Lenny began to shake. “No,” he unwillingly replied. “He was getting shot at, but he wasn’t dead when I left.” Lenny paused nervously. “I don’t think.”
Danny took his hand off Lenny’s head and patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, buddy,” he said. “You did your best.”
“I guess,” Lenny said, trying to reassure himself.
“You left one of our brothers behind?” Damien questioned as he walked outside the front door and approached his men. “Did I hear correctly?”
Danny smiled devilishly. Lenny’s face turned as white as a ghost. Damien approached Lenny and put his finger into Lenny’s chest.
“You’ve been gone for days,” Damien said. “Why didn’t you come back here directly after this went down?”
“Like you should’ve done,” Danny inserted.
Lenny began to stutter. “I’m-I’m sorry, boss. I-I really didn’t know w-what the hell to do. I guess I screwed up—and I’m sorry.” He paused. “I was scared.”
“So let me get this straight. You didn’t bother finding Jesse and Vance; then you got into a fight with some locals, which you lost, and in the process, Jared got killed and you left Mickey for dead,” alleged Damien.
Lenny didn’t answer. He was petrified. Danny smiled and spit on the ground as he watched the situation unfold from out of the corner of his eye.
Damien shook his head in repugnance. He was fuming, but he managed to keep it bottled up inside. It was time to gather information. He had a few days, after all, to see if Bronson would follow through on his deal to deliver a load of supplies to him and his men.
“Come inside, Lenny,” he said firmly. “Take a load off. Get something to eat, get some rest, and relax. After that, I want you to tell me everything.”
Chapter 2
“Make the most of your regrets; never smother your sorrow, but tend and cherish it till it comes to have a separate and integral interest. To regret deeply is to live afresh.”
—Henry David Thoreau
The cabin
Trout Run Valley
Hardy County, West Virginia
Friday, October 15th (Present day)
Sitting on the edge of her bed, Lauren ran her fingers through her hair and set her elbows onto the stained wooden sill of her bedroom window. She sighed as her chin fell into the palms of her hands, her breath causing the glass to fog up momentarily. With her window offering her a view toward the front of the property, she watched as Norman, Fred, and Peter loaded the last of the remaining deceased into the bed of Peter’s Ford F-150. They had been working for the past few days to gradually clear the valley of the remnants of the attack, and that work included the glum, unfortunate duty of burying the dead. Lauren couldn’t remember ever seeing a more miserable scene in her lifetime.
Lauren had been overwhelmed with melancholy in the days following the attack. It just couldn’t be helped. The horrific things she’d seen plagued her and relentlessly monopolized her thoughts. She cried often. Sometimes, it was in sorrow. Other times, it was due to the pain she felt inside. During some of her crying spells, she’d imagine her dad standing before her, his hands molded to her shoulders, and his eyes beaming into hers, forcing her to return his stare. She could hear him telling her repeatedly to just turn it into something else. Inside, Lauren knew that was what she needed to do, but after all that had happened, it just wasn’t a viable option for her. She needed to deal with this in her own way, and she hoped her dad, wherever he was, would understand and let her be herself—whoever that person was.
Life as she knew it was now starting to play out like some sort of strange dystopian movie. It had a myriad of similar elements, after all. An apocalyptic landscape and storyline. Antagonists and protagonists. A battle between good and evil. An inordinate amount of foreshadowing, and a plot that simply refused to reveal itself. Lauren desperately wanted to know how this would end, but there wasn’t an omniscient narrator to tell the tale. This was her life now; and as awful as it was at times, it had to play itself out, whether she liked it or not.
What confounded her the most in this moment was that she couldn’t assign herself a part in the movie. Was she the good guy or the bad guy? Was what she’d done righteous and justified? She’d been blessed with having a conscience and always knowing the difference between right and wrong. She’d always prided herself on doing the right thing—but she didn’t have a clue if what she and the others were doing was truly right. No matter how much she searched for them, Lauren couldn’t find any answers to the questions that pestered her.
Peter and Fred stepped into the truck cab and Norman jumped into the bed as Michelle handed him his AK-47. As the truck pulled away and her mother walked out of sight, Lauren looked down at the ground and couldn’t help but notice all the blood and fragments of what she assumed was human flesh that had been left in the wake. It made her sick to look at it, and it was only a small portion of what she assumed still existed on the grounds surrounding the cabin. Most of the deaths had occurred on the road and in areas behind the cabin, and in that moment, she was thankful the view from her window didn’t allow her to see either. The scenes of the aftermath continued to haunt her, and Lauren was certain she would never be able to erase them from her eidetic memory.
Lauren had been confined indoors in the days following the attack, with strict instructions to stay off her injured ankle and, in doing so, had passed most of the time by her lonesome. As a consequence, the time alone left her with too much time to think. It left her too much time to contemplate and second-guess herself and her actions. She felt emotionally traumatized by what she’d seen, but even more so by what she’d done. She knew in her mind that her actions had been necessary, but her heart felt differently.
Lauren had pulled the trigger and killed one person in her entire lifetime before that day and had done so only to defend her mother from a ruthless attacker. During the incursions that occurred in the valley the previous summer, she’d been lucky. She didn’t have to fire a single shot. The takers had attacked, and she’d had a zero body count. During this most recent attack, however, her numbers had been much higher, and they were factoring in to the root cause of her depression. Lauren didn’t know exactly how she should feel about what she’d done. She didn’t know how to feel about Angel, the little girl who’d lost her life so viciously and prematurely at the hands of her own mother. She was wholly and helplessly immersed in it—and the hurt of seeing it take place before her was indescribable.
Christian, John, and Lee had buried the little girl on the back side of the Russell’s property near the mountain foothills. They’d found a spot of soft ground in a pretty laurel grove, shaded by several mature locust trees. The spot was located in a remote area, accessible only by foot, and the grave could only be dug by hand. They’d asked Lauren if she wanted to be there to say her goodbyes, but she’d refused for her own selfish reasons. She didn’t want to chance seeing the bloodstained dirt that she knew with all certainty they’d pass by along the way. Regardless, she did want a proper funeral for the little girl. It was a sentiment that they’d all agreed would happen once Lauren felt she was ready.
Lauren looked over to the right side of the porch through her window at Christian, who was sitting on the edge of the porch swing, his calf wrapped in a fresh bandage. He had a large curved-blade knife of some sort in his hand and was using it to carve two sticks to fit together into a crucifix, which Lauren assumed was for Angel’s grave. Just beside him sat the body armor, overstuffed backpack, and suppressed government-issue M4 carbine that he’d taken from the DHS agents several days before. The gear seemed to never leave his side—if it wasn’t on him, it was always within arm’s reach.
Almost as if he could feel her looking at him, Christian peered up from his work and smiled at Lauren through the window. Lauren’s mood had been nothing short of miserable since the attack—the subsequent confinement to her home only making it worse—but she couldn’t help but smile back at him.
The two were kindred spirits, as Christian had also been instructed to limit his activity to allow his own wounds to heal. He performed nearly all his resting in the family recliner that he’d more or less claimed as his own since his arrival. Lauren liked him being around, and the rest of the family was beginning to appreciate what he brought to the table. She felt safe when he was here. John and the others had always made her feel the same way, but this new feeling of safety was different for some reason. It was as if he was her guardian angel—sent here just to protect her and her family. She felt a closeness to him that she couldn’t put into words. Maybe it was because he’d saved her life. Maybe it was because she and Christian both desperately missed their dads. She didn’t know for sure.
Compounded with her state of depression, Lauren was not happy with her predicament. She had never been accustomed to being idle and hated the fact that she couldn’t get up and roam around at her leisure like she’d always done since moving here. Michelle had been resolute about Lauren staying close by, and had told her that even after her ankle healed that she no longer wanted Lauren to go anywhere by herself. With the heightened security now present in the valley, it was no longer something Michelle believed to be necessary. Lauren couldn’t help but feel differently. Just the thought of not being able to go wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted, drove her crazy. Her patrols were only partially about security and intelligence gathering. They provided her with the opportunity to be herself…to escape the world and to clear her head. They were a temporary reprieve from reality that she desperately needed from time to time. And now, she didn’t know if she’d ever be able to return alone to the mountain trails she loved so much.
A knock on her door stopped her contemplation in its tracks. Lauren turned her head to see who it was, but the door remained closed. She waited a few seconds for the knocker to identify themselves or knock again, but nothing happened.
“Yeees?” Lauren said, irritably drawing out the word.
The door opened and her sister, Grace, stepped into the room. “Hey, love. Want some company?”
“Sure,” replied Lauren.
“If you don’t want to be bothered, I—”
“No, you’re fine, Grace. You’re always fine. Come in.”
Grace walked to the edge of the bed that Lauren was sitting on and took a seat close beside her. She put her arm around Lauren and placed a quick kiss on her cheek. Lauren half-smiled at the gesture.
“How’s the ankle doing?” Grace asked.
“It’s getting better, I think.”
“What about you…are you getting any better?”
Lauren shrugged. “No. I still feel like crap.”
“You’re really stuck in this funk, aren’t you?”
Lauren shrugged and listlessly nodded her reply.
“I’m sorry,” Grace said softly. “I wish there was something I could do.”
“Me too.”
“So what’s your plan?” Grace asked curiously, her voice rising a couple of octaves to sound uplifting.
“Plan?”
“I’m just wondering if the plan is to just stay in your room—forever,” Grace said.
Lauren sighed and shrugged her shoulders again. “I don’t know. Maybe,” she said. “There’s not much else going on, so why not?”
Grace pulled her arm from over Lauren’s shoulder and placed her hand on Lauren’s leg, squeezing it.
“You need to stop doing this to yourself, love. You can’t let what happened eat you alive like this.”
“It’s not eating me alive, Grace. It just hurts,” Lauren said. “I feel empty inside. I can’t explain it.”
Grace paused and spent a moment studying Lauren’s room, which was in a state of moderate disarray. There were items strewn about all over the floor. Her sister had indeed been in a funk.
“Sister, I know I don’t have any room to talk here, but I need to say this,” Grace began. “I can understand you feeling this way—God knows you’ve earned the right to after what you’ve been through. But beating yourself up over something you can’t change is a pointless endeavor. We can’t go back, and we can’t change what happened.”
Lauren turned to face her sister. “Look—I appreciate the advice, and I know you’re right. But you didn’t see a little girl get shot…right in front of you—” she paused as she began to choke up “—right after you took the lives of what was probably the…only family she knew. You didn’t do that, Grace. I did. I killed those people.”
“Whoa,” Grace defended as she leaned away and shot her eyes at Lauren. “Look, I don’t need a visual recount of the scene. We all know what happened. And I don’t need you to explain yourself to me, either. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be in your shoes right now. None of us can. I’m not trying to fix you or fix how you feel. I just want you to know that I’m concerned, okay? And I’m here for you. I’m always here for you. I don’t like seeing you like this.”
Lauren sighed and turned to look back out the window again. “I’m sorry,” she said somberly. “I’m really not trying to be a bitch.”
“Well, you kinda are.”
Lauren nodded. “I know. I just don’t know how else to be—I’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. I don’t know how to make it stop hurting.”
Grace put her hand on Lauren’s cheek, forcing Lauren to look at her. “My dearest sister, no matter what happens, we are in this thing together—till the bitter end.” She paused. “It’s your strength that I’m missing right now. I don’t think you realize how much you helped me get my head right when everything went down. Don’t you remember how much of a clusterfuck I was?”
“You’re still a clusterfuck…sometimes,” Lauren jeered.
“Thanks. I appreciate the honesty. But you know what I mean,” said Grace. “Both you and Michelle became my full-time family that day, but it was you who got through to me…helped me keep my sanity when I was on the verge of losing it. I need to see that confidence you were blessed with, Lauren, you can’t lose it because of this. Promise me that you won’t.”
Lauren reached out and hugged her sister. After a moment, Grace pulled away and wiped a tear from her eye. Lauren smiled thoughtfully at her and helped swab the others away that had escaped.
“Wow,” Lauren said. “What’s this? I can’t remember the last time I saw you cry.”
“Stop it. I’m not crying,” Grace debated.
“Grace—these are tears,” Lauren said, while presenting dampened fingertips to her sister.
Grace nodded and half-smiled. “The house hasn’t been the same since everything happened and you decided to take your leave of absence. You’re better than this—you are so much better than this, Lauren. So cheer up. Just find a way to put it all behind you. Okay? Please?”
Lauren nodded. “I’ll do my best.”
“Okay,” Grace said with a nod. “I’ll accept that.”
The two sat on the bed for a moment, both gazing out of Lauren’s bedroom window. Occasionally, Grace would glance over to where Christian sat on the porch swing and then turn her head away awkwardly when he’d look up. Lauren noticed her doing so and said nothing at first.
“Something else on your mind, Grace?”
Grace turned to her and wiped her nose nervously. “Actually, yeah. There is,” she said. “I’m just a little nervous about bringing it up.”
Lauren cocked her head slightly and smiled. Grace was the older sister, a confidante, and always had offered suitable advice to Lauren when it’d been needed in the past. Periodically since the collapse, their roles would reverse. This was just one of those times.
“Go ahead, then. You’ve got my attention,” Lauren said.
Grace hesitated and then asked, “Do you…trust him?”
“Who?”
“Christian,” Grace replied under her breath.
Lauren smiled. She had a feeling that she knew what was up with her sister even before Grace had asked. The two looked at each other
with the eyes that their father had given to them, the ones that tended to change color according to their moods. Lauren’s were brown today. Grace’s, a light shade of green.
“I do, actually,” Lauren said with a nod. “As silly as it may sound, knowing him for such a short amount of time, I do.”
Grace smiled. “I don’t think it sounds silly at all,” she said. “There’s just something about him. He’s so confident—nothing fazes him. He’s strong and protective, and even though he’s a hopeless smart-ass, he totally means well. I feel safe with him. To be honest, I’ve never felt safer.”
“He wasn’t so confident when I was pointing a gun at him when he and I first met,” Lauren joked.
“Can’t imagine why,” she said with a snarky grin. “Seriously, though—I just wanted to know your opinion of him, that’s all.”
Lauren nodded and patted Grace’s thigh. “You don’t need to ask my permission, Grace. If it wasn’t for Christian, I wouldn’t be here right now. And you saw for yourself what he did the other day. He’s a good guy. If you like him, you should just go for it.”
“So you really do trust him, then?”
“Emphatically,” said Lauren.
“That much?”
“I saw him in action,” Lauren assured her. “At a time when I was helpless, he wanted to keep me safe. I’ve never seen anyone do anything like that before. It was impressive.”
Grace nodded and half-smiled, and the room fell silent for a moment.
“He told me about his friends that got killed,” Grace said solemnly.
Lauren turned to her sister, who stared blankly out the window. “He did?”
“Yeah. Talk about a sad story.”
“He never said anything to me about them,” Lauren confessed. “We talked about all sorts of things, but he didn’t elaborate on his friends.”
“They all apparently knew each other for a really long time,” Grace said quietly. “Christian said that the one that was executed in the camp was one of his best friends from high school.”
This We Will Defend [Book 2] Page 5
