by Stone, Kyla
65
Liam
Day One Hundred and Two
They headed for the building. Liam half-dragged Quinn, one arm beneath her shoulder, the other firing one-handed at any hostiles who dared to expose themselves.
Quinn fired several times, missing, but she forced a few of them to seek cover behind the wall, giving Liam the precious seconds to get them through the double glass doors and out of the line of fire.
Ahead of them, an enormous atrium lined with glass windows split into various offices, conference rooms, and bathrooms. They hobbled past a row of vending machines along one wall, all scavenged.
Their boots crunched across glass shards on the floor from shot-out windows. The air smelled dank, musty, and unused.
Quinn tripped over her feet, almost falling, but Liam tugged her up. His lower back burned with white-hot pain, his side in agony from the exertion, but he couldn’t afford to relent.
A noise down the hallway. The dull thud of footsteps. It was coming from one of the offices.
Liam halted. Quinn stifled a muffled cry as he dropped his arm from her shoulder and inched forward, then peered around the corner, leading with the Glock.
A hostile stood frozen in the middle of a large conference room. Small and faceless in the dark, outlined in green through Liam’s NVGs. He wasn’t armed with a gun, but he gripped an old-fashioned battleaxe with trembling hands.
The hostile saw Liam coming for him—hulking and dangerous, speckled in the blood of his friends, a specter of fury and vengeance.
With a startled cry, he turned and ran for a door along the opposite wall.
Liam didn’t bother to chase him down or waste ammunition. He motioned to Quinn, who pushed off the desk and hobbled toward him.
Despite her best efforts, she was slowing them both down.
He gritted his teeth, regretting that he didn’t have Bishop here to watch his six. No, it was more important to have Hannah and the others protected in Fall Creek.
He could do this. He was made for this.
A sharp pain in his side made him wince. His bandages were wet. He’d bled through his sweatshirt, too. Damn it!
They were both hurting, both injured.
Without speaking, he returned to Quinn, and they kept going. Down hallways, through doors, past an empty cafeteria missing chairs and tables, another office, and a room that looked like some sort of laboratory. Cables snaked over the carpeted floor, disassembled circuit boards littering countertops, stacks of servers that used to hum and flicker now blank and silent.
Two tense, adrenaline-soaked minutes later, they were at the side entrance. The windows overlooked the parking lot. A crooked painting hung on one side of the wall, a window rimmed with jagged glass on the other.
He leaned Quinn against a leather armchair and held his finger to his lips, gesturing for her to get low and stay there. She nodded, her breathing shallow and frantic.
Taking a concealed position, Liam holstered the Glock and took up the M4. He eased along the brick wall, his weapon leading, his pulse a rush in his ears.
Cautious, he glanced through the broken frame of the door and peered out at the parking lot.
Movement in glowing green amongst the dark shapes of abandoned station wagons, SUVs, and compact cars. Several hostiles crouched behind various vehicles.
Liam squatted and shifted, acquired a target through his sights and found a hostile running around the back of a white Honda hatchback, armed with an M4, and lit him up.
The rounds ripped a zipper of lead from the hostile’s crotch through his ribcage to his head. Blood and gore splattered the side of the Honda.
Two more came from the east. Muzzle flashes to the west. The retort of gunfire blasted, rounds pinging off the building’s steel façade. Three more hostiles.
From the window, Quinn fired at the hostiles creeping on them from the east. It was dark, she couldn’t see. Every shot missed.
Liam spun west, fired, missed, fired again and double-tapped a black-dressed man in the chest and added a head shot as he fell backward.
A burst of firepower drove him back, chunks of masonry and glass exploding.
Quinn let out a startled cry. He couldn’t afford to glance at her, but he felt her eyes on him, her desperation and terror.
There were too many. They were closing in.
His ears went tinny, throat tight, fear throbbing in his chest. He couldn’t fail Quinn. He’d promised to bring her home. He’d promised.
Liam knelt, electric pain in his spine, his re-opened wound like a knife in his side, and fired again and again. He was close to running out of ammo.
Once he ran dry, he’d take the HK45 from Quinn, though she had a few rounds left at best. Then he’d draw his Gerber and fight until he couldn’t fight any longer—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A green figure hidden behind an SUV to his right dropped like a rock. More shots, and a second figure collapsed. A third went down with a squeal like a stuck pig, stumbling out from behind a dark-colored Chevy Impala.
The rifle slipped from his hands as he curled in on himself, clutching his ruined leg. His screams shattered the chilly air.
Liam put a round in his skull to finish him.
Luther, Liam realized with a jolt like a live wire. Luther was on the roof of the warehouse abutting the parking lot, firing down at the hostiles from above. From his vantage point, it would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Against his better judgment, Liam had left him a weapon after Luther had promised to provide overwatch. He’d actually come through.
Several sharp cracks ruptured the air. Another hostile fell. The rest of them whipped around, frantically searching for the new threat, but it was too late.
They were already doomed, whether or not they knew it.
With renewed vigor, Liam joined in the slaughter. Within a minute, the hostiles were down. Nothing moved. Eleven bodies littered the parking lot.
For a long minute, he remained crouched, on full alert, waiting for another trap to present itself. It didn’t. He strained to hear over the ringing in his ears, the smell of cordite stinging his nostrils.
The echo of gunshots faded into the stillness of the early morning. The battle was over. They’d made it out.
“Can we go home now?” Quinn asked.
Liam turned back and held out his hand. “Yes, we can.”
66
Hannah
Day One Hundred and Two
Hannah strode through the woods along the perimeter of the river. Mist sifted with ghostly fingers through the branches. Her flashlight was a hazy funnel in the predawn gloom.
Ghost trotted ahead of her, his plumed tail fluttering in the fog like a flag.
Milo and Charlotte were safe with the Brooks. Unable to sleep, she’d needed to think. She needed a few minutes alone. Ghost must have felt the same way because he was whining at the door before her stockinged feet had hit the floor.
The forest was hushed, as if it were listening, waiting for something with bated breath. No hooting owls or rustling creatures, no insects chirring.
She touched her palms to a nearby pine tree, felt the rough bark, and breathed in the sweet scent of pine sap, the stickiness on her fingers.
Not that long ago, she’d fled through woods like these, spruce and pine boughs burdened with snow, drifts piled high as her waist, the bitter cold nipping at her heels. A monster at her back and nothing but her own wits and determination to keep her alive.
Until Liam. Her hand slipped into her pocket and felt the tiny knit hat she’d borrowed from Charlotte. It comforted her, like she could keep a part of him close.
As she walked, naked branches forming a canopy high overhead, Hannah prayed. Not for the first time, and not for the last. She prayed for Liam, for Quinn, for her little family.
For what they had here, what they were building, what they were fighting for. For trust and faith. For loyalty and love. For community.
It
was the people she cared about that mattered, that made the difference. Some things were worth the fight, the pain, the sacrifice. Some things—some people—were worth it all.
She wrapped her arms around her ribcage and shivered, her boots squelching in the damp leaves and snow, her breath unfurling in white puffs. The cloying wet mist pressed against her skin.
Liam was out there somewhere, rescuing Quinn, doing what he did best. A hero, but also a wounded warrior. A human being, flawed, complex, hurting.
She prayed for his and Quinn’s safe return, worried for him, missed him. His comforting warmth, his intelligence and thoughtfulness, the way his mere presence settled her in a way nothing else could.
She missed his wry smile, those blue-gray eyes like the sea before a storm, that beguiling mix of strength and vulnerability that had shattered her barriers, unraveled her defenses, and had completely undone her.
And her heart—a damaged, wild thing, as crippled as her misshapen hand, longing for something she both feared and desperately yearned for.
Hannah broke through the tree line and paused at the lip of the bluff overlooking the St. Joe river. The sun lifted above the horizon, the brilliant rays burning off the ribbons of fog that swirled above the river.
The river was sluggish, a brownish gray like molten iron. From up here, she could see the slabs of ice jutting into the air, grinding against each other like miniature icebergs, cracking and popping as the river below swelled with snowmelt.
The land was still brown and barren beneath the snow. But not for long. Not forever.
No matter how dark and cold it seemed, winter wasn’t forever. The river would flow, the flowers would bud, crops would burst forth.
Spring would not be stopped.
Love was like that, too.
She kept waiting for the fear to dissipate. It didn’t. Maybe it never would.
Maybe the only things worth doing or having in this world were the very things that scared the hell out of you.
She looked down at her hand, the mangled thumb, the crooked fingers she’d worked so hard to make useable, reclaiming what had been stolen, repairing what had been ruined.
Her crippled hand was a part of her, a part of her story. Shame no longer sparked in her chest at the sight. Something else shone bright and hard and fierce. So dazzling she still wasn’t sure she could look at it straight on.
She was broken, but broken wasn’t ugly. Broken wasn’t hopeless.
Maybe, just maybe, broken could even be beautiful.
Like this shattered world they were salvaging, piece by piece. Forging joy, love, and meaning from hardship and suffering. Carving something new out of the old.
Ghost let out a happy bark, and she lifted her head as he bounded into the clearing, his limp hardly visible. He darted to her side, ducking his big shaggy white head beneath her fingers, leaning his barrel torso against her leg so hard that she nearly toppled. Nearly, but didn’t.
She buried her gnarled, knotted fingers into his fur, her heart swelling in her chest. “I love you, you know that?”
Ghost looked up at her, tongue lolling, brown eyes merry, as if to say, Of course. I never doubted it. Never doubted you.
As she’d never doubted him. Not for one second.
So, she was scared to love. She’d learned to fight anyway. To survive anyway. She could learn to love the same way. Despite the fear, to love with every fiber of her being, everything she’d been and ever would be.
Hannah glanced at the winding river one last time, the tall unmoving trees, the sun bright in her eyes.
And she waited for Liam.
67
Quinn
Day One Hundred and Two
Quinn barely remembered the escape from Vortex headquarters.
Everything was a blur of gunshots and darkness, fear and pain. Shooting at anything that moved. Staggering, barely able to walk. Sound went distant and tinny, her heart slamming so hard she thought it might break her ribs.
But then they were out. The gunshots ceased. No one pursued them.
Finally, she could breathe again.
The streets were utterly silent but for their own echoing footfalls. The sky was gray, the stars fading—dawn minutes away.
Liam hadn’t let them pause or rest until they were a good quarter mile from the business district.
They hoofed it through the backyards of a residential neighborhood of restored Victorians and beachy cottages until they reached a navy-blue house with shingle siding and white trim, the two-seater ATV he’d hidden tucked into the garage.
The garage was dark and musty, the faded scents of motor oil, exhaust fumes, and car wax still present. Or maybe she was just imagining it. It reminded her of Gramps’ workshop.
The thought made her want to weep.
“You okay enough to ride?” Liam asked her. “You just have to hold on.”
She felt like she’d been holding on for days. For years. Everything hurt. She was so incredibly tired. It took her three tries, but finally, she nodded.
Someone stepped out of the shadows.
Sudden fury streaked through her like a shot of heroin. All her confusion, hurt, and helplessness, wrapped up in cords of blinding rage.
With a strangled cry, Quinn wrenched from Liam’s grasp and hurled herself at Luther.
The karambit blade was pressed to Luther’s throat before he could register what had happened.
He stumbled back against the wall hung with tools on hooks, shovels and rakes clanging. His eyes wide and white, hands open, palms out in surrender.
She moved with him, lurching, but managed to keep the tip of the knife against his Adam’s apple. Pain radiated from every bone and muscle in her body, her head buzzing.
“You!” she hissed through split lips.
Luther went rigid. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry for what happened in Fall Creek. You don’t have to believe me, but I am.”
“I’ll kill you!”
“I just helped save you! Who do you think nailed those guys in the parking lot?”
She barely registered his words. “You need to die!”
“Enough!” Liam said. “That’s enough.”
The darkness surged inside her, a towering hatred blotting out every thought or feeling, even the incredible pain. “He’s a murderer! He needs to die for what he did!”
“No,” Liam said from behind her. “That’s not going to happen. It’s over.”
“It’s not over until he’s dead, too!”
“Killing him isn’t going to fix a damn thing. It’s not going to change anything. I can promise you that.”
She hesitated, trembling, her eyes locked on the blade hooked against Luther’s pale white throat. A drop of dark blood slid down his bobbing Adam’s apple.
“It won’t fix you,” Liam said, pain in his voice.
Quinn wavered, red spots behind her eyes, her mind an urgent howl. She despised the ugliness inside her. Loathed feeling this way. The bitterness like a corrosive cancer eating away at her insides, at her soul. How desperately she wanted it to end.
Killing Sutter was supposed to finish it. He needed to die, but it hadn’t ended what was wrong inside her. Liam was right. It hadn’t fixed her.
“It’s over,” Liam said. “There’s been enough killing for today.”
She felt herself sag, something deflating inside her.
The karambit slipped from her fingers and dropped to the oil-stained concrete with a clatter.
Tears scalded her eyes, a terrible sob starting deep inside her, throbbing in her heart, her ribs, her torso. And then she was weeping, chest heaving, trembling violently.
“Quinn,” Liam said.
He was there behind her, his hand on her shoulder, tentative and cautious but comforting.
The last of her walls crumbled. She turned to him with a primal scream, a cry of despair and anger, so much anger.
She beat at his chest with her bloody fists, desolate and furious, hitting him as hard as
she could. Liam didn’t stop her, just took it, let her get it out. All the ugliness, the fear and terror and panic, the grief and loss.
She couldn’t tell him why she was crying but she couldn’t stop, couldn’t control the tsunami of sorrow rolling over her, wave upon wave. Incoherent and inconsolable, snot and tears streaked her face.
Liam’s strong arms enfolded her and pulled her close, wrapping her in warmth and security. His embrace keeping her together, holding the pieces so she didn’t shatter.
Quinn collapsed against him in a heartbroken heap. She didn’t fight against it, couldn’t fight against it. She had no fight left in her.
Liam held her. He held her and didn’t let go.
Time passed. She didn’t know how long. A minute or an hour. Luther remained, but he might as well have been a ghost.
The garage gradually lightened, pale morning light streaking the horizon. The cool dawn air chilled her skin. Dried blood on her hands, her face, her hair. Some of it hers, some of it not.
Slowly, her hiccupping sobs subsided.
She remembered, then.
“Liam.” She pulled back, her cheeks tear-stained, face swollen and bruised, heart on fire. “They’re coming.”
Liam looked down at her. His brows lowered in concern. “Who?”
“The General. Rosamond Sinclair’s father. He’s coming for all of us.”
The End
I hope you enjoyed Edge of Survival! Don’t miss the epic finale in the Collapse series, Edge of Valor!
The final battle for Fall Creek looms…
Not everyone will make it out alive.
Preorder book seven in the Edge of Collapse series on Amazon HERE.
With enemies closing in on every side, the survivors of Fall Creek find themselves facing impossible odds.
