71
One month before the Community
The blaring of her phone’s emergency alert jolted Sara out of sleep and into confusion. It wasn’t an alarm she’d heard before and it took her an embarrassingly long minute to realize where the noise was coming from. When she did, her stomach sank and her head felt light as she realized with horror that this was it: the moment she’d somehow known was coming but had never acknowledged.
She shook Zach awake—he had somehow slept through the alarm—and he held his own phone above his face, blearily trying to read the tiny words.
“Evacuation notice?”
“It’s the fire,” she breathed. “It’s here?”
For a shocked moment they stared at each other, trying to decide if it was real. Because it couldn’t have reached them, right? Disasters happened to other people.
Bu
