by Stasia Black
“Don’t you dare finish that sentence!”
Finn lined the butt of the shotgun up against his shoulder and looked down the sights back the way they’d come. There was a little bit of dust kicked up from their truck, but other than that, nothing. He swung around to the road ahead and it was clear there, too.
Okay, good.
He listened and didn’t hear anything but the sounds of late summer.
“You done?” he called.
“Just give me a second.”
“Jesus Christ, I thought you said your bladder was about to burst.”
“I’m used to a toilet. You pressuring me isn’t helping.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered again, swiveling back to look behind them.
He’d swear he could feel the seconds ticking by. He turned around he didn’t know how many times checking to see if anyone was coming.
And still nothing from the other side of the truck. But so help him God, if she didn’t start to piss soon, he’d—
Fuck!
Someone was coming from behind. Multiple someones, on motorcycles.
“Done,” Sophia called.
“Get in the truck,” Finn shouted as he tore his door open.
“What is it?” Sophia asked, door open with one hand over her eyes as she looked behind them.
“Get in the fucking truck, Soph!
She must have finally seen the bikes because her eyes widened and she scrambled up into the seat, pulling her door shut behind her.
“What do we do?” she asked frantically as she put her seatbelt on.
“We drive.” Finn yanked the gearshift into drive and jammed the pedal to the floor. The wheels spun on gravel and then finally got purchase. The truck jerked forward as Finn pulled back onto the road.
The ancient engine whined at being pushed so hard. The truck was close to ninety years old, one of the reasons it had taken them so long to get here. He rarely pushed her above fifteen to twenty miles an hour. Using old vehicles like this meant you spent half the time with them up on blocks in repairs. Most of the Jacob’s Well fleet was held together with duct tape and prayers.
The bikes behind them weren’t sparing on speed though. Finn glanced in the rearview and counted. One, two, three, four, five, six. Shit. Who the hell had that many working bikes, this far out in the middle of nowhere?
He hadn’t been stupid enough to take them straight through Pecos, they’d gone in a wide circle around it on back roads, but surely the town that was barely a smear on the map couldn’t be that well supplied.
But they were near the border. He’d had a bad feeling in his gut all morning as they got closer. Place might as well be the Bermuda Triangle for as many people came back who ventured over the border.
He should have tried harder to dissuade Sophia from leaving for this damn fool mission. He knew exactly how dangerous the world was. But he’d known the only way to stop her would have been to tie her up, something that had seemed too extreme to him at the time.
Now he was kicking his own ass for not doing it, no matter if she hated him the rest of her life. At least she would have had the rest of her life to hate him.
“Finn, they’re getting closer!”
He looked in his rearview and goddammit, she was right. They were almost on their tail. And the one in the lead was lifting a machine gun.
“Get down!” Finn shouted only seconds before the back windshield shattered as the truck was peppered with gunfire.
Sophia screamed but bent over and Finn ducked down as much as he could. He hadn’t gone another ten feet, though before the inevitable happened.
He’d just clicked his seatbelt into place as the back tire blew out.
Shit.
Sophia.
He threw out an arm to try to hold her in place as the truck spun out off the road and then—
They were rolling. Sophia screamed. Glass shattered. Everything was ass over end—
Fuck!
…
…
Finally the truck settled.
Finn blinked and groaned, trying to get his bearings.
Upside down. They were upside down.
“Soph?” Finn looked frantically in her direction. “Soph, are you okay?”
She groaned in response and put a hand to her head. Fuck, her hand came away bloody.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Where are they?”
Oh shit. The bikers. How had he forgotten, even for a second? Some protector he was turning out to be. He reached around for the rifle. Couldn’t feel it. Godfuckingdammit. Where was the rifle? He looked this way and that.
And finally spotted it. Out the shattered front windshield. Lying in the grass about five feet away.
He reached for his seatbelt and undid the catch. And promptly fell on his head.
“Shit!” He tried to right himself and climb through the shattered front window at the same time. He could hear the bikes. They were almost on top of them. Then he heard the roar of an engine cut off. Fuck. They were here.
He shoved his body through the windshield and army crawled to the shotgun. “Don’t move,” he hissed in a whisper to Sophia.
Did she listen?
Of course not. She released the catch on her seatbelt and tumbled down but he couldn’t watch her. He moved along the back side of the truck, hidden by the long bed.
He cocked the rifle and then peeked out past the tailgate.
Two motherfuckers approaching, machine guns at their shoulder. Again, what the fuck? The waste of bullets was incomprehensible.
He closed his eyes. One, two…
On three, he swung the rifle around the back of the truck, lined up the shot. CRACK. He recocked. CRACK.
Two motherfuckers down. Four to go.
He cocked the rifle again. He only had six shots.
That meant he couldn’t waste a single one.
No pressure.
He glanced around the back of the truck. He’d given away his position with the fire but that was part of his intention. To draw them away from Sophia back in the cab.
He glanced around the corner of the truck again, yanking back only milliseconds before gunfire erupted. He hunched down against the ground. Thank Christ these old trucks were made so solid.
The gunfire pinged like rocks against the metal but didn’t penetrate.
Finn crawled back to the front of the truck. With so many of them, no doubt they’d try circling around from behind—which meant they’d find Sophia. Right as he came back around the front, more gun fire sounded.
It was Sophia. Shooting blindly behind her as she crawled out the front of the truck, looking terrified.
Finn grabbed her arm and pulled her around the side of the truck right as more machine gun fire came.
“Where the hell did you get a gun?”
“Dad gave it to me.”
“Do you know how to shoot?”
She nodded shakily.
“Then don’t waste any more bullets.”
“Here. I have this too.”
Finn had his rifle at his shoulder, swinging back and forth trying to prepare for either direction they’d attack from.
“Finn,” Sophia said insistently.
He was about to tell her to stop distracting him when he spared a glance her way and grinned. She was holding out a grenade.
He grabbed it and dared to pop up over the back of the truck to gauge their position. He couldn’t waste their one advantage.
He ducked right back down, to the predictable gunfire.
They were split up as he’d thought. Two up front, two coming around back.
“Okay,” he whispered to Sophia. “Follow me. I take one, you get the other. Got it?”
She nodded. Then he pulled the pin and lobbed the grenade toward the men at the back of the truck. Then he jumped to a crouch and ran toward the front.
There was shouting a moment before the BOOM.
Finn didn’t waste a second. He ran around the front of the truck and shot a guy
still reeling in surprise from the explosion.
The last man standing wasn’t so slow. He had his gun up, also a rifle. Sophia had her gun up… but she didn’t shoot. Why the fuck wasn’t she shooting?
Finn cocked his rifle again so he could take the bastard out himself.
Except it didn’t cock right. The pump action was caught on something and didn’t eject the last casing.
There was no time to think or try to fix it. The man with the rifle was lifting it to his shoulder. He’d kill Finn and then go for Sophia.
Finn shouted at the top of his lungs and then rushed the guy. Finn grabbed the end of the man’s rifle and jerked it upwards right as the guy got his finger on the trigger. The shot went off into the air and Finn jerked the gun out of his grasp, then, grabbing both ends, he smashed it into the man’s face.
Finn didn’t stop there, either.
He smashed the stock into his face, again and again until the guy’s face was bloody and unrecognizable.
Only when he was sure the guy was down did he pull back and look around.
Sophia was crouched against the side of the truck, hands covering her head, her gun on the ground beside her.
What the fuck was she thinking?
He looked to the back of the truck. At least the grenade looked like it had done its work. The two bodies back there weren’t moving. Still, if Finn had learned one thing in the years since The Fall, it was to make sure an enemy couldn’t come back to bite you in the ass.
Or put a bullet in your head.
He walked over to Sophia, snatched her gun off the ground, and went around, putting a bullet right between the eyes of every man there.
“Sophia. Keep watch behind us while I clean up here.”
She jerked at the sound of his voice and he breathed out hard.
“Look, Soph, you can fall apart later. But we’re exposed. You gotta keep your shit together right now. You hear me?”
Her head lifted at this, tear tracks staining her pretty cheeks. “I’m sorry if I can’t help feeling human emotions when my life was just in danger,” her voice cracked, “and human people just died in front of me.”
Finn shook his head. “Look, Princess. You were the one who thought you could just waltz out here into the big, bad world. Well this is what it’s like,” he threw his hands up gesturing around them. “Kill or be killed. I learned that lesson when I was thirteen. So just be happy you got to be a kid as long as you did.”
Her chest heaved and she opened her mouth like she had a hundred retorts but then she closed her mouth again, into a tight line. She stood up, her back rigid, and swiped angrily at her eyes.
“Fine,” she said coldly. “I’ll keep watch.”
Finn shook his head and grabbed the hunting knife from his belt as he jogged over to the bikes. What the fuck did she think it would be like out here? What did she think her dad created Jacob’s Well for? Everything Eric Wolford did to create that little paradise in the center of chaos was to protect his daughter.
But did she appreciate it?
No.
Just like she didn’t appreciate Finn.
He’d just risked his life for her.
Jesus Christ did she realize how close they’d both come to dying?
He jammed his knife into the tire of the bike with the lowest gas in the tank and slashed backwards with all his might.
In only helped release a little of his fury. Ten tires later and he was feeling mildly calmer.
He went back to Sophia and she’d gathered the weapons along with a giant hiker’s backpack she’d brought along stuffed to the gills with who the hell knew what.
“No way,” Finn said, gesturing at the backpack. “We aren’t taking that thing. The weapons, yes. But not that.”
She set her jaw. “I’m not leaving it. This is a diplomatic mission. You don’t show up for a diplomatic mission without gifts.”
“You do if you almost die on the way getting attacked by road bandits.” He threw an arm out in the general direction of their upended truck.
She ignored him, hiking the backpack up higher on her shoulders and flouncing past him toward the last bike standing.
“I take it this is our transportation?”
“Women,” Finn muttered under his breath, picking up the guns and slinging them across his chest. He grabbed a few belongings from the wreckage and then joined Sophia on the road. At least she’d had the good sense to pull a long-sleeved linen shirt out of her backpack so she wouldn’t burn under the punishing Texas sun while they drove. But she looked ridiculous with the pack on her back. It dwarfed her small frame.
Whatever. He wouldn’t waste his breath arguing with Her Highness.
He climbed on the bike and took a deep breath.
Something he needed, especially when she climbed on behind him and her slim arms slid around his waist, her thighs contouring to his.
Jesus Christ.
He swore he couldn’t make up his mind about Sophia. One minute he wanted to strangle her and the next, all he could think about was—
He swallowed hard and gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the tightening in his jeans. Especially since he knew it was about way more than lust when it came to Sophia Wolford.
He’d been a damn goner for her ever since he stumbled into Jacob’s Well at fifteen years old and the brown-haired beauty had served him soup and smiled shyly at him his first day in town.
After years scrambling just to keep body and soul together, she was the symbol of everything he’d ever wanted his whole life but never had—she was good, clean, sane. Innocent.
She was perfection and he was the shit people tried to scrape off their boots. And now he was dragging her down into his world.
What the hell was he doing?
“Soph.” He turned his head to the side, not quite looking her in the eye. “Let’s go home. We can turn around right now. This bike could probably get us as far as Central Texas North. I know that land like the back of my hand. I could get us back to San An—"
“No!” Sophia exclaimed. “Finn, no. I’m not giving up just because of this… setback. Look, I’m sorry if I—” He felt her shift behind him which really wasn’t helping distract him from the warmth of her against his back. “I’m sorry I didn’t shoot when I was supposed to. I had my finger on the trigger and I was standing just like Dad taught me but I just—”
Finn shook his head and put his hand over Sophia’s that she still had on his waist. “Don’t. It’s not a bad thing you don’t want to kill a man, Soph. I shoulda never asked it of you.”
“What does that mean? Just because I’m a woman?”
Finn rolled his eyes. “Jesus, Soph. You know what I mean. You’re you. You should be planning weddings. Long as I’ve known you all you could talk about was raising babies. There’s some things once you do them, you can’t ever scrub ‘em from your head. Your dad didn’t want this kinda life for you and neither do I.”
She didn’t say anything for several long moments.
“So we turning around?”
Her arms tightened around his waist and he couldn’t help the small catch of his breath.
“No. I can do more than have babies. We’re at war. Colonel Travis is threatening everything we hold dear. He’s enslaving women just like me, Finn. We have to keep going. We have to.”
See? It was stuff like this that made Sophia Wolford get under a man’s skin. She was more than a pretty face. So much more.
“Hold on,” Finn muttered gruffly, then kicked the bike into gear and took off down the road.
Chapter Three
SOPHIA
Sophia had decided while holding on to Finn for dear life as they sped down the deserted highway, weaving in and out of stalled out cars left on the road from a decade ago, that she should be nicer to him.
Because back there? With those bikers?
She would have died. Without Finnigan, she would have died.
When she’d gotten the call from Santa Fe,
it had all sounded like such an adventure. She’d charge in. Save the day. Bring home an army to Dad.
Like something she read in one of her novels.
But watching that man’s face explode as Finn’s rifle shot hit its target?
There was nothing romantic or heroic about that.
She’d been supposed to shoot the other man. She’d felt confident she could. He was the bad guy. He was trying to kill them. She knew how to shoot. Dad practiced with her twice a month ever since they’d gotten to Jacob’s Well. It should have been simple.
But after witnessing the gore of Finn’s shot, she froze. Even watching the man lift his gun and aim it right at Finn. Even seeing the panic in Finn’s eyes when his own rifle got stuck.
Finn didn’t freeze, though.
No, he just charged the man about to blow his brains out.
Sophia thought she understood what courage was but she hadn’t.
Courage was running straight toward a loaded gun even when you were afraid.
But Sophia? Fear paralyzed her. It always had. Because she was a coward.
Cowards froze. Cowards dropped their guns and put their hands over their heads and waited for all the shooting to be over.
Cowards stayed upstairs hiding in a closet, doing nothing while their mothers were downstairs being brutalized and murdered.
Sophia clenched her eyes shut and pressed her forehead into Finn’s back. No. She didn’t remember that. She never let herself remember that.
Anyway, none of that mattered. What mattered was keeping positive now. So they didn’t have the truck. This bike would get them there faster anyway. If anyone could look at lemons and see lemonade, it was her, dad blam it.
Only seconds after she had the thought, though, there was a loud POP noise, followed by sputtering. The bike swerved violently.
Sophia squeaked in terror and clung even tighter to Finn. She felt the flex of all his muscles as he fought to keep the bike upright.
The bike wobbled back and forth and Sophia squeezed her eyes shut. She forced them back open the next second. She would not be a coward. Finn couldn’t afford for her to be.
They were slowing down but not as quickly as they should. Whatever had happened, it was clear the something had happened to the engine. Were the breaks shot, too?
