The Heart of War: Book Seven of the What's Left of My World Series

by C. A. Rudolph

  Lauren held up a hand. “Whoa, whoa, easy there. Slow down before you lose me. I don’t know what any of those things are.”

  “I told you already. Antennas. When do you want your lesson on radios?” Neo asked expectantly, turning away to fidget with knobs. “You told me you wanted to learn, remember?”

  Lauren nodded. “Oh yes, I remember. And I still want to…someday soon when there’s time and less craziness going on.” She inched closer. “I need to get going, but I want to tell you something important before I leave. Can you look at me?”

  “No.”

  Lauren grinned. “Okay, can you try looking in my direction, then?”

  Neo’s hands squirmed. “I can try.” His head angled low, he turned to face Lauren but didn’t lock eyes with her. “Is this okay?”

  “It’s fine.” Lauren took a breath. “I wanted to say thank you, Neo. For finding my dad.”

  “But I didn’t find him.” Neo withdrew, leaning back into his chair. “All I did was answer a radio call.”

  “And if you hadn’t answered that call, we would’ve never found him.” Lauren moved in even closer and gently lifted his chin with her finger. “You are a special person, Theo Parsons, to everyone, but you’re incredibly special to me. You’re a good person, supportive and talented beyond comprehension. You see and hear the world differently than everyone else. You knew my dad’s voice over a radio speaker. You made a miracle happen, and I appreciate you, more than you know.” She then hugged him. “And I needed to thank you.”

  Somewhat taken aback, it took a second for Neo to accept Lauren’s affection, though he did fail to reciprocate.

  Lauren pulled away and started off after giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “Okay, you’re off the hook. I won’t embarrass you anymore. Get back to your net or whatever you were doing.” Taking hold of the bucket of radios, she made her exit.

  The display of gratitude uplifting her, Lauren almost skipped her way to the bridge over Trout Run, stopping short when she heard a call from behind.

  “Hey, Lauren. Wait one.”

  Lauren turned to see Neo holding in the shed’s open doorway.

  “You’re welcome,” he said, the overtures of a smile showing, but Neo’s expression underwent an immediate, drastic change as the ground rumbled underfoot, trailed seconds after by an explosive boom in the distance.

  “Jesus!” Lauren cried out, her legs resonating in conjunction with the ground. “What was that?”

  Neo reached for the shed’s doorway to brace himself, the look on his face tightening. Holding back a response, Neo held a stiff index finger upward, an indication for Lauren to remain quiet. He then moved several feet away from the shed and turned to get a look at the sky.

  His mannerisms gave Lauren an unsettling chill. “Neo?”

  An index finger over his lips now, Neo cupped his ear with his other hand. His eyes gradually grew wide as his face teemed with urgency. Then, without warning, he bolted toward Lauren.

  She froze in place. Neo was now looking her directly in the eyes as he charged her. Lauren didn’t have time to react beyond tensing up and bracing for impact.

  The young man crashed into her, enfolding her into his arms at the same moment an earsplitting scream was heard and the shed detonated into an outpouring, angry cloud of fire, smoke, and burning debris.

  Neo held Lauren snugly, shielding as much of her body with his own as he could as a fireball raged outward, consuming all that surrounded them. A thundering shockwave trailed milliseconds after, colliding into them with the force of a runaway locomotive, launching the twosome airborne at the speed of sound.

  Neo and Lauren soared yards away into the nearby ravine and touched down fiercely, charred, entangled and unconscious, on the rocky shore of a rampant Trout Run.

  Chapter 24

  A thunderous detonation like nothing Grace had ever before heard rocked the cabin, shattering every pane of glass in every frame mounted to its posterior. Shards flew inward, distributing violently throughout the cabin’s interior as the shockwave upset chairs, knocked picture frames from walls, plates and cups from counters, and Grace from her horizontal plane of relative comfort on the couch.

  On the verge of falling asleep, Grace thought she was dreaming at first, likening what had transpired to the falling sensation that oftentimes occurred as the boundary between conscious and subconscious was breached. Palms to the hardwood, she could feel the ground rumble briefly, akin to an earthquake aftershock, the dust now falling to settle on and around her.

  Grace coughed as she inadvertently inhaled a breath of sullied air and looked around. Whatever it was had gone off outside. Shards of broken glass and debris were everywhere. She felt deafened, and her ears rang in the highest of pitches as if she’d suddenly developed the world’s worst case of tinnitus. She could no longer hear the buzzing she’d heard just before Lauren had left.

  She gulped at the thought, and panic began to set in. How long ago had that been? Minutes? Hours? Seconds? “Oh God…Lauren!” She yelled her sister’s name over and over again, and with no regard for her physical state, Grace forced herself upright and went about brushing off, as shards of glass adhering to her clothing embedded into her skin. She could feel the sting of the incisions, but her confusion and horror magnified by the adrenaline gushing its way through her made it inconsequential. Fighting a spell of vertigo and the pain of glass stabbing and slashing her tender feet, she trudged to the front door, opened it, and escaped to the porch.

  Through the tree line, Grace could see a plume of smoke rising in the distance, blackish gray, angry and blooming. She hopped down onto the grass and took careful steps into the yard while her eyes tracked the column, a thin veneer of blood marking each step. Something was different about the air…it wasn’t clean anymore. It didn’t smell like tall grass, sun-warmed leaves or anything fresh. It smelled like dust and ash now. It smelled of fire, char, and ruin.

  Grace thought she could hear someone calling her name, but the voice was muffled and far too unfamiliar to discern. Passing it off as her imagination, she pivoted and sent a glance over the cabin’s roofline, her chest aching at the sight of another smoke plume, this one much larger, broader, and closer—close enough to be in her backyard.

  “Lauren!” she shrieked as her bare, bloodied feet carried her to the backyard and to a view of destruction for which she could never have prepared. The shed was gone, no longer there. It had somehow been demolished into nothing, a smoky crater of blackened earth marking the spot where it had once been. Metal and wooden debris were strewn about as far back as the wood line. Grace scanned the scene, feeling her heart beat faster by the second, but she couldn’t see her sister anywhere. Neo had been there since erecting her father’s radio gear, and the shed was where he had spent most of his time. Lauren had said she was on her way to see him. But where was she?

  Screaming her sister’s name again at the top of her lungs, Grace racked her brain for answers and explanations as to what possibly could have occurred here, but she drew a blank. Her sister needed to be found, and this was becoming too much for her in her state. She began feeling dizzy. She rotated slowly to make her way back to the cabin but slowed to a stop when a hollow feeling of vacuity tore through her lower pelvis.

  Shuddering, Grace glided her hand between her thighs, then examined her fingers. She keeled over and retched at the sight—her fingers and most of her palm were smeared thick in dark crimson blood.

  “No…no! This isn’t happening!” Grace exclaimed on her way to her knees. “Not this! Not my baby…please, God, no!” She dissolved into tears, called for Lauren once more, then began shouting for help.

  On the verge of passing out, a pair of meaty hands suddenly slid beneath Grace and heaved her from the ground as if she weighed nothing.

  Grace squeezed her eyelids closed to wring out the dense tears blurring her vision. “Christian? Christian, honey? Is that you?”

  “No, Grace, it isn’t. I’m sorry,”
the man said, holding her in his lap. “It’s Ken, not Christian.”

  “Ken?” Grace’s eyes expanded for a second before rolling backward. “Who…what are you…doing to me? Where…”

  Ken gently shushed her and looked her over. “Damnation, girl…what happened to you? There’s blood everywhere.”

  Grace grew dangerously pale and faint. She limply raised an arm above her head, pointing in the direction of where the shed once stood. “Lauren,” she moaned, “I can’t find…oh no…my…my baby…”

  Ken gritted his teeth at the pandemonium before him. It was too soon to presume or confirm anything, but he grasped what had happened here, having seen this brand of destruction countless times throughout his tours of duty. “I have to get you to the doc’s. We can figure this other shit out later, but you’re critical, and that makes you the priority.” He gauged his current situation. The leg in which he’d taken a bullet was now mostly healed. It was usable, but he’d been walking on it while using a crutch for support. Ken glanced down at the grass where he’d dropped it a moment ago. To get Grace help, he was going to need both arms—and both legs.

  “Fuck it.” And with a loud grunt, he rose and hoisted Grace up with him. Turning, he hobbled through the yard, past the cabin and onto the driveway, feeling flashes of pain radiate through his recovering leg each time he planted his foot. Feeling the pain’s intensity grow as he went, Ken recognized that he could indeed be harming himself, but it didn’t matter to him. Pain was temporary, and in his arms now was one of Alan Russell’s daughters. He was going to get her the help she needed even if it killed him.

  Ken fired off a blaring, “Oohrah!” as he closed in on the gate just ahead. It felt like it was taking forever to get there, and his leg agreed, feeling now as though parts of it were on fire. Reaching for the chain holding the gate closed, he saw Grace’s body go limp. “Dammit. Hang on! Just hang on, young lady, damn you!” He fumbled with the chain, pulling and tugging on it, but for some reason, it wouldn’t budge. The damn thing was either locked or caught on something, possibly a nail, but he couldn’t see what it was from where he was standing.

  Ken didn’t want to lay Grace down in her condition to fight with a stupid chain, but he didn’t see any other choice. As he prepared to do just that, a figure happened upon him, shifting rapidly from out of nowhere into his viewpoint like a wraith.

  “Ken? What happened? Are you hurt?” It was Jade. In a flash, she tore open the gate and looked to Grace, going wide-eyed. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph…what happened to her?”

  “I don’t know,” Ken replied. “We were both in the cabin when the blast detonated. Knocked me right out of the rack. I followed her bloody footprints and found her struggling in the yard. She’s bleeding a lot from somewhere, but I haven’t had time to check her out.”

  Jade helped Ken set Grace gently onto the ground and went about a brief, discreet triage. “Shit…I think she’s hemorrhaging. We have to get her to the infirmary, and I mean on the fucking dub.”

  “I know—I was doing that until that piece-of-shit gate got in the way,” Ken chided, rubbing his leg. “I can still get her there, Jade.”

  “I know you can, and I’m not doubting you,” Jade said as calmly as her will would allow, “but this…it’s a…female thing, Ken.”

  “You mean like with the baby?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s serious. You should let me take her.”

  Ken’s concerned expression contorted a tinge. “Right. Good call, Jade. You do that, and I’ll just—”

  “You find Alan.” Jade picked Grace up like a forklift hoisting an empty pallet, turned, and thrust herself into a run. “Find him, Michelle…and Lauren, too, and tell them all what happened. Then get with Woo Tang and his troops! Try to figure out just what the hell is happening around here!” She then dashed away and out of sight.

  Ken harrumphed, rose, and patted his aching leg, watching her. “Sure thing. I’m on it. Ooh-fucking-rah.”

  Chapter 25

  A dreadfully piercing, high-pitched ringing in her ears brought her around. The acrid taste of smoke and soot present in her mouth, a splitting headache throbbed rhythmically with the rattled cadence of her heart. Rigid tingles of pain radiated from her sides, neck and various places about her back.

  Lauren took labored breaths while sensing an immense weight pushing down upon her chest. She peeled open her eyes, coughed and gagged, and spit out a dry mouthful of foulness. Her feet, calves, and backs of her legs were damp and cold, and she could sense something wet splashing beneath her palms. A painstaking look sideways and toward her feet confirmed the lower half of her body was halfway submerged in foamy, flowing water.

  She coughed again, heavily this time, her chest convulsing into heaves. Not yet fully alert, Lauren tried orienting herself, learning that the weight she was feeling atop her was that of a human body, one that wasn’t moving. She began recalling where she had been and what she’d been doing before the explosion and the fierce, blisteringly hot surge that had sent her soaring weightless through the air. She hadn’t been alone. Neo had made a mad dash for her and held onto her for dear life seconds ahead of it.

  Lauren tried to push Neo’s body off with both hands but couldn’t budge him. She tried rolling over, focusing the strength of both arms onto one of his shoulders, but Neo’s immobile mass was too heavy for her in this position. Then she tried inching her way to the side, sliding herself out from underneath him. This strategy bore fruit, but soon became the most tormenting of the three, as shards of shale and jagged submerged branches tore through her clothing and into her skin.

  Once free of him, Lauren uprighted to a kneeling position, tossed her hair from her eyes, and gasped at the sight. Portions of Neo’s clothing had either been burned or blown off, and multiple open, seeping wounds coated his back and backside. His skin there was badly burned. Most of the hair on the back of his head was burned away or charred, and the skin beneath was maligned and raw.

  Lauren didn’t want to move him in this condition, but knew she had to. She took off the hoodie she was wearing and removed her outer layer, a long-sleeved merino wool pullover, then arranged it beside him. Straining to do so, she rolled his body over onto the material’s luxe, sensing the limp lifelessness of him, careful that his wounds not meet with the damp sediment underneath.

  As her breathing became rapid, Lauren went about assessing him as best she knew how. She tensed and gritted her teeth, clenched and unclenched her fists, in an all-out struggle with herself to will away panic, quell the shaking in her hands, and retrieve some modicum of calm. Neo had been unresponsive up to this point. His eyelids were closed, and he appeared either comatose or, worse yet, deceased, but Lauren wasn’t about to give up on him. She lifted each of his eyelids gently with an index finger, finding his pupils dilated at the outset, but as daylight crept in, they began to constrict, a sign of a working brain.

  “Neo? Neo! Can you hear me?” she called, unable to detect her own voice beyond an undulating hum. The blast must have damaged her hearing somehow. Averse to further ponder any of her own injuries, she persisted without respite, moving in close to press her cheek to his nose and open lips. Neo’s breathing was indiscernible. Leaning back, she pried open his mouth and peered inside for obstructions and, after finding none, tried verifying his breathing once more. “No! Dammit, Neo! Don’t do this! Don’t you die! Not now, not like this!”

  Lauren’s voice was indeed muffled to her, and all she could hear was an incessant ringing in her ears. The throbbing pain in her head became intolerable as she shouted for help, hoping that someone, somewhere was close enough to hear, even though she knew there was no time for delay. Lauren had never been certified in CPR but had attended classes before and recalled the steps. Neo wasn’t breathing, and under the circumstances, it was the only method offering a chance of getting him back.

  Mindful of his burns, Lauren wrestled what remained of Neo’s uniform blouse from his body. She rolled it into a cylin
der and placed it beneath his neck to elevate his head and open his airway. She then loosened his belt and straddled his legs, readying to perform chest compressions as best she knew how while recollecting the count: rate of one hundred per minute in sets of thirty, two inches deep; and the kisses of life, two rescue breaths after every set.

  Lauren went to work, pushing hard and fast with her body weight, one hand atop the other into the center of Neo’s chest. Several compressions in, she cringed at feeling Neo’s rib cage give way beneath her palms. She tried her best to stay focused, calling into mind hearing before that in order to be effective, compressions had to go deep, and that occasionally meant fracturing one or more of a patient’s ribs. She didn’t wish to hurt Neo, but this was all Lauren could do to save his life, and after he’d acted so selflessly to save hers, she was going to stop at nothing to get him breathing again.

  When Lauren’s compression count hit thirty, she repositioned in a location suitable to deliver rescue breaths. A hand to his forehead and the other gripping his chin, she opened his mouth and placed her lips to his, exhaling into his lungs as Neo’s chest rose and swelled in response. She pulled away to inhale another breath and repeated the motion, then resumed her former spot and rebegan compressions.

  Lauren completed three full rounds of CPR before pausing to look the young man over for signs of life. She got up close and personal with him, placing her cheek centimeters away from Neo’s mouth and nose, then tried again ten or so seconds after, using the most sensitive section of skin on her neck, just below her ear.

  Overwrought and anxious, Lauren recoiled backward at feeling a wisp of air escape his lips. “Neo! Thank God! Wake up! It’s Lauren! Come back to me, buddy.” She nudged his cheeks lightly, reached for his hand, pulled it close, and squeezed it with her own. “Stick with me, okay? Hold on to my voice.”