by Nancy Isaak
Off to one side, my guards were in the process of assembling themselves into something approaching a defensive team; they were pulling on gun belts and shoving knives into sheaths.
Erroll stood by me, waiting for my instructions.
“Where’s Nate?” I asked him.
He pointed to where Nate and Xavier were standing, looking out of a window that faced the north coastline. Kanga was—as usual—sitting on Xavier’s shoulder. Ironically, the cat was the only one who saw Erroll and me approach. With a soft growl, he rubbed his cheek against Xavier’s head—declaring his possession, no doubt.
“What are you looking at?” I asked them.
They both turned and Nate shook his head. “Nothing…yet.”
“Am I right that that’s the trumpet code for someone’s coming?” I asked, trying to keep calm. “Someone friendly?”
“It’s a maybe code,” Nate acknowledged. “The three short blasts—it means ‘maybe’. Like maybe the sentry saw something, but isn’t really sure.”
“Then, how does he know they’re friendly,” I said.
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know.”
But—I did.
* * * *
It’s Jacob…it has to be Jacob!
The unspoken words reverberated through my head as I galloped toward the Nature Preserve. Erroll rode beside me—the only one who had been quick enough. There were hoof beats far behind us; Pauly and Kieran somewhere in the dark, spurring their horses forward—the rest of my guards even farther behind.
As we neared the Nature Preserve, Erroll and I slowed to a trot, not wanting our horses to trip on the ungroomed trail. Up at the top of the knoll, I could just barely make out the shape of the sentry in the shadows. He had finally stopped blowing on his trumpet, most likely because he had seen us arriving…or heard us.
Impatient, I rode right up the side of the knoll, stopping only when I reached the sentry. He had moved over to the north side, pointing out toward the coastline that headed toward Oxnard.
“I swear, there’s a light over there!” he yelled at me. “Coming down the highway. Like you’d get if one or two guys were coming.”
Pulling on my reins, I turned Beauty, so she was facing inland. “Where should I be looking?”
“It just disappeared coming down that hill near the entrance to Broad Beach. Give it a second—it’ll be coming along Zuma any moment.”
Erroll pulled up his horse alongside mine. He was breathing hard, the light of the sentry’s lamp glinting off the beads of sweat along his forehead. “You sure they’re friendlies?” he asked the watcher.
“I’m not sure of anything,” the guy admitted. “But we’ve got sentries all up and down that highway so, like it has to be friendlies, right? Otherwise, how could they get so far? And it sure didn’t look like a lot of people coming...there it is!”
It was only because it was still so dark that we were able to see the lights. There were three of them, bobbing up and down—like lanterns that had been attached to the backs of bicycles or horses.
“JACOB!” I cried out.
And then my heels met with Beauty and I was galloping down the side of the hill—dangerously, irresponsibly—straight past an astonished Pauly and Kieran—shooting out onto the road.
* * * *
As their shapes coalesced out of the darkness, I slowed down—from a gallop to a canter to a trot—to a disheartened walk.
Then, finally, I stopped—and waited.
It wasn’t Jacob’s team coming toward me; I could see that now.
Before me were three girls, slowly biking down the Pacific Coast Highway. They were skinny, ragged things—their exhaustion showing in the way their legs pumped robotically, heads hanging down, stringy hair limp over their faces. All three were towing bike trailers, little tent-like domes fluttering on top; behind them plodded three horses, one tied to each of the trailers.
I understood now how the girls had made it past our sentries. In the condition they were in, my guys knew that they would be no threat to us. Plus—if there was one thing we had drilled into the tribe—it was that we must always err on the side of protecting girls.
As I sat on the back of Beauty, watching the girls bike slowly toward me, Erroll rode up beside me—Kieran, Pauly, and my other guards mere moments behind.
“You know,” growled Erroll, “you really gotta’ stop doing that. We can’t do our job if you get ahead of us.”
“I know,” I nodded. “I’m sorry…I just thought that maybe…”
My words trailed off; my heart breaking.
Just the possibility of Jacob’s team finally returning had filled me with such hope and excitement. Now, those hopes had been dashed once again.
Panting almost as hard as his horse, Kieran pulled up next to me. “Dude, did you see that ferret run across the road back there? Spooked my horse so bad, I thought he was going to buck me off!” Then, he looked over at the girls. “Dammit.”
“Don’t let them see that we’re disappointed,” I warned him. “That we were hoping for someone else. We need to make them feel welcome—especially since they’re girls.”
Kieran nodded. “And get them a nice warm bath and some food,” he said, quietly. “Because, frankly—they look like crap.”
He wasn’t wrong.
As the girls came closer—the light from the lamps attached to the front of their bikes illuminated them and I could see how close to absolute exhaustion they were. Each slow mechanical pump of their legs seemed to drain even more of the energy from them until—finally—they stopped completely, a few yards away from us.
The biggest one—though still skeletally thin—raised her head with some effort, her eyes dark holes bathed in shadows. She grinned at me, however—her lanky hair falling back to reveal a tired face vaguely familiar.
“What’s up, Barbie?” she murmured.
* * * *
I hugged Jude, squeezing her tightly, trying desperately not to sob. She seemed so skinny—I could actually feel her bones jutting out from underneath her clothes.
“Ohmigod, Jude...ohmigod!” was all I could get out, I was so overwhelmed.
“Dude,” she rasped in my ear. “Like I stink like a mofo.” She pushed at me weakly, obviously embarrassed.
With a quick swipe across my eyes to keep my tears at bay, I moved back—staring at her, shaking my head in amazement. “It’s been so long,” I cried—even to myself, my voice sounding like a whine. “Why has it been so long?”
There was a sudden noise from inside one of the trailer tents—the one being towed by the dark-haired girl on Jude’s left. She looked scared, like a bird about to take flight and actually jumped off of her bike and moved a few feet away when Kieran walked toward her.
“Stop!” ordered Jude. “Kieran—don’t move!”
He stopped immediately, looking to me for instructions.
“Who’s in the tent?” I asked Jude, my heart dropping once more. “Is it Jacob?!”
“It’s Rhys,” she said. “And he’s really sick.”
“Oh god!” Kieran lunged for the tent—not noticing the dark-haired girl step farther into the shadows. Quickly, he undid the zipper and stuck his head inside. Then, he turned back and yelled at Erroll. “Send someone for Porter or Jay…hurry!”
Erroll looked at me and I nodded. Then, he trotted back to where the rest of the guards were waiting. Moments later, a guy separated from the others and took off at a gallop.
My attention went to the girl on the other side of Jude. Of all of them, she looked the healthiest, although she was still thin. Her hair was tangled, though, and her clothes covered in mud—as if she’d recently taken a tumble.
But when I looked at her, all I could think was…what was in her tent?
Thump, thump, thump—my heart was speeding up; I felt weak.
“She just has supplies in her tent,” Jude said, softly—almost as if she knew what I had been thinking.
Which left one more—one more chan
ce.
The air suddenly seemed thin; I was having difficulty taking a breath. The tent on the trailer behind Jude suddenly terrified me.
Including Jacob, there were six other members of his team still missing.
And that tent would barely fit two.
I looked down at Jude; her eyes were moist with tears. “Please, Kaylee,” she begged. “Please tell me that Connor and Cherry returned to the Point….please tell me that they came home!”
At that moment, I was too confused to understand her words. My only thoughts were to get to that tent. I don’t even remember jumping off Beauty and racing across the few yards to the bike trailer—or pulling down the zipper on the door.
Suddenly—I was just there, looking inside—and I finally understood.
Because there was only one person in that tent.
Which meant that five others didn’t make it home.
* * * *
Jacob was barely recognizable, he was so thin.
There were the beginnings of a beard on his face, a raspy sensation that nicked at my cheek as I laid my sobbing face next to his. He was unconscious, his breathing low and labored. And, although I tried to ignore it, I couldn’t help but notice how bad he smelled—of dirt, sweat, and sickness.
Even so—I thought Jacob was still the most beautiful man alive!
* * * *
I didn’t want to stop holding him. Even as I felt the pat on my back, I had difficulty pulling myself away—wanting never to let Jacob go again.
We were in the Medical Clinic; Jacob had been placed in a bed, while I knelt beside him. I managed to lean back just enough to allow Porter access. He moved in quickly, inserting a needle into Jacob’s arm and injecting him with some kind of medicine—antibiotics, I thought.
Rhys, meanwhile, was lying on the bed beside Jacob—fitfully tossing and turning—having just received his own dose of medication. Kieran was with him, holding a cold compress to his head.
On the other side of the Clinic, Jay was checking out our two new tribe members—Mia and Laura. Jude had already filled us in on most of the girls’ story on the way back to the compound—their imprisonment, their subsequent rescue, and how they had been instrumental in helping return our people to the Point.
As Jay examined them, I couldn’t help but notice how scared the two girls looked. Still, they were trying to be brave. They submitted to every prod and poke from Jay with dignity, not once pulling back or telling her not to touch them. Considering what the girls had been through since their kidnappings, I thought that was telling; how strong their characters must be.
The moment Jay pulled back, however, Mia and Laura moved quickly to sit side-by-side, holding onto each other’s hands tightly. They were slumped in their fatigue, their bony bodies disappearing into the folds of their oversized clothes. From the bruises and scars on the few pieces of bare skin that were left still exposed, I could guess that the girls would be in for a long recovery—physically and mentally.
On a cot nearby, meanwhile, Cammie and Florenza were also sitting side-by-side, holding hands. They rose now—like sisters—and carefully approached Laura and Mia.
“We just wanted to say welcome to Point Dume,” Cammie began—her voice soft and hesitant. “And that we’re glad you’re here.”
“Thank you,” said Laura, with a shy smile. Mia, however, said nothing—instead, studying the floor at her feet.
“Sophia—she’s like our welcoming committee,” added Florenza. “Chick will be here any moment and you just know she’s gonna’ bring you guys cookies.”
Mia’s eyes rose slowly, then—and she smiled.
* * * *
“We thought that Jacob was getting sick because Diego cut him,” Jude told us—a short time later. “Like maybe his wound was getting infected or something.”
I was sitting beside her at Jacob’s bedside, while Porter and Jay divided their ‘fussing’ between the two Riker brothers. Meanwhile, Kieran and Pauly had hiked themselves up onto the top of a nearby counter and were staring down at Jacob and Rhys—as if silently willing them to wake up.
Gently, Porter pulled the bandage off of Jacob’s shoulder and looked at his knife wound. It was little more than a red scar now, crisscrossed with holes that must have been where the stitches had been.
Porter looked to Jude. “You did this?”
Jude shrugged. “I’ve watched Jay stitch guys up a couple of times. Didn’t seem that difficult.”
“Well, you must have watched closely, because you did a good job.”
She shrugged again—embarrassed by the compliment. “I was worried that maybe I had screwed it up—like got Jacob infected when I stitched him. But then Rhys got sick and we realized that it probably wasn’t because of the knife wound. Like if the wound didn’t really looked infected, then maybe it was the flu or something else that was making them sick.”
“How come you didn’t come and get one of us?” asked Jay. “I mean, if Jacob and Rhys have been sick for this long—”
Jude sighed. “It kind of got complicated.”
* * * *
According to Jude, their trip back from Ojai was just the beginning of the ‘complications’. Just getting off of the mountain and past the mud slide took days. The rains were also a constant threat; roads were washed out and the river and creeks that they needed to cross were fast-moving and dangerous.
In fact, it seemed like every time they chose a new route, they would reach some new obstacle and have to backtrack and start all over again. A journey that would have taken a few hours in the old world, suddenly was stretching to well over a week.
Mia’s condition—and to a lesser extent, Laura’s—also made it necessary for their group to travel more slowly than they normally would. A few hours each day seemed to drain the girls of their strength. At one point they even had to stop in a small house for three days, waiting—or so they thought—for Mia to die.
When she finally did recover enough for them to move on again, the rains had stopped, but now Jacob was becoming sick. His skin looked pale and clammy and his eyes had become rimmed with red and fatigue—barely able to stay open as he struggled to lead them home.
It was Jude who eventually ordered them to stop—staying in a house a block away from the library they had previously visited. However—after a few days—when Jacob hadn’t responded to rest and the few medicines they felt would be safe to give him, Jude packed them all up again and started them moving toward the rest of their team—Cherry, Connor, Andrei, Ian, and Topher.
“Why didn’t you or Rhys go back to get Connor, when you first stopped at the house near the library?” I asked. “You could have brought him up to where you guys were. He could have helped Jacob.”
“Because Rhys was already getting sick by then,” Jude told me, “which meant that I would have had to go by myself. I didn’t have a problem with that, except that would have meant leaving Rhys and Jacob with Mia and Laura.” She shrugged, looking angry with herself. “I mean, maybe I made a bad decision but—like I didn’t really know those girls, and they were still getting better themselves. What if I had left and something happened and I couldn’t get back with Connor for a couple of days—what if Mia and Laura, like left Jacob and Rhys all on their own and just disappeared? I just didn’t think I could take the chance.”
Jude dropped her head into her hands—rocking slightly in sadness and regret.
I put out a hand and gently touched her back; she was so thin, I could feel each individual vertebrae on her spine. “It’s okay, Jude…you did the best you could in a really bad situation.”
She continued to rock, her words softly muffled. “I just, like—couldn’t figure out what to do to keep everybody safe, you know. And then—not even twenty-four hours later—Rhys and Jacob were both unconscious and I thought they were going to die.” She stopped rocking and looked up at me, tormented. “Seriously, Kaylee…it was like one of the scariest things I’ve ever seen. They were puking and sweating…and
then they’d get all shaking like they were freezing…and then they’d just sleep like nothing was wrong with them. But they never woke up. I mean, they’ve just been like this for so long and I didn’t know what to do!”
“But you did,” I insisted. “You brought Jacob and Rhys home, Jude. You did exactly the thing you needed to do…you brought them back to us.”
* * * *
Scared that Jacob and Rhys were dying, Jude had finally realized that she had to take the chance of moving them—to somehow get them back to Connor. She was counting on him to make them better.
Surprisingly, Mia and Laura had recovered enough by then to help. The two girls biked slowly and had to stop for long rests. Still, the group eventually managed to reach the safehouse where they’d left the others.
“Only they weren’t there,” Jude told me. “When we finally walked through the door, the house was completely empty.”
The backyard, however, wasn’t.
They found two graves there—Andrei and Ian’s. There were crosses at the heads of the graves, Andrei and Ian’s names painted in a flowing script that Jude immediately recognized to be Cherry’s work.
Jude figured that, most likely, they had died from the same sickness that was presently threatening Jacob and Rhys’ lives.
“And Cherry and Connor were both gone,” said Jude. “It looked like they had taken their backpacks, so I was hoping that they’d returned to the Point—that they’d gotten tired of waiting for us and left. Which makes it weird, right?”
“Because they never made it here.”
“And, also, because of the horse…I mean, it didn’t make any sense that Cherry and Connor left behind the horse,” continued Jude. “Like it was just standing there in the backyard when we got to the house, munching on the grass next to the graves.
“Could they have left the horse behind for Topher?” I suggested. “Maybe they thought he was coming back to the safehouse and Cherry and Connor wanted him to have it for transportation.”
