by Emma Castle
“I guess I am.” She blushed a little. Lincoln knew she’d never get completely comfortable with people recognizing her.
“Son, you married her?” Harry asked, mystified.
“I did,” Lincoln said. They had stood in a small church in Georgia last month with a pastor, who’d married them. It had been one of a long list of best days of his life since he’d found Caroline all those months ago.
Harry stepped aside, and Lincoln led Caroline inside. “Glad to see you have your mother’s good sense.” Ellie fussed a little in her arms, and Lincoln reached for her, giving Caroline a break. When his mother came back into the living room with a tea tray, she nearly dropped the tray on the coffee table before she rushed over to coo at the baby and demand to hold her. She bustled Caroline off to the kitchen, leaving him and his father alone again. Just what he didn’t want.
Harry shifted restlessly as he sat down on the couch. “So…you’ve been busy.” His father might have asked him how he wanted to take his tea the question was so mundanely spoken, yet Lincoln knew what his father was asking. How the hell had he survived?
“We’ve all been busy. I found Caroline, and we…well…” He wasn’t used to talking this much, not to anyone but Caroline, and certainly not about what he was doing. “We’ve found so many survivors. Most of them were able to get to Atlanta, but we’ve got nearly forty states with listed survivors who have reached out. We’re getting the power up and running, and we have a vaccine.” He patted his pocket and pulled out a vial from the stash Erica had given him before they’d left Atlanta, plus a couple of syringes. He and Caroline had been working their way through the small towns on their way here, providing the combination cure and vaccine to anyone they encountered in order to prevent a secondary outbreak.
“This is for you and Mom. It works.” He didn’t tell his father about how they’d almost lost Ellie, or the pain he’d felt as he realized he was a father watching his child suffering and fighting for her life. Instead, he simply handed over the vial and syringes.
“Thank you.” Harry took them and remained silent until Caroline, Ellie, and his mother came back in.
“Rachel, the boy has vaccines for us.” He used one on himself before he sat Lincoln’s mother down in chair and administered it to her arm.
“Lincoln, what’s going to happen now? We’ve only heard the radio broadcasts,” his mother said, looking to Caroline briefly. “I mean, you make things sound very positive and hopeful…but is it really?” Her face was lined with worries he wasn’t used to seeing since he’d left home.
“Everything is going to be fine,” he promised her.
“I understand your concerns,” Caroline said as she helped his mother pour tea. “Am I just trying to keep hope up in a hopeless situation? Let me just say that things have changed a lot these last three months.” She spoke to them about the future she was helping to build toward, and how they’d organized survivors across the country, setting up CB relays to keep people in touch and to organize food and supply transports. Her next project was international contact, to find out what had happened farther north and south and across the oceans. If they could get a few of the big cargo ships running, things could really start turning around.
His heart was so full of pride that he could barely hold it in. He glanced at his father once and saw tears in the old man’s eyes.
A while later, his parents were settling Ellie in for a late-afternoon nap, and Lincoln walked Caroline out to the shore of the little lake. She reached for his hand and curled her fingers around his, giving him a gentle squeeze.
“You okay, mountain man?”
He laughed and reached up with his free hand to touch the beard he’d started to let grow again. It had been amusing to learn that his rugged look turned his little spitfire on more than anything.
“I’m okay, honey.” He stared out at the beautiful view, the wilderness all around them, and for the first time he didn’t feel so lost within it. The trees creaking in the breeze, the whisper of leaves, and the splashes of fish jumping to catch dragonflies hovering just above the water’s surface…he felt at home.
He turned Caroline’s face toward his so he could lean down to kiss her.
“I love you,” he said, amazed at how easily those three little words came to his lips now, yet how the emotion behind them had such force he often thought his heart would shatter.
“I know.” She gave him a mischievous look and then took off running down the shoreline. He raced after her, their laughter echoing off the water and the distant hills.
Epilogue
You are a child of the universe;
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have the right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
No doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
* * *
—“Desiderata” by Max Ehrmann
* * *
Three years later
Caroline walked up to the palatial mansion, passing through the tall wrought-iron gates. She entered the house, the dust catching beneath her fingertips as she touched a banister leading upstairs. Dawn was breaking over the horizon, and beams of sunlight broke through the windows as she walked ahead. Lincoln followed, carrying Ellie in his arms. She was a bright-eyed, beautiful toddler full of mischief.
“Mama?” Ellie called out, her voice echoing in the grand hallways.
“Yes, honey?” Caroline kept moving, searching for something.
“Check the dining hall,” Lincoln suggested as they walked deeper into the house. Kirby stayed close to Caroline as she entered the dining room. She pulled back some tall brocade curtains and light flooded the room, illuminating the portrait of a solemn, wise-looking man seated in a regal but practical red velvet chair. He leaned forward, one hand braced on the arm of the chair as though he meant to stand. He seemed to be in deep contemplation.
“Who dat?” Ellie pointed a tiny chubby finger at the man in the portrait.
“This, Ellie, is President Lincoln. A very good man. Your father was named after him.” Caroline winked at Lincoln. He didn’t resemble the president at all, except for the beard, which Caroline adored. The reminder of her mountain man who’d rescued her always made her heart race.
“Let’s go find your office.” Lincoln led her this time, showing her the way.
Even after all these years, he remembered the way. He reached the door to the office and opened it for her. She went inside, and Lincoln tested the light switch. There was a hum of electricity above them, and beautiful bright lights came on. They illuminated long yellow curtains and three windows behind a large ornate desk. Two couches filled the rest the room, and a grandfather clock sat dormant against one wall. At least eight flags were resting in stands around the room, three of which were American.
Caroline’s hands shook as she touched the fabric. “I can’t believe we’re really going to live here.”
“I can.” He chuckled. “Now sit down at your desk so I can take a picture of you.” Lincoln sat Ellie down on one of the couches, and Kirby hopped up next to her. The girl buried her face in the dog’s fur, giggling, and Kirby took it all in stride, like he always did.
Lincoln held up the smartphone as Caroline sat down in the leather chair. They’d gotten the cell networks up a year ago, and they were close to restoring the internet since they’d gotten in touch with fifty other countries, which were all working together.
“Well? How does it feel, Madam President?” he asked, snapping a picture.
Caroline laughed, but she soon sobered. “I still can’t believe it.”
“I can,” Lincoln replied. “You got the power back on and food back on shelves in stores, and you reestablished law in the cities—you did all of it.”
“Now I just have to set up a new Supreme Court and try to get a government running that won’t spend all its time playing politics.”
“Couple of amendments might help in that regard, but I th
ink we’ve got a few generations before you’ll need to worry about lobbyists and whatnot.”
She made a note. “Yeah, well, best to get to work on that before it’s a problem down the road.”
Lincoln smiled. “See? Already thinking like a president.”
“I still don’t know if I want the job.” Her gaze darted around the room in awe, and he saw clearly how intimidated she was.
“Best qualification I’ve heard yet.”
She flushed. “All those things you said? It’s not like I did them myself. I had tons of help.”
“It doesn’t matter. You were the catalyst, the leader to all of us.”
“But you should have been—”
He shook his head. “Honey, I’m just a glorified bodyguard.”
“Correction, you’re the First Man,” she said with another giggle.
He rolled his eyes. “Julian and the others are going to give me shit about that. But if I’m being honest, I like it. I’m not just the First Man—I’m your only man.”
He came around the desk and leaned over, kissing her so that she forgot about being the leader of the United States. She touched his hand, stroking his wedding band. Then he reached out and caught her hand, lacing their fingers. They had been married almost three years ago. Back when everything had seemed dark and hopeless. Back when they had almost lost Ellie. But the darkness was gone. Now there was only light, only hope.
Lincoln removed Adam’s radio from his waistband and held it out to her. It was hers now, her special beacon of hope, the way to reach the nation, even now after three years had passed. She took it with a smile and turned it on. Lincoln leaned against her desk, staring down at her with love in his eyes. She turned it on and began to speak.
“This is President Kelly. I am addressing you from the Oval Office in the way our forefathers had fireside chats over the radio long ago. We are once again a united people, bound by the goodness in our hearts. We’re in this together, and I promise you, there is hope. We are a brave nation, and we have emerged from this crisis stronger and more united than ever. I will be conducting my first live television broadcast tomorrow night, which will also be shared on the radio for those who don’t have TVs. We will talk about the way to move forward, what our next steps will be to find our way back to the safety and comfort of the world we once built. We can do it again, I know it. I believe in us. I believe in the power of our spirit and the purity of our hearts, so long as we trust each other and care for each other. I’m Caroline Kelly, a survivor just like you. We are in this together. Caroline out.”
* * *
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Thank you so much for reading A Wilderness Within. I hope you found hope and love while reading Caroline and Lincoln’s story!
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Have you read the first story in my Unlikely Heroes series, Midnight With the Devil? Diana, the heroine, falls in love with Lucifer, the very devil himself. Can she save his soul and her own before it’s too late?
Turn the page to start reading Diana and Lucifer’s story!
* * *
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* * *
Turn the page to read the beginning of Midnight with the Devil!
Midnight with the Devil
Prologue
“How you have fallen from heaven, Morning Star, Son of the Dawn!”
“Favorite son no more!”
“No longer will you shine!”
The taunts from his brother angels filled his head as he fell through the clouds. Light and darkness consumed him in flashing turns as he passed through the stars, into the clouds, and toward the earth. The air cut him, and the wind roared around him so deafening that his eardrums burst. Dawn was on the horizon, and he would die before he saw it fully claim the skies.
“You, my brightest star, my favorite among the angels, how you have disappointed me.” Father’s voice was the hardest to bear.
Lucifer closed his eyes, welcoming the end, the death of light, the death of life.
“You were to bring light into the world, inspire my creations, not corrupt them with your jealousies. Now you will rule the corrupted who follow you and become the king of hell.”
The earth rose up to meet him, and he embraced the pain. His angelic heart shattered at the same moment his body broke upon impact. Everything went dark around him. Then bit by bit he became aware of himself, feeling every muscle, every bone, every atom that made up his body, screaming with pain. He hadn’t died?
Lucifer gazed up at the endless clouds above him. The rift in the sky that would have let him back into the heavens was closed. He drew in a breath, the air like knives in his lungs. Something was different. He felt…empty. White feathers floated around him, their heavenly luminescence glinting in the sun.
My grace…it’s gone.
It seemed like a millennium passed before he realized he lay upon the broken, cracked ground of the earth. His naked body hurt all over, but the pain was greatest along his shoulder blades. He was glad he could not see his back. There would be two terrible wounds replacing his snow-white wings. He reached out and grasped one of the remaining feathers that floated along the ground close to him and slipped it into the folds of the white tunic he wore. He needed that one bit of heaven, that one bit of home, or else he might go mad with grief.
The light inside him—the glowing essence that had once brought him only joy—was gone. There was nothing left inside him, nothing but darkness. He was in a crater in a desert land. Lucifer struggled to roll onto his stomach, his body too weak to stand.
He lifted his head, hearing the distant sounds of birds. Beyond the wasteland he’d fallen to, a beautiful Eden lay ahead, a land of green, full of beautiful beasts and flowers. Father had spoken so often about the world below the clouds.
Rage flooded through his body, giving him new energy and strength. Somewhere in that Eden were his father’s favorite beings—humans. A vile word for vile beings who were no comparison to angels. But he was no longer an angel. He was fallen. A being without wings, without grace.
What am I now?
The question had no ready answer, and he cringed. For the first time in his existence, he didn’t know what he really was.
He dug his hands into the arid dirt, clawing his way toward the garden ahead of him. At the center of the beautiful world, a single tree stood tall among the rest. Amidst its branches hung gleaming red apples. Father had spoken of this tree, the one that bore knowledge for the ages. Humans had free will, which angels did not, and if those humans dared break their promise to stay away from the tree, Lucifer would have his revenge and watch his father’s favorite creations fall from grace.
Lucifer’s lips twitched. He would not have long to wait to get his revenge. He could see the weakness and frailty in humanity. Bringing down the humans, one by one, would break his father’s celestial heart, just as he had broken Lucifer’s.
The wind carried away the feathers of his once angelic wings. He was glad he had caught one and tucked it safely near his heart. Paradise was lost to him, and he would make sure those damned humans would never reach it either.
Chapter 1
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven. - John Milton, Paradise Lost
Hellfire Rising was a den of corruption.
A hotbed of sin and scandal.
Here hearts were broken, dreams destroyed, and dark fantasies realized.
It was the closest thing to a home Lucien Star had. He leaned against the balcony overlooking the dancers below, and with a snap of his fingers he held a glass of brandy. He took a slow sip, savoring the dark, hard flavor of the alcohol.
Two years ago, he had left behind the devil that his father expected him to be and remade hims
elf into a different devil. Lucifer—the Morning Star, the once favored angel, the ruler of hell who never left the darkness—was gone. He was done spending the majority of his days in the dark abyss and the fires of hell in the realm of the evil and the damned. He stopped calling himself Lucifer and instead became Lucien Star. He used his powers to create a world that catered to his own desires, Hellfire Rising, a club in downtown Chicago.
He returned to the abyss, to the darkness, only when absolutely necessary to see to his duties. The gates of hell needed guarding, or else they would break and demons would flood into the world, destroying it. That was not what Lucien wanted. Contrary to popular opinion, he rather liked the human realm the way it was. He didn’t want to see it destroyed by flames and left in eternal darkness.
A woman below him on the stairs glanced up, flashing him a sultry smile in open invitation. He raised his brandy glass in salute, but he wasn’t interested. His mind was on other matters, like the strange preoccupation with deep, troublesome thoughts. It was so unlike him that it rattled the bars of the hellish emotional cage he felt trapped in tonight.
He wished hell could run itself, and it did…mostly. The damned didn’t need him there to continue their suffering at all times, which was a relief. He despised hell. But he couldn’t avoid his job completely. He had to watch out for stray demons that wandered into the paths of mortals, then catch and destroy them. That didn’t give him joy either.
He preferred the mortal plane, watching humans make decisions that put them on the path to sin. He loved the secret language of hidden smiles, seductive glances, exploring hands as they gave themselves over to their darker desires. He craved corruption, not evil.
