Find Me Series (Book 3): Finding Hope

by Trish Marie Dawson

  “You were not fine outside. You were dying.”

  I flattened my back against the wall, struggling to breathe in deeply. Once my lungs were fully inflated again, I pulled the zipper up on my coat, stopping just below my chin. “You brought me here. Why?”

  “Like I said. You were dying.”

  “So, you’re the last good Samaritan left in the world? I don’t believe in those anymore. You should have left me.”

  He stood and looked at me sideways, and I braced against the wall, expecting his approach. But instead, he spoke, “Perhaps.”

  My head, heavy and hurting, couldn’t take the simple process of having a conversation with a stranger. “Don’t…don’t come near me. I’ll…hurt you. I said I’m leaving.” My hand felt along the wooden planks that lined the interior of the room until they found the latch on the door. With a sharp tug, it opened. I watched the man named Jin tuck each hand into his pockets and nod at me.

  “Go quickly then. The air is cold.”

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” I snapped.

  I spun around quickly to avoid him, pushing myself off the wall and out the door into a dark, cloudless night. The first breath of evening felt coated in frost, and the coughing fit that followed brought me down to one knee. It was there, struggling against the wooden deck to suck in the frozen air, that I realized the man had not lied to me. And he wasn’t crazy. We were, in fact, in the trees.

  * * *

  After being tucked for a second time into the papasan chair and beneath the warmed quilt, Jin handed me a steaming cup of something. “What is it?” I asked, with a quick sniff of the liquid.

  “Drink.”

  There was no longer a trusting fiber remaining in my body. After waking up naked and bloody in the back of a camper, I would never again be able to trust another human being. Let alone a stranger. I handed the cup back to Jin.

  “No thanks.”

  Though his eyebrows lifted and his forehead wrinkled with concern, he took the cup and set it on a nearby wooden table. Everything was made out of wood, which I supposed was normal, for a tree house, as modern and expensively designed as the structure appeared to be.

  “Here,” he said, handing me a stack of white chunks. I brought them to my nose and smelled nothing other than the stale and tasteless remains of what used to be saltine crackers. “Eat,” he urged.

  With deliberate care, I inspected the top cracker and then bit off only the corner. Paranoid that Jin was either trying to drug me or poison me, I allowed myself to eat only one before setting the pile down in my lap. He grunted with disapproval and handed me the piping cup again.

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t trust you.”

  His frustrated face smoothed out a bit, and he pushed back his near-shoulder-length jet-black hair and considered what to do for a moment. Then he took two sips of the drink before offering it to me again.

  The small ceramic mug felt warm in my hands, and even though he had sampled the drink himself, I couldn’t bring it to my lips. Not yet.

  “So, why are we in a tree house? Not that I’m complaining, but…” I let the sentence trail off as I looked around the room, really looked, for the first time. “I don’t understand how I got here. Or where this is.”

  The paneled walls were mostly bare, with the exception of the large mirror resting above the mantelpiece; only a few framed pictures hung on the walls, but there were many things scattered about the main room. A long two-shelf bookcase, full of novels, magazines and other reading materials, served as a divider between the sitting area and a small kitchen. What I thought initially was a giant column in the center of the room, was really a smooth tree trunk. The only light in the room came from the fireplace, so it was hard to make out the items that were cluttered about. A small bathing area with an old-fashioned basin sink and tub was nestled below a high bunk, accessible by a thick and sturdy ladder propped against the wall. Colorful fabrics seemed to be displayed on almost every surface. I counted at least four blankets draped around the place. One over the top of the loft railing, another folded across the back of a rattan sitting chair, two more stacked on top of the bookshelf next to an old metal globe, and the one that I had on my lap. Probably because it was cold living up in the air. It was not an ordinary tree house by any means. But I still didn’t understand why Jin would bring me to it, and not just leave me where he found me.

  “It is safer up here.” Jin sat down in his chair again and watched me like a teacher watches his students during the year-end exam. I knew the look; I’d used it a few times myself.

  “Safer. For you, or for others?”

  “Both.”

  So, maybe he was a bit crazy, I thought. That, or he was a murderous bastard just waiting for the right moment to cut me up into bite-size cubes and toss me into a stew. I imagined him standing in the tiny kitchen with a lace apron on, chopping up the soft parts of my body and dropping them into a pot, then carrying the pot across the room and shoving it into the fireplace pit. The urge to jump and run came back, but so did my cough. I sipped at the tea and it instantly coated my throat, relieving the scratchy burn that had taken up residence there. A flavor explosion of ginger, licorice and something else I couldn’t place erupted on the back of my tongue. I took a second sip.

  “One night,” I said to Jin. “I’ll stay one night, but then I’m leaving. And I’ll kill you if you touch me. Is that understood?”

  He frowned at me, but nodded. And then, while I was shoving another cracker into my mouth, he leaned back in his chair, and asked, “Who is Shannon?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The snow was relentless, making visibility poor, as people screamed on the other side of the compound for help. The fire’s smoke mixed with the falling snow, leaving the air grey and dirty in appearance. And it smelled awful. Like burned tires.

  Connor followed Ashlyn’s hand and saw the movement she was tracking with her finger. A van, white as the snow around them, came swiftly up the road and pulled to a jerky stop several feet away. Keel was behind the wheel, tapping impatiently on the steering column, urging them to board quickly.

  “We don’t have all day,” he snapped, after the last person scrambled in.

  Kris, disorientated and cold, curled up on the back bench with the dog, and Connor sat in the very front, where he could talk to Keel about their exit. Ashlyn stayed close, but he didn’t know what to say to her. And it seemed, based on her avoidance of his eyes, that she felt the same.

  “Is this all?” Keel asked, looking out into the snow. “Where’s Drake?” There was no sign of the guy, but Connor imagined he had something to do with the raging fire a few buildings over.

  “I don’t know,” he answered simply. He didn’t know where Drake had gone off too, but he did know they didn’t have time to wait for him.

  “We have to go, now,” Keel said. He put the van in drive and spun them around to go back the way he had come. They’d driven only a few feet when a figure jumped out in front of them, causing Keel to slam on the brakes hard enough for each occupant to jolt forward in their seats.

  “Shit!” Keel snapped.

  Drake thumped his fist down hard on the hood and ran around the front of the van, hopping in after Connor opened the side door. He took the bench seat beside him and wore a huge grin on his snow-chapped face.

  “Weren’t leaving without me, were you?” he asked, out of breath.

  “What did you do?” Winchester had moved toward the front of the van, leaving Jacks alone to curse while he soothed a now-screaming Lily.

  “Something that will keep them busy for a while,” Drake said.

  Winchester shook his head and pushed on Drake’s shoulder. “All you’ve done is piss them off!”

  “There’s still going to be someone at the front gate, maybe even two guards,” Keel argued, shaking his head. “So much for sneaking out.”

  “We can take them. Just let a few of us
out before the gate, and tell them you’re doing an emergency run, like we planned.”

  Keel drove the van over the snow, struggling to keep the tires in line with the small road that curved around the backside of the compound. The van lurched and slid through the slick dirt, but he kept control of it, for the most part. “Yeah, but I’ve never taken the van out on a run. We use it mostly to ferry people between the compound and the Tank. You’ll have to do it quickly,” he said.

  The passengers all stared out the windows on the left side of the vehicle as they rounded the last building. In the distance, the fire had grown to epic proportions, visible even through the snow. A massive ball of gold and burnt sepia raged in the distance. In minutes, the only thing left would be the frame of the building that sat upon its concrete base. Connor thought it foolish, and an unnecessary move against the leaders. There would be consequences, severe ones, if they got caught.

  “Pull over just there,” he said, pointing at a soft curve in the road where the tree line crept inward. “That’s where we’ll get out. We can move up and around through the trees. Hopefully whoever is at that gate will be paying more attention to you approaching.”

  Connor got out first, followed quickly by Drake, then Ashlyn, Winchester and Kris, who was still moving as if trapped in a fog. They left an anxious Zoey in the back of the van, with Jacks and Lily. Keel had said the guards never checked the inside of the vehicles on the way out - there was no need to - but even with the slight tint in the van windows, they would most certainly notice if it was full. Which would not be standard for a run. And then a guard would get on the talkie and radio back to the compound that there was a problem, bringing more men with guns to the front gate. A confrontation of some sort would ensue and people would get hurt. All things that Connor didn’t want to happen.

  What they hadn’t planned for, as he ran through the snow with the others in tow, was that by the time they got to the guard shack, there would already be extra men with guns waiting there for them.

  * * *

  He didn’t see them right away. Drake kept his head bowed and concentrated on the motions of lifting each leg up and down through the snow without tripping on a hidden tree root or falling into a drift where he’d be lost till spring. Keel had let the van idle for exactly one minute before continuing down the road, which gave him, according to his estimates, about two minutes to slowly drive up the road and distract the guard so that the others could run along the road and sneak up to the gate.

  They were half way there before Kris couldn’t run anymore. Connor and Winchester both took one of her arms and practically dragged her the remaining distance through the snow and if Drake hadn’t been so distracted by that, he might have seen the other figures hiding behind the trees.

  “Stop!” a voice boomed from just above him. He jerked to a stop, searching the trees for the source of the hollering. A second voice from the road below them also yelled for them to stop.

  “Put your hands up, or we’ll shoot!”

  Breathing heavily from the run and the cold air, Drake did as he was told, still unsure where the voices were coming from. But with an armed man above them tucked up behind the cover of the trees, and another below them on the road, there didn’t seem to be much of a chance at escaping without taking a bullet or two in the ass.

  “Shit,” he heard Connor say.

  “Yeah, seems your plan’s falling to shit, alright,” Drake said, his hands held high up into the air, as commanded.

  Connor and the others had done the same, and Kris was crying. “Or, your man, Keel, turned on us.”

  Drake didn’t reply. He was livid that the douche would even suggest it, but only a few hours had passed since Drake himself had wanted to kill Keel. It was one of many possibilities that bounced around inside his mind as they attempted to take the slope back down to the road without landing on their asses, on account of having their arms up in the air throwing off their balance.

  As they emerged from the tree line, he saw there were two men on the road, not one. And another came down out of the woods behind them. All three had military-style rifles. “Which fucker set the hall on fire?” one of them asked.

  When no one answered, the man grabbed Winchester by the arm and yanked him down to his knees. When Connor lunged forward to intervene, he was struck on the back of the neck, also going down to his knees.

  Two of the men wore ski-masks to protect their faces from the snow, but the third had a simple scarf tied around the lower half of his face, showing enough of his eyes for Drake to see the anger that boiled there. He rose his gun and pointed it at Connor and Winchester, and asked his question again.

  “Which one of you did it?”

  Drake doubted all of the guns even had real bullets, but he didn’t question the hatred he saw in the man’s wild stare. As he watched the end of the rifle arc closer to Connor and Winchester, Kris took the perfect time to faint. Ashlyn cried out in surprise, but Drake grabbed at her wrist to keep her from rushing to the downed girl.

  One of the men lowered his weapon and moved to go to her side, but was stopped short by Scarf Face. “Leave her. I want answers first.”

  “But…”

  “Get the fuck back. I said to leave her.”

  Drake, taking advantage of the distraction, kicked some of the snow off the toe of his boot. “We’re just out for a walk in this beautiful weather,” he joked.

  The rifle turned toward him and Drake had to keep from wincing by biting down on the inside of his lower lip. It was subtle, but still enough for the man to notice.

  “Nah, I ain’t going to shoot you. Not till I know who started the fire. Then, I’ll use this.” He pulled the bottom of his coat up to reveal a wicked looking blade sheathed to his hip.

  “Well, then we’ll have a problem,” Drake said. He lowered his arms and fisted his hands at his side. If he was going down, it wouldn’t be on his knees.

  The rifle was once again pointed at Connor and Winchester. “Tell me, or I shoot one of them.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Drake said, with an animated shrug of the shoulders.

  The man’s eyes hardened as he laughed. He was going to do it, Drake realized. Scarf Face had every intention of shooting either Connor or Winchester, or both of them, but he was interrupted by the soft sound of an engine coming up the road from the direction of the front gate.

  Drake held his breath as a heavy duty truck pulled to a stop and Amanda exited the passenger side, bundled up in what looked like five layers of clothes. Her hands swung freely at her sides as she approached the guards. Calmly, she reached into one of her coat pockets, pulled out a revolver and pointed it at the two men kneeling in the snow.

  Ashlyn make a choking sound and dug her nails into the back of Drake’s extended arm. If it was a show the leaders wanted to put on, everyone was clearly afraid. Except for him. Drake was infuriated. His mind ran through every scenario possible to escape with at least one of the others, but there were more guns pointed at him than could be dodged. And he was standing just out of reach from any of those weapons. In the five seconds it took for Amanda to exit her vehicle and approach Scarf Face, Drake knew only one thing: they were completely screwed.

  The sound of a crying baby nearby took the attention temporarily off Amanda and her trigger hand. Even Drake looked over his shoulder at the truck. Jacks was restrained inside, his face as white as the falling snow, holding his young daughter to his chest and watching the scene on the road unfold with no power to stop it. Heston, the older leader, sat in the back of the truck with his own pistol aimed directly at the squirming bundle making good use of her lungs. The look on Heston’s face as he glanced between Jacks and Amanda was one of complete composure and total dedication to the cause. Drake didn’t doubt the man would pull the trigger, shooting Lily’s tiny head, if provoked to do so.

  “Wow,” Drake said coolly to Amanda. “I always found your lot to be a bit…odd. But the kind of people who would
kill an innocent child in cold blood? That’s low. Even for you.”

  For the first time, she looked directly at him and blinked some of the fallen snowflakes off her dark lashes. Her eyes struggled to focus on him, and when they finally did, she took a deep sigh. “Drake, is it? You know what, you’re absolutely correct. We are working to build a future here, and children are a part of that. Since your little group has altered our future, why not be fair, and alter yours?”

  Amanda looked back down at the kneeling men, who’d remained silent while awaiting their fate, and she pulled the trigger, twice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  We stayed awake the entire night, and talked awkwardly between sips of tea and nibbles of crackers. For my part, I was afraid to fall asleep and wake with a blade to my throat. For Jin’s, perhaps he was afraid that I would run off with his supplies, though I knew even then that he probably didn’t think I’d get far before falling over.

  Jin had found me passed out on a game trail, half-covered in snow and mud, one mile from the treehouse. He’d been using it for a temporary shelter for the last two weeks, as well as a lookout spot. A handful of deer and elk had passed by, as well as what Jin described as an ‘angry soul trapped in a Bear’s skin’. Whatever that meant. When dawn of my second day came around, Jin began to answer my questions in short and precise sentences, leaving no wiggle room for emotion. Mostly about his trek through the mountains, the few other survivors he’d met along his journey over the previous year, and about how the weather made him wish for the dryer winters of his childhood home on the outskirts of Seoul.

  He’d asked me just one question: Who was Shannon?

  I dodged it the first time, but after answering several of my questions, it seemed only fair to answer the one he’d asked. But not that one. I didn’t want to talk about my daughter. Yet Jin seemed to know that the topic was digging a hole through my brain, and he was simply waiting for the answer to come out on its own. When dawn began to ripple above the treetops, I found myself saying her name. And Jin said nothing, just sipped his umpteenth cup of tea and watched the fire as I spoke.