Dirge (Devastation Trilogy 1)

by Lesli Richardson

I damn sure would never think about teasing her over it now. Especially not when I desperately need her steady strength in my life.

  When we pull into the parking lot, the officers right behind us, I realize it feels weird being here today. Case doesn’t get out or even shut the engine off right away, either.

  She knows me.

  I stare at the building for a long moment. There are already a couple of cars parked in the lot.

  “Am I doing the right thing?” I quietly ask.

  She removes her sunglasses and avoids looking me dead in the eye, her gaze focused on my lips instead. “She’d call you a pussy right now, hon. You know she would.”

  I sigh and nod, finally managing a chuckle for her before I glance away. “She would.”

  Yes, Ellen would. I can hear her saying it. These two women have always had far more faith and confidence in me and my abilities than I ever had.

  Neither ever coddled me. Once we decided I would run for office, Ellen became a formidable political spouse.

  “You’re going to keep kicking ass, George,” she says. “There’s a whole laundry list of shit we have to get done in her memory. If she was here today, she’d be sitting in the back seat and complaining about us not going in there and kicking ass already.”

  “She would.” I pick at the crease on the front of my slacks. “She absolutely would.”

  “What do you want her legacy to be?”

  Case knows how to duck low, go in hard and fast, and slash a vital artery, retreating before her opponent even realizes they’ve been mortally wounded.

  Like me right now.

  Except I do know it. Not my first dance with her.

  Thankfully.

  “I want to restore true civility and human kindness to this goddamned state,” I say. “I want to undo the bigoted fuckery enacted in the name of ‘family values.’”

  Because it’s exactly what Ellen said when we first started talking about me maybe taking a run for the governor’s office in the next few years. We hadn’t decided yet, though. I wanted to complete my third term as a state senator before committing one way or another. It would have also depended on who my competition would be for the job.

  I never expected to land in the job like this.

  The “Big G,” as Susa called it during our talks on the island.

  And Ellen never knew Aussie’s secret, either.

  But Case now knows, because she told her after she told me.

  Case keeps her voice low, forcing me to listen. “Then what’s our next step, George?”

  I take another sip of my coffee. “I need to quit my whining, get my ass out of this car, and march myself into that fucking office like I own the goddamned place.”

  From my peripheral vision, I see her smirk. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I had Dec stock up on the good coffee for us. And I grabbed your Xanax for you, just in case.”

  “Excellent.” I reach for the door handle. “Because I’m going to need both of those.”

  * * * *

  Case and I still maintain our offices here, even though we both work full-time at the state capitol. When I was still serving in the Tennessee Senate, that was a part-time gig, and Case and Declan took over a lot of my workload in the law office, in addition to juggling my official stuff for me from my home office, or my Senate office in the capitol. Because as the Speaker of the Senate, I was literally on every fucking committee.

  I mean, it was ex-officio, and people didn’t really expect me to show up for every committee meeting. In fact, sometimes with scheduling conflicts, I couldn’t.

  But I made sure I had my nose stuck deep into every single one and kept up with what was going on. It was common for some of my predecessors to not pay attention to everything the way I did.

  Except I am a bit of a control freak.

  I know. Shocking, right?

  And I wasn’t there for lobbying juice. I was there to know what was going on, to direct things the way I wanted them to go, and to help take the heat for some of my vulnerable and secretly moderate GOP colleagues so that, later, they could blame me but still vote the way I wanted them to, and the way their conscience wanted them to. They were usually secret RINOs like me, heavily closeted liberals who knew they’d never get anywhere in our state if they had a D instead of an R behind their name.

  I was also in charge of the Senate staff—fun times—but I didn’t duck my duties there, either.

  Again, no way in hell I could have done everything I did without Case’s tireless support and Declan helping her. Ellen wasn’t even kidding when she called Case my work wife. There were plenty of nights when we were going over stuff in my living room until the early hours of the morning, long after Ellen had fallen asleep stretched out on the couch with her head in my lap.

  Maybe it would’ve bothered Ellen if she and Case hadn’t been so close before I met them, I don’t know.

  All I know is I’ll never be able to find another woman like Ellen. My heart still desperately aches for her. I haven’t dated and wouldn’t even begin to know how to do that now. Emotionally, I mean, not just logistically as the governor.

  Even if I ever do reach that point, there are probably very few women who would tolerate Case’s unhampered 24/7 access to me. Because except for my daughter, Case is now the most important woman in my life, professionally and personally. Anyone I do finally manage to date will have to accept that entering into a new relationship with me.

  Since there’s never been a hint of that kind of interest in me from Case, I suspect trying to ask her if she’s interested might be…awkward.

  I blink back tears as we head up the walk. It’s weird coming here now, even though it hasn’t been that long since I worked here full-time. Just two years.

  Two years that I never expected to happen, and damn sure never expected to survive once they did.

  I have to quicken my step to duck around Casey and grab the door to open and hold it for her. To this day, she still tries to get her own door when I’m there. Governor or not, I’m still getting the door for her. Unless we’re somewhere with my two sons. Then they practically fight to open and hold the door for Aunt Casey.

  Sometimes, I’m convinced Case does it on purpose, simply to fuck with me and keep me on my toes.

  Today, I know for certain that’s exactly what she did, because she wrinkles her nose in amusement at me even as she smiles. “Thank you, Governor.”

  I nudge my glasses up my nose. “You’re welcome, Chief.”

  That earns me a rare giggle from her that actually makes me smile.

  Worth it.

  Declan Howard, my deputy chief of staff and Case’s right-hand man, is already there, of course. As is the team of seven political consultants Case hired to help me with campaign strategy and debate prep. They were highly recommended to me by Susa Evans’ husband, Carter Wilson. Carter is the chief of staff to Florida governor Owen Taylor.

  Who, I learned during my time on the island, is part of a secret poly triad with Susa and Carter, and has been ever since they were roommates in college. Owen is also secretly the father to Susa’s son, Petey. Who, it turns out, Susa was pregnant with while we were shipwrecked, but she didn’t know that, at the time.

  For his part, Carter is much like me, a Dominant and sadist, and owns Susa and Owen.

  But Susa’s father, attorney Benchley Evans, was a politician for most of his career and head of Florida’s GOP. He recommended these consultants to Carter for Owen’s campaign, and now Carter’s sent them our way.

  Because my predecessor, Governor Ed Willis, died more than eighteen months after taking office, and I was the Speaker of the Tennessee Senate, I was appointed governor as per law. I didn’t have to run in a special election for it.

  After they recalled Dick Cailey, Speaker of the House of Representatives, who didn’t waste any time trying to settle himself into Governor Ed Willis’ office and home.

  But I do have to run to keep my job this time. The general election is in
November, and currently no one else has filed to run against me in the August primary. There’s still time for challengers to file to run against me and attempt to turf me, but so far it would seem no one in my party wants to challenge the shipwrecked widower who’s currently still enjoying an approval rating of eighty-two percent, something unheard of in politics.

  One of the longest-held bounces ever, no doubt.

  I already have three Democratic rivals in the primary, and there are reports two more are seriously considering filing.

  I’ve also been told that we will be capitalizing heavily on the public’s sympathies during this campaign for me to retain my job. I’m not sure how I feel about that, but I know Casey’s absolutely right when she reminds me Ellen would have been thumping me on the head to milk the tragedy for every last drop. That’s what Susa and Owen did for Owen’s re-election campaign, and she’ll be using it for her own campaign for governor in two years.

  From when I cross the office’s threshold until I reach the conference room, I struggle and win the attempt to pull my Governor George Forrester mask firmly in place, punctuated by nudging my glasses up on my nose again. Case is the only one I allow to see the depths of my vulnerability and pain. Even then she doesn’t see it all, only what I allow her to see.

  I’m afraid if sees saw how truly broken I am inside that she’d run for the hills.

  Because I know I sure as hell would.

  I wouldn’t blame her, either.

  “Good morning, everyone,” I say, my Governor Forrester mask smiling as I walk into the conference room and automatically aim for the seat at the head of the table.

  “Good morning, Governor Forrester,” they say.

  Let the games begin.

  Chapter Four

  Then

  “So what do you do when you’re not being the honorary lieutenant governor of Tennessee?” Susa asks. “Doctor? Lawyer? Roller coaster operator at Dollywood? Session player with an up-and-coming rockabilly band? Or are you more a bluegrass kind of guy? Please don’t tell me you play the banjo.”

  I would smile, except with nearly three weeks’ worth of beard on my face she probably couldn’t see it anyway. Plus, combined with my sunburn, it hurts too damn much to smile. “Hey, don’t knock rockabilly. Or bluegrass. Although I am more an indie rock kind of guy. Promise not to tell my voters that, though. Man, there’s two things you have over me now.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That I prefer indie rock to country, and that I’m a raging atheist.”

  She snorts. At least she’s still talking, lucid.

  I dread the time she isn’t and I can no longer do anything to help her.

  I also don’t think I have the heart to watch her suffer once she crosses that point. Letting her lie there and die over and hours and hours isn’t something I can bear. I’d rather help her go and later lie to her men, if I survive and ever meet them face to face, and tell them she slipped away quickly without admitting I helped her die.

  If Ellen were still alive and in this position, I’d want someone to do that for her, if she were suffering.

  “I’m an attorney,” I admit.

  She holds her hand up, fingers curled, and I realize that’s her weak attempt to fist-bump with me. I gently touch mine to hers.

  “Welcome to the club,” she says.

  “Club?”

  “Big G,” she says. “Well, I’m lieutenant-G, and wanted to be big G.”

  I sigh. We’ve gone through this countless times already, but just like I ask her questions I’ve already covered, it beats the sound of waves and wind and the disquieting lack of other human-made noises.

  Helps me not remember the scream of the wind through the fuselage.

  “You’re still going to make it, Susa,” I tell her. “We both are.”

  She waves her hand as if humoring me. Maybe she is humoring me. Maybe I’m the delusional one, thinking any of us will survive this.

  “I’m not sure I’m governor,” I add. “He might have survived.”

  Except I know I probably am legally the governor of Tennessee now. Not that anyone outside this tiny spit of land even knows I’m still alive. Ed Willis couldn’t swim, has a heart condition he’s successfully kept quiet from the public, and is—or was—seventy-two years old.

  And not a healthy seventy-two, either. The kind of seventy-two who makes you worry he’ll keel over if he coughs too hard.

  Because he probably will.

  Well, would have.

  I’m nearly certain he didn’t make it out of the airplane. I feel vaguely guilty about that, that I didn’t fight harder to get them out of the plane, but considering I’d just lost my wife I try to keep it in perspective. Compartmentalize it.

  Fuck.

  I think about Ellen’s rings, her necklace. I know it was stupid, but I couldn’t leave them on her. She was gone, and I wasn’t going to sit there and drown. I took them off her before making my escape from the sinking plane and into the life raft that bore me, Susa, and four others safely to this slightly dry spit of dirt in the middle of the fucking ocean.

  I want to give Aussie her rings, one day. If she wants them.

  At the very least, I want them for me.

  She was my good girl. She wore her rings and her day collar faithfully.

  She was mine.

  Part of me wonders if dying isn’t a bad idea after all, then I remember my kids. I can’t leave them when I have a chance to return to them. I…can’t. Ellen would never forgive me.

  Except with every day that passes, our survival is far less certain. Surely they think we’re dead now. Everyone probably thinks we’re dead.

  Hell, Lisa, one of the people who lived this long, died after we made it this far because she ended up drinking sea water despite my best efforts to drag her out of the surf. Nine of us made it safely into the life raft.

  There’s only five of us left now—me, Susa, her friend and fellow Floridian, Connie, Allen, and Collin. Susa’s the youngest, and Connie also lost her husband. They were sitting in the row behind me and Ellen, Connie’s husband on the window in the seat directly behind Ellen.

  He died at the same time Ellen did.

  I hope that, if I’m wrong and it turns out there is any sort of afterlife, maybe they met up and travelled there together so neither is alone.

  Connie, however, despite being much older than myself and Susa, is in far better condition than Susa. Susa suffered violent nausea from being seasick while in the raft and barely kept down any water. Now that we’re on “land,” we’re killing crabs every night and eating them raw. That’s helping the rest of us, but Susa can barely manage to keep water down now, much less raw crab.

  Allen and Collin are both older than me, too. At thirty-nine, Susa is five years younger than my forty-four.

  If it wasn’t for the kids, I would’ve killed myself already. Just slit my wrists with the tiny souvenir penknife Susa and I scrounged off Pat’s body before we rolled him out of the life raft and into the water.

  I meant it was a souvenir he’d purchased for himself, not a souvenir for me and Susa for—oh, you know what I mean.

  Ellen would probably be amused by that, if she was here.

  I know if Case was here, I’d have her cackling.

  That makes me want to cry, though, so I suck in a deep lungful of salty air and stare out at the horizon.

  We have a flare gun we haven’t even used yet. We didn’t want to waste our precious few flares. We haven’t seen or heard any planes or ships.

  Nothing.

  It’s like we dropped off the face of the planet.

  Maybe we did.

  Maybe there is an afterlife, and this is Hell. Maybe, somewhere, Ellen is alive and safe and already reunited with our kids, and I’m the one…lost.

  I wish that was true, because, honestly? It’d be a comfort to know she’s okay.

  Except that’s dehydration and starvation and exhaustion and grief talking. I know it is.


  Susa’s been talking a lot today, too, and don’t think I don’t understand why. She’s convinced she’s going to die.

  I think we all are convinced of that, to a certain extent. It’s day twenty of our ordeal, and we’re nearly out of water despite our best attempts to ration and collect it.

  She’s talking, telling me things to pass on to her two men, Carter her husband, and Owen. Owen is the governor of Florida. He’s not just her friend and boss, he’s also been hers since college.

  And Carter’s.

  The way Ellen was mine, it turns out.

  As she softly confesses the truth, I realize we have far more in common than I first realized, and it makes me even more determined to take care of her to the best of my ability.

  To return the girl to her men. Especially to her Master, Carter.

  She asks about Ellen’s necklace, recognizing it was Ellen’s day collar.

  I make her take sips of water, retreating to the mental safety of slipping into “Dom mode” with her.

  It’s self-medication for me. I can pretend she’s my girl and I’m trying to keep her alive for me.

  That I’m trying to keep myself alive for her.

  Whatever thread I have to tie a knot in and hold on to, no matter how tenuously.

  By sunset, she’s convinced she’s dying. I’m actually not so sure, because she sure as hell acts pretty damn feisty for someone convinced she’s dying.

  But she’s right that none of us will live much longer if something doesn’t change. If we get some rain we can collect, we can stretch it a few more days, I’m sure. It feels like the breeze is shifting, picked up somewhat, and to our southeast I spot building clouds.

  We spend a lot of time ignoring Lisa’s body, where we’ve dragged her as far away as we can from us. None of us had the heart to shove her into the surf and let the water take her, but I think we’re all thinking about maybe eating her. We’ve got her wrapped in one of the mylar emergency blankets and have weighed down the edges of it with sand and rocks and debris washed up around us.

  During the days, we sit with our backs to the sun, unless we’ve shaded ourselves with blankets to watch in that direction for help. We take turns doing that.