by Cara Carnes
“So how do we get the compound dispensed?” Gage asked.
“I go in,” Kamren replied, somehow knowing that was the best answer.
“Yeah, that’s the part we’ve been discussing,” Vi said. “Or arguing, rather.”
“No way,” Dallas said, his tone rough and his voice lethal in its evenness. Kamren reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “Use the drones, knock their asses out that way. Hell, kill them all for all I care.”
“Drones can’t get the bad guys all in one swoop because of the layout of the encampment. You two are good, Dallas and Gage, but there are over twenty-five armed combatants spread out down there, maybe more. We considered sending you two in as an option and nixed it as viable. The pockets within the lean-tos are sporadic at best. There’s no clear line of sight for them all, which means no matter the entry, there’s too much time.”
Time for someone to get to Dallas’s son and kill him.
“Dallas, let’s at least talk it through. I know I’m not trained, but I learn quick. All I need is a plan.”
“We need to stall them. The compound would do that if we dosed everyone. Then you and Gage could go in, Dallas.” Mary’s voice was firm and even, and bolstered Kamren with confidence. She could do this.
Kamren studied the images the drones had obtained. The lean-tos were sporadically placed, entries and egresses spread throughout a complicated maze. Too much of the interior was unknown, which meant too many foreseeable problems. Two men versus twenty-five? She knew the two men were good, but that wasn’t good odds.
“How long til the other teams arrive?” Kamren asked.
“Half a day at their current speeds, which is way faster than is safe,” Vi answered.
“And we know the assholes inside are who we’re after?” Gage asked.
“Facial recognition has identified five with the encampment as Collective so far. So, yes. We haven’t gotten clear shots of the others. We’ve counted twenty-five, but there could be more within the structure,” Vi said.
“And how is sending an untrained woman into an encampment full of men a better play than sending Dallas and me in?” Gage asked.
“Because she’s not an obvious threat,” Mary answered.
“Fuck.” Dallas ran his hands through his hair. “I’ll go.”
“No,” Mary said. “They’d shoot you and Gage immediately. You’re a threat no matter how much you feign otherwise.”
“They’ll hurt her,” Dallas growled. “We wait it out. A group that big, they’ll move slower than us. The teams will catch up; we’ll give chase.”
“You’re okay with waiting,” Vi said.
“I’ve waited months to get my kid; I’m not gonna turn impatient and be stupid now. And I’m sure as hell not sending Kamren in like a sacrificial lamb to buy time.” Dallas’s face turned red. “We wait.”
18
Kamren’s heart thudded wildly in her chest as she feigned discomfort because of the massive backpack she half carried, half dragged behind her. Though her gaze remained a couple feet before her, she knew where every target was based on the last scan of the encampment.
Addy trudged beside her. Her hair was muddy and matted, her eye blackened from the punch she’d taken somewhere en route after the tentative plan formed. The woman was certifiable, and Kamren wasn’t sure who she’d convinced to punch her in the first place. The effect was perfection, though. The damaged area already showed signs of healing, thus lending a bit of credibility to their story.
Talk about effective results. A few tears of their clothing and they were the poster women of dick boyfriends who’d abandoned them in the middle of nowhere. Kamren had even taken the story further and emptied one of the packs, used what they could in the way of extras like blankets and stupid shit city women would try and pack. All weapons were left with the men, except for the knives Kamren had and a small pistol Addy had tucked away at the small of her back.
Although Dallas and Gage had been dead set against the plan, Vi, Mary, and everyone else backed it. She trusted Dallas, Gage, and the rest of the men, who were all in position around the encampment.
Going in hot—whatever that was—would risk Dallas’s son if he was in there. All she and Addy had to do was give the small cameras mounted to their shirts as buttons a visual inspection of as much of the interior as possible.
They got bonus points if they found a way to dispatch the compound they each had tucked away in a pocket of their shorts. Shorts. Addy had two pairs for some reason. The woman was brilliant to have brought them, though. They fit the cover story perfectly.
She waited until she was within shouting distance of the encampment and stumbled to her knees with a plaintive cry. “Help!”
Addy followed suit.
Like vultures on a dead carcass, the men converged on them. Hands hauled them both up. Kamren slammed against a man with a beer-belly and a small splotch of red hair atop his otherwise bald head. “You okay, honey?”
“No,” Addy whined. “My—” Tears shimmered from her eyes and swept down her bruised face.
Jesus, the woman was good.
“Easy now. Come on and have a seat. Tell Gomer all about it.”
Gomer? Seriously?
Addy feigned sniffles as she blotted at her eyes. “My boyfriend, he ditched me, said I wasn’t worth hauling around any longer. And her man…”
Kamren hid her face and shook her shoulders as she forced tears to her eyes. “They wanted us to swap, then do each other, and I said no. Then Addy’s man punched her and they kicked us out of camp.”
There’d been a heated discussion about the merits of a sex-based story. It brought out the men’s baser instincts, made them think with the wrong brain. But it also sexualized her and Addy, which presented a risk within itself. But Addy had assured them all she could handle any fallout if that happened. Surprisingly, none of them argued beyond that.
“You poor girls.” Gomer rubbed Kamren’s shoulders. “You’re safe now.”
She looked around at the men gathered around them. No kid. “I can’t believe we actually found someone. We wandered forever.”
“You don’t look like the hiking kinda girls. Your men never should’ve brought you out this far. It’s not safe,” one of the men said.
“Yeah, well. We were stupid, thought it’d be fun.” Kamren sniffled as she looked around and spotted the large vat of beans simmering on the stove. “I-I’m so hungry.”
She recalled the shame of being hungry the first time at The Arsenal until heat filled her cheeks. Her stomach rumbled on command, by sheer luck or determination. “I’m sorry; forget I said anything.”
“Nonsense,” Gomer said. “Come on, we’ll get you two settled.”
Kamren’s stomach churned for an entirely different reason as the group escorted her and Addy into the encampment. They wound through narrow corridors constructed with wood, thick burlap-like material. The twisty route spilled into a large common area with a small area open up top, like a rudimentary teepee.
A small cooking area was along the far “wall” of the common room. She kept her gaze cast downward and took comfort in the fact Addy appeared calm and at ease despite the fact all the men were clustering around them.
The plan was working.
Moths to a flame. We’re the moths.
Addy’s words from earlier echoed in her brain and served as a reminder to play the part of a terrified woman. That was pretty simple since she was a terrified woman.
“Get the girls a couple bowls. We were about to eat anyway,” Gomer ordered.
Kamren smiled and ignored the lecherous hand rubbing her knee. Gomer’s gaze swept down her exposed legs. “How long were you with your man, honey? He do that to you?”
She glanced down at the scars going up and down her legs. “I can be stubborn.”
“You don’t worry none. Gomer’s gonna take good care of you both.” Gomer referring to himself in the third person was way creepy. Revulsion shuddered through Kamre
n, but she remained silent as she accepted a steaming bowl of beans. A meat of some sort was mixed in with it.
Addy had the tear thing down, so Kamren would handle the rest. She plowed through the bowl, shoveling spoonfuls of the beans and deer meat into her mouth, barely taking time to chew before she swallowed. She maintained eye contact with Gomer and his goons the whole time, measuring the effectiveness of her mock starvation.
She burped real big, which made the men laugh. Some turned their lecherous attention from Addy to her. She eyed Gomer hopefully as she shifted closer to the vat of beans. “May I have a little more, please?”
The plaintive request sliced through the room.
“Just a little more, honey. I don’t want you to get sick.” Gomer motioned toward the dish. “Help yourself. We don’t starve our women.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Making her way slowly to the food, she palmed the mysterious compound she’d kept tucked away by wiping her face with her torn shirt. She feigned shyness and huddled her body over the vat of beans as she filled a ladle, then dumped the compound vial into the beans and stirred. She turned, set her bowl down. “Can I get you some? I hate eating alone, and I feel bad taking your food.”
“That’d be mighty fine, honey.”
Addy was still eating her bowl and watched as man after man lined up to get a bowl and a smile from Kamren. She sat after the last dish was taken. Thirty-two men, way more than twenty-five.
“Anyone else?” she asked.
“No, honey. Not anymore.” Gomer’s grim statement thundered through the area.
“Rhea, you wanna fill us in on what that shit does?” Dallas asked.
“Um, wow. Okay. So she dosed them all. Didn’t expect that to actually work.” The woman appeared flustered but recovered quickly. “They’ll get drowsy, but it’s a bit like truth serum. I’ll skip the science ‘cause Vi and Mary are glaring at me. They’ll talk. So ask questions.”
That she could do.
“Not anymore?” Kamren swallowed a spoon of beans as she reached out and squeezed Gomer’s knee. “I’m sorry. You seem sad.”
“Not sad, honey. Just pissed. A woman I cared about very much died. I’m sort of lost without her.”
“Bingo,” Mary said.
“That sucks,” Addy said. “My brother got killed not too long ago. Fucking guts you.”
“Yeah.”
“Sweet setup here,” Addy commented. “Looks like we almost missed you. You heading home?”
“No, that’s not an option,” one of them said. “Can’t get found, or we get dead.”
Kamren ate a piece of meat. “This meat is good. What is it?”
“Deer?”
“Wow. You…” She forced a pause for effect. “You can hunt? That’s so cool. I always wanted my dad to teach me, but he wouldn’t, said I was a girl and shouldn’t know that stuff. I don’t think he knew how, though. He was a car salesman.”
“Sounds like you need a real man to show you how things should be.” Gomer adjusted himself. Yawned. “My woman had a couple kids, you know. Boys. I was showing them how to shoot. Track. Youngest wasn’t all that bright, but the other one, he was good. Had a lot of potential.”
The other one? She forced her mind away from the tidbit as her mind settled on the rest of what he’d said.
“Had?” Kamren didn’t have to feign tears. They streamed out as her brain focused on the past tense of his conversation. “They…they died with her?”
“No, but we had to leave them behind. They’d slow us down, and it wasn’t safe. Folks who hurt my woman, we don’t want to mess with them. The kids were a tie to us we couldn’t afford,” someone said.
“What the fuck?” Gomer glared over his shoulder. “Your mouth is running fast and loose.”
“Where were you? You left them somewhere? Alone?” Addy’s accusatory voice thundered through the room.
“They’ll be fine. Cabin’s remote. No one will ever find ‘em.” Gomer yawned again.
“How far away is it? I could use a place to lay low. Her boyfriend’s nuts. He’ll hunt us down.”
“You leave that bastard to me if he shows up. You ain’t got no business hiding out in that cabin. Closest town is a shithole with two hundred folks at most. Rude-ass fuckers called it Friendly Junction.” Gomer yawned again. “Shit, I’m beat.”
Kamren knew they had what they needed when hell broke loose moments later. The take downs were swift and simple thanks to the drugs pumping through their systems. She latched onto Dallas. “We have a location. We have a location.”
She drew back, expecting to see smiles from the men around her. The grim expressions made her insides clench. “What?”
“The woman he was talking about was Marla, my ex. My son’s mom. She died eleven weeks ago.”
Shit. Kamren swallowed the fear rising in her throat. She wouldn’t give it a voice. “He said they could hunt, track. The other kid was good. Maybe that was your kid he was talking about. Either way, they can hunt.”
“You think assholes like that left a gun for a kid?”
“No, but I’ve been that kid, Dallas. I’ve been lost in the woods alone with no weapon except a dull knife, no supplies except a ball of string, a filthy blanket, and a backpack. So I know you can live for eleven weeks if you have the skills and smarts to do it, because I did. Repeatedly.” She looked up at him as she squeezed his arm. “Shake that shitty look off your face and clean up this mess so we can move out.”
TJ crouched beside the dark hole. “Lilly?”
“It’s dark; you shouldn’t be out here. Go back inside with your brother before they spot you out here.” Her voice was weaker than before. She stopped halfway in between to cough, the sound was long and deep. “Go back inside.”
TJ looked around. The bad men who’d stayed at the cabin after Gomer and his men left were away again. He hoped they’d stay away for good, like Gomer and his men. But Mo and his goons were real mean and didn’t wanna leave, said it was safer to hunker down, whatever that meant.
But Mo and his goons always left to hunt and get supplies. They always stayed away a couple sunrises, so TJ knew there was time to check on Lilly. Back when Gomer and his guys were there, too, someone had always stayed behind, which made it hard to sneak out and get to the hole where they kept Lilly.
At least Gomer was gone. It’d been way easier to get out of the cabin with no one there. He and DJ would leave, go to town and ask for help, but that hadn’t gone too well last time he tried. He’d gotten hauled back, and Mo and his goons beat him and DJ real bad.
“There’s time.” He lowered his voice, just in case. Last time he’d gotten caught, he’d been whipped. His bottom still hurt. “I caught a rabbit, exactly where you said. Nearest tree to the slow water. I did just what you said. DJ helped me skin it. We even got the guts out right this time.”
“That’s good, baby. Really good. I knew you could do it.” She coughed harder. “You know how to cook it, right? You have the flint you found? You gotta cook it and eat real quick before Mo and them get back. Outside, so the smell isn’t in the cabin.”
“Yeah. DJ found sticks and stuff. We cooked it good.” He held his hand out. The bag dangled. “We saved you some.”
“You keep it; eat it for breakfast.”
“We got two eggs from the hens you taught me to catch. They’re hidden in the cave we found,” TJ said proudly. He’d learned a lot from Lilly. “Eat or we won’t.”
Lilly didn’t like him and DJ not eating. When the mean men had gone away and left them last sunrise, TJ wanted to go into town and tell someone about Lilly in the hole, but then he’d remembered the guy from town.
Lilly had tried to get him and DJ to leave without her, said there was another town four days toward the sun when it was up in the sky. She said no one could know she was there, it was too dangerous. So he and DJ should go without her. Forget about her. His tummy and insides hurt real bad thinking about leaving her behind.
Scared.
At first, he’d been real scared when the mean men went away the last time ‘cause when Gomer and the others left they’d never come back. The mean woman hadn’t been around in a long time, and then Gomer got scared, said she was dead. TJ knew what dead was. He’d seen lots and lots of things get dead because of the mean men. Lilly said it was his job to keep him and DJ fed, watered, and safe.
And he had.
Because of Lilly.
Mo and his goons didn’t much care what he and DJ did as long as they didn’t try and get away. They were real good at finding things and said he and DJ would get hurt real bad if they tried to run while they were out hunting. TJ and DJ could hunt at the creek for fish. If he was quick he could sneak into town, even though Lilly didn’t trust folks there.
She said one day they’d all get away so they could be taken to a good home with lots of family and plenty of food. He didn’t know what a family was.
But Lilly was good to them. She’d kept the mean men from hurting him and DJ. She’d fought them again and again and again. The mean men said food wasn’t free, you had to earn a hunt. TJ didn’t know what all that meant, but she always left the hole they kept her in when his and DJ’s bellies hurt, and she’d go away. Sometimes she’d come back hurt, but she always had food.
The mean men had loud things that killed easy. Guns. They’d taught TJ how to use them, but Lilly never got one. And they’d taken all the guns away. But she had made TJ hide a knife. She was real good with it, too. She killed a grizzly with one the last time she went out, said it was either her or the bear.
TJ was glad she won.
Even if bear meat wasn’t all that good.
