Dove Strong

by Erin Lorence

  I gawked while he settled back and pulled his leather hood up over his face to sleep.

  Handicapped? I hunted for a pinecone or twig, anything mobile to chuck at him.

  “Truce, then?” He stuck out his hand for me to shake. And lowered it when I didn’t. “Truce. And you’ll travel with us—even if convinced we’re murderers—until God tells you otherwise. After that, you can go your own way.”

  I gave up my futile search since even the empty meat bag had vanished. “God calls the shots. Not you. So the moment He says ‘go,’ I’m out of here. And I’m taking Melody.”

  “Agreed. Take second watch since you’re done sleeping. No one leaves this tree.”

  Of course, after he breathed slowly I decided what I should’ve told him about the Rumor. Why only idiots and ignorants believe in it.

  The crux of my argument? My unshakable, undeniable, unarguable truth?

  The Reclaim wasn’t Biblical.

  And if God didn’t put it down in the Bible, I shouldn’t buy into it. No one should.

  All my family members—Gilead excluded—scoffed at this sketchy promise to take back our country. My grandma didn’t even know from where it had originally cropped up.

  Decades ago, during one of my grandpa’s perilous treks to pay property taxes, he’d run into an old childhood friend. This true believer had whispered the Rumor into his ear while on his way to his own forest canopy home to scrounge up weapons.

  The whisperings spread like pollen in high wind. By the time my dad and William Joyner met in prison, both families were praying about it. And the Braes had sent their own messenger seven years ago.

  But no one I knew who prayed about the Rumor ever got confirmation. My grandma never received any directive from God about it other than peace. He didn’t want us killing for land or power. She was sure. And so was I.

  Stone spoke from the shadow of his hood, startling me. “Maybe the answer is more complicated than any of our puny human brains can understand. Don’t tell Reed this, but I think maybe you’re both right. Only God knows how.”

  “Your brother and me will shut up, Stone. Go back to sleep.”

  “Nah, he meant for me to keep watch. Not you. Anyhow, you need the sleep more since, you know, you’re a girl. And with all that walking and climbing you’ve done. Do you know you out-climbed me tonight? That doesn’t happen. So, yeah. I don’t know too many girls, and never one like you. And, uh, it wouldn’t be right for you to get all, you know, weak. And tired.”

  The heat radiating from his hidden face scorched me. I haven’t met many people in my life either, so I could honestly say I’d never met anyone like him before. But how lame to say it.

  I curled up in a ball and closed my eyes. “Word of advice. Stay low. The bats are out.”

  20

  Stone flung himself into a juniper. “Get back!”

  Crouching with the others behind the bushes, I studied the man in the khaki uniform and brimmed hat. He appeared to be examining the back of one of the two cars, their cocooning layer of ash promising they’d rested here more than a day.

  “At least you girls are consistent.”

  I tensed at Reed’s compliment. “How so?”

  “Consistent, Dove. It took you eight hours today to accomplish a hike that should’ve taken three. That’s comparable to your three-week journey to Mount Washington. I could’ve done it in a weekend.”

  “Cool it, bro.” Stone hadn’t taken his eyes off the cop-looking guy now leaning against the worn wooden sign. Mount Washington Nature Park.

  “It’s my fault. I’m the slowest—”

  “No, no. It’s fine, Mel.” Reed patted her foot. “Only I’d hoped to be gone before he showed up. Now we’re going to have to wait him out.”

  “Vehicle’s here.” The cop spoke into a black object pulled from his waist. “But no sign of missing persons.”

  He listened for a minute to what I thought was a type of radio. I’d heard of those. He responded in monosyllables before tucking the radio-thing back into his belt, next to another object that made me cold.

  He ignored the weapon and crunched off the gravel, settling against a tree that faced the narrow road. He peeled a banana.

  A tower of flexed muscle at my shoulder, Stone didn’t miss a single bite or swallow. Loitering here made my muscles tight too.

  My eyes roamed to the woods. “What are we doing here?”

  Other than Melody’s tight shrug, I got no response.

  The man cop nudged his hat over his eyes. By the time the sun touched the western treetops, his snores rivaled my grandpa’s—and my body ached from its taut, crouched stance.

  Reed stood. “Come on.”

  I watched him limp into the clearing. I released the breath I hadn’t known I’d held when he passed the man and veered for the road.

  Feeling lighter that Reed’s plan didn’t include attacking this Heathen cop, I picked my way after the others. My feet copied Stone’s, pressing down on dust patches in the gravel so they stayed soundless. When I dropped back into my crouch with the others near the tire of a vehicle, I couldn’t see the cop man. But his snores didn’t falter.

  I raked my fingertips through the car’s grime while waiting for Reed to reveal which direction we’d head in. I guessed north.

  “Inside. Now.”

  Stone darted into the car door’s opening. Through the filmy glass I saw him propel himself to the front area behind the curved wheel. Next to me, Melody’s dilated pupils fixed themselves on my face.

  Danger, right? I thought at her.

  She swiveled. “I’m...I’m sorry, Reed.”

  Hey, Melody? Earth to Melody! Pay attention. Danger?

  “But I’ve never...I won’t be much help when it comes to pedaling or getting this thing to move—”

  “What are you talking about?” A bead of sweat rolled into his ash brown beard, betraying his stress. “Can you sit? ’Cause that’s all you’ve got to do. Sit. No pedaling. But Mel? Dove? Before you can sit, you’ve got to do what?”

  “Get in.” Her obedient response disappeared with her body inside the vehicle.

  The rhythmic sleep sounds from the tree line droned on.

  “This is beyond nuts. You have a car, Reed?”

  “Do now.”

  “Huh?”

  “Spoils of war. Now, ladies first.”

  “You mean this car belongs to the godless—”

  “Belonged. Past tense. They don’t need it anymore. We do. Get in.”

  “No. First I’m going to have to pray about this.” I sank to the ground. “Because this seems like”—my pointed glare nicked him—“stealing.”

  I heard a sigh. And a small click—like a snap. A half second later my knees left the gravel, and a callused hand smelling of soot pressed my nose and chin.

  I opened my eyes in time to land next to Melody with a bounce. The door eased into place, trapping me. Stone’s apologetic eyes wavered next to the murky glass, but a blink later, his wide shoulders settled inside the car in front of me, next to his brother’s narrow ones.

  I yanked at the door’s plastic pieces. “Let me out! Let. Me. Out.”

  My demand—it rang familiar.

  I remembered Jezebel. Enraged and helpless, stuck in her brother’s stubborn arms.

  The car awoke with a purr. “Easy. Easy.”

  Reed patted an expanse of the smooth, black interior. For a moment, I pushed aside my fury and leaned forward, like Melody, to watch the brothers move this thing.

  Stone twisted the wheel a hard left. With a blow to my back, we shot forward in a tight arc and plowed over a lone sapling. The fir needles vanished beneath us when Reed leaned over and wrenched a lever. We skidded to a stop—all but my body, which continued moving forward until it connected with the back of Stone’s chair. Our vehicle moved again, racing backwards in a high-speed zigzag.

  Through the billowing dust, the cop-man’s silhouette staggered up. His hand fumbled at waist level.
/>
  I ducked. But we bumped onto the road, hurtling forward. A flash of trees later, and we slid onto a wider road.

  “I don’t get why we’re doing this!” I had to yell for Reed to hear me over Melody and four screaming tires.

  “You want to walk all the way to Jefferson?”

  I peeled my upper body off the closest glass. “Yes!”

  “It’s over fifty miles. We’d never make it in time. Now quiet, so I can help Stone!”

  ~*~

  Two tiny lights pricked the darkening horizon. I sat up straighter. Within moments the dots became life-sized car headlights.

  After a shuddering whoosh of brightness, the darkness returned. Our car lurched to a stop, separating Melody’s death grip from my arm.

  I picked myself off the floor again and perched back on the edge of the slippery car bench. In front, the two brothers must’ve come to a decision, because they flung open their doors and leaped out.

  Seconds later, Reed slid behind the wheel. In front of me, the artificial glow of the car’s interior lit up one of the giant’s temples that gushed with sweat. He trembled as though he had a bad flu.

  Warrior Reed was no better at this car thing than Stone.

  Cars killed—I’d seen enough animals squashed on the road. I’d never realized before that living creatures inside a vehicle risked becoming smashed pulp as much as the ones standing in its path.

  While my gaze stayed glued to Reed’s hands—my body ready to react and brace when they moved—I prayed. But my queasiness blocked my ability to hear any heavenly instructions. Such as rip open the door and jump for it.

  I clutched my stomach. “We’re there. Tell me we’re there.”

  “Close.” Reed hung onto the wheel as we curved around another bend. Thud. To my left Melody hit her side window. “The trees have gotten thicker. A good sign. Greener around Mount Jefferson.”

  I pressed my face to the filmy glass until it bucked me off. I couldn’t see any green—only the few yards of flat black in front of the car’s headlights.

  Then, I gasped. I saw the evergreens’ black, swaying branches in detail, all the way to their feathered, triangular tops. And the misshapen clumps of moss lower down. And fern fronds filling in the gaps between leafy plants I’d never seen before. Ominous red and white flashes of light bounced off everything.

  “Police,” Stone pointed out.

  The car’s engine hummed up an octave. At the wheel, the warrior didn’t slow us when cedar branches dragged against my glass. We jostled back onto pavement and veered for the opposite tree line. The siren filled the night with its nonstop wail.

  “What happens to us? If they catch us?” Melody stayed on the floor where she hunched over her bag.

  I remembered my dad’s arrest—the iron circles stuck around his wrists when they’d led him away. The anxious year I’d had with him gone. And his joyful return, muddied by the fact that he yelled out in his sleep most nights…for reasons he refused to explain.

  My jaw clenched in resolve. “We won’t find out.”

  At my feet, she hugged her pack tighter. Then she looked down sharply, as if surprised it existed, and rummaged inside.

  A loud bang drowned out the wail.

  I ducked. “They’re shooting at us!”

  “Easy. Only a tire going out.” Next to Stone’s braced, sweating bulk, his brother cranked the wheel.

  “Can’t. Control. It.” Reed’s body rose in an effort to hold onto the wheel. “Some help?”

  “Help. He needs...help him!” Melody struggled up, still gripping her bag. But Stone beat her there, his hands secure over his brother’s.

  I was focused on the action up front—and on keeping myself on the slippery bench. So, I almost missed Melody, who ducked back down and whispered something. Something like God, help me.

  My world became chaos. I couldn’t react in time—couldn’t fathom how fast things could go one-eighty in all directions.

  The engine died and the siren cut off. Then everything went black. Deaf and blind.

  Screaming shattered the quiet. Screaming tires. Screaming voices. No, only one voice screamed. Melody’s. Gravity shoved me where I wasn’t meant to go, and I grabbed at whatever my hands met.

  Shouts punctuated the screams while my pupils fought to dilate, searching for anything they could grasp. Even the car’s dim light vanished.

  Out of my whirling blindness, a pole-like object carrying white flashed and flew at my head. I yelped as it smashed against the glass with a teeth-rattling crack.

  My world stopped spinning. Melody’s voice wafted from somewhere behind me. “I didn’t...I didn’t...”

  My body was wedged between the brothers. My vision finished adjusting to the skimpy moonlight, enough to see my shoulder pressed against Stone’s outstretched arm—the barrier between me and the shattered front glass.

  Dazed, I dropped back onto my bench and gripped its edge. I stared dumbly down at Melody, still crouched and hugging her belongings.

  I leaned over. Something was wrong with her face. No blood, but her expression—it showed more than shock or terror. It showed extreme guilt.

  Nearby, her hand gripped a small object, unfamiliar and high-techy looking.

  I let go of the seat to see. Her thumb clamped the side of it, the same way mine does when I trigger a flashlight’s ‘on’ sensor.

  She spoke again in that same terrified whisper. “I didn’t know it would do that. I promise I didn’t. I didn’t know. I—”

  “An EMP.” Reed groaned and reached over his chair back for the object. “That is a mini EMP. Where did you get it?”

  She thrust the EMP thingy at him. “I don’t know. In my bag. It was there, and I thought God had—I don’t know what I thought. Take it. I’m sorry. So sorry.”

  God? No, God hadn’t put the EMP in her bag.

  Oh, Wolfe. Why? Why’d you give it to Melody? As a joke? Did you know it would destroy us when she found it? Did you know we’d be captured?

  “No, it’s OK, Mel.” Reed sounded way too fine for someone blood-streaked eyebrow to beard. “Mel. Listen to me. All you’ve done is level the playing field for us. Yeah, our car’s dead—but so is theirs...and so is their radio and the equipment they rely on. And we’re nearly there. See that area of trees up there?”

  Unable to speak, I followed the line his finger made to the blob of feathery blackness perched on a lumpy hill silhouette.

  “If we can make it up that debris to those trees, we’ll be safe to hike. So, crew? Now’s the time to call out if your legs are broken. Anyone? On the count of three, we go for it.”

  On three, we discovered only two of the four doors opened. As my feet crunched down on gravel, a stranger’s voice rang out. “Stop! Hands above your head. Get on your knees. On your knees! Now!”

  I fell as if I’d been hit.

  Reed hollered, “No! It’s a bluff. Get up! Their car—it’s trapped them. They can’t get out. Run! Go to where I showed you! Stone, I need you over here.”

  I didn’t pause to see what he needed help with. Or if he shouted the truth about the cops being stuck. I anchored Melody to me and scrambled out of the ditch and onto the gravelly slope. I glimpsed the black clump of trees crowning a smooth rock face. It was so vertical a spider couldn’t scale it.

  No boulders rested between me and the precipice. There was nothing to hide behind.

  “Get up.” I grabbed fur, dragging Melody off her stomach. We struggled up the steep incline. Sediment and pebbles dislodged from under my soles with each upwards push, slithering down in our wake. The air around me got thick fast. Each time I fell, I tasted its gritty soup.

  “Up. Get up, Melody.” I punched a spot under my ribs.

  “Danger.”

  “That’s why you’re getting up, Brae. C’mon. Up.”

  She responded slower to my commands, hesitating a few extra seconds before pushing herself onto her boot soles. Giving up.

  Then came the sound of someone
scrambling on the loose stones below us, only a few yards behind.

  “On your feet now or,” my whisper rose to match the noisy rock fall, “or it’s all over!”

  Our climb had gone from too silent to a series of avalanches happening below that had nothing to do with my own feet or Melody’s. Or Stone’s, since he moved with the tread of a cat. Where had the brothers gone? Ditched us?

  The slab of sheer rock reared up in front of me, forcing me to stop. Panting, I limped sideways to my left. A second later I fell to the ground, covering my head.

  At the second gunshot, unexpected weight smashed me against the shards. When I opened my eyes, I couldn’t see anything but the inside of Stone’s tree trunk arm and Melody’s black braid bun.

  “Reed!”

  “Shh, Melody. Easy. He’s OK.” Stone readjusted his torso so he covered us instead of crushing. “Hold still another second. He’s OK. You’ll see.”

  Hold still? I couldn’t even move my arms an inch. This was like something Gilead would pull. But I couldn’t stay mad when I heard the next shots.

  The deafening metallic explosions rang inches away. In the pause, and through the high-pitched ringing in my ears, I heard a stranger’s shout. “What are you doing? Stand down. That’s an order. Stand. Down.”

  “Fanatics!”

  I pictured the second stranger’s bloodshot eyes squinting into the night, his weapon trained on me.

  “I swear there’re fanatics up there. Try to break my neck with rocks?”

  Three more shots made me press my bruised cheek to the ground so hard my nose ran.

  “Holster your weapon and stand down.”

  “But they’re right, there, Captain. I swear. See that white square thingy up there?”

  “I see nothing. Only a trigger-happy newbie who’s about to be kicked off the force.”

  “No. Trust me, Cap. Trust me. I know. I’ve always had a sixth sense when radicals are involved. Like I can smell ‘em out. Up trees and down holes. We have to...”

  “Fire again and it’s your badge. Get your head on. What if you hit them? You gonna leave their bodies out here for the animals? We can’t transport dead—or even alive—prisoners right now if the car and radio are as shot as I think they are. My phone doesn’t even have a charge, and I’ll bet yours is the same. They must have gotten ahold of one of those stupid contraptions those kids in Sisters set off that kills the power.