Island Refuge EMP Box Set | Books 1-3

by Hamilton, Grace

  “Will you talk to her for me?” Dominic said. “Try to make her understand. I wasn’t going to hurt her. I just really had to see her.”

  “We’ll talk to her together,” Elna said, the fingertips of her right hand brushing the cold, hollow handle of the kitchen knife under her belt. “Put the gun down. We’re all friends here.”

  “Friends,” he said softly, as if he’d never said the word before.

  “That’s right.”

  Dominic finally bowed his head and lowered the gun to his side. His shoulders shook, as if he were sobbing, though he made no sound and produced no tears.

  “That’s right,” Elna said again.

  She grabbed the handle of the knife and bent her knees, eyes locked on the gun.

  “That’s right,” she said a third time, scarcely more than a whisper.

  And with a single expulsion of breath, she made her move.

  14

  Fed by the danger, she found a deeper well of strength and sprung at Dominic with a speed and grace that surprised even her. As she did, she pulled the knife out from under her belt and brought it up. Though she had intentionally selected the knives for self-defense, she found that she was unwilling to stab him. It was just a bit too gruesome, so she swung the end of the handle at him instead, trying to drive it up against the side of his head. A solid blow that should daze him enough to loosen his grip on the gun.

  His head whipped up at the last second, all softness leaving his face. His lips pulled back to reveal yellow animal teeth. The gun started to rise, but it was too late. The handle of the knife slammed into the side of his head, hitting him just behind his right temple, the full momentum of Elna’s charge behind it. The sound was shockingly loud, a kind of ringing thud that echoed in the concrete room behind her.

  A weird warbling sound came from deep in his throat as her shoulder slammed into his chest. They both flew out the building and crashed down onto the fallen door in a tangle of limbs. The back of Dominic’s head bounced like a basketball off the dented metal surface of the door and the gun flew from his hand, then skittered across the ground.

  Elna’s momentum kept moving her forward, and she slid past him, then rolled and wound up on her back. In the calm seconds that followed, she felt a sudden deep ache sink into her shoulders. She groaned and raised her hand, the shiny blade catching the afternoon sunlight. It glinted brightly, blinding her. She opened her hand, letting it drop to the rocky ground beside her with a clatter.

  “Wow, I didn’t see that coming,” Malin said, stepping outside. “That was some kind of ninja move, Elna.”

  She sat up, feeling a twinge of pain in her lower back.

  Oh, great, she thought, bitterly. I’d better not have wrenched my back trying to subdue this guy. There’s too much work to do!

  Dominic was sprawled across the fallen door, moaning softly, his arms curled up in front of him, as if grasping at an invisible enemy. His eyes were half-shut and rolled back, showing whites, and his mouth hung open.

  “Did you kill him?” Malin asked.

  “I don’t think so.” She stooped down and patted his pockets. She found a small knife and a lighter in his pants pocket. Taking them out, she handed them to Malin, then she rolled Dominic on his side. “He’s out cold, either from my blow to his head or from hitting the door. Concussion. There could be some long-term damage. We won’t know until he comes to…if he comes to.” She felt a squirming unease in her stomach.

  “Should we leave him here or what?” Malin asked.

  She looked up, hoping he was joking, but he had a serious look on his face. No, she didn’t want to be responsible for killing someone, not even a creep.

  “No, we don’t leave him here. Find something to bind his hands. When he regains consciousness, he’s coming with us. We’ll take him back to the guesthouse and detain him somewhere.”

  “Another mouth to feed,” Malin said, shaking his head. But he went back into the building and began rooting around in the cardboard box.

  He came back a moment later with a small roll of duct tape. Elna held his hands close together, while Malin bound his wrists with a generous amount of tape. Dominic groaned loudly and kicked his feet.

  “Our new friend is waking up,” Malin said. “Give him another tap on the head.”

  “No, we need him to wake up,” Elna said. “Unless you want to drag the dead weight up the hill.”

  Dominic groaned again, and this time there were almost-intelligible words mixed in with the sound. He tried to roll onto his back, started to crush his own bound hands, and flopped onto his stomach instead.

  “Wha…did you do?” he said, words bubbling up from somewhere deep. “What did you do to me?”

  “He wasn’t out long,” Elna said. “That’s a good sign. Less chance of serious brain trauma. Help me get him up.”

  She grabbed his right arm just beneath his armpit, braced herself by widening her stance, and started lifting him. Malin grabbed the left arm, and together, they were able to pull him to his knees. He muttered something under his breath, his head tipping forward then tipping back. His eyes went wide, flitting back and forth until they found Elna.

  “What did you do?” The last word came out as some kind of monster howl.

  “You took a little fall, Dominic,” she said. “You’ll be okay. We’re going to help you back to the guesthouse and find you a place to rest. We’ll load you up on ibuprofen and wine and let you sleep it off, safe and secure and unable to hurt anyone.”

  They got his feet under him, but then he thrashed weakly in their grip. “Don’t you know who I am?” he said, creakily. “Don’t you know what I’ve done?”

  “We’ll talk about it after you’ve rested up,” Elna said. “Just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. We’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

  “This guy isn’t worth the effort,” Malin said, as they started guiding him back toward the fence. “Can’t we at least strap him to the dolly?”

  Elna swooped down and picked up the kitchen knife in passing, sliding it back under her belt. “Dominic, are you going to walk, or do we have to knock you out again and roll you up the hill?”

  He growled, pulled against the duct tape, then said, “I’ll walk. I am walking.”

  The gun was lying a few feet away, and she leaned down and grabbed it in passing as well. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do, then. Dominic is going to walk on his own. We’re going to load up the dolly again and bring the supplies to the guesthouse, and if our friend tries to run away, I might just have to shoot him.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Malin replied.

  Dominic’s head lolled on his shoulders as he looked back at Elna, glassy-eyed but scowling. Elna ejected the cylinder on the little Ruger and saw the glint of late afternoon sunlight on the rims of the bullet casings. Every chamber was loaded, and the bullets looked new.

  “Six shots,” she said. “Want to gamble on whether or not I have good aim?”

  “I said I would walk,” Dominic replied. “Stop threatening me.”

  “Okay, good.” Elna pushed the cylinder back into the gun frame until she heard the click of the latch lock. “Malin, you want to load up the dolly again while I keep an eye on this guy?”

  “You got it,” he said.

  He released his hold on Dominic’s arm, and Dominic wobbled on his feet. He was muttering under his breath, but Elna couldn’t make out what he was saying. As Malin went back inside the big brick building, Elna glanced up at the sky. It was edging toward evening. Would they make it back to the guesthouse before nightfall? She didn’t think so, not with Dominic and the overloaded dolly in tow.

  Maybe Malin’s right, she thought. Maybe we should leave this creep here.

  She held the Ruger steady, aiming at a spot between Dominic’s shoulder blades. He swayed on his feet, then took a deep breath and stood up tall. She realized in that moment just how broad-shouldered and well-muscled he was. His knuckles, turned a shade redd
er by the duct tape wrapped around his wrists, were rough and scarred, his fingernails ragged.

  “Have you got a jail cell up there?” he said. “Because I don’t know how you expect to hold someone against their will.”

  “Let’s be nice,” Elna said. “If you behave, maybe we won’t need to chain you to the pipes in the basement—the cold, dark, possibly rat-infested basement.”

  “I’m not afraid of you. I dealt with worse than you.”

  “I’m sure you think so,” Elna said. “If you’re real lucky, you won’t have to test that hypothesis.”

  She hoped the vague threat would trouble him, but he merely laughed.

  15

  It proved to be the longest, most miserable slog of his entire life. Malin had hiked through deserts and howling snowstorms, but none of it compared to the agony of trying to push the dolly up the winding dirt road. He tried to do most of the pushing with his good arm, but his stitched wound still hurt like hell. Elna couldn’t help him much. She had her gun trained on Dominic, and she kept having to prod the guy to keep him moving.

  At one point, as they were rounding a bend just below the old battered shed, moving through the increasing gloom of the setting sun, the forward wheels sank into a fold in the road. Malin felt the stack of supplies tipping, but he couldn’t stop them. The dolly fell over, and everything stacked on top crashed down onto the road in spectacular fashion. Malin had his arms around the big plastic crate of water bottles, and its momentum pulled him off his feet.

  He landed on top of the crate, his arms plunging into the spilled box of tools, as the thunderous sound sent birds scattering out of the treetops. In the aftermath, he lay there for a few seconds, his bandaged right arm hurting like hell. Elna and Dominic turned back to see what had happened. Fortunately, Elna only took her eyes off the prisoner for a second before fixing her gaze, and the gun, on him again.

  “Alright, that’s it,” Malin said, climbing over the spilled supplies. “I’m officially done with this stuff. Let’s call it a night, shall we?”

  “We’re so close now,” Elna replied. She sounded as exhausted as Malin felt. “Don’t give up. We need all of this stuff.”

  “If you would untape my hands, maybe I could help out a little bit,” Dominic said. “My hands are going numb.”

  “You pulled a gun on us,” Elna replied. “We can’t trust you. I wish we could. Sorry, Dominic.”

  She started to reach down and help Malin, but he waved her away, pointing at their prisoner. Then he proceeded to pick up their supplies, restacking them one by one, as his aching arms cried out in protest. When he was finally done, he pulled the dolly away from the little divot and resumed pushing it up the hill.

  Though Elna had said they were close, it took almost another hour to reach the vineyard. Finally, as the last rays of evening sun burned the ocean horizon far to the west, they approached the back door into the tasting room. When Elna finally opened the door, they found the others gathered along the bar in the tasting room, eating dinner by candlelight.

  “Oh, there you are,” Elna’s father said. “I was wondering if you two were ever coming back. Thought maybe you’d built a raft and headed ashore.”

  Garret chortled obnoxiously at this. He was seated at the far end of the bar, digging into a big plate of vegetables. Norman sat beside him, then Selene, and finally the Dulleses. In fact, it was Rita Dulles who noticed their prisoner first. She was a small woman, her white hair cut close, the curls wilted by the heat and humidity. Her features seemed to perpetually frown, but she managed to look even more disturbed now, her high forehead drooping down to cast her eyes in shadow.

  “Oh no,” she said, in a soft little voice. “No, no, you can’t bring him in here. I don’t want him inside the building with me. Get him away!”

  This caused everyone else at the bar to turn, even as Malin wrestled the dolly over the threshold, fighting his sore muscles. As soon as Selene laid eyes on Dominic, she whimpered, pushed herself off her barstool, and stumbled backward. Sniffy, who had been curled up on the floor nearby, bounded to his feet and began barking furiously.

  “No, get him out of here,” Selene wailed. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to hear his voice.”

  “Come on now, baby,” Dominic said. Malin saw him straining against the duct tape. “You’re being hysterical again. There’s no need for this. If we could go somewhere privately, we could talk all of this out. I know we could. We’ve worked out problems before. Give me a few minutes to explain myself. That’s all I want.”

  Elna’s father came around the bar, waving both hands at him. “Elna, what are you thinking? Get that person out of here. I don’t want him on my island, much less in my guesthouse.”

  “His hands are bound,” Elna noted, “and I intend to keep it that way. I’m not setting him free; I don’t want him roaming the island. He might mess with our food or water supplies, sabotage equipment, attack people…who knows?”

  “Aw, if I wanted to do any of that, I already had plenty of opportunity,” Dominic said. “Selene’s planted a warped view of me in your head.”

  “Nobody warped our view more than you, sir,” Norman said.

  Malin struggled to get the big stack of supplies into the room and finally had to ask for help. Norman obliged, and once it was all neatly arranged, Malin rolled the dolly into the corner. The others were arguing as they debated what to do with Dominic. The consensus seemed to be against him, but Elna tried to reason with them.

  “Like I said, we can’t have him roaming the island,” she said. “And there’s no way to send him away. I have big projects in mind. This guy was squatting at the old military base down by the lighthouse. If we’re all stuck on this island together anyway, we might as well keep everyone close. We will contain him somehow.”

  When Malin turned around, he saw Garret approaching Dominic, cracking his knuckles as he came. They were smiling garishly at each other, each clearly trying to out-threaten the other. Garret was the bigger man by far, and, more importantly, his hands weren’t bound.

  “I don’t feel safe with him here,” Selene said. “I don’t want him near me.” She reached down and picked up her thrashing dog, backing toward the hallway.

  “It’s not right to subject the poor girl to this,” Rita Dulles said. “Can’t you see she’s a battered wife?”

  “Lady, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Dominic said. “Battered wife! Laughable. Maybe I’m an emotionally battered husband. Did that ever cross your mind? Yeah, I doubt it.”

  “I can see exactly what you are,” Rita Dulles said, giving him a dismissive flip of her hand. “Men like you are a dime a dozen. Not like my sweet Joe.”

  “Your sweet who?”

  Garret lunged forward then, even as Dominic was talking. Elna had been standing between them, but she stepped aside. He grabbed Dominic by the shoulder, spun him, and shoved him against the nearest wall. Dominic tried to resist, pushing against Garret with his shoulder, but he was clearly exhausted and still dazed from the blows to his head. He hit the wall with a loud grunt, and Garret planted his forearm against the back of the man’s neck.

  “This is unnecessary, dummy,” Dominic said, voice strained. “The girl’s got a gun pointed at me. What am I going to do?”

  Garret turned to Elna’s father, who was standing at the end of the bar, wiping his hands on a towel. George looked utterly perplexed.

  “What do you want me to do with him?” Garret asked. “I’ll give him a one-way pass to the bottom of the ocean. Just say the word, Mr. Pasqualee. I’d love to spend a few minutes pulverizing this guy. Just nod your head, and I’ll get to work. Come on.”

  “No, no,” Elna said. “Stop it. We’ll detain him somewhere on the property. It’s better to keep him close.”

  “As long as he’s bound tight, I suppose it makes sense,” Norman said. “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, right?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Elna said. “Out of th
e way of our food and water projects.”

  Malin didn’t have energy for the debate, so he moved to a chair in the corner and plopped himself down. The last remnant of strength left him then, and he felt his whole body turn to jelly.

  Garret’s got the right idea this time, Malin thought.

  “We’ll put him in the shed out back,” Mr. Pasqualee said. “I want him secured—I mean, thoroughly secured.”

  “You might need my help, old man,” Dominic said, struggling to get the words out.

  “Buddy, we don’t need anything from you,” Garret snapped. “Shut your mouth.”

  The voices continued to snarl and shout, but they seemed to be fading into the distance. Soon, a warm darkness settled down over Malin as the people retreated, as if down a long tunnel.

  Malin awoke suddenly, snorting and thrashing as someone tapped him on the shoulder. He tried to lurch up out of his seat, but he had tipped backward while sleeping. Instead of standing up, the dusty soles of his shoes slid on the tile floor, and he slipped right off his chair. Elna’s father caught him under the arm and redirected his momentum, bringing him forward and up. He managed to get his feet under himself and took a few steps.

  Malin laughed in embarrassment and scrubbed his face with his hands. Even that gesture made his sore muscles cry out. A flashlight beam was moving around the room, and voices spoke softly from elsewhere.

  “Man, I was asleep before I even knew I was going,” Malin said, rerolling his sleeves. He felt absolutely grubby, desperately in need of a shower and shave. He could taste road dust on his tongue, feel it in his hair, smell it in his nostrils. “Where is everyone?”

  “Norman and Garret are still down by the lighthouse,” George Pasqualee said. “Elna and I just got back. One more trip, and we should be able to bring back anything else of value.”

  “Where’s our…pal?” Malin asked.

  “Tied up in the shed,” George said.

  Malin stumbled toward the bar, trying to shake off the residue of sleep that clung to him like a too-heavy blanket. Selene was still sitting at the bar, and when he got close, her dog gave a single halfhearted bark, as if to warn him.