I dropped back down and hugged Robby. He was still warm, even though he was soaked with blood and rain.
Jenna peeled me away and yanked me into the shadows. I cried as we moved from shrub to shrub, heading away from the town with nothing.
I’d lost everything.
Caleb.
Robby.
Anything that had ever meant anything to me in my entire life was gone. And I already had so little left.
Somehow, we made it out of town. With how much it was glowing, there wouldn’t be anything left.
I fell to my knees but Jenna quickly got me to my feet. She took my hand and squeezed.
“We can’t stop now,” Jenna said.
“I can’t do this, Jenna. Just leave me,” I said.
“Not going to do that,” Jenna said. “You have to find a way to keep going. Do it for Robby and Caleb.”
I sucked in my lip. “The problem is, I just don’t know if I want to keep going.”
“I need you now more than ever,” Jenna said. “There is no way I’ll make it on my own. And what happens when it’s time for the baby to be born?”
We walked together. The screams from the town diminished more and more with each step.
I had no idea how I was going to keep going. I was beyond devastated. But if I didn’t stay with Jenna and help her as best as I could, it would be another life lost.
Jenna and I had gotten closer but we’d never be best friends. Of course, that didn’t mean I wanted anything to happen to her.
My heart was shattered. I didn’t have anything left to live for. But foolishly, I had made a promise.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Jenna said. “Or how to do it but we’ll just have to figure it out together.”
I nodded.
Jenna was just as scared as I was. I could tell by how quickly she moved to get away from the town. If she was in pain, I couldn’t tell but when she glanced back over her shoulder, I could see the sadness in her eyes.
Was I selfish? She’d lost everything too. And for her, it wasn’t the first time. She lost everything with the flash of light.
“He said to head south.” I wasn’t yet able to use his name but Jenna would know who I was referring to. “Is this south?”
“I’m not sure,” Jenna said her eyes darting in every direction. “But I think so. Yeah. I’m pretty sure.”
“How will we know for sure?” I asked.
Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know. No sun to help guide us in the morning.”
“If we make it to morning.”
“We will,” Jenna said. “I don’t hear them anymore.”
“But we can still see it.”
Jenna’s head bobbed. “Not for long. The light is diminishing. I can barely see a foot in front of me.”
“We should wait to travel until tomorrow,” I said.
“Where would we wait?” Jenna asked. She sighed heavily. “What if we’re walking right toward the resort?”
I bit my lip. “I think there would be more fight. We’d hear them if that were the case.”
“Let’s hope you’re right,” Jenna said.
A burst of energy surged through my body. I could hear Robby’s voice in my head.
“You can do it, Joss,” he said. When I squeezed my eyes shut, I could see him smiling at me. “You’re doing great. Just keep going. As far away as you can.”
Robby’s voice would be my motivation. As long as I could hear him in my head, I could keep going. He wasn’t gone from inside me… he was just gone from this world.
I opened my hand and looked at the ring. He’d gone out to get the ring. He’d been hurt but he’d done everything he could to get it to me.
I slipped it on my finger and squeezed my hand into a fist. It was my way of sending him a hug.
Maybe our time was limited but I would do what I could to make sure that Jenna would be okay. I’d help her find a place that she and her baby could be safe… and if that place didn’t exist, I’d help her create it.
I would do it… for Robby and Caleb.
29
Adam
Leo’s arms fell away from me. I pushed his back before charging toward the guard holding Leah.
Something clattered against the ground but I couldn’t look back. I had to do something. They hadn’t hesitated to kill my dad. I knew I didn’t have a lot of time.
The guard turned his gun on me. I ducked only seconds before a shot rang out, echoing throughout the room.
Leah’s eyes widened with her scream. At first, I thought I’d been hit but then I realized her voice was powering her fist as it hurtled toward the guard’s jaw.
I was lucky I hadn’t been hit. At least, I didn’t think I had been, considering I felt no pain. The good news was the guard had terrible aim.
He straightened himself and with a shaking hand, he raised the gun up again. The guard didn’t make it more than halfway before my foot smacked into his gut, causing him to stumble backward into the wall. It looked like he moved in slow motion as he crashed to the ground.
I almost half-smiled, shocked that the move had worked and that I was somehow still standing. But when I remembered that Leo was behind me and the guard on the ground was still holding his gun, my smirk vanished.
“What are you waiting for!” Eva shouted. “Shoot him!”
The guard raised the gun, this time he held it with both hands. There was a distracting rustling sound behind me but I couldn’t turn around.
His hands shook vigorously and his eyes narrowed and widened with confusion. “There’s like three of him.”
“Well, shoot them all, you idiot,” Eva ordered.
A gunshot rang out and my body shook. There was no way he would have missed.
Leah moved fast. He hadn’t noticed her approach from his side. She hit him again and yanked the gun from him as his eyes rolled around in his head.
The guard closed his eyes and slumped over before flopping into a useless heap. Leah handed me the gun.
I quickly turned, searching the room for Leo. But I couldn’t find him. The only people still standing in the room besides Leah and me were Eva and Leslie.
Leslie was staring at something on the ground. She held a gun in her shaking hands. She turned to the side and dry heaved.
“Oh, shit,” she whispered repeatedly.
Leo was lying on the ground near my dad in a growing pool of blood. I hadn’t been shot at… Leslie had managed to take Leo down. She must have gotten the gun when I’d threw my head back into his face.
We were lucky she was there.
“Adam,” Leah said pulling me from my thoughts. “You have to do it.”
Eva was taking small steps backward. She was trying to sneak out of the door unnoticed.
“Stop!” I shouted. My hand jerked upward and I aimed the gun at her head. If I pulled the trigger… I wouldn’t miss.
In the corner of my eye, I noticed Leslie copied my movement with a gasp. She released tiny whimpers, like a lost kitten looking for its mommy.
“You’re not going to do it,” Eva said. “We both know you don’t have it in you, so let’s not even bother to start this little game.”
“Do it, Adam,” Leah coaxed. “Your dad would still be alive if it wasn’t for her. She’s a cold-blooded killer. Pure evil. You’ll be doing a lot of people a favor if you end this now.”
I tightened my grip. The muscles in my jaw were tense. I wanted to pull the trigger but my finger wouldn’t move.
“Why did you do it?” I asked Eva. “Why my dad? He didn’t deserve that. He was always nice to you.”
“It was so easy,” Eva said her smugness had diminished. “Can we end this nonsense now? You’re a wuss. No matter how much you hate me, you won’t be able to kill me.”
I exhaled slowly. “I just want to understand why.”
“Because she’s crazy,” Leah said.
“You’re so pathetic,” Eva said taking a step toward the door. She ta
lked to me as if there was no one else in the room. “The other guards are probably on their way right now. They’ll kill you for what you’ve done. You know they’ll never believe you over me.”
I felt sick. She was going to get away with everything because she was right… I couldn’t kill her.
I wasn’t like Eva. Not at all. I wanted her to pay for what she’d done to my dad but to do that, I would have to become someone I didn’t want to be.
Our only choice was to make a run for it and hope we could get away before the other guards came for us. I lowered the gun and Eva started laughing.
“I knew it!” Eva said clapping her hands together.
“Adam?” Leah said.
“Moron!” Eva said with a haughty laugh. “Your dad’s lying dead on the ground and still you couldn’t do it.”
Leslie grunted as she took a step forward. “Maybe he can’t but I can.”
My entire body shook with the sound of the bullet ripping through the air. Leah sucked in a breath as she grabbed my arm.
Eva’s eyes were saturated with shock. She reached out for the wall to steady herself while her other hand searched for the wound. She found it at her shoulder.
Leslie fired again.
And then again.
She stopped when Eva crashed to the ground.
My ears rang in the silence of the room. It felt as though my entire body was zipping through a tunnel at high speed.
I came back with Leslie’s words. “Take this. You two need to get out of here. Save yourselves.”
“Come with us,” Leah said as she took the gun.
“I can’t,” Leslie said shaking her head. “I can’t leave my mom. She needs me. Eva was right though, they’ll blame you two for this.”
“Are you sure you won’t come?” Leah asked again.
Leslie nodded. “I’ll be okay. Good luck.”
She turned and ran down the hallway. A door at the back opened with a squeak and closed with a bang.
“I guess we leave out the back,” Leah said. “Think we have time to get our bag?”
“I think without we won’t make it far,” I said.
We ran to the cabin through the shadows. It didn’t seem as though anyone was looking for us. There was no commotion but surely, people must have heard the gunshots.
Leah grabbed the bag and strapped it to her back. I took a quick look around the cabin. It wasn’t that I would miss the resort, it was that I was going to miss having a roof over my head.
It wasn’t until we were several miles south of the resort that everything hit me. My dad was gone… murdered right in front of me.
I dropped to my knees and buried my face into my hands. My shoulders shook as I mourned the loss of my dad.
It didn’t give me any solace to know that both Eva and the man that murdered him were dead. Leah and I were back out in the unknown, with rain falling on us in the middle of the night. There was a good possibility that we were also as good as dead.
Leah placed her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry but we need to keep moving.”
“I know,” I said. A soft gulp caught in my throat. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t give it another thought. Let’s just keep moving in case they’re following us,” Leah said looking over her shoulder into the shadows.
I looked up into her eyes. “I’m not sure there is a point.”
“Adam,” she said helping me to my feet. “We survived before the resort and we can survive after the resort too. Other than unlimited food and a roof over our head, the resort hadn’t been that great. We were always looking over our shoulders. Hell, we were trapped inside while everyone else was able to roam around freely.”
“I know,” I said as we walked. I wiped rain off my brow but it was instantly replaced with new droplets.
“We’ll find somewhere and we’ll be okay. People just can’t work together. There is no kindness. No trust,” Leah said before hesitating. “Once we find somewhere safe, we’ll board ourselves in and avoid everyone else for the rest of time.”
I took Leah’s hand into mine. There was nothing but sadness inside me but I had to bury it. I couldn’t let the awfulness of everything get to me because there was someone else besides me I needed to think of.
Leah needed me.
She was strong and smart and if something ever happened to me, she’d be okay. Leah was tough but together, we were better off. I was there to watch her back and she was there to watch mine.
If we were going to survive longer, it was because we’d work together. In a way, we had an advantage because we weren’t alone. We had each other.
Leah and I would find a place. We’d figure out a way to make things work. As long as we had each other, we’d be okay.
That’s what I’d tell myself.
30
Stevie
“Drop it!” the big guy shouted.
“Don’t do it,” Shawn urged. “Shoot him. Shoot them both.”
Shooting them both wasn’t an option. Not because I didn’t want to but because I knew I wouldn’t be fast enough. Someone, likely Shawn, would get hurt.
I set the gun down on the floor next to me and raised my hands.
“That’s a good girl,” Mr. Beard said as blood oozed out of a crack in his lower lip.
I’d almost done it. With the help of Lucy, I had nearly managed to get us out of the mess we were in. But now, I was unarmed, everyone was tied up, and there wasn’t anything else I could do.
“Say good bye to your friends,” Mr. Beard said looking directly into my eyes.
I shook my head, refusing to say good bye. Stupidly refusing to give up even when there was no way out.
“No skin off my nose,” He said raising his gun.
It felt like everything had switched into slow motion. My eyes focused on the dark circle at the end of his gun. The rest of the room seemed to shrink and the darkness was all I could see.
The sounds of the storm outside vanished. It was like I was slipping away before anything had even happened.
The pop of the gun was mind-numbingly loud. Everything around me started to spin violently.
I was surprised I didn’t feel pain. I hadn’t felt the bullet tear into my flesh, searing me with its excruciating heat.
It was like everything around me cleared and I heard all of the sounds at once. I hadn’t been the one to take a bullet.
“Shawn!” I said turning.
I met his glassy, blinking eyes. Shawn was fine but the big guy that had his gun to his wasn’t.
Mr. Beard’s eyes were on his friend but slowly started to shift back to me. I picked up the gun and fired it until it was empty.
He hadn’t even been able to fire a single shot before he dropped to the ground.
“Mom!” Lucy said letting the gun fall to the floor. She dashed to her mom and peeled the tape off her mouth.
“Cut us free,” Kieran said. Lucy nodded before vanishing from the room.
I got to my feet and gathered as many of the guns as I could find. The other three guys had simply been knocked out. They wouldn’t stay out for long.
I helped Shawn to his feet as Lucy came back into the room. She quickly cut Shawn free, then her mom, and then the others.
“Are you okay?” I asked giving Shawn a quick hug.
“Not really,” he said looking around. “I’m alive, though, so I guess that’s good, right?”
“Yeah,” I said smiling at him. “It’s awesome.”
Gage gave me a half-smile as he rubbed his wrists. “What about me?”
“I’m glad we’re all alive,” I said. I turned and gave Lucy a quick hug. The gestured surprised her just as much as it had surprised me. “Thank you. You saved us.”
“I… I…,” Lucy shrugged and fell into her mom’s arms.
“What are we going to do with these other three baboons?” Gage asked.
I shook my head. “Tie them up for now. We’ll figure something out.”
/>
“We can’t let them go,” Gage said.
One of the guys quickly got to his feet and ran out of the open front door. I chased after him but he was already halfway across the yard.
“Dammit,” I said as Shawn stepped out beside me. “He got away.”
Shawn peeled the gun out of my hand and narrowed his eye as he raised the gun. He fired twice.
The guy stumbled and flopped face-first into the mud. I slowly turned and looked at Shawn.
“I had to do it. To keep us safe,” Shawn said.
“Okay,” I said after sucking in a breath.
My body shook after two more gunshots pierced the air. I grabbed Shawn’s arm and turned toward the house.
“Gage took care of the rest of our problem,” Shawn said. “If we let them leave, we could lose everything and maybe everyone.”
“We still might,” I said.
“This bought us some time,” Shawn said.
Everyone worked together to help with cleanup. The bodies were buried as deep in the mud as we could manage and as far away from the house as possible. The floor and wall were scrubbed until the bloodstains were dark brown smears and smudges.
I sat next to Shawn as Kieran tended to Shawn’s wound. The bullet wasn’t lodged inside of his arm but it had ripped the skin to shreds.
His leg bounced and I held his hand as Kieran carefully tried to stitch his skin together. She kept apologizing.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she said. “You’re going to have a scar. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be doing this.”
“You’re doing great,” Shawn said. “I just hope you’ll be done soon.”
“Lucy!” Kieran called out.
Lucy stepped out from around the corner as if she’d been waiting there… as usual. “Yes, Mom?”
“Could you get something for Shawn’s pain?” Kieran asked.
“Of course,” Lucy said with a nod.
She was back in a second with a thick white pill and a small glass of water.
“What is this?” Shawn asked.
“Vicodin,” Kieran said. “We don’t have a lot, so take it easy.”
Shawn shook his head and held up his hand. “Save it for someone else.”
The Reset Series | Book 5 | Torrent Page 15
