by Charlie Hart
“Get in the car,” he orders, pulling out a gun from his back pocket. “There are--”
“Yeah,” Giles mutters, releasing me. “I see it.”
“Fuck,” Huxley says, as two small black dots appear in the distance. He opens the trunk and digs through a bag, pulling out two more pistols and handing one to Emerson. “Let’s go.”
“I’ll drive,” Fallon says, which gets no argument from Huxley, who issues me into the backseat with him.
“You’re going to need to step on it,” Hux says.
“Just fasten your seatbelts.”
My head jerks back as the tires squeal and we speed forward.
“We’re going to lead them straight to the bunker if we don’t lose them,” Giles says.
“I’m not going to be able to shake them,” Fallon says grimly. “This car is built like a tank, but it’s not fast.” He glances in the rearview mirror and curses. “They’re gaining on us.”
“What are we going to do?” I clutch Huxley’s hand. “We can’t lead them to the bunker. We wouldn’t just be putting the others at risk, but all of Miriam’s research. And the cure. Banks has it. It’s more valuable than...”
“Nothing’s more valuable than you,” Huxley says tightly, squeezing my hand.
A shot rings out behind us, followed by a sharp tinging sound of a bullet hitting the back of the vehicle.
“Fuck, keep your heads down,” Fallon yells, as Huxley places a hand on the back of my head and pushes me down.
More shots are fired, and one must pierce a back tire because we start spinning.
Everything happens so quickly.
“Stay in the car and keep your head down,” Fallon screams at me before all three men jump out, and a series of shots are fired.
“Drop your weapons,” a familiar voice orders.
My father.
Oh, God, he’s here.
“No one needs to get hurt, Tia. Just get out of the car and come home with me. If you do that, I promise I’ll let these men walk.”
“She’s going nowhere with you,” Huxley yells back, firing his gun.
More gunfire sounds out from both directions, and I scream when Huxley falls back, a bullet piercing his shoulder. I start to move toward him, but he yells at me to stay in the car.
“I’ll take down each one of your husbands, daughter.” My father’s voice carries across the distance. “You’re outnumbered here. Alaska is already in my control.”
Blood seeps through Huxley’s shirt, but I can tell it’s a clean wound. Still, my father’s men won’t back down. And I know my father will do what he has to in order to get me back.
But he won’t harm me. At least, not until he extracts the cure from my body.
Ignoring my husband’s shouting, I get out of the car.
“For fuck’s sake, Tia, get down,” Huxley yells.
“He won’t hurt me,” I say, searching the black vehicles in front of me for signs of my father. But he remains hidden. “Will you? Not when I’m carrying your grandchildren.”
“They belong to me, daughter. Everything I’ve sacrificed, it’s all worth it because of those six heartbeats.” Surrounded by his guards he steps around the car, and I finally meet my father’s cold gaze.
But something else catches my attention, a woman gets out of one of the cars, a smirk plastered on her face.
“Helene?” I gasp. What is she doing with my father?
Following my gaze, I see my father’s lips twist into a sadistic smile. “I brought along a little insurance, just in case you had any hesitation about coming with me. Helene has been extremely helpful. It’s amazing what people will sacrifice for money. She came to me with the information I needed,” he says with a snarl. “Some people understand their place in the world. A lesson my own daughter has yet to learn.”
“If you think I’ll surrender to you for a traitor, you’re wrong.”
“It isn’t her life I’m trading.” He motions to Helene, who reaches into the car and yanks a boy out by the hair.
Mason.
Bound and gagged, I see the fear in the boy’s turquoise eyes.
No, no, no.
I hear the muttered curses of my husbands behind me, and I thank God Emerson isn’t here, because I know his reaction would have been to run for the boy. It’s my reaction now. But I manage to hold myself steady.
There has to be a way out of this. And yet I can’t see one. Not when one of the armed guards points a gun at the boy’s head.
“All these years, you’ve been searching for a cure,” I say, my voice trembling with emotion. “But it was never for the good of humanity like you claimed. It was for fame. For glory. How do you justify all the lives that you’ve taken when you go to sleep at night? And now, you’d use an innocent child, threaten his life, for what?”
“For what belongs to me,” he hisses. “All those sacrifices weren’t in vain. I created a cure. Because of me, the human race will live on.”
“There was another way.”
“Your flower?” He spits. “A temporary fix. Already my men are preparing to rid the island of your false hope.”
“No. You wouldn’t.” But I already know he will. He’ll take out everything and anything that gets in his way.
“With what lies inside of you, I can rewire the genetic code--”
“You’re a monster.” The words pour from my lips. “You’ll kill your own grandchildren?”
His gaze hardens on me. “Be logical, Tia. The extraction isn’t fatal for you. And you can get pregnant again.”
I place my hand over my belly, protectively.
“They’re just fetuses.” He grabs Mason by the shoulder and using him as a shield, he takes a step towards me. “But he is a child. Do you think your husband would ever forgive you if you let his son die?”
Tears blur my vision as I look at Mason.
I can’t, won’t, let my father hurt him.
“Tia,” Huxley warns from behind me, obviously reading my thoughts. “Don’t.”
I shake my head, knowing there’s no other way. This ends one of two ways. Either I go with my father, or a battle will ensue, one that would most likely result in Mason and my husbands’ deaths.
“Okay. I’ll go with you.”
There are curses behind me from my men, and a grin stretches across my father’s face.
“But you give me your word that you don’t spill another drop of blood on Alaskan soil. You leave my family alone.”
His jaw twitches and he nods. “As long as your husbands stay in Alaska they will be unharmed.”
I let out a breath, then take a few steps forward, reaching my arms out for Mason, who runs into them.
“Get in the car,” I whisper against his head, before releasing him.
As soon as the boy is out of my arms, a guard seizes me.
“No,” Huxley shouts, stepping away from the car door he’d been using as a shield. “I won’t let you--”
A shot is fired.
Just one.
I don’t know where it comes from, the sound pierces the air, and I’m being pushed towards my father’s cars, but not before I see my husband drop to his knees, a pool of bright red blood forming in the center of his chest, his blue eyes wide in shock.
“Huxley,” I scream. “No.”
It’s a fatal shot. And I see in his eyes he knows it.
“No. No. No.”
I don’t think. All I can do is act. My only thought, revenge. Grief and anger guide my actions, as more shots ring out around me. I pull the guards gun from its holster, take aim, and fire.
The shot hits its target. Straight in the center of my father’s forehead. His eyes widen just before he falls heavily to the ground, dead.
More shots fire around me, but I just stand there, paralyzed.
Screaming and chaos reign and the gun is pulled from my hands, large arms lifting me. I’m held tightly against a hard body and then I hear Giles’ voice.
“It’s m
e, Tia. It’s me.”
I only get a quick view of the bloody scene he carries me away from, but it’s one that will forever be imprinted in my mind. My father’s lifeless body, surrounded by his dead guards. And Helene, her eyes still wide open, mouth gaping in shock even in death.
Oh, God.
But I don’t have time to think about the lives lost because, inside the car, I’m met with a new horror.
Huxley’s body lies limp in the backseat, Mason holding his hands over the wound, blood seeping through his fingers.
“Help him,” Giles says, before shutting my door and climbing in the front, and yelling at Fallon to drive.
Shock and despair make me hesitate, but it’s only for a split second before my medical training kicks into gear.
“Give me your shirt,” I say to Mason, who takes it off, then hands it to me. I ball it, then press it over the wound. “Keep the pressure on it.”
Huxley groans, his face pale, as his eyelashes flutter. “Tia.”
“I’m here. Just hold on. You’re going to be all right. We’re almost at the bunker and Banks will--”
“I...” He tries to lift his hand to touch my face, but he doesn’t have the strength and it falls limp beside him. “I love you. Always know that.”
“You’ll be able to tell me that a million times. Just stay with me. Okay?”
“Thorne? Is he...?”
“He’s dead.” I place my palm on his cheek and repeat, “He’s dead.”
“Good. Then you’re finally safe.” A look of peace rests across his features.
“We’re all going to be safe. Just hold on.”
“I love you,” he says, one last time before his eyes close.
“Huxley,” I shout, checking frantically for a pulse. “Hux, don’t do this. Don’t leave us.”
But even as I cry out the words, I know that my husband is already gone.
Chapter 14
Huxley
Even when I was young, I never believed in happy endings. I’d read comic books about superheroes saving the world and I would thumb through the pages, knowing that real life never ends with the good guys winning.
But now, as my breathing shallows, as a white light is straight ahead, I know I was wrong.
Tia’s voice is already an echo, and even though her hands cling to my own, I can’t feel her touch. I’m already forgetting the softness of her skin, her long silky hair as it brushed against my shoulders when she would lean over my body, my hands running over the curve of her back as we lay naked in my bed.
I close my eyes, trying to hold the memories tight.
But they are fading fast.
I want to relive those moments, when Tia and I were in the pickup truck, our eyes locked, our souls breaking free.
Instead, all I see are Tia’s fingers gripping tightly to a gun as she fires a deadly shot.
Maybe I was wrong about life, about the end.
Because in this story, the story of my goddamn life, Warren Thorne is dead.
But then again, so am I.
“Stay with me,” Tia’s voice is desperate and far away, and I fight to open my eyes, but it’s no use. “Huxley, I love you, don’t go, not like this.”
She holds my face and I blink, wanting one last look at my bride. The woman who taught me everything that matters. That love is worth fighting for. That our past doesn’t define us. That family is worth any sacrifice.
Her gaze meets mine and I see a future with her, one so fucking bright and beautiful, my barely beating heart breaks a thousand times over.
God, how I want a life with her.
“Stay with me,” she pleads and I don’t want to let her down with my dying breath.
So, I fight.
Harder than I ever have before.
Focusing on love not hate. On the future, not the past.
But my life slips away, like sand through my fingers, and I can’t grasp hold of it. I just keep drifting into the nothingness, desperate to cling to my wife’s voice. To cling to anything that will let me stay. Let me live.
I’m aware of the car stopping. Of chaos surrounding me. Of Tia begging me to live. People are moving fast, I’m pulled from the car onto a gurney and try as I might, I can’t focus on the words or the movement around me.
All I can focus on is her.
Tia.
Tia.
Tia.
“Fight for me, Huxley,” she begs. “Fight for our children.”
The world is in chaos and there is no calm before the storm. It’s been one hurricane after the next for the last two decades, and I’ve been beaten down.
Every cell in my body throbs, every inch of my skin on fire.
“I’m going to help you,” Banks says, his voice floating over me and another stab pierces my arm but then the light fades.
And I’m gone.
Chapter 15
Tia
The night sky is as empty as my heart feels in this moment. The stars that usually cover the Alaskan sky, are gone. Tonight, the sky is only covered in thick, heavy clouds. Of course, it is. How could the stars shine when a man’s life is in the balance?
As I sit against an outside wall of the bunker, sobbing into my hands, Emerson finds me.
“Tia, you shouldn't be out here, alone.” He sits beside me, wrapping an arm around me and I breathe him in, his earthy, manly scent grounding me on the moment. Armed guards are all around, patrolling the perimeter of the bunker, and I know I’m safe in my husband's arms. But I’m not the one I’m worried about.
“I can’t watch anymore,” I say, burying my face in his chest. “If Hux dies… if he… Em, I can’t…”
“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.” He smooths my hair, kissing my head as my shoulders shake against him.
“I love him so much. I can’t lose him, Em.”
“We won’t. He’s in surgery right now with Banks and an expert team of doctors. He is in the best hands.”
I look up at him, wiping my eyes, trying to catch my breath. “But the bullet… I’ve seen a wound like that before when I killed a man. And that man died.”
“Huxley is a strong ass dude, Tia. He’s not going anywhere.”
“If he dies, it's all my fault. My father’s men pulled the trigger. My father was there because of me. If I had only…” I begin to sob again, covering my face with my hands.
“Tia,” Emerson says, pulling my hands down, his voice firm and direct. It’s not the way Em ever talks to me, or how he speaks to anyone. It forces me to pay attention. “No more looking back. You've got to look forward, Tia. Huxley doesn’t need your regrets right now. He needs your prayers.”
I look up into the sky, grey and dark. “There is nothing up there, Em. No one looking out for us. How could there be when such atrocities are everywhere? When the world is so broken? So lost?”
Emerson though, cups my face with his hands, his eyes staring into mine. A man of faith, a man who always holds a candle of hope in his heart, lighting the way for me. “Enough, Tia. You don’t have to believe in a higher power, but you must believe in love. Love heals all wounds.”
My salty tears stream down my cheeks and I want to believe him. I want that kind of faith.
“I want to see what you see when you look into the world, but I see pain and heartbreak. I see fathers willing to murder their daughters and I see mothers selling out their own sons. Where is the love in that, Em?”
He is crying now too, and my words ring out loud and clear and yet, he isn’t nodding in agreement. Instead, he is taking my hands and pressing them to my belly.
“This is where love is,” he says, our hands held together over my womb. “Here. In the future, not the past. Love will find a way if you let it.”
Just then, I feel something inside of me move.
A flutter. Butterfly wings. Six tiny heartbeats taking flight.
I gasp, emotion welling up in my eyes, and Emerson chokes on his tears.
“See,” Em whisp
ers. “Love will find a way.”
“And Hux?” I ask, trembling through the wonder of feeling my babies first movements.
“He is a badass motherfucker, Tia. You don’t have to worry about him.”
I nod, trusting that he is right. Huxley is a survivor, and he won’t go without a fight. I look down to my belly, Emerson's strong calloused hands wrapped with mine and our babies kick again.
Our eyes meet, so amazed at the timing. My sobs fade as a smile breaks through my pain. The magic is not lost on me.
I don’t need a sky of stars when my hands are already pressed tight against such beauty, such mystery.
Love will find a way.
Chapter 16
Huxley
“I’m here, Hux,” Tia’s voice is distant and full of emotion. “We all are.”
My fingers tighten, and I grip the hand I hold, and I know even without seeing, that it’s Tia’s.
My eyes flutter open, feeling like a great weight is trying to keep them shut.
“Hux,” Tia’s words are laced with hope and concern and when my eyes finally focus, I see my wife leaning over me, her hand cupping my face. “You’re alive. You’re going to be all right.”
I try to smile, to reassure her, but everything hurts. “Tia.”
“No, don’t move a muscle. You’ve just gotten out of surgery.”
“He’s awake?” Banks asks, coming in. I look around, realizing I’m in a medical room. We must have made it to Miriam’s bunker.
“Is Mason okay?” I ask, the words scratching my throat.”The girls?”
Tia’s face softens. “Yes, they’re all here. We all made it. But we’ve started a revolution.”
“Not now,” Banks tells her.
But I’m awake now, I need to know what’s happened.
“A revolution?” My mind is still groggy, but I try to focus on her words.
Tia and Banks share a look, and when Banks sighs, telling her to get the husbands, I know Tia’s won.
I smile, grimacing as I do, realizing I have a long road of recovery ahead of me.
“If we hadn’t left when we did,” Banks tells me, moving to the side of the bed and checking my IV. “Warren’s men would have gotten us at the compound. We would have been stuck inside the house, sitting ducks. If you hadn’t made the decision to get us out of the house so quickly, we’d all be dead.” He rests a hand on my arm. “I owe you my life. And beyond that, the cure that I’ve found, it would have been lost without you. Thank you.”
