by Harley Tate
Colt was unfettered. “You have my word.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“You’ll have to trust me.”
Ben fell silent.
I’m getting through to him. Colt turned enough to catch Ben’s eye. “I think what you’re doing here is noble. If we’d met under different circumstances, we might have become allies.”
“Walter said the same thing.”
“Walter’s a good man.” Colt almost had him. A little more talking and Ben would come around. He opened his mouth to push harder when an unmistakable sound pierced the air.
A single gunshot.
Colt spun around in time to see Dani hit the ground. “No!” His shout boomed through the farm and Colt took off, running to reach her. Three feet away, something slammed against his right knee and it buckled.
He fell forward, arms outstretched. His chest hit the ground and bits of snow pelted his face. Dani turned her head toward his. Blood tinged the snow around her torso.
She blinked.
Colt rose up. A boot shoved him back down. A gun barrel smashed into his temple.
“You so much as blink and I’ll put a hole through your skull.”
“You bastards. She didn’t do anything to you. She didn’t deserve this.” Colt stared at Dani.
“I’m sorry, Colt. I tried to stop them.” Larkin’s voice, laced with pain, called out from the other side of the farm. Colt twisted his head. Larkin stood on the edge of the light, clutching his stomach. A man pointed a rifle straight at his head.
Colt turned back to Dani. Her face paled by the second. He was losing her. After everything they had been through together. After all the struggles, he was going to watch her die in the middle of a stranger’s farm. And for what?
No. He wasn’t going to let that happen. “Larkin?”
“Yeah?”
“You remember the movie they always played on Friday nights at Reed?”
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”
“How’s it end again?” Colt didn’t wait for Larkin to answer. Instead he channeled all his strength, all his anger, all the pent-up rage of living for nine months in the apocalypse, and flipped himself over. Ben stumbled back from the force of it and Colt lunged, jumping up like a tiger on the attack. He grabbed for the shotgun as it discharged.
A handful of bird shot ripped holes in his jacket arm, but most of it flew wide. Larkin fought his own war on the other side of the farm, shouting and carrying on. Another gun discharged. Colt didn’t have time to look.
He yanked harder on the shotgun, but Ben refused to let go.
Twisting around, the bigger man pressed the gun straight into Colt’s heart. “Give me a reason.”
Colt opened his mouth to give him plenty when headlights lit up the entire place. A truck roared down the drive and stopped just short of the clearing. Colt scanned the area for Larkin. His friend was on the ground, zip ties around his wrists and ankles.
Damn it.
He turned to Dani. She was still sprawled in the snow, eyes wide, mouth open. Come on, give me something. Colt willed her to move. A twitch, a flutter of a finger. Anything.
He held his breath. She blinked.
Colt bit back a sob. Dani was still alive. He rose up. “She needs help. She’s going to bleed out while you stand there with your thumb up your ass.”
Ben pushed him back down with a nudge of the barrel against his shoulder. “Get down or you join her.”
Shouts erupted from the other side of the farm. Colt flipped his head over.
“We caught two of them in the hospital.” A man fireman-carried a smaller person toward the scene in the snow. He stopped ten feet from Ben. “What the hell?”
“We’ve had a bit of a disturbance here, too.”
“Where should I put her?”
“In the stable. We’ll keep them all there overnight.”
The man carrying the unconscious woman took off, cutting through the space between Larkin and Colt. A shock of blonde curls flopped against his back as he headed toward the barn. It can’t be.
Colt twisted back the other way. Crap. There was no mistaking that unruly hair. Brianna was one of the women. But who was the other?
The second man followed, carrying a woman with a bandage wrapped around her upper arm. It was soaked in blood. Oh, no. Colt couldn’t believe it. What were they doing in the hospital?
He had to alert Walter. With a deep breath, Colt began to shout. “Walter! Walter Sloane! Walter!”
Ben kicked him in the side, but he kept shouting. “Walter!”
“Tracy!” Walter’s voice rose above the din. “What the hell?” His feet ran past Colt. “Put her down. That’s my wife!”
Ben bellowed toward the barn. “Stand down!”
Walter kept running.
A gunshot cracked in the night. “Stop running or I’ll shoot him.”
Walter slowed, his eyes darting between Colt and Dani on the ground and Tracy still dangling unconscious from the man’s shoulder. He shook his head, unable to make sense of it. “That’s my wife Daniel’s carrying. What happened to her?”
“She was found somewhere she didn’t belong.”
“Then she had a damn good reason.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it. But for now, she goes in the stable.”
Walter argued and Colt tuned him out. Dani needed him. He turned back and her eyelids fluttered. Stay with me, sweetheart. Stay with me. Colt reached out a hand.
Her lips were blue.
He touched her cheek. Cool and clammy.
She closed her eyes.
No! He couldn’t bear it. Forget the kids he’d seen earlier. Forget all the people on the farm he didn’t even know. They let the best person he’d ever met suffer while they bickered like children. No more.
It didn’t matter if Walter thought they could be allies. It didn’t matter if Colt didn’t make it out alive. Dani meant more to him than another sunrise.
He would avenge this injustice and she would make it out of there alive. He would take these people straight with him to hell. He dug one knee into the snow and pushed up to stand.
“Christ. Not you again.”
Colt turned, ready to take Ben out with all his fury. A crack lit his ear on fire.
He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WALTER
Jacobson Family Farmhouse
Near Truckee, CA
7:00 a.m.
Walter stared at the unconscious form of his wife. Her hair dusted the snow as the son of bitch who carried her stomped toward the barn. The scene before him was straight out of some of their worst days after the EMP.
Dani bleeding all over the ground. Colt unconscious beside her. Larkin hog tied and furious. Brianna and Tracy dangling like sacks of potatoes from strangers’ shoulders. Walter clenched his fists and fought back a rising swell of rage.
It boiled and thickened in his gut, burning through his resolve and patience. When Ben walked into the storage room he’d woken up in and explained his position, Walter had been calm. Agreeable, even. He’d gone along with the decision to bring him to the farm where they could confirm his veracity.
But standing out in the freezing temperatures, shaking not from the cold but from pure fury… It did things to a man.
Bad things.
Walter turned to Ben. “My wife needs medical attention. She’s bleeding through an Israeli bandage on her arm.”
Ben nodded to Daniel. “Is that true?”
“She’s been shot.”
Walter seethed. “Dani is unconscious. If she dies, I can’t control what happens next.” He glanced at Colt. “The man you caught will be the least of your problems.”
“Are you insinuating more of your people will come?”
“Damn straight.” Larkin spat on the ground. “And they won’t be so hospitable.”
Ben’s nostrils flared. “Take the injured women to the medical facility. The o
ther one can go with the men to the stables.”
Craig hurried up to Dani and scooped her body into his arms. She flopped like a rag doll as he double-timed it out of sight.
Walter swallowed. “I need to be with my wife.”
Ben thought it over, glancing between him, Larkin, and Colt, still unconscious on the ground. “All right.”
Walter turned and followed Daniel around the stable to a building he’d never seen. Made of concrete block painted brown, it hugged the slope of the land up into the foothills at the rear of the farm.
Daniel shifted Tracy’s weight and knocked on the door. It opened a moment later. A woman Walter didn’t know ushered them inside.
“Take her to the triage area. The other girl is in the main room.”
Walter glanced around. The place was set up like a small family doctor. Desk, cabinets for supplies, a cot in the corner, and a swinging door to a room beyond. They had spent more time outfitting this place than the barn.
Must expect a lot of injuries.
Walter waited as Daniel carried Tracy to the cot and laid her down. Only then did he approach. Oh, Tracy. He reached out and pulled her hair off her face, revealing a swollen, purple bruise on her temple. Bastards.
Her left arm dangled off the side of the cot and Walter picked it up. The bandage was soaked with blood. He didn’t know how long he stood there, cradling his wife’s arm and willing her to wake up, but his legs grew stiff and his back ached when he moved.
“Excuse me.” The voice made him jump. “I need to check her vitals.” The same woman who let them inside eased between him and his wife.
“I’m her husband.”
She nodded and placed the stethoscope on Tracy’s chest. “I’m Heather. Before everything fell apart, I was a nurse practitioner.” She moved the stethoscope around, listening. “Your wife’s breathing is normal. That’s a good sign.”
Walter stepped back and let her do her job, checking temperature and pupil dilation before inspecting the bandage. “Craig said it was most likely a 9mm. With this much blood, probably a through-and-through, but I’ll need to take the bandage off to be sure.”
“How’s Dani?”
“The other girl?” Heather hesitated. “She’s touch and go. Heart rate is steady, but weak. She lost a fair amount of blood. But the bullet missed the femoral by a few inches. She’s lucky.”
Walter snorted. “Not what I would call it.”
Heather’s lips thinned. “It will take a while for her body to replenish all the blood she lost. We’re not equipped for transfusions here.”
“But she’ll live?”
“Probably.”
Walter rubbed his face. He needed to find Colt and tell him the good news. “And my wife?”
“She’ll be fine. If the bleeding has stopped, we’ll need to bandage the wound but leave it open to drain.”
“Otherwise infection will set in.”
Heather softened. “Exactly. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
Walter stepped back and let Heather set to work cutting the bandage off Tracy’s arm and cleaning the wound. The door opened behind him and Walter turned around.
Ben Jacobson. Walter frowned. The man was a conundrum. On the one hand, he let Walter stay at the farm free and unencumbered. On the other hand, he wouldn’t let him leave. With Colt, Dani, and Larkin showing up and attempting a forcible rescue, Walter wasn’t sure what would happen next.
But first, they would have some words. He stepped forward. “What on earth is going on here?”
Ben’s eyes narrowed, deepening the wrinkles in the corners. “You tell me.”
“I’ve cooperated with you the entire time I’ve been here. Hell, even before that when I woke up zip-tied in a root cellar.”
“We didn’t know who you were or if you were trustworthy.”
Walter stood his ground. “The only proof I have that your men didn’t shoot me is your word.”
Ben exhaled and rubbed the short hairs on his chin. “I told you the truth. We found you out there, face-first in the snow. We thought you were alone.”
“And when I told you I wasn’t, you should have let me leave.”
With heavy steps, Ben closed the distance between them, his eyes roaming past Walter to Heather and Tracy still unconscious on the gurney. “We take our safety extremely seriously.”
Walter clenched a fist in frustration. “You’ve got to give me more than that. I thought you were interested in forming a friendship.”
“This doesn’t look like friendship.”
“Neither does shooting my wife.”
Ben took the criticism in stride, walking over to the bank of cabinets and back again. They were at a stalemate and both men knew it.
Walter offered the first branch. “I appreciate you rescuing me from the snow and the rehab Heather has done to my shoulder, but what happened tonight isn’t okay.” He paused to choose his words carefully. “I told you my family would be looking for me.”
“Your wife wasn’t looking for you.”
Walter blinked. “What are you talking about? She was at the hospital, searching for me.”
Ben shook his head. “She wasn’t looking for you. She broke into the pharmacy at the hospital. She was looking for drugs.”
Walter staggered back. It didn’t make sense. “The pharmacy? What do you have to do with it?”
Ben rubbed the back of his neck, debating what to say.
Walter pressed him. “I deserve the truth. My wife is shot. Dani might as well be family and she could die.”
At last, Ben conceded. “We control the pharmacy. It was one of the first things we did.”
“I don’t understand.” Walter squinted like he couldn’t see. “Are you drug runners?”
“No. We’re maintaining the medicine supply for when the country gets back on its feet.”
Walter reeled. All this time there had been an intact pharmacy in the middle of town and he’d never known. They had avoided the hospital because they knew it was hopeless. He thought back to Chico State and the disaster they confronted there only a few days after the EMP. Every broken and destroyed pharmacy they drove past on their way to Truckee. The riots in Sacramento.
And here this collection of families were holding down an entire hospital pharmacy just for safekeeping. He didn’t know whether to laugh or punch Ben in the face. But none of it had anything to do with Tracy.
“So why was my wife there?”
Ben rolled his eyes. “According to Daniel, she claimed to be looking for a rabies vaccine.”
Walter’s stomach lurched. “What for?”
“She said your daughter was infected. But we know that’s a lie.”
Walter swallowed flecks of spit. “You do?”
Ben snorted. “Of course. She looks just fine.”
“Madison is here?” Walter surged forward. “Where? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You saw her. She was carted in with your wife.” Ben stared at him like he’d confessed to being an alien. “The blonde,” he waved at his head, “with the hair.”
The pit in Walter’s stomach opened and he fought the urge to strangle Ben with his bare hands. “That’s not my daughter. That’s Brianna. Her family owns the farm we live at.” He cupped the back of his head and tried not to panic. “Madison is my daughter. Brown hair, my nose, same coloring as her mother.”
Ben stared at him, his expression grim.
“I take it she’s not here.”
Ben strode over to Heather who still worked patiently by Tracy’s side. While Walter and Ben talked, she had removed the bandage and cleaned the wound.
“How is she?”
“Not bad. The girl did a good job securing the bandage. Minimal blood loss. With a round of antibiotics, the wound should heal just fine.” She glanced at Walter with an apologetic smile. “She might have a scar.”
Ben nodded. “And the other one?”
Heather’s smile faded. “Touch and go.”
He turned back to Walter. “Stay here with your wife. I’ll be back soon.”
“Where are you going?”
“To figure out what to do.” Ben pushed the door open, leaving a rush of cold in his wake.
Walter turned back to his wife. Brown hair fading into gray at the temples. Skin hardened by a year working in the fields. Hands covered in calluses. Even unconscious, she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
He would stay by her side until she woke up and told him about their daughter. He glanced at Heather. “Looks like I’m here for a while. What can I do to help?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
COLT
Unidentified Farm
Near Truckee, CA
12:00 p.m.
Between the horse crap caking his boots and the epic fail of a rescue mission, Colt had stepped in it every way possible. He pounded his fist into his palm and kept pacing.
He woke up an hour ago, sprawled out on a stack of hay bales in a stable. With whinnying horses on his left and bleating sheep on his right, he’d fit right in. A caged animal just waiting for his chance to strike.
Larkin was unaccounted for, Tracy, Brianna, and Walter were nowhere to be seen, and Dani could be dead by now. If any of them ended up dying because of him…
Colt shook his head. He should have taken the leader out when he had the chance. The sight of those kids had turned him soft. Weak. He pressed his fingers to his eyelids.
“Hello? Is anyone in here? Hello?”
Colt lifted his head. He recognized that voice. “Brianna? Is that you?”
“Colt? What are you doing here?” Something rattled down the barn. “Where is here?”
He snorted. “If you couldn’t tell, we’re at a farm.”
“I guessed that by the smell.”
“And the shit.” A man’s voice called out from opposite Colt’s stall. “Don’t forget that.”
“Larkin?”
“The one and only.”
Colt strode to the front of the stable and gripped the wood gate. Brianna’s curls stuck through the posts three stables down and Larkin’s hands dangled out from the one straight across. “Are we the only ones here?”
