by Kyle West
Eventually, though, it was time to go. It was late August and already there was a nip in the air. Makara was glad to be heading south, this time by a different route closer to the coast. Daryl planned to unload some of his stuff on the way south, to make for faster travel, but to still save the best stuff for his end destination, Raider Bluff.
But the further south they went, the more worried Makara got. Their route might take them right into L.A. She wasn’t quite sure what she’d do if that was the plan. It might be her one and only chance to find and kill Carin Black, but at the same time, she didn’t think she could possibly get to him without being recognized. Maybe not everyone knew what she looked like, but a lot would know that Raine’s adopted daughter was missing, and that her age and looks would match the description.
Once they’d reached Bakersfield, there was talk among Daryl and his top men about what to do. Some deemed the risk of selling to the Reapers worth it, as the spoils could be great. Others thought it too risky, that raiders would be taking advantage of the war trade to attack caravans trying to cross into L.A. from the north. In the end, Daryl decided heading east to Raider Bluff was the best call.
Things seemed to be going well at first. Until they were ambushed just east of New Barstow, with fifty miles left on their journey.
Chapter 54
SHE HEARD THE SCREAMS first, and then the gunshots.
She was up in a flash, jumping behind a rock for shelter and pointing her handgun into the darkness. Her heart pounded as the men around her fell, as the camels broke from their lines, a few of them even running off into the darkness. She hid behind the rock, and it didn’t take long for her to realize that it would soon be over.
Within minutes, men were looting corpses of the fallen Desert Foxes’ members, pulling aside dead bodies, and untying the camels on the hitch line. The beasts followed their new masters as surely as they would have their old ones.
Makara waited for them to notice her, and was surprised at how long it took for that to happen. Two men were arguing about a shiny trinket they had found, when one of them turned his head and noticed her sitting there, with her gun in hand.
“Well, well, well,” he said, with a predatory smile. “It looks like it’s my lucky day.”
She could have shot him there, but doing so would almost certainly mean her own death. She decided to run, sprinting for the darkness outside the range of the campfires, but the man was faster. He grabbed her by the shoulders, though she still held her gun. She swung around the butt and knocked him good in the head. She pointed it at him, hesitating to pull the trigger.
“Shoot her, Dax,” he shouted. “Shoot her!”
Makara saw she had no choice. She shot him, first, then ran, knowing the noise would draw every one of the assailants toward her. No shots rang out after her, and soon, she was cloaked by darkness. The brays of camels and the shouts of men faded. She ran as far as she could before the slope became too steep. She found a boulder to hide behind.
She was going to get caught. She’d already shot a man, so surrendering wasn’t an option.
This was where she’d go down fighting.
Sure enough, she heard footsteps coming up the slope. They lingered a moment, as if not sure of where she had gone. But their footsteps grew louder, and Makara raised herself from behind her rock and aimed in the direction of the sounds.
She pressed the trigger, the gun kicking back into her hand. Just a moment later, a hand grabbed her from behind and applied pressure to her wrist, causing her to cry out in pain and drop her gun.
“None of that, now,” he said. “Act nice and I might keep even you around.”
“No!” Makara said, doing her best to wriggle free.
It was useless. He’d already picked up her gun, while his friend was coming to assist him.
“All right,” he said. “Let’s bring her to the boss.”
Makara felt herself pulled away from the other man. “I found her. She’s mine.”
“You don’t think he saw her run up this way? If you take her, the boss’ll kill you for it.”
The man was quiet, seeming to consider it. “Might be worth it.”
She stomped the heel of her boot hard on the man’s foot, where one of his toes was exposed through a hole. He yowled while the other man guffawed.
“She might be small, but she’s no easy pickings,” he said. “Come on, idiot. The boss is waiting.”
Makara held back tears, of both fear and anger, as both men led her roughly down the slope. The cruelest part was that Oasis was not twenty minutes north of here, and if she hadn’t been so stupid, she’d be there right now, warm and safe in bed.
Makara was led back into the camp, where thirty or so raiders milled about. Every eye was on her as catcalls and jeers followed her. Makara spat at anyone who tried to touch her, which was practically everyone.
Things got quieter when she was forced to her knees in front of a man sitting on a crate by the fire. She could feel his eyes watching her, but she would not let him see her cry. Men like this had no respect for tears or weakness.
“Look at me, girl,” he said, his voice gruff.
Makara looked up, seeing a man in his late middle years, with cropped gray hair, sharp blue eyes, and a terrible marring on the right side of his face. He regarded her coldly as he held her gaze.
“Step back,” he said to his men. “Don’t lay a finger on her.”
The men looked confused, but they did as ordered.
“What’s your name?” the man asked.
Makara took a few steadying breaths while all of them waited for her answer. “My name’s Jaz.”
The man grunted. It might have been laughter. “Don’t lie to me. Give me your name, now, or you’ll be regretting it.”
Makara did her best to keep eye contact with him. “Makara.”
He nodded, as if satisfied with that answer. “Thought so.”
The men around began to murmur. How did he know who she was?
“Carin Black’s got a fat bounty on you,” he said. “The only Angel to escape the grave.”
Makara just looked at him, waiting for whatever came next.
“I say, any girl who could’ve gotten out of L.A. with the all the Reapers looking for her must be worth something.”
“What do you mean?” Makara asked, forcing herself to talk.
“We taking her to Black, boss?” someone asked.
The man held up a hand. He took that same hand, and then extended it out to Makara. “My name’s Char.”
Char? From Raider Bluff? A thousand questions ran through Makara’s mind.
“You’re probably wondering what’s going on, why I’ve slaughtered everyone here who’s coming to my town, anyway. Well, that’s a long story. Daryl broke a deal last he was with us. Probably thought I’d never figure out I was played. Thought himself clever, like I wouldn’t ever figure out those batts were duds. Well, I figured it out. And he was stupid and greedy for thinking he could pull the same trick on me again.” Char regarded her for a moment, seeming to gauge her reaction. “I don’t know how you got yourself involved with a swindler like him, but I’m going to give you a chance, anyway.”
Makara decided to remain silent on that point. “What are you going to do with me?”
“Well, you shot one of my men, but I can’t fault you for that. You were just trying to defend yourself. Sometimes, you just get a feeling about someone.” Char looked at her neutrally. “How’d you like to join us at Bluff?”
“Join you and do what?”
Char shrugged. “Become one of us. A raider.”
The other men started talking at that. The two who had brought her to Char slunk behind the others.
“I’ll do it,” Makara said. There was really no other answer.
“Good,” he said. “We’re leaving tomorrow morning.” He turned to the men watching him and addressed all of them at once. “Get some shuteye.”
After that, Makara was treated wi
th respect, even as if she were royalty. Men who thirty minutes before who would have raped and killed her were now treating her with deference. Somehow, unknown to her, she had become famous in the Wasteland. The angel who had gotten away. She realized that she had a knack for getting away, just as she had barely escaped Bunker One.
When Makara found her pack, which had been quickly returned to her, she unrolled it and was given a warm spot next to the fire. She still felt shaky as she laid down and closed her eyes, hardly able to process what was happening.
One thing she did know, however, was that freedom was only an illusion. Out here, she lived or died based on the whims of more powerful men.
Epilogue
MAKARA WALKED QUIETLY with the rest of the raiders east, toward Raider Bluff. She saw the smoke of the city long before the city itself came into sight. They crossed the arched bridge spanning the Colorado and walked north, toward the high plateau upon which the city of the raiders had been built.
Along the river itself were the farms, manned by hundreds of people. Makara didn’t have to ask. She knew they were slaves. The raiders walked up the road until they reached the city’s front gates.
Makara entered with the rest of them, realizing that this was who she was, now. It was what she had wanted when she left Oasis, but all she could feel was empty inside.
With winter coming on, there wasn’t much to do. Char took her under his wing and gave her a place to stay in his compound. There, she kept things clean and did basic chores. Makara thought that Char’s reason for preserving her was less than wholesome. He was a raider, after all, and they weren’t known for their moral scruples. She soon saw that he wasn’t interested in her like that, and after that realization, she breathed easier. None of the other men bothered her, seeing how Char was looking after her.
Not that Makara needed much protection. She had her own gun, now, and knew how to use it.
Makara was safe for now, but life still wasn’t worth living. Waiting out the winter was hard. It got terribly cold, to the point where no one went outside unless they had to.
But eventually, it warmed up enough when spring came along, and Makara started raiding with the rest of them. She was fifteen.
She did very well. Everything in life had been taken from her, so she had no qualms about taking it from others. Her days were spent scrapping, pillaging, and taking slaves back to Bluff to be sold like cattle.
She made a lot of batts doing it. With those batts, she rented out a nice room in the Bounty, which had plenty of good grub and beer, both of which were a welcome escape from the wider world that she wanted to shut out.
Her fellow raiders respected her. She was known for being brutally cold.
One day, she caught the eye of an especially gruesome raider, named Brux. When she saw the numbers of batts he got for his raids, she signed on with him immediately.
Times were even better after that.
MAKARA LIVED NEARLY four years at Raider Bluff. She was nineteen, now, and her old life was fast becoming a memory. Raine and Samuel barely crossed her thoughts, now, and that was to her liking. She was good a bottling all her feelings, so small that she hardly noticed them anymore.
Alcohol helped with that, too.
Makara agreed to another raid with Brux and his crew, even if he was starting to become too pushy for her liking. He brought in the batts, and that was all Makara cared about. They ranged further north than they ever had, making it nearly as far as Portland. For all that, though, they lost almost half their men in a sudden blizzard.
On the way south, Brux got intel about one of the government Bunkers out San Bernardino way. Makara was about desperate enough then to not veto the idea, agreeing to scout out the location and come back later with a larger crew.
Brux had a daring plan to get the Bunker to fall. The Red Sickness was coming back, and they’d nabbed a guy who seemed rife with it. They hauled him miles and lay him in the vicinity of the Bunker, hoping that if the government types found him, the people within would take the bait. Once the sickness ran them through, the Bunker would be ripe for the picking.
After they laid the sick man on the mountainside, timing it to happen just before the patrol was set to walk there, Makara had been the one to draw the short stick and keep watch on what happened.
She froze when she heard the voices, ducking behind a rock. When she poked her head above it, she was surprised to see two men. Well, one of them was a man, and the other just a boy. The older one wore desert army fatigues, well-built and looking every inch the action hero, while the other was a lanky boy, with wide, scared eyes and shaggy hair.
The boy was the one who had been staring at her with those fearful eyes.
She hid, but she knew she’d been found out.
Makara cursed herself and followed the ledge downward. When she reached the desert floor and was out of sight of the above patrol, she sprinted back to where Brux and the boys were.
“We’ve got to split,” she said.
“Did they take the body?” Brux asked.
“Yes,” she lied, though she didn’t know if they had.
Brux nodded, satisfied. “Let’s bounce, then. By the time we get back, we’ll clear the whole thing out.”
Makara nodded, but found herself thinking about the boy. She’d been like him, once. Living in a bunker and knowing nothing else.
Well, he was about to find out how rough things got on the outside.
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Did you love Lost Angel: A Wasteland Chronicles Prequel? Then you should read Apocalypse by Kyle West!
Alex Keener has lived all of his sixteen years underground in U.S. Bunker 108. When he goes on his first recon into the Wasteland, he will find out exactly why.
Outside, Alex discovers a harsh landscape twisted by the impact of the meteor Ragnarok in 2030. Besides raiders, dust storms, and cold, a new threat is evolving -- the xenovirus, which twists men and animals into deadly monsters.
When the xenovirus invades Bunker 108, Alex must fight for survival. Joined by a beautiful ex-raider and idealistic scientist, Alex discovers that he and his friends might be the only ones standing between the world and a second apocalypse.
Read more at Kyle West’s site.
Also by Kyle West
The Wasteland Chronicles
Apocalypse
Origins
Evolution
Revelation
Darkness
Extinction
Xenofall
Standalone
Lost Angel: A Wasteland Chronicles Prequel (Coming Soon)
Watch for more at Kyle West’s site.
About the Author
Kyle West is the bestselling author of The Wasteland Chronicles and its successor series, The Xenoworld Saga. Each series is composed of seven books and contain altogether more than a million words. The books have entertained thousands of readers worldwide.
From a young age, Kyle has always been a voracious reader of sci-fi and fantasy. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Professional Writing. He lives in West Palm Beach, FL, with his wife and two cats, and has been writing full time for over five years.
Find out immediately when his next book is released by signing up for The Wasteland Chronicles Mailing List, or better yet, follow him on Facebook for updates, book giveaways, and general shenanigans.
Read more at Kyle West’s site.
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