by Angela White
Daniel handed the old woman a pouch with a two-day meal kit, and the kids rifled through it furiously for anything they could eat cold.
The kids ruined some of it, and the old woman ignored them as the fighters expressed their disapproval.
“Why are you out here with these kids?” Jacob demanded, tossing his last two biscuits toward the filthy urchins. “You clearly can’t take care of them.”
Grammie only said, “Their mother took off. Been gone for years. Got a letter last month saying she was in Lincoln and wanted ‘em.”
A dependable mother would have come for them herself once she had a new life built, David thought.
Alexa raised a brow and the blacksmith shook his head. “Nothing wrong, being judgmental.”
“Would you care to share your opinion with the rest of us?”
David didn’t pull any punches. “They’ll all be dead long before Lincoln.”
“Agreed.”
The old woman didn’t respond. It appeared she’d already fallen asleep.
The kids crawled into a corner with the food and wolfed it down before falling into a pile of bruised limbs and huge yawns. Their snores filled the room. The old woman never budged.
3
“More coming this way,” Daniel commented a few minutes later. He was already weary of other people, though they’d only recently made contact.
Everyone waited again as the door opened.
Merrik paused in the doorframe. “Comin’ in.”
“Nice and easy.”
Alexa’s voice was a surprise to the Captain and his men, but to their credit, no one fired. They were all hoping she’d already gone on ahead or been killed.
“Light us up.”
Edward quickly lit the stove so the two groups could stare at each other. Alexa’s men were spread out, guns in hand. Merrik’s men were clustered in the doorway, perfect targets.
“Can we help you?” Alexa asked evenly.
Merrik took a step into the room, trying to act like he hadn’t been caught off guard. “Thought you’d be long gone.”
Alexa’s tone was cold. “Not until I get what I came for.”
“And what is that?”
“You, of course,” she answered promptly. “The rebellion still whispers of you in loathing for your crimes at the refugee site.”
Alexa recognized the guilt in Merrik’s silence and on his face, and pushed harder. “I see you recall that day as well. The price on your head is entry to Port City.”
Merrik’s men muttered over the reward. Port City was a small haven on the east coast where almost normal life continued, and getting in as a resident was nearly impossible.
The silence spoke volumes.
“Do you hear that?” Alexa taunted. “It’s the sound of your men wondering if they can find a way to collect that bounty.”
“My men are loyal, those still alive,” Merrik refuted after a pause. “We’re just clearing the buildings out. We didn’t come for you.”
Alexa didn’t put her gun away. “I can’t say the same, but this den is obviously taken.”
Merrik continued to backtrack. “I get that.”
“Then get gone.”
Merrik glared at Paul as he exited. “Your payment will come for Zale. The government will hunt you down.”
Paul surprised them all by responding harshly, “They already have been, you bunker baby. Get a clue.”
“First impressions aren’t always right,” Mark commented as Merrik stopped to argue. “Upon first sigh, I thought you were a man to beware of, but you’re really just a yapper humping our ankles.”
Merrik flushed, face flashing violence, and Mark grinned coldly. “Oh, yeah. Do it. Please.”
Merrik abruptly left during the snickers, taking his men with him.
“They’re not done,” David warned.
“Yes.” Alexa stood by the fire. “And when the rains come, he’ll miss the men we’re going to kill.”
“When will Mark get here?” Paul asked the question none of the other men wanted to hear. They already knew it.
“When he completes his chore.”
“What is he doing?”
“Giving us the advantage,” Alexa answered.
Merrik and ten of his men gathered on the far side of the outpost, plotting. When they thought they were ready, Merrik led them back to their deaths.
“Around the rear,” Merrik instructed, pointing to people. “You, cover the window. You two, front door!”
Three soldiers dashed around the back as two kicked the wooden door open.
“Come out or we’ll shoot!”
“Behind you!” Alexa taunted.
They spun to find Alexa in the corn behind them. A few men darted for cover. One panicked soldier raised his gun.
Lined up three on each side, Alexa’s men didn’t hesitate to fire.
Merrik ducked at the well-aimed bullets flying through his team of soldiers, and he darted toward safety with the sound of Alexa’s Colts thundering in his ears.
4
Merrik slammed the door on the warehouse, panting nervously. He’d slipped to the side and made it here, but if Alexa came for him, he had little to stop her with. This station wasn’t stocked at all.
He whirled around as the door opened, but it was three of his own men back from their rotating patrol, and he stopped himself from firing.
“Boss! They’re all dead!”
Merrik swore. “How many men are still out on patrol?”
Five,” Corporal Scott answered slowly, eyes still as crossed now as they had been at birth. “But there’s another problem.”
Merrik glowered, not ready for any more bad tidings. “What now?”
“We...uh...can’t find Brian.”
Merrik’s face flushed a dark red. “You lost him last night?! Damn you to hell!”
Merrik wrenched the door open and stomped to Alexa’s shelter with hatred in his heart and betrayal in his thick mind.
Alexa and her men were still standing outside and she flashed a sickly grimace. “Feels bad, doesn’t it? Being out of control of someone’s life when they’re important.”
Merrik drew up, catching the warning, but he couldn’t stop the shout. “Where is he?!”
Alexa thumbed toward corn that surrounded them so menacingly. “Out there.”
“Why did you take him?!”
Alexa was quickly tiring of the noise. “To control you, of course.” She raised a brow. “Unless you want him dead now and I can save us all the trouble.”
Merrik slowly realized that if he killed her, Brian would also die.
“What do you want?” he snarled in a lower tone.
“The same as everyone else here. To get through the Killin’ Fields to Lincoln and then go my own way.”
Merrik wasn’t able to keep from giving away his interest and he chose to ask what he wanted to know. According to legend, her type didn’t use lies.
“What’s your business in Lincoln?”
“Roscoe.”
Merrik clearly wasn’t expecting that. He started to warn her off and Alexa began laying her trap. “I have something that belongs to him.”
Now Merrik was more than interested and he thought quickly, trying to plan it out to his advantage.
Alexa wasn’t about to give him time to do that until after they had a deal in place. “Safe passage until we reach Lincoln and Roscoe. Agreed?”
Merrik had little choice since the wagons were going to Roscoe anyway, and he gave a curt nod. “Fine. Bring him in.”
Alexa laughed. “Not on my life, Captain. You’ll get him when I reach Lincoln, so you can’t try to steal what I have and give it to Roscoe yourself for the reward.”
Merrik started to argue again and Alexa flashed that cold, killer’s gaze his way.
He paused. “…what reward are you claiming?”
Alexa laid the final bait. “A Port City pass, same as the bounty on your head. I’d imagine that if you made it ther
e with a pass, they’d have to rescind that bounty and clear your name.”
“You’d give me your pass?”
Alexa nodded this time. “I would, but with something done for me after I hand it to you. You’ll kill someone for me. Then we’ll be even.”
Merrik wasn’t sure if it was a trick or not, but figured he could always grab her after he got the pass. “Who am I killing?”
“I haven’t met them yet,” Alexa explained honestly.
Merrik didn’t care either way and he gave in. “Fine, but if you chicken out, I’ll go AWOL and hunt you down.”
“As much as I love a challenge, I’m already on a quest and that would interfere,” she answered coolly. “I’ll keep my word. You do the same.”
Merrik left, taking his men along. He needed to spend some time thinking about how she might be tricking him and about how he could do the same to her. He wanted the pass, but he also wanted the government reward for bringing Alexa in. Between the two, the government bounty was by far more generous. Brian, he didn’t care for at all. The boy was a means to an end. What the government wanted him for, Merrik didn’t know.
“Clean this mess up!” Merrik ordered, ignoring the ugly glares of his men. He’d just had a shootout and lost, and had to go begging. It wasn’t sitting well with them. He didn’t stay to help them clean.
5
Alexa and her men returned to the storeroom and found two more people there than when they’d slipped out the window to wait outside for Merrik.
“Very nice,” Alexa gave a wave of pleasure.
Mark glowed at the praise. Next to him was Brian, bound and gagged, glaring defensively.
“Now, my reward, if you please,” Mark joked.
Alexa took him seriously. “What would you have, convict?”
“Don’t sleep with Paul tonight,” Mark forced out nervously.
Paul moaned in protest, but Alexa was glad. “Done.” She hated the way he smelled. It would be a relief to be away from it.
Mark smiled, not expecting the reward, and the other men gave him appreciation looks and gestures. None of them had been okay with it.
Alexa sat in front of Brian, noting that Mark’s secondary ropes were on him. She removed the gag, but not the binds.
Face-to-face with the legend herself, Brian’s choice became easier, but not the agony involved in reaching it. He wanted to rail at her, to scream and accuse. He also wanted to hug her.
Alexa understood she was familiar to him, but not why. She didn’t ask yet, preferring to figure it out for herself. Right now, she had other, more important questions. She leaned in and sent a powerful blast of her scent into his face.
He recoiled from the super-sweet odor, and then betrayed himself by inhaling repeatedly until the cloud had dissipated.
Behind them, her men exchanged glances of pity. They knew what an accidental gust of her scent could do.
“Who runs the government now, Brian?”
“No one knows,” Brian answered, face against the cool wall of the barn. “We haven’t seen him in a year.”
“You were given paper orders?”
“Always. Only the commanding officers of each unit had access to leadership.”
“How many bunkers are still holding?”
Brian growled at her, at the voices in his head and the feelings rushing through his body.
Alexa placed a comforting hand on his brow and froze.
Brian shuddered, trying to fight the invasion of his mind, and Alexa drew back, took the exit. “Interesting.”
Brian flushed, and she leaned in again. “Why are you so green?”
“I just got out,” he whined defensively, still fighting the lure of her scent as it swirled over him. “I’m in training.”
“Where have you been since the war?”
“Underground,” he relied moodily. “I tried to leave a few times. They didn’t want that.”
“I assume Merrik doesn’t trust his employers,” Alexa noted. “Is that why he protects wagons trains of supplies for Roscoe?”
“Those aren’t supplies, it’s…” Brian snapped his mouth shut.
“Weapons,” Alexa finished. “Roscoe plans to fight the government.”
“I don’t know who he wants it for,” Brian said sullenly. “No one does.”
“Why would anyone want you?” Paul interrupted. He hated Brian on sight. The boy had gifts, Paul could feel that, and it meant Alexa knew that as well.
Brian didn’t want to answer, but when Alexa stood up, he scrambled away, panicking. “I escaped them both!”
Alexa jealously relished the moments when her instinct was proven right. She’d heard about escapes from bunkers and had guessed she might find a hostage to bargain with. That wasn’t what she preferred, but if it would get the job done, in the end, that was what mattered. In this case, her intuition had provided them with a dangerous addition to their already formidable strength.
“Don’t you want to know why?” Brian asked snottily.
“I recognize my own kind,” Alexa gave back just as rudely.
Outside, rain began to fall.
With her scent swarming, Brian couldn’t keep up the act and his shoulders slumped. “Got a smoke?”
Brian’s filthy fatigues and dirt-layered blond hair said he’d spent an uncomfortable night with Mark. Noting the slightly yellowed fingertips, she held out her pouch of tobacco. “Roll two.”
Brian took it slowly, being careful not to let their skin touch. It was hard to believe he’d found her. Hearing stories of Alexa and her infamous father were one thing. Being within a foot of her was entirely different, and all of his anger, his bitterness, seemed completely petty.
“You have a right to it,” Alexa allowed, settling onto her bottom as her men got busy on various projects nearby. “Where would you go?”
Brian didn’t have an answer and Alexa was forced to offer the only solution there was at the moment. “The base wants you. Roscoe wants you. Hire yourself out to someone who hates both of them. Buy your protection with power.”
Brian was shaking his head, but Alexa didn’t give him time to voice the protests she’d heard so many times.
“You had a duty to survive, to remain honest and good. I know the lines we’re required to walk and it hasn’t changed. Find a good group to serve and love. That’s Adrian’s command and I give the same to you.”
Alexa leaned in and placed a gentle kiss atop Brian’s head. “But you’ll stay my captive until I’ve gotten my time’s worth. Is that understood?”
Brian nodded and Alexa gave him a short hug that warmed and healed him. When she rose, the lights of devotion flashed in his violet eyes.
“I’d give you my life! You’re the reason I came.”
“If you follow us, you’ll die,” Alexa warned. “I’ve already dreamed it. They’re not wrong. You are too weak.”
Those words hurt and everyone turned away from the boy’s open pain. This world was hard.
“We’ve got a new issue,” Jacob stated from the doorway. “There’s a storm coming from the west.”
6
The buildings weren’t sturdy.
Some of the travelers knew to secure their shelter against what was coming, like Alexa’s group, but most only hunkered down and waited for it to be over. A few even scoffed at the preparing people with thoughts that called them fools to waste such energy on a place they would only remain in for the next night.
Paul was among the latter. “I don’t get why she has us doing this,” he complained lowly. His hands were covered in mud, stalks, and other debris.
Edward didn’t answer. He and Mark were slopping that mud into the cracks and covering it with twigs, being sure to shove the stacks of leaves in deep enough to keep it tight. It hurt their necks and ankles to keep their positions as they worked. All Paul had to do was put his hand in the bucket to mix the mud. Even Brian was working, though it was from the inside where Jacob could see him as he stood watch in the doorwa
y.
“Yuck! This stinks.”
Mark let out a breath and pushed the leaves in further.
Only drizzling now, half the sky was pale green and the other was deep gray. It was intimidating and the men worked continuously, prepping for the coming deluge. Even the nasty whine to the wind suggested a thunderstorm instead of a gentle rainfall.
Alexa directed the piece of scrap metal into place over the hole in the rear corner of the roof, using her hip and knee to bend it down and send the flow away. There wasn’t much precipitation yet, but the way Alexa spared no time moving onto each task had begun to draw attention from the others.
The slavers were the first to follow suit. If they lost their wares, they would be bankrupt and have to start all over. These males were slotted for entertainment in Lincoln, where fresh slaves could be bought and then taken to the west. For a healthy profit, of course. One of the powder protectors stayed inside with the snoozing males and the rest of that group copied Alexa’s preparations. Two of the families had been doing work already, and the two remaining homesteaders followed suit not long after the wind began to blow debris around.
The soldiers sat and leaned against wooden walls with holes and gaps. Merrik was still inside their warehouse, and his men spent the time as if it were R and R. The mocked the preppers.
Nearby, the hired gunmen had risen and were grudgingly following the mapmakers instructions, but unlike Alexa, he wasn’t getting his hands dirty. The mapmaker was the type to up the pay before breaking a sweat, especially when there was no imminent threat that he could spot. However, he’d heard enough about Alexa to avoid the bad odds on surviving if he ignored her. He wasn’t Merrik.
Apparently, the price was right because while the hired hands were moving slowly, they were moving.
Inside Alexa’s hut, the old woman and kids remained quiet and a burden to be carried. Already suffering Paul, Alexa’s men didn’t complain. Their honor said protecting the weak was another plus in the good column when death finally caught up and ended their competition to fill hell.
