As usual in the Fix-it Files, a crappy but cathartic spitefic. Because you don't put characters through horrible situations, excruciating decisions, and terrifying circumstances, have them survive everyone literally going crazy around them, have them fight as hard as they can to save the world...and then send the world to Hell anyway.

The cover art copies the book cover. I think I did a pretty good job.

Sweet is property of Emmy Laybourne, not me, and she can KEEP it. I can't believe it got published.

"Uh-oh!" the anchorwoman says. "That's a little late for a lot of us. I'm already on my third packet of the day, and I have to say..." She winks. "I'm feeling fantastic."

I wake screaming.

It's been five weeks since we were rescued. Lancaster is in jail. The Almstead interview went viral two hours before the stores opened. FBI, CIA, National Guard, SWAT teams, the Army, police, Coast Guard, what felt like every military authority in existence converged on the stores and confiscated every single box of Solu. All but five packets were destroyed, and those went straight to the biohazard labs.

It's been three weeks since they announced the results. Apparently Solu is the most addictive substance known to man, a thousand times worse than heroin or crack, needing only a few milligrams to cement its hold on a person. In addition to sucking away excess fat—and then healthy fat, and then muscle—like a vacuum, it alters brain chemistry, literally forcing the person to crave it.

They saved a gram of it. It went into the longterm biohazard storage, along with the plague and smallpox and other killers.

It's been one week since they stopped interviewing us. The video told them most of what they needed to know, but only we, the few survivors, could confirm and add things. It was so hard to talk about it, even with Tom standing by. The paparazzi has been insane. I haven't been back to school since.

Viv is dead.

I can only barely say it to myself. Because I can't stand the whisper that always comes after it, it's your fault.

It's not. Logically, I know it's not.

But you could have dragged her after you.

Not really. She was high on Solu, caught in the throes of craving, her brain destroyed.

You could have knocked her out.

I doubt it.

But what if—

NO. Saving the world was more important.

I know time heals all wounds, even it's only to slap a bandage on. Someday I'll be able to look back on this and only feel sad, not utterly devastated like the world has ceased to exist. But right now it's like I've been shot in the gut, and bandages won't fix bullet holes.

I'll survive. Somehow.

I don't really have a choice.

Frick you, Laybourne.

Cause I can, cause I can do it BET-TER.