From the Ashes

by Angela White

  “She’s doing her duty, even now. Do yours.”

  Adrian’s confidence never faltered and it flipped them back into his soldiers. They got to work and tried not to stare at the woman lying deathly still behind them.

  Outside, the bugs fed unopposed.

  “Can’t stay here. It’ll draw predators.” Neil was eager to be gone.

  “We’re not movin’ her.” Kyle wasn’t willing to take the risk.

  “We’ll be fighting Nature next,” Neil warned.

  “Ammo count?” Kyle asked.

  “We went through about half of what we brought,” Jeremy answered.

  “We’re staying,” Kyle chose. He pointed at Zack. “Collect and load our fallen men. Take a crew.”

  Kyle gestured four Eagles to sentry duty and sent two more for sniper watch.

  While they were outside, the Eagles swept the newest battle scene for wounded or hiding slavers, and found none. The cicadas had done a good job.

  Zack took a moment to look around, a bit stunned by the devastation. Cars, trees, and the ground were splattered in dark red–even the puddles appeared to be filled with blood instead of rain. Moving with the wind, smoke rolled along the battlefield like thick fog, covering and then uncovering the bodies to reveal gruesome details. It was amazing–in both good and bad ways–that they had become so lethal under Adrian’s guidance.

  Zack was full of confusion and anger as he helped to put their fallen men in body bags and then load them into the rear of one of their trucks. He could be the one about to go six feet under. How had it come to this? Why were these men dead?

  Inside the rest stop, more than a few of the Eagles were silently asking the same things. It was hard to think about all the hell the slavers had caused in comparison to the total devastation that Adrian’s army had wreaked in only a few hours.

  “It’ll be days before our camp gets word. Will they hold?” Kyle asked, trying to wipe another layer of blood from his hands.

  Chain-smoking by the bullet-ridden door, Adrian responded, “They’ll have to. We’re not finished.”

  “How long will it take the remaining slavers in his camp to figure out that he isn’t coming back?” Jeremy asked worriedly. “How long before they attack Safe Haven without him?”

  “Three, four days at the most.” Adrian ground out his smoke under his boot. “Marc and Kenn have plans to delay it and buy us time.”

  Neil had been studying the map and he spoke up as the tension grew. “There’s a warehouse, a country club, and a manufacturing plant, all within a mile of here.

  “The country club,” Adrian chose, going to the back of the room. He couldn’t stand to leave her alone, though she was unconscious. He knew what that darkness was like–terrifying. “Dope it out. And someone cover those windows. It’ll get cold in here without the glass.”

  “Will she still want to be an Eagle?” Allan wondered.

  The lowly muttered question got immediate attention.

  “It’s not up to her!” Jeremy retorted harshly. “One gunshot wound is enough!”

  With nothing to do but wait and watch Angela’s shallow breathing, most of the Eagles wore expressions that said it had been wrong of Adrian to let her join them.

  “She won’t quit.” Adrian answered the disapproval this time. “We will have female Eagles, and sometimes, they’ll get hurt… Or die. It’s how things work in this new world.”

  Leaning against a wall nearby, Cynthia stated what the Eagles were all thinking.

  “You’re a cold, hard son of a bitch, Adrian Mitchel.” The reporter was covered in shock and fallout, aware that she now looked like one of them, as well.

  “You have no idea,” Adrian retorted. He opened the door and did a fast sweep. Dusty but undamaged when they’d arrived, the rest stop was now the scene of a high-budget action film. Death and absolution coated the smoking set. “I brought her in because she belongs here.”

  “And if she dies?”

  Allan’s quick question made the Eagles wince.

  Adrian sighed unhappily. “Then we’ll honor her by remembering that the freedom to choose this way of living, is what she gave her life for.”

  “Mine…to give,” Angela uttered weakly, drawing their attention. Adrian’s need had brought her around, but where was Brady?

  “Tell them…Cyn,” Angela choked out, torso burning. She let the darkness reclaim her, the pain too much to fight. If Marc wasn’t here, she didn’t want to be, either.

  All eyes, except Adrian’s, went to the reporter. He was busy listening for the witch, hoping to hear those empty minefields tell him that Angela would live. He wasn’t worried about Cynthia’s coming words, despite this being her first real chance to bring it all down. He cared only for the witch’s comfort, and the continued silence was deafening.

  Cynthia slowly raised her head, splattered in red drops that were tacky on her skin and clothes.

  “Did you think he was bluffing when he said your life for his sheep?” Her contemptuous words raked them brutally, none of the men prepared for the depth of her scorn. “Are you all that blind?”

  Cynthia looked toward Angela’s bloody body, and then down at the filthy gun she would never part with. “It’s too late to go back now…for all of us.”

  There was a stunned silence after those words, one where every Eagle there realized that the days of fighting with Cynthia might be over.

  Cynthia glanced up at the man she would have destroyed if given enough time. Would Adrian reward her awful sacrifice?

  Still in the doorway, tempting fate, Adrian’s blue eyes glowed only for her, for what she’d done. “You have one request.”

  Cynthia looked back down at the murder weapon she had grabbed without a thought as they ran for cover from the rain. Cesar’s blood was flecked across the muddy barrel.

  “I want to do it again. I want to be her XO.”

  “You’ll have to work for it,” Adrian warned, ignoring the disbelieving glares and snorts from his men. “Samantha also wants that place.”

  Neil opened his mouth, but didn’t follow through with the protest. He’d known that, but hadn’t really faced what it meant. Now, he had to. Samantha could be the next female bleeding out in some shitty little town for Adrian’s dreams.

  “I’ll earn it,” Cynthia promised.

  “Yes, you will. Welcome to my army, Cynthia.” Adrian glanced at Jeremy, who was staring in distress. “Take care of her until we get back? I’ll assign someone else then.”

  “Whatever you think is best,” Jeremy forced out. He hadn’t thought Cynthia would ever become a convert.

  “She’s shivering.” Kyle drew attention back to the other female. “Do we have a heat source?”

  “Didn’t think we’d need it,” Neil informed them regretfully.

  “We’ll use body heat,” Adrian stated.

  “You’re beat, Boss.” Neil knew Adrian hadn’t slept at all the night before they’d left camp. “Take the first shift and Kyle can relieve you.”

  Adrian’s mind flashed to the waiting nightmares and then to the man speeding through the apocalyptic darkness to get here. “I’m good. Kyle first, you next.”

  Kyle stored the change. He and Neil had both seen and heard enough over the last month to know that Adrian wanted to be the one holding Angela, no matter the reason. The fact that he hadn’t taken the opportunity said Marc wouldn’t be okay with it.

  With the excessive speed and reckless driving they all assumed he would use, Marc should arrive in about five hours. Adrian had timed it so that his best friend would be the one doing heat duty when he arrived. It meant Marc had also discovered Adrian’s other secret–he wanted Angela for more than just the safety of his flock.

  It was something they hadn’t discussed, but Kyle and Neil knew it was coming. Somewhere down the road, Adrian might become unworthy. They could only be loyal to him if he remained honorable and the instant Adrian crossed that line, he would lose it all. If Angela lived, his marg
in for error in the future, especially where she was concerned, would be slim. If she died, that would put their hard-assed leader into the red now.

  Kyle ignored everyone watching him carefully lay down between Angela and the wall. He tucked her against his chest, unable to stop a grim smile as he saw her left hand tighten around her secondary gun.

  Kyle adjusted them until she was fully covered and breathing evenly, and then laid his head by hers. “Easy, rookie. I’ve got you.”

  As if she heard, Angela’s hand slid from the gun.

  Kyle took her cold fingers into his warm grip and closed his eyes. When shit hit the fan, he was the one to call, but he also had a soft side that most of the sheep and the shepherds would have been surprised to discover. Holding Angela so that Adrian could burn her was a torment, a bond, and Kyle didn’t think he would ever be free of it.

  Jeremy slid down next to Cynthia, noting that she still had her gun in her hand. He gently wrapped his jacket around her shoulders, but didn’t tell her to put the weapon away. Though only a rookie, she was now an Eagle, with her own choices to make.

  “Thanks.” The smell of his jacket was thick with the battle, but the heat was welcome. Cynthia wasn’t sure she would ever be warm again.

  “Sure.” Jeremy waited, wondering if she wanted to talk, but the reporter only leaned her head against the brick wall.

  After a minute, Jeremy did the same, glad he didn’t have to deal with it yet. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her joining, or even what she’d done, beyond being as grateful as everyone else. Cynthia was an Eagle…one of them. That dangerous fact would require some adjustment.

  Still a bit dazed and not totally convinced that he or any of them had actually survived, Jeremy let the darkness take him away.

  Sleep, however, came cruelly. It snatched rest and provided moments of heart wrenching terror that snapped men awake with fearful, desperate breathing. It was the only noise heard for hours.

  5

  The sound of a snarling engine being pushed to the limit jerked Eagles into a tense, groggy alertness. They exchanged worried glances as they waited in the rest stop, but didn’t draw weapons. That was a Safe Haven setup roaring through the cleared road behind them. Marc had made the five-hour trip in three.

  Adrian himself went to open the door.

  Walking through the smoldering wreckage in front of the rest stop, Marc’s mind spun furiously. The plan had worked. Perfectly, it appeared. The carnage was indescribable, but Angela had been hurt. What didn’t I account for?

  Marc’s tortured gaze landed on the tacky pool of blood congealing near the main door. He knew who it belonged to, and fear shoved against his wall.

  Marc bent down and retrieved Angela’s Python, mind screaming to brace. There was only one way you took a gun from Angie’s fingers...

  Please let her live. Please. I’ll give anything. I’ll get on board with the dream or assassinate him. Whatever you want, just please, let her live!

  There was no answer.

  Marc didn’t look at Adrian as he came to the door, not sure his wall was strong enough to hold. He was glad when the leader got out of his way. Right now, there was no one on the planet that he wanted dead more than Adrian.

  “John’s in the truck, armed.”

  Swallowing the icy chill of being treated as if he was nobody, Adrian obeyed Marc’s order and went outside to get the doctor.

  Kyle motioned Seth after the humbled leader, glad there hadn’t been a fight. None of them were sure how Marc would react, though Neil had said there wouldn’t be a problem until word came on Angela. If she lived, Neil thought the two men would sort it out. If she died, so would one of them, though, it wasn’t a lock on who that would be.

  Marc wasn’t aware of the concerned mutters, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The sight of Angela lying there, so still and bloody, had him shoring up sudden cracks in his mental defenses.

  When he could speak, Marc asked, “How bad?”

  Neil didn’t lie. “Too soon to tell.”

  Marc staggered, reaching out for the wall to keep from falling. Angie!

  Silence.

  He’d called for her mentally all the way here, and received the same. It had been terrifying then, but here and now, looking at her lifeless form, it was enough to flip him into the Marine.

  Footsteps echoed.

  Marc locked down on all of it and moved back, arms crossing over his chest.

  “I need more light!” John barked as he rushed to Angela.

  The Eagles hurried to assist.

  “Did it go through?” John asked.

  “Yes,” Neil answered.

  “She woken at all?”

  “Not for hours now,” Kyle muttered.

  Marc’s profile became menacing when John peeled the bandage off.

  “There wasn’t time for more.”

  Marc gave Kyle a curt grunt. He’d assumed that as soon as he saw the awful lengths they’d gone to in order to stop the bleeding. It had been life or death… Still was.

  There was a thick silence while John worked and everyone was glad that Angela didn’t come to when he had the helpers roll her onto her side. Marc didn’t glance away once.

  “I don’t feel any fragments… If her fingers work, we’ll know about nerve damage…” John was carefully probing the wound. He didn’t tell them that he was noticing pockets under her charred skin–implying she was still losing blood at a very slow rate. The bullet had probably nicked an artery, but she wasn’t stable enough to undergo surgery. It would have to wait.

  “Will she live?” Cynthia asked the question that the rest of them were afraid to.

  “Ask me again in 24 hours,” John grunted curtly.

  Even Adrian recoiled this time and Marc sensed the self-loathing underneath as the leader observed what he’d failed to prevent.

  “How long before we can move her?” Neil asked.

  “Another day would be best. Half that if it’s not safe here, but slow travel,” the doctor answered tersely.

  “You’ll stay with her?” Adrian questioned.

  “Of course,” John confirmed, covering her back up. Until she was stronger, there was little he could do but what these tortured men already had been–wait and hope.

  Anne had wanted to come too, but John had refused and left her standing with a scowl. Safe Haven was well protected, and the doctor wasn’t letting her leave that light. These men may have to accept their heart being torn up, shot at…killed, but not him. Because of her age, Anne couldn’t be in Adrian’s army.

  “Don’t you think…she would be safer…as an Eagle?”

  Angela’s tightly controlled voice said she’d been awake for his doctoring.

  “I’ll never allow that!” John’s timbre, in contrast, was a furious denial.

  Marc immediately went to Angela’s side, not caring about the conversation–only that she was part of it.

  Her lashes fluttered. “It’s already…happening.”

  “What!” John’s countenance was a mask of thunder. “You sneaky bastard!”

  “It was her idea,” Cynthia stated, full of the new, unarguable need to protect and defend. “Anne came to his tent while I was…spying.”

  Cynthia’s admission earned instant forgiveness with the Eagles, even those who hadn’t known of her vendetta. Honesty was everything.

  “What did my wife say?” the doctor demanded of Adrian.

  “She told me you’re dying of Cancer, and she’ll leave unless Angela tries to help you,” Adrian brutally spilled the secret that John had tried to keep from everyone. “She said she’d just as soon rot alone somewhere than to keep serving the very people who let you die.”

  John was speechless, and Adrian tiredly finished the ugly intervention.

  “She also said she understood it wasn’t likely to save you, but that she wants to be an Eagle so she can watch your six as you fade. So long as we try, she’ll take your place.” Adrian held a hand out. “Her words, n
ot mine.”

  “She had…to hide it from you.”

  The doctor stifled a wounded sob at Angela’s faint croak.

  The weakness in Angela’s voice was enough to make Marc slide to his knees at her bedside. He’d been on battlefields too much to ever mistake this feeling. Death was here, lingering.

  “Because I lied when we came, she couldn’t ask.” John was trapped inside his own hell for this moment. “You would have told Adrian.”

  “She has a…job to do.” Angela’s nails dug furrows into Neil’s wrist as surges of agony twisted through her shoulder. “Let her.”

  Angela’s body tensed as the pain grew deeper and Marc snapped his head around to glare at John, telling him that was enough.

  John’s gaze went over the crusted, bloody outlines of Kyle’s fingerprints on Angela’s chest and closed his mouth.

  Angela was barely aware of a sharp prick as John came over to set up a fresh IV tap and give her a light dose of relief. Angela had read the part in Twilight and thought she’d understood, thought she’d felt it, but this fire was a level of hell that she’d never been to. Even childbirth, with its dull aches and ripping pains, couldn’t compete with the burning.

  Where I come from, where I go, it’s always flaming like this, the witch whispered gently in the back of her mind, afraid to make things worse.

  Still by the door, Adrian’s heart thumped as he picked up her presence.

  I thought you were gone–fled to find a new host, Angela answered tiredly. In her mind, it took less effort to communicate, but it still drained her to think around the pain.

  We share power. If I had stayed, I would have come forward and healed you. These men would not have been able to hold a secret so large.

  Even in her agony, Angela was astounded. Adrian had converted the witch! Sexually, she’d been prepared for–spirits were lusty creatures because they could no longer feel through their own flesh–but to have the demon inside willing to sacrifice her for the dream was almost too much to accept.

  Why come now? Am I in the clear?

  Silence.

  I hate it when you do that, Angela grumbled, close to crying again as the pain increased.