On the Road: Book Two

by Angela White

  “Apurarse! Stop her!”

  “Grab that puta!”

  Samantha made it out through a side door, the men in the gym just as surprised as Cesar and José when she darted by, but it shut loudly behind her, and she froze.

  A sea of Mexican faces turned her way at the echo, slanted eyes lighting up. A loose slave was fair game.

  Terror ran through Sam’s veins, making her shiver, and she dropped submissively to her knees, heart thudding furiously in her chest as they all moved toward her. She was in deep shit, even worse than when the chopper went down, worse than when the wolves attacked. Help me, please! she screamed silently.

  The doors opened behind her a second later, and Sam cried out as she was jerked backward by her thick braid, landing on her back in the dirt. Cesar gave José a nod and the evil man swung a knee over each shoulder, pinning her arms as he opened his filthy pants, already hard.

  Dark eyes without mercy, Cesar knelt beside them, puffing on a fat cigar to get it red-hot. Then he moved it toward the bare stomach now showing from her struggles. Sam had time to notice he was missing two fingers on his left hand, and then he was grinding the cigar against her hip, and she was screaming.

  José thrust into her open mouth, gagging her as he pushed in as far as he could. With a hand on Cesar's stocky shoulders as his brace, his free paw roamed her body mercilessly.

  “Bite me you die!” the Mexican growled, breath already short, and Cesar held her by her hair so the scarred Mexican could shove all the way down her throat.

  “I have questions, chica,” Cesar stated casually as José thrust in and out of her mouth, forcing her to breathe through her nose, “and you will answer.”

  José stiffened, hips bucking forward, and Cesar’s evil face filled with delight as he slammed his deformed hand over her nose and watched her choke, unable to breath.

  José pulled out, dark eyes feverish at her purple face. Maybe he would do it again and not stop, he thought, but when Cesar motioned for him to move, he did.

  Sam rolled over, gasping, straining for even a thread of air as tears streamed from her eyes.

  “Each of my men waits for a turn, puta, and they will get it if you tell a single lie,” Cesar warned, moving toward her as she continued to cough and gag.

  “Your name and why were you left behind. You have disease?”

  “Samantha...not left. Here... too late. Saw... them leaving.” She stayed on the ground, coughing it up, and cringed when the short, stocky leader jerked her to her feet.

  “Tell me,” he ordered, not letting her turn away from the wind that was gusting sand at them in small clouds.

  “Two ... jeeps, three vans? ...Like SWAT,…. only solid black.”

  “How many men?”

  She shook her head, trembling. “They were leaving when I... came up 210. I only saw them go.”

  “She lies!” José exclaimed, stepping toward her with eyes that said her mouth hadn’t been nearly enough. “They left her because she is diseased. I claim her.”

  Cesar watched her face, saw how fast the fire blazed in her hate-filled American eyes.

  “They did not leave me! They would have loved to have me, but the dumb-ass driver never looked back!”

  Cesar swung her around, forcing eye contact, “And why es it that they would love to have you, puta? What makes you so especial?”

  Sam dropped her eyes and stepped through destiny’s open door. “I’m a storm tracker. Who doesn’t need that now?”

  Cesar hid his pleasure and gave José a nod as he shoved her, tripping her so she hit the dirt. “My tent first. Show her what I expect tonight. Mañana, she does rounds of el los soldados.”

  Samantha's heart clenched with fear like she’d never known, unable to believe they saw no value in her. Escape! Her mind began to scream it, and she immediately began to make a plan, ignoring the dark hands now crawling inside her torn shirt.

  She had gotten out a call and been answered, but the radio had gone dead before she could find out if they would come back. She couldn’t count on that. She would have to save herself again. Samantha began looking around, desperately searching for anything that could help her. Crooked tents with Mexican flags and slogans were going up, the smoky breeze carrying the odors of feces, rot, blood, and death, screams echoing from the other side of the big camp…it took only a moment to understand. These men were evil, plain and simple.

  She had stayed in the school because she’d been hoping the men who had gotten the others would come back, had decided to give them a full week to get here if they were coming, but now her time had run out. A piercing scream echoed, making her jump, and she stopped her light struggles as José led her roughly through one side of the unorganized camp. There were other whites here, but they were in the same boat as she was.

  Sam’s mind suddenly replayed the evil man’s words: show her what I expect tonight. Fear filled her body from the feet up. Melvin and Henry had been bad. This was going to make her want them back.

  José shoved her into a large, lopsided tent. When he followed her in, closing the flap, Sam’s eyes glazed over with terror.

  3

  The second she was able to move, Samantha forced herself to her feet and began searching for a weapon, ignoring the blood that dripped from her mouth, her nose, and down her bruised thighs. Longing for a shot of antifreeze to calm her nerves and take the edge off the deep, familiar ache low in her guts, Sam kept looking even though the tent held only piles of reeking garbage.

  Her attacker had chained her ankle to the tent pole like a dog, the cold metal a horrid reminder of her weeks in captivity with Melvin and Henry, and her heart was blazing with determination to get away. Now. Tonight. They would be expecting it, but wouldn’t think she’d kill to escape. They didn’t know what she was capable of!

  Stomach aching, Samantha edged to the flap and slowly lifted a tiny corner to peer out, eyes moving quickly over the men, who appeared unhealthy with cold sores, coughs, and noses that were wiped on filthy shirt sleeves. They were an ugly group of hardened killers, bruised faces and clothes still streaked with innocent blood that drew insects. Sam instantly hated the penny-sized snapping flies she could see swarming over the filthy camp, but thought it was fitting the mutations were here, in this place of abominations.

  What she could see of the town around them offered no hope either. Rusting Army trucks rammed through the gates of a charred warehouse, block after block of damaged, destroyed, burnt homes, and bodies, rotting openly. This place had been gone before the Slavers, and Sam cursed herself for being caught off guard. She should have known there was trouble coming by the way the rescue party had been so well-armed and alert. It had taken her days to figure out how to charge up the CB System, and after finally succeeding, she’d fallen asleep in front of the radio, and hadn’t heard the Slaver’s engines over the wind or her own bad dreams.

  Samantha shivered as the noise levels increased - cries, gunfire, barking, and shouts. All the men she could see from her tiny peephole were Mexican, most dark and fearsome in their blood-tacked leggings and long shirts. Help would not come from the town or any of these men. What about the females here? There were none in sight. As she started to raise the flap higher, instinct took over, and she ducked as a big boot slammed into the tent where her head had been.

  “Closed!”

  Samantha scrambled back, afraid the guard would come in and hurt her too, but there were only the noises of the camp. A loud, drawn-out scream, a gunshot, and more shouts in a rough Spanish dialect she was only vaguely familiar with. What the hell was she gonna do? Keep trying. That, she would do until she was dead. It was who she was. A survivor, no matter how many times this new world tried to kill her. She went back to searching.

  At one point, Samantha had lain low in a supermarket full of decaying bodies during a dust storm, the warning arriving only an hour before the sand, but it had been enough. The waves of energy had made her heart clench in longing, knowing instinctively
that it had come from someone who was…different, like her. She had almost chosen to skip Cheyenne and hunt down that person, but wasn’t sure exactly how to do it. Now, she bitterly wished she’d tried.

  Unlike NORAD, the school still had small treasures, like clothes and shoes, and a basement of boxes she’d happily explored after finding a case of fruit cocktail on top of a crate of bottled water stacked for the vending machines. Apparently, the rescue party hadn’t swept the basement, and neither had any of those hiding here. Why? Just because of a few bodies? Were they stupid? Those were everywhere they looked anyway. What was a few more if it meant fresh supplies? She shrugged, running her fingers around the entire tent line. Their loss had been her...

  “You won’t find anything.”

  Samantha was on her knees in front of the flap, and looked up, scared gaze going wide at the sight of a tall, thin, dirty white man with beautiful, shifty green eyes and a black bandana around his neck. He stood outside, holding the flap open. He held a jug of brownish water in one hand, and looked so much like one of the Slavers that Samantha forgot her own plan.

  “What do you want?” she snarled, calling him a traitor in her head as she backed up on the blood-splattered floor. She wouldn’t get near that cot again unless she was dead or unconscious.

  “He wants you to get cleaned up and ready for him.”

  Sam ignored the words, escape plans reforming in her mind as she watched his vivid green eyes crawl over her exposed flesh. She felt that steel in her spine and slowly stood up, faced him. Maybe she’d just gotten lucky. If he still wanted her when she looked like this, he was a sexual deviant at the very least and therefore, weak.

  “Are you one of his men?”

  Rick shook his head, the lie falling easily as he stepped inside, letting the flap close them in smelly dimness. “Slave.”

  Sam took in the fresh and old bruises, dirty, ragged jeans, and shirt that hung on him, no jacket despite the low temperatures. She took a step closer, lowering her voice as her heart warned this was yet another man who couldn’t be trusted. “Can you get a gun?”

  Rick shook his head again, beady eyes on the bare skin showing through her torn shirt. “No. Pills, though. You’ll be a zombie while he’s...using you.”

  Her face was pale as she forced her lips to curve into an inviting smile. “Do you have a woman or family here?”

  Rick shook his head again, thinking Cesar would be very pleased with how easy this was going to happen. “No.”

  She smiled again, and he felt his body respond, the blood and bruises indeed a turn-on for him. That was another reason he’d stayed. Here, a man was allowed to be just that: a man.

  “Do they let you come and go?”

  “Sometimes,” he said absently, staring at her platinum hair and pale blue-and-black eyes with a hot gaze that hid a scheming, evaluating male mind. “Sometimes I have a guard.”

  Rick gave a slight wince he made sure she saw. “I got away once,” his voice lowered to a mutter. “Haven’t tried in a long time, now.”

  Very aware of the dim daylight fading fast, Samantha ran a hand up his arm, letting her shirt fall open. “You like women?”

  His eyes were full of want, mind full of control. It was all part of the plan, and he’d done it enough to know he had already succeeded. He was numb to the guilt as he worked her. “Hell, yeah.”

  “Wanna touch?”

  Rick’s breath was coming short. He did want her - unlike the other females, who cried too much and cowered - and he broke Cesar’s first rule: don’t touch until the deal is done.

  Samantha was unprepared for the bolt of lust his gentle hands drew. When she arched into his caress, to her shame, it wasn’t completely faked. She smiled, deeper this time, with obvious meaning. “Wanna do more?”

  His hands slid down her bony hips and she pulled back, closing her torn top as best she could. “Then get us out of here…and I’ll be your slave.”

  Rick’s eyes narrowed, hands lowering in mock fear. “He’ll kill us.”

  She defiantly held his gaze. “We’re white. He’s gonna do that anyway.”

  There was a lot of truth to the statement, and she leaned against him, sensing growing weakness. “It’ll be great. Just the two of us and you’ll never be alone.”

  His eyes darkened, and his words surprised her even though it was what she wanted to hear. “It’ll have to be fast and while they’re drinking. Be ready.”

  4

  “She went for it already?”

  Rick told him everything word for word, as he always did, trying not to let the Slaver’s rank odors blow over his scruffy face as they stood just out of sight of the tent Samantha was in.

  “She is smart. Talk to her only a little. Sneak out on one of the twins’ horses.” Cesar fingered the handle of the knife in his belt as the light, cool wind blew by them. “You will contact me in two weeks. If you do not…”

  The Mexican let his words trail off, and Rick gave in with no fight, shame not even in the picture anymore. “You’ll have what you want, just like in Trinidad and Boulder. This plan always works.”

  Cesar met his eye with a cruel sneer. “And what reward do you ask, White man, for betraying your people? Again.”

  Rick didn’t deny or even flinch, didn’t feel anything at the jab. They were not his people anymore. They hadn’t been since the War. “The woman, until I’m tired of her.”

  Cesar’s dark eyes narrowed. “There are no white unions here!”

  “Not a union. My slave.”

  Scowling, Cesar slammed his deformed hand on top of his dirty sombrero to keep a gust of wind from stealing it. “If there were to be a child, it would be killed.”

  Rick’s eyes were hard as he snorted. “I want her, not some screaming shit machine. If she comes up pregnant, I’ll make it go away.”

  Cesar didn’t doubt the tone. “Deal. Don’t forget. Two weeks and you will deliver this Safe Haven to me.”

  5

  “You two will follow. Make sure your Witch is with them. We’ll be along,” Cesar ordered quietly, watching Rick go back to the white woman.

  The twins hovered in the shadows, eager to do as instructed, so they could be sure she was indeed what they’d said. The tracks from the school might have led them to her, but the twins had lost them in a sewer drain, and hadn’t been able to find the tracks again, despite checking exits for hours.

  The weeks that had gone by had made them doubt themselves, and if she wasn’t what they’d thought, then they would just keep going. Cesar had already put a lot of time and effort into this now. He’d made strong plans based around the control of such a power, and to be denied, would mean someone's life. It was a big risk they were taking - knowing they’d likely be caught and killed in the future if they had to run - but the need for revenge on the woman and her protector was undeniable. And if she was what they thought, then they would gain something any man would risk his life for. Complete control.

  Now feeling on top of what could be a future problem, Cesar watched them go. First, the twins as they left to hide and follow, and then Rick and the woman, sneaking through the shadows. He had no doubts the traitor would contact him. The men here had no rules, no chores, just sex and drinking, with killing thrown in for fun. It was the real American dream, Cesar thought, gold tooth gleaming as he grinned cruelly. His dream, and he’d kill any group that tried to change things back. America was in for a long storm season.

  Chapter Nineteen

  March 30th, 2013

  Near Chadron, Nebraska

  1

  “We are an American Red Cross Convoy picking up survivors. We offer food, shelter, medical care and protection. Does anyone copy?”

  “We hear you, Safe Haven! We’re in Hot Springs. We’re out of food. Are you close?”

  The man’s voice that answered was different from the one they’d been hearing regularly for the last week, and Marc and Angela both stopped cleaning up their late lunch to listen to the conversa
tion. It was nearly three o’clock, and they needed to get moving again, but the waves of authority from that voice were impossible to ignore. To Marc's ears, he sounded military.

  “Close enough. How many people?”

  “Twelve. Two are sick. We don’t know what it is.”

  “That’s a lie,” Angela stated, able to hear it, read it, in the woman’s shaky voice.

  “We offer help to everyone, sick or not. Do you know Morse or phonetic code?”

  “I know both, but go slow, it’s been a while.”

  “You an ex-sailor by any chance, Hot Water?”

  The surprise was clear in her voice, “Nancy, and yes, for seven years. How’d you know that?”

  The Safe Haven man’s tone was laced lightly with a comforting humor, “Because of the slight edge of dislike in your words. Marines and Navy didn’t usually mix.”

  “No Sir, they didn’t.”

  “They do now. We’re all soldiers in the same fight for survival. Take down this message.”

  “He tells his men that too,” Angela muttered, listening in more ways than one.

  The taps came slowly enough for Angela - who’d been learning the code from Marc - to understand, and she frowned deeper. “They’re in the Black Hills. That’s only one day from us.”

  Over the hood, Marc's eyes locked onto hers, the words silent and full of longing, "I want more time."

  "Me too."

  "Can’t we?"

  Silence…

  Two days would be All Fools’ Day. Was it an omen?

  Marc frowned. “You all right?”

  Angela stared at the vast field of corn that ran as far as the eye could see on both sides. They were only about five miles from the Nebraska-South Dakota state line, where there were barbed wire fences and grass struggling to survive along the side of the road, but no trees. Except for a faded red barn with a tall, blue grain silo on one side, there was only corn here.