The Light: Who do you become when the world falls away? (New Dawn Book 1)

by Jacqueline Brown

  Nineteen

  My eyes opened to the memory of a cup filled with crayons. The gold embers of the fire glowed. The moon shone through the window. I sat up. Blaise and Sara still slept.

  If I left now, I could make it to my parents’ house and back before anyone had enough time to worry. Talin could get me there and back in a little over an hour if she didn’t mind galloping, which she never minded for me.

  I crept out of my bed on the floor. The house was silent. Jonah was on watch in the library. I hoped he was asleep. I tiptoed down the stairs, careful to avoid the few that squeaked. In the kitchen I grabbed some smoked meat and stuffed it in my pocket. I retrieved the keys to both houses. They had been in the same location since our arrival. I carefully unlocked the deadbolt and used the ancient key to lock it back. Being raised in DC I could never leave a door unlocked.

  I walked to the barn, the ice-covered snow crunching softly beneath my feet, Jonah’s oversized coat wrapped tightly around me. It was not a full moon, but it was not a new moon, either. There was enough light to see and the sun would be up for our return trip. Talin seemed to be waiting for me. I skillfully prepared her for our ride. Within minutes I was on her back and we were galloping away from the house, toward the house my parents had shared.

  I pulled her to a stop as we left the drive of the house. I turned, thinking I saw something move in the distance. I strained my eyes but could see nothing.

  I gave her a gentle squeeze and we were running again.

  We made it to the house in no time. I tied her up under the carport, retrieved the key from my pocket, and fit the key in the door lock. The handle turned. I stepped back. Charlotte had locked it when we left. I know she had. My heart raced hard in my chest.

  I opened the door slowly … the palm of my hand ready to drive someone’s nose into their skull, like East had taught me. I waited. Nothing happened. The house was silent.

  I stepped in. My breath caught. The house had been ransacked. What had remained in perfect order for almost twenty years had been destroyed sometime in the last two weeks. Anger and fear rushed through my veins.

  I hurried to the kitchen table. The crayons had been scattered. I collected them in the cup and placed them in a zippered pocket in my coat. I checked the house. I didn’t want to see the rest of it, though now that it no longer looked like my house it was in some way easier. I did not feel the sorrow; anger was the dominant emotion. I went into the room that would have been my brother’s. Diapers had been strewn all over the room, but otherwise there did not appear to be any other damage.

  I moved on to my room. It too had suffered little damage. Clothes were thrown everywhere, but nothing more. My parents’ room was different. It had been destroyed. Drawers opened, contents emptied. As I entered, I stepped on a small book. I reached down. A picture of my parents fell out of it. I picked it up and opened the book to put it back in. I saw my mom’s handwriting. The book was a journal—my mom’s journal. I slipped it into a pocket and left the room.

  The sun was starting to rise. The rising sun brought clarity. The house had been ransacked by Mick and his friends. It could have happened tonight. I walked to the fireplace and placed my hands on the ashes … still warm. They had been here only hours before.

  My mind remembered the moving shadow near the house. Mick had been there. They had been getting in position to attack.

  I turned, hurrying toward the door. I heard Talin pawing at the ground and huffing. She only did that when someone approached. My heart raced. I slipped into the kitchen and grabbed a pan. I crouched down so I could not be seen from the window, and waited.

  The doorknob turned. I clutched the pan, my hand sweating. The door opened. A man walked in … tall and thin. Deathly thin. I stood behind him. I held the pan with both hands like a baseball bat. The man stood motionless, looking at the house. I pulled my arms back and brought them forward. The man turned. I saw his face. I stopped the pan inches from his nose.

  “Dad!” I exclaimed, allowing the pan to fall to the floor as I stared in disbelief.

  “Bria?” His eyes blinked.

  We rushed to each other, holding on so tight it was hard to breathe.

  My father, who had stopped crying when my mother died, sobbed like a baby in my arms. I held him as he said over and over again, “You’re alive, you’re alive. My God, you’re alive.”

  My eyes moistened as I felt his starved body shake in my arms.

  “How did you get here?” I asked softly.

  “I walked,” he said, still holding me as if afraid to let go.

  “You walked? From Washington?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Did you have food or water?” I asked, feeling his spine protrude against his thin back.

  “I drank snow when I could find it,” he said, his speech slow.

  I pulled back and looked at his haggard face, his dull eyes, moist with tears. “And food?”

  He shook his head. “It’s been a while.”

  I cried as I handed him the smoked meat from my coat pocket. He sat on the small bench by the door, slowly eating. The act of eating seemed to exhaust him. His eyelids lowered.

  “When’s the last time you slept?” I asked, kneeling beside him.

  “A few days, since I hit the storm. I was afraid if I stopped I’d freeze to death,” he said, leaning his head against the wall.

  He started to fall asleep.

  “Dad, I’m sorry, but we have to go. The Pages are in trouble. I have to get to them,” I said, holding his hand.

  “The Pages?” I saw the surprise in his deep-set eyes.

  “Yes, I’ve been with them. The light flashed as we were approaching their exit and we met two of their kids, Jonah and East,” I said, pulling my dad to his feet.

  “Charlotte and Quint are okay?” he asked, following behind me as I pulled him out of the house.

  “They were, but I’m not so sure now. We have to go to them,” I said as we reached Talin.

  “Come on. She can carry us both.”

  I helped him up. He held onto my waist. We rode as fast as we could toward the house. My father rested his head on my shoulder and quickly fell asleep. I fought back the tears as I thought of all he had been through to get here.

  How had he known I was here?

  Twenty

  I led Talin into a thicket of trees as we approached the house. The sun was up. There would be no using the cover of night.

  “Dad, wake up,” I said gently as I straightened my back to force him awake.

  He sat up.

  I slid off Talin and tied her loosely to a tree. I petted her nose and leaned my forehead against hers.

  “Pray for me,” I whispered to her.

  My dad got down. He stretched his back.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. The little food and brief rest had made him more alert.

  “I don’t know. They’ve been afraid a neighbor, Mick Jacobson, would attack, and I think he has,” I said, angling closer to the house, my dad following in my tracks.

  “Mick? That kid is bad news,” he said as we reached the edge of the tree line. We couldn’t risk going any closer without being seen.

  “He’s not a kid anymore and he hates the Pages,” I said.

  “Footprints,” my dad said, pointing to tracks that went from the tree line, not far from where we stood, to the house. My heart stopped at the confirmation. Someone had been here watching the house. When I left, I missed them by minutes, maybe seconds. My body shook at the thought. And now there was no sign of them. They must be in the house.

  I forced myself to breathe. I had to stay calm. I had to think.

  “If we get to the barn, we could get closer to the back windows without being seen,” I said.

  Dad nodded, and we began to follow the tree line toward the back of the barn. Once we were far enough back we ran to the barn. It should have blocked us from being seen from the house. We listened and heard only Fulton and the chickens. We loo
ked through the cracks in the wall and saw only the animals. We slid through the door and kept to the side. The front, main barn door was wide open. I hadn’t left it that way.

  I looked around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. We hugged the side, slipping into the stalls so as not to be seen from the opening. We leaned against the wall closest to the house. There were knotholes in the wood large enough to peer through.

  On the snow between the house and barn lay a man. The snow near him was stained red. Jonah’s spear stuck out of his chest.

  “Do you know who that is?” Dad whispered.

  “No,” I said.

  Only a month ago this sight would have made me cry out in fear. Now I felt no fear, only relief that it was not someone I loved.

  Walking in front of me, Dad said, “I’m going to the window to see what’s going on. I’ll signal when it’s safe for you to come.”

  I grabbed his arm. “No, I’m smaller and faster and I’ve eaten in the last week. I’ll go. When I signal to you, try and pull the spear out when you come. We’ll need a weapon.” I took a breath, keeping low and steering wide of the dead man and the direct sight of the window.

  In no time I was against the house. I could hear talking inside, but I could make out no words. I waited. No one came out … the voices didn’t change. I crawled toward the window. When I was directly below it I took a breath and raised my head as little as needed to see in.

  There were three of them. None of them faced my direction. Without turning my head, I waved my hand to signal my dad to come.

  While the sight of the dead man behind me caused me no pain, the sight I now saw made me want to jump from my hiding place and attack. If I died, I died. I did not care.

  My father came up behind me and peered in. The spear, clasped in his right hand, stained the snow red beneath it.

  Jonah was the only one facing the window and he looked only half conscious. He was tied, arms behind him, to a chair, his pale green shirt stained a brownish red, covered in blood that still flowed from a wound in his shoulder. His face, bloodied and swollen, hung down. Blood and saliva were dripping from his mouth. His beard was no longer brown, but a deep red.

  Mick held Quint’s pistol in one hand and Quinn in his other. His fingers curled tightly around her thick black hair. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Mick pointed the gun at her head. The threat of hurting her was how he controlled everyone else. The rest were seated on the floor, near the cold fire. Quint looked badly beaten, as did Josh, East, and Charlotte. Everyone’s hands were tied behind them. Mick limped. The two men with him held rifles pointed at the family. JP sat behind Sara and Blaise at the back of the room. They blocked him from seeing or being seen. Pops was in his chair and Nonie sat beside him on the floor. Eli sat at the front and center of his family. His head was not lowered. He hadn’t been beaten yet.

  “Now what?” one of the men said, his voice muffled through the window glass. He looked as malnourished as my father.

  “What do you mean, now what? Now we take what we want, who we want,” Mick said, his expression smirking, going from East to Sara to Blaise, and then settling on Quinn. “And kill the rest.”

  I shivered as the hatred I felt coursed through my body. I wanted to kill him, to personally kill him.

  “Then what are you waiting for?” a second man, this one larger than Jonah, said.

  Jonah’s head lifted. His eyes were almost swollen shut. He saw me through the small slivers of eyes he had left. My heart ached. He would die if he didn’t get help soon. They would all die if we didn’t do something immediately. There was no reason for Mick not to start shooting the “ones he didn’t want.” It wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen to those he took. My stomach heaved, and I swallowed hard to keep the contents down.

  My dad pulled me down. “I’m going in. You stay out here,” he said.

  “No,” I answered. “We need to draw them out. To get them to split up.”

  He nodded. “I’ll go down to the kitchen door,” he said.

  “I’ll try and signal to Jonah to get them outside,” I said.

  He nodded again, and then looked at me. “Bria, I love you. I’m so sorry for everything. For everything I didn’t do. For your whole life since your mom died—” His voice choked. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know. I forgive you,” I said, touching his gaunt face.

  He blinked the tears back and was gone, crawling toward the kitchen door. Once he passed the large chimney that jutted from the rest of the house, I turned. He could not be seen by anyone now. There were no windows between the door and the chimney.

  I raised my head. Jonah was looking in my direction. Nonie and Pops had been pulled away from the rest of the family. They would be the first to die, old and of no value, in Mick’s disgusting mind.

  I signaled to Jonah, hoping he understood. I held up one finger and pointed toward the back door. I mouthed, “One outside, now.”

  I sank back into the snow and crawled as fast as I could to the kitchen door.

  I heard a sickening thud and Mick scream, “What? What did you see?”

  I reached my father just as the door opened and the largest of the men came barreling out. His gun rose. My father did not hesitate or flinch as the man fired directly at him. He plunged the spear into the man’s abdomen. The man pulled himself off it, blood flowing down his body like a waterfall. He shot at my father again, this time hitting him in the leg. My father did not stop. He rushed forward and thrust the spear into his heart. The man fell, blood pouring from his wounds.

  “You’re shot,” I said, rushing to my dad.

  “I’ll be okay. We need to get inside.” He ripped the shirt off the dying man and tied its blood-soaked fibers tightly around his thigh.

  I walked to the man. His eyes were open but unseeing. I inhaled and pulled the rifle from his clenched hand.

  A shot rang out in the house. Without thinking I ran into the house. Another shot, followed by screaming. My father was behind me, limping as he ran. I stopped at the closed library door. My father ran in front of me, pushing it open. Jonah’s head hung low. Blood poured from a second gunshot wound, this one to his chest. I looked around. Pops’s head hung low in his chair. Sobbing, Nonie covered his body with hers. They were the only adults not tied up. Mick still held Quinn. The barrel of his pistol pointed at her shaking head. My father and I skidded to a stop as he grabbed her and pulled her tightly against his body.

  “Drop the gun,” Mick yelled at me.

  Quinn looked in my eyes. I placed the gun on the ground. Suddenly Quinn’s eyes changed; the fear left and determination took over. I bit my lip, unsure of what she was going to do.

  She raised her foot and stomped it down hard on his foot. When his grip loosened, she turned and punched him hard in the groin. East had trained her, too.

  My father lunged at Mick, pushing him to the ground.

  Quinn screamed and scrambled behind East, who was now standing. With Quinn out of his grasp, everyone was jumping to their feet.

  “Go back to Sara,” East yelled to Quinn, who obeyed immediately.

  The man who looked like an older, thinner version of Mick, fired at me. The bullet scorched my flesh as it tore open my shoulder. I lifted my left hand and felt the groove in my skin. Quint threw his entire body into a tackle that took the man to the floor. Josh and Eli were on their feet, their hands tied, but their feet were free. The man tried to rise. Josh kicked him down. Eli kicked his gun to the back of the room.

  Mick picked himself up. His gun had been knocked from his hands. My father didn’t move from the spot where he’d landed. East side-kicked Mick and he slammed against a bookcase.

  I ran to my father. He was unconscious. I pulled him to the back of the room where he would not be trampled. I caressed his forehead. I looked at Jonah, his head hanging low, blood gushing.

  “Go! We’ll help your dad,” Blaise said as she nodded toward Jonah.

  “He saved me. He saved us,” I said
through tears while holding my dad’s hand.

  “I will take care of him,” Quinn said, taking his hand in her small trembling hands.

  “Thank you,” I said, touching her cheek.

  Charlotte ran out the side door. She returned a moment later, her hands free, carrying several knives from the kitchen. She gave one to JP, who immediately cut Blaise’s hands free and then handed her the knife. Charlotte went to Jonah first. His arms loosened, he fell out of the chair. I screamed and ran to his side. Charlotte and I picked him up and laid him flat on the ground, away from the fighting. The second shot had been close to his heart. He was still alive—barely. I pushed hard on the wound nearest his heart, trying desperately to stop the blood.

  Eli came to his mother, and she cut his hands free. He took the knife and freed Josh’s hands.

  Josh held the knife to the man’s throat. “Sit down and don’t move, or you will die,” Josh said, his teeth clenched.

  Mick was on his feet. East smiled as he came toward her, her hands still tied behind her. She easily dodged his attempt to tackle her and spun, kicking him hard in the back.

  Eli ran behind her and cut the ropes that held her hands.

  “I’m not the child I once was,” she said, anger burning in her eyes.

  “I don’t know. You still look good to me,” he said, his eyes moving up and down her body.

  My stomach heaved. She remained calm. She waited for him to throw a punch. She skillfully blocked it with her right hand, crossed with her left, connecting hard with his jaw.

  I understood now that this was what she’d trained for. What drove her to drive us and herself so hard. She wanted no more victims. For herself to never be a victim again. And now this eighteen-year-old girl was completely dominating this man, who had to have at least a hundred pounds on her.

  “Get ’em, East,” JP yelled from the back of the room as East connected her foot with his side. It was not a fight anymore; there was no competition.

  I turned my attention back to Jonah. Quint had left the room and returned with his vet’s bag. He looked at his father and then at his son.