by J. J. Holden
Jaz froze, steeling herself for what she had to do.
She took a another long breath and let it out slowly. It was time to swallow her fear and remember who she was—a survivor.
Briefly, she thought about using her chain around his neck to strangle him, but in her current condition and bound, she doubted she could outfight him when he awoke. Drunk or not, he would certainly wake up when she began to squeeze his neck, and then he would use his strength to his advantage. She had no doubt that would be the end of Choony, and probably herself as well.
No, going for the keys was the best idea.
She counted to three, then used her right hand to press her other wrist deeper into the mattress, angling to get her left hand into his pocket. Inch by inch, she slid her hand in.
She had her fingers half into his pocket, her tender skin scraping against the rough denim. Just a little more…
He grunted.
Jaz froze and her breath grew shallow. Her eyes darted toward his, half-expecting them to be wide open in one of his horrid stares. But they were still closed, for now.
His body started to roll and when she pulled her hand reflexively, she realized it was stuck. She knew if she didn’t act fast, she’d be pinned under the sonuvabitch.
Jaz clenched her jaw and felt the fabric burn against the top of her hand as she yanked her hand out. In the next moment, he rolled from his stomach onto his left side.
She exhaled slowly, realizing that she’d been holding her breath. Now it was even more clear to her than ever—one wrong move and it would be over.
He muttered something indecipherable.
Her heart pounded and her mind reeled. She had almost been caught, and now the keys were under his hip. There was no way she could get them out from under—
He wiggled a bit, raising his right knee up, and she heard a jingling from his exposed right pocket. The keys hadn’t been in his left pocket after all.
She made herself take deep, even breaths as she tried to calm her speeding heart, then braced herself to try again.
For long minutes, she stared at him, watching his face for any twitching that could give away the fact that he was awake, that he was testing her. Then she observed his chest rising and falling. When his breath was slow and rhythmic, she was convinced he was really asleep and readied her nerves to try again.
She rose up slightly, positioning herself in a precarious position as she loomed over his body. Any wrong move, and she would fall on top of him.
That time, getting her hand in was even harder. The pocket opening was on top instead of flush with the mattress, and the keys’ weight pulled on it and caused it to bulge outward slightly, though there was barely enough space for her hands to squeeze in as she tried to maintain her balance.
She slid her fingers in a fraction of an inch further and felt the tip of one of the keys—cold hard freedom was now within reach. She tried to grasp the key between her pointer and middle fingers in an effort to pull the entire key ring out, but couldn’t get a good grip. So close, yet so far…
Jack murmured and let out a long, putrid exhalation. Jaz gasped at the stench, even more motivated to escape.
Jaz held her breath and waited, expecting him to open his eyes any moment. Time seemed to stand still as the milliseconds crawled by. She let out her breath slowly, praying that he would doze just a little longer.
Focusing on keeping her body steady, she slid her fingers further into his pocket.
Finally, she was able to hook her index finger into the key ring. She paused, took a deep breath, and slowly withdrew the keys, just far enough to where she could get her entire hand around them.
She had just about pulled them out completely when Jack shifted, and the keys jingled softly.
Her eyes went wide.
This was it—she would surely be caught.
She grasped them quickly to mute them.
She couldn’t mess this up—freedom was so close, she could almost taste it. Her muscles shook from the effort of holding herself up one-armed and off-balance, but she waited there until he was back to his rhythmic breathing before she unfroze and resumed. Slowly, she managed to pull the keys the rest of the way out without making another sound.
Her hands trembled as she slid the smallest key into the lock at her wrists. The lock opened with a slight plink noise.
Finally able to separate her hands, she rushed to unlock the padlock at each wrist, removing the cuffs entirely. The final lock was the one around her neck, larger than the others. Jack had almost a dozen keys on his ring, but she found the right key on the third try, trying to keep the keys silent as she worked on freeing herself.
Finally, she was free of those damn chains.
Jaz’s spirit surged with a fierce joy, but she reminded herself that she wasn’t free yet. She had to get off the bed without waking Jack. She slid toward the end of the bed as slowly as she could, trying desperately not to shake the mattress or touch her passed out bedmate. It felt like it took forever, like she was moving at a snail’s pace, but she was soon on her feet.
She glanced at Jack to make sure he was still asleep, then padded softly to Choony. He was unconscious, and he had a thin layer of sweat. She felt his forehead. He didn’t react, but his skin felt like fire under her hand. They had bound his feet together beneath the chair, so she went around to the back.
Looking down, she saw that his wrists weren’t bound. Instead, his elbows were tied together behind his back, around the chair back. He was also bound around his arms, keeping him securely tied to the chair, as were his ankles. Another rope led from his bound ankles to the rope between his elbows, which was why his feet were forced up under the chair.
There was no way he could run. He was too messed up—practically helpless. Maybe she should leave him and go get help? No, if Jack woke up or if Chump returned, which were both good possibilities, Choony would surely be killed. But if she brought him with her, he would slow her escape. It would make them easier to catch.
Those were her only two choices, really—bring him or leave him.
Well, she sure as hell wasn’t going to leave him. He had sacrificed so much for her. He was the only man she had ever truly loved, and she wasn’t going to leave him to die. Screw it, she would untie him and take her chances.
To one side of his chair was a small metal table like the ones she saw on old TV hospital shows. On it were a few knives, clamps, pruning shears, and a pipe cutter. She walked around the chair to the tray and picked up a knife. It felt kind of heavy in her hand for being as small as it was, larger than a pocket knife but smaller than a combat knife. She checked the edge with her thumb and decided it was sharp enough.
Jaz turned back to Choony, deciding to cut off the rope coils around his chest first. She tried to ignore the blood that was already on the knife. Choony’s blood.
As she leaned over him and began to cut at the ropes, her mind raced trying to think of ways to get him out of there in his condition. She wasn’t sure she could carry him, not in her current condition—
A strong hand grabbed the back of her toga and yanked her aside. The force flung her backwards and she lost her balance, landing hard on the cement floor. The impact knocked the blade from her hand, and it skittered across the floor. The knife finally came to a stop when it ran into to a pair of boots.
Shit.
Jaz looked up and saw Jack staring down on her. He looked strangely relaxed. Maybe even a bit amused as he bent down and picked up the knife.
“Going somewhere, sweetheart?”
She scrambled to her feet and took a step back, but felt the bed behind her. She had nowhere to go. She shouted, “Go to hell!”
“I like a girl with fire.” Jack grinned and took a step toward her, holding the knife in front of him. “Though, you disappoint me, love. I wanted to see if you would go through with it—the whole trying to escape thing—and you did. Can’t trust a bitch, I guess. But I have to say, it’s good to see you have some spine
left in you, which means more fun for me.”
He took another step toward her, holding the knife out in front of him. He thrusted the tip at her, and she saw light glint off its razor-edged blade. She took a step backward and felt the bed behind her. He crept closer toward her.
Her adrenaline spiked when he stopped a little less than an arms length in front of her. He brought the tip of the blade up to her breasts.
Jack chuckled. “You think you had it bad before, bitch? Wait until I—”
There was a loud, metallic bang outside to her left. It sounded like somebody had punched the corrugated metal siding. Startled, Jack turned his head to look.
Jaz didn’t.
She brought her fist back and, with her entire weight behind it, gave a forceful blow to the side of his jaw.
Jack staggered backward, dropping the knife. It skidded across the floor, and Jaz lunged after it. She took only two steps toward the knife before she felt a surge of pain travel along the back of her scalp. Jack had grabbed a fistful of her hair, and the floor disappear under her feet. The next thing she knew, she was being hurled into the air, and felt a moment of weightlessness. Her side slammed down on the cement floor, her hip hot with a fiery pain that rushed to her knees.
Before regaining her senses, Jack was already upon her, grabbing her throat and lifting her to her feet. She struggled as the blood swelled in her face, and she began to gasp for air. He rammed her into the wall, still clutching her neck, now with both hands.
“You’re going to pay for that,” Jack said, teeth clenched. His face was puffy and red with rage. She could still smell the rancid alcohol on his breath as he spoke.
She brought her hands up to pry his fingers off her neck, but when that didn’t work, she instead beat his arms with her fists.
Nothing seemed to break his iron grip.
She could feel the oxygen draining from her lungs.
This couldn’t be the last moments of her life. Her last sight couldn’t be this asshole. No way.
She felt his legs straddling her right knee as he held her up against the wall. She didn’t have much room to make a powerful blow, but it was worth a try.
She brought her knee up as forcefully as she could, making contact with his groin.
Jack huffed, releasing Jaz almost immediately. His face was scrunched up in agony as he leaned forward slightly.
Now was her chance—
“Freeze, fucker!” an unknown voice shouted from over by the door.
Again, Jack turned his head, but only for a split second.
It was enough. When he turned his head away, Jaz put both hands together as though swinging a bat, and with a strength born of desperation, she swung her two-handed fist at him. She felt it connect with the side of his face, knocking him away from her.
Jack landed face down. In a heartbeat, he scrambled forward and up to his feet, and kept running. He was leaning far forward, and almost fell once, but then regained his footing and just kept going. He jumped up onto a low table, then dove through the open window on the shop’s back wall.
A second later, he was gone.
Jaz looked to see who the newcomer might be, and to her surprise found half a dozen men and women coming in through the office door into the shop. Their clothes were ragged, but they were all armed and had the hard, direct gaze of people who had lived through a lot.
The man in front, who carried himself like a leader, said, “You okay, miss?”
“Yeah, thank you.”
“I see you managed to keep my friend over there from getting himself killed.” He tossed his head toward where Choony still sat, tied up.
“Friend?”
The man nodded, but said nothing as he stepped toward Choony’s limp body.
- 19 -
0800 HOURS - ZERO DAY +640
CASSY CLICKED THE transmit button to perform a radio check. Michael’s voice came through loud and clear. Then Ethan, back at Clanholme, confirmed both their radios were coming through as well. He was coordinating communications during the battle.
To her right sat Amber—her randomly chosen passenger. She remained silent, probably deep in thought.
In the distance, the Clan’s scouts were reporting on the enemy’s movements. Just as the earlier reports had said, it was a large unit, perhaps two battalions. Most of them were Americans who had been pressed into service, and of the rest, all but a few were ISNA fighters.
Cassy sat inside what she thought of as the cockpit of a Clan battle car, one of a dozen ready for the coming battle. Their fires were stoked, but the engines were off until it was time. It conserved wood, yet the cars had to be kept ready to go at a moment’s notice, which meant leaving the gasifier lit so they could move out immediately when needed.
Michael, however, was sitting this battle out and leading from a proper command post. Radios and runners would handle unit movements.
Her radio squawked again, and she recognized a scout’s voice. “Confirmed, two battalions with small arms and two small mortar trains. They appear to be led by Korean officers, who are the only ones in uniform. All the rest are on foot. Over.”
Michael responded, “Roger that. We can presume the supply train with their horses is hidden nearby. September One, circle around and backtrack along the enemy’s likely path of advance. If we can find that supply train, we can hit it hard.”
Then it was back to the usual radio chatter as Michael conducted status checks of each unit commander. The Clan had about six hundred soldiers present, not including the battle cars. The goal wasn’t to defeat the invaders in a head-on fight, but to let them “fully engage the town defenders,” as Michael had put it, then sweep in and smack them in the rear.
In the distance, over the eerie silence surrounding her in the battle car detachment, Cassy heard the pop-pop of small arms fire. It seemed the latest battle for Ephrata was beginning.
She felt the first tingling of excitement begin in her stomach. She had been in enough battles that, although it was always scary, the way she felt during and after a battle was the sort of high that some people would spend a lifetime chasing.
After her first life-or-death combat, she had spent weeks wondering whether that feeling made her a bad person. People naturally avoided violence and combat, right? One quick talk with Michael had squared her away in that regard and she learned it was just human nature. Sure, peaceful resolution was the first choice, but if it took a fight to survive, there was nothing wrong with the euphoria she felt after combat.
She would be giddy all the next day, she knew. Sunlight would look brighter, birds would chirp prettier, food would taste the best it ever had—until the next battle. If she survived, that is. She had also been in enough combat to have decided that, when it was her time to go, it was her time. There was nothing she could do to change it, so she didn’t worry about it.
Cassy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel, impatiently waiting for the battle to begin.
* * *
While Barry waited for the command to advance, he grew increasingly listless. His mind wandered everywhere. He wondered how his wife and two-year-old son were doing back at the Taj Mahal—the name of the Clanhold he’d commanded ever since the Clan first took mercy on a ragtag band of Indian refugees from Adamsville.
Frank, who led the Clan as a whole, hadn’t asked for the Taj Mahal to send troops. These days, the Clan had more than enough soldiers for a midsize battle like this one. But Barry had always made certain to volunteer some troops for every engagement, and his people had developed sort of a ceremony to wish a safe return to the departing warriors, a ceremony that focused on thanks to the Clan for allowing a hungry band of strangers to settle in their territory near the beginning of the Dying Times.
The Taj Mahal had become the favored settlement for arriving Indians throughout the Confederation, along with other dark-complexion immigrants like Persians, so long as they were willing to give lip service to the Hindu religion. That was mostly for political
reasons and hardly enforced, though, at least not under his leadership.
He was proud that the Taj Mahal was arguably the most loyal, most enthusiastic Clanhold.
He ignored the increasing sounds of gunfire echoing from far away. The Clan wouldn’t encircle the invaders until after they had begun their full offensive against the Ephrata defenders.
During battles, Barry turned ice-cold, feeling neither fear nor anger, becoming only a cold and calculating machine. After the battle, however, he knew he would explode with energy, feeling a weird happiness. It would be a damn good night for his wife, too, he grinned.
He decided to burn up more of his time spent waiting by rechecking his troops’ weapons and gear, shouting encouragement, and doing everything else he was responsible for as a leader, even though he only brought fifty troops. Most of the other Clanholds only sent a single platoon, and only Clanholme itself had brought more.
By all the gods, he mused, waiting for the fight to begin was the worst part of any battle.
* * *
Captain Mueller had been watching the battle progress for the last two hours. He glanced around at the forty men and women under him and felt the weight of his responsibilities. In a way, he missed the staff sergeant rank he’d held when he first met the Clan. Only he and a few other Marines had survived their hellish trek away from their training base after it had been overrun by hordes of hungry civilians. He hadn’t gotten along with the Clan leader at the time, Cassy, or their security manager, who was now the general for all Confederation forces. But nowadays, he and Michael got along famously. Which was a good thing, too, because he’d be leaving soon with Michael on his secret mission, whatever it was.
He shook his head to clear his mind. This battle was what mattered right now, and his role in it would begin shortly. He turned to Sturm, one of the Marines he’d left the base with and now his right-hand man—or woman in this case. She was a capable soldier, maybe even better than he himself, but she’d probably never rise above the rank of lieutenant. She was just better as his XO than as a leader, if he was honest with himself. That was too bad, because he would’ve liked to have her combat skills out there at the front of the fighting rather than in the rear with him. Of course, in the Clan as in the Marines, everyone fought unless they were unfortunate enough to be at the field HQ with Michael. Those poor, sorry bastards never got to kill invaders themselves.
