Echoes of War

by Cheryl Campbell

  No one emerged from the trees to bother the women and children, so Dani moved on, hoping they wouldn’t stay much longer.

  When she and Brody arrived at Union Street, Dani paused. She crouched behind a tree and patted the ground with her palm. Brody lay next to her feet, and she put her hand on his side. An armored MP vehicle rumbled by without stopping. She waited until the sound of the vehicle’s engine disappeared before moving again. She crept forward toward the street and watched for any movement. No MPs patrolled the area—thankfully, since Brody’s bark rang out, startling Dani. She’d left him at the tree. He wagged his tail despite her glare at him.

  “C’mon,” she hissed, and the dog bounded from the trees to join her. “We have to work on your stealth,” she said with a whisper.

  The pair continued to the former baseball field, and Dani remained in the trees as she rounded the outfield.

  She spotted Xan waiting near the half-collapsed dugout long before he saw her. “Hey,” she said, and he turned. Brody growled, and she shushed him.

  Xan smiled, but his eyes were on the dog. “Hey. Who’s this?”

  “A stray I found yesterday. How are you?” Dani asked before kissing him.

  “Much better now.” He kept his arms around her waist. He leaned in to kiss her again, but Brody pushed his body between them. “What the hell?”

  Dani tried to push Brody aside with one hand. He didn’t budge. “Move.”

  Xan scowled, released Dani, and took a step back. He shifted his posture as if preparing to kick Brody.

  “Kick him and I’ll break your leg,” Dani said.

  Xan froze and stared at her. “He’s in the way.”

  “So?”

  “I’ll make him move if you won’t.”

  Dani tightened her jaw, and Xan backed off. He stood balanced, no longer poised to deliver a kick. Instead, he folded his arms across his chest with a frown.

  She snorted a laugh. “You’re pouting now? I had no idea you could be so petulant.”

  “Petulant? Big word for a Brigand.”

  “Fuck you.” She turned to leave.

  “Dani, wait,” Xan said, and she stopped. He tried to approach her again, and Brody growled. “Damn dog.”

  She couldn’t conceal her grin. Brody might be a bit bony, but his size still intimidated Xan. Plus, Brody didn’t care for Xan’s company. Dani went through the list of people Brody liked and didn’t like. Three skulking Brigands in the forest and Xan were on the shit list.

  What kind of person wants to kick a dog? “Huh,” she said, looking at Brody.

  “What?” Xan asked.

  Dani turned her attention to Xan. “Oh, just realizing how smart he is.”

  “You need to get rid of him. He’s a bag of bones, anyway. You need to find your own food, you don’t need to be bothering trying to feed him too.”

  “Don’t worry about what I have for responsibilities. Is that also a big word for a Brigand?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “The dog needs to go. He won’t let me near you,” Xan said with a wave of his hand at the animal.

  Brody remained between Dani and Xan, and she appreciated the dog’s presence. She liked Xan, but there was something about the man that Brody disliked in the same way he’d disliked the Brigand men earlier. Xan was attractive and smart, but she had just witnessed a jerk side of him she hadn’t seen before. Noted.

  “Me or the dog, Dani.”

  “Really?” Dani laughed. “You’re such an ass.”

  “We’ve been seeing each other every couple of days for a few weeks. You’ve had the dog for one day!”

  “I’m keeping him.”

  “Is she at least fucking you?” Xan sneered at the dog. “Because I’m not getting any.”

  Dani drove her fist into Xan’s mouth. His head snapped back with the blow, and he covered his mouth with one hand after regaining his balance. Blood flowed from his lip, and he examined the blood on his fingers for a moment before glaring at her. “Bitch.”

  Brody’s growl turned in to a snarl as he stalked toward the man.

  Xan backed up a few steps, and Dani turned to leave.

  “C’mon, B,” she said. She smiled; she liked the sound of her dog’s new nickname.

  Brody joined her, and they headed back for the tree line, leaving Xan alone with his bloody lip.

  CHAPTER

  17

  Once deep in the trees and back in Brigand territory, Dani stopped and rubbed her face with her hands. She took a deep breath and allowed the remainder of her anger at Xan to pass. She grinned. Punching him for his insult had felt great. She knelt and scratched Brody’s ears and neck. He twitched his skin and used his rear leg to scratch harder at a place on his neck.

  “Flea check and more food for you tonight, big guy.” She kissed the top of his head. “If you can intimidate people with your ribs sticking out, you’ll be a brute with more weight, right?”

  His tail disturbed the leaves near his rump as it wagged.

  A high-pitched scream brought Dani to her feet. She wasn’t far from the old Standpipe and park. If the MP families hadn’t left yet, she wasn’t far from them either. Careful to remain quiet, she jogged toward the noise. Another scream made her feet move faster, with less regard for stealth. Dani reached the tree line and swore. The three Brigands she’d passed on the trail were attacking the women and children.

  One woman was on the ground and not moving. One of the Brigand men was pinning the other woman to the ground, while the other two men were tying up three of the children.

  Brody growled.

  “Quiet,” Dani hissed at him. She scanned the area for the fourth, the oldest, child but didn’t see him. With the men occupied, she slipped around the park, moving closer to the woman on the ground. Still unnoticed, Dani shrugged out of her pack, left the trees, and knelt by the woman. She had a lump on her forehead. Dani shook her shoulder.

  The woman’s eyes fluttered open, and she gasped, recoiling from Dani’s touch.

  “I won’t hurt you,” Dani said softly. “Get in those trees”—she gestured behind her—“and circle that way. When you reach the road, go across it and stay in that direction until you reach the barracks.”

  “My son.”

  “I’ll find him and send him to the trees to meet you. Okay?”

  The woman nodded.

  “Hey!” one of the men shouted.

  “Shit. Go, lady.” Dani dragged the woman to her feet and shoved her in the direction of the forest. Dani approached the men with her hands up. The three younger children shrieked and cried, and Dani still didn’t see the taller boy. The man—who, Dani now saw, had been preparing to rape the other woman—ended his efforts as Dani approached. He re-zipped his trousers, pulled the woman up by her hair, and kept her on her knees while he stood. The woman wept, but Dani kept her eyes on the men. Brody growled as he walked beside her.

  “Gentlemen, not a good day to start a war with the MPs.” Dani’s eyes scanned the area, weighing options, looking for things she could use if the men decided to fight instead of leave the remaining woman and children alone. She proceeded through a mental list of options like Gavin had taught her.

  “They’re in our territory,” the man holding the woman said.

  The children screamed, and the noise almost pulled Dani’s attention from the men. Almost. “Yeah,” she said, eyes on her opponents, “but you’re fucking with MP families. There will be hell to pay for this, and I don’t want to welcome an MP raiding party because of you three pricks.”

  “Shut up!” the man screamed at the two wailing girls he held, which only caused more crying.

  “Why do you need the kids, anyway?” Dani asked.

  “These three will trade for a lot of food and weapons to the right person,” the third man said. “The reasons for their interest are their business.” He yanked the young boy closer to him by the back of his shirt and grinned.

 
Sex slaves. Dani’s stomach turned at the man’s sneer. Movement behind him caught her attention, and she saw a young face peering down at her from a broken window embedded in the brickwork around the water tower. You picked a terrible place to hide, kid.

  “Since you let the other woman escape, we’ll take you instead,” the man keeping the woman on her knees said. He struck her and she fell, unconscious.

  Brody leapt forward with a vicious snarl and sank his teeth into the man’s arm. His actions altered Dani’s attack plan; she charged the man holding the two girls instead. She slammed her boot into his groin, and he released the children to hold his crotch as he crumpled.

  Brody was keeping his Brigand busy, so Dani only needed to deal with the final man holding the young boy. He released the boy, and to her surprise, the child ran to her and clung to her leg. She struggled to dislodge him from her leg, and the man grinned. She didn’t know someone so little could be so strong, and she didn’t want to hurt him.

  “Freakin’ leech.” Dani pried one of his arms free. When she looked up to locate the man, he’d closed the distance between them and was bringing his fist down toward her head. She twisted and almost avoided the blow, but his fist clipped her cheek. The boy wailed and remained attached to her leg. With her balance skewed and her ability to move freely compromised, Dani fell. She scrambled away from the approaching man and finally managed to peel the child off her body. She turned him toward the trees and was relieved to see his mother crossing the field to come back.

  “There’s your mom. Go.” Dani gave the boy a shove. He recognized his mother and started running toward her.

  The man’s shoulder caught Dani in the side as she stood. They crashed to the ground in a tangle. She rolled and slammed her right fist into his unprotected left side, the same way Gavin had done to her so many times before. He grunted with the impact and swung for her head. She turned her body so the blow hit the back of her shoulder, then struck the same spot on his ribs several times before rolling back to her feet.

  He cursed as he stood and held one hand against his aching side. “I’ll kill you for that.”

  Brody’s teeth found the back of the man’s thigh, and he howled with pain. He spun to dislodge the dog, and Dani leapt onto his back. She wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on as he whirled in a circle. She tightened her grip, and his steps faltered. Once he was on the ground and not moving, she unwound her arms.

  Brody’s first victim had fled, the man Dani had kicked remained whimpering on the ground, and the third man was now unconscious from her choking him. Dani wanted to take a moment to rest, but she instead went to the woman still on the ground. The two girls clung to their mother and flinched when Dani approached, though their fear lessened when Brody began licking their faces.

  The woman stirred and sat up.

  “Your friend is waiting for you,” Dani said. “Go back to the barracks.”

  The woman nodded and winced at the movement.

  “Yeah, bitch of headache, I know, but you have to leave. Wait just inside the trees, and I’ll send the last kid. Okay?”

  The woman nodded again, and Dani helped her stand. She watched them move across the field toward the trees for a moment, then headed for the Standpipe.

  She stepped through the doorway that was missing a door and looked up the long, winding row of broken steps.

  “Hey, kid. This place is a death trap.”

  A board creaked from somewhere on the stairs that Dani couldn’t see. She poked her head outside. The two men still lay on the ground, though the one that had taken her kick to the crotch was moving more now. Dani checked the nearby forest. The two women and three children were leaving.

  “Wait! Ugh. The idiots forgot the last kid,” Dani said with a grumble. She returned her attention to the interior of the Standpipe. “Kid, c’mon. Your mother is leaving your ass.”

  “Neither of them is my mother,” a voice said from above.

  “I don’t care. They’re leaving without you. C’mon down.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Look, I know you’re scared—”

  “I’m stuck.”

  Fuck! Dani closed her eyes and passed her hand through her hair. If she was going to get the kid back home with the two MP families, she needed to hurry. A missing MP child following a Brigand attack would create a shit storm she didn’t want to be anywhere near. “Uh, okay. I’ll come to you.”

  She stepped around the leaves and other debris that had blown into the entryway after years without a door. Garbage left by Brigands who had slept in the Standpipe crumpled beneath her boots as she moved along the inside portion of the brick wall. The first few steps of the spiral stairs leading around the tower to the uppermost level were gone. Brody leapt past the gap and started up the stairs before she could stop him.

  “Brody!”

  He continued his climb.

  “Ugh! Hey, kid, my dog is coming up first, but he’s harmless.”

  “My name is Oliver Jackman. My dad is an MP.”

  “Wonderful. Dad’s an MP,” Dani said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “I’m Dani. The hound is Brody. I’m coming up.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  Most of the lower boards were gone—likely used for fires during the winter—so Dani had to climb along the rusted metal framing to reach the first real step. Brody’s leap impressed her more following the difficulty she had getting her body off the ground. Without having seen Oliver close up yet, she assumed he was an agile little thing to have gotten up the stairs too.

  The steps groaned beneath her weight, some buckling inward or sagging when she placed her boot on a damaged board. She was reduced to crawling on her hands and feet to try to distribute her weight better. Her body lurched forward when one hand fell through a rotted step, but she regained her balance.

  “I like your dog,” Oliver said.

  Dani was too focused on not falling to her death to respond. She wound her way around the inside of the Standpipe and finally spotted the boy. Brody wagged his tail at her arrival and whimpered. Oliver sat on a step near the top of the structure; there was an almost five-foot gap between the last step on Dani’s segment of the stairs and Oliver’s rump.

  “Once I got up this far, the steps broke apart behind me,” Oliver said.

  Dani peered down through the hole. A fall from her current height would cause severe injuries, if not kill her. If she died, she’d come back as an incapacitated ten-year-old girl with wannabe child sex slave traders in the field right outside. Retrieving this boy wasn’t going to be a quick rescue. She needed rope, lots of rope, and at least one extra pair of hands. What she had was no rope and a dog that was entirely too happy with their predicament.

  “Okay. B, I need you to move,” Dani said.

  Brody licked her cheek.

  She grabbed a handful of fur at his neck to guide him down the first few steps. “Go.”

  The dog’s tail lowered, and he started down the stairs. He paused to look back, and Dani pointed for him to continue his descent.

  “Oliver, you have to jump.”

  The boy’s eyes widened.

  “I’m not kidding. You need to jump, and do it now. I’ll catch you.”

  “The boards are rotten.”

  “You should have considered that before you climbed up here and got yourself stuck.”

  “Find my dad. Captain Miles Jackman. He’ll come with other MPs to get me. Just tell Dad you’re not with those men.”

  “You really think they’re going to believe a Brigand after what just happened to those women and kids?”

  “I’ll tell Dad how you helped. I watched you through the window.”

  “Yeah, give Captain Dad my best when you see him. I’ll stay away from the MPs all the same. Stop stalling, Oliver.”

  Oliver frowned, but he inched his rump closer to the last stair before the gap.

  Dani looked out the broken window closest to her. The man she’d kicke
d remained on his knees, hunched over. The man she’d choked into unconsciousness was stirring.

  “Jump now, kid.” She scooted as close as she dared to the edge of the gap and extended her arms. “Those men are getting up. We need to be out of here before they recover. We’re both dead if they find us. Understand?”

  Oliver nodded and took a deep breath. He shifted his feet a few times. Dani sighed audibly at the continued delay, and the boy’s eyes met hers.

  “I’m scared,” he said.

  “Jump anyway.”

  Tears formed in his eyes, and a deep frown crossed his face. He pinched his eyes closed and leapt. His jump was a little short. Dani lunged for him and caught him as he fell, but his weight pulled her more off balance. The uppermost step broke beneath her stomach, and her knee punched a hole through another board. The hole, though painfully pinching her knee, kept her from being dragged off the stairs. She wrestled with Oliver, who was struggling in terror at almost having fallen, and finally managed to pull him up and move them both away from the edge.

  Breathing heavily, Dani leaned her back against the brick wall to rest. Oliver slid closer to her, trembling.

  “You’re fine,” Dani said.

  He nodded and continued to tremble.

  The wood groaned beneath their combined weight. Dani ended her moment of rest and herded the boy down the stairs.

  Brody’s growl echoed up through the interior of the tower. Dani groaned. “That can’t be good.”

  Oliver turned to head back up the stairs, and Dani caught the back of his shirt.

  “Don’t panic. Stay behind me, but don’t try to go back up the steps. They’re falling apart, and we’re still too high to survive a fall.”

  Oliver nodded, and he shifted to stand behind her. Dani picked her way down the stairs, the boy following her a few steps behind. Brody’s loud snarl was matched by a man’s shout as the two attacked each other. A sharp yelp followed, and Dani no longer heard Brody. She quickened her pace down the stairs, but her balance was shaken as the stairs shuddered beneath her feet. She clung to a piece of the rail and lowered her rump to the steps.