by A. R. Shaw
Dawn of Deception
Undone, Book 2
A. R. Shaw
Apocalyptic Ventures, LLC
Copyright © 2018 by A. R. Shaw
Apocalyptic Ventures LLC
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For those of you, undone.
Contents
Introduction
1. Sloane
2. Kent
3. Sloane
4. Kent
5. Wren
6. Kent
7. Sloane
8. Boyd
9. Wren
10. Kent
11. Sloane
12. Wren
13. Kent
14. Sloane
15. Wren
16. Kent
17. Sloane
18. Wren
19. Rose
20. Kent
21. Sloane
22. Wren
23. Kent
24. Sloane
25. Wren
26. Kent
27. Sloane
28. Wren
29. Kent
30. Sloane
31. Kent
32. Rose
33. Sloane
34. Rose
35. Sloane
36. Wren
37. Kent
38. Wren
39. Sloane
40. Kent
41. Wren
42. Mae
43. Sloane
44. Kent
45. Wren
46. Sloane
47. Wren
48. Sloane
49. Kent
50. Wren
51. Kent
52. Sloane
53. Wren
54. Kent
55. Sloane
56. Wren
57. Kent
58. Sloane
59. Wren
60. Kent
61. Sloane
62. Jason
63. Wren
64. Kent
65. Sloane
66. Wren
67. Sloane
Afterword
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by A. R. Shaw
But I’ve bought a big bat.
I’m all ready, you see.
Now my troubles are going
to have troubles with me!
* * *
—DR SEUSS
Introduction
“We cannot possibly move back into the big house,” Kent whispered to Sloane after the girls went to bed.
She slipped up onto her right elbow to study him more closely as he lay next to her on the old mattress they’d hauled in from the big house, as they called it now. A log settled in the old woodstove in the corner of the cabin, cascading sparks like glowing leapfrogs. “You’re still afraid. You’re afraid of the house.”
“I am not. I just mean it’s…drafty. Harder to heat than this old cabin. We’ll waste our time trying to find dry wood to burn. This wet wood takes forever to dry out as it is. That’s a big risk.”
The right edge of her mouth lifted slightly as she shook her head at him. The long lengths of her hair shimmied over her bare shoulder.
“I mean it. It’s just a logical decision. We use fewer resources in here. All the wood’s wet and takes too damn long to dry out before we use it, or else it smokes too much. Think of how much harder it will be doubling that effort.”
“We’re tripping over each other in here,” she whispered with a raised eyebrow. “We can board off a few rooms on the main floor. We’d have more…privacy.”
He smiled then…more with his eyes than his lips, now partially covered with a graying blond beard. He’d run out of blades a few months ago and scavenging for razors seemed like a silly endeavor when what they were in constant need of was food. As it was, she and her oldest daughter, Wren, shared the same lady razor for their legs and underarms. Sloane had taken to very carefully sharpening the delicate edges a few swipes along the unglazed strip of a mug’s bottom she’d found in the kitchen cupboard. The process wore away a tiny bit of the metal each time she did this. It was a temporary fix until they found another razor. Sloane couldn’t take the stubbly feeling for more than a few days at a time. Especially when she and Kent found the time for privacy.
“We seem to…make it happen…often enough,” he said and ran his hand up her thigh and then leaned in. “Hey, remember that time…” his voice lowered and became gravelly as he spoke.
“We…can…hear…you!” Wren said sternly from the other side of the cabin.
“Get a room!” Mae said as Nicole giggled.
Kent’s hand lifted straight up several inches, hovering there. The part of his cheeks not covered in a beard turned a rosy color.
Sloane grinned from ear to ear as if to say…told you so.
1
Sloane
“What happened?” Wren yelled through the torrent, turning to her mother with frightened eyes. Her dark hair was plastered to the sides of her face in ringlets, drenched, dripping down the wavy locks like a decorative rain chain.
“Keep moving, Wren,” Sloan implored her daughter, out of breath and out of patience.
“Wait! We have to go back for them.”
“We will. I’m not leaving them.”
Her oldest daughter stopped again, abruptly, right in the middle of their escape path.
“Wren, keep moving. They’re right behind us.”
“No, Mom! We have to go back!”
“This is not the time to challenge me, Wren. Move, or I will drag you myself. This is the plan. They will meet us there. If they don’t show up…we go to plan B.”
More than just the rain marred the river streams down Wren’s face.
“This is the way we planned our escape in this contingency. Kent knows this. In an emergency…this is the plan, Wren.” As she said the words it felt as if she was trying to convince herself as much as her daughter.
Wren opened her mouth to say something. Sloane predicted the pending protest by the way she’d set her dark eyes on her…that distasteful…I hate you, Mother look. She’d grown accustomed to the expression too much lately. Even during the apocalypse, the mother/daughter struggle continued. Why wasn’t there a reprieve during the end of the world? Give me a freaking break, Wren. Now is a good time to do what I say. Sloane got ready to say those words when suddenly a loud bang interrupted her thought process and as a reaction, she grabbed her despondent daughter and threw her to the sodden forest ground, shielding her child with her own body.
“Where did that come from?” Wren said.
“Not the time, Wren.”
“But that shot sounded like it came from the cabin.”
Sloane didn’t hear the last words. She heard nothing now. In a crouch, she pushed Wren behind a large evergreen tree trunk, one with deep crevices between the chestnut rivers.
Wren spoke words, but Sloane no longer heard her daughter. Pinning Wren’s left shoulder against the tree trunk to keep her there, she peeked around the neighboring ferns back the way they’d come. No other shots were heard. Besides her daughter’s babbling, there were no other noises. Even the birds and insects suddenly gave way to silence. No one followed them that she detected.
“Mom!”
Sloane’s eyes darted around in a three-sixty. If they headed south, the beach access exposed them too much. Going north meant a long upward hike, but if they hiked around and skirted the old house they’d make the contingent meet-up safe house faster. Problem was, the shots came from that location. What if Kent and the littl
e girls were caught? Please, please, let them make it. Maybe it was a warning shot? Coast is clear? No, that wasn’t even his gun.
“Mom!” Wren yelled and that’s when Sloane suddenly found herself, shortly after, supporting her own weight on her ass and elbows after Wren had shoved her by the shoulders away from her. She forgot Wren had ten pounds and two inches on her own slight frame now.
Wren’s expression told her what she was thinking: Oh crap…what have I done?
“Don’t…you…ever!” Sloane began to say, but another shot rang out and this time bark flew from the side of the tree where her daughter’s head leaned. A high-pitched ringing was all she heard.
In one unconscious move, Sloane threw herself from her position, grabbed Wren by the jacket and shoved her in front of her at a run.
This time, Wren didn’t say anything. She didn’t look back. She didn’t complain or protest. Apparently rounds fired near her head were a great motivator.
Sloane noted the complied reaction with a warped sense of humor. No amount of yelling, reasoning, compromising, but bullets…yep, bullets seemed to get her daughter’s attention.
This was what Sloane thought as her daughter held her head down, running through the damp forest with her mother’s tethered grip upon her. Sloane’s right hand held the Glock from the side harness on her thigh. She held the weapon out with demon eyes, watching behind them as they escaped through the forested landscape passing at a green blur. Someone had spotted them. Someone had shot near her daughter. Someone would pay.
2
Kent
“See, if you step on the moss, your feet only whisper,” Nicole mused as her sneakers sought the next hairy green bed.
“Just avoid the twigs,” Mae said. “It’s crazy how everything is growing back so quickly after the tsunami destroyed it all.”
“It’s a little-known fact that moss is actually troll poo…watch where you put your hands,” Kent said as both girls went, “Eww…”
Proud of himself, Kent reached for another wet fallen branch to add to the stack already in his arms. This stuff would take forever to dry out. Hairy troll poo grew on everything, even the downed dead stuff. The girls chattered nearby, contemplating the validity of his words. He’d never had children of his own, but his heart pulled when he thought of the three girls. In such a short time, he and Sloane had become closer than any other relationship he’d dared to try in the past. As a doctor, he knew the desire he felt for her was a survival mechanism. A biological thing…procreate in a time of crisis kind of thing. Sloane couldn’t have more children, but he didn’t mind trying anyway. Even the mere mention of her in his unconscious mind made his body jerk in longing for her naked body next to his.
“Blah…let’s get going, girls. I’ve got enough for the smoke signal tonight. Grab your piles, let’s head b…”
He turned with his arms full and froze suddenly.
“Wha…” Mae began to say when he struggled with the load and held up a hand, suddenly cutting her off.
Bending down, he carefully laid the logs on the ground without making much sound and backed up into the tree line where the girls stood with wide eyes, in fear of moving.
He reached for their small hands in his trembling palms and led them quietly, like mice, farther into the deep thicket, hoping for dusky shadows to hide all traces.
The men below were invading their sanctuary. Crouching with weapons out. Extra loaded magazines affixed to their belts. One spoke softly into the side of his shoulder as they’d kicked open the cabin door. The others silently wide-stepped a perimeter, slicing the pie around the building’s corners.
Something in his chest pounded out of control, so much, he feared the slamming sound might expose their location. Sloane and Wren? They were farther west looking for those mushrooms that sometimes grew near the trunks of trees. The ones they sautéed in canola oil with salt…the pretend butter. They’d follow the plan. That’s what Sloane would do. She was stronger that way. That’s what she’d expect him to do, too. Then suddenly rounds were fired, exploding the silence near their cabin below. The sound was so deafening he and the girls crouched to the ground in reaction.
He turned his head to see the valley and watched as Ace ran like hell toward Cannon Beach. One of the soldiers, raised his rifle again, trailing a second aim at the dog.
No, no, no...run, Ace!
An arm appeared then, from the cabin doorway, and pushed the threat away.
Ace was long gone.
Kent cared less now about the silent getaway and pulled the girls hastily up the forested embankment and deeper into darkness.
When we get there…she and Wren will be waiting.
But half a mile of hills and dales of the forest floor another shot rang out, and this time Kent knew instinctively it wasn’t Ace they were shooting at.
3
Sloane
A bee sting hit the back of Sloane’s left calf muscle. She knew it wasn’t a bee sting, but that’s what the bite felt like as she sucked in a quick breath. Later, she wondered why she’d never heard the shots that pulled her down. “Wren, run!” she yelled but a second bullet hit her in the upper thigh, spilling her to the ground. Her outstretched hands hit the ground in front of her. Her left palm skinned and buckled over a tree root on the ground. From her right hand, her Glock flew a few feet in front of her. Scrambling for the weapon, despite the sharp pain, she watched the back of Wren’s muted flannel shirt fade in the distance and heard pounding steps descending upon her.
“Don’t even think about it,” the man’s voice said as she lay on her stomach, her arms outstretched. She looked away from her daughter in hopes of keeping her safe. Hoping they didn’t see Wren at all. She flipped over to further incite their attention away from her escaping daughter.
“Why?” she yelled with her eyes wide. Then…she suddenly understood. As soon as her eyes landed on him…that sadistic smile, all the questions of who was behind their pursuit were answered.
Their arms and weapons jumped slightly. “Put your hands behind your back. Now!”
“Lieutenant Hyde.” She had to spit out his name. Something about the man she’d encountered on Horseshoe Drive all those long months ago turned her stomach. She thought they were free…she thought wrong.
Without a word of greeting he nodded to another soldier aiming a rifle at her head. The soldier flipped the rifle around suddenly like a baton and slammed the stock end into the side of her temple.
Darkness and stars caved in her vision. She could fight the men. There was no fighting the dark depths, but before Sloane lost all vestiges of consciousness a nearby handheld radio flickered to life with static.
A hoarse voice shouted over a familiar voice’s screams. “Tell Hyde I’ve got the girl.”
4
Kent
The loud shot hit him in the gut like a sledgehammer. “Sloane.” The reverberating echoes of the second explosion barely registered in his mind.
“What’s going on?” Mae whispered…always the inquisitive one. “It’s been hours since we saw them.”
“I don’t know but we have to stick to the plan. Come on,” he said and continued to pull, coax and drag Nicole and Mae through the wet forest.
Wren…was the second shot for her? Unlike Sloane, he didn’t think so, but who was he kidding? They might both be dead right now. Getting the littles to safety was his only mission now. That’s what Sloane would want him to do. Then, later…he’d find out what happened to Sloane and Wren, but not before. First, get the littles to safety.
The sun, having nearly abandoned them to dusk, left barely any light when he heard a sound crashing through the brush. They sank immediately to their knees. The damp cold seeped in through blooming circles at the knees in their denim jeans and they had at least another hour to go through the dark.
Nicole’s hand shook in his. Her entire slight frame wracked with uncontrollable shivers.
Then the eyes appeared, glowing, and the brush moved a
s if something beelined toward them in the dead of night, only it was mere early evening. The sudden musky, damp odor relaxed him instead of alarmed him, though. It was Ace coming to greet them, through the woods.
“Hi there, you mangy mutt. Why aren’t you with Sloane?” Kent said as the wet dog brushed up against him, furry wet tail slapping against his thigh. Kent ran his hands over the dog’s fur quickly, instinctively, checking him out for injuries. Finding nothing in the dark, relief washed over him. One less family member to worry about. He was Sloane’s dog. Everyone knew that. He usually followed her around everywhere, constantly by her side. He wasn’t exactly jealous of Ace but he resented the dog’s connection to her somehow. The only other male in the family and he chose Sloane as his alpha. Just didn’t seem right to him.
