Read an excerpt Marcy dragged Hope from the floor and frantically searched for Seth. In the melee of screaming people, running this way, and trying to avoid whatever it was that had caused the explosion, she couldn’t see where he had gone. He had been stood in front of them as he faced off with those fanatics, but where was he now? As the area began to clear, she moved behind a nearby building, with Hope in tow, to try to get a view on the scene and see if Seth was anywhere close by. ​ Marcy stood behind a pillar that hid them from the people searching the area. From their vantage point, she could see a perfect circle of destruction, the epicentre of which now contained a crater the size of a beach ball. There was a smell of burned meat floating in the air from the blackened remains of those scattered within the zone. Looking at the remnants of those who had found them, she suddenly had a thought. Quickly, she turned to check on Hope, who was standing behind her, for any signs of injury. To her relief, her daughter didn’t have a mark on her and still looked pristine in her new outfit. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. Hope nodded as her eyes began to fill. Marcy felt torn between caring for her daughter and locating her husband, for a moment she watched as Hope stood motionless, unsure of what to do. The events of the past few moments had sent her head spinning. She could still hear the ringing of the explosion in her ears, and yet she knew she was unharmed. Marcy followed her daughter’s gaze, knowing she would likely be focused on what lay before her. Marcy grabbed hold of her daughter as she started to baulk, she presumed from the smell. Marcy had never seen anything like this, except in movies. To see it in real life was an experience she had never expected or thought about. Her mind raced with a million thoughts as she tried to find a reason for what had happened. ​ Everything was a blur in Marcy’s mind. She could see the people moving around with police cars appearing from out of the adjoining streets. Around them, a crowd had gathered, drawn by the sounds of sirens, or more likely the boom of the explosion. Hope noted many had taken out their phones and were filming the scene. Some were visibly shaken and cried at the horror of what they witnessed. Several minutes passed. A cordon had been erected along with some screens around the piles of corpses, which had been moved while the men searched for something. Knowing what needed to be done, Marcy placed a hand on her daughter’s head, ‘Wait here a second sweetheart,’ she said, ‘I am just going to look for your dad.’ ​ She crept among the crowd as several official looking men picked through prone bodies on the ground, each one a life lost in the madness created to hunt down her husband. Some bodies were unrecognisable, as people with only their shape distinguished them from the charred pavement slabs thrown from the ground and now mingled with the dead. She knew that one of the bodies being turned would be Brian, the leader of the group who had been hounding them for twelve months. She hadn’t witnessed what had happened to him, but as he was the closest to Seth when he attacked, she was certain he was now lying among the dead. With that knowledge, she felt… glad. This feeling instantly made her guilty, but she couldn’t escape it. She was glad he was dead, as now they had a chance of a normal life without being persecuted by people like him. All she needed now was to find Seth, so they could leave.