The Three

by Meghan O'Brien

  “He’s dead, sir.” One of the group addressed the blond man Anna figured must be their leader.

  Another of the men glared down at Kael’s unconscious form. “He killed Derek and Sue, sir.” He retrieved Kael’s sword from the ground and placed the tip against Kael’s throat. “I say we finish him off on general principle.”

  Anna’s shaky inhalation echoed Elin’s cry of stark horror.

  “No!” Elin screamed. “No, please! Just…just take me. Leave him alone. You’ve hurt him enough.”

  The man with the sword yanked Elin to her feet. “Not as much as he hurt those two poor souls.” He gestured at the dead bodies. The second, Anna now saw, was a woman.

  “Leave him,” their leader ordered. “He’s as good as dead anyway, with that head injury. You know we don’t kill unless it’s in self-defense. He’s no longer a threat to us.” Glancing around at his men, he asked, “How many of you are injured?”

  A chorus of grumpy voices resounded.

  “All right. Search the area, then we’ll head back to camp and have the medic take a look at any injured.

  Dex wants us to move out, anyway. We’ve got enough.”

  “What are we supposed to be searching for?” asked a man Anna couldn’t see.

  “Those two weren’t whistling for their health,” the blond man answered. “There must be someone around here that they thought would hear them. If it’s another woman, it’s worth looking.”

  Anna felt frozen in place. Her hand twitched on her baseball bat as she weighed her options. I can’t just let them take her. But Kael…he could still be alive. And if he is, he needs my help a lot more than Elin does at the moment. Anna took in the sheer size of the group with dismay. I have the gun, but I really don’t think it’s going to help me against more than twenty of them. If I go in there, I’ll most likely be killed or captured…and then I won’t be able to help either one of them.

  “It’s my brother.” Elin wept within the grip of one of the men. “He was traveling on ahead of us. Please, leave him alone. Just take me, and let’s go wherever you want to go. Please.”

  The leader turned to his men. “Go. Don’t bother spreading out more than about a mile away. If we can’t find this girl’s…brother…then so be it. We leave.”

  Anna stared at Elin in agony. As though her fear and rage were palpable, frightened hazel eyes suddenly darted over and found Anna through the dense foliage, widening in subtle panic. She held Anna’s gaze for only an instant before turning away as though fearful that the men would notice where her attention had focused.

  In that moment, Anna understood her silent plea. Hide. Help Kael. I love you.

  It made her sick to her stomach, but Elin was right. There was nothing she could do right now that wouldn’t get one or all of them killed. She needed to hide, even if it meant letting these men take Elin away.

  Elin. Anna wanted to vomit when she imagined, for an instant, what could happen to Elin in a group of men.

  She had seen the hungry looks a few were already casting in her direction. She struggled over what to do.

  Most of the men carried a weapon of some sort, the majority of them blunt. A few carried blades, and a couple wielded wicked-looking knives. She surveyed the scene for clues, for any advantage she could press. The leader of the men pivoted, sweeping cold eyes in her direction, and Anna saw the one thing she absolutely could not fight.

  He had a handgun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  And I bet he has bullets.

  Without another thought, she crawled backwards until she could stand without being seen. She tucked in her T-shirt and shoved the baseball bat down the back. Taking a running start, she leapt up and grabbed the trunk of a large sycamore tree. She scurried desperately up the trunk, managing to reach the weaker upper branches in relative silence. She stopped when she could climb no farther.

  Below, the men began their efficient search. Careful to keep quiet, Anna peered down through the foliage, spotting the tops of two heads heading in opposite directions just beneath her perch. After they passed, she strained hard to see down into the clearing where her lovers had fallen.

  She spotted the blond leader first, then the angry young man who had threatened to hit Elin. A third man was securing Elin’s hands behind her back.

  “I thought it was an eye for an eye,” the angry man said. “This faggot killed two of us. He killed a woman, for Christ’s sake! His little bitch—”

  “Brian,” the leader warned, “watch your mouth.”

  “She smacked a bunch of us real good. At the very least, let’s kill him so we know he won’t come after us.”

  “Come after us and do what? He did a pretty poor job of defending his woman when he was in good shape.

  With that head injury, he’s not going anywhere.”

  “Then why shouldn’t we put him out of his misery?”

  “Because we’re not common criminals.” The blond put a hand on Brian’s shoulder. “We’re good men with a righteous cause. Killing people isn’t a part of that. You know that. All life is sacred.”

  Anna frowned as she listened to the rhetoric. It made no sense coming from a man who led a small army around with the apparent purpose of abducting young women. I wonder how he feels about rape.

  Brian shot a look of pure hatred down at Kael, who remained inert. With an even more venomous look toward Elin, he stalked off into the forest. Even from her height, Anna could see Elin visibly relax when he left.

  The leader of the men approached Elin, and stroked a hand over her cheek. “I really am sorry for the way this happened. My name is Trey. We don’t intend to harm or mistreat you, as long as you obey and do what you’re told.”

  “Where are you taking me?” Elin asked.

  In the tree, Anna cheered at the question. Tell me, because I’ll go…whether Kael is able to come with me or not.

  “Pennsylvania,” Trey said. “We have a whole city full of people. You’ll find a home there, and a purpose.”

  “What purpose is that?” Elin’s voice radiated quiet rage.

  “Don’t worry about it, my darling. For now, we’re going back to camp. We’ve got men waiting for this scouting party to return. Soon we’ll start moving north. Before winter settles in.”

  “Where—”

  “Enough questions.” Trey cut her off. “You’ll need to learn to speak only when spoken to.”

  “But—”

  This time he delivered a light slap across Elin’s face. It didn’t appear to be serious enough to have hurt her, but it stopped her protest and got her attention. “Quiet now,” he said, almost too low for Anna to hear. “Just because we’re not going to kill your lover, that doesn’t mean we’re weak.”

  Elin stared at him without saying a word. Anna was too far away to see the fire that she knew was burning in her eyes.

  “Understand?”

  Elin held Trey’s gaze for a full twenty seconds before lowering her head in reluctant deference. “Yes.”

  Fast as lightning, Trey grabbed Elin’s shoulder and spun her around to face away from him. He raised the steel baton and delivered a sharp blow to the fleshy part of her bottom. Elin howled in pain.

  “I never want to see you hit or otherwise attack one of my men again,” he growled. “I understand that you did what you thought you had to do, but that’s over now. You’re ours. And you’ll do what I say.”

  Elin’s sobbing began anew. “Yes, I understand.”

  “Sir.”

  “Sir,” Elin repeated in a whimper. “I understand.”

  “Good,” Trey said. “I promise you that none of my men will touch you unless it’s to deliver physical punishment for disobeying an order. That should be lashes, nothing else. If anyone does anything inappropriate, you tell me. Understand that?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right, then.” He stepped away from Elin as his men began wandering back into the clearing.

  “Nothing to report, sir,” one
said. “We didn’t find anything.”

  Trey nodded. “Fair enough. Keep an eye on the girl…and her man. If he wakes up, make sure he’s not a threat. Make sure that she doesn’t get any more ideas of defiance, however slight.”

  “Yes, sir,” the small group of men replied as one.

  Trey dismissed them with a brief nod, then leaned against a tree trunk not far from the one where Anna hid.

  He gave Elin a blank smile. “And now we wait,” he told her.

  So Anna waited.

  It felt like hours before the men left, and their voices disappeared in the general direction in which she had been traveling with her lovers. Anna remained in the tree for as long as she could, extending her senses out into the silence. When she’d heard nothing for several minutes, she descended at an almost dangerous speed, finally dropping from a low-hanging branch to fall forward on her hands and knees in the dirt.

  Without pausing to regain her balance, she released a grunt of rage and got to her feet, making it all the way back to the clearing before dropping to her knees next to Kael’s body.

  Anna didn’t know which injury to examine first. There was the scalp wound that bled fiercely and the fine slice on her muscular left arm, also bleeding. Anna cringed at the thought of what cuts and bruises might be hidden under Kael’s clothing. With a trembling hand, she pressed her fingers to Kael’s throat, searching for terrifying moments before she located the pulse— weak, thready, but there. He’s alive.

  Anna looked around. The bodies of the people Kael had slain were gone. She couldn’t see Elin or Kael’s bags and could only assume that the men had stolen their gear. Anna’s bag and Elin’s second, smaller bag, were across the grassy clearing where Anna had left them. Moving her hand to the long, ugly cut on the front of Kael’s head, she pressed down with her fingers in a frantic effort to stop the bleeding.

  She needed her bag and the extra bandages inside it. Kael had been slowly bleeding for at least an hour, and if Anna didn’t do something, blood loss could kill her faster than any brain injury she might have from the blow that had knocked her unconscious.

  “Baby, you’re going to be okay,” she whispered. “We’ll just stop this bleeding and then you’ll be okay.”

  Hot tears streamed down her face as she pressed hard against the head wound, keeping her other hand clapped over a wicked cut on Kael’s arm. Warm blood oozed between her fingers. The only sound she could hear was her own frantic breathing, filling her with panic. Every moment that ticked by felt like an eternity. The sun hung lower in the sky, and the temperature began to fall. She tried hard not to think about what could be happening to Elin that very second. What are they doing to her? Where will she sleep tonight? Her heart felt like it was rent in two.

  “I can’t think like that,” she mumbled under her breath. “Kael is going to be okay, and we’re going to find Elin.”

  Stifling a quiet sob, she tentatively lifted her hand from Kael’s scalp. The blood had finally clotted. She checked the arm wound and felt a rush of relief followed by new anxiety that she might have missed something. Hastily, she lifted Kael’s shirt to her chin and inspected her body for any other injuries. There was an ugly scrape over her ribs on the left side and a purpling bruise high on her chest. Anna could see it peeking out from beneath her tight sports bra.

  Forcing herself to leave the injured woman for a few minutes, she retrieved her bag, then she washed and dressed the scrape on Kael’s side. All the while, Kael remained limp and cold. Anna ran her hands down the denim of Kael’s blue jeans, examining her thighs and legs for injury. Finding nothing obvious, she debated the wisdom of moving her to examine her back. If she had a neck injury, rolling her over could be a horrible idea.

  Feeling as helpless and frightened as she ever had in her life, Anna sat back on her heels, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Wake up, Kael. Please.”

  Her lover remained unconscious, and Anna’s entire body felt chilled by a profound feeling of loss.

  Elin is gone, and I don’t even know if Kael will ever wake up.

  There was no other choice; she would have to wait some more.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Elin!”

  Anna jerked awake at Kael’s frantic scream, and her heart jack-hammered in her chest. She sat against a fallen log near the smoldering fire in the middle of their impromptu campsite. Kael rested only a couple of feet away, close enough so that Anna could hear her if she needed anything.

  From Kael’s screaming re-entry into waking life, it was clear what she needed—she needed the same thing that Anna’s soul had been missing for the past half day.

  “Oh God, Elin!”

  Anna scrambled to her knees and crawled over to Kael’s writhing body. Kael struggled against some unseen force as she tore into consciousness, bruised limbs striking out in a weak attack. Anna was relieved to hear Kael’s voice, her words, to know that she was still capable of speech.

  And that he remembers something.

  “Kael, honey, calm down.” The sky she glimpsed through the trees was dark, and she wondered just how late it had gotten. “You’re okay, but you were knocked out. You need to keep still so we can figure out how hurt you really are.”

  “Oh God, Anna. Oh God,” Kael sobbed. “Elin—” She struggled to sit, and Anna reached out to steady her as she slumped to the side.

  “Please, honey, you’ve got to keep still.” She wrapped her arms around Kael’s torso and tried to guide her back to the ground. Kael lurched forward and vomited onto the dirt next to them. Anna cringed but held on tight, afraid that Kael would hurt herself in her panicked state. “Try to calm down, baby, please. Take deep breaths.”

  Kael sobbed uncontrollably, broad shoulders shaking within Anna’s embrace. “Anna…Elin…” She vomited again, face twisted in agony. When she could retch no more, she grew limp in Anna’s arms. “My fucking head hurts so much. There were men—”

  “I know,” Anna said in a soothing tone. She rubbed a gentle hand over the back of Kael’s torn and dirty Tshirt. “I know.”

  Kael released a piteous moan and collapsed within Anna’s embrace. “I failed her…I failed her. God, what are they doing to—” She retched once more.

  Anna felt utterly helpless. She needed Kael back, mentally, even though she knew it was asking a lot. She didn’t know how to help Elin alone. “Baby, please try to breathe. Please. I need you to calm down. If we’re going to get Elin back, we need to start thinking about what to do next.”

  At once Kael grew so calm, so still, it was almost eerie. The change was instant and startling. She withdrew from Anna silently, putting distance between them. When she spoke again, after some time, her voice was flat, emotionless.

  “They won’t rape her tonight.”

  Anna had to fight the urge to recoil at the matter-of-factness of Kael’s statement. “If what the leader told Elin was true, I think you’re right. They won’t.”

  “They’re Procreationists. They don’t believe in rape. Or at least they think they don’t. If a man forces himself on a woman who is not his wife or who is not in service to him, he’s punished. Imprisoned.”

  “In service?” Anna folded her arms over her stomach, sick from the implication.

  “That’s what they called what they did to me—to all the unmarried women or orphaned girls. Marry by sixteen or go into service. When I got there…well, I was damaged goods by that point. I didn’t get to wait until I was sixteen. Young girls who find their way into the community often don’t.”

  “That’s so evil.” Anna’s stomach flip-flopped at the despair that radiated from her lover. “You’re sure these are the people who took Elin?”

  “When the first two surprised us, they acted friendly at first. A man and a woman, so I thought—” Kael shook her head, then winced. “They asked us where we were going, why we were traveling. Where were we from? Asked us what we thought about Procreation, had we ever thought about making it our life’s goal, they have a great c
ommunity we could join.”

  “I heard that guy Trey tell her she would have a purpose in Pennsylvania.” Anna stood to gather their gear so they could move fast as soon as Kael was able. “Did you know they were the same people who had you?”

  “No, but they were spouting the same rhetoric, and I got upset…I told them to go fuck themselves. I shoved the woman out of the way, and we tried to get past them. The man grabbed Elin’s hand…her burned hand, and I just saw red—”

  Anna was trembling, imagining the scene before she had stumbled upon it. “There were just the two of them?”

  “At first.” Kael brought shaking fingers to her face and gave her bandaged head an experimental once-over. “But then there were more. It’s hard to remember. I think there were a lot more.”

  “I counted at least twenty-five,” Anna said quietly. “Maybe thirty.”

  “I guess the odds weren’t in my favor.”

  Anna nodded at the truth of that statement. “The leader said that they would go back to their base camp so a medic could look at the men you and Elin injured. Then he said they’d leave. He said they…had enough.”

  “Base camp.” Kael struggled to stand. “We need to find her. We’ve got to get her back before they make it to Philadelphia.”

  Anna placed a steadying hand on Kael’s arm as she rose to her full height. As much as Kael would kill herself trying, she wasn’t going anywhere tonight. Her skin was sallow, her breathing shaky and erratic, and her speech remained slightly slurred. She was pouring sweat in the cool breeze of the evening. She had lost so much blood—not to mention taken quite a blow to her head—that Anna was shocked she was on her feet at all.

  Kael tore her arm away from Anna’s gentle grasp. “We’ve got to get her!” She took a step away, then grabbed her head and let out a soft groan. “And if you’re not willing to go, then I’ll have to do it alone.”

  Anna blinked at the angry words. I’ll cut you some slack here, tough guy, but watch what you’re implying. “I agree, baby, we need to get her back. But not tonight.”

  “Goddamn it, right now!” Kael growled. “We start walking this-fucking-minute, and we don’t stop until we kill every single one of those assholes.” Without waiting for a reply, she grunted in disgust and turned as though to walk away, only to double over as pain consumed her.