by Jenn Lees
“A CB radio—”
“Och, that’ll do nicely.” The man wriggled his fingers, palm up, at Rory and kept them in that position.
Heat rose up Rory’s neck. He lifted the CB’s strap from over his shoulder and handed the portable CB in its bag to the man.
“Can I go now?” Rory ground out. Boy snorted beneath him, ears twitching.
“Och weel, that handgun you’re pointin’ at me is quite a nice piece, is it no’? It’ll be mine tha’ noo.” The man’s expression didn’t waver.
Rory swallowed, only partially succeeding in passing thick saliva down a dry throat. He leaned over and gave up his Glock.
“That saddle ye are sittin’ upon is a fine piece of workmanship. I’ll have that too.”
“What!”
“Ye heard me,” the man growled.
Rory bit his tongue and dismounted. He removed the saddle, keeping his saddlebags slung over Boy’s rump, and surrendered it. He jumped back on a saddle blanket soaked with horse sweat.
The man flicked his head in the direction Rory was travelling. “Aye, go to ye wifey and bairn.” A chorus of protest rose from his companions. “Och, the lad’s genuine.” He raised his hand along with his voice. “Look at the way he’s punished that fine-lookin’ animal.”
His companion beside him murmured.
“Let ’im through,” he shouted, then spat on the road in front of Boy, who gave a tired but irritated whinny.
Rory kicked Boy to a canter and rode through the thin gap in the line-up before him. His shoulders burned and his neck prickled, but they fired no shots, so he nudged Boy on past more boarded houses and derelict shops.
Boy gave a heavy snort and his breath came hard. Rory cantered him on the narrow road that led behind the hill and wound its way up to the solid gates, which were the entry to the Bunker. The sentry on lookout at the top of the gates shouted and waved. The thick metal doors rolled open. Rory dug his heels in, and air rushed out of Boy’s nostrils, his canter slowing to a tired trot. Rory steered him down the concrete driveway deep into the Bunker, barely acknowledging the defence force personnel surrounding him.
Boy’s hooves echoed as he stumbled along to the loading platform where the entry to the stairwell was situated, and he panted hard as Rory slid off.
A young lad, not much older than Murray, exited the stairwell. “Mr Campbell, I’ll show you to the medical centre.”
Behind Rory, Boy gave a breathy-snort then whinnied. An exhausted whinny that bordered on fear. It pierced Rory’s soul.
He spun.
Boy collapsed, his legs folding underneath him, grazing knees and bashing his frothing mouth on the concrete. Blood dribbled from his lips.
“Boy!” The word wrenched from Rory’s heart while he ran and grabbed the reins. He bent over his stallion, chest tightening. His lifelong friend rolled and lay down, his shiny black coat mottled in lathered sweat, his sides heaving.
“Do you have a vet?” Rory screamed. “Please? I must get to Siobhan. Somebody, tend to ma horse, please!” He just got the words out through a tight, dry throat.
“We’ll call someone,” the lad said. “Sir?”
Rory had seen it before, when riders pushed their horses too hard. He dragged his eyes away from his failing stallion.
“Where is she? Is she okay?” Rory rushed toward the young man, forcing himself to leave all thoughts and feelings for his horse in the garage, and concentrate on his wife and child. He followed the lad, picking up his pace, and ran through the door and up the stairs.
Chapter 51
The Scottish Government Bunker, Edinburgh
The sensation of crisp sheets against her skin returned to Siobhan.
“We have a blood bank here.” Dr Liz’s words seemed far away. “If required, we have the means to transfuse them both with compatible blood from a universal donor. Your wife is haemodynamically stable and the neonate, I mean, your son, appears to be unaffected. We acted in a suitable time-frame, Mr Campbell.”
“She’ll be okay then?” Rory’s deep masculine voice was right next to Siobhan, and she turned to him.
A blurred head of dark-russet hair was near her. She sniffed sleepily.
Horse and heather.
Strongly horse.
And the rusty-scented ferrous of blood...and...baby?
“Siobhan, my heart.”
Turning her head a little further, her vision cleared. A gurning grizzle came from the bundle of linen he held. A tiny fist stretched up and knocked Rory’s bearded chin. He blinked and smiled down at the bundle.
“Rory?” Her voice slurred.
“Aye, Siobhan. A healthy wee boy.” His voice was husky and cracked at the edges.
“You made it.” She relaxed onto the pillow, too dopey to move any further; her legs still heavy.
She reached out her hand and stroked his cheek, bristly facial hair brushing stiffly against her fingertips. “Yours for all time, whatever time may bring us.”
“Aye,” he said with love in his eyes.
The lusty cry of her baby hit her ears. A healthy, hungry newborn.
“You must suckle him, Siobhan,” Dr Liz said.
“Here, Siobhan.” Rory leaned over her and placed the baby-scented bundle on her. “You told me his name was Connald. You ken? When you returned.”
HEAVY MUSCLES CLAMPED Rory in an exhaustion that weighted his thoughts as well. Siobhan dropped off to sleep after rousing and feeding the baby. Connald was a strong, braw wee mite. Rory breathed in deep, her scent and his, and then marched out of the ward in the medical centre.
Tension returned to his shoulders, and a niggle that he’d pushed aside.
“It’s all good, yeah?” Murray wasn’t far from the medical centre and gave him a hug, his scrawny arms wrapping around him tight.
“I believe I have you to thank for Siobhan’s safety.” He let go of Murray, whose eyelids were purple with fresh bruising.
“Yeah, but she’s got skills. Should’ve seen her fight off—”
Rory brushed by his gushing younger brother; his fists curled, and his arms rigid beside him.
“Why are you so annoyed?” Murray leaned against the wall to let him pass. “She didn’t die this time.”
Rory stopped mid-stride and spun back to Murray. “What do you mean ‘this time’?”
“What?” Murray’s speech faltered around the word, then he cringed. “Ah, she didn’t tell you?” Murray bit his lip.
“Tell me what?” Rory snapped. He took a step closer to stand over Murray.
“That in the future she travelled to, she’d died having Connald.” Murray hunched into himself while his face contorted into an uncomfortable expression. “I probably shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, maybe not.” Rory’s feet wouldn’t move, and the familiar hand that had grabbed his guts while riding here, did so again. Then Siobhan’s reasoning dawned on him and the heated emotions swirling in him eased their cyclonic dance.
She had protected him from living a life without her. She’d said in the future she went to he’d wanted her to change the past. Tampering with history, past or future, was something he would never have considered, nor allowed.
But he’d asked her to make sure that particular future didn’t occur. For the sake of a famine. A civil war.
And her life.
Rory’s leg muscles obeyed his will once more, and he marched along the corridor.
“Where’re you going?” Murray started to follow.
“Ma horse,” Rory threw over his shoulder as he strode to the large stairwell that led to the lower floors and the garage. He ran down the stairs, thoughts of Boy overshadowing his relief that Siobhan and wee Connald had made it. He came to the floor where the garages were situated.
“Where would they take Boy?” he shouted to Murray, who had followed behind but had not kept up with his pace.
“In the back of the garage. That’s where they stabled the horses when you were here before—”
/>
“He’s dying.” Rory’s statement echoed up the stairwell while his brother caught up.
“What?”
“I pushed him hard.” He choked through his words. “Where would the vet be?” He opened the door to the garage floor.
Rory stepped onto the loading platform. In front of it, a man stooped over the dark form of Boy lying on his side on the cold concrete. Another man milled around, and a woman held up a bag of intravenous fluid attached to a line.
“How is he?” Rory jumped off the loading bay platform and knelt beside Boy, stroking his muzzle.
“Ah, Mr Campbell, sir.” The veterinarian injected something into the IV in Boy’s neck. “We’ll do all we can, but I can’t promise anything.”
“Thank you.” Rory’s voice cracked, then he swallowed. “Can we move him to somewhere—?”
“We’ll bring the hay—The stable to the horse, Mr Campbell.”
SIOBHAN WOKE WITH A start, her arms empty. She rolled to her left. Beside her bed, in a clear plastic cot, Connald slept silently. A pink, crinkled face and a button nose peeped out of a bundle tightly wrapped in a pale-yellow blanket. Siobhan pressed her hands to her lower tummy and rested back on her bed. The pain medication was wearing off and soreness gathered where they’d cut her. A bag of IV fluid hung on a pole beside her. The tubing ran through a box-shaped pump and drops slowly formed in the clear chamber in the tubing just above the pump, then fell with a bounce to the fluid level in the lower section of the chamber.
Soft murmurings of the staff wafted to her cubicle while they tidied the far end of the medical centre. It seemed the surgical theatres had been busier than ever and now the critical care section of the Bunker’s hospital wing had two patients. She could tell by the looks shot in her direction it was probably Antony and MacIntosh.
Her throat tightened with rising bile.
They hadn’t hesitated to injure her, and fracture Murray’s nose. Antony’s actions had brought him to that point, and she wasn’t responsible for them. But she couldn’t help a regret at what Antony’s choices had led him to.
Her chest stuttered and silent tears slid down her cheeks, wet warmth trickling into her ears and shaky inhalations following.
Her plan had succeeded.
She rested her gaze on her newborn, now blurred through her wet vision.
She didn’t die having him. She’d changed the past as Rory in that future had requested, and now, if all remained well, that broken man would never be.
And her Rory was here, soon enough to hold their son before she’d come round. Showing how much they both meant to him.
Rory had reported the situation at Lloyd’s was being handled by the Tummel House Army and a joint force of government, bandits and the Community crew he’d left behind. Just as well, as the small force the Government sent had failed in their attempts at South Queensferry to cross the Forth by boat.
And Rory had left them all to it.
She sank heavy limbs deeper into the bed, allowing exhaustion and the relief to take over.
BOY RESTED QUIETLY. Rory had sat by him and held his head in his lap while they’d screened him and lay thin foam mattresses and blankets around and under him as best they could.
Rory let tears slide down his cheeks and into his beard. Weeping at the thought of losing Boy seemed insignificant when compared to his tears of joy that Siobhan and Connald had survived.
That was his world.
Balances. The need to be with his wife and child had outstripped the welfare of his dearest equine friend. His world could never again be the relative calm of his youth when his parents’ love and protection had surrounded him. His insides heated, like a smouldering fury.
Rory slipped out from under his stallion.
“Are you going, Mr Campbell?” the veterinarian asked.
“Aye, I must see my wife and new baby.”
“Oh, yes, congratulations,” the vet said.
Rory acknowledged the man who seemed a vague form before him, his mind now elsewhere.
He had pushed it aside during the hours on Boy’s back, then smothered the idea while he held his son and sat beside Siobhan as she awoke. But he could do it no longer, and thoughts of what he must do arose front and centre in his consciousness, lifted by the thermals of his rage.
Rory clambered onto the loading bay and stepped through the stairwell. Murray was on his way down the stairs.
“How’s Siobhan?” he asked Murray when he joined him one flight up.
“Still sleeping. And Connald too. Did she really tell you his name when she returned from the future?” Bruising crept past the sticking plaster covering Murray’s nose.
Rory climbed the stairs, taking two at a time and ignoring his brother’s question. He reached the exit to the next floor and wrenched the door open. Rory strode along, scanning the hallway and corridor with Murray close on his heels. Lights flicked on then off, darkness filling the space in front and behind their journey. It wasn’t long before he found what he was searching for. Rory marched to the glass cabinet beside the fire-hose reel, raised his elbow and smashed the glass.
“What’re you doing?” Murray’s voice rose a pitch.
“What are we doing?” Rory corrected, raising the axe so the head almost touched Murray’s chin. “How do I get to it?”
“No.” Murray shook his head violently, then stopped and put his hands to his temples.
Rory tightened his grip on the axe handle, knuckles whitening.
“We can’t trust them.” Rory swiped the axe aside and thrust his face into Murray’s. “Not to misuse it. Not to keep other people from it!”
“But it saved Siobhan!”
“Och, I know.” Rory stepped back and leaned against the wall of the Bunker; cold from the concrete wall seeped through his shirt. He gazed up at the LED. “By manipulating now to prevent...But it can’t happen. Not again. Not ever. It’s not right.” He lifted his eyebrows and pierced his stare into Murray. “No one, Government, Community, or anybody, can be trusted to not meddle with time for their own purposes. Not even myself, it seems.”
“But it isn’t only the machine,” Murray whispered. “It’s Ley line involvement—”
“Do you fully understand how it works? I mean, this cubicle has something to do with it, but do you know what?”
Murray lifted his shoulders and let them fall.
“They don’t know everything,” Rory continued. “And those who think they do are probably dead by now, anyway. Or will be forced to keep quiet. I’ll deal with Micah.”
Rory locked gazes with Murray. The silence echoed down the deserted corridor.
“You understand what I’m meanin’, don’t you? You’re always going on about the time-space continuous—”
“Space-time continuum.”
Rory waggled his head, acknowledging Murray’s correction, then he lifted the axe and knocked the handle against his left hand a couple of times.
“It’s a different time-line.” Murray swallowed. “Siobhan changed our now so that future doesn’t even happen. That’s why the me in that future hadn’t seen her travel in his past.”
Rory scrunched his forehead. “What?”
“It means we’re on an alternate time-line. That future Siobhan travelled to...” He flicked his fingers in a puff of smoke gesture. “Won’t even happen. It will be a different story now with Siobhan in it. And we’re surviving a famine without Lloyd’s help. If he’s even around anymore.” He hesitated for only a second longer. “Follow me.”
Rory held the axe against his side and strode behind Murray, along corridors, down stairs for four floors, and along another short corridor to the lab. Murray took out a key and clicked the lock open, they both stepped in, and Murray locked the door behind them.
The room was its usual bare, except for the cubicle and the console.
The gusts of Murray’s rapid mouth-breathing filled the quiet lab and competed with the thudding in Rory’s temples.
It
was too much an object of desire.
“I have to do it.” Rory raised the axe and, driving all his strength and body weight into it, he let it fall.
THE END
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ALSO BY JENN LEES
THE COMMUNITY CHRONICLES SERIES
THE CRASH: A NOVELLA BOOK 1
STOLEN TIME BOOK 2
SAVING TIME BOOK 3
MURTAIREAN: AN ASSASSIN’S TALE
A NOVEL IN THE DáL CRUINNE SERIES
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I wish to thank you, dear reader, for waiting so patiently for Community Chronicles Book 4. Thank you to those who have contacted me personally to tell me how much you enjoy this series and pester me for the next book. And give me ideas for more.
It warms this little independently published author’s heart to hear you say such things.
Thank you to my editor, Abigail Nathan of Bothersome Words, for a thorough edit. I have learned much from it.
Thanks always to aspiring romance author, Mindy Graham and Co., for ongoing support and encouragement, reviewing and proof-reading.
Much appreciation to my Beta readers for taking the time to read the pre-edited version:
Author J I Rogers, Sue Jacka, Jill Williams and Iliana Noble.
The Indie-author Facebook groups in which I’m involved:
Adam Croft’s Indie Author Mindset
Bryan Cohen’s Amazon Ads School
Mark Dawson’s Self-Publishing Show
Science Fiction Novelists Facebook group
All your comments and the topics you discuss keep me going.
Special thanks go to Lorraine McCluskey for the information regarding a sick horse. And Leanne Prosser, you mention horsey things to me so often, it all filters in somehow. Thanks.
My family for their ongoing support and interest. Special thanks to our daughter Emma, who comes to the rescue on all things IT every second day.