by N. C. Reed
“Well, I knew it was coming,” she sighed in resignation. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, a house full of teenage hormones to further complicate things. Welcome to my life.”
“She's not a teenager,” Clay pointed out. “And Gordy is more mature than most guys his age, too.”
“Which in this case just makes it worse,” Patricia nodded. “Young adults are seldom willing to listen to advice of any kind, let alone about physical intimacy. Perfect,” she added in a mutter more to herself than her brother-in-law.
“Well, on that note I guess I’ll just be moving on,” Clay said carefully. There was no reason for him to bear the brunt of-
“You could talk to him about this, couldn't you?” Patricia asked before he made three steps. “You're closer to his age. Explain to him how this is a bad idea and that he should wait for things to settle at least a little.”
“Uh, you do remember that I am currently living in sin with my own girlfriend, I trust?” Clay pointed out. “I find it highly unlikely that he’ll be inclined to listen to any argument I could possibly make. And you sound like you aren't happy with this at all. All I heard when Abby was trying to fix us up was what a good girl she was and what a good family she was from. Do you not like Sam? Is there a reason he shouldn't be with her?”
“None I'm aware of,” Patricia shook her head. “I'm not opposed to it in principle, Clay. She's a wonderful girl, smart, kind, well mannered and pretty as a picture. She's a little older than he is but that doesn't really matter, especially now. Except that he is only seventeen and . . . well, I'd prefer he be just a bit more mature before taking that step.”
“Well, I can understand that,” Clay agreed. “But age isn't going to shut down anything these days, that's for sure. Zach and Vicki hooked up at some point and are sharing his cabin on the hill now.”
“Zach is nineteen, too,” Patricia countered. “Two years of mental and physical maturity, and two of the more formative years at that.” She turned to study her son and potential daughter-in-law again. She did not miss how Samantha clung to her son like a second skin.
“And even if he's willing to wait, I don't think she is. How much willpower did you have at seventeen?”
“I was in the Army at seventeen,” Clay reminded her. “Willpower wasn't welcome and if you had any they beat it out of you.”
“When you were his age, had a girl her age with her looks looked at you like she looks at him, could you have resisted?” she demanded.
“I wouldn't have tried,” he admitted.
“Exactly.”
***
“I want your word, X, and I mean your solemn promise mind you, that you aren't going to try and do something to your . . . brother, at least for the time being. We got too much other shit to concentrate on at the moment and you know it.”
Shane and Xavier were in one of the motor homes that had made the trip east with them, allowing them some privacy as well as a little comfort.
“Sorry, Rat,” X shook his head. “I won't lie to you. And if I gave you that promise it would be a flat out lie.”
“Can you not see how unfair this is to the rest of us?” Shane demanded.
“Fairness to you is not my concern, Shane,” Xavier replied calmly. “It never has been.”
“Are you telling me everything we've been through together was a lie?” Shane's face reddened. “That we shouldn't have trusted you with our lives because you can't be bothered to give a shit about anything other than what you want?”
“If you honestly have to ask me that then I suppose it was,” Xavier shrugged easily, unmoved by the outburst. “I have never once let any of you down nor failed to do my duty. And you know that.”
“Then why can you not put this aside just for now? Just a truce until we're settled and on our feet? Don't forget we still need to deal with that chick you caught and the people she works for. Not to mention taking Tall Girl the rest of the way home.” It had been an almost automatic nickname for Mattie Simmons.
“As far as I am concerned, he killed my mother,” Xavier looked at him calmly. Too calmly. “Odd as it may seem to you, I actually loved my mother. Unlike everyone else, she didn't judge me harshly because of my . . . issues. She not only accepted them, but loved me in spite of them. Even one such as I knows the value of that. And Byron took that from me, Shane. So no. There can be no truce between us, no matter how much it would help everyone else. I offered to leave, and still will. The one promise I will give you is not to return and attack him here if I am the one to go. But if he steps one foot off this farm he is fair game. That is the best I have to offer you.”
“Have you ever actually tried talking to your brother about this shit?” Shane asked him.
“What do you mean?” Xavier seemed genuinely confused.
“I mean have you thought about just . . . asking him what happened and why he chose the road he did?” Shane clarified. “There may have been a reason, an unselfish reason, that he chose to stay away after what he did. Protecting the rest of you comes to mind.”
“You're actually trying to insinuate that he felt anything for the rest of us,” Xavier scoffed. “Something he is utterly incapable of doing, I assure you.”
“Just like you are?” Shane barely managed not to snarl. “You ever think that maybe, just maybe mind you, that Byron loved your mother, his mother, just as much as you did? And that because he did, he decided to stay away rather than bring his problems to her doorstep? Hell of a way to thank a loving mother, man, bringing that kind of crap right to her door just so you can go home again.”
Xavier blinked.
“Never thought of that, did you?” Shane's voice was biting. “Maybe you need to quit making assumptions and find out if you're right or not. You've spent years hating someone who should be your biggest supporter. Hell, for all you know he is. I noticed he didn't stay and antagonize you at the lunch, now did he? Didn't tear into you, either. You said yourself that the last time you were in arm’s reach you stabbed him. I didn't see him trying to get even. And he was heeled, in case you didn't see. Had an automatic in his waistband and two knives that I could see. Not to mention he is absolutely hooked up with the Old Man, which means he could have done just that and expected not to face any retaliation. So how about you pull your head out of your ass and maybe talk to your brother? Even with a go between. Because this horse shit is hard on the rest of us and we don't fucking deserve it!”
Before Xavier could frame a reply, Shane had stormed out of the motor home and stalked away, his anger obvious enough he was practically leaving smoke trails behind him.
***
Clay, Mitchell Nolan and Vicki Tully visited their 'guest' that afternoon. This time she didn't refuse the baby bottle but instead took the nipple in her mouth and suckled at it greedily, ignoring the laughter from the other woman and the chuckles from the men. Let them laugh for now. She would survive.
“We're gonna have to hose her down,” Clay said to the other two. “Suggestions?”
“Take her to the creek,” Vicki suggested. “You’ll have to burn those clothes anyway. Easier to do it there. Use that pump and hose her down.” She leaned into him then and whispered in his ear; “you can always chain her to a tree or something. Unless she gnaws off her arm, she won't get away.”
“You're mean, you know that?” Clay grinned at her.
“She doesn't deserve any better,” the stocky little trooper shrugged. “You can bet she's done a lot worse to other women.”
“I told you I never had anything to do with that,” their prisoner rasped out at that, having finished with the baby bottle.
“So you admit you've taken women captive then,” Vicki said.
“I told you last night we had,” the woman groaned. “Please,” she added. “I . . . I can't feel my hands anymore.”
Clay frowned at that. He whispered to Vicki, who nodded and ran off to get what he asked for as Mitchell Nolan rose to stand back from the woman on the ground. She was g
etting ripe.
“What are we doing?” he asked.
“She needs to stretch her legs and arms,” Clay said. “And she needs a bath. But we don't know what training she might have had, so we're gonna do this carefully.”
***
Emily Shirley felt her arms and legs simply let go as her restraints were cut. Nearly three days of being bound in a painful arch had left her with unfeeling limbs and aching joints. It was comical that she was being held at gunpoint, considering she couldn't get to her feet or even find her feet for the first five minutes she lay flat on the ground. As she lay there she felt a loop slide over her head and tighten around her neck, followed closely by a second one. Raising her head to see what was happening, she saw two people, one man and one woman, standing to her left and right respectively, holding long poles with ropes attached. Those ropes ended in the loops now snug around her neck, leaving her captors in complete control of her movements and with no way to break away.
“Get up,” the woman ordered. “Time for you to get a bath and a change of scenery.”
Believing this would be her chance to see more of the operation run by her captors, she immediately tried to get to her feet but failed. It took another five attempts before she managed to stagger upright. Without a word her two keepers starting her moving, walking her down the side of the bus toward the showers.
Only they weren't.
When she emerged from the vehicle park, all she could see was grass. Any attempt at turning her head was countered by a tightening noose, denying her any opportunity to see more of their operation. Instead of heading inside to a shower, they started walking away from anywhere, heading straight out into the pasture. A momentary surge of fear ran through her at the thought they were marching her off somewhere remote to kill her, but no; they wanted information from her. So long as she held out, they wouldn't kill her.
Probably.
Emily didn't know how far they walked, or how long it took. The walk was hard on her due to having been immobile for so long, but at least it was exercise and she was beginning to get the feeling back in her legs. At long last she saw a creek ahead that seemed to run as far as the eye could see in both directions. They walked her right to the edge and stopped.
“All right Belle Starr, strip those nasty ass clothes off and pile them up here behind you,” the woman ordered.
“What?” Emily tried to look the woman's way but was stopped short.
“You heard me!” the woman snapped. “Strip!”
“No!” Emily refused at once. “I won't do it!”
“Take her back and put her like you found her,” a man's voice from behind her ordered. “We’ll give her another chance tomorrow or the next day.”
“No, wait!” Emily reversed course. “Please don't! I . . . please, not in front of them,” she tried to talk to the woman.
“How many women prisoners did you help take that were forced to do more than just strip down and take a bath for the men in your outfit?” the woman's reply was flat and cold. Emily didn't reply but her red face was answer enough.
“What I thought. Now you either start stripping out of those clothes or back you go. Last chance.”
Biting back a sob, Emily began to strip off her soiled and ruined clothing. She had been held for three days without being given a chance to use the bathroom, or even just to toilet in the woods, so to speak. She stank and was chafing all over. Her wrists and ankles were raw, her knees and shoulders were strained to the breaking point, and she was broken. This was the last straw as it forced home to fact that she was indeed in dire straits. No one knew where she was, and depending on the wrecks, assuming anyone found them or even bothered looking, they might think she burned up or crawled away to die.
She was alone.
She went as slow as she dared, hoping for some kind of reprieve even though she knew it wasn't coming. Once more she thought back to how she and the other women in the group had treated female captives. They had called them 'prisoners' in an effort to make it seem less evil, but now she found herself in their shoes and could experience at least some of their terror herself.
Finally naked, she stood shivering, covered in her own filth, trying to cover herself with her hands to preserve her modesty.
“Relax,” the woman ordered. “No one here is interested in your charms. This is strictly business. Your ass needs a bath. Climb down into the creek.”
Without a word, Emily stepped down and into the freezing water. She shouted, or would have if her voice hadn't still been hoarse. Instead it came out as a pitiful cry that sounded somewhat like a kitten crying for milk, just on a louder scale.
“There's soap and a rag down there already,” the woman told her. “Clean yourself up and don't take all day about it either.”
“Can you take these off?” Emily asked, touching the nooses around her neck.
“Sure,” the woman smiled. “Come on back out and we’ll put you back where we found you. Just like we found you. No problem.”
With a choked off sob, Emily took the rag and soap and started cleaning three days of waste off her body, trying to ignore both her aches and pains as well as the freezing water.
***
“When she's done, we need to find somewhere to put her where she can't see what's happening,” Clay said softly, knowing their prisoner couldn't hear over the rushing water. “I'm going to leave that to you guys. Just make sure she can't ‘cause trouble and she can't get away.”
“Got it Boss,” Vicki nodded. Nolan nodded as well. Clay pulled a small soda bottle from his pocket and poured the contents, kerosene, over the pile of clothing before dropping a match on them. The fire blazed up at once, burning the ruined clothing nicely.
“What will I wear!” the prisoner protested from the water.
“What do the women you keep captive wear?” Nolan asked. He didn't get a reply, just a red face, dropping to look at the water.
“What I thought,” the former commando nodded.
“I gotta get back,” Clay told them. “Need me, call me.”
CHAPTER SIX
William Shirley looked at the map behind his desk and frowned. There was a single push pin stuck in the map board on Interstate 65, perhaps fifty miles north of his compound, that denoted his niece's last known position. She had radioed in almost four days ago that she and her team were following what appeared to be a small but well supplied convoy of vehicles that had a minimum of security amounting to a Hummer and two armored cars. Her orders were to trail the convoy and find out their final destination so that the entire outfit could be mustered in to attack and take what promised to be a rich target.
She had not been heard from since. And that wasn't like her.
His decision to include her in his group's membership had not been without qualms, but she had met or even surpassed every requirement he had set for her. Since the solar event that had led them to activate their emergency program, she had been exemplary in her duty, even when she did not particularly care for whatever duty it was, carrying out every assignment given to her without fail. Her rise to patrol commander had not been due to his influence but rather to the trust that the command council had in her ability.
And now she had been missing, her entire patrol had been missing for four days. There was no way this was due to anything other than foul play. Obviously the convoy they had been tailing had been better protected than Emily had believed, or else they had met with trouble from a third source. Something or someone encountered after her final check in.
The group had already ordered all remaining patrols back to the compound, anticipating a raid in strength against whatever target Emily found them. The area to the north, particularly into Tennessee, had been a mystery to them since they had begun foraging for supplies. He grimaced at the very thought, acknowledging how badly their plan had fallen apart once activated.
One raiding force had disappeared after reporting a possible farm still in operation over the line into Tennessee.
Twenty-eight men and women and two vehicles simply gone. Vanished as if into thin air. The loss of so much equipment had hurt, but scouts into the area had found no sign of their missing people or vehicles. To say it was frustrating was an understatement.
And now Emily's patrol had gone missing while heading north toward that same area. He had hoped to get a location on the farm that had somehow apparently taken out an entire platoon in total, but now he had instead lost two more vehicles and six more people. One of them his niece, who had been a real asset up to this point, another being the son of a full partner.
He had reluctantly dispatched another unit to follow her trail to her last known position, but that crew had returned with nothing to show for their trouble. No sign of Emily or her patrol. Not their bodies, not their wrecked vehicles, nothing. While it was possible that she had met her demise further north, as had the first group to go missing, there was no way for him to justify sending yet a third group further north and risking their loss as well. Sooner or later they would have to make that trip as resources near them ran completely out, but it would have to be done carefully and in force. Not as a knee jerk reaction to the loss of a family member, no matter how valuable. He heard the door behind him open and turned to see one of his subordinates enter his office.
“Sorry, sir,” the young man was shaking his head. “No response on the primary or emergency frequencies. It's possible they're experiencing equipment failure,” he offered.
“They would return if that was the case,” Shirley shook his head slowly. “Those are standing orders for all patrols.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but is it possible she would have risked it rather than lose the lead on the convoy she was following?” the young man asked. William considered that. Yes, his headstrong niece was capable of ignoring inconvenient orders if she decided it was necessary.