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

by C. A. Rudolph

  Lauren whimpered, her chest tightened, and her body convulsed. She exhaled the discomfort with shallow breaths. “But I left you, didn’t I? I was the one who left you first. I abandoned you, just up and walked away. It was me, once again, fucking things up, doing whatever I wanted, assuming you would always be there. I accepted that because you always were. You were amazing to me, and I took you for granted. And I guess, by some means, I deserved to lose you. But I never wanted to lose you like this, John. I swear to God, I didn’t. And I pray this didn’t happen because of anything I’ve done.”

  Lauren ran her index finger along the sheet concealing John’s left arm, able to perceive the polluted texture of burned skin below, but she wasn’t repulsed. “I don’t know what life’s going to be like now. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to live without you. But you will always be the love of my life, John. I never stopped since the day I first felt it…and I will love you for all eternity. That promise, I will never break. We’ll see each other again someday; I know we will. Watch over us down here until then if you can. And maybe put in a good word for me with the big man. He knows I could use it.” Lauren sat up, kissed her fingers, and placed them where the sheet lay over John’s forehead. “I’ll see you in my dreams.”

  Lauren rose, pulled a hair tie from her pocket, and used it to pull her hair into a bun. She knelt beside Norman’s body, uttered her amity, gratitude and goodbyes to him, then paid her respects to Kristen in passing, and made her departure. She said nothing else, felt nothing else, and looked no one’s way, only stared ahead and vacant with eyes dark as night, like an unbroken prized mare with blinders, her expression emotionless and a contorted manifestation of the opposite.

  She deserted the ATV that had brought her here and swaggered away on foot to the paved road, vanishing into the woods without a trace shortly thereafter.

  Chapter 29

  FEMA Resettlement Camp Bravo

  Saturday, March 12th

  Doug Bronson opened his driver-side door and stepped out, trying to recall the last time he had done so. Up until recently, he’d only ridden as passenger and had enjoyed that perspective, having grown accustomed to being chauffeured. He believed a man in his position had more than earned it. But as it was, Bronson was undergoing a shortfall in auxiliary personnel, including drivers, adjutants, and even wingmen. Consequently, if he wished to go anywhere and not exacerbate the contemptible boils eating way at his heels, he had to get behind the wheel and drive himself. And while that wasn’t so bad, it was taking a lot of getting used to.

  Doug stared at the brick staircase leading to the porch at a residence he was preparing to enter. He’d been invited here for breakfast more than a day ago and hadn’t officially RSVP’d until the last minute. Despite Beatrice’s unfussy assurance of a ceasefire, Doug didn’t trust her. After all, she had single-handedly snuffed out every person with whom he had developed that platform of faith on the plantation. He had a stinking suspicion he was next in line and hadn’t yet found a single rhyme or reason to dispel the notion.

  As he procrastinated, he imagined knocking on the door and Beatrice pulling it open while presenting a freshly polished, satin-finished pistol that she would immediately press against his face, doing so with a gilded smile on hers, no less. She’d tender one of her beloved southerly one-liners, complemented with an interstellar degree of snark, and then blow his goddamn brains out and through the back of his head, cerebrum, cerebellum, every lobe in between. She’d puff a humid breath into the barrel, set alight one of those wiry cigarettes, and close the door as if nothing had happened, then return to the kitchen to eat breakfast alone.

  Doug shuddered at the thought and tried willing it away. He hadn’t intended for things to take this turn, and he certainly hadn’t wanted his existence to end like this. The only reason his convoluted psyche had accepted the invitation in the first place, even on such short notice, was that he knew both consciously and subconsciously if Beatrice wanted him dead, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop her. If he ran, she’d give chase and run him down. If he tried hiding from her, she’d ultimately find him; thus spawning the conclusion that compliance, paradoxically enough, had become the only option he had left.

  Doug coughed over a throat so raspy that it felt like he’d been smoking stale Cubans and gargling with his least favorite alcoholic beverage for weeks. Then he swallowed what little pride he’d brought along and marched to the door, hesitating several long seconds before tapping it with his knuckles.

  The door opened less than a minute later, and Beatrice Carter greeted him with one of the broadest of smiles she retained in her repertoire. But it wasn’t one that conveyed happiness, pleasure, or delight. It was a conflicted smile, the type displayed against one’s will, like the kind funeral attendees greeted and consoled one another with.

  Beyond that, the woman looked damned near picture-fucking-perfect and was sending an air of unusual self-actualization. She was freshly showered and smelled of a floral perfume Doug didn’t recall her wearing before. Her hair was neatly pulled back, makeup applied acutely, and her choice of attire, a navy-blue pantsuit, was spotless and recently pressed. Aside from the off-white apron she had on, with the words ‘Just Peachy’ embroidered in flesh-colored cursive, she looked presentable enough to assume the witness stand at a capital murder trial, attend a job interview at a Fortune 500 company, or carry out the prearranged hostile takeover of the same.

  Bronson was wearing a faded flannel shirt that was half unbuttoned and hadn’t been laundered in weeks, as far as he knew. He hadn’t bothered to tuck it in; the sweatpants he had on didn’t have a drawstring, and the waistband was on its last strands of elastic, so he didn’t see the point.

  “Why, good morning, Doug,” Beatrice greeted him. “So glad you could make it.” She backed away and held out a welcoming hand. “Please, come right in. Breakfast should be ready in two shakes.”

  Lips pursed, Doug nodded and waltzed inside, with his head lowered like a man preparing to undertake his fate.

  Beatrice closed the door, secured the deadbolt, then sped past him into the kitchen. “Sorry, there’s bacon on the stove. Don’t want to chance scorchin’ it. Swine is divine…but these days, it’s worth its weight in platinum—or should I say copper and lead? You almost have to kill a decade of people to acquire it anymore.”

  “Yeah. I’m aware,” Doug croaked.

  Squaring off with the stove, Beatrice pointed to the kitchenette table. “Pick whichever seat you like. I’ve never preferred either one myself. I’ve only enjoyed a trickle of homecooked meals here. Today, we’ll be having bacon and pancakes made from Bisquick…and real maple syrup. Hope that works for you; it certainly does me…I am absolutely famished.”

  Doug inched his way to the first chair within reach, slid it out, and made it his own, his eyes never leaving her.

  The kitchen teemed with silence until Beatrice broke it, her back turned to him. “Doug, is everything all right?”

  “I’m…fine. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Beatrice sang. “For starters, you’re dressed like a hobo who had his buggy stolen and lost everything. And you’re awfully quiet to boot.”

  Doug sighed and sent a nod, snickering at the mess he’d made of himself, even more at how sober he was. “I guess…I’m just wondering…what all this is about.”

  “This? You mean breakfast? Or the invite in general? Come now, Doug. Not everything is a conspiracy.”

  Doug nearly guffawed at the remark, then strained to consider the most pragmatic way to go about his intended line of questioning.

  There was a lot he wanted to ask, so much he needed to know, but Beatrice’s guard was up. She hid her defenses well behind those straight-laced mannerisms and that practiced, Southerner inflection with which she encrusted every word fleeing those gossamer lips. But deprived of that veneer, the broad was simple: a simple, ice-cold, calculating, murderous devil incarnate. An unfeigned fucking butcher bitch
in the flesh, a tribute to Lucifer himself; no doubt a proud proprietor of a significant portion of the prince of darkness’s DNA.

  “I rustled up some coffee for us,” Beatrice the butcher bitch cooed, engaging the independent brake on Bronson’s humdrum train of thought. “I found some fresh whole bean in the pantry. You’re welcome to it.”

  Doug sighed, trying his best to keep it on the q.t. “That would be fine, thank you.”

  Beatrice sidestepped to a cupboard, reached for a mug on the top shelf, and stretched to hand it to him. She spun to the coffeepot, brought the steaming carafe to Doug’s mug, then proceeded to fill it. “Cream and sugar?”

  “I take both,” Doug said, eyeballing her. “But you already knew that.”

  “I suppose I did. Sorry, that must’ve been a reflex.”

  “Are you practicing to become a waitress?”

  Beatrice snorted. “I don’t think so…but that was clever…I do believe you’re getting back your sense of humor.”

  Doug harrumphed, doing so in clandestine fashion at the point Beatrice turned her back to him, returning a second later with two porcelain containers. He thanked her and went about seasoning his coffee.

  Aside from the sizzle of bacon frying on the stove, the room went silent again, for a while longer this time. He studied her with exhausted eyes, realizing that nothing this woman said or did surprised him anymore. “You’re pretty damn pleased with yourself. Aren’t you?”

  Beatrice sent a glance over her shoulder. “Me? Pleased?” She exhaled. “I suppose I am. Why?”

  “It’s just an observation. Am I to take it you’re now…getting what you’ve been yearning for?”

  “Mmm…I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Oh?”

  “You asked if I was pleased,” said Beatrice. “I answered. Getting what I’ve been yearning for implies a degree of satisfaction.”

  “That you’ve yet to achieve.”

  “Dead right, Doug. Dead right.”

  Strike one. He let things go for a bit, choosing to give her time to either sop what he’d said thus far up, or finish the chore of breakfast making. Either way, he had a better chance of getting her full attention after.

  Several minutes later, Beatrice served breakfast up on plates and set them down, one in front of Bronson, the other for herself. She took her seat across from him and smacked her hands together. “Shall we dig in?”

  “Why not?” Doug went for a piece of bacon with his fingers, all the while watching the blonde across from him meticulously butter, slice, and apply syrup to her generous pile of flapjacks. “This…whole thing…the reason behind it. It was personal, wasn’t it?”

  Beatrice didn’t say anything at first. With her head tilted at her plate, she eyeballed him while chewing and swallowing her first mouthful. “Have I made it that obvious?”

  Doug slowly nodded his head. “You’ve been a different person since the day you saw the damage that fifty cal wreaked at the crime scene. How did you know them?”

  “I didn’t. Rather, I didn’t know them. I haven’t the murkiest concept as to who Agent Ken Winters is, nor do I care.”

  “Well, that tells me something, at least,” said Bronson. “It reinforces your sudden primordial urge to push this new plan of yours forward.”

  The blonde looked away, bearing the unassuming expression of a teenager who’d been caught smoking in school. “Connie and I were friends once upon a time. But that friendship did not endure.”

  “And why did it not?”

  Beatrice stared angrily, downturned her fork, and forced it to the plate with a grating screech, impaling a slice of bacon. “We had a personality conflict.”

  Doug looked away with a smirk and set himself up to take a bite. “Who won?”

  The blonde raised a brow. “That isn’t the least bit funny,” she sizzled.

  “Damn. This was personal. And the plot thickens; but the riddle is finally coming together now, thank Christ.”

  “Mine and hers is a long lurid chronicle chock-full of lackluster disparities, none of which I intend to rehash over breakfast. I’d rather we change the subject entirely.”

  “Fine. Let’s do that. How about, say, the topic of current events?” Doug quipped, feeling mightier than he had earlier on.

  “Suit yourself.”

  “You had teams of agents working that area you bombed the ever-loving shit out of, and your husband was running them. I believe they were ordered there to retrieve some…shall we say…collateral?”

  “Yes. What about them?”

  “I need to know their whereabouts.”

  “Need?” Beatrice barked the interrogative. “Doug, are you suggesting that I knowingly jeopardized their lives in a manner very much uncalled for? That perverse extrapolation appalls me. I am a professional.”

  “A professional who not even two minutes ago admitted her reasons for going to extremes as being personal. August has led the primary task force for the operations and—”

  “And you’re insinuating because of that and…other things, I had those men position where an air-to-ground warhead might find them?” Beatrice rolled her eyes. “Douglas Bronson, the assertion perplexes me. I’m astounded…and a little turned on at the way you think. It’s macabre, nuttier than a fruitcake, but that is not what I have done. In fact, orders were relayed to both teams to remain bivouacked until further notice. It just so happens they have yet to receive that notice.”

  Doug took a sip of his coffee. “And that explains breakfast. You’re not anticipating visitors today.”

  “Nope. It’s just the two of us, the way it’s been and the way it should be. Though I did have a few ulterior motives for having you here.”

  “Such as?”

  “I am truly glad we’ve broached this juncture,” she droned. “My mind’s been fixated too much on food all morning. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about our future, as in where we go from here, and maybe hash out some of these…pesky final obligations.”

  Bronson didn’t say anything.

  “There are a few issues I’d like to go over with regard to the plantation, beginning with our supply shortages,” Beatrice began. “Hope you don’t mind, but I’ve acquainted myself with your inbox in recent days, quite the hellish nightmare. There are literally hundreds of unread messages from department heads, from assistance requests to official complaints. Nearly every one mentions insufficient resources or the unavailability thereof.” She locked eyes with Bronson. “The situation is dismal here, Doug. Well on its way to becoming dire.”

  “Our situation has been dire for months,” Doug grumbled, “well on its way to becoming unrecoverable.”

  Beatrice forked a helping of pancake. “Yet you’ve failed to mention it as being so.”

  “You mind telling me precisely when I’ve had the chance to?” Doug retorted. “At this point, I don’t see any use in discussing it. There’s not anything either one of us can do about it. The situation’s hopeless.”

  Beatrice swallowed the wad of food and wiped her mouth daintily. “Elaborate.”

  “We’ve had zero contact with neighboring Homeland Security outposts for months going now,” Doug began with a sigh. “That’s zero interaction via comms with other camps, no word of any kind, and no explanation for it. Every link in the chain of command has been unresponsive; it’s like they all went dark or dropped off the face of the planet. We’ve had no deliveries, no convoys, no resupplies. Both Bravo and the outpost have been operating as detached subordinates, independent of heretofore established framework. We’re a structure devoid an infrastructure, Beatrice. Entirely solitaire.”

  “And you’ve exhausted every means on hand?”

  “And then some.”

  Beatrice mulled this over. “I’ll have you know this isn’t the least bit viable.”

  “No shit it isn’t.”

  “My, my, my,” she cooed, head judgingly in motion. “The plantation’s on its last leg.”

  “The plantat
ion is dying.” Doug exhaled. “And this lampoon with which you’ve been entertaining yourself as of late hasn’t helped one goddamn bit.”

  “Lampoon?” Beatrice scoffed at him, starting now to look a little worried. “I wonder what’s become of everyone…”

  “It’s impossible to know. Maybe they went AWOL. Maybe the camps were raided and overtaken. Maybe a pandemic got out of control, ran amuck, and they’re all dead now.”

  “Or maybe some of them grew a brain, cut themselves free of all this, and moved on to bigger, better, and brighter things.”

  Doug furrowed his brow and set down his fork. “Maybe it’s time for you to elaborate.”

  Beatrice folded her arms and turned her head away, opting to chew on her fingernails.

  “Okay, that’s fine. Clam up. Don’t elaborate. You’ve been openly displaying your true colors to me a lot lately. The silent treatment is nothing I can’t handle.” He leaned back and belched. “I realize I’ve failed to match your expectations, Beatrice. The two of us are a far cry from being the ideal post-apocalyptic power couple, but it can’t all be my fault. This time around, I don’t think it’s anyone’s fault. It’s just like the song goes, you can’t always get what you want.”

  The buxom blonde shot him a cantankerous look. “Oh, but I can. And I will get what I want, Doug.” She sat fully upright and went about cutting her remaining pancakes into superthin slices. “Let’s talk numbers, specifically related to those under our charge, beginning with detainees. By my estimation, there are entirely too many of them, and something must be done about that. The humane termination program has always been insufficient and untenable. Purgatory is forever backed up something nasty, like old, dilapidated plumbing.” She set her utensils down and fiddled with her hair. “I remember my nanna’s first house with indoor facilities. Got clogged up all the time ’cause she never minded her pipes, that old black cast-iron crap.” A pause. “She’d call on a neighbor to give her a hand. He wasn’t a plumber or anything, he’d just dump a bottle of Drano down the kitchen sink. An hour later, poof—good as new. That’s what we need here—some good, strong drain cleaner, the metaphoric equivalent to gobble away congestion.”