Edge of Collapse Series (Book 4): Edge of Anarchy

by Stone, Kyla

  “She smiled,” Liam said.

  “At this age, it’s just gas.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Believe what you want to.”

  “She did. I saw it.”

  Hannah suppressed a smile. She rose to her feet. “You need sustenance. I’ll get you that tea.”

  “I can get it.” Liam swept the blankets aside and started to get up. His muscles were too weak. His legs quivered like Jell-O beneath his weight.

  “Sit down,” Hannah ordered. There was no hesitation in her voice, no equivocation. It was a command.

  He sank back onto the mattress. “I’m fine.”

  Hannah fisted her hands on her hips. “You’re recovering from hypothermia. You’re injured, and you almost died. You don’t have to do every single thing yourself.”

  Liam only grunted.

  “You’re as stubborn as a toddler.”

  Ghost chuffed in amusement.

  Liam glared at him. “What are you looking at?”

  Ghost just thumped his tail.

  “Traitor,” Liam grumbled. “I thought you were on my side.”

  “He’s on all our sides,” Hannah said. “But mine more.”

  “I suppose that’s only fair.”

  He glanced down. He realized suddenly that he was completely nude. Not just his upper half, but everywhere. Naked as the day he was born.

  Embarrassment flushed through him. He seized the nearest blanket and wrapped it around his waist. “What the hell happened to my clothes?”

  “Your boots are by the fire. I stuffed them with old newspaper I found in the office to help them dry faster. As for your clothes—” She gestured at the sofa. “They’re hand-scrubbed, washed, and folded on the couch for whenever you’re ready.”

  “I’m—you took them off—you—” he sputtered.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Who do you think took care of everything the last three days?”

  His face burned at the thought of how she’d seen him. The bodily functions she’d cleaned up. It made him feel weak and helpless and vulnerable.

  He hated that feeling above all else.

  Her expression softened. “Liam. You did the same for me.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Of course it is.”

  She was right. He still didn’t have to like it.

  A hint of mischief gleamed in her eyes. “Besides, I kind of like you like this.”

  “Naked?”

  Now it was her turn to blush. “All flustered and discombobulated. It’s a refreshing change.”

  He snorted. “Can I have my clothes now?”

  “In a minute. You should get cleaned up first. You’ve got blood caked on you. And you’re dirty. Frankly, you stink.”

  That tugged a tight smile out of him. “You should’ve seen me in Iraq.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Liam eyed the couch. Across the room suddenly felt like a mile. “Hand me my boxers, at least. Give a man some dignity.”

  Hannah gave him a little smirk but handed him the folded pair of boxers. She went back into the kitchen—ostensibly to give him a moment of privacy. He dressed quickly, and she returned a minute later with steaming tea so thick with honey that he could eat it with a spoon.

  Her belly was still a bit swollen from childbirth, but she moved differently. She had an effortless grace, a confidence she didn’t have before. He felt drawn to her.

  She headed back into the kitchen and came back lugging a large bowl of water. She placed it by the fire to warm. She set a towel and a stack of clean washcloths beside it.

  “I can clean myself.”

  “I know that. You shouldn’t be on your feet quite yet. Once you’re up, you won’t rest. You pace around here like a caged lion. Take another day to recover.”

  He couldn’t drag his gaze from her. Her skin seemed to shimmer in the firelight. The warm light highlighted her cheekbones, the delicate slope of her nose, her small stubborn chin. The way her green eyes shone.

  “You’ve suffered for everyone else. You served your country. You gave your body, your mind, risked your life.” She gave him a small smile. “Let someone else help you for once. Let me help you.”

  He couldn’t say no to her. He’d always been worthless at denying a beautiful woman anything. Especially a woman like Hannah.

  Grudgingly, he nodded.

  “Trust me,” she said.

  He did. God help him, but he did.

  26

  Liam

  Day Twenty-FIve

  Hannah washed Liam.

  She dipped the washcloth in the water, wrung it out, and began wiping his back. The water was hot but not scalding. She washed away the dirt, grime, and dried blood. Her small, warm hands were firm but gentle as she brushed his bare shoulders, his back, his chest.

  Her fingers did not flinch away when they moved over his cuts, scrapes, and scars. His war-damaged skin.

  For several minutes, she worked in silence. Neither of them spoke.

  Ghost panted softly. The fire crackled and popped. The heat and the flickering firelight made the room warm and cozy.

  Her nearness was a little unnerving, but also comforting. It was intimate in a way that he couldn’t remember ever experiencing before. It felt good. It felt right.

  “Can I ask you something?” Hannah asked.

  “Of course.”

  Her words were hesitant, cautious. “When you were delirious, you said things.”

  Liam went still. “What?”

  “You were talking to someone. Someone named Jessa.”

  He closed his eyes. Firelight danced behind his eyelids.

  “You can talk to me, you know. You don’t have to, but I’m here. I’m listening.”

  She traced a bullet scar on his lower back. She touched him with a tenderness that almost made him weep for reasons he couldn’t name or explain.

  He’d been strong for so long. Tough and hard. He felt anything but tough now.

  His defenses were down. She’d disarmed him completely.

  He felt like he was shattering, piece by broken piece.

  Hannah had trusted him with her broken pieces. Maybe he could do the same.

  “Something happened,” he said haltingly. “In Chicago.”

  She sat back and shifted on the mattress so that she faced him, her gaze on his, her expression warm, compassionate, and open.

  “I had a brother named Lincoln. My twin. His wife was named Jessa. I—” He swallowed. “She was my sister-in-law. She was pregnant with their first child. I flew to Chicago to see them. My brother’s PTSD was getting worse. She was worried about him. She said he needed me, that I was the only one who could reach him. It was Christmas Eve. They’d just picked me up when the EMP happened. We were in downtown Chicago, and the car just stopped. The stoplights, everyone’s phones, everything. We crashed into the car ahead of us. It wasn’t bad—no one was hurt—but Jessa’s seatbelt was jammed. Lincoln and I got out of the car. We just stood there. I thought we had time. I didn’t think…I didn’t know.

  “The planes—they stopped working, too. We watched one crash. Then another one appeared between the buildings. It was huge and so low. Gliding straight toward us. There wasn’t any time. I shouted for Lincoln to run, but his PTSD kicked in, and he froze. He wouldn’t move. He went into this trance—he didn’t know where he was or what was happening. Jessa was still trapped in the car. The seatbelt wouldn’t budge. The plane was still coming. I ran out of time. I had to choose. Lincoln or Jessa.”

  He sucked in a sharp breath. “God help me, I chose Jessa. Jessa and the baby. I knew what Lincoln would have wanted. He’d have killed me if I’d saved him and let her die. It felt like ripping my own heart out of my chest to leave him. But I did. I had to.

  “I cut Jessa free and we ran. She couldn’t run as fast, since she was nine months pregnant. The plane came down behind us. Without the engines, it was nearly silent. This great harbinger of death sailing over
us, coming down on top of our heads. We managed to take shelter in a bank. I pushed Jessa ahead of me, shouted at her to get behind something. She went in. I was just behind her.

  “I saw the plane come down. The wings hitting buildings and sheering off like they were made of paper. The fuselage exploding. Huge chunks of shrapnel as large as cars blasting in all directions, smashing cars and buildings, punching through steel and glass and brick. I dove for cover. I got up as soon as I could, searching for Jessa, screaming for her. There was so much dust and smoke. Everything was burning. I found her at the back of the bank. At first, I thought she was okay. I thought we’d made it.”

  He paused. A lump rose in his throat. His eyes burned.

  Hannah didn’t push him. She waited.

  After a moment, he regained his composure and continued. “A big chunk of shrapnel had shredded her thigh and hit her femoral artery. I put a tourniquet on it, but it wasn’t enough. She was bleeding out. We were two miles from a hospital. Two miles of hell. No cars working. People running, yelling, and screaming. I carried her most of the way. We—we didn’t make it. She begged me to stop. She said she needed a rest. We both knew better. She was thinking of the baby, not herself. She knew what was coming. I knew, too, but I wasn’t willing to admit it to myself yet. It was too terrible, too awful.

  “We found a hotel that would take us in. I paid cash. One of the staff members gave us a hotel room. Her name was Prisha Hunjan, and she helped us. She did everything she could. Jessa—she was so brave. Braver than me. She told me she was dying. She was a doctor; she could feel what was happening. The baby could only live in her womb for a couple of minutes after she died. It’s why she refused to go the rest of the way to the hospital. It’d take too long to get help. She would die, and the baby would die. She was determined not to let that happen.”

  He wiped fiercely at his eyes. “She told me everything I needed to do. Step by step. She was dying and she still had the presence of mind to tell me how to cut her open. She—she died there, in that hotel room. There wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it. I couldn’t mourn for her. I had two minutes to get that baby out or my nephew died. I had no choice; I did it. I sliced her belly open. Pried open her insides and pulled out Jessa and Lincoln’s son. It sounds easy to say it, but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Slice a quarter inch too deep and I’d accidentally kill the baby. Every cut had to be precise. And every second was a second he was losing oxygen…”

  Liam shuddered at the memory.

  “You saved him,” Hannah said softly. “Like you saved Charlotte.”

  Liam nodded heavily. His hands twisted in his lap, his fingers balled into fists. “That’s not the end. That’s not all. Jessa’s parents lived in Chicago. Jessa had asked me to take her son to them. Prisha helped me clean the baby up and use strips of a sheet to make a carrier. I walked to their place. I barely remember it. Jessa’s parents were there. Mr. and Mrs. Brooks. They took the baby. I told them to get out of Chicago. They had a classic car that still worked and family that owned a farm in Tuscola, a small town somewhere in Illinois. I wished them luck and I…I left.”

  “That hat that you gave to Charlotte…you made it for your nephew.”

  “I did. He wore it from the hotel to Jessa’s parents. It fell off in the snow. When I saw it again, I couldn’t bear to take it back. I—I needed something to remember him. I just…I needed it.”

  “Oh, Liam,” Hannah said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “They named him after me. They named him Liam.”

  The tears came then. He didn’t try to stop them. Sorrow broke over him in waves.

  Hannah slid closer to him. She slipped her thin arms around his chest and held him. She didn’t say anything. She just held him.

  “I left him there. How could I have left him? I should have escorted the Brooks to Tuscola. I should’ve made sure they were safe. I could’ve done it. It’s what I do. It’s who I am.”

  “It was too painful,” Hannah said.

  It had nearly broken him to leave that child behind. His heart had already shattered into a million pieces at the loss of Lincoln and Jessa. As much as he’d loved his nephew, his heart hadn’t been able to bear any more loss.

  Once again, he’d chosen isolation over love. Loneliness instead of connection.

  Running away had always been his solution to life’s problems. It was no solution at all.

  “It wasn’t the first time,” he said.

  He kept going. He had to. He had to get it all out. It was like a poison eating him from the inside out. If he didn’t do it now, he never would.

  “I loved my brother. I loved Jessa.” He clenched his jaw. “I loved her from the moment I first laid eyes on her. I couldn’t help it. She chose Lincoln. I never resented her for that. Never. But I couldn’t stop loving her, either.”

  He felt hollowed out. All that love with nowhere to go but inward to scrape out an ever-widening hole in the center of himself.

  “I let that keep me away from both of them. I let it come between us like a wall I couldn’t scale. For four years, I didn’t see my brother. I didn’t see her. I lived alone, stewing in my own misery. It was wrong. I was so wrong.”

  Hannah squeezed his shoulders. He let himself melt into her. She was warmth and softness and comfort, all the things he hadn’t believed he’d deserved.

  “We need each other,” she said. “None of us can do this alone.”

  They were two wounded people. So different and so much the same. Both of them survivors. Both of them suffering from trauma and loss. Mirrors to each other’s suffering and struggles.

  But she couldn’t save him. Just like he couldn’t save her. Not really. The hard work had to be done yourself.

  But that didn’t mean you had to make the journey alone.

  He realized then that it wasn’t humanity he had given up on. He had given up on himself. He’d given up on a chance for a life of meaning, of human connection, of love.

  No matter the lies he’d told himself, he understood the truth now.

  Love brought pain. It brought suffering. It was worth it.

  He pulled away from her. Their faces were inches apart.

  His heart swelled, filling with emotions he couldn’t name. The things he’d tried to deny even to himself. He couldn’t deny them anymore. He didn’t want to.

  His world had been dark and meaningless. But Hannah had given it meaning. Hannah had given him hope.

  He reached his hand up and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. He could have kissed her. He longed to.

  Charlotte let out a loud cry.

  Hannah smiled at him. His whole chest cracked open.

  “Duty calls,” she said softly. She climbed to her feet and went to the baby.

  Liam couldn’t take his eyes off her. Once again, he’d fallen for a woman he could never have. He’d fallen completely, utterly, and wholeheartedly.

  Liam was in love with Hannah Sheridan.

  27

  Hannah

  Day Twenty-Seven

  The sun shone bright in the blue sky. The air was crisp and almost warm compared to the previous weeks, somewhere shy of thirty degrees.

  Hannah had taken Ghost for a walk. Rather, Ghost was taking her for one.

  They were walking down the main street along the snow-covered sidewalk, shuttered and graffitied businesses on every side. The streets were empty.

  Earlier, she’d met a few neighbors who’d dared to venture outside their homes. They were rural, small-town folks. Hardy and tough. But everyone was scared, tired.

  They just wanted things to go back to the way they were before. But it wasn’t going back. Nothing would ever be the same.

  In this world, anyone could be a threat. No matter how innocuous they first appeared.

  Ghost frolicked ahead of her. He snapped at the snowballs she tossed him. He buried his muzzle in the powder and snorted happily as he pranced through snowdrifts, his regal plumed tail streaming behind
him like a flag snapping in the breeze.

  As warm and cozy as the house was, she’d needed a break. She needed to get outside.

  Liam was on his feet again, but his bout with hypothermia and his back injury had taken a lot out of him. He’d endured too much.

  He wasn’t a robot, much as he wanted to pretend he was. His body weakened, just like anyone’s. It could fail. It could break.

  She’d left Liam resting with Charlotte snuggled on his broad chest, his hand resting protectively across her back. The sight of them together had done something to her, warming her and squeezing her heart at the same time.

  It had been two days since Liam had opened up to her about his past, since he’d revealed his most damaged parts.

  Every broken heart fractured differently. She knew the pattern of her own cracks. Now she knew his, too.

  She felt honored to be trusted with his secrets, his fears, and his vulnerabilities. Just as she’d trusted him. She would not betray that trust, not for anything.

  It was a strange thing to step inside another person’s loneliness. It was like entering a darkened cave, feeling along the walls, bumping into sharp edges, learning the contours of a foreign yet familiar place.

  She knew his pain. Recognized herself in him, inside that dark cave of loss, regret, and grief. They were making their way out of it, slowly, halting and tentative, but together.

  These precious moments of peace and calm felt stolen. Like Hannah, Liam, and Charlotte were caught in a translucent bubble floating outside of time.

  But they weren’t. No matter how much she cared about Liam. No matter how much they both needed this to recover physically and emotionally, to heal.

  Time was passing. The broken world was turning, becoming even more broken with each day, each hour.

  She thought of Milo with a pang. She had a responsibility and a goal she could not lose sight of, not even for a moment.