Love at the End of Days

by Tera Shanley

  A chant of agreement was flung into the surrounding forest by the members of the mob, and the lot of them surged forward.

  “If you don’t have the guts to protect us, we’ll do it ourselves,” yelled a man in the thick of it.

  Sean and Mitchell fought viciously as the door was besieged. The look on Sean’s face was captivating and dangerous enough to send a chill down her spine. He was going to die for Laney and her baby. Blow after blow was swung, and though Sean and Mitchell didn’t fall, their faces were cut and running rivers of blood.

  She understood why they hadn’t drawn their weapons. The mob wasn’t the enemy, after all. They were frightened and trying to protect themselves as best they knew. Firing shots into a crowd wouldn’t sit well with their ethics.

  It sat just fine with hers though.

  She took a bite of the apple core Adrianna had handed her and pointed her Glock at a cloud above them. And then she shot it.

  The crowd hunched and searched for the danger in panic. Some of the fighters on the edges ran for the woods, and she yelled, “Oy!” around a bite of apple. Dragging Adrianna behind, she waved the handgun limply and chewed the fruit as she ascended onto the porch. “’Scuse me, crazy lady with a gun coming through,” she muttered to the masses separating like the Red Sea for her.

  Sean shoved a man off him and stared at her like she’d just walked through a wall.

  “Adrianna, you go on inside with Ms. Laney,” she said. “I’ll be in there shortly.” Sean’s way wasn’t working, and she needed to jar the mob into listening to reason. She turned. “Okay, people,” she addressed the crowd before turning a glare on a man still clutching onto the front of Sean’s shirt. She lowered the gun into the general vicinity of his eyeball and said, “Let him go, and get off my porch before you spend the last thirty seconds of your life fighting to be a baby-killer. I’m pretty sure they have a special room in hell for that caliber of sin, mister.” As he scampered from the deck she raised her voice. “Or have you all convinced yourself that you wouldn’t actually be killing a defenseless baby because of what she looks like? You heard Sean—she drinks milk. Milk! When was the last time you saw a Dead chugging a gallon of two-percent? Hmm? Now, I’ve listened to both sides of this, and here’s how this is going to go. Dr. Mackey wants to do tests on the baby. Let him! Give him time to see if she’s even dangerous. Put Laney and her baby in quarantine until then. Brandon—” she gestured to Dr. Mackey’s assistant, who leaned against a tree behind the mob “—can you set up a first-aid tent by the mess hall?”

  He nodded. “I will.”

  “Good. If anyone gets a splinter or has a bad case of blue balls or toe jam problems or whatever, go to him over there. Don’t come here for the next few days until we’ve had time to make an educated decision on the fate of the baby.”

  “Soren,” Sean said.

  “The fate of Soren,” Vanessa corrected. “Because if Dr. Mackey does an autopsy on a little baby you’ve killed out of irrational fear and finds out she wasn’t ever a threat to you, you’re all going to have to live with that for the rest of your lives. Now, from where I’m standing, I think you’ve forgotten the reason you have that little vaccine you are all so proud of. Laney Landry is the source of that. Maybe you don’t understand the sacrifices the woman made to get to Dr. Mackey and the toll all of the tests and samples took on her body, but I saw it with my own eyes. The woman is scarred for you. She almost died for you. So that you can live. So that your children can live. That child is the product of her immunity. You can’t put Laney up on a throne, while at the same time condemning her for a condition that is of direct benefit to you. Don’t you think you owe her three days at least to hold her baby before the final decision is made?”

  The hum of the murmuring crowd filled the clearing.

  “Two days,” a man countered.

  The mob seemed to agree so Vanessa pounced. “Fine, two days of sanctuary for Laney and Soren. We’ll give the decision here, same time, day after tomorrow. Now get back to your jobs. Everything can’t just come to a screeching halt around here. We have winter to prepare for, or we’re all doomed anyway.

  “Sean,” she murmured as the crowd slowly scattered. “You still control the guards. Call them in, and give the order to protect this place until the two days are up. No way that worked on everyone. You’ll have yahoos out here in the dark on a kill mission, and you can’t afford to keep this little protection on them.”

  Sean shot her a grateful look and paced to the end of the deck to talk into his radio. Mitchell stood wide-eyed and staring. “Thanks for doing that,” he breathed.

  The apple crunched against her teeth and she gave a full mouth smile. “No problem. I’ve been looking for an excuse to pop off a round inside colony gates.”

  “Do you want to see Soren?”

  Did she want to see the baby Mitchell had with another woman? Not particularly, but if they were ever going to be on friendly terms, she had to play nice. “Sure.”

  Sean and Mitchell stayed rooted on the front porch as she opened the heavy wooden door. Laney stood shaking with a handgun in her limp hand, and a baby cradled in the other.

  “I thought they were coming in,” she said in a trembling voice.

  “Nope, just me. Where’s Adrianna?”

  “I told her to stay in the back room in case they made it past Mitchell and Sean. They’d probably stop after they killed me and the baby.” Laney swayed dangerously.

  “C’mon. You’re one tough chick, yes, but you just had a baby and shouldn’t be out of bed.”

  “I don’t feel so well. Will you hold Soren?” Her speech was slurred, and Vanessa snatched the baby before Laney went down. “Doc!”

  Dr. Mackey rushed from the back room and helped her to the bed. Vanessa peeked her head around the corner, and Adrianna was sitting on Steven’s bed. She didn’t miss the gun he held ready over the edge of the pillow. The mob scene outside could’ve gone very differently, and an ache swelled inside of her when she imagined all she could’ve lost. “Adrianna, let’s go visit Ms. Laney.”

  She held her hand out and led the child to the other room before settling her in the chair in the corner. When she was comfortable in her own chair beside Laney’s bed, only then did she pull the baby blanket away from Soren’s face.

  “Oh my gosh,” she breathed. Soren was definitely part Dead at least. No child on earth looked like her. Even through all of the abnormalities though, she was shaped like a baby and made little hungry sounds like a baby. “She’s beautiful,” Vanessa breathed, placing her finger in the infant’s tiny reaching palm.

  Laney sniffled and it looked like the waterworks were on their way.

  “Oh crap, Laney, I don’t do well with sobbing. What’s wrong?”

  “I heard what you said out there, and it meant more to me than you’ll ever know that you stood up to all those people on my behalf. I know things didn’t start off good with us, but I really hope that someday I can repay you for what you’ve done for my family.”

  “Well, don’t thank me yet, you crybaby. I only bought you two days.”

  Laney laugh-sobbed. “Still. It’s two days more than I thought we had when she came out looking like she did.”

  Two days. Dr. Mackey had two days to prove Soren wouldn’t jam the entire colony onto the extinction list.

  Two days and the mob would come for her.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE WOODS CHIRPED with the sound of small bugs singing from the safety of their tree bark homes. The night was cold, and Sean flipped up the collar of his jacket to protect his ears and shoved his hands in his pockets. Leaning against a support beam of the medical cabin porch, he nodded a silent greeting to Guist, who carried a rifle stiffly hugged to his chest.

  “All clear and quiet,” he said in a gruff voice. “Finn said he’s going to stay in the back to make sure we don’t miss anyone sneaking in.”

  “Good.”

  Guist climbed the stairs two at a time
and stood beside him. “How do you think this is going to play out?”

  The sinking feeling in Sean’s gut that had rooted itself there since he saw Soren said nothing good would come of the situation. The two days was just a stall on the inevitable. Even if Dr. Mackey gave the all-clear to Soren, no one in the colony would accept a Dead infant. She’d always be in danger. “Not good,” he admitted.

  Leather boots that protected Guist’s feet creaked as he shifted his weight. “I know you’re working on a plan, boss man. You know as well as I, we can’t just let them take the baby. That little girl is already part of our family.”

  “I know, but everything I’ve got so far only holds off the inevitable. We need something that’ll keep her safe long-term.”

  A twig snapped in the dark, and he lifted his handgun.

  “Don’t shoot,” Mel said from the shadows. “It’s just me.”

  Sean lowered his weapon, and Guist followed suit.

  “I brought food,” she said as she entered the lantern light. When she had climbed up the stairs, she smiled. “And a plan.”

  Thank goodness someone had come up with something. His plans all ended with them eventually getting dismembered by the mob.

  After she’d disappeared inside with a large canvas sack of what smelled like scalloped potatoes and ham, she returned with a tin cup of the hearty meal for both him and Guist and settled into a rocking chair.

  “What’s this plan of yours?” Sean asked, blowing on the steaming cup.

  “Go home.”

  He looked at her long and hard. “I hardly think my little cabin is going to keep her safe, Mel.”

  “Not here, home. Go home. Go back to your colony, and take them with you. Rebuild your colony, but do it around the child.”

  He scoffed and waited for her to say she was joking. When she didn’t, he said, “You know that place is overrun by Deads, don’t you? Clearing them out would take an army.”

  “Not an army. You, Finn, Guist, and Mitchell are the best fighters I’ve ever seen. You as a team? You’re unstoppable. Take back the Denver colony, Sean. Provide a home for Laney and Soren, and take back your destiny while you’re at it.”

  “As easy as that?”

  “No, not as easy as that. It’ll be hard. Like in the old days when you were first building, but you’ll have your colony back. You were meant for more than head guard, Sean. You ran that colony perfectly. You are meant to have people under you, not just to play my second.”

  “Obviously I didn’t run it perfectly. There was a take-over, and it was about as hostile as it gets. I lost an entire colony of families, kids. And you want me to rebuild? You’ve lost your mind, woman.”

  “Sean,” Guist said quietly. “If it keeps Laney and Soren safe, we have to consider it.”

  “We? It would be me and a new mother and Mitchell to clean out hundreds of Deads. The odds for survival for any of us are zero. The baby dies anyway.”

  “You wouldn’t be alone. I’d go too.”

  “And me,” Finn said from the corner of the house.

  “Yeah, and what about Eloise? Huh? She’s a month away from giving birth, Guist. You can’t just up and leave your pregnant wife here alone.”

  Guist stood quiet, and Sean rubbed his hands through his hair until the friction of it warmed his scalp. “That plan doesn’t work out the way we want, Mel. We’ll have to come up with something else.”

  Mel continued as if he hadn’t just nixed the idea. “I can give you an RV loaded with supplies. It’s all I can part with going into the winter. I wish I could load the Terminator for all you’ve done for this colony, Sean, but the people here come first. They always do, and we won’t have enough.”

  “Okay, and what happens when Erhard and his army of moral-less soldiers don’t want us to take back the Denver colony?”

  “You know as well as I there’s no human life there. We’ve sent scouts three times, and there was no sign of anyone living. Just Deads.”

  Was he the only voice of reason in this? Sure, he was a good soldier, a good fighter, good under pressure—he wasn’t invincible though, and the odds of them making it through this plan still human were terrible. “Finn, those gates are filled with Deads we know, man. All of them walking around in there? They were turned that night we ran. Your brother is in there somewhere. Your friends. You seriously want to go back and see them like that?”

  “Yeah! If it means I get to keep the family I’ve made here safe, then yeah, I’d go see them like that.”

  “You guys are really serious about this?”

  “Yes,” Guist, Mel, and Finn said in unison.

  He propped his palms on his hips and gave a short, humorless laugh into the dark woods. He shook his head at the sheer stupidity of the idea and leveled Finn’s serious gaze with one of his own.

  Well, hell.

  He was going back to Denver.

  Vanessa wrapped her arms more tightly around herself and huddled under the covers a little deeper. The night was cold, and the chill bit through the cabin walls. Even the fire in the small, old-fashioned wood burning stove couldn’t keep the place warm enough. Or maybe the chill had just settled into her bones with the sadness.

  She didn’t hate Laney anymore or even dislike her. Now, she just mourned Sean’s heart belonging to her. She’d seen the ferocity on his face as he prepared to fight to the death to protect her and the child. Would he have done the same thing for her if she were the one laid up in the hospital bed? She didn’t think so. The history simply wasn’t there for them. He liked her as a soothing balm to the ache of Laney choosing another, but not much more than that. She traced the pattern of the wood grain on the wall with the tip of her fingernail. A pity because her heart had already decided to love him.

  A soft knock thumped against her door, and she sat up with a frown. “Who is it?”

  “It’s Sean. Can I come in?”

  Perfect, she was busted mooning over him and definitely wearing an oversized green thermal shirt she only saved for the times she needed comfort. She couldn’t paint a less sexy picture if she tried for a hundred years.

  Defeated, she called, “Yeah. Come on in.”

  The door opened, and a burst of frigid wind accompanied Sean. He closed it and sat beside her on the bed without so much as an invitation to invade her space.

  “Why aren’t you protecting Laney?” she asked.

  “I am. Vanessa.” He grabbed her hands, and his were ice against her skin. His blue eyes penetrated her down to her very soul. “We’re taking Laney in the night.”

  How those words caused such pain to rip through her. Of course he was. It was the only logical thing to do. The child wouldn’t survive life in a colony of trigger-happy Dead-haters. “Where?” she asked, trying to keep the heartbreak from her voice.

  “We’re going to take back the Denver colony and start fresh there. We’ll have to find people who are okay with Soren to settle the place.”

  She swallowed the slashing pain that tore at her heart. “When will you leave?”

  “Three hours.”

  His gaze held hers like a lover’s touch. “Vanessa,” he whispered. “I want you to come with us.”

  She floundered under the overwhelming panic at the thought of leaving her home. Of leaving Nelson. Of moving to a place with a man in love with another woman.

  “Think of what you’re asking me right now.”

  “I am.” His eyebrows furrowed over his glorious cerulean eyes. “We’ll be starting completely from scratch, and we’ll need someone who knows about gardens.”

  She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “Really? You want me to come so I can run your gardens? No thank you. I like guard duty just fine. And furthermore, hell no, I’m not shacking up in a Dead-infested colony with a kiss-buddy and the woman he loves. That sounds a little too much like the second ring of hell to me, Daniels.”

  “I’m not asking you for the gardens. I just thought if I gave you enough excuses to come…Dam
n it, Vanessa, I care about you. I want you at my back, and guard, gardener, or splinter extractor, I don’t care so long as you’re with me. I don’t want to do this, but the thought of doing this without you?” His shook his head. “I can’t stand it. I don’t love Laney.” Through a clenched jaw, he gritted, “You fill my head and make me crazy when I’m not around you because I want to fight tooth and nail for an excuse to see you again. You have to let your feelings about Laney go. I have. I can’t promise I’ll be perfect or even good at being yours, but I can promise I’ll try until my last breath. Adrianna is the blood running through my veins, and you’re my heart. There isn’t any room for another.”

  “But, Sean, I just watched you risk your life for Laney this morning!”

  “Because she’s family! You’re more than that. I want you there when I have the nightmares. I want it to be you who comforts Adrianna when I can’t. I want it to be you who sees the darkest parts of me that I’ve kept hidden from everyone else. You scare me in the best possible way.”

  Oh dear goodness, a man had just professed his desire, and she was the one on the receiving end for the first time in her life. And not just any man either. Sean-Sexy-Face-Daniels, the man women rocketed themselves at for just the chance to be in his bed. If they knew how amazing he really was beneath that demigod face, they’d never give her a chance to win him over. He’d kept it all hidden under that serious façade and the bark of command. He was baring his soul for only her to see, and something about that revelation made her delirious with an unfamiliar warmth.

  “Say yes,” he said with a slow smile that danced into his eyes. The flames of the stove shimmered and echoed in his brilliant gaze. There it was, that beautiful soul. Slowly he pulled her by the back of the knees until he was encompassed by them. Inch by inch, he leaned into her. “Say yes,” he whispered against her neck. “I need you by my side. We work best together, and you know it. I need you on my team. I need you in my family. I need you, Vanessa. Just say yes.” His strong hands snaked around her waist, and he rubbed the bare skin just under the hem of her shirt.