Eternal Refuge

by Annabelle McInnes

  He had to trust in Nicky. Trust that he would see his end complete. There was a whisper of thought that maybe he had saved her, or that Kira had somehow managed to acquire a weapon and obliterate her captors. That they were together, bundled up, close to a fire like his own, sleeping off the terrors that the daytime had brought, only a few leagues from his arms.

  Or maybe they were both dead.

  Euan shook his head to dislodge that thought. But its claws were embedded deep. It slithered through his mind, curled around his conscience and rested there.

  Christ, if they were dead …

  A twig snapped. In an instant, he held the empty gun to the darkness.

  Silence. Blackness. An eerie stillness that did nothing to settle Euan’s nerves.

  He rolled to his knees, his eye scanned the trees. Their trunks glowed gold, their bark and branches threw shadows. The grass at their base whispered and wavered with a soundless wind.

  Then, he appeared.

  A monster loomed out of the dark. A body that could shoulder eternity, broad, strong, indestructible. Eyes as black as coal glinted with the flames. A clean-shaven jaw, hair that was cropped to the scalp. Clothing that mirrored Euan’s.

  A scar that ruined a top lip.

  Matthew Knight.

  Euan was on his feet as Knight moved forward. In two steps, they were in each other’s arms. Masculine grunts accompanied rough backslaps. A grip so tight that breath was impossible. The emotion was there, squashed between them. They hovered, just a moment, to savour the pain of loss and the beauty of being found.

  ‘Never thought I’d see you again, McKay.’

  Knight’s words were rough in his ear, hoarse with sentiment. Euan had to clear his throat before he could return the greeting. ‘Hell has met its quota.’

  A snort and Knight pulled back. His eyes scanned Euan’s face before he looked over his shoulder. When the crease in his brow deepened, Euan said the words that choked his heart. ‘They have her. Snatched her right out from under us. Nick is following them. I came to find you.’

  A hard grip encased his upper arms. Elbows locked, Knight leaned back. His eyes were pits of despair. ‘Fuck.’

  The tone echoed what was in Euan’s heart, the dread that made his chest ache, his muscles quiver, his damn eye blink. Fuck was an understatement. If Knight voiced Euan’s greatest fear, he’d vomit.

  They stayed that way, locked in a masculine embrace. Movement was not required. Not right now. They drew strength from one another. Two men that regularly shouldered the burden of leadership, that understood the perils and pain of when they failed in that decisive role.

  Euan took a breath, moved out of Knight’s clinch and bent to pack the items he’d used to clean his gun. His voice was full of dread when he asked. ‘Mickey-O?’

  His back to the powerhouse, Euan didn’t see the flinch, but he felt it. Loss, torment, fear. Sentiment and feeling flared. In a moment, all the anxiety of a future without sunlight in it evaporated.

  Euan looked over his shoulder. Knight shook his head.

  Euan nodded. ‘Tell me.’

  Knight moved to sit by the fire. The red light highlighted what Euan did not at first see. Mud, dust, blood. His hands were yellow with sandy powder. Euan immediately recognised what it was.

  The dust that coated a man’s hands when he dug a grave.

  Black eyes stared unblinkingly into an orange flame. ‘Most are gone. You’re one of seven that survived. Nine, if Nick and Kira still live. At least that’s the number that we’ve found, or have found us.’

  The strength left him. Euan went to his knees at the opposing side of the fire. His hand that held the gun was loose at his side. The other rubbed the bearded skin at his jaw. Nine? There had been scores. Christ, the loss, the destruction. This was humanity’s second chance, and they destroyed each other as though they were rabid dogs in a fighting pit built by Hades.

  The gun was placed on the plastic poncho. Euan rested both hands on his knees. He lifted his gaze and waited until Knight did the same. When black met brown Euan found his voice. ‘Lily?’

  The breath that left Knight was long. Euan braced until a tiny smile finally stretched hard lips. ‘Mickey-O’s truck exploded. We were hammered by the heat and the smoke. I couldn’t see, my ears rang. I thought we would suffocate in that black cloud.’ Dark eyes glinted. ‘Next thing I know, she’s stolen my gun, has the window down and is firing into the smoke. I put my foot down as she used half our ammo in that thirty seconds. It got us out though, and free. God only knows how we avoided that rocket launcher. But Lily was the one that kept the men off our tail. She’ll be the reason I go grey, but yes, she lives.’

  Breath entered Euan’s lungs. ‘Christ.’

  Knight sighed and met Euan’s eye over the flames. ‘Jesus loved us that day. But that was our last miracle.’ Knight’s expression turned desolate, a man destroyed. ‘It wasn’t just the bunker they hit. It was a double-headed operation. They found the hotel. Burned it all to dust. The most precious of us survived. But everything we’d built is destroyed. Supplies, most of the weapons. All gone.’

  Euan’s breath was harsh, so was the hammer of his heart. Pain radiated out from his core, it incinerated his hope, his confidence. ‘Parker?’

  Knight swallowed. Palms faced a black sky when he said, ‘There can be no one else.’

  Fuck, it hurt. Hands to the back of his head, Euan looked towards stars hidden by clouds. His eye was out of focus. He couldn’t cease the shake of his head.

  ‘Kira.’ It was all he could say.

  Knight’s lips hardened. A strange light burned the backs of his dark eyes. ‘They have more than just Kira. We need to end this. Once and for all.’

  Euan nodded. Nodded again. He was wrong. Hell hadn’t met its quota. ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here,’ he said.

  Knight’s laughter was sardonic, the edge laced with surprise. ‘Never took you as a thespian.’

  ‘I’m not, but my mother loved Shakespeare.’ His gaze returned to the man who sat opposite. Between them, the tiny flame crackled and popped. Fire that represented both life and death.

  ‘They need you, McKay. They need you to lead them, take them from this nightmare.’

  Euan didn’t immediately reply. He couldn’t. His mind was at war. Obliterate them? Save them? Leave them all so they could destroy themselves?

  The air he took into his lungs was laced with indecision. ‘Take me to what’s left.’

  ***

  They followed the smoke. The scent of burned timber was just a whiff in the air, a remnant memory that clung to the blackened husks of what remained. They travelled a path made from fire. Where destruction and ruin were their guideposts and the charred scenery was their guide. Steadily moving upwards, at a pace Euan could manage, they marched until the remnants of a forest surrounded them and only smouldering stumps and black boulders remained.

  Trees that would have concealed them were gone. Paths that had laid obscured by undergrowth were seen. Euan could not fathom the work required to ensure this level of inconspicuousness, only for it to be all destroyed by a few hours of flame. When they came to the cliff face, Euan halted. Beside him, Knight did the same.

  ‘Nick told me this is where he found you.’ He looked to his left were a murky lake lay still in homage to the dead. ‘Said that I just had to find the cliff and the lake and I would be saved. I never would have found this place without you.’

  ‘Good thing that I came to find you.’

  They made their way through a labyrinth of boulders strategically placed to conceal the entrance and hinder an enemy’s approach. But the clever design had done nothing to save those that sought refuge on the other side.

  Euan needed an army. Instead, he found a massacre.

  Where once stood buildings, nothing but enormous piles of charred debris remained. White, black, yellow, grey, the wreckage was twisted and warped from the heat and the weight of collapse. Grass scorched, paths blacken
ed, the burned husks of cars and trucks littered the landscape.

  To his left were neatly ordered mounds of sandy dirt that rose like goosebumps along the lake’s shoreline. To his right were the remains of grand structures. Stumps, ash and decay surrounded them. The puddles at his feet were black and as thick as molasses. The water sloshed with each footfall. The tar hit his ankles, saturated his socks, stung the open wounds on his feet. The scent of wetness, decay and soiled earth was pungent. It overwhelmed, consumed, foreshadowed more death.

  Euan clenched his jaw. How could he save them? Kira was lost, taken, her precious soul was likely even now being torn apart. He’d promised Nick he would bring him an army, he promised himself he would terminate them all.

  But this? This was the definition of desolation, of lost hope. This was nothingness and oblivion. He couldn’t save Kira, and he couldn’t save anyone with this.

  ‘How did they get in here?’

  Knight pointed to the lake. ‘They had boats.’

  Euan tasted blood as he bit into his tongue.

  They continued to move into the chaos. They stepped over the smouldering logs in unison, each pulling his boots from the black mud. They were silent, words and thoughts lost to the wasteland that surrounded them.

  A discarded shoe snagged Euan’s attention. Its pink shoelaces glittered in wan daylight. It was covered in mud and ash, not much more than the shape and size could be discerned through the dirt. But one thing was certain. It was too small for an adult.

  Euan’s hand was at his face as he attempted to scrub the revelation from his mind. They had had children here? Children small enough to fit into that tiny shoe. Euan’s gut rebelled. He stopped to catch his breath.

  Knight’s voice was hoarse when Euan changed directions. ‘McKay?’

  The shoe was wet, sodden from the rain. He held the tiny thing towards Knight voiceless, because no words would come.

  Knight’s mouth twisted. The scar through his upper lip morphed until the grimace was more akin to a sneer. ‘Many died protecting them. But they succeeded. The children …’ His voice caught and he cleared it before he continued. ‘The kids are okay.’

  Euan nodded and the steel band loosened somewhat. But it was painful, even as it released. Knight wanted him to step up, to lead this? How could he, when ‘okay’ was now a relative term. Okay? Those children had likely watched their parents and families die from a horrific disease that destroyed bodies and minds. They had then been lost, orphaned in this cruel and terrible world. Maybe they found safety here, refuge. Maybe they were still out there, hungry, abandoned, terrified.

  Fuck, what if Parker had taken a child?

  A memory bubbled up unbidden inside him.

  ‘This world is no place for a child. And we’re in no position to care for one. Especially in the current circumstances.’

  ‘Ever?’

  His eyes on the shoe, his future disintegrated. He had wanted children, he did, but he was a practical man. Yet he wouldn’t deny that there had been nights when both Kira and Nick had slept in his arms and he had imagined hopeless dreams, pondered impossible ideas. But even if he had never considered them reality, it hadn’t taken the fantasy away. A baby with Nick’s eyes and Kira’s smile?

  A child with dark hair made out of love to be stolen by animals. Christ, his heart couldn’t take the torment.

  ‘I can’t do this …’

  Knight was in front of him. How he got there, Euan couldn’t recall, his ears could only register the buzz. Warm hands held Euan’s shoulders. The pressure forced Euan to raise his eyes. ‘You have to.’

  Euan shook his head. His voice stolen by what he held in his hands.

  ‘You have to. You have to pull your shit together because they’re counting on you. Mickey-O told them that you would come, that you would lead them, that you would protect them. That you would save them. They worship you more than they ever worshipped him. You’re their champion, and they need you, more than anyone needs anything.’

  How could he? How could he devote himself to this cause when Kira was taken, when Nick was lost? When so many deserved to die?

  His focus was back on the shoe. He thumbed the pink laces. This was the future. Not the scum that roamed the highways, or the men who barracked over spilt blood. It wasn’t even the love that he shared with Nick and Kira.

  Without children, there was no future. There was no human race.

  If he were to fight for anything, he had to fight for them. Fight for the child that had worn this little shoe with the pink laces. Fight for the baby that would inevitably grow inside Kira, and be welcomed into the world by the three of them.

  Because without that child, there was nothing to fight for.

  His thirst for blood dissipated. Only the taste of ash remained in his mouth.

  The hands on Euan’s shoulders tightened, and the fire in Knight’s eyes hardened the black into onyx jewels. He perceived Euan’s thoughts, and understood them. ‘They have more than just her. We’ll save her. But first, you have to help them.’

  Words still would not come. Euan nodded.

  Knight’s grip released. ‘Come. They’re waiting for you.’

  ***

  They were. There wasn’t many, but it was more than he had expected. They were dirty, exhausted, battered. Haunted eyes followed his trail, emotionless faces turned as he walked past. But there was hope. They were well nourished, robust and whole. They may have only just buried their loved ones, but as he walked, their spines straightened, their chins rose. In him, they saw a prophet.

  Euan couldn’t fathom why.

  The shimmer in their eyes was one of persistence, bravery. Valiant. They were Valiant. Knight told him so, and Euan saw it to be true.

  He walked among them as they stood, parted. Eyes wide, mouths agape. A small pond of people, suddenly in the presence of their hero. Euan tried his best not to limp. His eyepatch itched, his awareness of it severe under the assessment of so many.

  The children were there. Boys, girls. Tiny little people who either clung to an adult or stood too tall, their small faces bleak. Euan’s jaw was hard when a baby cried and a mother soothed it. A lullaby was in the air along with the ash and the stink of death.

  This could not continue. Not like this. ‘Lily?’

  Knight replied, ‘She’s up here, come.’

  Their tents were the colour of the tropics, erected hastily, but strategically on the higher, untainted ground. They approached the largest.

  When the olive-green tent flap was pulled aside, one step into the shadows and the stench of blood and decay hit them with the force of a battering ram.

  Euan fell back as the dam of memories burst and engulfed him without warning. He was suddenly surrounded by a log cabin with wooden walls coated in blood. The stench of sweat, of sacrifice, of burned flesh was in his nose. The erratic breaths and the final cry from a dying boy was in his ears. They hissed with the memories of loss and torture. They rang with all that Euan had attempted to lock away inside himself.

  He swore and lurched out of the tent and into the open air.

  Knight’s face was in his, dark skin, dark eyes, pink scars. How had he gained his tokens from battle? Had he fought with the devil and lost? Did he still dream of blood and pain? Did his ears still drum with the screams torn from a broken boy?

  Oh, Christ, he was going to throw up.

  ‘Breathe through it.’

  Strong hands were on his shoulders once again, they squeezed, tightened. He was held up, but everything else still swam. He locked his knees, or else he’d be on his ass.

  ‘Breathe,’ came the command again.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said as he pushed himself out of Knight’s grip and stumbled two steps backwards. The black mud sucked on his boots, threatened to pull him into their dark depths. He growled at nothing like a frightened dog.

  He was a frightened dog. A fucking animal that trembled with its tail between its legs, as it pissed on the floor.


  People gathered. He sensed them, rather than saw. They surrounded him. There was a rage inside him that terrorised his sanity. Threatened to be set free. It urged him to lash out, roar, rant, hurt and maim. It wanted to destroy the fragile progress this tiny settlement had achieved.

  Then different memories swamped him. Nick as he screamed to leave him, a shattered photo frame, two blackened corpses that silently looked on. Ben as he heaved violent sobs, a white chair that supported him, Kira’s workshop’s essentials in chaos upon a garage floor.

  This, this was the feeling they endured. This was the incontrollable rage that ate at their conscience. This was the terror laced with fury. This was the feeling of powerlessness against your own mind.

  This was trauma manifested into destructive rage.

  His fingers trembled. His whole fucking body trembled. He was a shaking fucking mess. He shook his head to clear it of the anguished screams. When it worked, he did it again.

  He held up his hand to the dark tower before him, palm out. ‘I’m good.’

  ‘Are you?’

  He nodded, then shook his head again. His vision cleared of the swirling darkness and he felt his chest expand. Air. That was good.

  ‘I’m good enough,’ he replied.

  Knight’s eyebrows were two sooty slashes across his brow. Furrows as deep as an abyss were buried between them. He’d aged since he’d last seen him. Euan suspected so had he.

  ‘I like the eyepatch. It suits you,’ Lily’s husky voice rasped.

  She appeared beside Knight, a bloody apron tied to her hips. No longer was there space between them. Knight’s muscled arm wrapped tightly around shoulders that were not hunched. But there was still a reservation behind the eyes of gold that were laced with fervour. Her hands were still chapped, still raw, her brow was similarly creased. But there was passion where there had been despair, there was intensity where there had been despondence. Lily needed more meat on her bones, but Euan got the impression that with time, that would change too.

  His panic was set aside but not forgotten. He took the limited steps needed to reach her. After a jerky nod of assent, he snatched her into his arms and held her so very close to his heart. ‘Glad you made it, baby. I’m sorry about your father.’