front of the cold fireplace in the living room. He had been checking his watch and stopping to look out the front windows every few minutes for the past hour, ever since Anna had grabbed her go-bag and run out of the house to go to the hospital. Everything about him, emotionally and physically, was on edge. He wanted desperately to go out, track Anna down, and drag her back to the house, regardless of what she wanted or what her supervisors said. He just didn’t feel it was safe enough for her to be out on her own without protection against any of the crazies that were now running the streets.
    The sudden sharp, familiar sound of gunshots echoed out in the night. Ethan froze and looked up from his contemplation of the floorboards. He counted the shots silently, deciding that there were four of them, and then he tried to guess where they had come from. Ethan couldn’t be positive, but he had the sneaking suspicion that they’d come from the direction of Cade’s house.
    Ethan frowned and grabbed his Glock 17 from the coffee table; he’d taken it out after the reports of the riots broke on the news and his bosses called him with instructions. He was unsure of what he was going to face as he headed for the front door and flung it open, but whatever it was, he’d be armed when he faced it.
    Ethan turned off the safety on his gun as he walked out into the dew-dampened grass. He looked around cautiously as he crossed the front yard and headed toward Cade’s house. His dress shoes slipped on the grass, and he made a disgusted face as he glanced down at his getup. He should have changed clothes before he went to investigate the source of the gunshots. Dress shoes, pants, and a nice shirt weren’t exactly ideal clothes to wear for a potential fight.
    A loud thud at the front of Cade’s house drew Ethan’s attention, and he reflexively lifted his gun. He gripped it with both hands as he halted in his journey across the yard. His green eyes narrowed, and he squinted through the darkness. The silhouette of a person ran toward him. The sound of sobbing met his ears, and he lowered the gun as he realized who it was.
    “Ethan!” Cade cried out as she ran. “Ethan,