The Age of Embers {Book 3): The Age of Reprisal

by Schow, Ryan

  “No, it’s not.”

  And then he pointed out at the street where the boy lay in a heap.

  “Who is that?” Draven said, stepping out front.

  “It’s the druggie.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The next day, Draven borrowed a pair of binoculars Chase had, then went and asked Brooklyn if she wanted to do some recon with him. He wasn’t sure if it was appropriate asking her, but then again, he almost didn’t care.

  He felt a lot better when she perked right up and said “yes.”

  Using the directions Chase gave him, he and Brooklyn walked the streets leading to the neighborhood in question, then took a more stealth route the closer they got. When they were close enough, Draven started seeing people in the distance.

  “They’re just ahead.”

  “What now?” Brooklyn asked him.

  “How good were you on a jungle gym as a kid?” he said.

  “I threw off boys and girls alike,” she joked.

  When he looked at her, she had an easy glint in her eye. He was trying for the same thing, but he couldn’t seem to get past the things that were done to Tim.

  The kid had been gutted for heaven’s sake.

  Fortunately for Brooklyn, Draven and Ice cleaned up the boy and didn’t tell the others. There was no need to stir panic among the ranks.

  “Good,” Draven replied with a half-hearted grin, “because we’re climbing a roof and you’ll need your balance.”

  “Show me the roof, and I’ll keep up,” she said.

  Draven got the feeling she liked being around him, but he also figured she was a young soul. He’d heard from her father about what happened to her at school. There was a point to this conversation, he assumed. Perhaps Fire was delivering a veiled warning. Draven had his suspicions. Regardless, he wasn’t sure what was worse for Brooklyn, what the three boys from school did, or that she was kidnapped by the Sudanese nightmare.

  That had him wondering if her lightheartedness was a ruse, or if she was able to block all these horrors from her mind. He honestly didn’t know. What was certain, though, was that if they weren’t in this apocalyptic predicament, he and Brooklyn probably wouldn’t be talking. He also knew he would be thinking about how beautiful she was and how much he wanted her rather than thinking about what he had to do to find this horrifying woman and put an end to her.

  He scaled a nearby roof using a rickety ladder and some neophyte acrobatics. When she was headed up the ladder behind him, he leaned over the roof, took her hand, helped her up.

  “I could have gotten it,” she said.

  “Maybe I wanted to hold your hand,” he replied, not looking at her in case she didn’t get his humor.

  “In that case…”

  “Stay down,” he said, crouching low. He got down on his belly, motioned for her to do the same, then brought the field glasses to his eyes and surveyed the scene.

  “What did you do for a living and how come I almost never saw you?” Brooklyn asked, almost out of the blue.

  “I moved in next door about a year ago and basically I was an online private eye.”

  “Legally?”

  “What does that really mean?” he said sarcastically as he began with a head count below. “In Chicago, most everything is illegal.”

  “Not everything,” she quipped.

  “I basically hacked people’s Facebook and Instagram pages looking for infidelity. I also tracked down old boyfriends, girlfriends and birth parents on occasion. Mostly people were wanting to know if their significant others were being faithful.”

  “And people paid you for this?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  He handed her the binoculars, told her to take a look. She took them, looked through the glasses and said, “Good God, how many do you think are out there?”

  “I’m looking for the small guy with a good sized chunk taken out of his left ear. He’ll have tattoos on his knuckles. The number 323 on one hand and 312 on the other.”

  “Area codes?”

  He looked over at her, impressed.

  “Yeah, area codes.”

  “312 is Chicago, what’s 323?”

  “East L.A.”

  “He a gangbanger?” she asked, looking at him.

  “We were all something before this, and yes, I think he was probably doing something neither of us would ever do. That’s what makes guys like that dangerous. They just don’t care what they do, or how it affects others.”

  “That’s a blanket statement,” she said.

  “When I start feeling sorry for judging the scourge of society, it’s time for me to get a reality check.”

  “Do you think I need a reality check?” she said.

  “You’re eighteen,” he said.

  She let out a huff, handed back the binoculars.

  “I’m not being dismissive because you’re young. You and I aren’t that far apart in age. Ten years at most. It’s just…you have good parents, a wholesome upbringing it seems, and a great head on your shoulders.”

  “What do any of those things have to do with this conversation?”

  “I don’t think you’d ever gut someone to prove a point.” She curled her nose, to which he made a face and said, “Exactly.”

  They watched the people some more. He counted twenty houses on the block, but only five of them were in use. When he saw the guy with the ear he’d shot out, his heart raced for a moment before falling still once more.

  He sat the binoculars down, wiped his brow because it was getting hot again, then said, “Has the weather here always been so up and down?”

  “This is unusual,” she replied.

  “Whatever that bomb did to the atmosphere,” he ruminated, “I hope it corrects itself.”

  “What about everything else? Will society correct itself? Will we get the power turned back on?”

  “I think this is the way it’s going to be for awhile,” he said. Looking at her taking this in stride, thinking about it but not overtly stressing about it, he said, “After all the things that have happened to you, how are you this normal?”

  “I fake it well,” she said, her voice catching a bit, her eyes unable to meet his.

  “Do you like your dad?”

  “I do,” she said, a little life creeping back into her eyes.

  “Why was he always gone?”

  “He was an undercover DEA agent. He was gone the last eight months, which really took a toll on my mom. She started being friendly with another guy, but then I was attacked at school and this started. If you think I’m acting normal about all this, then I’d say that’s a compliment to my ability to hide the truth of how I feel from others.”

  “I’d like to know how you feel,” he said.

  She thought about this for awhile, her eyes looking at the bustle of activity below, but her mind somewhere else entirely.

  “I’m scared all the time,” she said, the light slipping from her eyes again, her expression darkening. “I have nightmares and I can’t sleep, my mouth is full of cold sores—which is what happens when I get stressed out—and all I can think about is that I won’t be able to survive this life, but it will be worse if I survive it and my parent’s don’t.”

  Wow, he thought. That’s heavy.

  “You didn’t happen to be a cheerleader, did you?” he asked.

  “Actually I was head of the yearbook committee, why?” she asked. “Is it because I’m always peppy?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s how I hide,” she said.

  “I just close myself away and work,” Draven admitted. “And that’s what I’m going to do now. I’m going to go down there and infiltrate that group.”

  “You’re going to what?”

  “I’m going to do what I do best,” he told her. “I’m going to hack my way in. But socially.”

  “You’re going to run a social hack?”

  “I am,” he said.

  As he looked into her eyes, he saw
things in her that moved him: dilated pupils, direct eye contact, a slight smile. For a second there, he wondered if she liked him.

  Those were definitely the more obvious signs…

  “I always thought you were cute,” she said. “If I wasn’t into girls, I think I’d like you.”

  This startled him. He didn’t know what to say.

  “We should go,” she said.

  “Are you okay heading back on your own?” he asked. “I’m going in now.”

  “Wait, now?”

  “There are reasons I can’t disclose, but yes,” he said, thinking about Tim, “I have to go in now.”

  “Why?”

  “We’re in danger, Brooklyn,” he told her, eyes on the encampment below and not on her. “My grandmother and me. Morgan across the street. Chase, Ross and Phillip.”

  “Why don’t you come with us when we leave?” she asked.

  “Because this is our home,” he said half-heartedly.

  “It won’t be if they come back and try to take it from us, from you. Besides, the neighborhood’s already shot to hell.”

  “It’s still ours.”

  Looking at him with challenging eyes, she said, “So you’d let me walk back home by myself then?”

  “You’re leaving as soon as you can. Soon you’ll be gone and this place will be nothing more than a bad memory. For now, you have your dad and guys like Ice and me to look after you. But one day you might not. One day, we may all be gone. The point is, you never know when you might have to rely on your own skills to stay alive. Do you even have any survival skills?”

  She simply stared at him.

  “You have to find your way in this world, Brooklyn. As much as I’d love to hold your hand through this, even if you are into girls and not guys, I’m not the person to do it.”

  “What if I’m into guys as well as girls?” she asked. “Or just guys and I’m playing with you about the girls part?”

  He stopped, looked up at her and harshly said, “Do you think this is a game?”

  Startled, she said, “Of course not.”

  “Then don’t treat this or me like we’re in high school. This is the world we live in and right now we’re in the worst possible place.”

  She started to climb down from the roof and he said, “Brooklyn?”

  She looked up.

  “Tell my grandmother I’ll be back in a few days.”

  She nodded and descended the rooftop.

  “Be careful,” he mumbled, turning his attention back on the group.

  For the rest of the day he watched them. Right around dinner time, when the barbecues were going in the middle of the street, he headed up three blocks toward downtown, away from his neighborhood. From there, he circled back and meandered into the group, having come from a different direction than their neighborhood.

  The instant someone had eyes on him, he had four guns on him as well.

  He stopped, slowly raised his hands and managed to look meek, defenseless, slightly afraid. It wasn’t hard to feign the fear. He was afraid. The toughest part of all that was not to look at the redheaded woman eating at a nearby table.

  She was just as Chase described her. Maybe worse.

  Even though Draven refused to make eye contact with her, he could feel her eyeballing him. When he finally turned his gaze on her, he was getting patted down for weapons.

  “Check to see if he’s got a knife,” one of the guys said.

  With strangers running their hands over his legs, back and under his arms, he caught the redhead’s icy blue eyes and was instantly locked down by the improbable weight of them.

  Setting down her fork, she got up, walked right over to him and looked into his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but neither did she.

  The guys checking him for weapons backed off.

  She just stood there.

  Just when he expected her to say something or move away, she stepped even closer into his space. So much so that he could smell the sour on her breath. Now that they were eye to eye, he could see every caramel-colored freckle dotting the skin around her nose, and every single pore in that ugly, ugly face of hers.

  Where he got the strength to neither cower nor break baffled him.

  That’s when she gave a slight sniff, checked the air around him, then frowned and went back to her table to finish her meal.

  Thinking about what she did to Tim not only terrified him, it made him wonder what a person had to go through in their life to wield such darkness.

  Now that he’d seen her, he was certain there was darkness in her.

  She just might be the devil himself.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  While Adeline and Veronica were in the bedroom with Orlando, Brooklyn and Draven were doing recon. Carolina and the three girls were tasked with taking down the aluminum foil from the walls inside both homes and were nearly done. The last anyone knew of Xavier, he was at home, still sleeping. Eliana offered to clean the guns and inventory their ammo, but she was half-heartedly listening to Fire, Ice and Eudora. They were making a list of everything they’d need to survive in a world without power.

  Eliana finished the weapons, then set aside the bag of ammo in favor of joining the conversation. She was curious about Eudora, how much she knew. She was also unaware of the conditions in a suffering America. Privately, she imagined they were like the everyday conditions in Guatemala, but that wasn’t something she was going to say out loud.

  “You’re going to need clean water, but you’ll have to purify it yourself,” Eudora was saying. “Most people think you have to boil it, but if you don’t have fire or pans to boil your water in, you’ll need bleach. Two drops per gallon of water is safe. Clorox or Purex, it doesn’t matter just so long as it’s liquid bleach.”

  “We can do that,” Fire said. “Adeline’s got a gallon of bleach in the laundry room. It’s nearly full.”

  “If any of us finds a gas generator, or a solar generator, we need to see if it works. The EMP will have ruined most anything with solid state electronics in it,” Eudora said. “That’s a computer chip for you tech illiterates.”

  Fire and Ice look at each other, their eyebrows raised. “Did you know what solid state electronics was?” Ice turned and asked Eliana.

  “Of course,” she said, selling the lie with a straight face.

  Fire coughed and said, “Bullshit,” at the same time.

  This got Eliana grinning.

  “Once you settle down, you’ll have to watch out for different molds and spores, anything that could make you sick. And don’t drink any river water thinking it’s clean. If someone died in it upstream, or worse—if they decided to make your river their personal toilet—you might be ingesting any number of bacteria or diseases. If I could caution you on anything, it’s that. Know your environment, and clean your water.”

  “Got it,” Fire said.

  “After that, you need to find food, enough to last while you start to grow your own,” Eudora said. “I’m sure that goes without saying.”

  “That’s further down the road. Right now we need food, bedrolls, any matches or lighters we can get ahold of. Also an axe, a hammer and gloves,” Eliana said. “If we have an air pump, a patch kit and a five gallon gas can, that will be necessary, too.”

  “You trying to steal my show there Cinderella After Midnight?” Eudora said, making Eliana stop and think about it. While she was wondering what a Cinderella was, Eudora picked back up.

  “So you’ll need blankets, too. And pillows. But you’ll have to take your emergency toilets, toilet paper, some sort of folding screen for privacy.”

  To Eliana’s amazement, Eudora went on like that for the better part of an hour. She wasn’t going with them, yet she was helping plan their road trip. All while knowing all hell broke out on their street and would likely happen again.

  Eliana liked the woman. In fact, she reminded her a lot of her own grandmother. Although her grandmother had a hot temper and Eudora seemed more funn
y than mean.

  Eudora finally turned her eyes on Eliana and smiled. The older woman had given them some great advice and helpful planning when starting a garden, but what she said last was what Eliana considered the most important thing Eudora had said all morning.

  “Whoever doesn’t know how to shoot a gun or fight should learn,” Eudora said while looking at Eliana. “And don’t wait to teach them. Start now. It will be dangerous if they don’t know how to defend themselves. Dangerous for everyone.”

  “I don’t know how to fight,” Adeline said from behind them.

  Eliana didn’t hear her come in.

  “I can teach you,” Eliana said. She tried to soften her look, but there was no room for soft, sweet Eliana. Only Ice got that. Still, she tried. “If you want, that is.”

  “That would be great.”

  “Like I said,” Eudora told her. “Don’t wait.”

  “After lunch?” Adeline offered.

  Eliana looked at Fire and Ice, the question in her eyes: do you need my help?

  “We can do a lot of this stuff,” Fire said, understanding the look. “And right now we’re just waiting on Orlando, although if things get dicey here in the next few days, if we have a rehash of what happened here the other night, we might need to move him regardless of whether or not he’s in a coma.”

  Looking over at Eudora, Ice said, “I know you’re determined to stay here, but I really think you should come with us. It will be safer that way.”

  “He’s right,” Eliana said.

  “Of course he is, but none of you took into consideration the fact that I’m old, bound to this chair and as stubborn and as dug in this place as an Alabama tick.”

  “People can change,” Adeline said.

  “Not me.”

  The air in the room heated just a touch as the parties stood off, one trying to help the other, the other refusing any such help.

  Isadoro finally said to Fire, “If we’re going to take that purple hunk of crap out front, we’d better figure out how to secure the hole where the windshield was, and our broken windows, too. I’m thinking we make some kind of a cage for it.”

  “With what material?” Fire asked. “And with whose welding equipment?”