by Sam Ryder
My assessment of the situation and litany of questions spiraled through my mind in less than a second before I sprang into action, rising onto all fours and wrenching Alpha from her holster. Before I could push all the way up, however, a heavy kick rocked my ribs. Clutching my stomach, I fell back down to the ground, gasping for air.
My eyes landed on Gehn, whose eyes were wild as strong hands clamped around her neck. I reached out and grabbed her hand, my fingers tightening around hers. Just as my hand caught hers, she jerked away. She kicked and screamed, flailing her arms about. I tried to get a hold of her, but she slipped through my fingers. I squinted to see her struggling as someone dragged her away by her hair. She clawed at the hands grasping her hair, desperate to loosen their grip.
What the fuck is going on?
Chuck yelped as a shadowy figure kicked him away, and then turned to race after the others that had assaulted our makeshift camp. Recovering a measure of my breath, I managed to turn and aim Alpha it in the direction the women had been taken. Without a clear shot, I couldn’t pull the trigger.
Besides Gehn and Hannah, there were three other figures silhouetted against the bright backdrop.
Wanderers. That was the only thing that made sense. It wasn’t a stretch. I knew Elias would send another round. But this group had our number more than the others. They had experience, managing to slip past our watch and into the heart of our camp while two-thirds of our group slept.
Fuck that. Ribs aching and throat screaming, I shoved to my feet and pushed off, accelerating in the direction of the figures. Everything was a blur as my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the sun. The trio had stopped, two of them holding the women’s heads down on the ground, asses in the air. It almost looked as if they were going to rape them first, then kill them. Though Elias was an evil man, I suspected this was not part of his orders. The third man turned, eyes widening when he saw me barreling toward him.
He recovered swiftly, however, raising a black baton and wielding it with expert precision, spinning it rapidly. Did I care? Hell no. He swung and I ducked enough to avoid a skull shot, taking the blow on my shoulder. The pain shuddered through me and I felt the arm go numb. Luckily it wasn’t my gun arm and all I needed was one arm. I cold-cocked him in the face with my weapon, saving myself a bullet.
He dropped like a sack of rocks.
I stepped over him, closing in on the two men holding the women. They were already unbuttoning their pants. Motherfuckers.
I strode toward them, prepared to put a bullet in each of their skulls, but something grabbed my leg, tripping me up. Damn. The dude I’d hit in the face was tougher than he looked. He scrambled on all fours over to me as I rolled to try to create distance between us. He was faster, however, managing to leap on top of me, pressing his knees into my chest and raining blows into my face. Blow spurted from my nose and stars danced before my eyes.
I was a combination of pissed off and impressed. They had the upper hand. These men were the best Elias had to offer, and they’d taken me by surprise. I’d fucked up.
“You work for Elias?” I asked. I needed to know for certain.
The man had stopped hitting me, cutting off my air by leaning in close, his face too close to mine, close enough that I could smell the garlic and onions on his breath. “We found our friends,” he said, referring to the two guys whose faces I’d blown off hours earlier. I guess that answered my question. Friends of Elias’s friends were friends of Elias too. “So we’re taking yours. If you want them back, you’ll have to come get them.” He stomped on my bad knee and I winced in pain. There was no way I’d scream and give them that satisfaction. But they had me well-scouted.
“Cutter!” Gehn screamed before one of them smacked her hard in the face. It almost felt as if I’d been hit.
“Shut the fuck up!” the man yelled.
“Where are you taking them?” I asked.
“Back home,” one of them said. “You’ll figure it out.”
“Why don’t you just kill me then?” I asked. It wasn’t like I wanted them to, but whatever was happening felt like a twisted game, one only an evil sadist like Elias would have ordered. Elias was a dirty son of a bitch. Since I decimated two of his men, he would torture me by preying on my weaknesses. No one answered me. I tried to open my eyes, but it was difficult. One of them was swollen shut and the other eyelid felt as heavy as an anvil.
I pulled myself up to my feet, stumbling around, still seeing stars. I had dropped my gun. For all I knew, they took it.
Something whistled through the air and I felt a blow to the head, a sharp spike of pain, and then saw nothing but darkness.
My body twitched involuntarily when I shook awake several hours later. The sun was setting on the horizon.
I had a nasty headache. The back of my head throbbed. My face felt puffy and crusted with blood.
I’d underestimated the Guild leader. Elias always planned ahead. It was his strongest quality. Hell, he’d probably sent the first two idiots in first to lull me into a false sense of security. It had worked. I ground the heel of my palm into the center of my forehead, which eased the pain somewhat.
Clearly, Elias had coached these men on how to get the drop on us. Everything about what had transpired felt professional. The men had only been pretending that they were going to rape the women, which made me do stupid, frantic things. That it was an act didn’t provide any relief, because they were still gone. The women I’d vowed to protect had been taken from me as easily as a toy from the grasp of a child.
Stop, I thought. This isn’t like before. I knew I needed to stop my emotions from taking control, lest I relive those dark days when I was unable to save my family from the end of the world. Think. I blinked my one eye I could still see from, assessing the situation.
He wants me.
Elias didn’t just want me dead, although he wanted that, too, he wanted me to suffer. Hannah and Gehn were the bait he knew I couldn’t resist. Which meant I had a little time to plan and recover. Elias wouldn’t kill Hannah or Gehn, at least not yet. If he killed them, it would ruin his little game.
He wanted me to rush off out of control, trying to be the hero. Despite the temptation to do just that, I needed to be patient. I would play their game, I had no choice, but at my own pace.
Elias, as smart as he was, had made a mistake. He was too cocky. His three men had me dead to rights. I was on the ground, unarmed, and they were standing over me. All they had to do was pull the trigger or slip a blade between my ribs. Letting me survive was a mistake.
I leaned my head back when I heard a whimper. Chuck hobbled over and put his head in my lap. I’d forgotten about him in all the chaos. He looked injured, but it could’ve been worse. They could’ve killed him. Maybe they thought they did, but Chuck was always a tough cur.
“Hey, boy,” I said to him, stroking the top of his head. “Sorry about that. We’ll get those bastards.”
Chuck looked up at me with his sad eyes. He had taken quite a shot—dogs his age really shouldn’t be absorbing blows like that.
“We need to regroup,” I told him. Talking to my dog always helped clear my mind. “Then we can find our way to Hannah and Gehn. I don’t want to get moving until we’re ready.”
I tried to stand up, but my knee gave out and I fell back to the ground, clutching my leg.
Goddamn, this knee! What is it going to take to get this thing feeling good again? Not getting stomped on every other day, that was for damn sure. For now, I just had to endure the pain and suck it up.
I stood again, this time gingerly putting pressure on my bad knee. With a very pronounced limp, I could move freely. I hoped I could cover the distance back to Rome. The men said they were taking Hannah and Gehn “home”, and though they hadn’t lived in Rome in a while, that was the only place they’d truly called home since the Blast, up until the time when the majority of their family—save Hannah—transformed into Enders.
I managed to hobble around our ca
mp area, but my body felt “off”. Something else was wrong. I searched the area for any supplies they’d left. Boot prints from the men and long scrapes from where the girls tried fighting them off peppered the ground.
I found Alpha lying in the dirt. I flipped open her barrel and confirmed that she was loaded. Then I hobbled over to where we’d been sleeping. All the ammo was still intact, along with the shotgun. It may have been a rookie move, or part of the game. If Elias wanted me armed, then he would be prepared. Maybe he wanted to make an example of me, especially considering my reputation was growing in the Ends.
I bent over to pick up the shotgun. “Arr, fuck!” I shouted, feeling a lightning bolt of pain rocket through my shoulder. I could hardly lift the weapon. Dammit. My shoulder was dislocated, perhaps from the blow it had taken or the fall to the ground or a combination of both.
It wasn’t my first time with a dislocated shoulder, so I knew how to deal with it. But it would suck. It always sucked.
“Ah, shit,” I said to Chuck. “I guess I gotta deal with this first.”
Chapter 35
Loners
I could hobble my way back to the city on a bad knee, slowly but surely. But if I couldn’t use one of my arms, I was dead to rights. I had to fix my shoulder before I did anything else.
One reason I hated dislocating a shoulder, other than the pain, was how fucking stupid I looked when I was popping it back in. It wasn’t an exact science; out in the wastelands, I had to fall on the shoulder with all my might and hope to God I hit it in the right spot. I usually aimed for a rock or a log that could provide enough of a landing zone to strike it just right.
Sighing to myself, I stepped in front of the log where Hannah was keeping watch the previous night. I looked out over the horizon, wondering if they were okay. Fresh anger roiled tornado-like inside me.
Channeling that anger, I geared myself up for what I had to do. I turned my back to the log and kicked off my good leg, landing shoulder blade first on the log. I screamed in agony from the impact, not caring if the whole world heard me. Despite the agonizing pain that seared through me, it didn’t work. It rarely worked on the first attempt. But I always hoped it would, just for my own sake.
Instead, I had to do it again. This time, I popped it back into place with a sickening grinding sound of bone on bone.
Thank God. Shit, that hurt.
I lay up against the log, panting, testing me arm to confirm that it was back in place. Sweat dripped from my chin.
“All right,” I said to Chuck. “We’re done here. Let’s move.”
Chuck rose to his feet, wagging his tail. He already seemed to be recovering from whatever hit—probably a kick—he’d taken. He never lacked for enthusiasm, even after we both took a beating.
The whole situation smelled bad. Elias had a gripe with Hannah for taking off on him, but was his only reason for coming for us because she knew of his partnership with the Rising? Soon that would likely all be out in the open anyway, so why the beef with us. It felt so…personal, and I wondered if Elias had held a grudge against me for all these years. To see me with Hannah, a woman he’d been tight with before she found out he wasn’t the man she thought he was…
Fuck, I thought, closing in on the idea. Is that what this is all about? Petty jealousy? I was with the woman he believed was his—like a possession. That thought, more than anything else, burned me up.
Unless there was more to the story.
I continued to circle the idea like my mind was a vulture closing in on a kill as I walked across the wasteland. The fact simply weren’t adding up.
After several hours, I saw another figure off in the distance. I didn’t have to tell Chuck to slow down—Chuck knew what to do. He followed my body language. When I slowed down and took a knee, he waited patiently with his head low to the ground.
Walking around the wasteland was a man—by himself.
A man traveling the wasteland was not odd. A man traveling by himself? That was odd. Nobody walked around by himself, at least not by choice. Well, except me. I was one of the few loners left. But I was an oddity. Just like this guy. I understood the irony of this being a red flag. But they had forced me into it. The only reason one walked by himself was if something took away his traveling partners—either by abandonment or by force. Is that what had happened to this guy? Was he ambushed like me?
He must’ve seen us before we saw him, which made me feel foolish. I’d been lost in my thoughts and missed him. He was walking directly towards us. While I was hesitant and suspicious, down on one knee, he walked straight ahead, not a care in the world.
Why isn’t he more on guard?
I stood up and made eye contact with him, raising my fist to let him know I saw him. He raised his fist back, a sign that meant Peace, friend out here in the Ends. I didn’t know whether to trust it, so I while I kept Alpha holstered and the shotgun pointed into the dirt, I was ready.
As we grew closer, I inspected him. He was unassuming: short, dark-skinned, skinny, bald. He wore a thin mustache under his hooked nose. Nothing suspicious or intimidating about him—except that he was alone.
“I am here in peace,” he announced as he approached.
“Okay,” I replied. “Me too, I guess.”
I squinted, noticing he had no visible weapon. He carried no pack. He wore sandals on his feet. There was nothing about this guy that told me he prepared himself for the journey he was on—and he was miles away from any semblance of civilization.
“What is your name, friend?” he asked, stopping in front of me.
“Cutter,” I replied. “Yours?”
“I am Killian,” he said. “You look hurt, Cutter.”
I looked down at my knee. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m a little worse for wear, but I’ll manage. What are you doing out here by yourself?”
“I could ask the same of you,” Killian replied, raising an eyebrow. “Perhaps we can keep each other’s company for the remainder of the night, take turns keeping watch?”
“With all due respect, sir, I have to keep moving. I’m not walking terribly fast, and I have to get back to the city.” If he was just a friendly traveler looking for a companion, then I was the wrong guy for the job. I started to move past him, but then he said, “You are looking to save your friends?”
Those words stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see him watching me calmly. “The fuck did you say?”
“You want to save your friends,” he said. It wasn’t a question anymore. “That’s why you are in a hurry.”
Anger torched my chest. “Listen, you little fuck, if you are working for Elias or know something about where he took them, you’re going to tell me or I’ll rip your arms from your shoulders and beat you with them.”
Despite my threat and my clear size and firepower advantage, Killian just stood there, cool as a cucumber. “I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I know. And I do not work for Elias. Come, let me build you a fire.”
His words stunned me. I didn’t want to waste any more time, but if this guy had any knowledge, I needed it. I wasn’t interested in building a fire, but the night had grown cold. While I was walking I could suffer it, but now that we were stopped, the icy wind shivered through me. A fire and a rest would probably be good for me. Within minutes, the man had built a fire and gestured for me to sit down. Not surprisingly, he seemed to be an expert woodsman.
“I’ll rustle up some grub,” he said. Before I could lift a finger in protest, he yanked a knife from a sheath strapped to his leg and set off into the darkness.
He reappeared perhaps a half-hour later, two dead critters in his left hand and a bloody knife in his right.
Hell of a hunter, too. What can’t this guy do?
He cleaned them both with precision and laid them over the fire to roast.
“Now, we can chat,” he said, sitting down on the ground across the fire from me. “We have time before the food is ready. Cutter, would you like to know who I am?”
> “I don’t give a shit who you are. All I need to know is how you knew my friends needed saving,” I said. “Let’s start there.”
He smiled, ignoring my request. “Sorry, sir, I prefer my tales to be complete, so I’m not misunderstood, so I’ll start at the beginning. I used to be a peaceful member of the Guild. Call me a scribe. Elias wanted me to take a history of the world since the Blast, for posterity sake.” He raised his hand and peeled his shirt sleeve away from his wrist to display a one-studded bracelet. “I was a First. Highly regarded in the Guild community and in general society. Before the Blast, I was a historian, so this job intrigued me. Also, I believed in Elias. He seemed to want to make things better. At least he did before, I think. At some point that changed.”
“No shit.”
He nodded. “I was close to him, as was your Hannah.”
“You know her?” That took me by surprise.
“Of course. We were part of the inner circle together, although he kept things from her, probably because he knew she wouldn’t like them. As it turned out, he was right. As for me, he thought I’d just follow him around like a puppy because I enjoyed my work. He underestimated my hatred for the Rising and everything they stand for—power and control. When he joined with them, it felt like when the Italians allied with Hitler and his Nazis. I can see the future, history repeating itself, as it does. I can see concentration camps filled with Enders. I can see Elias and Atticus wanting more and more power, deciding other groups aren’t worthy. That is no world to live in. So I left the Guild and embarked on my own.”
“Aren’t you worried about being ambushed?” I asked. “Nobody walks out here alone by choice.”
“I do not worry,” he said. “If someone wants me dead, they can kill me. But they generally come across me and realize I have nothing to offer of value. I do not carry money or useful weaponry. I only have my knife, and that is not of value.”
“How did you know I’m trying to save Hannah and Gehn? Have you seen them?”
