LAW Box Set: Books 1-3 (Life After War Book 0)

by Angela White

  “We have to get out of here.”

  Billy glanced toward the tunnel, where three new snake women had just appeared. “Easier said than done. No wheels, no weapons, no idea where to search.”

  The new women walked in with tongues out, sniffing. The expressions on those faces, the longing in them, made Daryl give a sickly smile. “We could do what Kenn and Kevin did. If we give these females hope for their future, they’ll help us.”

  “I knew you were gonna say that,” Billy groaned.

  Their voices were carrying, telling the women they were aware of the dangerous situation and trying to figure out how to solve it.

  “Adrian will still reward them for helping,” Alex protested. “We don’t have to be…donors.”

  Next to him, Ray kept his eyes down, feeling the heat of needy stares. Dale did the same thing when it had been too long between physical moments, but Ray wasn’t sure he could handle this.

  “What if we offer them a place in Safe Haven?” Alex offered desperately, loathing his body for jumping at the revolting thoughts of something forbidden.

  “Will you provide an escort, when we decide to leave?” Nuna asked.

  “To anywhere you want to go,” Daryl answered quickly.

  The wind howled through the drainage sewer, carrying reek and relief. Being inside the tunnel together had body odor rising.

  The middle woman knelt down in front of Ray, finger going out. His skin was so soft! Their child wouldn’t have a layer of scales like so many of the births now.

  Ray held still, realizing this woman would make the choice–already had.

  Nuna’s face was the only other one they’d seen painted, eyes lined in brilliant green instead of Cara’s blue. Her weapons were also different, in that she had no blowgun, only the real thing on her hip and twice as many ammo belts over her shoulders.

  Ray saw the scales in her blonde braids and swallowed the first thought so that he didn’t say it. How do you keep the scales on–glue or sew?

  Ray picked out the tattoo of female lovers on the woman’s skin and realized it wasn’t so much lust as an honest need for offspring that weren’t damaged. She didn’t want him because she would enjoy it, and for the gay man, it somehow made the thought bearable. She was doing it to help save her people. So was he.

  Ray drew in a breath. “Where and when?”

  The woman blinked. And then made the deal. “The very second Mitchel is returned to you, wherever we are at that moment.”

  Ray cringed inwardly, but did his duty. He smiled at her. “I’ll be ready.”

  Nuna backed away. “Don’t die during the fight. If you do, the deal is off and we’ll kill you all.”

  Ray swallowed. If he couldn’t give her what she wanted, things would get ugly.

  The other two women followed Nuna out of the tunnel, but came right back with a large pack over each shoulder.

  “Pick a weapon and come stand watch. The Major doesn’t fear things in the night. They fear him.”

  “How long has the Major been here, waiting?” Alex asked angrily.

  The shortest of the females subtly tossed a small packet to Ray. “The month after the war. He knew Adrian would show up for his son. He’s had all of us watching.”

  The team took that in, accepting a dusty weapon and a single extra clip each.

  “We’ll hit his convoy as they roll out of the compound,” the short woman stated. “It’s Nuna’s plan.”

  Daryl decided to let them know a few things. “First, Adrian isn’t inside there anymore. We’re sure of it. Second, if the Major’s like Adrian, he’ll expect a convoy hit and be ready. We need to get him right before they load up. And third, what is Ray putting in his pocket?”

  Ray flushed, head dropping.

  The woman didn’t laugh. “A hand, one that may keep us all alive. Now that Cara’s gone, Nuna’s in charge, and if he can’t satisfy her, she will kill you.”

  Daryl didn’t tell her the female would be the ones to die. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Daryl motioned to the team, and they fell into a single file line of determination. They wouldn’t rest until their people were freed.

  “What about Kenn and Kevin?” Alex asked.

  “They’re with Adrian, or on the way to him,” Billy stated firmly.

  The others found it easy to believe and didn’t question. Kenn was always close to the boss, and when he wasn’t, he was trying to get there. If anyone could find Adrian, it was his XO.

  8

  “Ready?”

  “You know it.”

  Kenn was waiting for the last rays to fade from the sky, wanting to be sure Adrian was searching the darkness for their signal.

  “You’re sure this will work?”

  “Oh, yeah. We all have fond memories of it.”

  Kevin didn’t question further, ready to swing the object that Kenn had made from hollowing out a bone with his knife. It had taken an hour of careful work, but they’d had time to kill. Kevin had been fascinated as the graying animal leg became a caller.

  “Go.”

  Kevin drew back to swing.

  “Adriaaaaannnnn!”

  Kevin and Kenn both flinched, and the caller fell to the ground without echoing a single howl.

  “Pllleease stop!”

  The pain-filled scream echoed over the deserted streets and tunnels in bright, glaring sound fed through various radios and speakers. The result was a city that cried.

  “Damn.” Kenn sat up and began gathering their things.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We, rookie. That’s bait to bring Adrian in. We have to get to the compound in time to help.”

  “Cooonnneeerrr!”

  9

  “That’s my mother.”

  Conner didn’t scream or demand that Adrian save her. He just cried. Deep, heaving sobs of guilt and misery, they were the sounds of a little boy who wants his mom more than anything else in the world.

  Angela couldn’t take much of it, she knew her limits, but apparently, Adrian’s were lower than her own.

  “You two stay with him, and follow,” Adrian ordered. Adrian met Kyle’s eye with an intense look of trust and pride. “I’ll see you there, Eagle.”

  Kyle nodded. “Yes, you will.”

  Adrian knelt down in front of Conner and gently pulled the sobbing child into his arms. “I forgive you everything, and so does she.”

  Conner cried harder, and Adrian hugged him tight for a brief moment before pushing him back. “I need you to lead them around the guards and be ready to take a ride. Can you do that?”

  Conner wiped at his face, but didn’t dare to hope. “Yes.”

  “Good. Get them there quickly or none of us will make it out.”

  Adrian vanished, and Angela waved at Kyle. “I’ll take a few minutes with him. It’ll be short, but I want to pull my weight, too.”

  Kyle didn’t argue, suddenly feeling better. Adrian would meet up with their team, who Kyle was sure were sheltered around Garret’s compound. He wouldn’t have to go in alone, but even if he did, Kyle wasn’t worried. Watching his son cry like that had hurt Adrian. Someone would pay for the feeling. It was a reaction that Kyle knew well.

  Angela loaded the wounded teenager onto her back, glad to feel no actual pain in her shoulder. There was a sensation of pressure, but it didn’t hurt, and that meant she really was recovered.

  “Take the alley to your right,” Conner instructed. “I know a shortcut so we can be close enough to hear, even if we can’t see what’s happening.”

  Angela did as he said. That was almost enough for her. Better, would be being at Adrian’s side for the fight, but like Kyle, she understood she wasn’t needed. Adrian’s pride was on the line here, and their leader had an abundance of that. He wouldn’t let it be marred with this failure.

  10

  “Who is that?” Daryl asked, mentally wincing each time the scream sounded.

  The snake women didn’t answe
r. They were grabbing things and fleeing.

  Daryl shook his head when Billy would have stopped them. “It isn’t their fight anymore.”

  That drew frowns and understanding. The snake women knew a good moment to run when they heard it.

  “Just us, boys,” Billy cracked, getting set to roll as if nothing had gone wrong. “Everyone ready to kick ass?”

  A loud cheer echoed, drawing female attention. Now that they were no longer being held by the women or the effects of the drugs, the Eagles had returned. Men stood straight, faces determined, hearts and minds meeting in one goal–to get their people and their leader back, and then to get the hell out of here.

  A few of the snake women were muttering among themselves, realizing they’d discounted the men but shouldn’t have. Between the two groups, they now outnumbered the Major’s men, if only by a small margin.

  Nuna saw the looks of her girls and shrugged. “If you wish to die this way, I find no dishonor in it.”

  That sent them back to the packing, and Nuna threw the men a satisfied glower. They weren’t stealing her women, and if she couldn’t have the soft male avoiding her stare, she didn’t want to help any of them, for any reason.

  “Move out, Eagles.”

  The team vanished into the darkness, each man following the single reflective light on the back of the jacket ahead of them. It was the flag, and all of them glowed faintly for this purpose.

  Behind them, the snake women also disappeared into the darkness, but they went west out of the city. Let the men keep fighting. The women wanted only to survive.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Just Keep Moving

  1

  “It’s not working.” Hudson said, bored and tired of making the drugged woman hurt enough to rise through the fog for a long scream. He didn’t mind torture, but this wasn’t fun. It was baby cuts and twisting points, when he wanted to stab.

  “Once more and we’ll break for a few minutes,” Garret conceded. He’d been so sure...

  Hudson obligingly twisted the blade.

  “Nnnooooooooo!”

  This hoarse shout of agony was enough to make even Hudson cringe. He’d hit a vein.

  Hudson quickly compressed it and began tying a lace around her wrist so that she wouldn’t bleed out yet.

  Garret’s office was just another storage room, filled with boxes and crates. There was a wide desk in the far corner, near a door that led to his personal residence. In that luxuriously decked out room was a single window and door. Garret liked having multiple escape routes.

  Garret picked up the mike. “In ten minutes, we’ll start again. Bring my son and we’ll trade. Ten minutes, Mitchel...if she doesn’t bleed out before then.”

  Silence.

  The Major shook off the shadow of fate I make my own! and sneered at Hudson, “Go rape something. I’ll call when I need you.”

  Garret wasn’t happy about Lenore’s treatment, but they had all disliked Embry, so there hadn’t been a punishment, only words–which were sometimes enough. In this case, Hudson’s spirits were renewed. He’d told Lenore to be waiting for him after the battle, and if she wasn’t, he would get the fun of hunting her down. Life was just wonderful.

  Hudson opened the door to find someone standing there. He stumbled backward and barely stopped himself from swinging.

  Cara shoved her way into the room. “He’s coming! I saw him.”

  Cara looked like she’d been running, maybe from the very men who’d provided the distraction for Adrian’s escape, and Garret didn’t question her presence.

  Cara didn’t look at the woman in the chair, though she knew who Shannon was. Still mourning the loss of her mate, Cara held no sympathy. If Shannon had been a fighter, it might have made a difference, but she was only a corpse waiting to be made.

  Garret waved Hudson toward the other door. “Be ready.”

  “Do you feel death here, darling?”

  Garret jerked, startled. He turned to find the once stunning blonde staring at him with cold hatred.

  Shannon leaned her head back, taking shallow breaths to control her flipping stomach. “When he gets here, I won’t be the only one to bleed out.”

  Garret saw that her tie had come undone and blood was running freely down her arm. He moved to replace it, not wanting Adrian to find her dead. He had to see it happen.

  Even battered, Shannon was still beautiful, and Garret ran a rough finger down her cheek. “Why couldn’t you just be loyal to me?”

  She slowly opened her sunken eyes, bracing. “Why couldn’t you let me go to the man I love?”

  Instead of a blow, the Major chuckled. “Because he wanted you, too, of course. I couldn’t allow him happiness. You never mattered, except as a way to get to him.”

  Shannon already knew that. She’d come to terms with it a long time ago. “Conner’s with his father now. That’s all I ever wanted.”

  “Conner is dying in an alley somewhere from my bullet!” Garret shouted.

  Shannon screamed, this one carrying an inner pain that Hudson hadn’t been able to draw from her.

  “Motion sensors are going off, Major.”

  Garret went to the screen and saw multiple alarms flashing in silent warning. Three in the rear, one in the front and six more on their weakest side.

  “Back together, are we?” Garret muttered. “Good.”

  Cara lingered by the window, tensed for battle. She’d come to salvage what she could for her women, but the Major wasn’t in a giving mood right now. She needed leverage.

  Bang! Bang!

  The gunfire was followed by footsteps thudding up the stairs.

  “We’ve lost the outer perimeter.”

  The guard that informed them of that placed himself between the Major and the door, but not until he was directed to do so.

  Bang!

  This shot was louder, deeper, and came from the rear of the building.

  “They’re in the compound!”

  “All men to full alert!”

  Radios blared with panic, and the Major didn’t bother to calm anyone. If they followed their training, they were still likely to die. Mitchel wasn’t one to take prisoners.

  More feet stomped hurriedly up the stairs, and the Major braced for Adrian’s entry. He’d never hated anyone as much.

  The door flew open, and Garret saw the person’s enraged face an instant before Hudson fired.

  Bang!

  Bang!

  Only one body thumped to the floor, and the Major chuckled cruelly as Hudson screamed in denial. Talk about irony.

  2

  Kenn grinned at the sight of Adrian marching through the alley. The smile grew when the rest of the mission team appeared behind him, pointing and laughing in relief.

  Adrian didn’t slow, and his men fell in, ready to help him express his displeasure.

  As he neared the now unguarded, unlocked back door, Kenn paused. “How do you want to do this?”

  Adrian took the extra gun from Kenn’s holster and stepped inside. “Kill them all.”

  “Yeah,” Kenn laughed as the battle shield descended over his mind. “That works.”

  They ran up the stairs together, over bodies that made them frown in confusion, but there wasn’t time to stop as Garret’s hunters rounded the corner and began firing at them.

  “We have a group in the west hall!” one of the hunters shouted into his mike.

  Adrian promptly shot him in the head.

  Kenn hit the man next to him, and the group of hunters fled down a different hall.

  “What the hell...”

  Daryl shrugged it off and moved up the lantern-lit stairs on Kenn’s heels, vaguely wondering where Kyle was.

  They moved through wooden halls stripped of carpets, paintings, curtains, and anything else that could have bene used to start a fire. In the top corners were dark cameras that they had expected to have to shoot out. Why wasn’t Garret watching for them?

  Adrian didn’t pause when they rea
ched the only closed door. One kick sent it banging against the wall for a short glimpse before it slammed closed.

  Now, he slid to the side, the images burned into his mind. A bloody Shannon in the chair, three men lined up behind her, but in front of Garret, who was standing at his desk, gun in hand.

  Adrian concentrated. What else had he seen?

  “Come on in, Mitchel! It’s time we settled this.”

  Adrian motioned the Eagles to stay clear of the door, not sure if Garret remembered how he used to set the enemy up by shooting through the walls on each side of a door. It was much more effective than wasting harmless shots through a peephole.

  Adrian slid in front of the door, still working the scene. What else had been in the room? Chairs...stacks of books...gun on the floor...a dark puddle under the desk. Garret was wounded.

  “Looks like you had an accident,” Adrian called cheerfully.

  “There was a...domestic issue as you arrived. It’s over now.” Garret’s answering tone was strained.

  Adrian used his boot to slowly push the door open, spotting the body of a woman he didn’t know, and a hunter crouched over her in grief.

  “Lenore wasn’t happy about her rapist not being punished. She chose to give herself justice and it backfired.”

  Adrian thought of the dozen bodies they’d passed on the way up here. “She got her money’s worth. You’re short two full teams, thanks to her aim.”

  “Really?” The Major frowned. “I’m sorry I killed her then. That type of shooting is worth an effort.”

  Garret sighed regretfully. “Much too late now. I only need you, anyway.”

  “And Conner,” Adrian reminded.

  Garret glanced toward the door, expecting the boy to limp in. When there was no movement, he frowned. “Where is he?”

  “Dead,” Adrian stated bitterly. “Because of the drugs, I couldn’t save him!”

  Garret snarled in denial, but it was lost under Shannon’s scream. She lunged from the chair, grabbing the gun Lenore had dropped when Garret shot her. “I hate you!”

  Garret ducked as she fired, but the battered woman had counted on his reaction. Her shot went too low, however, hitting the edge of the desk and taking his hat from his bald head with the ricochet.