Edge of Collapse Series (Book 1): Edge of Collapse

by Stone, Kyla

  None of that mattered. Only one thought drove him. One purpose. He had to reach Hannah before it was too late.

  Wincing but moving quickly, he returned to the supply room, stepping over bodies and sticky, pooling blood. So much blood. So much senseless death.

  Liam shrugged into his coat and go-bag and retrieved his Glock, which had slid beneath one of the shelves. He slammed through the bakery’s exit door and raced for the library.

  55

  Hannah

  Day Eight

  Hannah felt herself fading, her mind taking her far away. It was a relief. A gift. She’d disappear. Simply cease to exist. No more pain. No more cold. No more fear.

  Milo, she thought dimly. Milo.

  A fragment of a memory drifted into her disintegrating mind: her and Milo snuggled together in his bed, Milo’s eyes growing sleepy, her fingers in his soft hair as she sang his favorite lullaby. Blackbird, fly…You were only waiting for this moment to be free…to arise…

  She didn’t want to die. She needed to fight, to fight with everything in her, to the bitter end. Until her broken body gave out on her, she would keep trying. She had to.

  She kicked weakly, blindly, her boot connecting with Pike’s shin. He growled in pain.

  She rolled onto her side, her belly heavy and cumbersome, struggling to get to her hands and knees, to crawl away. She reached the first bookshelf, scrabbling, frantic, chest heaving.

  Pain exploded across the back of her head. Stars spun across her darkening vision. Her stomach lurched with nausea as she collapsed.

  Pike seized her hair. Roots tore from her scalp. He jerked her roughly onto her back. Confusion and desperation swamped her. The pain was blinding.

  He knelt on top of her, an immense pressure on her chest, her belly. He leaned in close. His breath hot on her face. The sickening sweetness of clove strangling her throat.

  She struck at him, flailing weakly, her battering fists nothing more than an irritation to him.

  His knife flashed in the darkness. He would kill her now. He would cut—

  A savage bark exploded through the library.

  A blur of white bolted through one of the broken windows and streaked through the darkness. Hannah’s heart stopped. Ghost.

  Ghost was a flurry of fur, claws, and teeth. The huge Great Pyrenees barreled across the library and sprang at Pike, aiming straight for her attacker’s throat.

  Pike managed to half-turn, to get his arm up in defense.

  Ghost didn’t hesitate. He seized his right forearm in his jaws and shook fiercely.

  Pike howled in agony. The knife clattered to the carpet.

  Still gripping Pike’s arm, Ghost dragged him backward and knocked him off Hannah.

  The weight released from her chest. She could breathe again.

  “Get off!” Pike shouted. He beat at the dog’s head with his fist, smashing his snout and digging at his eyes until he released Pike’s arm.

  Ghost circled Pike, growling fiercely. A huge muscled beast, glowing white in the darkness like some phantom creature from the underworld.

  Pike backed up with a curse and knocked into one of the study tables. A chair tangled Pike’s legs and he nearly tripped. He seized the chair and hurled it at the dog.

  Ghost darted easily aside. The chair struck a bookshelf, several books wobbling. He snarled, teeth bared, saliva glistening. Like a rabid wolf.

  Ghost growled and snarled with a ferocity Hannah had never seen. Gone was the regal, serene animal who’d pressed against her to offer comfort and strength, who’d slept beside her, who’d gobbled beef jerky from her hand, gentle enough even in his hunger not to nip her fingers.

  This Ghost was pure white devil. One hundred and forty pounds of brutal strength and teeth and fury. And every ounce of it aimed at his former owner.

  “Down! Back!” Pike staggered to his feet, his wounded arm clutched to his chest. With his left hand, he fumbled for something at his side. “Obey, you stupid dog!”

  Ghost didn’t obey. He remembered, just like Hannah remembered.

  With a flurry of fur and teeth, the Great Pyrenees charged.

  Pike lurched backward and crashed into the bookshelf behind him. Books toppled and cascaded to the carpet.

  Dog and man went down together.

  Ghost leaped on top of Pike and pushed him flat on his back against the carpet. He lunged for the man’s throat. His teeth gleamed white and razor sharp, his lips peeled back.

  Pike flung up his left arm to defend his neck. He held something in his hand. Something small and dark and metallic. Hannah’s heart stopped beating. A gun.

  They were a blur in the darkness. A white and dark shape battling to the death. Ghost growling and biting and Pike punching him in the head, the torso, the snout, beating at him with the gun and trying to aim it at the dog, to get off a shot.

  Panic clutched at her, pulling her under, but she fought it, fought to remain present. Desperation congealed in her belly. She searched frantically for some way to help, to stop Pike.

  She seized a heavy book from the floor and hurled it at their grappling bodies. It thudded into Pike’s side but did nothing. She threw another one. It struck Pike’s arm and threw off his aim.

  A gunshot cracked the air.

  She cringed, her ears ringing. Ghost snarled in outrage.

  Before she could find another book to throw, a second gunshot fired. This one didn’t miss.

  Ghost faltered. He whimpered and dropped on top of Pike’s chest. His massive body went limp.

  Pike pushed the dog off himself and staggered to his feet. He turned back toward the dog. His left arm held tight to his chest, limp and useless. The pistol in his right hand.

  The gun rising, aiming for Ghost. To finish him off. And then her.

  Terror and helplessness jolted through her. “No!” she screamed.

  “Hannah!” A shout. From somewhere outside, near the front entrance. It was

  Liam. He was coming for her.

  Footsteps running toward them. But not fast enough. Not enough.

  “Liam!” she cried, frantic. “In here!”

  With a furious curse, Pike backed away, clutching at his wounded arm. His features contorted in an expression she’d never seen on his face—fear.

  He spun and fled, weaving between the bookshelves as he sprinted for the wall of windows. He lunged onto the waist-high bookshelf and launched himself through the window and out into the night.

  Hannah’s only thought was for Ghost. She scrambled across the carpet, head spinning dizzily but she ignored it, collapsing to her knees at his side with a gut-wrenching sob.

  The dog lay limp and unmoving on his side, long legs splayed, head tilted back. A line of black blood dribbled through his white fur from above his right eye, drenching his floppy ear and staining his snout.

  More blood pooled along the top of his head. The bullet had skimmed his skull. Bloody glass shards glinted on his coat from his leap through the jagged window frame.

  Horror and dread twisted her insides. She pressed her hands into his fur, feeling desperately for a sign of life.

  His chest rose and fell beneath her fingers. A faint whimper escaped his jaws.

  He was alive. She could have wept with joy.

  Liam crashed through the entrance doors and sprinted to the stacks. He gripped a pistol in both hands, high and ready to shoot.

  Even in the darkness, she could see the black smudges marring his face—blood. He looked like some vicious warlord or Viking fresh from battle. A killer.

  Relief warred with her fear. She saw the man under the blood—the warrior who’d protected her. Relief won. “You—you’re not dead.”

  “Where is he?” Liam cried.

  She pointed at the windows. “That way. He ran out there.”

  “Stay here,” Liam said. “I’m finishing this.”

  Before she could say anything, he was gone. A shadow among shadows as he plunged out the broken window after Pike.


  56

  Liam

  Day Eight

  Liam slogged through the darkness, searching for the sadistic psycho. The wind made his eyes water and his nose run. He’d taken the time to buckle on his snowshoes. It made him faster, even with the white-hot pain flaring through his lower back.

  Drops of blood were splattered beside the deep prints from where the psycho had staggered through the snow. He was wounded. That made him easier to follow.

  Righteous anger burned through his veins. An inexhaustible fury. He would kill the man without remorse, without mercy.

  The scene in the library was seared into his mind: Hannah crouched desperately over the dog’s body, fear and dread contorting her features, her drawn face a pale moon in the dark.

  He’d almost lost her. He hoped Ghost was okay, but it was Hannah he’d sworn to keep alive. He’d promised himself and Jessa that he would save this woman.

  And he meant to do it. Had to do it.

  He dug his hand into his coat pocket and felt the scrap of gray and green knitting like a smoldering coal. The tiny knit hat.

  Remorse and regret strangled him. He was a fool. Always had been.

  It would make up for nothing. It would change nothing. The past was still the past.

  He knew that. And yet.

  He couldn’t leave Hannah and the child in her belly.

  Couldn’t abandon them to this monster who stalked their every move, who seemed to know where they were headed even before they did, like some supernatural demon of myth and nightmare.

  Liam didn’t fear him. Anyone who preyed on women was a coward. Human garbage. That’s why he’d fled. He was a nothing more than a gutless cur who couldn’t fight a man face-to-face but crouched and skulked in the shadows, preying on the weak and defenseless.

  Liam’s only thought was to kill the scumbag, to be done with this once and for all.

  The soldier in him took over. He pushed out the pain and narrowed his complete focus to the task at hand. He scanned the road and buildings ahead of him and to either side, alert to any threat.

  He edged around the Dollar General, pulse thudding in his ears, thighs burning from the exertion. Even in snowshoes, it was exhausting. The throbbing in his spine slowed him down even more. But he didn’t stop. He would never stop.

  Shouts and yells echoed from further down the street. He swerved behind a dentist’s office, pressed his back against the wall, and peeked around the corner.

  A group of about seven men and women were working their way up the street toward him, toward the library, their flashlight beams and loud voices betraying their presence. A quarter of a mile away at most.

  They’d regrouped after Liam’s attack. Their numbers had thinned significantly. They were slow, probably limping from injuries, but they were still coming.

  Their shouting was angrier now, furious. It was personal. They wanted him dead for the half-dozen men he’d killed.

  Hannah was a sitting duck. They’d find her and kill her just for being with him.

  Dread slicked his insides. Fear sprouted deep in his gut and took hold. Not for himself. Never for himself.

  For her, and the innocent baby she carried.

  He let out a low curse. He had to go back.

  He glanced behind him at the bloody trail and the prints leading between the bank and the dentist’s office, headed northwest.

  He could end this now. It would take time, precious time he didn’t have.

  Damn it! He hated leaving a threat out there, loathed it with every fiber of his soldier’s being. But he refused to leave Hannah exposed again.

  His chest tight with worry, Liam spun and hurried back toward the library. His spine throbbed. His heart hammered in his chest, his ears. He continually scanned his surroundings, searching for any movement among the shadows crouching between the buildings.

  He circled around the library parking lot and reached the broken window. He slipped off his snowshoes and attached them to his pack with the paracord.

  Using the brick ledge, he boosted himself over, careful of the jagged glass jutting from the frame. The electric shot of pain was punishing.

  “Hannah!” he whispered.

  She was crouched beside the dog in the center of the library, her face bone-white. She held a pistol in one trembling hand. She aimed it at him.

  “Hannah, it’s me.”

  She recognized him and lowered the weapon. Books were scattered across the carpet all around them, and several chairs from the nearest study table were knocked over.

  Apprehensively, he lowered his gaze to the dog.

  Ghost was bloody and lying on his side. With a pained whine, he lifted his head, blood drenching his muzzle, his ear, and the top of his skull.

  He was hurt, but at least he was conscious.

  Liam’s heart nearly burst with relief. “We’ve got to go.”

  She didn’t argue with him. She slipped the pistol into her coat pocket and stood shakily, her damaged hand pressed to her ribs. She winced.

  His anxiety rising, he took in the state of her. “Are you hurt?”

  “I’m fine.”

  She wasn’t. Blood trickled from her hairline. Her long hair was a tangled mess. A purplish bruise was already forming around her left eye socket.

  The psycho had hurt her, but she was on her feet. She was tougher than he’d realized. A survivor.

  Still, she wouldn’t last long. He could see that right off. Not bruised, in pain, and traumatized. Not with her pregnancy.

  “Ghost saved me,” she said.

  He cursed himself again for taking so long with the thugs. If Ghost hadn’t arrived in time…

  He could kill a hundred enemies with ease with no fear for himself. His fear was for them. Fear that he couldn’t protect them. That he would somehow fail again.

  There was no time to think about the what-ifs and should-haves. That would come later. The guilt. The recrimination.

  “We’re getting out of here,” he said.

  “How?”

  He recalled the two men standing guard beside the trucks, snowmobiles, and ATVs. “The snowmobiles.”

  They needed to reach the vehicles before the mob. Every minute they remained here upped the threat tenfold.

  57

  Liam

  Day Eight

  “Let’s go,” Liam said.

  “What about Ghost?” Hannah asked.

  The dog clambered to his feet with a distressed whine. He swayed uncertainly.

  Liam’s heart contracted. Hopefully, the dog had it in him to make it, because Liam couldn’t carry him and help Hannah. He liked dogs—liked this one a lot.

  He’d do his best to save them both, but Hannah was his first priority. She had to be.

  He felt guilty even saying the words. “He has to keep up. No other choice.”

  “He will,” Hannah said. “My pack. The snowshoes—”

  His brain cycled through the options at lightning speed. He still had his go-bag with his snowshoes attached. Hannah’s bag was mostly food, her water, the tarp and sleeping bag. Important, but not essential.

  She couldn’t handle the extra weight. And he couldn’t carry two packs, help her, and protect them.

  But she needed her snowshoes to traverse the deep snow. They would be faster than their pursuers.

  He left her and the dog and ran back through the stacks, grabbed the snowshoes, and raced back. He handed her the snowshoes. She clutched them to her chest.

  Hannah took a step and stumbled. Liam snaked his free arm around her waist, his right still holding his Glock. It hurt him to hold her up, but he ignored it, pushed the pain down deep. “We have to go.”

  Together, they hobbled toward the entrance. Hannah flinched but didn’t cry out or make a sound. The dog followed, slow and halting, his head down, an almost human look of hurt and confusion on his face.

  Liam would administer first aid to them both once they’d reached safety. First, they had to get the hell ou
t of here.

  Distant shouts and yells carried on the wind. Another gunshot went off. Closer now. Much too close.

  They skirted the study tables, the check-out counter, and the children’s area. He pushed through the entrance doors, and they were out in the frigid night again, the wind stinging their faces.

  They had a couple of minutes if they stayed out of sight of the mob. They took a few precious seconds to buckle into their snowshoes—Liam helping Hannah into hers.

  Moving faster now, they circled behind the next building—a Rite-Aid with its windows busted in, trash and pill bottles scattered across the trampled parking lot. They passed two more offices and a restaurant.

  Headlights glared just past the next building. Liam leaned Hannah against the brick façade. She bent forward, rested her hands on her thighs, and breathed hard, exhaling white crystalized clouds.

  He could see the whites of her eyes in the dim shadows. Her fear. But she was present, she was fighting her terror.

  He saw her clearly in that instant—meek and damaged but also tough. She endured. It was who she was. He saw it shining bright and determined in her eyes.

  She was like him. A survivor.

  A fierce protectiveness flared in his chest. “Wait here,” he said, his voice rough.

  She nodded.

  He inched forward and peeked around the corner, Glock up and ready. The wind kicked up white gusts, but the heavy snowfall had lightened considerably, increasing visibility.

  Twenty yards away, he could just make out four old model two-seater snowmobiles and five winterized ATVS parked in the middle of the street at the end of town.

  The trucks were gone. The thugs must’ve packed their supplies already and sent the loaded vehicles back to wherever they came from.

  The only reason they were still in town was to hunt Liam down.

  One of the snowmobiles was already running, its engine chugging loud and ragged, headlights glaring. Glittering ice crystals swirled through the ghostly lights.