“Shannon was my daughter. I dream of her. And her brother, Dean, all the time. Except they aren’t really dreams, they’re nightmares. Like I’m being tortured for losing them every time I close my damn eyes. I never see them…not like the others…only in my dreams. And sometimes it’s like they want to help; other times, I don’t know. If there’s a God, I think He hates me.”
“You do not believe?”
At the time, I thought it an odd response to my soul-fleshing. But God was probably a more universally acceptable topic to discuss than one’s dead children. “Do I believe in God? No.”
“No.”
“That’s right. If there was one, why would any of this happen? Why would any God destroy his people this way?”
He nodded. “My mother would say, believe in what the heart says, listen to it, for it feels everything. Not the mind. The mind is full of why’s and how’s. My father would say, without the mind, the heart would feel nothing.”
“So, you believe in God, then?” I sipped some tea, then set the cooling cup down on the small side table.
“I did not say that.”
“Then what did you say?”
Jin looked over my head to an invisible spot on the wall, as if reliving a memory. “I think, finding hope is what I believe in.”
I snorted. “Really? Not that there’s much left, but I’m ready to rip the hope from my chest and bury it outside, by the septic tank.”
“But you cannot,” Jin said, with something akin to a smile.
“But I can.”
“Hope is not a thing. It cannot be dismissed. You have it always, though you may not use it.”
With the quilt wrapped around my shoulders, I stood and walked to the closest window. “Very philosophical of you, Jin. But I disagree. See, hope failed me. It ran off with the last bit of my naiveté.”
“It did not go far.”
I thought to myself then that all the hope in the world could go to hell and back, and I’d be okay with that. If I wanted to truly stay alive, for whatever twisted reason that might be, then caring for others, putting my life in someone else’s hands, that was never going to happen again. It couldn’t. A girl could only break so many times.
CHAPTER THIRTY
He’d never seen warm blood in the snow before. In a way, it looked fake, staged, nothing like the blood he knew. The contrast of the bright crimson against the equally bright white of the snow hurt his eyes. And yet, he couldn’t stop staring. A painful ringing throbbed through his right ear canal, and it blocked out most of the screaming and yelling that happened after the side of his friend’s face exploded into sticky pieces, some of which sprayed outward in his direction, striking his right cheek like a wet slap. He felt a warm trickle working its way down the side of his neck, stopping at his collar, and he longed to wipe his skin clean, but his arms wouldn’t move.
He blinked and opened his mouth just enough to let out a small gasp of air, when something dropped off his chin and landed with a delicate plop by his right knee. When he stared down at the greyish lump sinking slowly into the fresh snow, at first he didn’t understand what it was. Not until he looked over his shoulder at the folded body beside him and followed the awkward angle of it to where the head rested in the drift. It was brain matter. Blasted out of the skull from the second bullet. That’s what had hit him on the side of the face. What was left of Winchester’s thoughts, dreams, fears, and memories stretched out at least five feet behind his fallen body, sprayed against the snowdrift as if an angry artist had whipped his brush against the landscape to clear it of extra paint.
Connor was aware that a sound was coming from his mouth, pushed out from deep inside his chest, and that the people around him were in a wicked dance of blows and cries. Despite this, he was trapped in his kneeling body, unable to focus on anything other than that small chunk of brain freezing in the snow by his knee. He slumped backwards and sat on his heels, and wondered what function of Winchester’s brain that small piece had performed just seconds before. Had it stored a memory from his childhood? His first time riding a bike, his first kiss? Or, Connor thought, was it what controlled his motor functions, or what commanded the nerves around Winchester’s eyes to smile when he laughed, or made him shiver in the cold?
When he could finally move, the first thing he touched was that lonely piece of human tissue. He scooped it up carefully, brushed off the snow, then placed it into the front utility pocket of his coat for safekeeping. And since no one seemed to be paying attention to him, still kneeling in the snow, he leaned to the side and ran his hand up Winchester’s left ankle and pulled on the short blade that was folded into the dead man’s thick sock. It was only one hour before that he had asked the man to stash it. In case anything went wrong. No one ever looked at Winchester as a threat. No one would think of him as being armed.
“I’ll see you again someday,” he whispered to his friend’s boot, before he pushed up off the ground with a grunt and threw himself into the fight, eyes wide open, lips peeled back, blade in hand.
* * *
When Winchester went down, even though Drake wasn’t sure how badly the man was hurt, he threw himself at Scarf Face. After a brief struggle over the rifle, in which Drake broke four bones in the other man’s face and most of the fingers in his right hand, Drake was armed and firing at everyone standing. Ashlyn had flattened herself out on the snow, with her hands covering the back of her head. Kris was still unconscious, and as for Connor, Drake didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him, but the blood sprayed across the dumbstruck man’s face wasn’t his.
Drake took down three of the men almost instantly, including Scarf Face, who didn’t have time to register the other injuries to his body before a series of bullet rounds tore apart his orbital cavities. Thankfully, Ashlyn didn’t stay on the ground for long. She was up and on her feet once she realized Drake had control of a weapon, and retrieved one of the fallen rifles. She’d obviously not used one before, because the first time she pulled the trigger, she fell backwards on her ass and shot up the trees.
“Damn!” Drake yelled. “Connor! Get the hell up! What are you doing? Get up!”
He watched as Connor picked up something from the snow and tucked it into his front pocket. The man had lost it. The second he spent to glance down at Connor gave Amanda the time she needed to make a run for the safety of her truck, but as she ducked behind the open driver’s side door, a kick to the face sent her flailing back through the air. Drake watched her land on her side, at least three feet away from her gun.
Jacks had scrambled into the front of the vehicle and had kicked her hard enough in the mouth that he’d broken all of her front teeth. By the time she sat up, holding her bleeding mouth, Jacks was out of the truck, no baby in his arms, just a crowbar. Drake looked away after the fourth hit to Amanda’s face. The woman wasn’t dying quietly - with each blow, she gurgled a protest - but also because the madness in Jacks’ eyes chilled Drake to the core, more so than the blustery day did. And the man was crying. He was crying for Winchester.
“Connor!” Drake yelled again, while blocking a hit from one of the two remaining guards. The man had discarded his weapon, which meant it wasn’t truly loaded, or it had jammed. The reason didn’t matter. When his fists did nothing to Drake, the man tried tackling him to the ground. Afraid that a bladed weapon would be produced, Drake didn’t like having the man’s body against his.
One misstep in the slushy snow threw Drake off balance, and the two men toppled over each other onto the road, grunting, kicking and head-butting. Somehow, Drake ended up on the bottom of the fight, pinned in an awkward yet efficient head-lock. He used his heavier weight to roll to the side, but the man tightened his arm around Drake’s throat, cutting off his air. The snow falling peacefully down to the earth landed on his eyelashes and on his lips as he fought for his life.
How beautiful it was, he thought. Nature. The land at his feet was drenched thick with blood, and the skies were simply going t
o dump more delicate snowflakes on top of them, covering up all signs of their struggle, of their lives and deaths. Until the days of spring brought warmer rays of sunshine. Drake wondered if there would be a blood stain on the road where his body fell.
While he blinked up at the sky, waiting for the inevitable darkness of death to wash over him, the back of his neck was hit by a hot stream of fluid; it poured over the side of his head, across his face and into his mouth. He tasted blood, and for a moment wasn’t sure if it was his or not. And then the arm around his neck loosened. He scrambled free and turned to find Connor standing above the guard, a blade of some sort in his hand, watching as the guard struggled to plug the gaping hole in his neck with his hands before he bled out. He was unsuccessful, and death took him quickly.
Six members of the Ark lay in the snow dead or dying. What was left of Drake and his little band of survivors walked away, broken and bloody, but free.
* * *
It took Drake’s help to pull Jacks off Winchester’s body. And Connor got a fat lower lip during the struggle. He’d never seen Jacks so emotional. Not since he’d first set eyes on Riley at the lodge in the Laguna Mountains. Connor remembered how she’d run out of the trees and into his arms when Jacks had shown up. It seemed like so many lifetimes ago, but also felt like it had happened just yesterday.
“Where’s the baby?” Ashlyn asked from behind him. Her voice, so much unlike Riley’s, startled him.
Connor struggled to keep Jacks upright. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “Jacks, where’s your girl? Calm down, now. Hey…where’s the baby?”
Jacks, with his face streaked with tears and blood, swayed in Connor’s grasp. “Baby?”
“Lily. Where’s Lily?”
He blinked at Connor and looked around them in a daze at the carnage staining the snow. “Lily’s in the truck. She’s…in the truck.”
Connor looked over his shoulder at Ashlyn and nodded toward the vehicle. He watched her approach it cautiously, peer inside one of the open doors and then pop back out with a weak smile on her face.
“She’s okay, he put her on the floorboard.”
“And the other guy?” Connor loosened his hold on Jacks and let the man steady himself before he released him completely. He kept him facing away from Winchester’s body, which had already been covered in a transparent layer of snow. Within an hour, he would be simply another bump beside the road.
Ashlyn shook her head at them and the loose strands of her brown hair flew out around her knit hat. “Dead. Broken neck, maybe? I don’t know. But he’s sure not breathing.”
“Good,” Drake mumbled from beside him. “We need to go. Now. This won’t go down well. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
“For once, we agree on something.”
After removing Heston’s limp body from the back of the truck, the men carried Kris toward the cab and propped her up against one of the windows. Ashlyn sat beside her, with the baby crying softly in her arms, leaving room for Jacks. Drake beat Connor to the driver’s side, so he hopped into the front passenger seat with several guard rifles and Amanda’s pistol.
“Think this can crash through the front gate?” Drake asked, as he turned the truck around and slammed his foot down on the gas pedal.
“There’s a baby and an unconscious girl in the back, so no.”
“Right,” Drake mumbled.
Connor looked down at his hands and lifted them slowly off his lap. Both were covered in blood. He’d put Winchester’s scalpel into the side of Drake’s attacker’s throat all the way down to the hilt. Which wasn’t far, but it did the job. It was tucked up and safely in one of his pockets; he hoped he would never have to use it again.
A gust of snowy wind hit the truck, pushing it toward the shoulder, and Drake eased off the gas to a safer speed for the wet road. They were seconds away from the last turn before the front gate would be in view. He wasn’t a praying man, but in those last few seconds, Connor sent out a universal prayer that they would get off the property without any more bloodshed.
The truck slid to the right when Drake took the turn, and everyone that was near a handle grabbed on to keep their butts in their seats.
“Look,” Connor said, in shock.
The gate stood open, the white van Keel had driven was pulled off to the side, not running, and Keel was nowhere in sight. The small box that stood as the guard shack on the left side of the road appeared to be empty.
“Go through, or stop?” Drake asked. “Decide now.”
“Don’t stop,” Connor and Jacks said in unison.
The decision was made, and Drake kept the vehicle angled straight ahead as they approached the exit. Just before passing through, a man jumped out at them from inside the guard station. Drake spun the steering wheel to the right, then over-corrected and the left side of the truck smashed into the gate. Glass and plastic from the outside mirror exploded around them, and Drake slammed on the brakes, bringing them to a stop ten feet past the gate.
“Keep going!” Ashlyn yelled from the back.
“Who was that?” Drake twisted in his seat and Connor did the same in his, searching for any sign of the man they’d nearly flattened.
“There,” he said, finally seeing him in the storm, “I see something.”
Two dark forms jogged up to the truck, then slowed to a walk, and the taller of the two put his hands up in the air.
“Shit,” Drake said, snatching one of the rifles from Connor. “It’s not Keel.”
“Please don’t get out of the car,” Ashlyn pleaded. But Connor ignored her, and jumped out at the same time as Drake.
“Don’t come any closer!” Connor warned. He kept the pistol pointed at the man.
“I’m not here to stop you,” the stranger yelled back.
Drake came up beside Connor. “It’s not Keel.”
“I can see that,” he snapped.
A woof came from behind the man, and he stepped aside to let the dog pass.
“Christ!” Drake patted at his leg. “This dog has as many lives as a cat.” Zoey limped up to him, sniffed his knee, then continued on to the car, where hands from inside pulled her to safety.
“I wouldn’t let them shoot her,” the man said. “I kept her safe.”
“What do you want?” Drake asked, adjusting the rifle in his arms.
The hooded figure slowly lowered his hands, then looked up at them. It was the youngest, and quietest, of the Ark leaders. Dinnley.
His wide, brown eyes darted between Connor and Drake. “They should have just let you leave. I’m sorry all of this has happened.”
“Shut up,” Drake snapped. “Where’s Keel? Did you kill him?”
Dinnley waved his hands in the air. “Me? No, no not me!”
Connor couldn’t tell if the man was armed. He was nervous and twitchy, but seemed eager to gain their trust. He wouldn’t give it. “So, someone else killed him?”
“He’s been hurt badly, by one of the guards. It was…awful. I’ve done my best to help him but he needs to get back to see the Doctor.” Dinnley looked between them and the truck. “Where’s Amanda? Heston? They left to intercept you, and I see you now have their truck.”
Connor cleared his throat. “They’re, uh, back there on the road a bit. Why are you out here, anyway, and why weren’t you with them?” Connor hadn’t lowered the pistol, and with his questions, he lifted it slightly and aimed it directly at Dinnley’s head.
“They knew. They all did, about your plan. We don’t have cameras everywhere, like Fern told you before, but we have microphones on every floor and in the common areas. She turned them on last night. First time we needed to, I guess. They heard you talking about leaving while you were packing up your things. We came here to beat you to the exit and found out about the hall fire over the radio. I don’t know what happened back there,” Dinnley pivoted and gestured at the road. “But I don’t condone their methods. The Ark isn’t supposed to be a prison. It’s supposed to be a refuge. A place
for people to be safe.”
“Some fucking refuge,” Drake spat. “Your people are sick.”
Connor shifted, slowly lowering his arm. “Well, maybe that will change now.” He glanced at Drake and nodded into the storm that was quickly covering all trace of their recent fight. “Dinnley, I think you’ve been promoted.”
“How do you mean?” The man look startled.
Connor nudged Drake’s arm. “Let’s go. He’ll find out soon enough.” Connor backed up to the truck, then slid into the passenger side without so much as a goodbye to the confused man.
Before Connor could close his door, he overheard Drake speaking sternly to Dinnley. “You’re going to have your hands full fixing this place. Get your head out of your ass. That Fern bitch has you all by the balls. Get them back and who knows, maybe one day you’ll have your little refuge.”
* * *
They drove in somber silence, forced to listen to only the sounds of the tires crunching through the snow, and the windshield wipers swishing back and forth. And their own breathing. The heater was on, and slowly their hands and feet began to thaw. Jacks remained slumped against the truck cab’s passenger window, his face buried behind one arm, his shoulders still one minute, then shaking uncontrollably the next. Connor didn’t know what to say to him. He didn’t know what to say to anyone. Shit, Connor didn’t know what to say to himself.
“Where are we going?” It was the soft and demure voice of Ashlyn that was heard first. They’d driven twenty or so miles, and even though Drake had a map draped across the dashboard, Connor hadn’t seen him glance at it more than once or twice.
“South and then west,” Drake answered.
“Why?” Ashlyn asked. She had Lily resting across her lap, asleep in her puffed-up snow suit.
Find Me Series (Book 3): Finding Hope Page 27
