Larry could've argued that, but he was sick to death of all of this. So he just suited his words, turned, and walked away from the group.
“You coward!” Chuck shouted at his back. “Run off with your tail between your legs, Barons! Shows what kind of friend you are!”
The little weasel wasn't worth answering, and Larry was keenly aware that Jay didn't try to call him back or shout any insults after him. So he kept going.
Unsurprisingly, Liza was soon at his side. But what was a surprise was that ten or so people, mostly their fellow Wensbrook survivors, followed as well.
Larry made for the truck he'd saved, the others gathering around him as he made to open the door. “What are we going to do now?” Liza asked quietly, staring back at where Jay had gathered the rest of the crowd to him and was continuing to rant and rave at them.
Larry shook his head wearily. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I intend to go to Stanberry and turn myself in for justice.”
His friends all made shocked noises, Liza staring at him like he was crazy. “What?” she demanded, voice rising. “You can't do that . . . they'll probably beat you to death or hang you from the nearest tree!”
“They might,” he agreed. Honestly it was hard to care anymore; what did he have left now? If nothing else, at least he could face up to what he'd done and accept the consequences, maybe reclaim some of his integrity. “But I know how Jay thinks, and I know a lot of the plans he's made for future attacks. If I go, I could help them stop him from hurting anyone else.”
Liza was visibly shaking as she stared up at him, eyes shining with tears in the darkness. “B-but what about us?”
Something in her tone made Larry pause. Did she mean “us” as in everyone who'd followed him when he turned his back on Jay, or a different “us”? She had to realize he was still grieving his lost family; much as he considered her a friend, he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to open up his heart again.
As if she was aware of his thoughts she hastily continued. “We joined you walking away from Jay because we don't want to be a part of his war anymore. But now we have no idea where to go or what to do . . . Wensbrook is out of the question, since both Jay and Stanberry will be able to find us there.” She hesitated, then continued in a small voice. “We need someone to lead us, and you're the one we followed.”
Larry looked around at everyone helplessly. How could they want him to be in charge when he'd bungled things so badly up until now? He'd failed to stop his own best friend from becoming a homicidal maniac, and also failed to convince their friends who were on the whole decent, kind people not to follow him.
Nobody among those who'd left with him was one of Jay's fighters. These people had gone with Jay up until now, but they hadn't helped him in the war against Stanberry.
Nobody but Larry himself, that is. “I'm going to turn myself in,” he said firmly. “If you want I'll speak to Stanberry on your behalf, make sure they know none of you were part of this fight. Maybe they'd be willing to let you in.”
“You're crazy,” Wesley Banks, an older man who'd lived all the way across Wensbrook from him, snapped. “Stanberry is the worst place for us to go, even if you could convince them to take us in. They hate us, and even worse Jay hates them. If we go then we'll be in the middle of his next attack.”
That was all true, but Larry didn't care. “I have to take responsibility for my part in this, for the people who suffered on both sides. I'm going. I'm not asking anyone else to come with me.”
“That's good, because I'm sure as the blazes not going to. I'll find some other place to go, something else to do. You can get yourself hanged alone.” Wesley turned and strode towards the SUV next to the truck. After a brief hesitation, the others followed him.
Everyone but Liza. “You should go too,” Larry told her.
She shook her head. “You were wrong that none of us were part of this fight. I trained with Jay, drove vehicles on his patrols and raids. I'm as guilty as you.”
“That's all the more reason for you not to go anywhere near Stanberry.”
Liza snorted bitterly. “You think you're the only one who can take responsibility for your actions? Besides, I've been closer to Jay's plans than you since he shut you out after the fires, so I've got information to offer too.” She opened the driver's side door and climbed in, leaning forward to start the engine. “Come on, let's go.”
Larry hesitated. He didn't want her to do this, which made him wonder if he was wrong to do this himself. But he had lots of information that would help the people of Stanberry, and she was right that she had just as much right to make this decision as he did.
He reluctantly circled the truck and climbed into the passenger seat, putting on his seatbelt as Liza maneuvered them out of the meadow and onto the dirt track leading away from the camp.
Towards Stanberry.
Chapter Ten
Comeuppance
“Daddy? Wake up, Daddy!”
Nick had to drag himself to consciousness as his daughter shook his shoulder insistently. Which meant he couldn't have been sleeping long. “What is it, sweetie girl?” he mumbled.
“Your radio is buzzing,” she chirped in his ear, shaking him some more.
Of course it was. His team had drawn the long straw when they'd been picking people for the next patrol shifts after the raid on the camp, so he'd been looking forward to actually getting a decent night's sleep for once.
He should've realized that that was hoping for too much.
Groaning, Nick sat up and reached for his radio, absently wrapping an arm around Tallie when she climbed into his lap and cuddled close. Sure enough, the emergency channel he'd set it to before going to sleep was lighting up, the conversation no more than a buzz at lowest volume.
He turned it up in time to hear Denny say, “I repeat, anyone in the survivors' camp who's actually bothering to listen to this, I need someone to come pick up some prisoners.”
Wait, that was what was worth waking him up for? There'd never been a demand for off-duty fighters to drop everything for new arrivals before. “Why?” he demanded, more sharply than he'd meant to. “Is it a huge group of something?”
“Even better,” Denny said, sounding baffled. “It's some of Jay's people turning themselves in.”
That woke Nick up a bit. “All right, I'll grab some of my people and come get them. Where you at?”
“South of town, on the road.” The leader of the survivor patrols sounded even more baffled. “Jay's big friend and a blond lady who I assume is his wife or girlfriend. They just drove right to the edge of our patrol route in a truck, got out with their hands raised, and stood there waiting for us to scoop them up.”
Nick's first response was suspicion. “You check the truck for explosives? And them?”
“First thing. They left their weapons in the cab and seem clean, although I'm with you . . . got my eyes wide open for some sort of trick.”
“Be right there.” He tossed the radio onto his gear and looked down at Tallie, who looked as if she was drifting off to sleep again. “Guess we'll need to drop you off with Aimee, sweetie.”
“Can I go back to bed after that?” she mumbled.
“I think Aimee would appreciate that, since she's probably sleepy too.” He kissed the top of her head, then set her back on her sleeping bag while he pulled on his socks and shoes and grabbed his gear, then helped Tallie get her shoes on too.
Once they were ready Nick dragged himself out of the tent carrying his gear and his daughter's sleeping bag. Tallie trudged out after him, yawning hugely.
Judging by the light it was probably thirty or so minutes until sunrise, which meant he couldn't have gotten more than four hours of sleep; even when they were “turning themselves in”, Jay's people were still a huge hassle.
“Come on,” he said, making his way over to Aimee's tent.
Five minutes later he had Tallie settled in and the McCleese brothers, Charlie and his son, and Val up and rea
dy to go. They headed south on the road, keeping to the clearly marked Zolos contamination path, until they spotted a truck up ahead.
Denny and two people from his patrol were there, hovering vigilantly over a man and woman kneeling on the pavement with their hands bound behind their backs. As Nick got closer he could confirm that the big man of the two was definitely Jay's friend Larry.
For a moment rage flashed through him, remembering everything Jay had done. Then he also remembered that Larry had twice been there to calm his unstable friend down, and even physically push aside Jay's gun so it wasn't pointed at Nick's face.
Whatever else the man had done, Nick might be dead if not for him. That at least deserved to be acknowledged.
He led his team forward, nodding a greeting to Larry as recognition flashed in the big man's eyes. “Thanks,” Denny told them. “Sorry to wake you up so soon. Starr wants to talk to these guys as soon as you get them back to camp.”
That made sense. Nick nodded and motioned for Chet and Ben to watchdog Larry, and for Val to keep an eye on the young woman. They stepped forward and helped the prisoners to their feet, then started forward.
“Been a while,” Nick told Larry, falling into step beside him. “Although I can't say I miss having a gun shoved in my face.” His friends snorted, sounding more angry than amused.
The big man nodded. “Yeah. Jay shouldn't have gone that far.”
“That can be the title of his biography,” Ben joked, although the undercurrent of rage simmering in the young man was closer to the surface than usual.
Chet wasn't so amused. “It was all Jay, huh?” he demanded, poking Larry sharply in the back. “You weren't there waving a gun at us along with him? Trashing my family's house and pissing on my parents' bed? Wiping your butt with my dead mom's Sunday dress? Then burning the place to the ground after we struck back at Wensbrook?”
Nick was keenly aware of the use of “we” there, further supporting his suspicions about the brothers' part in the arson in Wensbrook.
Larry hung his head, shame clear on his features. “I walked away from that. But I won't deny I've taken part in a lot of stuff I'm not proud of since this all began. Or at least didn't try hard enough to stop it.”
“So what're you doing here?” Ben demanded. It was his turn to prod the big man. “Things getting a bit too hot in Jay's camp, so you're switching sides? You think we'll welcome you with open arms after what you've done, a traitor on top of everything else?”
“Larry's not a traitor!” the young woman with Larry shouted, looking furious for his sake. “He did everything he could to convince all our friends to walk away from this fight. He did convince them, and we were all back in Wensbrook ready to get on with our lives before you idiots burned down half the town and gave Jay more fuel to push his war.”
“Yeah, sure,” Chet sneered, although there was a hint of doubt in his expression; if that was true then what he'd done, if he was responsible for the fires, was even more reckless and shortsighted.
“Take it easy, Liza,” Larry murmured. “They've got plenty of reason to be mad at us.”
“Of course they do, but they also need to know the truth!” Liza snapped, turning back to Nick. “You want to know why we're here? Because we want to tell you everything we know about Jay's plans, so you can protect yourselves and hopefully stop him before more innocent people get hurt.”
Ben snorted. “You expect us to believe any of that? Larry is Jay's best bud, his right hand man.”
“Was,” Larry said, sounding more sad than angry.
The brothers both opened their mouth to reply, and Nick cleared his throat sharply. “Take it easy, guys. It's our job to take them to Starr so he can talk to them, not give them the third degree ourselves. If they really are here to help us against Jay, let's not antagonize them to the point where they change their minds.”
“More like they're here to give us false information so we walk into an ambush or are looking the wrong way the next time Jay attacks.” It was Val who said that, although more as a warning than out of anger. Not that she didn't look angry, of course.
“Why would we do that?” Liza demanded, angry as well. “You already have enough reasons to want to kill us . . . you think we'd commit virtual suicide by trying to trick you?”
“Enough,” Nick said, shooting his friends a warning look. Thankfully, everyone fell silent after that.
They returned to the survivors' camp and led their prisoners through it to where it connected to the visiting area in the main camp. Starr was already waiting there, along with Johnny and a few of their patrol leaders.
“Any trouble?” Starr growled, giving the prisoners a baleful glare as Nick stopped on the other side of the fence.
“No, they've been cooperative,” Nick replied. “In fact, they claim they want to give us information to help us fight Jay.”
“That so.” The old veteran turned to the prisoners. “All right, let's hear your names.”
“Larry Barons,” the big man replied quickly.
The young woman hesitated before speaking loudly and clearly, although her voice trembled slightly with nerves. “Liza Coates.”
“And you're asking us to take you in?” Starr pressed. The prisoners glanced at each other, then nodded, and he grunted. “I'm a bit confused here . . . I can see why you might have a problem with your leader trying to blow up a bunch of innocent people, and succeeding with several, then murdering one man and critically wounding another with a hunting rifle from hundreds of yards away. I can't say I blame you. The question is . . . why did you come here? Why not just ditch him and go home?”
The prisoners looked surprised. “One of them survived?” Liza blurted, sounding genuinely relieved. “Jay said he killed both.”
Starr didn't answer, just stared at her coldly while she squirmed.
Larry quickly filled the uncomfortable silence. “Neither of us wanted to be part of this fight. We kept on trying to convince Jay to come to his senses and let it go. But I won't deny that we stayed with him up until now, even helped him. But eventually it got to the point where Jay had dragged us so far over the line we couldn't even see it anymore, and we decided enough was enough and left.”
“Eventually,” Starr repeated with a derisive snort. “Just took a few acts of biological warfare and murder, along with mass arson and several bombings, to open your eyes, huh?”
Larry and Liza both lowered their heads in shame.
“Well better late than never, I guess,” the old veteran continued sourly. “But you still haven't answered why you came here. If your guilty conscience made you want to give us information that could help us stop Jay, you could've found a way to get it to us without putting yourselves in our hands. So why come? Why turn yourselves in?”
Larry took a deep breath. “You probably won't believe me, but I'm tired. I'd already lost everything, and then Jay dragged me into this awful fight with you and I went along with it, even when it got completely insane. So I came to turn myself in, submit to justice. I hope Stanberry will give me a fair trial.”
“So you're giving up, eh?” Starr turned to Liza. “And you?”
“The same for me.” She hesitated, glancing at her companion. “And I didn't want him to have to face this alone.”
Nick still had his suspicions about the pair, but she at least seemed sincere in her loyalty to her partner. He could admire that.
Larry obviously hadn't been expecting that from Liza either, judging by the deep emotion he tried to conceal as he turned back to Starr. “We can't go home. You all know Jay's lost it, and you haven't even been around him to actually see him go off the deep end. We were afraid that if we went back to Wensbrook he'd come after us.” He hesitated. “Or you would,” he admitted.
Liza nodded grimly. “We're some of Jay's closest friends, and we've been trying to convince him to cool his jets this entire time. But he just gets worse and worse, and nothing is going to make him stop unless he's stopped . . . you guy
s burning down our camps didn't even faze him, just made him want to come after you even more.”
Starr cursed under his breath. “Do you know when his next attack will be, what he's planning?”
“Nothing specific,” Larry said. He fell silent a few moments, looking as if he was giving the question careful thought, then continued. “He's lost just about everything we had in the camps, so he's going to need to gather more stuff. We had some stockpiles in Wensbrook, so he'll probably go for those. And since around ten people from our main group left with me he'll probably try to get his Zolos-vulnerable recruits to take part in his next attack. Going by everything so far, it'll probably be his biggest yet.”
He hesitated, looking reluctant, then continued in dire tones. “And next time I think he'll really try to kill as many people as he can.”
That wasn't what Nick wanted to hear, although it was hard to dispute considering what he'd seen so far.
Starr rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All right Mr. Barons, Ms. Coates. If you came here to help, let's start with everything you can tell us about Jay and your group.”
✽✽✽
Larry stared morosely through the chain-links of his cell, which he was pretty sure was a repurposed enclosure for livestock, looking around at the survivors' camp.
He shouldn't have been surprised that Starr and Statton and the others would toss him and Liza into jail, even after they'd given Stanberry as much information as they could think of. If it had been him he also wouldn't have trusted former enemies, even cooperative ones, until they'd had a chance to prove themselves.
He hoped he and Liza would get a chance to prove themselves.
But until then, here he was trapped with her in this open-air cage, with chain-link fence segments making up the four walls, ceiling, and even the floor. Apparently it had previously been used to hold a couple who'd infected a family with Zolos and gotten a bunch of people killed, although they'd escaped during one of Jay's attacks.
Isolation | Book 4 | Holding On Page 15