Owned (Grave Diggers MC Book 1)

by Michelle Woods

  Tessa felt a little bit of sweat trickle down her chest between her breasts and she wanted to wipe it but she didn’t want to lower the gun. Her uncles would decide she needed instruction again and start in with all the tips. They’d come over to ‘help’ her with the shot and she’d end up being here for another three hours.

  Why her family thought that she would ever need to shoot at a moving target with an AK-47, she would never understand. She just couldn’t seem to think like them. Despite repeatedly hearing their philosophies about why this was important, she just didn’t agree. Rolling her already sore shoulder, she felt certain that when she finally managed to master the use of the weapon she was holding, she’d never have a call to use it. She would however have to practice with it at least once a week or her pappy and uncles would make her do it every day like they had for the past two weeks.

  Tessa wasn’t bad with a gun most of the time but this one was heavier and kind of bulky for her five-foot frame. She found herself hailed as ‘the prissy one’ by the family often. That was fine with her because it allowed her to get out of a lot of the chores that her family did each week, like wiring the perimeter of the compound or making sure that the twelve-foot fence was secure. Tessa had no wish to do these things, ever. Mostly because, like learning to shoot this gun, the tasks were pointless.

  After another three rounds, she finally managed to hit the heart on one of the targets and excitement that this task might be over soon almost made her feel faint. Geez, she was glad she’d finally managed to hit one; now only two more to go and she’d be free.

  “I’ll be damned. She finally hit one,” her cousin, Jim, crowed.

  Tessa wanted to turn around and glare at him but she refrained. His assessment was a little unfair anyway because she had hit the target multiple times, just not in the heart. With a little huff, she reloaded and took aim again. Best to get this done.

  “Yeah, but it took her two weeks to learn it. At this rate she’ll never learn to shoot the bigger guns,” Dale uttered in a snide tone.

  “Dale, I said to leave the girl alone. Not every woman has a knack for weapons like your Harriet. She took to them like a fish in water,” Grant grumbled with a little chuckle at the end.

  Harriet was Dale’s fourteen-year-old daughter. It was true that Harriet was a crack shot but she was also a nut. If any of the kids who lived in the compound had gone to high school, she would have been the girl voted most likely to become an axe murderer.

  “That’s ’cause I started her young,” Dale said in his proud-of-his-psychopathic-daughter voice. “Unlike Diego, who thought his girls should be adults before he trained ’um. What if it had happened when they were kids? They’d be a liability, that’s what, but not my Harriet.”

  Maybe calling Harriet a psychopath was a bit unfair but the kid was just a little too into the whole ‘learning to maim people’ exercises her family thought needed to be practiced regularly. Tessa was forever grateful that her pappy didn’t think his kids should be trained to use firearms or explosives until they were at least eighteen. She was twenty-six and the youngest so she was the last of her two sisters to finish her training. It was taking her longer to get through the weapon skills training than it had her sisters, mostly because she just didn’t care for it and only paid attention to the lessons so that she could get them over with.

  “I can’t agree with that because I didn’t start training Jim till he was fifteen and he’s damned good,” Grant told him.

  Tessa had finished reloading the gun and was again taking aim at the targets. Her shoulder was sore from the repeated kick that the gun discharged every time she fired it. She wanted to tell them she had better things to do than this but she knew the can of worms that would open up. She would be in for another long lecture about why it was important now that the world might fall apart at any moment. The theories on why that would happen were varied; her crazy uncles thought some zombie virus would break out, her pappy thought that someone would set off an EMP, and still others here thought there would be a total collapse of the economy.

  There were more theories, everything from natural disasters to manmade ones, that were tossed around and they were somehow preparing for all of them at once. Not that she believed for even a second any of them would ever happen. Nope, twenty years from now she’d be living in this three-hundred-acre compound and the world outside would still be going on like normal without her. Tessa wasn’t dissing her family, she just wanted them to allow her to not be a part of their crazy ideology without being criticized as that weird one who didn’t believe in their doomsday preparations.

  Her family’s crazy prepping for the apocalypse had started about fifty-eight years ago when her grandfather was about thirty and his great uncle died, leaving him a millionaire. That had been the beginning of the compound—a massive underground bunker that spanned nearly two hundred of their three hundred acres. He’d always been convinced after leaving the army that there would be a military takeover that would lead to the fall of society. Being a Vietnam vet had shaped his entire view of the world and the reception when he’d returned to the states hadn’t been much better than the months he’d spent traipsing through the jungles. Was it any wonder that he thought the world would end in a complete societal breakdown?

  Tessa was sure her poor grandfather had PTSD when he’d returned—but regardless of why he thought as he did after returning from the army, the compound had been born. Her abuelo and two of his army buddies of a similar mindset with money to burn had created a home where they could raise families in what they felt was a safe place. They’d bought a three hundred acre tree farm and turned it into the massive underground bunker they now called home. He grandfather had the compound built by an out of state builder—who later joined them inside with his family—so no one in state would know about the structure or the layout. Tessa wasn’t entirely sure if the builder had chosen to live here or if her grandfather had forced the poor man to move in to keep anyone from knowing the layout of the place. He had been a fanatic and that never went well for anyone involved. She was sure he would have thought it was necessary despite it being morally wrong.

  A year after the compound had been built, her grandfather had met a Mexican-American immigrant who he’d swept off her feet and whisked away to his underground home. They’d had three children—her father and his two brothers—that they raised inside the high electric fences topped with razor wire. Tessa had heard the stories that all revolved around the sad fact that they never really ventured out into the outside world except for the once a month supply runs. It was a sheltered and insolated life that they’d shared with five other families who were also part of the first generation.

  Most of the kids who’d been raised in the compound stayed but one or two had ventured out into the real world to live. None of them had ever returned. Most of the people living here thought that was because something terrible had happened to them. Tessa, however, suspected they’d just never wanted to come back and live with their crazy family in their underground bunker and she couldn’t blame them.

  The community had grown since it was started back in 1969 and now there were about forty families living and working in the compound and they were like a self-sustaining machine. After the attacks from 9/11 in 2001, eight new families had undergone the extensive application process to become a part of the compound. Three of the applicants were accepted so now they had forty-three families, she supposed.

  To her all of this was just her oddball family’s way to make a place where they fit in, but she was different. Ever since Tessa was ten and her pappy shared his views with her, she’d felt like all of this doomsday stuff just wasn’t for her—she’d always been an avid reader and it had likely exposed her to more of the outside world than any of the others had ever known. After she’d turned eighteen she’d known that if she had her way, she would prefer to live in the normal world.

  Tessa was an adult now so she did have a choice, but where would she
go and how would she live? The reality was she had no real job skills and very little money and unless being able to tend a hydroponics farm, wire an electric fence, or shoot any weapon you could find were necessary job skills, she was out of luck. Maybe she would be able to get a job if she left, but if she didn’t she knew that her family wouldn’t support the move because despite her being that odd one who didn’t understand that the world’s inevitable doom was on the horizon, they loved her.

  Sighing heavily, she knew she was never going to learn this if she didn’t concentrate. She raised the weapon again and aimed down the sight.

  It took another hour for her to finally manage to hit the target several times accurately. Her Uncles had grumbled when she’d asked if she was free to go after hitting the heart five times. Dale wanted her to practice more and Grant was complaining about her lack of dedication. Tessa took the problem out of their hands by slipping away after they started arguing again. She walked along the wall to head back inside the confines of the underground bunker to get her book. Her shoulder ached and she rolled it trying to loosen it, almost sure it was going to be bruised.

  She was about halfway down the hall with her room in sight when Hanna popped up from behind one of the concrete road barriers that were in every hall in case the compound was somehow breached and they needed cover to fight off the intruders. Tessa shook her head—yeah, like that was ever going to be necessary—and jumped a little in surprise.

  “What’cha doing?” Hanna asked.

  Her small figure only came up to Tessa’s hip. She had on army fatigues complete with a gun belt—that thankfully didn’t have a gun attached—and a flashlight. Her blonde hair was pulled into a ponytail that flowed down her back. Her tiny face was screwed up in a concentrated expression.

  “Going to my room,” Tessa told her as she kept walking.

  “Thought you had lessons today? You’re not skipping them, are you? ’Cause if you are I’m tellin’ on you,” Hanna said in an annoying singsong voice.

  Tessa stopped walking and mentally counted to ten. Hanna was only six and despite her being one of the most annoying children in the world, she didn’t deserve to be yelled at. Tessa’s teeth were on edge and she looked at the girl with narrowed green eyes.

  “I’m not, so you might as well find someone else to hunt down and bother.”

  “Nobody else wants to play with me,” Hanna said, a slight pout on her pink rosebud lips.

  Tessa wanted to tell her that was because she was an annoying little shit but she always felt sorry for Hanna because she was ignored by her family. Her pappy, despite his crazy ideas, had never ignored her or her sisters. Hanna’s mother and father, on the other hand, didn’t really want anything to do with her unless they were showing her off like a status symbol. Tessa figured that was why Hanna was so annoying because at least if she was, she’d get attention.

  “Shouldn’t you be in class anyway?” Tessa asked because all the kids had school in the mornings every weekday. There were thirty-six kids currently living in the compound and they were all schooled by three retired teachers who lived here.

  “Nope, it was canceled because Thomas broke the water pipe in the school room,” Hanna said gleefully.

  Thomas was another sad case and no one knew what to do for the poor kid. He was currently living with Abe because three months ago his mother had died. Abe had agreed to take the boy in when his mom passed without any next of kin to take care of him. He was eight and troubled since her death. They had a psychologist in the compound who was trying to help him and Abe to adjust but the kid was angry and rebellious.

  “I see. Well I’m going to my apartment and I don’t want any company so go find something else to do.” Tessa waved her hand in the general direction of the common area.

  “There isn’t anything to do. I’m bored and the other kids won’t let me play hide and seek with them because I always win. They’re dumb,” Hanna whined, looking down at her shoes with a sadness Tessa wanted to ignore but couldn’t evident on her tiny features.

  Damn it, why the hell was she such a softy.

  “Fine, you can come to my room and play on the computer for a little while but I’m going to be reading so you need to keep the noise to a minimum,” Tessa finally said after a quick internal debate about why she should be nice to the annoying child.

  “The shooter one?” Hanna asked making Tessa roll her eyes.

  “Sure, why not,” Tessa replied, wishing already that she’d ignored the kid’s plight.

  “Awesome!” Hanna raced ahead of her towards her apartment and Tessa followed, still berating herself for being a soft-hearted fool.

  Chapter Three

  Tessa gazed at her grandmother’s silent pale figure, watching her breathe in heavy and labored bellows. Tears stung her eyes as she stared at the rise and fall of her chest wondering why people you loved had to get sick. She knew her grandmother was old—she was seventy-eight after all—but that didn’t make her illness any easier to swallow. Yes, she’d lived a long and happy life. Yes, she’d been active and healthy until four months ago but that didn’t change the fact that she was now lying in a hospital bed dying. There was no way to deny that fact anymore, not with the last scan they’d done at the hospital a week ago. After that there hadn’t been much to do other than move her back to the compound, her home. None of her family had wanted her to be surrounded by strangers when she was dying.

  The compound was equipped for most health issues but they didn’t have the CT or PET scanners needed to diagnose her condition. Tessa felt tears stinging her eyes and her hands trembled on the arms of the chair as she continued to watch the life fade from her once animated grandmother. The truth was that ovarian cancer didn’t care that people loved you and didn’t want you to be sick, it just killed and it didn’t care who it took to the grave. It broke Tessa’s heart that soon she wouldn’t be able to talk to the one person who actually understood her when her abuela was gone. It ripped her soul to shreds just thinking that day was sooner than she likely thought it was. The doctors had given her two months but she seemed to be fading much faster than anyone had thought.

  It wasn’t fair, her heart raged as she clenched her fists and wished things were different. It wasn’t just that no one else could fathom Tessa not believing in the whole doomsday prep thing. No, it was that they were close and her abuela’s death when it finally happened would destroy her. She reached out taking her grandmother’s hand, feeling the calluses on her palms and the wrinkles on the backs of her hands, which showed her age. Her chest ached with the need to find a way to eradicate this illness but she knew that there wasn’t anything she could do and it made the ache almost unbearable.

  “Mi tesoro, what are you doing here again?” a scratchy voice croaked in broken English. Tessa looked up to find her grandmother had opened her eyes to stare at her, a slight frown on her face. That hurt too because normally her abuela would have burst into rapid Spanish but lately as her strength faded she seemed to be unable to find the energy. If she spoke the English she’d learned from her husband so many years ago she could slow down and no one seemed to mind.

  “I was just visiting with you, abuela,” Tessa whispered, thoughts of losing her grandmother to a disease that had no qualms about who it killed still twisting inside her.

  “Kind of boring to visit with an old lady who’s sleeping, mi tesoro.” Her grandmother shifted on the hospital bed, moving to a different position likely trying to get comfortable.

  “You’re never boring, abuela,” Tessa protested.

  “Ha, now you’re being silly, mi tesoro. You should be out doing something fun. You’re young and sitting here moping isn’t going to change the outcome, you know this.” Tessa wanted to protest but her grandmother was correct. She wanted to say something that would deny the reality of her grandmother’s imminent death but she couldn’t because there was nothing to be said. Sitting here beside her wasn’t going to change anything, even if she did wish it wou
ld with her whole being.

  “You know I like the quiet and sitting here with you gives me that,” Tessa groused, trying to lighten the mood as she leaned forward, her hand still gripping the older woman’s tightly.

  “Yes, I know this.” A slight huff escaped her before she continued. “How many times did I find you curled up in the cabinet hiding from your uncles with a book and flashlight?” A soft smile touched the elderly woman’s lips and she shifted again, moving her head on the pillow. She winced, likely because something hurt, and Tessa jumped up to help adjust the pillows for her. She was aware that the doctors were giving her pain medications in high doses and these lucid conversations were becoming less and less frequent. The other day she’d talked in circles and asked things repeatedly as she’d faded in and out of her drug haze. Tessa couldn’t help but think that soon their conversations wouldn’t be happening at all and it ripped her up inside but the drugs eased her grandmother’s pain and that was what mattered.

  “Dozens,” she whispered, leaning down to kiss her cheek softly.

  “Oh mi tesoro, you aren’t meant for this life.” Her voice and the slight frown gracing her wrinkled face hinted at the sadness she was feeling. It made Tessa feel guilty. “You must promise me something, Tessa. Promise me that when I’m gone you will do this thing I ask of you.” Tessa nodded, watching the way the old woman’s tongue darted out to wet her chapped lips. She lifted the cup of water beside the bed and used a small sponge to wet them for her abuela.

  “Anything,” she whispered, knowing she would do anything to make that sadness her grandmother felt go away. Tessa set the cup back on the table, silently raging against the reality of her grandmother’s words because all too soon she would be gone.