Edge of Collapse Series | Book 6 | Edge of Survival

by Stone, Kyla

  “You’re losing focus.” Liam sat on the edge of a large stump and checked the bandages beneath his shirt, barely winded. “You’re already forgetting what I taught you.”

  “You’re going to let Luther go.” The words burst out of her before she could think better of it. It’d been weighing on her mind since the stupid town hall meeting.

  Yesterday, Dave Farris had announced that the council would release James Luther tomorrow afternoon, banishing him from Fall Creek on pain of death.

  Hannah and Bishop wouldn’t change their minds. Liam, though, was different. Liam was a soldier, a warrior. He did what needed to be done.

  If anyone could alter the vote, it was him.

  Liam gazed off into the trees, his expression stony. “That’s not my call.”

  “Like hell it’s not. You saved this town. What you say, goes.”

  “This isn’t a dictatorship. I’m not even on the town council. For now, the council decides.”

  “And you’re just going to stand there and watch a murderer get off scot-free?”

  “If that’s how the council votes.”

  “That’s a steaming bucket load of crap and you know it.”

  Neither spoke for a long moment. The strength returned to her exhausted limbs, even as anger built inside her, hot and dangerous as a live wire. “You should have killed him.”

  “I told you, that’s not for me to decide.”

  “You should have killed him. You know it’s true!”

  “Something’s bothering you.” He said it like a statement, not a question. “Something more than Luther.”

  Doubt curdled in her gut. She almost told him. Nearly blurted out what had happened with the dog attack, with the bizarre, menacing strangers.

  And Sutter.

  Liam’s return had served as the perfect distraction. No one had asked questions about Quinn and Milo’s story. It had been easy to lie. Maybe too easy.

  Guilt pricked her as she watched Liam. She wasn’t a liar, and she’d hated asking Milo to play along, but she knew what they would say, knew what Liam would say.

  Let the adults deal with Sutter. Someone with more skill, more experience, someone bigger, older, better. Or maybe they wouldn’t do anything with Sutter at all.

  The stupid town council wasn’t doing a damn thing about Luther. They were going to let him go.

  She couldn’t trust them anymore. She couldn’t trust anyone, not even her own traitorous heart.

  But she knew one thing—she could take care of things herself. She’d murdered Rosamond Sinclair with her own two hands, hadn’t she?

  Luther was still alive.

  Sutter was still out there.

  The howling loss inside her, the misery and emptiness and despair—it wouldn’t end until they were six feet under.

  Luther was under armed guard; she couldn’t get to him. Once the council released him, he’d be in the wind. Long gone.

  Sutter, on the other hand…

  Sutter had ruled the militia, had conspired with Rosamond and wreaked havoc on Fall Creek. Sutter had killed her mother.

  The terrible images flashed behind her eyelids: Octavia kneeling in the snow in front of the courthouse steps, hands bound, her gaunt jaw set, eyes empty. The bodies falling with each crack of the rifle, Sutter holding the gun, satisfaction curling his lip, his eyes gleaming with violence.

  “Quinn,” Liam said.

  She felt it—that dangerous undercurrent just beneath her feet, darkness waiting to swallow her whole. That low buzzing beneath her skin, cutting like a thousand paper cuts.

  She knew then, what she would do. Why she had resisted telling anyone about what she’d seen.

  The beginnings of a plan emerged in her head, rough and formless, shifting like oil on water. A seed of something, shaping itself into life.

  It would fix whatever had broken inside her.

  “Quinn? You finished for today?”

  Quinn blinked, refocusing on Liam, on the blade in her hand, on the trees, the yard, the wood piled against the shed.

  She could sleep for a week on the cold hard ground. But she didn’t. She wouldn’t. There was too much to do. She climbed to her feet.

  Mattias Sutter was a dead man walking.

  And she was the one who would kill him.

  Ignoring the agony in her muscles, Quinn adjusted her feet, tensed her thighs, and lowered into a fighting stance. “Again.”

  39

  Liam

  Day Ninety-Seven

  James Luther stood in the center of the empty highway, his hands bound. He wore the same clothes he’d worn for weeks, his gaunt face smeared with sweat and grime.

  He faced them, defiant and angry. “You can’t do this to me!”

  Hannah stiffened. At her side, Ghost let out a warning growl.

  “Consider yourself fortunate that you’re still breathing,” Liam said.

  With Luther trussed up in a makeshift cart behind Liam’s bike, he and Hannah had ridden twenty miles north outside of Fall Creek, past the local farms and neighborhoods, out to where Napier Avenue crossed Old 31, near Lake Michigan College.

  Liam had urged the council to drop Luther in the middle of nowhere sixty miles away to make it difficult for him to return and wreak havoc, but the council had voted against it.

  Their gas reserves were dwindling to critical levels; they needed to save what remained for necessities and emergencies.

  Quinn’s words echoed in his mind. You should have killed him. He wasn’t sure that she was wrong—or that their actions today wouldn’t come back to bite them in the butt.

  “Where am I gonna go?” Luther said. “No one’s going to take me in!”

  Liam withdrew his knife and sliced the zip tie binding the man’s wrists. “Not our problem.”

  “You’re sentencing me to die!”

  Liam snorted. “If that were true, you’d already be dead.”

  “At least you have a chance. I suggest you take it.” Hannah’s voice was firm, her eyes unflinching. “If you come back here, I will kill you myself.”

  Liam didn’t doubt she meant every word. She was compassionate, but she was no snowflake.

  Luther’s face contorted. “You said you were different from the militia.”

  “We are.”

  “You’re as faithless, though, aren’t you? A liar and a cheat. You swore to me. You gave your word.”

  Hannah winced, but her chin remained lifted. “I’m not a saint. I never said I was.”

  Luther glared at Hannah like he trusted her about as far as he could throw her, but he was in no position to argue. He had nothing and he knew it.

  He should pray for their mercy, though he didn’t deserve an ounce of Hannah’s kindness.

  “Talk to her like that again, and you’ll be walking out of here with a broken arm,” Liam said. A promise, not a warning.

  Luther deflated. “Just take care of my father. You promised to do that, too. Or is your word completely worthless?”

  “It isn’t worthless,” Hannah said.

  “Don’t punish him for my actions. Please.” His voice cracked on the word please, a hint of desperation in his eyes. “I may not be innocent, but he is.”

  “I promise I will take care of your father,” Hannah said with a benevolence and grace that surprised Liam, though it shouldn’t have.

  He marveled at her generosity. To show kindness in the face of hatred revealed strength and courage, not weakness. Hatred was the easiest path, though it wasn’t a path without great cost, which Hannah understood better than most. So did Liam.

  Her compassion was even more admirable considering the hell she’d endured. Most people would’ve cracked in mind, body, and spirit. The few POWs he knew who’d been tortured at the hands of ISIS or Al-Qaeda were shells of their former selves.

  This man had set fire to Noah’s house with Milo still inside. Who would have blamed her if she’d hung Luther on the steps of the courthouse and left his body to rot?
>
  Liam had half a mind to do that very thing himself.

  Luther started to speak, but Liam had had enough. He’d been far too patient already—for Hannah’s sake, not for this waste of oxygen. “Go while you still have the chance.”

  The hardness in Liam’s voice stopped Luther cold. Without another word, he turned and trudged south, shoulders hunched like his blue camo backpack carried the weight of the world rather than the supplies Fall Creek had provided him: two days of food and water, a change of clothes, a tarp, a map, and a small pocketknife buried at the bottom.

  The council was far more benevolent than Liam.

  Liam and Hannah watched him begin the long journey to wherever he’d end up, his dark form diminishing into the dreary horizon. Their breaths jetted in the early morning air. Fog drifted through the barren trees like ribbons, coating everything in a gray haze.

  Ghost, who’d remained at Hannah’s side during the exchange, trotted toward the edge of the highway, sniffing the melting patches of snow, searching for something interesting to hunt for breakfast.

  Liam kept his right hand resting on the butt of his Glock until Luther disappeared from sight. More than once, he was tempted to draw his long gun and put an end to this ill-favored experiment before it began.

  Instead, he withdrew his binoculars from his go-bag and studied the terrain.

  He felt Hannah next to him, as he always felt her, even when she was in the next room, even when she was miles away.

  Her shoulders tensed, her spine stiff. He could see the conflict in her face.

  His voice softened. “We couldn’t let him stay.”

  “I know.” She sighed. “We gave him our word, though.”

  “Situations change. We did what we had to do to win.”

  “I know that in my head, but it feels like that’s not good enough.”

  “And if we’d let him stay in Fall Creek? Given him a house and made him a regular member of the community? What would have happened?”

  Even though she understood the stakes, he still asked the question. And she still answered. Saying the words aloud somehow solidified it for them both.

  “We could never trust him. His group killed innocent people; whether he pulled the trigger himself is irrelevant. The families of the dead want justice—revenge. As long as he remained here, violence and death would follow him. We’re trying to bring Fall Creek together, and his presence would only divide us.”

  “You did the best you could in difficult circumstances. Luther better count his lucky stars that his head is still attached to his body. Far as I’m concerned, he got off easy.”

  She turned to face him, doubt lingering in her eyes. “Sometimes I don’t know. If we’re doing the right thing. If we’re sacrificing too much to do the right thing. Or if we’re putting everyone at risk, making a grave mistake in the name of honor.”

  “By letting him live.”

  She nodded. “And other things.”

  He scratched at his jaw and gave a heavy sigh. “That’s the quandary. It’s the balancing act. How to walk the edge of the pit without falling in, without becoming the monsters we’re fighting. Hopefully, we got it right this time.”

  “Have we?”

  He turned the question back on her. “What do you think?”

  “It’s possible.” She squinted, chewed on her lower lip. “I think so. His father is here. He can’t take his father with him because he’s sick and needs oxygen. So, the only way his father lives is if we allow him to stay and take care of him. If Luther returns for any reason, he threatens the well-being of the one person he cares about more than himself.”

  Three months ago, Liam would’ve put a bullet in Luther’s skull, no questions asked, no permission granted. Three months later, he was a different man: still a soldier at heart, but he understood Hannah’s desire to be more than violence and retribution.

  It was something he wanted, too. To live for something more. To be something more.

  “I trust your judgment, Hannah.” He realized that he truly did. Hannah had a keen ability to read people. Maybe a better sense than he did, since he assumed the worst of everyone, saw evil intent where she saw frustration, hurt, mistakes. Relationships—and people—capable of redemption.

  “And I trust yours. We have to do hard things, even some things that make us hate ourselves a bit.” She offered a wry smile. “But only a bit.”

  She shivered. He resisted the urge to put his arm around her shoulder and draw her against him. Now wasn’t the right time. He wasn’t sure when it would be.

  His thoughts strayed to the night he’d returned, when she’d held his hand, her expression strained with worry, panic, and something else—something he’d longed to see but wasn’t sure was real. After all, he’d been disoriented from the pain, bordering on delirious.

  Before he could say what was in his heart, she’d fled the room. They still hadn’t spoken of it. Maybe he’d imagined the whole thing.

  They headed back toward the bikes leaning against the guard rail. Liam stifled a wince. His lower back was a constant fire, but new pains had joined the old ones.

  He’d been shot before, but this wound wasn’t healing as fast.

  Maybe it was the lack of first-world healthcare, or maybe he was just getting old, three decades of pushing his body to the limit catching up to him. Eventually, the piper always had to be paid.

  Hannah flashed him a concerned look.

  “It’s nothing.”

  “I know I don’t need to lecture you. Evelyn has slipped into that role nicely, I think.”

  He half-smiled, half-grimaced. “She certainly has.”

  Evelyn and Travis had settled right into Fall Creek, as he knew they would. They were tough but kind and generous, like Jessa. Evelyn had hit it off with Molly, uncowed by the older woman’s prickly personality. Nor was she intimidated by anyone else, not even Liam.

  As an ER nurse, Evelyn took over the medical clinic with Lee acting in a support position. Travis cared for L.J. and was working on a plan with Annette to restart education for the kids, with the usual math, science, and language arts classes bolstered with training on weapons safety, food preparation, and survival skills.

  When they reached the bicycles, Hannah hesitated. “If you want a massage tonight, to help with the pain…I’m free after dinner.”

  How he’d missed her nearness, her breath on the back of his neck, her strong and capable hands kneading the pain from his battered body in more ways than one. “I do.”

  She bit her lower lip. “Okay. Good. This afternoon, Dave, Bishop, and I are helping Albert Edlin and a few other farmers figure out a plan for planting season. I mean, it’s April already. Can you believe it? I know nothing about farming, but I guess we’re all learning. It should be fun.”

  “Your definition of ‘fun’ is vastly different than mine.”

  She smiled. “Fun is what you make it.”

  He didn’t make a move for his bike. He didn’t want to leave her. “Well, in that case. Tomorrow morning, Bishop and I are headed to Stevensville to check on the nuclear power plant. Luther claimed there’s a National Guard unit stationed there. Maybe they have some information for us. At the least, they should know how things stand locally.

  “I also want to verify the accounts of the Community Alliance, see this destruction of property for myself. We need to know what we might be up against.” He hesitated. “Do you want to come with us? I’m sure Molly wouldn’t mind watching Charlotte and Milo for a bit.”

  Hannah’s smile outshone the sun. “I do.”

  40

  Quinn

  Day Ninety-Nine

  Quinn crept around the corner of a brick building and peered at the massive warehouse set off the road. It had to be two or three hundred thousand square feet of four-story steel walls with a slate-black metal roof.

  Two additional structures flanked the warehouse, a large glass and brick office complex and a manufacturing plant where fridges, stoves,
and dishwashers were built. Several semi-trucks littered the vast parking lot, their doors flung open, trash, plastic, and cardboard boxes scattered about. This was Vortex headquarters.

  Xander Thorne said he’d be here. Which meant that Sutter was here, too.

  It had taken her hours to travel north to the outskirts of St. Joe, near the neighboring city of Benton Harbor. Twenty miles by bicycle but they were hazardous miles, fraught with danger.

  She’d run into a few attempted ambushes, but she heeded the warning signs before she got too close. It had snowed a bit last night, and a thin dusting of white powder revealed furtive footsteps along the shoulder, vehicles angled too perfectly across the road.

  She kept her eyes open and her ears strained, paying attention to her surroundings the way Liam had instructed. Situational awareness will keep you alive.

  Quinn planned to stay alive.

  Uneasiness flared through her. Now that she was here, she wasn’t sure how to approach. Just walk right up and announce herself? Shout her presence before anyone shot her, on accident or otherwise?

  She shivered and drew her scarf around her neck, flexing her gloved fingers to keep warm.

  It was noon by the sun’s placement high in the sky, maybe forty degrees, but the sharp wind cut at her face and tunneled straight through her coat and jeans.

  She glimpsed movement in front of the building, but it was still too far to see. What Quinn wouldn’t give for a pair of binoculars.

  She’d packed everything she thought she’d need in her own go-bag. She’d used her school backpack, which she’d dumped free of crumpled Algebra II assignments, worn textbooks, pencils and pens, erasers, candy wrappers, and a calculator.

  What a difference a few months—and a world-ending EMP—could make.

  Now, the backpack was stuffed with an emergency mylar blanket, fresh socks and underwear, extra ammo for the Beretta and slingshot, two days’ worth of food, a Life Straw water filter and water bottle, a compass, and a paper map of Southwest Michigan she’d found in Gramps’ workshop.