by Tate, Harley
The man with the light lifted it to shine on Brianna. “She looks fine.”
“Not her. My daughter back home. She was bit by a fox infected with rabies.”
The flashlight man snorted. “In the middle of winter? Yeah, right.”
“I’m serious. It was caught in a trap. She thought it was dead.”
The two men shared a few words, voices low and gravelly.
Tracy turned to Brianna. “Have you found it yet?”
“No.”
Damn it. She turned back around as the man with the gun spoke up.
“You two tweakers?”
“No.”
“You smell like tweakers.”
Tracy bit her tongue to keep from cursing. “We walked through the morgue.”
The armed man laughed. “Definitely tweakers. No sober person would do that.”
“We’re not high and we’re not strung out. We’re desperate. We need a rabies vaccine.”
“And I need a wind farm.” He pointed with his gun. “Come on, let’s go.”
“No.”
His shoulders rose and fell in obvious frustration. “I’m not going to ask again.”
Tracy jerked her head back toward Brianna. “When I shoot, run.” As she twisted back around, she brought up the Glock.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
“Oh, yeah? Watch me.” Tracy aimed at the flashlight and fired. The lens shattered and the room plunged into darkness.
A volley of shots rang out as Tracy dove for the ground. Searing pain lanced her upper arm.
“Tracy! Are you okay?” Brianna scrambled toward her.
More shots rang out. A bullet ricocheted off the floor and whizzed by Tracy’s ear.
“Get behind a shelf! They won’t shoot into the medicine!”
Tracy crawled into the closest aisle, keeping as low to the ground as she could until she reached the end. She slipped behind the end cap and sucked in a breath. Blood slicked her left arm and dripped off her fingers.
Brianna found her moments later, a flurry in the dark. “Are you okay?”
Tracy tried not to groan. “I might have taken a bullet.”
“Oh my God.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“What can I do?”
Tracy eased her bag off her shoulder. “Find the compression bandage.”
Brianna rifled through the bag and pulled out a small shrink-wrapped plastic item. She ripped it open. “I’ll need a light to see.”
Tracy pulled out her flashlight and clicked it on. Blood already soaked her shirt and puddled on the floor. “Do it.”
As Brianna slid the bandage around Tracy’s arm, she groaned. “Hurry. We’re sitting ducks back here.”
Wrapping over and over, Brianna covered the absorption pad before twisting the elastic wrap into a cord. She shoved the closure bar under the cord and turned it to tighten the bandage.
Tracy gritted her teeth as Brianna hooked the bar to the bandage and secured it in place. Only then did she click off the light.
“Is that too tight?”
“We’ll see if my arm falls off.” Tracy fought back a wave of nausea and vertigo. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We’re still trapped.”
“There has to be another way out.”
“I’ll look.” Before Tracy could say another word, Brianna rushed off into the dark. It took all of Tracy’s self-control to not close her eyes and slip into unconsciousness.
She cradled her arm in her lap and focused on Madison. Her daughter needed her to make it out of there alive and with a vaccine.
A scurry of footsteps sounded and Tracy blinked.
“There’s no other way.” Brianna slid next to Tracy and took cover behind the shelf. “We’re in a cave.”
“Then we’ll have to fight our way out.” Tracy readied the Glock. “At least they hit my nondominant arm.”
Brianna checked the shotgun. “Can you shoot?”
“We don’t have a choice. You find the vaccine. I’ll give you cover.”
As Brianna stood up, a metal clang sounded at the front of the pharmacy. Something rolled across the linoleum.
“What is that?”
A tremendous boom shook the entire room and a light blasted impossibly bright. Tracy couldn’t hear, couldn’t think, couldn’t see. Everything spun out of control. Am I dying? Is this what it feels like? She tried to stand and ran into something hard. Boxes and bottles rained down from overhead.
She fell to the floor. Her knee slammed into the ground and she rolled over. It wasn’t death. It was something worse.
A flashbang.
Tracy remembered her husband describing the device and wishing they had some for defense. Her ears rang and she couldn’t see. She was blind and deaf.
“Brianna!” Tracy shouted, unable to hear her own voice.
A hand wrapped around her wounded arm and she screamed into the void.
The grip tightened and the searing pain snapped her back into reality. Her vision returned in splotchy, swirling moments.
A man held her by the arm. He scowled as she blinked.
She opened her mouth to scream again when the barrel of a gun swam in her face.
As a sharp pain crashed into her temple, the blurry world went black.
Chapter Twenty-One
COLT
Unidentified Farm
Near Truckee, CA
6:00 a.m.
Dani’s shouts echoed inside the barn and Colt gritted his teeth to keep from reaching for a weapon. Ben still held the shotgun pointed straight at Colt. About Colt’s age, maybe a few years older with the first hints of gray at his temples, the man didn’t come across weak or indecisive.
If anything, he was too quick to judge. He motioned for Colt to approach. “You’re next.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on.”
“You aren’t the one in charge here.” With a frame straight out of center linebacker position, he probably didn’t need to use that line too often, but Colt wasn’t scared.
He glanced at Walter. “You’re fine with this guy ordering all of us around?”
Walter’s jaw ticked. It was the first sign Colt had that the man wasn’t one hundred percent on board. “It’s not our property.”
“Damn straight it isn’t.” Ben motioned again with the gun. “Now let’s move. Walter, you stay here and wait for me to come back.”
“Just do what he says. It’ll be all right.” Walter nodded at Colt. Was that anger in his eyes?
Colt eased past his friend and toward Ben. Now was his best chance.
“Don’t even think it.” Ben prodded him with the barrel of the shotgun and Colt relented. If he reached for the rifle, he’d be dead before he fired a single shot.
He would have to wait for another opportunity.
As Ben pushed him outside, he caught sight of Dani. A lantern sat a yard or so from her feet and as she scrambled and kicked, she cast shadows across the faded red paint of the closest barn.
One of her escorts fumbled with a door lock while the other tried to hold her. He wasn’t having much luck. Colt cheered her on in silence. They might not be able to escape, but she could at least give them a workout.
As Colt approached, Dani slammed her foot down on top of the big man’s toes. He yelped and his arms loosened in response to the pain. Dani seized the opportunity. Before Colt could shout to warn her, she lunged for the man’s handgun perched in an open-carry holster on his hip.
Her fingers wrapped around the grip and Colt held his breath. In a matter of seconds, it was over. Dani stood, panting for breath, three feet away from her captor, gun pointed straight at his face.
Ben shouted, “Don’t be stupid. We’ve got eyes on you from all over.” Colt tensed. Could that be true? Were there others out in the dark, waiting for an opportunity to take them out?
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.” Larkin’s voice cut through the
standoff as he emerged from the tree line. “From what I can tell, it’s just us.”
Ben poked Colt in the back with the shotgun. “Let me guess. He’s with you.”
“Bingo.”
“Who the hell are you people?”
“Just a tight-knit group who protects their own.” Colt sucked in a breath. He couldn’t just stand there and do nothing, but a shotgun to the back hampered his efforts. “How about you let us go so we can get out of here?”
“So I’m supposed to believe you’ll just walk away?”
“That’s exactly what we’ll do. You let Walter and the rest of us go and you’ll never have to see us again.”
Ben was unimpressed. “Right.”
Colt was unfettered. “You have my word.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?”
“You’ll have to trust me.”
Ben fell silent.
I’m getting through to him. Colt turned enough to catch Ben’s eye. “I think what you’re doing here is noble. If we’d met under different circumstances, we might have become allies.”
“Walter said the same thing.”
“Walter’s a good man.” Colt almost had him. A little more talking and Ben would come around. He opened his mouth to push harder when an unmistakable sound pierced the air.
A single gunshot.
Colt spun around in time to see Dani hit the ground. “No!” His shout boomed through the farm and Colt took off, running to reach her. Three feet away, something slammed against his right knee and it buckled.
He fell forward, arms outstretched. His chest hit the ground and bits of snow pelted his face. Dani turned her head toward his. Blood tinged the snow around her torso.
She blinked.
Colt rose up. A boot shoved him back down. A gun barrel smashed into his temple.
“You so much as blink and I’ll put a hole through your skull.”
“You bastards. She didn’t do anything to you. She didn’t deserve this.” Colt stared at Dani.
“I’m sorry, Colt. I tried to stop them.” Larkin’s voice, laced with pain, called out from the other side of the farm. Colt twisted his head. Larkin stood on the edge of the light, clutching his stomach. A man pointed a rifle straight at his head.
Colt turned back to Dani. Her face paled by the second. He was losing her. After everything they had been through together. After all the struggles, he was going to watch her die in the middle of a stranger’s farm. And for what?
No. He wasn’t going to let that happen. “Larkin?”
“Yeah?”
“You remember the movie they always played on Friday nights at Reed?”
“Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid?”
“How’s it end again?” Colt didn’t wait for Larkin to answer. Instead he channeled all his strength, all his anger, all the pent-up rage of living for nine months in the apocalypse, and flipped himself over. Ben stumbled back from the force of it and Colt lunged, jumping up like a tiger on the attack. He grabbed for the shotgun as it discharged.
A handful of bird shot ripped holes in his jacket arm, but most of it flew wide. Larkin fought his own war on the other side of the farm, shouting and carrying on. Another gun discharged. Colt didn’t have time to look.
He yanked harder on the shotgun, but Ben refused to let go.
Twisting around, the bigger man pressed the gun straight into Colt’s heart. “Give me a reason.”
Colt opened his mouth to give him plenty when headlights lit up the entire place. A truck roared down the drive and stopped just short of the clearing. Colt scanned the area for Larkin. His friend was on the ground, zip ties around his wrists and ankles.
Damn it.
He turned to Dani. She was still sprawled in the snow, eyes wide, mouth open. Come on, give me something. Colt willed her to move. A twitch, a flutter of a finger. Anything.
He held his breath. She blinked.
Colt bit back a sob. Dani was still alive. He rose up. “She needs help. She’s going to bleed out while you stand there with your thumb up your ass.”
Ben pushed him back down with a nudge of the barrel against his shoulder. “Get down or you join her.”
Shouts erupted from the other side of the farm. Colt flipped his head over.
“We caught two of them in the hospital.” A man fireman-carried a smaller person toward the scene in the snow. He stopped ten feet from Ben. “What the hell?”
“We’ve had a bit of a disturbance here, too.”
“Where should I put her?”
“In the stable. We’ll keep them all there overnight.”
The man carrying the unconscious woman took off, cutting through the space between Larkin and Colt. A shock of blonde curls flopped against his back as he headed toward the barn. It can’t be.
Colt twisted back the other way. Crap. There was no mistaking that unruly hair. Brianna was one of the women. But who was the other?
The second man followed, carrying a woman with a bandage wrapped around her upper arm. It was soaked in blood. Oh, no. Colt couldn’t believe it. What were they doing in the hospital?
He had to alert Walter. With a deep breath, Colt began to shout. “Walter! Walter Sloane! Walter!”
Ben kicked him in the side, but he kept shouting. “Walter!”
“Tracy!” Walter’s voice rose above the din. “What the hell?” His feet ran past Colt. “Put her down. That’s my wife!”
Ben bellowed toward the barn. “Stand down!”
Walter kept running.
A gunshot cracked in the night. “Stop running or I’ll shoot him.”
Walter slowed, his eyes darting between Colt and Dani on the ground and Tracy still dangling unconscious from the man’s shoulder. He shook his head, unable to make sense of it. “That’s my wife Daniel’s carrying. What happened to her?”
“She was found somewhere she didn’t belong.”
“Then she had a damn good reason.”
“We’ll get to the bottom of it. But for now, she goes in the stable.”
Walter argued and Colt tuned him out. Dani needed him. He turned back and her eyelids fluttered. Stay with me, sweetheart. Stay with me. Colt reached out a hand.
Her lips were blue.
He touched her cheek. Cool and clammy.
She closed her eyes.
No! He couldn’t bear it. Forget the kids he’d seen earlier. Forget all the people on the farm he didn’t even know. They let the best person he’d ever met suffer while they bickered like children. No more.
It didn’t matter if Walter thought they could be allies. It didn’t matter if Colt didn’t make it out alive. Dani meant more to him than another sunrise.
He would avenge this injustice and she would make it out of there alive. He would take these people straight with him to hell. He dug one knee into the snow and pushed up to stand.
“Christ. Not you again.”
Colt turned, ready to take Ben out with all his fury. A crack lit his ear on fire.
He was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Chapter Twenty-Two
WALTER
Jacobson Family Farmhouse
Near Truckee, CA
7:00 a.m.
Walter stared at the unconscious form of his wife. Her hair dusted the snow as the son of bitch who carried her stomped toward the barn. The scene before him was straight out of some of their worst days after the EMP.
Dani bleeding all over the ground. Colt unconscious beside her. Larkin hog tied and furious. Brianna and Tracy dangling like sacks of potatoes from strangers’ shoulders. Walter clenched his fists and fought back a rising swell of rage.
It boiled and thickened in his gut, burning through his resolve and patience. When Ben walked into the storage room he’d woken up in and explained his position, Walter had been calm. Agreeable, even. He’d gone along with the decision to bring him to the farm where they could confirm his veracity.
But standing out in the freezing temperatures, shaking
not from the cold but from pure fury… It did things to a man.
Bad things.
Walter turned to Ben. “My wife needs medical attention. She’s bleeding through an Israeli bandage on her arm.”
Ben nodded to Daniel. “Is that true?”
“She’s been shot.”
Walter seethed. “Dani is unconscious. If she dies, I can’t control what happens next.” He glanced at Colt. “The man you caught will be the least of your problems.”
“Are you insinuating more of your people will come?”
“Damn straight.” Larkin spat on the ground. “And they won’t be so hospitable.”
Ben’s nostrils flared. “Take the injured women to the medical facility. The other one can go with the men to the stables.”
Craig hurried up to Dani and scooped her body into his arms. She flopped like a rag doll as he double-timed it out of sight.
Walter swallowed. “I need to be with my wife.”
Ben thought it over, glancing between him, Larkin, and Colt, still unconscious on the ground. “All right.”
Walter turned and followed Daniel around the stable to a building he’d never seen. Made of concrete block painted brown, it hugged the slope of the land up into the foothills at the rear of the farm.
Daniel shifted Tracy’s weight and knocked on the door. It opened a moment later. A woman Walter didn’t know ushered them inside.
“Take her to the triage area. The other girl is in the main room.”
Walter glanced around. The place was set up like a small family doctor. Desk, cabinets for supplies, a cot in the corner, and a swinging door to a room beyond. They had spent more time outfitting this place than the barn.
Must expect a lot of injuries.
Walter waited as Daniel carried Tracy to the cot and laid her down. Only then did he approach. Oh, Tracy. He reached out and pulled her hair off her face, revealing a swollen, purple bruise on her temple. Bastards.
Her left arm dangled off the side of the cot and Walter picked it up. The bandage was soaked with blood. He didn’t know how long he stood there, cradling his wife’s arm and willing her to wake up, but his legs grew stiff and his back ached when he moved.
