Unbeaten

by A. R. Shaw

  The man was distracted with his prey for now. Grabbing the drone absently, Jason haunted after them within the trees. Never the aggressor, he suddenly heard, Savior by Rise Against, within his mind. He was a changed man in an instant.

  28

  Sloane

  A little bit of crazy. It was an attribute she knew she contained. Her first husband coined the term. She lost it every once in a while. Then she was good for months on end, years even. It wasn’t common. She’d never been a high maintenance kind of gal, but every now and then, she regrettably lost patience with the world, though typically she was known for her nerves-of-steel demeanor. Brushing off the scene at home, she breathed deeply, lowered her chin as she saw the crowd around the coffee shop deep in talk, and walked with determination.

  “Sloane…we’re sorry about Wren…”

  She held up a hand. “Not now. We have that covered as best we can. Right now, we have a few scenarios to deal with. I need ballistics. Yes, Chuck, I know that’s you. Who else? Who knows Astoria’s layout? Raise your hands.” She nodded. “We’ve got work to do. Chuck, I need you and any weapons specialists, engineers, and anyone with knowledge of the streets and harbors of Astoria.”

  “On it,” Chuck said.

  The old man closed one cup of the headphone over his ear. His lips were moving. Sloane noticed he was in a conversation with someone.

  “Do you think…” Chuck began to say but Sloane cut him off with her hand and walked over to the old man.

  “What’s going on?” she asked him.

  He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he looked at her with a kind of dread that sank to the bottom of her stomach. It was bad news. There was no doubt about that.

  “What? Tell me,” she demanded.

  “Sloane, Nicole sent a message. It’s from Jason.”

  29

  Wren

  There’s no air. I can’t breathe. He’s killing me. God, please…please help me.

  “Stop fighting me,” he yelled at her again.

  But she would never stop, never. Not in a million years. That wasn’t a part of her, not now or ever again. My gun—it’s gone. But what do I have?

  Waterlogged vision prevented her from seeing much. Her best assets were the hard heels of her boots, her bare hands and her teeth for biting the hell out of him. She’d tried everything she could to get away from him, including nailing him in the face with the back of her head. He was three times her size at least, and all muscle at that. He surrounded her with his arms and chest, hauling her forward like a rag doll. Hitting and kicking him didn’t work. She just wasn’t strong enough. He was too large and seemed to anticipate her moves. The sweat and smell of him made her gag as it was. Manhandling her into his chest didn’t make it any better.

  Choking…choking for air. Her eyes were so watery, she couldn’t see at all now. Please, help me…someone.

  Wedging her lower jaw far enough beneath his forearm again, she bit down with all her strength.

  “Oww, fuck!” he screamed.

  Then, like before, he jerked her, repositioning his arm quickly into the crook beneath her jaw, and squeezed harder.

  Oh my God, they’re going to find me this way. He’s going to kill me, and my mother will see my lifeless body. I’m going to die.

  Darkness faded in from the sides. With her eyes wide open, pooled in tears, her vision ceased, and her ears filled with a buzzing sound.

  30

  Kent

  “That’s as far as we’re going for now. We have a chainsaw in the back. We’ll have to cut the tree in two and hook chains over one end and haul it back. We’ll get through then,” Boyd said.

  “Yeah, I’d love to help you guys but…not really, I’m lying,” Marvin said.

  Marvin was proving to be a smart-alecky, clever asshole. Kent had to give him that. It was the way he said things, the sarcasm dripping like a too-ripe peach in the sweltering heat of an August day. It was an unfortunate situation. Kent rather liked the guy.

  “You two get started. I’ll supervise from here,” Marvin said as Kent emerged from the truck. “But if you don’t mind, can you give me something for the pain before you go? It’s getting a little intense.”

  Kent had no doubt that was true. He’d held off on dosing him so that he was more coherent for the questioning. The problem was, he needed to reserve the stuff as much as possible. It was true that he had morphine, but it was also true he only had so much of it.

  “Yep,” Kent said as he filled another syringe with clear liquid. It wasn’t the pain medication.

  A few seconds after Kent administered the shot, Marvin’s eyes glazed over. “Wait, wait…” Marvin said when his eyes began to twitch. “You sedated me?”

  Kent just nodded.

  “Fucker,” Marvin said before passing out.

  “How many times can you do that to him?” Boyd asked.

  “As many times as it takes. Let’s get this…” Kent began to say but the radio alerted them there was a call coming in.

  Boyd listened to the message. His dark brown eyes widened and darted to Kent.

  “She wants to talk to you. Doesn’t sound good,” Boyd said, holding the radio out for Kent.

  “Never is,” he said.

  31

  Davis

  The girl passed out again. He’d held her too tight, dammit. He needed her. He didn’t want to kill her. He’d have to watch the asphyxiation. Keep her on the edge of light.

  “Hey?” Jostling her, she didn’t respond. As he held her bodyweight in his arms, he turned her around to face him. She might be faking it, he knew that, but one look at her and nope…she was unconscious. “Hey, wake up. Where’s the controller to that damn drone?” he said but she didn’t respond. Then, from out of nowhere, something slammed into the back of his head.

  Davis dropped the girl to the ground and turned quickly to see the drone coming in for another attack. He reached up to grab the thing when he felt a sharp sting to his upper left side, not far from the last gunshot wound he’d yet to care for. Then he heard rapid footsteps on the asphalt. When he turned, a young man with blonde hair aimed and fired once more.

  Davis drew his own gun and quickly fired back. At the last second, something hard hit him in the shins, causing his aim to careen away from his intended target.

  He soon realized it was the girl. She’d used her backpack. She’d swung the damn thing at him.

  Suddenly, he realized there were two of them. The boy was the drone operator. What use was the girl? He didn’t want the responsibility of her plight weighing on him anyway. But she was all over him, trying to get his gun away. He couldn’t even see the kid and wondered why he had not taken another shot at him. It’s the girl… She’s in the way. And just when he thought her a mere annoyance, she whipped out a long knife he didn’t know she had and rammed it into his wounded shoulder.

  Davis dropped his weapon without intending to. It clattered onto the asphalt. His left arm was in tatters and now there was a damn blade sticking out of it. He quickly pulled it out. That was when he saw the boy raise his weapon again. But quicker, Davis pulled the girl up from the street with his right arm and flipped her around, her knife now at her own throat.

  “Go ahead,” Davis seethed in pain as he stared into the young man’s eyes. “I’ll spill her blood in an instant.”

  Aiming into him, the boy seemed to be calculating. What was odd was he hadn’t said a word yet. Typically, in situations of hostage negotiations this was where the other guy threatened something back. He’d say something like, Let her go, or I’ll shoot you first. Or he’d pull one of those I don’t care moves. She’s better off dead anyway. But he didn’t say a word. Only stood there, aiming in silence. Something was weird, and Davis didn’t know what it was yet. That was bothersome. There was a fact missing. He didn’t like missing facts.

  Davis jutted his chin out. “Put your gun down. Nobody gets hurt.”

  The girl started shaking her head. Davis held her a
little tighter, the blade a little sharper against her skin. He felt it odd, too, that she didn’t try to say anything to the young man.

  The boy suddenly flipped the gun around, pointing to the sky.

  “Toss it over here,” Davis said.

  The boy shook his head, turned and threw the gun into the woods in the opposite direction.

  “Dammit, that’s not what I said.” He felt something warm dripping down his wounded arm and realized it was blood trailing rivers down his arm. He swallowed the rising bile in his throat. He needed to make this quick. Two shots and a stab wound had a way of trying one’s patience.

  “Look, kid. I don’t want the girl but one of you is coming with me. It’s you or her. You make the choice. Since you operate the drones, you’ll have a better chance of surviving where I’m going. She won’t…not for long. Understand?”

  He nodded.

  The girl struggled.

  Davis dropped the knife to the ground and squeezed her neck a little tighter.

  32

  Jason

  There was never a question. He would give his life for hers any day.

  Wren passed out again and the man let her slide gently to the ground, protecting her head as he laid her down. The man picked up his own weapon and then motioned for Jason to toss him his backpack. Going through it, the man found his radio. He instantly chucked it into the woods. “You won’t be needing that. Oh, looky here,” he said, shaking a white plastic box with a red X plastered on the front. “I’ve been looking for one of those. Do you have any other weapons on you?” he asked and chucked the pack back to him, near his feet. He kept the medical kit.

  Jason shook his head no.

  “Open your jacket. Lift it up. Turn around. There you go. Drop your pants…no, I’m not going to molest you. Okay, now lift your pant legs. Okay.”

  Jason complied with the orders.

  “I swear if you try anything, I’ll kill you. I don’t have much time. Grab the drone and gear, and let’s go.”

  Jason looked down at Wren lying in the road. Was she even alive? He held two fingers to the side of his own neck and then pointed at her body.

  “Wait, are you deaf?” the man said.

  Jason was suddenly worried the man would shoot and kill the both of them, or take Wren instead of him. He shook his head back and forth quickly.

  “Why don’t you speak then?”

  Jason swallowed. He’d have to draw him away from Wren before he revealed that he was mostly deaf for now. He opened his mouth and pointed within.

  The horror he expected fell like a veil over the man’s face. Not only that, he looked as if he might faint. The man bent over and held the gun temporarily to his knee. His arm still dripped with blood. Something else was going on here, but Jason wasn’t sure what it was. “Did we do that to you? You don’t have to answer. I’ve heard the rumors about Hyde. I guess it’s true then. Go ahead. Check her pulse. She’s fine. She’ll wake in a few minutes,” the man said as he tried catching his breath. As an afterthought he said, “Don’t try anything. I don’t want to kill either of you, but I will if I have to.”

  Jason scrambled to Wren’s side and touched under her neck. Her lips were bluer a few seconds ago. As he watched her, her nostrils flared slightly with each breath. The pulse beneath her chin chugged along, slow but steady. She’d wake up any second. What the man didn’t see was the knife Wren had used earlier. It lay at her side where she’d landed. Jason slid it up beneath his sleeve and when the man glanced away he pocketed the blade into the side of his jacket. They would find her. He’d made sure to leave a trail.

  33

  Sloane

  “He has her.”

  Sloane’s voice was as coarse as sandpaper.

  “Jason? Well, that’s good news.”

  “No. The other one. The guy we let go. Jason sent a message ten minutes ago by text radio. Somehow the man we freed has Wren. You’re close. You’ve got to run!”

  “Did Jason send a location?”

  “Yes. Pioneer Farm Road.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. The actual message was, ‘He has Wren. Last location Pioneer Farm Road. I won’t let him have her. Thank you for everything.”

  “That guy doesn’t have much farther to go to Astoria. If he crosses Young’s Bay with Wren…”

  “Kent,” she interrupted, “please hurry.”

  “I understand the urgency, but it’s a little more complicated than that. The road isn’t exactly cleared. We’ll do what we can.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll radio back as soon as I can.”

  And that was it. He ended the call.

  He’d nearly made her crack, but she couldn’t afford that now. They had to move quickly.

  “Did you tell him?”

  Mae looked at her mother with the same hiked right eyebrow as her own.

  “I gave him Jason’s message. You have to stay here with Nicole and the others. I’ll return as soon as I can.”

  “You’re lit, Mom. I heard the conversation. Kent will bring them home. They’ll return soon. You don’t need to go there yourself and risk your life as well.”

  “Mae, when you’re a mother, we’ll talk about this again,” Sloane said as she finished packing her bag.

  Sloane reached for her daughter when she’d finished gathering the things she thought she might need, and kissed Mae on top of the head. “Keep Nicole safe and keep Ace by your side at all times. You know what to do if things get out of hand.”

  “I do, but I wish you wouldn’t go,” Mae whispered.

  Sighing, Sloane said, “I wish I didn’t have to. No one messes with my girls.”

  As she walked away, Mae yelled, “What are the wise words for this one, Mom?”

  “Sun Tzu said, ‘Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt’.”

  “No, I meant for leaving me.”

  “Do as I say, not as I do.”

  Sloane held her hand up, knowing her daughter was smiling at that one.

  34

  Kent

  Kent eyed the street ahead. How many more obstructions were in the way before they’d get to her and Jason, and what would they find when they got there? Two lifeless bodies sprawled in the road with gunshot wounds to the head?

  Damn…he tried not to go there. It was just too easy. When was he going to stop picturing dead bodies? Those of total strangers and of those he loved and cared for the most.

  “Just go over it, Boyd. Don’t stop. We’re wasting too much time.”

  “We can’t. We can’t go over that one,” Boyd pointed out the cracked windshield.

  Up ahead there was a damn tree the size of a sewer pipe in their way. Never before in his life did Kent wish he lived in Florida—Arizona, even. Most of Texas was just mesquite trees, not these behemoth pines laying scattered across the roadway. But no…his family chose the Northwest to procreate decades ago. How inconsiderate of them. “Can’t we go around it? It clears up ahead at least. The forest isn’t dense. Bad thing is, we’re out in the open then. They could pick us off if they wanted to.”

  The truck wheels thunked over the far end of the large downed treetop and then spun in the soft earth on the shoulder. For a minute there, he thought they were stuck. That was the last thing they needed, but Boyd was able to pull through this time.

  “Easy,” Kent said. That’s when he felt someone grab his wrist.

  “Hey!” He turned and found Marvin staring at him.

  “Please, don’t put me out again, unless it’s for good.”

  “I can’t promise you anything,” Kent said. “Look, they have the girl. How far can we go before your sentries will spot us? What’s the borderline? You can at least tell us that.”

  Marvin swallowed. The man was barely coherent.

  Kent didn’t like the groggy feeling either. “Come on, man. I need to know this before I risk other lives.”

  “They’re not my se
ntries. Let’s get that straight. Loyalties live and die by the bridge. That’s pretty much it. You can pay your way with supplies beyond that, but the rest comes at a price. They’re little skirmishes, like fiefdoms all along there, but cross over the bridge and you’re essentially in Tale’s kingdom. He doesn’t give a damn what happens beyond his realm.”

  “Great. Will we have trouble from the others getting there?”

  “No. Not likely. Not unless they recognize you as one of ours. Most of them have been wiped out. They’re only a few scattered bandits with an attitude now. Nothing to really worry about.”

  “Hmm…that depends on your definition of worry, I suppose.”

  “Tale kept the best of us. He knew who the fighters were and made us offers we couldn’t refuse. But a warning, my dead friend, go there and there’s a price to pay.”

  Then Kent felt something change in the truck. It was a rumbling speed. Something other than the jagged slow pace, followed by several bumps.

  “Way to go, Boyd. Ten miles per hour is definitely better than five.”

  “It looks clearer up ahead. Just a couple more miles to Pioneer Farm Road,” Boyd said.

  “Go as fast as you can,” Kent said.

  “What’s significant about that location?” Marvin asked.

  Kent didn’t answer right away. He wanted to. Shaking his head, Kent said, “I don’t know if I can trust you.”