I lay down on Wolfe’s blanket and he sits next to me. My eyes are on the girl, but I can hear Wolfe setting his weapons on the floor next to where he’ll sleep. He’s closest to the door, ready to defend us if anything comes through.
I feel him lie down, and then he wraps an arm around my waist, tugging me back against him and holding me tight. I relax, enjoying his warmth and strength.
He reaches up to extinguish the candle I’d lit.
“Leave it.” I touch his arm to stop him. “I want her to see me if she wakes up.”
He grunts and tucks his arm back against me.
I roll over to look at him. He’s taken his eyepatch off and is now looking at me with one golden eye and one milky white one. I touch the scar that crosses over his sightless eye, marring both his brow and his cheek. His eyepatch usually covers most of the scar.
He holds me tighter, pressing my face against his chest, and I fall asleep to the steady beat of his heart in my ear.
When I wake up, the morning sun is shining through the empty windows, and Wolfe is gone. I roll over to find the girl gone as well. The blankets she was sleeping with are rolled up against the wall.
I sit up, shoving blankets aside, leap to my feet and race out of the room, determined to find her. If Wolfe has done something with her or driven her away, I’ll never forgive him.
I hurtle down the stairs to the main floor of the building, rush past a group of our people packing up their bags and out the front doors. The bright sunlight blinds me for a second before I shade my eyes and look around. I see them right away and take a step toward them. Then I stop as I realize what I’m looking at.
Wolfe and the child are sitting together on the curb next to the street, eating and talking. Well, Wolfe is talking. The girl is listening and nodding. She has a stick in her hand and when Wolfe asks her something, his voice a low rumble that I can’t quite hear, she nods and uses the stick to draw in the dirt.
Slowly, I walk toward them. Wolfe looks back at me first, then at the girl.
“Her name is Nova,” he tells me.
The girl smiles brightly and nods.
“How do you know?” I ask, amazed.
“Her mother taught her letters.”
My mouth drops and I crouch next to them. Wolfe hands me some jerky, and I take it automatically.
“She told you all this?” I ask, amazed.
He shrugs. “In her own way.”
“What else did she tell you?” I ask, settling on the curb on the other side of Nova.
She looks up at me with a cheerful grin and offers her piece of jerky. My heart melts and I smile back, showing her the handful Wolfe gave me. “I have some, you eat yours.”
She nods and dutifully chews on the edge.
Wolfe speaks. “I’ve been able to piece some of her story together. Seems like she was born here and never left. Her mother owned the shop and was killed in the wave of zombie attacks last year.”
I stare down at Nova, my heart aching for her. It’s a familiar story, but it hurts to see it happen to someone so young. “Is this true?” I ask her gently.
Her eyes become solemn, and she nods.
I brush her scraggly hair off her face. “You did such a good job of taking care of yourself.”
She looks away and continues to chew.
I look at Wolfe over his head and he stares back, his expression grim.
After breakfast, I manage to scrounge enough water to wash Nova’s face, hands and hair. She’ll have to wait for a more thorough bath. While I use my knife to cut her ruined hair off, I explain to Nova that she’ll be coming with us on our trip. I’m not sure if she understands, and I hope she doesn’t panic when we leave the city.
She climbs into the car when I ask her to and takes up position in the back seat, twisting around to look at the other cars. I grin at Wolfe as I get in the front passenger seat.
We drive long and hard through the day to make up for lost time. The road isn’t bad and we make better time than expected. Nova sleeps through most of the drive, but when she is awake, she’s bouncing around the back seat and staring out the windows. She feels our tension when we stop to gas up, but the refill goes smoothly.
It’s nearly nightfall when we reach the broken bridge we were warned about. We go south to the bridge the other travellers had told us about. This one is still in Harrisburg, but we have to pick our way through an empty, abandoned city to get there.
The bridge looks sturdy enough, though Wolfe walks out across it, assessing it. He stands in the middle for a moment, looking down at the pavement.
I turn to Nova. “Stay here, sweetheart.”
I get out and jog toward Wolfe.
He looks up as I approach, and I see what he’s looking at. A large crack in the bridge spanning from one side to the other.
“Looks like its directly over top of the pier.”
I walk to the edge of the bridge and look over the side. The river is wide and flowing fast below. I turn back to Wolfe.
“Should we risk it?”
He continues to stand contemplatively for another minute before saying, “We don’t know where the next viable crossing is. We’ll try here, but one person per car. Everyone else gathers supplies and crosses on foot in case the bridge collapses.”
I know he’ll be the one driving our car and a chill invades my body. This is a different danger than the one we’re used to but has to be faced nonetheless. If we don’t cross here, we’ll lose another day.
I nod decisively. “Let’s do it.”
I walk back to the other cars, where our people are waiting for their next order. I see Nova peering out at me from the front seat of our car. I gather her and our supplies, strapping them to my back, while Wolfe fills the men in on his plan.
I cross the bridge with Nova at my side and six of our guard behind me. Their arms are filled with the supplies we don’t want to lose to the river. Once we’ve finished crossing, we turn and watch anxiously as the first car traverses the bridge.
I cringe at the sound of old crumbling concrete crunching beneath the tires, but he makes it across. His car mates fill the vehicle with their supplies as the second car crosses.
I anxiously wait for Wolfe, who has elected to cross last. He wants to be the one to cross while the bridge is theoretically at its weakest. I barely breathe as he picks his way across, avoiding the worst of the cracks. The bridge makes a horrendous sound but holds as he finally drives onto land.
I sigh my relief and tell Nova to get in. She scrambles in through the passenger door while Wolfe helps me reload the trunk.
“We’ll find a place to spend the night,” he says.
I nod my agreement, but my mind is on New York and our missing doctor. We’ll arrive tomorrow, and then we’ll have to decide how to rescue her from one of the most secure and brutal Sanctuary cities in North America.
Thirty-One
When we arrive in the ghost town of New Jersey, we stop and map out the rest of our route onto the island. We’re parked in an abandoned lot off the highway with our men standing guard. Though Jersey was abandoned over thirty years ago, we still face the possibility of hordes and Outsiders.
Tabitha taps an early 21st century map we brought along, her fingernail on top of Manhattan. “There are three ways in. Bridge, boat, or tunnel. We can’t take a bridge since the only one left standing on this side is the George Washington Bridge, and it’s heavily patrolled by city forces.”
Many of us have heard of the fall of the bridges but hadn’t quite understood the significance. Since I’m from Old Canada, our concerns were with harsh winters and a lack of supplies. It wasn’t until I travelled south that I saw the varying struggles faced by Sanctuaries based on geography and weather.
Tabitha continues. “Even now, Primitives continually attack the bridge but are picked off by snipers. It’s too risky to try to come at it this way. I don’t think we should go by boat either, which is how we escaped New York in the first place
. The city forces also patrol the waterways around the island. They station people at checkpoints to scan the water, searching for refugees attempting to get onto the island.”
“That leaves the tunnels,” I say, and she nods her agreement.
“At the turn of the century, there were fifteen tunnels, now there are two. Explosions set by survivors sealed them off. Of the two left, one, the Lincoln Tunnel, is heavily patrolled, while the other, the Holland Tunnel is more viable.”
“Then that’s the one we’ll take,” Kingston says.
“You have to understand the dangers first,” Tabitha says impatiently. “The obstacles involved in getting to the island are much different that what you face in the desert Sanctuaries.” She looks around at us and at my nod, she launches into her speech. “They tried to collapse the tunnel with explosives, but it wasn’t completely successful. There’s still a path through, but it’s difficult and dangerous. There are obstacles – abandoned cars, twisted metal, water, huge concrete blocks, not to mention the Primitives, who are also looking for a way inside.”
I hold my breath, my arm tight around Nova’s shoulders.
Tabitha glances at the little girl, worry bright in her eyes.
“Once we get to Manhattan, then what?” I ask.
“We try to find the rebels. They might know if the doctor is here and where she was taken. They have eyes and ears all over the city.” She looks grim as she adds, “If we’re found by the security forces first, then we hand ourselves in and beg for leniency.”
“It won’t come to that,” I try to reassure her, but she doesn’t look convinced.
I glance at Wolfe, who nods.
“Okay, let’s do this,” I say.
Tabitha folds the map and tosses it into the car.
“We’ll walk to the tunnel from here. A procession of vehicles will draw attention. It’s only a few miles.”
We set off after strapping weapons and supplies to our bodies, leaving our cars behind in an abandoned warehouse. I walk next to Wolfe, Nova’s hand tucked in mine. Since finding her two days ago, she seems to have gained confidence by leaps and bounds. It probably helps that her belly has been full since she met us.
She still hasn’t spoken yet, but I’m confident she will.
As we approach the tunnel, we stop, looking at the first obstacle. A pile of cars, stacked on top of and beside each other. They’ve been here for a while. They’ve rusted together to meld into a large, twisted, metal gate.
“Find a way through,” Wolfe says, and two men head toward the barrier.
It takes a few minutes, but they find a way to climb through a vehicle near the top. The pile is solid enough, but I worry about a collapse and say as much to Wolfe.
“We’ll go through one at a time. A few of the men to test stability, then you go with the kid, then the rest of us.”
One at a time our people crawl through a car with smashed windows, but it’s intact enough to allow us entry. The car groans as our people climb through, and I can hear a scraping sound as it moves against the car beneath it. I worry that it’ll collapse before we can all get through.
Tabitha goes ahead of me and reaches through the car on the other side for Nova.
The girl seems to trust women easier than men, though she’s developed a liking for Wolfe, perhaps seeing the biggest, meanest looking man in our party as her best chance at survival. Smart girl.
I don’t breathe easily until Nova is all the way through and safe with Kingston and Tabitha in the tunnel.
“Your turn,” Wolfe says gruffly, boosting me up.
I grip the door frame and haul myself ungracefully into the interior of the rusted out, rotting vehicle. I nearly gag at the smell. The humid environment has created a disgusting mess of everything abandoned in the area.
I climb through the other side and into Kingston’s outstretched arms. As soon as he lets me go, Nova flings herself at me, hugging me tightly around the middle. I feel a rush of love for her, though I remind myself that she would probably do the same to anyone who had rescued her back in that little shop.
Still, I slide my hand up and down her back comfortingly, then watch as the rest of our people climb through. I roll my eyes when I realize Wolfe is coming last. Of course he is. It’s the bridge all over again.
“Watch out!” Kingston shouts.
I’m dragged backwards, Nova tight against me as the cars shift. I see Wolfe’s body catapult through the car. He lands roughly on the damp pavement at our feet and is quickly dragged out of the way before any of the falling cars can land on him.
We watch in horror as the cars continue to shift, then one at a time topple, destroying half of the barrier.
“Wish that’d happened before we had to crawl through that disgusting car,” Tabitha says, her tone annoyed.
I laugh. “We’ll register a complaint when we’re on the other side.”
“C’mon,” she says and makes her way into the tunnel.
We don’t make it far before we need to light torches. Wolfe walks next to me and Nova, holding a light aloft. Our people surround us, weapons ready for any threats.
My heart pounds in both anticipation and fear. If we’re going to be attacked, it will be in here, where we’re most vulnerable. It would be easy to pick off a group of survivors in a tunnel. Like shooting fish in a bucket.
“Stay vigilant,” Wolfe growls to our people, echoing my thoughts.
Moments later we can hear the snarling, snapping, growling of the inhabitants of the tunnel. They probably lay in wait for people who try to make their way onto the island Sanctuary. I can’t imagine many make it through.
I kneel next to Nova and whisper, “Can you stand behind me, sweetheart?”
She nods, her eyes wide, but trusting.
“Hold on to the back of my shirt and stay low,” I tell her.
My smart girl does exactly as I say and slides around to my back, digging her small fingers into the fabric of my shirt. I pull my knife and gun.
Wolfe steps in front of me, and for once I don’t mind. The more barriers between the zombies and Nova, the better.
“Heads up!”
Seconds later, the attack begins.
It’s over before it gets started, the guards efficient in their deadliness.
Wolfe thrusts his sword into the scabbard across his back. He says nothing, but I can feel his lust for the battle and his irritation that he’s missed the action.
I smirk at him. “That’s what you get when you train competent people.”
He grips my jaw and kisses me hard. “Shut up, Warlord.”
I laugh at him, and we continue through the tunnel.
The most difficult points to travel through are the parts of the tunnel that have been flooded. Much of the water has been sitting stagnant in the tunnel and stinks. We walk as far as we can and swim through the rest. At one point we’re forced to submerge our heads in the rancid water. I gag and try to sponge it from my hair on the other side.
Nova takes the tunnel like a champ, barely flinching at any of the obstacles, and even laughs when Wolfe shakes his head like a dog, throwing water droplets over both of us.
Once again, I wonder what’s happened to the little girl that this kind of thing seems untraumatic to her. I’ve experienced a lot in my life, but this tunnel is something else.
We run across one more horde, near the end of the tunnel. I can see light filtering through another barrier of cars as our people make quick work of them.
“Do we climb through?” I ask sceptically.
After the last barrier made of vehicles nearly collapsed on us, I’m less confident that we should send people through.
Wolfe shakes his head. “We’ll try to move them.”
When Wolfe gives the instruction, our people eagerly find the weak points in the structure and collectively use their strength to push a section of cars aside so we can climb through.
From beginning to end, the tunnel took a few hours to cross. I�
�m almost surprised when I climb through into bright sunshine. Our goal is so close I can almost taste it.
I grin up at Wolfe as he stops next to me, but he doesn’t grin back. His gaze is fixed on something.
I follow his line of sight and then quickly shove Nova behind me as we’re surrounded by a group of people with weapons trained on us.
Thirty-Two
I expect them to be the security force, but quickly deduce from their ragtag, rather disheveled appearance that they’re something else.
“Quickly,” a woman snaps, “you need to get off the streets. Patrols will be down this way any minute.”
“Who are you?” I demand, my hand on the butt of my pistol.
“Doesn’t matter, you need to move. We’ll make introductions when we get off the streets,” the woman says irritably.
“We’re not going anywhere with you.”
Before we can continue our argument, Tabitha pushes herself to the front of our group. “Agatha?”
The woman gasps and steps closer to us, despite Wolfe’s warning growl. “Tabby, is that you?”
“It’s me,” Tabitha says gleefully and the two women clasp forearms.
“My god, child!” Agatha exclaims. “I never thought to see you again.”
“We need your help. Have you heard anything about Sheela Summers being brought into the city?”
“Let’s get you off the street first.” Her arm still around Tabitha, she rushes us up the road.
Tabitha twists around to wave at me. “We can trust them, they’re rebels.”
Wolfe grunts his scepticism, but we follow.
Agatha and her people swarm all around us, looking more like shadows in the night than humans. They scout ahead, then switch back, sending others out front while the ones in behind report.
Wolfe watches the exchanges with fascination. I can feel his quick brain absorbing and cataloging the stealth technique the rebels have adopted.
We aren’t taken far from Holland Tunnel before we’re ushered into another tunnel, this one deep underground. We enter through an old, overgrown subway station entrance. A cracked sign next to the steps leading down reads Canal Street Station.
Skye's Sanctuary (The Sanctuary Series Book 5) Page 18