by Kyla Stone
Liquid fear shot through his veins. He’d lost the Black Hawk. Duffield had never supplied him with the mortars he needed.
He wasn’t ready. To obliterate the Syndicate required subterfuge and deceit, backstabbing Poe when he and his men least expected it.
Poe had backstabbed him first.
“Consider yourself checkmated.”
“I gave you everything! This is how you repay me?”
“This is how you play the game,” Poe said, a sneer in his voice. “And Byron, you’ve been played.”
53
Liam
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
Liam strode down the center of highway M-139.
It was well after midnight. He was fifteen miles north of Fall Creek, on the outskirts of the town of St. Joseph.
He had ridden most of the way via bicycle, then discarded it in an abandoned warehouse.
Now, he walked in the middle of the road with his hands bare at his sides. The M4 was strapped across his chest, his Glock holstered.
He felt vulnerable, exposed, naked.
Still, he walked.
It went against his training, his every instinct.
Fear and doubt gnawed at him, but he marched with purpose.
Night sounds filled the crisp spring air. Insects trilled. Small creatures scurried through the grass. The wind soughed through the trees, the branches thick with fresh green buds.
He tensed as he passed each stalled vehicle along the side of the road. They crouched like slumbering beasts in the darkness. He scanned every direction, anticipating an ambush, but none came.
He walked on.
The tiny knit hat smoldered like a coal in his jacket pocket. Such a tiny thing represented so much. Its presence motivated him, goaded him, drove him onward.
He passed a feed store to his left. An autobody shop on the right. A high-end lighting store. A specialty bakery and nail salon across from a used car lot. Trash skittered across the road.
If he had his Delta unit at his back, he’d have observation teams for intelligence, overwatch to protect him, a reaction force standing by and an Apache or Black Hawk for rapid extraction with a guarded landing zone.
He had none of those things. He was alone.
He was a dead man walking.
That was all right. He accepted it.
He prayed it would be enough. That his sacrifice would be worth it.
He felt eyes on him long before he saw them. Felt their rifles and carbines zeroed in on his chest, his forehead.
He couldn’t see or hear them, but his time in a dozen combat zones from Syria to Afghanistan had taught him well.
He knew when he was being hunted.
His senses on high alert, he scanned left then right, examining the storefronts, the windows and doorways. Still, he didn’t reach for a weapon.
On the roof of the hair salon, moonlight flashed on a scope. A human-shaped shadow ducked from the doorway of the autobody shop. The sounds of muffled, furtive footfalls.
They were here.
They were coming for him.
Four figures darted into the road. They wore BDUs and carried M4s. They shouldered their carbines and rushed him, shouting orders.
Several flashlights flicked on, beams wavering.
“Get down!”
“On your knees!”
“Don’t move!”
Liam sank to his knees and raised both hands, squinting. Flashlights shone in his eyes. It took everything in him not to seize his M4 and fight back.
Instead, he said, “I surrender.”
All he needed was for some knuckle-dragger to get trigger happy and pop him between the eyes. Lights out. Game over.
A figure stepped forward, silhouetted against the flashlight glare. It took a moment for Liam’s eyes to adjust. The lanky form of James Luther loomed over him.
Luther bent, wrenched the M4 from Liam’s shoulder, and handed it to the soldier behind him. “This is the guy. I told you he’d be here.”
Liam clenched his jaw. His ribs flared. He suspected the pain was just beginning.
“I surrender!” he repeated, louder.
“I bet you do,” a tough female voice said.
“Get some cuffs on him,” one of the soldiers said.
“I’ve got it.” Luther stepped forward, a pair of handcuffs in his hand.
“Make sure you frisk him, first.”
Rough hands grabbed and slapped at him. His Gerber and Glock were confiscated, along with the magazines tucked into his chest rig. They left his jacket intact.
Luther jerked Liam’s arms behind him. Hard metal cuffs clamped his wrists, pinching his flesh.
“You sure it’s him?” a raspy voice said. “Confirm positive I.D. before I call it in.”
Luther circled around to face him. He stared down at Liam, his face impassive. Shadows flickered across his inscrutable expression, shielding his eyes.
His lips curled in a sneer of disdain. “Yeah, it’s him.”
The butt of a carbine swung toward Liam’s face.
His training took over. He leaned backward and shifted so he wouldn’t take the blow straight on.
Then everything faded to black.
54
Quinn
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
Quinn stared at Reynoso. “What did you just say?”
Reynoso gazed at the council members, his expression grave. “We’re about to be attacked.”
He’d called the council members to the town hall for an emergency meeting. Quinn wasn’t on the council, but Hannah had insisted she come after they’d dropped Milo and Charlotte off at the Brooks’ home.
Besides the council members at the table, a few dozen townspeople sat in the metal folding chairs, tired but alert. Quinn stood near the long rectangular table, far too antsy and amped up to sit still.
The old courthouse was lit with candles and lanterns. The high ceilings arced above them, invisible in the darkness.
Reynoso cleared his throat. “Liam called me. According to his informant, General Sinclair plans to attack Fall Creek at dawn.”
Bishop glanced at his watch. “That’s about five hours.”
Gasps sounded around the room. Stricken faces stared at him, mouths agape.
Quinn’s ribs constricted like a giant hand was squeezing tighter and tighter. The vaulted ceiling was too low, too close, pressing down on her. It was hard to breathe.
Darryl Wiggins blanched. “We’ll be overrun! They’re soldiers! They’ll slaughter us.”
“We’ve prepared for this,” Bishop said in his booming baritone, his voice even but clipped, as if struggling to maintain his temper. “We knew it was coming. Now that the hour is upon us, it’s time to act.”
Wide-eyed, Hannah glanced around the room. “Where is Liam?”
“I thought he was with you,” Dave said.
She shook her head.
All eyes turned to Reynoso.
“He said he had something important to do and signed off before I could ask questions. He hasn’t answered since. I’m sorry, but I don’t know.”
The group let that sink in. They stared at each other, anxious and baffled.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Principal King said. “Where would he go? What would he do? We need him here.”
Quinn cleared her throat. “He went after the General.”
Hannah whipped toward her. “What?”
Louder, she repeated it. “He’s going to kill the General.”
“No,” Hannah said, stricken. “No, no, no.”
Bishop looked sick. “Don’t tell me he left by himself.”
Quinn gave a tight nod. “I came out for a drink of water while he was getting ready. I couldn’t stop him. He said he didn’t want anyone else to die.”
“Doesn’t mean he gets to either,” Reynoso muttered.
“He said that if he cut off the head of the snake, the National Guard would think twice before attacking. That we’d have a cha
nce.”
“We have to go after him,” Bishop said. “He goes in there alone, it’s suicide—”
Quinn swallowed. “He left an hour ago. You’re too late.”
Bishop’s face turned ashen. He shook his head, aghast.
They were all thinking the same thing. Liam was a lone man entering the lion’s den. He had little chance of returning.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Principal King asked.
Quinn touched the thick, itchy scab on her lip. She wasn’t ashamed of it. It was a battle scar. A sign to everyone that she’d survived that fight and would survive the next one, too.
She straightened her shoulders and met Hannah’s gaze. “He asked me not to. He said you would try to stop him, that even though it was the right move, you wouldn’t want him to do it.”
“Damn straight we wouldn’t,” Reynoso said.
Emotions flickered across Hannah’s features in rapid succession—fear, worry, trepidation, doubt. Then, something like acceptance.
Hannah took a steadying breath. “When it comes to tactics and strategy, Liam is smarter than all of us put together. We have to trust his decision, even if it…even if…”
Her chin trembled. She wasn’t stupid. She knew what this meant. That Liam was sacrificing himself. That they would never see him again.
At this moment, the General might be torturing the man they owed their lives to. The man Hannah loved.
Quinn blinked back a surge of hot tears. Hell, they all loved Liam. Quinn did. He was freaking Wolverine. Not two weeks ago, he’d risked his hide for a stupid teenager without a second thought.
She’d just lost Gran. The prospect of losing Liam was too terrible to contemplate.
The cavernous room thrummed with strained silence. No one spoke.
Bishop reached across the table and enveloped Hannah’s crooked fingers in his huge ones. “Hannah—”
The uncertainty in her face vanished, her mouth pressing into a thin line. “Whatever happens, we’ll face it. But now, we have to be as strong as he is. We have to be smarter and braver than we’ve ever been. If we fail, everyone we love dies.”
Quinn grimaced. “No pressure or anything.”
“Hannah is right,” Bishop said. “We pray Liam accomplishes what he set out to do. And in the meantime, we do what we’ve been trained for.”
Quinn stepped forward. “If this is Fall Creek’s last stand, let it never be said we didn’t go down without one freaking hell of a fight.”
Jonas, who’d been sitting next to his mother, leapt to his feet. “I’m in.”
“Can’t let the young’uns outdo us.” Bishop pushed back his chair, stood, and looked each person in the eye, radiating a quiet, steely confidence. “God be with us.”
Perez shot to her feet. “Let’s go kill some bad guys.”
Hannah stood next. Around the room, everyone followed suit. Dave and Principal King. Reynoso, Perez, and Bishop. Corinne Marshall. Even Wiggins.
Everyone looked scared, gaunt, and grim. But they also looked stronger, tougher.
“What now?” Wiggins asked.
“We sound the church bell alarm,” Reynoso said. “We’re calling everyone in. All hands on deck. Everyone knows what to do and where to go. The noncombatants will head to the bomb shelters again as our last-ditch fallback position. Every able-bodied citizen is to report to their duty stations. We have to protect the north blockade at all costs. Bishop takes south. I take north—”
Reynoso’s radio beeped. Robert Vinson’s voice came through. “This is Echo Four reporting from the Snow Road blockade. We’ve got visitors.”
55
Quinn
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
Quinn’s adrenaline spiked. She drew her Beretta and held it in the low ready position. Everyone went for their weapons, drawing shotguns and pistols, rifles and revolvers.
“This is Alpha Two,” Bishop said. “Who is it, Echo Four?”
A beat of static. “Mick Sellers, a woman named Dallas Chapman, and a big redhead calling himself Flynn. They’re on horseback. They say they’re Community Alliance representatives, and they need to speak to the town council. It’s urgent.”
“Let them through,” Hannah said.
“They’ve been nothing but trouble!” Corinne said. “We helped them again and again, and they’ve never lifted a finger to aid us! Our people died because they abandoned us against the militia!”
“I’m with her,” Quinn said. “Screw them and the horse they rode in on. Literally, in this case.”
“I know,” Hannah said evenly. “Still, I invited them here. Granted, that was several days ago. But the offer still stands.”
Corrine grimaced but didn’t argue. Quinn bit her tongue. They had too much to do to waste time with these yahoos.
“Let them through,” Bishop said.
“Copy that,” Vinson said over the radio. “Sending them through now.”
A few minutes later, Mick, Flynn, and Dallas entered town hall, escorted by Robert Vinson and Jamal Duncan.
The Fall Creek sentries had divested them of their weapons. The pharmacist carried his hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.
Jamal remained at the door to keep watch while Vinson gestured for their visitors to approach.
Quinn watched them with narrowed, suspicious eyes. She’d heard plenty about these jokers. Liam had always been leery of them. She was, too.
The one called Flynn towered over the other two. A redheaded guy sporting a bushy beard that reached his chest, he looked like a Hell’s Angels biker.
The woman, Dallas Chapman, stood on Mick’s opposite side. She wore hunting camo, her skin a rich brown, her black coils springing from beneath her MSU Spartans winter hat.
Mick Sellers wore a hunter-green parka, jeans, and scuffed work boots. In his mid-seventies, he was still straight-backed, with short silver hair.
Hannah and Dave stepped forward to meet them. Tension crackled in the air. Everyone edgy and itching to get to their duty stations and prepare for the impending attack.
Hannah didn’t waste time on pleasantries or preamble. “It’s after one a.m. What is it?”
“The radios aren’t working,” Flynn said in an accusatory voice, like it was their fault. “We’ve been trying to contact you.”
“Some of the repeater stations are down,” Hannah said. “The General’s soldiers sabotaged them.”
Perez crossed her arms over her chest. “What the hell do you want? Spit it out and leave. We’re a little busy.”
Flynn shifted from foot to foot. He looked shaken. His flustered gaze darted from Perez to Hannah. “That’s what we came to talk to you about.”
“We have news,” Mick said in a strangled voice. Even in the dim light, his face was ashen, his eyes wide and bloodshot. He looked as if someone had walked over his grave. “In the last hour, we’ve received multiple reports that hundreds of armed men have spilled across the border north of South Bend and are heading inland. They’ve got vehicles, some armored, and plenty of guns. They’re shooting anyone they see.”
Everyone stared at him in shocked silence.
Dallas said, “Poe has just invaded Michigan.”
56
Hannah
Day One Hundred and Fifteen
“Poe’s headed straight for us,” Mick said.
“We can’t defend ourselves from two opposing forces,” Annette said in a stricken voice. “God help us.”
The townspeople exchanged appalled glances.
Hannah felt it, a low thrumming terror like a scream locked inside, fighting to get out.
Her heart plummeted. Sour-sick acid churned in her belly. The certainty of death bore down on them like a hurtling train.
Whatever their preparations, whatever they’d attempted to avoid this fate—how could it be enough? Would her children die today? Scared, calling for their mothers?
Was Liam already dead? Was that her destiny, too?
Things looked blea
k. More like impossible.
“How many?” Reynoso asked.
“Don’t know,” Mick said. “Hard to tell from the reports. Two thousand? Maybe more. They’re coming up on Highway 31. Looks like they’ll hit your blockade south of the bridge then run through Fall Creek before spreading to the northeast and west.”
“Never thought we’d see this in America.” Dallas’s eyes gleamed in the flickering candlelight. “The things he’s doing to women and children. Selling human beings out in the open like that. I don’t know what chance we have against that kind of army. Not much of one, I suspect. But you defeated the militia. You’ve held your own this far.”
“We need your help,” Mick said.
Perez flung up her hands. “Oh, now you want—”
“Samantha.” Bishop’s strident voice cut through her words like a knife through butter. He shot her a stern look. “This is not the time!”
Startled, Perez clamped her mouth shut.
Flynn looked shaken. Something changed in his expression—a glimpse of vulnerability, a break in the hardness. A flicker of shame, maybe even remorse. “You’ve been right all along. Ain’t none of us will be spared from this, even if you’re the town they hit first. We’ve seen firsthand what Poe does. It’s evil…he’s evil.”
Perez stared at him in shock.
Hannah wasn’t surprised. She’d never wavered in the belief that they could unite for a common cause. She’d kept the lines of communication open, and she’d had faith that returning the militia’s stolen supplies was necessary, not only because it was the right thing to do, but for this moment.
Flynn grunted. “What we’re saying is, we want to join forces, if you’ll have us.”
