Thirty days.
The countdown has started, North America shivers under the shadow of a massive alien spacecraft, and humanity is hurtling toward an unknown future that lurks at the end of the timer. Somewhere, somehow, the heroes are making their plan...
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CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA
August 10, AROUND 9:30 AM
Three days ago, my ex—no longer the lanky-legged blonde I hooked up with for a few months thirteen years ago, but a brunette in a baseball cap, yammering on about government conspiracies—dropped off our daughter at the boss's door. Smudged overalls, hair in a curly, wild mess, Azalea leaned forward until she was on her toes. Luckily, I was there to let her in. My daughter, not the crazed cultist who birthed her. After saying she was my problem now, my ex took off, jumping into a military-grade jeep with a group of men carrying enough firepower to make Republican Jesus weep.
Jerome took one look at her and muttered, "You've got three hours to get rid of her. The boss needs us to make a pick-up."
Azalea, in the narrow hallway of the Chicago townhouse, heard him and dropped her backpack and long duffle bag on the shining parquet. She had my mother's eyes, a strange mix of brown and light green in the middle. She locked those eyes, just a touch too wide, on mine. "We've got two and a half weeks until the end of the world. Do you think you can handle me?"
She could have been one of the crusty, sixty-year-old docks workers, asking a fresh-faced summer hand if he could handle a little bit of real work for a few days. It would be a challenge. I didn't have any room to screw it up, and I had twelve years on me of pretending she didn't exist except for late birthday cards, a few phone calls, and showing up at one dance recital. One. When she was eight. But the way she ignored Jerome, a greasy-haired, murdering prick who chews his own fingernails? She was my girl through and through.
"I can handle you," I had said at the time. It took me two hours to get rid of Jerome permanently and pin it on a rival family, easy peasy. The boss lost his mind and trashed his office. Not that there was much left to trash since that floating monstrosity appeared in the sky and the Twilight Zone took over the city. You'd think the aliens had popped over just to mess up all of Lorenzo "the Angel's" plans, like they had some personal vendetta against him. I wish. He shoved a pistol in his belt and rushed off with the other boys into the city—also trashed—telling me to watch the place.
That was three days ago. We've had the house to ourselves since then. Easy peasy.
Me and Azalea have been living off cold, canned raviolis, green beans, and tuna since then, except for the Captain Crunch I found on the floor of the nearby bodega, under a tipped shelf. I don't care for Captain Crunch. Raviolis, however, are a perfectly rounded meal. Plus some vegetables and extra protein? I'm finally a father.
Except we have a problem.
"I'm not waiting any longer," she says. It's morning, but from the haze outside, it could be a winter's late afternoon. I rub my hand over my bald scalp, trying to wake up. A tomato-sauce-encrusted bowl falls off my lap, and the sofa I fell asleep on has put a crick in my neck fit to make my nonna summon a priest for an exorcism.
