Lavender Dreams: Life After Us: Book Two

by Rebekah Dodson

  A soldier emerged from the driver’s side and opened the door as Vicki and Will approached.

  “Sir, we have a situation,” the driver whispered. “It appears their prisoners…”

  Vicki didn’t hear the rest. Will nodded to the soldier. “Send Corporal Anderson over to assess the situation.” The soldier saluted and turned to the hood of the car.

  “Get in, dear,” Will urged to Vicki softly.

  “But sir, what about our money you promised?” Danielle whined behind Vicki.

  Will turned to another soldier, one sitting behind a mounted gun, and nodded at him. Vicki noticed it wasn’t one of the vaporizers like they had seen in the airport, or the one that did Lucy and Spencer in. It was an old-fashioned rail gun. The anti-tank kind her father talked about from his war days.

  The soldier nodded and pulled the trigger, spraying the motel courtyard with bullets. Screams echoed off the trees as Danielle and her compatriots all fell under the rain of blood and gunpowder.

  Vicki screamed and clutched closer to Will. “What the fuck!”

  Will dipped his head to meet hers. “I’m sorry, my dear, but they had to pay for what they did to you. I won’t tolerate violence in this new America we are building, can you see that?”

  No! Vicki screamed in her head. Will was…

  Oh, God. Will was the bad guy.

  “I don’t know who you are!” Vicki pushed away from him, but with lightning reflexes he grabbed both her wrists, pulling her to him.

  “Stop this, Vicki.” His voice was dead calm.

  “You… you monster!” She screamed in his face. She beat against his chest while he held her wrists. “You killed all those people in Portland. You vaporized…”

  “Ah, so you saw the new toy I built. What do you think I did at the office all day, anyway? I’m an engineer first, after all. And thanks to my time in Iran, I’ve had all the tools to build a bigger, better weapon.”

  Vicki hated it. Who was this person she’d shared her life with for the better part of three years? The man she was going to marry? This cruel, sadistic overlord who would gun down innocent people at the wink of an eye?

  You know Danielle deserved it, a little voice whispered inside her. She smothered it.

  A soldier cleared his throat behind Will. “Sir.”

  Will turned his head. “I’m busy, Soldier.”

  “Sir, Corporal Anderson, here. Checked the perimeter. No sign of our contact. Just a deceased individual in front of the cells in the jail.”

  “What of the khaki terrorist, the one that kidnapped my fiancée?”

  Vicki looked up at him sharply.

  “Might be the dead one, sir, I couldn’t tell from the blood. He did have this knife lying next to him, sir.” The soldier produced the ivory handled knife, which Will took and flipped into his hand.

  Vicki knew immediately it was Ambrose’s, from the supply store that he had ransacked weeks ago. She carried an identical one in her pack in the RV.

  “Let me go!” she screamed again at Will. “Let me…”

  To her surprise, he let her go, but his strong arm circled her waist, tossing the bloody knife into the floorboard of the open car behind them. “And where will you go, sweetheart?” he whispered to her.

  Vicki realized there was no way she was going to get away, not on her bad ankle. She wouldn’t even make it ten feet. She couldn’t even stand without Will’s help.

  Will smiled brightly at the soldier. “That’ll be all, soldier. Thank you.”

  The soldier saluted and returned to the white van at the end of the convoy.

  Will spun her around, her back to him, and hugged her close, his lips pressed against her ear. His hand roamed down her side, encircling her abdomen. A week ago, Vicki would have shivered in delight. Now, terror spiked down her spine.

  No…

  “I know you’re carrying my child, Vicki.”

  Vicki gasped.

  “It’s true, then.”

  Vicki froze, her arms dropping to her sides.

  “How did you know?”

  “You confirmed it, just now.” He pressed a hand into her stomach, hard, and Vicki fought the urge to cry out.

  “Ambrose will…” she sputtered.

  Will laughed, interrupting her. “He’s there, you know.” Will turned her to face him again. He cupped her chin and turned it towards the jail. “I can smell him. I can always smell their kind. Fucking up everything they touch, tainting the one true race. He didn’t touch you, did he? He didn’t corrupt you, my precious flower?”

  She shook her head, as she didn’t trust her voice to carry the lie. Squeezing her eyes shut she remembered her time with Ambrose in the woods. No corruption there, only love. She let out a whimper.

  Will stepped into the car and held out his hand. “It’s time to go, my dear.”

  “Why would I go anywhere with you?” Vicki managed, her throat sore, her voice cracking.

  “Why for the future of the human race, of course.” Will smiled again. “For the perfect specimen growing within your womb.”

  “I’ll die before I…”

  “Come with me and I’ll spare him.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I’ll spare the life of this precious Ambrose. Of course, if you’d rather stay here, I’ll have my men burn down this fucking town to find him.”

  Vicki bit her lip and looked towards the jail. She scanned the concrete brick front, around to the sides where the high chain link fence circled the back. She searched for a sign of life, anything, but the night was deathly still.

  Ambrose, if you’re out there, don’t forget about me.

  Save me.

  Vicki struggled to breathe, but hearing he was alive energized her with a new vigor.

  Chapter Twelve

  Vicki stared at the man she once loved. A fortnight ago, she had tried to kiss him goodbye at the airport. Now he was a monster. A man she would have never in a million years imagined to be the leader of the WWA. A man who, until four months ago, couldn’t even cook dinner and always forgot where he put his keys. Now he was executing innocent people with precision and barking orders with ease.

  Where was this man the entire time they had been together?

  “I can’t go with you.” She stuck out her chin defiantly. “Leave me here. Ambrose will save me.” It was all surreal to Vicki. Her eyes darted around her, begging Ambrose to storm the hotel and save the day.

  He didn’t. And Vicki had no idea if he was even alive, given Will’s apparent penchant for needless killing, and even if Will had ensured he still was.

  Will snapped his fingers, and before she could try to hobble away, she was hoisted under the arms and dragged to the black car and shoved inside. She fought and screamed, but they were stronger.

  “The world has changed, Vicki.” Will frowned as he slid into the seat behind her. The rumble of the car made Vicki slightly carsick, as if her pregnancy didn’t aid to that enough. Will took her hand between both of his, patting it gently. “We are always evolving, and now is the time we must usher in change.”

  “You’re crazy.” She seethed in the seat as she pressed herself as far away from him as she could get.

  Will laughed then, staring into the black night, the deep, dark forest surrounding them in every direction. He turned back to her and placed his palm on the bump of her stomach. “I can’t tell you how happy you make me, Vicki.”

  Vicki cringed at his touch. “What does that mean?” She pulled her hand away from him as fast as she could.

  “With our child you are carrying.”

  “How did you know?” Vicki whispered.

  “You’re not the only one that could access the Alex mainframe, you know. That is, before I disabled it.”

  “You knew all along!”

  “Not all along. Not until after Portland, when you went through that check point. Then I knew you’d survived, no thanks to that khaki.”

  Vicki gasped at him. “You did me
an to kill me, then.”

  Will dismissed her comment. “Our child is just a bonus. I would have you as my bride anyway.”

  “I won’t marry you!” Vicki screamed. She reached for the door handle then, determined to escape, even at sixty miles per hour. Even if it meant she wouldn’t survive. She wouldn’t be locked away with this monster.

  Will calmly reached over and grabbed both her wrists so tightly she cried out. “Yes, you will, my dear, if you value the lives of your friends.”

  Vicki tried to object, but he cut her off. “I must tell you, my plans will be on a grander scale now that the invasion has occurred, although a little ahead of schedule, we learned to work around it. Nevertheless, the world will be happy to learn its leader has found such a perfect bride, and mother of my child, of the new race.” He dropped her wrists and pulled her to him.

  He pressed his lips to her ear and whispered coldly, “Vicki, if you don’t calm down, I’ll turn this car around, and gun down everyone in town. Do you want their blood to be on your hands?”

  Vicki shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. There was already too much blood on her hands. Lucy, Spencer, countless others … even Danielle, who had partly deserved her fate. She settled against the seat, her hands in her lap.

  “Good girl.”

  “You-you said you wanted to eradicate those of European descent,” Vicki stuttered, trying not to tremble as his hand pressed against her. “Doesn’t that ... does that include … me?”

  Will scoffed. “No, of course not! And eradicate, why Vicki, I never said that. I believe the white agenda has come to an end, but we do need them for the mixing of cultures.”

  “You’re white, Will.” Vicki pushed him away and crossed her arms over her chest as she stared at him in the darkness.

  “You’re wrong there,” Will shook his head. “Don’t you remember I was adopted?”

  Vicki shook her head in shock. She did remember. “By a white couple, Will.”

  “Exactly. And they weren’t exactly the world’s most model parents. But I found my birth mother a few years ago.”

  “Around the time we met?” Vicki asked. She remembered him being gone the first year, on ‘school assignments.’

  Will nodded. “Yes, it cost me a great deal of money and time. Why do you think I spent so much time overseas in college?”

  “Wasn’t it for your senior project?”

  “Yes,” Will admitted, “but then I found records of my birth mother. Her name was perfectly English: Marie, although her last name changed so many times I’m not sure what it was. Sadly, she gave me away shortly after I was born.”

  “Your mother was European?” Vicki strained to look at him in the dark car. She would have never guessed. His skin was as white as hers, with jet black, straight hair he always kept trimmed, and dark eyes under bushy brows. Vicki gasped. The subtle signs were there, she supposed, but she never wanted to admit them.

  “Yes.”

  “What about your father?”

  “Alas, all I know is he was Romanian. A rapist, I assume, or something to that effect. My mother was married to another man at the time. Her surname was Lanval back then.”

  Vicki spit in his face. "I pity your mother. I wish you had never been born."

  "I'm sure my father felt the same, eventually." He calmly wiped at his face with a handkerchief from his suit jacket pocket. “With your German and Irish heritage, our children will be the perfect blend of all the races. We will create a world without Americans, a world united under a peace banner, because we will all be one.”

  “You’re crazy,” Vicki said again, her voice louder this time. “Like a deranged, reversed Hitler.”

  Will’s hand snaked out and pinched her chin between two strong fingers, bringing her face close to his. “Don’t ever call me that.”

  “It’s true!” Vicki cried, her shout muffled as he squeezed harder. “You’re hurting—”

  “Hitler was a drug addict, a victim of his racial prejudice. I don’t wish hate on any race, I just wish to destroy the ideals Americans have held for centuries that they are the top of humanity. They aren’t. Not anymore.” He dropped his hand.

  “What have you done? Surely your invasion hasn’t…”

  Will laughed. “Oh, sweet Vicki, you have been out in the wilderness with that fool for too long. The government has already fallen to me, the president and his cabinet utterly destroyed like worthless dogs, just as they should have been centuries ago.”

  Vicki shook her head. “You … you can’t do this.”

  “It has already begun.”

  “I can’t be a part of this.”

  “In the beginning, you weren’t supposed to be.”

  She blinked at him. “So, it’s true. You wanted me to die in Portland.”

  He sighed and waved her concern way with his hand. “Yes, but given your delicate state, now you will, if you value the life of that man. Or any man, for that matter. Don’t underestimate me, Vicki. I’ve spent the better part of a decade creating weapons, building this army, planning for this invasion. The fool at the airport detonated the bomb too early, but of course that was to be expected anyway. I worked around it. Have you ever heard of scalar waves?”

  “What?”

  “Scalar waves, Tesla, the destruction of Tunguska in 1907?”

  Vicki backed up against the door of the car. “The meteorite? I remember something in science class…”

  Will shook his head. “It wasn’t a meteorite. It was Tesla’s death beam.” Even in the darkness Vicki could see a deranged smile spread across his face. “I fixed it. I figured it out. I learned how to harness the power of light waves, which Tesla wasn’t entirely aware of back then, to create an energy beam capable of immense power. So much power, in such a little weapon. Amazing, isn’t it? I know you’ve seen it. Once in that little town where you found Danielle, and then again at the miserable farmhouse.”

  Vicki gasped. “You developed the vaporizing guns.”

  “Yes, with a side effect I didn’t calculate for.”

  “The electromagnetic power of the earth combined with the radio waves created a…”

  “That’s right, an EMP. Isn’t it wonderful? The president didn’t think so, but the look on his face when I pulled the trigger was… delightful.”

  The image of Lucy and Spencer, an innocent couple that had saved her and Ambrose’s life, flashed before her eyes. The mounds of dead cars and airplanes at the airport, the millions of lives were just gone in an instant. Vicki shook her head, tears spilling onto her cheeks.

  “When did you meet the president?” Vicki demanded, her hands curling into tight fists.

  Will laughed. “Where do you think I went when I left you at the airport?” He reached out a hand to tuck her hair behind her ear, but she flinched and drew back from him. “You weren’t meant to survive the blast, Vicki dear, but now that you have, well everything’s changed, hasn’t it?”

  “Just pull over. Just leave me here. You’re crazy!”

  Will’s hand gripped her knee, squeezing and rubbing his thumb on her inner thigh. The smile evaporated as quickly as it had appeared. “Let’s get a few things straight, right now, Vicki, because once we get to the plane, I expect you to be obedient, subservient, and amicable to everything—you hear me, everything—I tell you to do. You can, and you will, submit to me.”

  “What plane?” She struggled to speak around his harsh grip.

  “The plane to our headquarters in Nebraska.”

  “What… why…”

  Will chuckled. “First, you’re getting on that plane. Then, we’re going to our home that we will share in Nebraska. You will share your bed with me whenever I request you. You will take care of our child, and submit to every doctor I send to you, is that understood?”

  “And if I refuse?”

  “Not only will I send my troops to find your Ambrose, but I will find his family, and I will execute them for the entire world to see.”


  Vicki shuddered. She didn’t have much choice. Ambrose hadn’t come to save her; in fact, she didn’t even know if he was alive, despite Will assuring her he was. Where would she go? All her supplies were gone, left back in town. The car sped towards her doom, on a plane bound for the middle of nowhere.

  “Why Nebraska?” she asked, softly.

  “Why not? We’ve taken Oregon, Washington, Florida, and California will soon follow. Nebraska has a heavily fortified base, one of the most strategic locations in the United States. Should any world leaders try to attack us, we will see them coming for miles. I will not make the mistake the founding fathers did and have my capital city on the coast line.” Will shook his head. “Idiots,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.

  Vicki hated to agree, but it actually made sense. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, however.

  “Do you agree to my terms?”

  Vicki sighed, twisting her hands in her lap. What else could she do? Two things she knew: if Ambrose was alive, he was traveling with Randy, Cole, and the children. If Ambrose was traveling with Randy, did he know he was one of Will’s agents? It didn’t matter. Randy had a satellite phone. Somehow, somewhere, Vicki had to find a way to get a message to Ambrose.

  Right now, however, she had her child to worry about.

  “I do.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Just as Will promised, the WWA had set up their base in Nebraska, the old Governor’s Mansion, just outside Lincoln. After a quick plane ride and a short trip down a destroyed Lincoln main street, the buildings obliterated, and giant chunks of pavement and business walls scattered in the street, Will’s driver turned into a military check point and through a gate down a long path.

  The field was filled with blooming lavender.