by Stone, Kyla
Something like pity sparked in her chest. “What did you do?”
He stared out at the lighthouse, a bright white shape against the dusky water. No lights anywhere, no beacon to guide wayward sailors home. “Something snapped inside me. I had so much anger. I knew if I stayed, I would’ve done something, hurt my own parents maybe, I don’t know. I collected my things and I left. Told them they wouldn’t see me again. They were no longer my family.”
He shuddered as if coming out of a fugue. “They’re dead now, anyway. No way they survived.”
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said, because what else was there to say?
His face hardened. “That time of my life is over. I went to the dorms, found a few of my friends still eking it out, and we left together. Made our way through the city, picking up recruits along the way. The stronger we got, the easier it was. I don’t think about the before. This is how we live now. This is the best way.”
Xander was lost, depressed, and angry. They all were. Hell, so was she. Maybe they weren’t so different from her after all.
She wasn’t crazy, though. Not yet.
“Why?” she asked, genuinely wanting to know.
“Because of what it gives you. You think any government ever had our best interests at heart? Any law? Any agency or company? It was all to keep us down, to make us slaves, to steal the American dream right out from under us. They gave us a form of power but it rendered us powerless!”
His voice rose with impassioned anger as he spoke, flailing his hands to punctuate his words. He seemed eager to explain, to get her on his side. He wanted her to believe. “This is how we take that power back, how we make the world ours!”
“By destroying everything?”
“Not everything—just everything that would enslave us, tempt us, pull us back into servitude. The sheep still cling to the old things, the dead dreams—the corner office, the blind climb of ambition, cushy jobs and fancy houses and weekends on the yacht. They want their phones and tablets and TVs to come back so they can deaden themselves, numb themselves, like a drug addict to their drug.”
She resisted rolling her eyes. “So, you’re trying to help people, then?”
“Nah. It’s not our job to wake them up. We take care of our own, live how we want to live, and spread the message through our work. Those who are like us will come to us of their own accord. Like you.”
He was more than a little insane. She couldn’t decide if he believed the nonsense he was spouting, or if he understood that his followers needed a creed, a dogma, some kind of ideology to cling to as the world they knew disintegrated around them.
Her hands curled into fists at her sides. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. All she knew was that she was angry, so incredibly angry.
She wanted to hit something, to hurt like she’d been hurt, to experience something, anything, as long as it was a release to this bitter, bottomless cup of sorrow.
She motioned to the long sword dragging from his hip. “And the weapons?”
“They’re of the old world. The time before electricity polluted everything and tech took over our lives. They’re a reminder of the warriors we once were. The warriors we are now.”
He grinned as he drew the sword, the metal scraping from the scabbard. He gave a vicious hacking swing, and Quinn stepped out of its deadly arc. Air whooshed by her face.
The thing was enormous and heavy, crafted of solid steel, not a fake replica but the real deal, and Xander wielded it with ease. He was stronger than he looked.
“The people need civilization about as much as they need a bad rash—or a hole in the head.”
“You’re a nihilist, then?”
“Nothing matters. Nothing is real. Not good and evil. Not right and wrong. They’re just constructs to control us.”
She couldn’t help herself. “Except for killing dogs.”
He flashed her a savage grin, his teeth almost glowing in the dim light. “Yeah, except for that.”
As twilight descended, thick dark clouds rolled across the horizon. A wall of storm clouds over the water headed their way.
Xander’s radio crackled. Tyrell’s scratchy voice came over the line. “We need you at the marina. Everything’s ready.”
Xander turned to Quinn, a manic glint barely visible in his eyes as the sky went dark. “We’re not done yet.”
47
Quinn
Day One Hundred
The wind kicked up, whipping Quinn’s clothes and pelting her face.
As lightning flashed in the black sky, the distant grumble of thunder grew closer. Waves lashed the dock, the boats rising and falling as water drenched her feet.
Quinn stood on a white steel dock, bracing herself, flashlight in hand as the others ransacked the boats in the marina. As expected, most had been scavenged.
Behind her stood an enormous three or four-story steel building. Inside, rows of boats were stored for the winter, everything from speedboats to massive yachts stacked on huge metal racks and shrink-wrapped in protective material.
Outside, some smaller boats bobbed in the water, tied to the docks. A huge hydraulic lift used to transport the boats from the storage building to the docks sat gathering dust. People must have used some other method to move them.
Xander directed his people to cut the ties and free every boat in the marina, then instructed Jett to torch the storage facility.
Rocco tossed a couple sleeping bags and pillows out of the hold of a sleek white yacht. Xander kicked them into the water. “Someone’s sleeping here. A couple of someones.”
Dahlia cackled. “Not anymore.”
“Why are you doing this?” Quinn asked.
“The storm will beat them against each other and carry them out into the lake.”
“But why?”
Xander shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong questions. Why not?”
“Maybe some of them still work. People depend on those boats.”
“It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.” His eyes hardened, watching her. “Remember?”
Tyrell paused as he sawed through a tether, his gaze on Xander, as if waiting for an order—an order regarding Quinn.
Dahlia watched her too, face lit by a flashlight beam, her smile like a razor blade.
Quinn’s stomach somersaulted. Another test.
Just because she’d passed the first few didn’t mean she was in the clear.
Xander could still turn on her at the drop of a hat. He was capricious and fickle; his gang was equally unpredictable. She needed to be careful.
“I remember.” She gave a forced shrug and turned away—sickened, disgusted with herself, and guilty as hell.
Two docks away, Sutter hacked the rope mooring a sailboat and stood, a dark and menacing shape against the waves hitting the dock. She felt rather than saw his gaze on her, burning into her skin like a brand.
After a tense moment, he turned his back on her and squatted over his task.
Quinn stilled, resisting the urge to fling herself at him and stab him a dozen times.
Why not? It was night. No one would see. No one would know what happened.
Everything was darkness and chaos, flashlights bobbing, people yelling and shouting, shadows bumping into each other. The wind and waves drowned everything out.
Even if he screamed, maybe no one would hear it. He’d fall into the water and sink into the depths. A single splash, a gurgle.
If she could do it stealthily enough. If he didn’t see her coming. Maybe this was her moment. And once it was done, she could disappear into the night.
Waves swelled and spilled across the dock, pulling at her feet and ankles, threatening to seize her and sweep her into the black water. Gingerly, she moved from the dock to dry land.
Sutter was two docks over. Forty feet away, tops. Xander was busy helping Dahlia with something, the others consumed with their own tasks.
Switching her flashlight to her left hand, her right hand strayed beneath her
jacket as her fingers closed over the karambit’s handle.
“Hey!” a deep voice bellowed. “Hey! Stop that!”
Quinn froze. Her pulse throbbed against her throat. Was that shout for her? Had she been found out?
“You thieves! Get away from there!”
No. It was someone else.
A dozen flashlights pinned the speaker like a spotlight. A man stood on the concrete parking lot before the large storage building, ten yards from the first dock.
He wore a wrinkled dark coat, boots, and a trucker’s cap pressed low over his eyes. In his forties, maybe. In his arms, he held a shotgun.
He squinted against the glare, his shotgun barrel wavering. “Get the hell away from those boats! I will shoot!”
“NO!” Xander leapt from the speedboat, sprinted across the water-slicked dock, and halted feet from the intruder. “That’s a horrible idea. For you.”
“Those boats don’t belong to you!”
“Who says?” someone in the crowd—Dahlia—shouted. “We say they don’t belong to anyone!”
Quinn stood rooted in place, unsure what to do, fear and dread pounding against her skull in time with the tide.
Thunder crashed. The swell and surge of the waves beating the docks roared in her ears. Needles of hard rain stung her face like shrapnel.
She craned her neck, blinking wetness from her eyes as she searched frantically for Sutter. It was hard to see. Her neck prickled, mouth bone-dry, fully aware that he might sneak up on her, using this distraction to exact a revenge of his own.
Xander stalked toward the intruder. At least forty others closed in around them in a loose horseshoe. Then it was fifty, then sixty.
“I’ll shoot!” the man yelled, a tremor in his voice. “No closer!”
They slunk closer. Heedless of the wind and rain, intent on the prey caught in their net.
Xander drew his sword. “If you had any rounds in that gun, you would’ve fired already.”
Run, she whispered in her mind. If he fled and left them to their own devices, he might have a chance. Run! Her lips moved, raw and chapped, her words caught by the wind and snatched away.
The shotgun barrel wavered as he shifted his aim from person to person. “Stay back! I’m warning you!”
Dahlia laughed and swept her flashlight across the jostling crowd. The beam caught a familiar shape, a hulking shadow near Xander.
Sutter was with the group, then. Not stalking her in the darkness. This time.
“Leave this place!” the man cried.
“It’s ours now,” Xander said evenly. “You don’t need this stuff. It won’t help you.”
Quinn couldn’t make out individual expressions except the man’s—the whites of his eyes wide and round, his mouth hanging open like his jaw had come unhinged. He was utterly terrified.
“What do we do with anyone who isn’t with us? Who fights us?” Xander shouted.
Distraught, the man scanned the crowd, searching for an ally, for someone to help him. He found none. No mercy, no clemency. “Those are our boats! It’s my job to protect this place!”
“Get him.” Quinn barely heard Xander’s words over the thrashing wind and her own throbbing pulse, but the others did. “Get him!”
They pounced like a pack of wolves, shouting and snarling, wielding their melee weapons.
She couldn’t see details; she didn’t want to. Blurred, shifting shapes in the dark and the rain. Grunts, dull wet thuds, shrieks of pain mingled with pleas of mercy that went unanswered.
Stop! Her mind screamed, but no sound came out.
To try to stop this would mean certain death. The pack would smell blood in the water and turn on her as surely as the gulls had turned on their own.
So she did nothing, hating herself, her tongue thick with the metallic taste of fear.
Xander shouted something. The group broke away from the vicious beating. She couldn’t see the victim, though his screams rent the air, like the gull’s. Too many bodies blocked her view, everything indistinct shadows and bleary light through the spitting rain.
Xander gestured to the hulking figure beside him. “Your turn.”
Flashlights swiveled toward the figure, highlighting the familiar bald head, wet and gleaming, and those glittering dark eyes as Sutter prowled into the circle. In one hand, he gripped a knife.
It was over for the man. There was no hope left for him.
She stood drenched and shivering as the heavens opened and the rain poured down. Waves crashed all around her, pounding the sand, each one stronger than the next, the storm descending with a relentless fury.
The scream in her head louder than the thunder and lashing waves, louder even than the screams of the dying man.
48
Hannah
Day One Hundred
Hannah opened the door and let Ghost into the backyard.
It was the middle of the night, maybe two or three a.m. Charlotte had nursed and sunk into a milk-drunken stupor. Still, Hannah couldn’t sleep.
Thick black clouds obscured the stars. She squinted, blinking to adjust her eyes, but cold spitting rain blurred the darkness.
She patted the scruff of Ghost’s neck. “Go ahead, boy.”
While Ghost hobbled down the porch steps to find a spot to do his business, she rubbed her tired eyes with the back of her arm. Sleep hadn’t come easily in years. It was always restless, pockmarked by nightmares and frequent wakings drenched in a cold sweat.
When it wasn’t a nightmare, it was Charlotte hungry for another feeding, or Hannah’s incessant need to check on Milo, though he was always sleeping in his bed, safe and sound.
She scanned the yard, taking everything in by degrees, the way Liam had taught her. Sycamore, maple, and oak trees, their naked branches soughing in the wind. The shed, the doors padlocked shut. Between two pine trees, a chest-high pile of cut firewood blanketed in a blue tarp. Milo’s forgotten bicycle, leaning against a rain barrel.
Something moved in the trees by the shed. A shadow unlike the others; it was darker, deeper, and human-shaped.
Adrenaline shot through her veins, her fear surging. In two seconds flat, she had the Ruger out of her jacket pocket and held in both hands, her bad hand stabilizing the shot, and aimed at the intruder.
With a practiced movement, she flicked the safety off with her thumb. “Don’t make me shoot you. I will do it.”
“I have no doubt,” a familiar voice came from the shadows.
Relief flooded her. She lowered the pistol. “Liam.”
He stepped out of the darkness between the shed and the stack of firewood, wearing a raincoat with a hood covering his face. But she’d recognize his voice anywhere, the familiar tall broad shape of him, the confident way he moved.
“Sorry,” he said, rueful. “Should’ve warned you.”
“Yeah, you should have. What are you doing out here? It’s pouring rain.”
A sheepish shrug. “Couldn’t sleep. Decided to do another patrol around the neighborhood.”
“A stroll through a thunderstorm was a better alternative than a warm bed?”
“Something like that.”
He strode across the yard and paused at the edge of the back porch, hesitating. Oblivious to the rain, Ghost trotted up to him and sniffed his hand.
Liam scratched beneath his chin. The dog let out a gratified chuff, lifting his head for a deeper scratch, and pressed his side against Liam’s thigh.
“You did good,” Liam said. “You didn’t hesitate. You acted on instinct—and training.” Something changed in his voice, a hint of teasing. “Remembered the safety this time, too.”
Her cheeks went hot. She was thankful for the darkness. “I remember it all the time.”
“You had a good teacher.”
“Maybe I’m just an excellent student.” She bit her bottom lip, her stomach fluttering. “You’re getting soaked. Come onto the porch for a few minutes.”
“You sure?”
The thund
erstorm had passed, but the rain was relentless. It beat against the house and pounded the ground, small puddles forming in the yard and turning everything to mud.
She inhaled the scent of rainwater and wet earth. The air was cold, sharp—she was wide awake now. The temperature was near freezing. A few degrees colder and it would be snowing. “I could use the company.”
It wasn’t just any company—it was his.
Hannah shoved her pistol back in her pocket and headed to the porch swing, fluffing the pillows and sliding the largest one to the opposite side of the bench for Liam. The support would help his back.
Ghost bounded up the porch steps, favoring his bandaged hind leg, and nuzzled his muzzle against Hannah’s lap. She rubbed his ears for a minute before he rudely shook a spray of rainwater and mud from his fur, splashing both Liam and Hannah.
Liam stepped back. “Hey!”
Ghost tilted his head, as if giving them a cheeky sorry not sorry look, and sank to his belly at their feet with a self-satisfied grunt.
“He has a sense of humor,” Hannah said.
“Apparently.” Liam rubbed mud splatters from his pant legs and sat down beside her. “He’s doing better.”
“He is. Evelyn says his leg should fully heal, but it’s been a bear getting him to rest. Kind of like someone else I know.”
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“He’s even getting a bit of a self-important attitude.”
“Heroes. They’re so full of themselves.”
“Exactly.” She grinned. “Which brings me to you. How are you feeling?”
“Never better.”
Which she knew was a white lie, but she didn’t press him. He was moving better, with less wincing. He was healing, too.
They lapsed into a comfortable silence. The cushions were damp but neither complained nor made to leave. Rain drummed the roof, dripped from the eaves.
“Was it the nightmares?” she asked.
“Always.”
“Do they ever go away?”
