by KD Jones
Epilogue
Jared checked Quinn’s vitals again. “Why can’t I figure this out?”
“You will. You are being too hard on yourself,” Lily told him. She had come up to the command ship with her son for a visit with Maggie. She had no idea anything had happened to Quinn. One moment he had been there at the tribe site. The next he was just...missing.
She had come to the mediko facility to learn as much about Drastan medicine as she could. She used to want to be a nurse. She had even taken a few courses in school before she got signed on to a modeling career. After that, nursing school was a thought of the past. But she had always wondered what would have happened if she could have finished nursing school first. But that was the past. Right now, she wanted to learn as much as possible so that she could help her people in the tribe.
It also didn’t hurt that she got to spend time with the drop-dead gorgeous Mediko Jared Estro. He was tall, dark-haired, sexy, and brilliant. He would be nearly perfect if he didn’t act like an asshole toward her.
“What kind of drug do you humans have that would cause him to sweat this much? If we weren’t pumping him with replacement fluids non-stop, he would have expired from dehydration.”
“I’m not sure. We had a lot of things before the nukes hit. I only had access to the basics in the subway system. If this had happened in the subway system, I might have more to tell you but this happened in a dome. I don’t know what chemicals or drugs they have access to.”
“Take a look at this sample I took from his blood. It looks abnormal to me.”
She leaned over in front of him and looked through the computer-generated microscope. “I’m not an expert, but that doesn’t look right to me. We need a specialist.” She stood up to find that Jared was right behind her. Their bodies touched and she couldn’t help but shiver. He leaned down and ran his nose against her neck. Her nipples hardened.
“You smell delicious,” he whispered, placing a kiss on her shoulder.
She turned around to tell him to back off but that brought her breasts up against his chest. She looked up into his eyes and knew that had been a mistake. She felt frozen right where she was.
“What are you doing?”
“Testing a theory.”
“What theory?” She gulped. His lips were just a mere inch from hers.
“I want to check to see if you taste as good as you smell.” Jared told her and then he swooped down to claim her lips. Everything became fuzzy after that.
Other Books By
Katieran Prime Series
Katieran Prime
Prime Commander
Prime Medic
Kiljorn Prime
Prime Deliverance
Prime Salvation
Colonial Prime
Kiljorn Commander
Katieran Prime Miracle
Galactic Cage Fighter Series
Rage
Talon
Taurus
Zara
Hammer
Zen
Torch
Maxim
Inter-Galactic Bounty Hunters Series
Inter-Galactic Bounty Hunter
Strange Lake Falls Series
Strange Lake Falls Vampire
Strange Lake Falls Werewolf
Strange Lake Falls Vampire Mistress
Strange Lake Falls Panther – coming soon
Earth Evolution Series
Desolation
Resistance
DESOLATION
By KD Jones
Chapter 1
“That’s right, bitch, you want some of this, you’re gonna have to give me a little something in return.”
Maggie stood stock still around the corner, listening to the exchange. Her friend Lily was trying get food rations from Harry the Tribe distributor, or as they called him, the shopkeeper. Harry was supposed to be in charge of making sure all the rations were distributed equally to all members of the tribe. Unfortunately, Harry was a complete ass, and definitely not interested in fairness. She had no idea why their previous Tribe Leader, Ben, had put this man in charge, or why her current Tribe Leader, Jerry, let him remain.
“I’m not going to sleep with you,” Lily told him, shaking her head.
Maggie moved closer so she could see them better. Lily had her little six-year-old son Thomas standing behind her. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Harry. Harry was a balding older man with missing teeth and was badly in need of a bath.
Harry looked at the little boy and smiled with an evil glint in his eyes. “Who said it had to be you that sleeps with me?”
“You sick bastard!” Lily pulled Thomas up in her arms. Harry stepped towards them, but suddenly stopped in his tracks.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Maggie warned him. She was standing directly behind him and now moved just a little to the side. She directed Harry’s attention downward to the huge knife she had wedged up between his thighs.
“I didn’t do anything,” Harry said, sweat beading on his forehead.
“Give Lily her rations.”
“Fine! Just move the damn knife.”
Maggie nudged said knife up a bit further, pressing it firmly into his ballsack. “If you ever talk to, look at, touch, or hurt any child in the Tribe, I will cut this all off and make you scream for hours. Then I’ll slit your throat. Do you understand me?”
“You’re fucking crazy!”
“I might be, but you’re a sick degenerate that needs to be put out with the dogs.” Maggie removed the knife and tucked it into the side of her boot. Harry scrambled to get the rations, and practically threw the bag at Lily.
They walked away, Harry grumbling and cursing after them. Maggie checked the bag to make sure that the right number of cans were in there. She was relieved to see there was a new bottle of vitamins. The tribe had lucked out a couple of years ago when they found a storage area full of medical supplies and bottles of vitamins and other supplements. People had been starting to feel the effects of lack of vitamin D.
Lily looked at Maggie. “Thank you.”
Maggie nodded. “You would have done the same for me. We have to look out for each other.”
“True.” Lily agreed.
“We’re family!” little Thomas said happily.
“That’s right, little rug rat.” Maggie ruffled his curly hair. “So why didn’t you wait for me to get back before you went for rations?”
“Ben and his tribe came through, trading. I waited until they left. I thought this would be the perfect time to come down.” Lily shot her a look.
Tribes were what the subway-dwelling people called themselves, having organized themselves into many small groups of survivors living together. As far as Maggie knew, there were thousands and thousands of Tribes throughout the world, living underground.
They were the rejects of Earth. When several countries had “accidentally” fired their nuclear weapons five years before, they had set off automatic launches worldwide. Some of the missiles were successfully diverted, but others hit their marks perfectly, devastating whole cities and towns. Others went off in the atmosphere.
The world’s governments had been preparing for an event like this for years. Each country had invested in building underground bunkers, colloquially referred to as “domes.” Most of the major cities had one. Though the domes were supposed to be able to hold the majority of each city’s citizens, when the bombs finally did hit, not everyone was able to make it to a dome in time or, in some cases, even allowed inside when they did make it.
That was where her father had been taking them that day five years ago. When the government issued the thirty-minute evacuation alarm, he packed them up and had them headed to the city’s dome, just outside city limits. When Maggie got separated from them, she would have died if it hadn’t been for the old man, Walter Marks.
Maggie could still recall that terrifying journey through the sewers with Walter after he picked her up off the streets that day. S
he had followed him down into the sewers. Even though they had been deep below the surface when the bombs hit, they had still felt the impact. Walter had not only brought her down from the surface before the bomb hit, but he taught her how to survive in the subway stations. She remembered how it had been the day after the bomb hit.
***
“How long can we survive down here?” She looked at Walter in concern.
“Honey, with the right supplies and tools, we can survive indefinitely. I worked for the subway transit system for near on thirty years before I retired. I learned a lot of stuff during my time with the transit. Did you know that most of the major cities with subway systems keeps miles and miles of subway tunnels closed and unused on purpose? They’ve been doing this for years.”
“Why would they do that?” she asked him.
“Storage,” Walter said simply.
“I don’t understand.”
“From what I understand, each major city has domes built in case of a nuclear fallout one day. They stocked up their domes, but the world’s population has been growing so fast, they weren’t sure it would be enough. They shut off parts of the subway system to use for storing more supplies. All we have to do is get to a subway tunnel that was recently active, then follow the tunnel until we find a section closed off.”
“How long will that take?”
“A couple of days.”
“We’ll die before that!” Maggie said in concern.
“No, we won’t. We will get thirsty, though. The sooner we can get to an active tunnel the better. An active tunnel system should have power. It’s all run on solar energy, after all. The city’s been trying to go green. There’ll also be water fountains that are supplied from well water half a mile below us.” He put his hand on her shoulder reassuringly. “We’ll survive this. I promise.”
***
It took them three days to find those closed sections. Walter had told the truth about the sections being used for storage. They weren’t the only ones to find the storage tunnels. People fought one another over the supplies. Many people died. Some gangs formed that stole, terrorized, and killed people.
Walter told her that there was safety in numbers. He insisted that they find a group to join. As different groups came together and broke off, they became known as the Tribes.
Walter was valuable to their tribe because he knew the subways system better than anyone. He knew that there were even more storage sections to be found. He even told them there was one section that should lead directly beneath the dome, but he didn’t have a clue how to find those.
The Tribes used the subway cars as housing. Maggie shared her car with Walter and Lily and Lily’s six-year-old son Thomas. She and Walter had met Lily and Thomas the first day they reached the main subway tunnel. She was holding her then one-year-old son in her arms as he slept. Lily was twenty-five years old and married to an air force pilot. The day the nukes were launched, her husband had called her and told her to try to get to the dome. But she didn’t make it that far before she had to take the entrance to the subway station.
Maggie and Walter invited Lily and Thomas to live with them in their subway car. They would offer support and safety to one another. Having Walter live with them added a certain measure of protection. Not that Walter, being a much older man, was much protection, but he did have respect, not to mention an old army blade that he kept close by and was good at using.
He was also the one to find the supply area with all the weapons the government had stockpiled. He refused to tell anyone but Maggie where it was. He went there only once and brought back an M4 rifle, two double-action revolvers, and a semi-automatic pistol. He gave the leader of the Tribe at the time, Ben, the semi-automatic pistol, he kept the rifle for himself, and he trained Maggie well on how to use her revolvers.
Six months living in the subway was hard on Walter. He was already sixty-eight years old and couldn’t move around without it hurting. Maggie remembered the day she came back from scavenging for the Tribe and found him. Lily wasn’t home yet and Maggie was surprised to find Walter still in his bed. He had died in his sleep. His health had been slowly deteriorating since the day the bombs fell, but she felt like she had lost her family all over again.
Maggie sometimes wondered if there had been foul play involved. There were others who were jealous of Walter for knowing about all the supply areas. When she found him dead, his shotgun was gone. She took his knife for herself and gave Lily one of her handguns, even though Lily wasn’t very good with a weapon.
Walter dying was a catalyst for another event in Maggie’s life, one that changed her irrevocably. Without a man living in their subway car home, Maggie and Lily became easy targets for the other men in the Tribe. They had to take turns watching over one another and Thomas. But no matter how careful they were, it was impossible to be careful enough. Maggie learned that lesson the hard way.
The tribe designated certain areas with water fountains as places where people could bathe. The women and children went separately from the men. One horrible night four and a half years ago, Maggie had gotten there late for bathing and thought she would just wash herself quickly. Ben, their Tribe leader, had snuck up behind her and attacked. He kicked her gun out of reach and beat her until she couldn’t move or fight him anymore.
He had whispered, “Be nice to me, Mags.” He held her down as her hurt her. She screamed but no one came to help her. He wanted to drag her back to his subway car and keep her there. But had she managed to reach the knife hidden under her clothes. She cut the side of his face. While he was distracted, she took his semi-automatic and hit him in the back of the head, knocking him unconscious. She grabbed her clothes and limped her way back to her subway car. Thomas was asleep but Lily was waiting up and she had her gun nearby.
Lily treated her wounds and then went to get some of the other Tribe members. Maggie was thoroughly embarrassed to have to tell so many people what had happened to her. She couldn’t even look at Corey, the boy she had been crushing on since she and Walter joined his tribe. He was so hot with red hair and the warmest brown eyes. He was twenty years old, but she was only sixteen and a half and he looked at her like a little girl most of the time. She didn’t want to see how Corey would look at her now.
The tribe brought Ben forth to question him. They had a hard time believing her. Ben had been a strong leader, not always fair, but he got the job done. He was blond haired and considered attractive by most of the women in the tribe. Ben tried to deny it what he had done claiming that Maggie pursued him. But the evidence was stacked against him. He had been found naked on the floor of the bathing area, with Maggie’s blood all over him and the floor. The Tribe had no choice but to find Ben guilty of the assault.
There was only one form of punishment in the subways: banishment. He was stripped of his supplies and weapons and left with nothing. But Ben didn’t leave alone; he convinced a group of friends to leave with him.
She wished that had been the last she had seen of Ben. But he came back periodically with his own little rebel tribe to trade supplies. Maggie always made sure that she, Lily, and Thomas were protected whenever he showed up. Ever since the attack, Corey would come by their subway car to check up on them, and he tried to be nearby whenever Ben was in the vicinity. Despite her initial shame and embarrassment, Corey proved to be a true friend to Maggie.
She did her best to put the incident behind her. However, every time Ben visited and traded with her tribe, it not only reminded her of the innocence he had stolen, but also of the deeper scar left on her soul, the loss of her child.
The assault had resulted in her ending up pregnant. After the shock of realizing she was pregnant wore off, she came to want the baby. It was a part of her, almost like having her family back with her.
So there she was not quite seventeen and pregnant. She didn’t know anything about having babies. She was scared beyond belief. She had been three when Rachel was born. But as the baby grew in her womb, she felt
a deep connection and began looking forward to holding her little one. But five months into the pregnancy, she miscarried. It had been a little girl that she named Darla. She only got to hold her baby once in her arms, but she would hold her in her heart and soul forever.
She was grateful for Lily, Thomas, and Corey. They were there for her and kept her going when she would have given up. She learned hard lessons but ones that were essential to survival.
Subway living was a hard life, but they found a way to not only survive, but to survive as a family. That didn’t mean a day went by she didn’t think about her mom, dad, or even Rachel. She wished she could have been a better sister when she had had the chance. That chance was gone now. This had become her life and she was going to make the best of it.
***
Maggie’s thoughts brought her back to her conversation with Lily about Ben. “How long were they here for this time?”
“A couple of hours. Looked like they found them some more weapons.”
“Shit! Did they bother you?” Maggie quickly checked Lily and Thomas over to make sure they were okay.
“I didn’t really see Ben, but Taylor stopped by the sub car.” Taylor was Ben’s right-hand man. He wasn’t as bad as Ben, but there was a ruthlessness about him that Maggie didn’t like.
Taylor wanted Lily. Every time he was in the area, he stopped by and tried to convince her to leave with him. Lily had spent some time with him before the whole incident with Ben, but when Taylor chose to follow Ben, Lily ended things between them. Maggie always felt bad about that, though Lily swore she would have ended things anyway. Taylor might have wanted Lily but he did not want Lily’s son Thomas. That was a done deal for Lily. She wouldn’t give up her son for anyone.
“Did he try anything?”
Lily shook her head. “He just talked. He wanted me to leave Thomas with you and come away with him.”
“God, he’s an idiot. How many times does he have to ask and hear you say no before he finally gets it?” Maggie said, shaking her head.
