by Kathy Miner
Tossing Persephone in one direction, she launched in the other. She was only a few feet away from the steps that led up to the Chambers Trail. Persephone would find her – they’d been playing hide-and-seek on these trails and the others that led away from the ranch for the last several days. If Grace could just make it to the top of the steps, he’d never catch her –
Once again, her feet flew out from under her when a hand fisted in her shirt between her shoulder blades. Grace had been half-expecting it this time, and instead of struggling, she went limp, flopping to the ground like a rag doll. The man held onto her this time, and Grace used every bit of willpower she possessed to keep her muscles lax, limp. Finally, he let her go, and the second his hand released her shirt, she was up again.
This time, though, she didn’t run. She balanced on the balls of her feet and locked eyes with him. In her very depths, she’d gone still as stone. She hadn’t been certain how she’d react if she was captured again. Now she knew.
“You’ll have to kill me,” she said quietly. The animal-like growling of a long-dead girl echoed in her ears, and Grace remembered the contempt she’d felt – why die fighting when you could submit and live another day, live to escape? She understood now, and sent an apology winging to that girl’s soul, wherever it now resided. “Either kill me now, or I will find a way to kill myself. I won’t go back. I won’t be used again.”
Persephone shot out of the underbrush and pressed against Grace’s leg. The man glanced down at her tiny, snarling, up-turned face, then looked at Grace again. “You were just planning to run off and leave your friend to her fate?”
Grace’s brows drew in. What kind of mind game was this? There was no logical reason for him to ask her such a question. She chose to not answer, lifting her chin and staring at him. Most people couldn’t stand silence, and if he started filling it, she might learn what was going on here.
Unfortunately, he seemed to be familiar with the gambit. Patience settled around him, a cloak of watchful stillness. After the longest minute of Grace’s life, a low whistle sounded from down by the barn. The man whistled back, and Grace heard the muffled thump of boots jogging up the trail. Her heart picked up, speeding with both fear and hope. All she needed was a moment, a single moment of distraction. She could run like the wind, and she knew every turn, rise and fall of these trails.
One of the hulks appeared at the top of the trail, a baby-faced man who might be in his mid-twenties at the most, at least a decade younger than the man who’d captured her. The younger man’s eyes touched the fresh dirt and debris on Grace’s filthy clothes, took in Persephone’s tiny fierceness, then lifted to the other man. “Everything under control?”
His attitude was deferential. Her captor, then, was probably the leader of the trio. The older man nodded, his gaze never leaving Grace. “We were just discussing how to proceed.”
“Ah. Okay.” The younger man nodded as well. After 30 seconds of nothing but softly chirping birds and Persephone’s constant, low snarl, he started talking, obviously not comfortable with the strategy of silence. “She went for the go-bag, just like Verity said she would.”
The older man’s face tightened ever-so-slightly, the barest hint of annoyance. Still, he didn’t blink or look away. His gaze made Grace think of a snake mesmerizing its prey, of Kaa in The Jungle Book. He grunted a confirmation, and once more, silence reigned. Then, the words sank in. Grace surrendered the stare-down and turned to look at the younger man, eyes narrowing as she thought about what he’d just said.
In all the time she’d spent with the gang, she had never once heard one of the men call one of the girls by name. Dumb Bitch. The Sisters. Cowgirl. They all had their nicknames. Grace’s eyes shifted back and forth between the men. The time for silence was over.
“You’re not with the gang. Who are you?”
The older man’s face gave nothing away. “How do you know we’re not with the gang?”
“You didn’t kill my dog. You didn’t hurt me after I ran.” She glanced at the younger man, then returned her gaze to the leader. “He knew Verity’s name. And used it.”
After a moment, the older man nodded. “Verity said you were intelligent, as well as knowledgeable about the gang. You escaped from them?”
The question was asked with such matter-of-factness, it allowed Grace to answer the same way. “Yes. How do you know Verity?”
Another careful measure of silence, and the older man replied. “We met her when we brought Piper home to Woodland Park.”
Grace’s eyes flew open wide. “You know Piper? You were part of her group?” Her mind raced through the few facts she knew. She hadn’t been present at Piper’s return and had only her father’s bare-bones, carefully-edited account of the dramatic event to go by. Piper had never talked about it. Grace wasn’t even sure how many people had continued on, after Piper, Ethan, Elise and her kids had been left behind. She could wish that she’d pumped her dad for more information, but all she really needed was the answer to one question: “Are you Brody?”
The younger man flinched. Later, Grace would remember that. Right now, though, she was focused on the older man, watching him for signs of deception or subterfuge. She didn’t have her dad’s radar for lies, but she’d learned a lot about reading body language. After another lengthy pause, the older man answered. His voice was completely level, neutral. His posture, his hands, his face, all said he was telling the truth. “No. We left him behind. You can call me Levi. This is Tyler.”
Grace glanced at the younger man. “The mechanic. Ethan spoke well of you. He misses your cooking.”
Tyler nodded, a brief smile flitting across his baby face, but didn’t quite make eye contact. “Ethan is a good man. I hope he’s hangin’ in, him and Elise and the kids.”
“They’re all fine.” Niceties done, Grace turned back to Levi. “What do you want?”
“Information. Whatever you’re willing to share, about the area and the gang. Verity suggested you might be of assistance. She…” He grimaced slightly, “Found us this morning. We were camped on Monument Creek, south of the gang’s territory.”
Grace nodded. “No-man’s land. Are the lions still in the area?”
“From what we could ascertain, just the male. The lionesses have moved east, onto the plains. The male has been sighted recently by some of the people settled further south on Monument Creek, but he appears to have been wounded, and it looks like he’s starving. They don’t think he’ll make it much longer.”
Grace felt a sharp stab of loss at the news. It had satisfied her, knowing they had survived, knowing they were roaming free. She brushed the sorrow aside. “You said Verity found you. Is that what she’s been doing every day? Looking for you?”
For the first time, Levi looked less than sure of himself. “Yes. That’s what she said, in any case.” He gazed at Grace, his brow furrowed. “It’s unclear what she’s talking about much of the time. You’re aware that she’s unstable and frequently disconnected from reality?”
Grace snorted. “Yeah. I had noticed that, now that you mention it.” She bent down and picked up Persephone, whose hostility had softened into a hard, watchful stare. Grace straightened and locked eyes with Levi. “I’ll share what I know with you and your men, if you’ll share what you’ve learned with me.”
Levi nodded. “That’s fair.”
Grace didn’t look away. “And if you give me your word that neither you nor your men will harm either Verity or I.”
Another nod, no hesitation. “You have my word.”
He slung his rifle over his shoulder and gestured for her to precede him back down the path. Wordlessly, Grace complied. Tyler fell into step behind them, though he didn’t put his rifle away, moving instead with the same prowling watchfulness Grace had noted before. They walked in silence until they reached the path behind the barn and started towards the Chambers House. On the front porch, Verity was gesturing animatedly as she chattered to the other hulk. Even from this dista
nce, the man looked baffled.
Grace looked up at Levi, who had moved to walk beside her. “You’re all military. Did you serve together?”
“No.” Like Tyler, Levi’s arctic-blue eyes never stopped scanning, though he glanced at her briefly. “I was in the Marines. Tyler and Adam were both Army Rangers. They met in basic on Fort Carson. My father and an old friend of his put our group together. We were in Walden until we got burned out.”
“Piper mentioned the fire.” Grace was quiet for a few moments. She didn’t want to probe too deeply, wasn’t yet ready to find out if this man and his companions had been complicit in Piper’s abuse at Brody’s hands. She’d get their information first, and make decisions from there. She shifted gears. “So Verity told you she’s been looking for you? Did she say why?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, it’s more than she told me. I didn’t plan for her to come along, or even ask her to. Now I can’t get rid of her.”
What might have been amusement lifted a corner of Levi’s mouth, though it didn’t warm his eyes. Grace doubted those eyes could warm, ever. Again, his scanning gaze touched her briefly before moving on. “You were relatively safe in Woodland Park, from what Verity told us. Why did you leave? Are you looking for revenge?”
Grace kept her face still. “That’s private,” she said calmly. She wasn’t intimidated by stone-faced ex-Marines, being the daughter of one. She turned the question back on him. “What about you? Why are you three still in the area? You left Woodland Park months ago.”
Levi didn’t answer right away, which wasn’t a surprise. Grace had already observed he parceled out every word he said, like the most valuable currency. As they neared the Chambers House, he stopped walking and turned to look at Tyler. He gestured with his head, and the young man slipped around them, joining Verity and a relieved-looking Adam on the porch. Then Levi turned to face her.
“The gang needs to end,” he said bluntly. “The most expedient way to bring that about is to eliminate the leadership.”
“On that, we agree.” Grace paused. “Why is this your fight?”
Levi gazed at her, still and thoughtful, then shifted his gaze to a point beyond her shoulder. “I live by a code. There are rules. The men in the gang have broken that code.” His eyes went slightly unfocused, and his voice took on a rhythmic cant, as if he were reciting a verse from memory. “Any man who rapes a child is lower than an animal and needs to be put down. No exceptions.”
He met her eyes once more, and they stood there in the late afternoon sun, considering each other.
These men should terrify her. Why they didn’t, Grace couldn’t say. She didn’t doubt they were as lethal as any member of the gang she’d known, and more deadly than some. Maybe it was Verity’s presence, maybe it was some instinct she couldn’t verbalize, but somehow she knew they would not harm her. Somehow, she knew they were part of the “rightness” that had settled around her heart. Since such knowings were exceedingly rare for Grace, she trusted them when they showed up. It would all be okay. She nodded. “That’s reason enough for me.”
They walked up on the porch, where Grace was introduced to Adam. Tyler volunteered to put together a meal from their combined provisions, and they all moved inside. Grace, Levi and Adam sat around the table while Tyler moved efficiently around the kitchen. Verity flittered around the room like a hyperactive pixie for a few minutes, then took Persephone back outside.
Conversation was stilted at first, but took off when Grace learned the three men had scouted the perimeter of Fort Carson. She left the table briefly and came back with the grubby, ragged map of the mountain post she’d found in the glove box of an abandoned vehicle. She spread it out on the table, her heart beating faster with excitement. “Show me where the helicopters are.”
Adam glanced at Levi as if seeking permission, then reached out and touched a spot almost dead-center in the rough triangle that was Fort Carson. “Here.” He traced another line, a rough rectangle, around the spot he’d indicated. “They’ve brought their borders in, redistributed their personnel and resources, but they’ve kept the airfield pretty much dead center.”
Grace’s heart sank. If he was right, the helicopters were miles from any perimeter. Just getting a look at them would almost certainly mean getting past layer upon layer of security. After a moment, Adam spoke.
“Why do you want to know about the helicopters?”
“Why do you think?” Grace snapped. She rubbed at her forehead, then sat back and folded her arms across her chest. “I’m sorry. Those aircraft pose an enormous threat to the outlying communities. Even if I’m able to eliminate the core of the gang’s leadership, they’re still a problem. They negate distance as a safety measure, and they’re just too powerful to defend against.”
Grace suddenly felt exhausted, then felt irritated with herself for feeling that way. Had she really thought the helicopters would be conveniently situated, conveniently unguarded, conveniently waiting to be sabotaged? While she was indulging in wishful thinking, she might as well hope they’d all have a big, red button labeled, “To blow up aircraft, press HERE.” She stared at the map without seeing it for a few moments. Then she shook herself and pressed on. “Did you get an accurate count as to how many they had of each type? Or how much fuel they’ve got?”
Tyler appeared from around the corner in the kitchen. As he spoke, he dried his hands on a cheerful yellow dish towel. “No way to know about the fuel – too many variables. Under some circumstances, avgas is more stable than mogas, but we have no idea how that fuel has been stored over the last year, whether stabilizers were added, nothing. But there’s this – whoever has them in the air feels like they have enough fuel to put up training flights.”
He turned and tossed the dish towel onto the little wooden table he’d been working at, then leaned a shoulder against the door jamb. “As for a count, we’ve only got the roughest estimate. We could only see the airfield from one angle, long-distance. We had visual on fourteen Black Hawks, four Apaches, and two Chinooks, but I know Carson was scheduled to receive 24 of the new AH-64E Apaches before the plague.” He shook his head, voice warming with enthusiasm in spite of the circumstances. “Man, those E-style machines are something else. Upgraded electronics and flight instruments, a new powertrain that’s tons more effective at altitude, and each one can carry up to 16 Hellfire missiles. Whisper-quiet, too – you can’t even hear them beyond a few hundred yards.” Another head shake. “If we could get our hands on just one of them, we could take out all the rest.”
And just like that, the roller-coaster swooped back up again. Tyler’s words shifted and jostled her mental map, creating possibility where there had been impossibility moments before. Grace felt a prickle along her scalp as puzzle pieces started to click into place and a picture started to form. She stared at Tyler. “Could you fly one of them?”
Tyler shrugged. “Sure, given enough time to fart around and figure shit out.”
Adam spoke again. “Doesn’t matter if he could fly one or not. There’s no way to get anywhere near them. We’ve been watching them on-again-off-again for weeks, and those birds are always under heavy guard. Security got even thicker after they started putting them in the air.”
“I could get in.”
All three men just stared at her. Then, Levi joined the conversation for the first time. He inclined his head to her clothes. “You move among them freely? Disguised like this?”
“Not quite like this.” Grace took the sachet of black pepper out of her pocket and pressed it to her nose, then gave a mighty sneeze. She scratched her neck, and looked at them through reddened, watering eyes. She swiped at her streaming nose, and let her mouth drop open slackly. Last of all, she let her eyes drift, empty and dumb. “More like this.”
Adam and Tyler exchanged amused grins, but Levi’s face remained serious. “If they figure out you were once their captive, they’ll kill you, and they won’t make it quick. They’ll make an example of
you.”
“I know that.” The plan was coming together rapidly in her mind, the details, the logistics. And there was a role only she could play. “In fact, I’m counting on it.”
Grace rose from the table and went to the antique wooden sideboard across the room, opening the doors underneath. Inside, she had stored every scrap of written information she had accumulated on the gang, both her original project, and everything she’d gathered since, including rough sketches of the original six leaders. She was no artist, but she’d done the best she could, accompanying each sketch with every physical detail she could recall. She brought the materials to the table and began to spread them out.
“This is everything I know. All of it.” She touched a filthy stack of ragged papers filled with her tiny, meticulous hand-writing. “This original document contains every word I heard spoken during my nineteen days with them. They didn’t worry about watching what they said around the girls – most of us were dead in under two weeks. As far as I know, I’m the only one who survived from those early days.”
She set the six sketches out but kept her face turned away as she did so. Her emotions were not appropriate here. These men would respond best to an appeal to logic. “These six were the leaders then, but at least eight more men are now part of the inner circle. I haven’t gotten close enough to the new men to learn anything or even to provide an accurate sketch. To be thorough, they should all be terminated, but there is only one man that needs to be killed at any cost. The Boss.” She touched his sketch. “He did not participate in the rapes nor did he partake of the drugs or alcohol. He watched, and he planned. In my opinion, he must be eliminated. If he survives, even if all the others are killed, the gang will go on.”
She began setting out another series of documents. “This is all the information I’ve gathered moving among them as a boy. It’s not much. I’ve had direct contact with only Bean Counter – people call him Mr. Watts – and Loudmouth.” She couldn’t stop the curl of her lip when she touched his sketch. “Five of the original six leaders live on the old Colorado College campus. From what I’ve heard, the sixth is in charge on Fort Carson.”
