“We have to go,” I say, more to myself than anyone else. I look at him one last time and then offer my wrists to let Lee bind then again. I don’t look back as we walk away.
“Don’t worry,” Officer Mills reassures me. “You won’t be held for long.”
“What?”
“There are changes coming,” she says.
“What’s going to happen?” I whisper as we walk back out into the main hall that is lined with cameras. She smiles but doesn’t answer me. Officer Mills takes on a much more formal stance as we’re sure we’re on camera right now.
We are handed over to the guards near the jail. The jail only consists of two rooms. I’m assuming Tia and Adrian are in the first one because we are escorted into the second one and the door is locked behind us.
Conner is already here. He looks up as we come in and he seems even more disheveled than usual, if that’s possible. His hair is sticking every which way and he is not wearing his glasses. He says they were broken during his arrest. I am shocked to see Corey and Matty are here as well. Matty runs to me as soon as he sees me and I lock eyes with Corey.
“What are you guys doing here?” I ask.
“You know that day we were supposed to set out?” Corey answers, “They wouldn’t let us leave.”
“You’ve been here since then?” I gasp, sitting down next to Matty and folding him into my arms.
“Yeah, but I wanna know how the attack on Texas went. Were you able to foil any dumb ass rebel plans?” It seems like Corey has been talking to Conner I fill them in on everything from the capitol, including how Conner foiled the rebel plans brilliantly.
Jeremy doesn’t say anything or even take pride in what we’ve accomplished. This worries me. After the beating that he took from Jonathan, this past week has been really hard on him. He hasn’t been given the medical attention he needs. He is slumped along the wall and doesn’t move much because every time he does, he is wracked with pain. I try to help him as much as possible but it is hard for him to even eat. I cradle his head in my lap as he tries in vain to sleep. His hair is soaked in sweat. I don’t know how much longer he can last. Jonathan must have broken something or ruptured something. I don’t know. I’m not a doctor.
After days of imprisonment, Jonathan comes to see us. His smile is smug and his eyes show more than a hint of crazy.
“Hello,” he croons as he unlocks the door and pushes it open. “Today is a good day! Well, not for you.”
“What do you want?” I spit.
“Your trial has finally finished,” he says cheerily.
“What trial? Don’t we get to be there?”
“Not when you are being tried as a traitor my dear,” he says with a sneer. “My rules around here. I have no tolerance for traitors and I just don’t like any of you.” How did we not see it before? This man is certifiably nutters. “Your executions are scheduled for next week.”
“Executions,” I gulp.
“Yes Miss Nolan. That’s what we do to people who can’t seem to follow the rules. You’re supposed to be dead by now anyway.”
“But you failed, didn’t you?” I scream. He leaves the room but I don’t stop. “You failed.”
Execution. That’s how it ends. What did Officer Mills mean when she said we won’t be here long? I hope that she hurries with whatever plan she has. I lean my head back and start to cry. Everything I’ve been holding in suddenly bubbles to the surface and I can’t contain it any longer. Ryan takes my hand in his. He doesn’t say anything because there’s nothing to say.
Jeremy wheezes beside me. How did it come to this? If Officer Mills can’t get us out, what will it do to Gabby and Drew to lose me again? A million questions race through my head.
Gabby and Drew will move on as all mourners eventually do. Life goes on whether you are there or not. My chest heaves as I struggle to breathe through my constant sobs. I almost wish I had died in the fight like I was supposed to. That would have been a better end.
Drew once told me that death is not the end. He believes that his God has prepared an afterlife. I have never believed in God but I wish I did in this moment. It is a selfish reason but I can’t bring myself to believe that I will just cease to be; that the last thing I will ever see is the firing squad.
Time seems endless in this cell. We receive one meal a day. I have counted five. At first, we talked. Conner told me that Lucas is in the hospital and I told him stories from the fight. After a while, nothing we said seemed important so we just stopped talking.
Jeremy’s breathing is labored and he doesn’t open his eyes most of the time. It reminds me of how we found him in Floridaland. The difference now is that I can’t get him out. I can’t save him this time. I can’t even save myself.
My tears have long since dried by the time we hear footsteps on the fifth day.
“Which cell are they in?” a man’s voice echoes down the hall.
“Right here.” I recognize Officer Mills. I shake Jeremy to wake him but he doesn’t open his eyes. Frantically, I feel for a pulse and find it as the door opens. A bright light pours in as a flashlight illuminates the darkness.
“Get that boy to medical!” the man orders. Two others rush in and lift Jeremy carefully. The man to whom the voice belongs steps into the room and moves the light so that it is out of my eyes. “Dawn,” he says, “are you okay?”
It takes me a moment of disbelief before I can respond. Only one word escapes me.
“Dad.”
Thank You
Thank you for reading Day of Reckoning! I hope you’re enjoying this series as much as I’m enjoying sharing it with you! Your support and encouragement is invaluable and very much appreciated. One of the most important tools for authors today are your reviews. I would love for you to leave your honest feedback at the online retailer where you bought this book.
-Michelle Lynn
Eve of Tomorrow
Dawn
“Duck!” Corey screams behind me. I scramble to the forest floor just in time to see a knife fly through the space where I had been standing a second ago. “Run!” Corey’s second command urges me forward as I get to my feet and take off. I don’t know where I’m going and the woods are a mess of charred and twisted trees.
I am fast but my pursuer is faster. He uses long strides to gain on me as I allow myself a moment of hesitation and a single glance at him. That’s all he needs to close the gap. Still moving, I see him hurdling forwards and then blackness envelopes me.
I’m only out for a minute or so. The half-naked, tattooed man has an arm around my throat and warm blood trickles from where the tip of his knife is pressed into my back.
Corey is here. His eyes are cold as he stands with his gun trained on my captor. “Let her go!” Corey demands.
“You are the trespassers here,” He responds.
“We don’t mean any harm,” Corey’s says.
“Why are you here?” The man demands.
“Let the girl go and we can talk,” Corey says cautiously.
For a brief moment, I think he’s going to do it. Instead, his arm tightens, making it hard to breathe. I gasp for air and struggle against him.
“My tribe is hunting nearby,” the big man says in a menacing tone. “If you shoot, they will come.”
One look at Corey tells me that he’s already thought of that. I see his lips twitch up into a smile before he hides it with a grimace. I hear the crunch of leaves underfoot before the arm goes slack at my throat and the man jerks against me. I clench my teeth as his knife cuts into my back before he falls away. I sway on my feet and almost collapse but Ryan is there to catch me.
“Where were you?” I say as loudly as my voice can manage as I inhale sharply. I step away from the dead man. Ryan’s blade protrudes from the back of his head.
“Damn freedom fighters,” Corey curses, holstering his gun.
“Sorry,” Ryan starts. “I had gotten pretty far ahead of you guys.”
“We need to stick t
ogether,” Corey states.
Ryan nods his agreement. They don’t seem as shaken up as me. This is hardly the first time we’ve been attacked since leaving the Rebel compound weeks ago but it is the first fight since reaching the wastelands two days ago. We are in their territory now. The freedom fighters reign supreme here. That’s why most avoid this place at all costs. The tattooed warrior clans fight without abandon and no one really knows what they fight for. A long time ago, they actually were fighting for their freedom. Now, that is just a name.
“Do you think we should have questioned him?” I ask when I get my wits together.
“He wouldn’t have told us anything,” Corey answers gruffly. “And we aren’t torturers.”
“It’s up to us to find my sister,” Ryan steps on the dead man for leverage as he pulls his knife free and cleans it on his pant leg.
“He said his tribe is hunting near here,” Corey starts to move. “We need to keep going.”
I wince at the thought. My back hurts where I was cut and my shirt is sticky with blood, not all of it mine. It’ll heal though and I don’t want to slow us down. We can’t stop until we find Emily. Ryan’s kid sister was taken by the freedom fighters during the fighting in Texas. We left her outside the walls, thinking she would be safer. We don’t know what they want with a 10-year-old American girl but it can’t be good. I don’t look down as I step over the dead man and follow Corey and Ryan farther into the woods.
Hours later, we are still walking but I can’t keep up anymore. We haven’t had a proper sleep in days and our food supply is running low.
“Ryan!” I yell, hoping he can hear me despite the distance between us. He does. He turns and jogs back.
“You okay?” He asks.
I don’t know how he still has so much energy. Maybe it’s the fear masking as adrenaline running through his veins, pushing him to find his sister quickly.
“We need to set up camp to get some rest,” I say.
“It’s still light out,” he protests.
“She’s right,” Corey agrees. “Now that we’re in the Wastelands, we want to travel at night to use the darkness to hide us. We’ll rest until the sun goes down.”
Ryan drops his shoulders in resignation. He knows we’re right and his argument disappears. The boys set up a makeshift camp while I check the packs for what food we have left. There is half a loaf of stale bread and a bit of meat that we cooked a few days ago. It’s not enough to fill us. The hunting has been sparse for week now and we’ve given up our expectations of regular meals. We do have plenty of water, though. Two days ago we came upon a stream where we were able to bathe and fill our empty water bottles. I take a swig and the water slides down my dry throat and drops into my empty stomach, triggering the nausea that only the truly hungry know.
I pass out the food and scarf mine down. It’s all I can do to keep from trying to pick the crumbs from the ground. I do have some dignity left. Corey takes first guard and I lay back, hoping sleep can ease my weariness.
“Dawn,” Ryan lightly shakes me awake and I sit up suddenly. He pats my back to calm me.
“Are you okay?” he asks, feeling the crusty shirt that clings to me.
“I’m fine,” I say as I rub my eyes and stand. “My guard?”
“Yeah,” he says, his voice is absent. “But you’re hurt.”
“It’s just a small cut,” I reply.
“Let me see it,” he says.
I sigh, lacking the energy to argue, and do as he says. I lift the back of my shirt and wince as his fingers find the cut.
He cleans away the blood and says, “I can’t do anything about the shirt.”
“It’s fine.” I say.
“Okay,” he begins, “But there is no way I can sleep. I’ll sit your watch with you.”
“You need rest,” I state.
“I’ll rest when Emily is safe,” he replies. Knowing there is no way around his stubbornness, I shrug and we sit in silence for a while before he talks again.
“Who is this guy?” He motions to Corey’s sleeping figure. “I mean, we’ve been on the road with him for a while now and I still don’t know why he came.”
“Corey is a Texan,” I start, unsure if I have the right to tell this story. If we’re going to make it, Corey and Ryan need to trust each other more than they have. “He lived in one of the farming villages with his parents. His mom, Bria, was sympathetic to the Rebels. She would pass on messages for them.” I pause and close my eyes as a picture of Bria comes to mind. This isn’t easy to talk about and my voice cracks when I keep going.
“When Gabby and I escaped Texas, we were helped by a woman named Allison. She was Bria’s Rebel contact inside Texas. Corey’s village was our last stop before reaching the Rebel compound. Bria hid us in her home but we were found out by Texan soldiers. Bria got us out in time and sent Corey with us. She knew what they were going to do to her,” I finish.
Ryan’s silence tells me he understands. Bria and her husband were killed. Ryan had to leave his home because of his father aiding foreigners. They have a lot in common.
“That’s why Corey hates the Rebels?” He asks after a while.
I grimace, wishing it were that simple.
“He also saw Gabby kill someone point blank,” I say quietly.
Everyone at the Rebel base knows that Gabs killed the Texan farmer and tried to kill his son. It was only because of my intervention that Matty is alive.
Ryan laughs suddenly and I scowl at him before he explains, saying, “Aren’t we quite the group? An American, a Texan, and a British Rebel.”
“I feel like that’s the beginning of an epic story,” I say with a laugh, but I stop laughing when I feel a stab of pain radiate from the cut in my back. The heroes in epic stories always suffer and, in real life, they don’t always save the day. I sigh and shake my head as I watch the last rays of light leave the woods.
We wake Corey before the moon is high and start moving again. We don’t know exactly where we’re going but I feel like we are close.
So close.
Dawn
The closer we get to Emily, the less Ryan talks. It has been a couple days since our guard duty chat and, now, he is angry and scared all at the same time. I know the feeling. When my sister was in the Floridaland slave camp, I was a mess.
As the sky darkens, a burst of chilled air moves through the trees. I shiver and pull my arms tight across my chest. I would kill for a cuppa right now.
“I wish we could start a fire,” I say.
“I wish we could find something edible,” Corey answers.
Ryan stays quiet. I nod as I lean back against a tree and close my eyes, trying to push all thoughts of food out of my mind. I have never felt this empty. Last night we found some kind of animal but there was only a small amount of meat.
Instead of dreaming of food, I dream about the night my patrol was attacked by a band of freedom fighters at the river’s edge. I see Lucas and Grace, and Brent fighting them off. Other members of my patrol are dead at our feet. I am grabbed from behind by a fellow Rebel. King. We wear the same uniform but his gun is trained on me. I hear someone yell and lunge before a bullet rips into my shoulder. I wake suddenly and sit straight up with sweat dripping and ragged breaths.
“You okay?” Corey asks.
“Fine,” I answer shortly. I’ve had that dream before, many times. I do my best to forget. “We should get going,” I say as I stand and begin to erase all signs of our presence from this clearing. We don’t want anyone following us. I can’t get King’s face out of my head. Other than a few friends and my sister, I haven’t trusted the Rebels since then. King shot me on orders from Jonathan Clarke. He was the Rebel leader. Now he is held prisoner in the very base that he controlled. I never did find out if my mother wanted me dead or if Clarke kept his second in command in the dark.
My father, General Nolan, leads the Rebels now and I don’t know what to think of him. He refused to allow me to go on this mission. W
ell, he abandoned me to make my own choices for most of my life. I don’t need him telling me what to do now. He pulled rank and ordered me to stay but I never wanted to be a Rebel soldier anyway. He can have my uniform. I’ll gladly shed that burden.
I only wish my father had told me what he knows of the Wastelands. He seems to know everything that goes on in the colonies so I doubt he is as ignorant of this place as he let on. He did warn me against coming but all I care about right now is finding Emily.
Here’s what I do know. The Wastelands are a charred mess and no one seems to know why. It happened a long time ago. It has long been thought that no one could live here. Crazy weather patterns are the norm and the land is harsh. Crops have trouble growing and animals tend to stay away. How could anyone survive?
But obviously the Freedom Fighters can. Such a wretched place is the perfect hiding place for them. My father warned us that they are much more likely to find us than we are to find them. We came anyway. We can’t let them have Emily. She's just a girl. What could they possible want with her?
Gabby
This sucks. I can't believe I’ve been sent back to Vicksburg, the capitol. General Nolan (I refuse to call him my father) made the assignment. What's worse is that Adrian, that lying jackarse of a man, is in charge. A Texan! This is rubbish! There is an entire unit of Rebel soldiers with us so I don't know why I had to come. Nolan said it's because I distrust Adrian and will keep a better watch on him than most would. I wish the general would just treat me like any other ranker.
I walk through the streets and am amazed at how quickly most of them have been cleared of debris from the bombs. Some of the buildings are already being rebuilt and I have only been here a few weeks. These people move fast.
The fighting here was not as bad as in Baton Rouge which had to be abandoned after the battle. The entire city was in shambles and it was easier to let it stay that way. Most of the people that lived there were killed and the few who were lucky enough to survive, sought refuge in Vicksburg and St. Louis which surrendered before too much damage could be done.
Day of Reckoning (Dawn of Rebellion Series Book 2) Page 23
