Keel didn’t want to be that person anymore.
He rolled up to the gate slowly, just as the low fuel light came on, with the men in the back armed with their weapons of choice, despite the strict Ark rules. Two guards stepped forward to meet him, and he hopped out of the truck, his hands up high, prepared to surrender, but the younger guard was talking on his radio, and gestured for him to return to the wheel and drive through. No search of his passengers. No questions asked.
When he climbed behind the wheel again, he slid the back window open, where Drake was waiting for an explanation. “What’s the plan?” the man asked, shivering from the cold. His hair was plastered to his face, dark from the wet drizzle, but he wiped his cheeks dry with the inside of his sleeve, and waited for Keel to answer him.
“Well,” he laughed. “I’m not sure what’s going on, but they’re letting us in.”
“Just like that?” Drake asked, shielding the sprinkles from his eyes. He frowned at Keel and peered through the cab and out the windshield, where the guards were opening the gate, and waving them in.
“Nothing is ‘just like that’,” Keel grumbled. He put the truck in drive, and eased by the guards with one hand on his hip holster, waiting for a spray of bullets to pepper the sides of the vehicle and explode through the windows, but they didn’t come. “What the shit is going on,” he muttered, watching the guards close and secure the gate in the rearview mirror, not even bothering to watch him drive deeper onto the property.
Kris stirred next to him, moving the sleeping baby from one arm to the other. “Are you expecting something bad to happen?” she asked him.
He glanced at her. “It’s like they didn’t care that I was gone, so yeah, I’m expecting something bad.”
“How bad?” Cole asked, searching the trees and the road ahead of them for a sign of life. The grounds were quiet, and the road was quickly turning muddy as the drizzle turned into rain.
“I guess we’ll see,” he said, turning on the wipers. Over his shoulder, he yelled, “I’m breaking every rule we have and taking you straight to Steele, be prepared for some…resistance.”
The men began to move, despite being folded in the same positions for hours in the cold, and Drake sat up on the toolbox, holding on to the inside of the cab with one arm. He had the rifle, something he had barely touched since first leaving the Ark. It would do them little good, since Drake said he only had three bullets left, but the bolt-action rifle still looked intimidating slung over his shoulder.
They passed only one group of people, three men out for a walk, Keel figured, since they weren’t part of the security detail. The trio stopped to watch them pass, and scowled at the truck as it kicked up mud and chunks of snow in their direction. Keel could have shoved a hand out his window and waved at the men, shouting an apology, but he didn’t bother. The main buildings came into focus, and even though it was barely after noon, a string of lights around the front entrance flickered on.
“It’s Christmas?” Kris asked, surprised.
Cole nudged her. “I asked the same thing yesterday…kinda feels weird, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said, looking down at the baby. “It’s Lily’s first.”
Keel shook his head and glared at the holiday display. “She won’t even realize if she misses it.”
“That’s sad though, isn’t it?” Kris said, as Keel slowed to a stop in front of the building.
“She’s lucky. She’ll never have to worry about going to the in-laws’ for a massive family dinner, and having to wear the ugly sweater her mother-in-law bought for her.”
Kris scowled at him. “None of us will have that. Ever again. I want to go to an ugly sweater dinner party.”
He felt like an asshole, but reminded himself that he was. With a shrug, he flung open the door and slid out of his seat, turning around to inspect the area. No one else was out, not with the rain coming down steadily. But they hadn’t gone unannounced. Dinnley calmly waited for him at the door, and Keel cursed under his breath. They wouldn’t be able to sneak in as quickly and easily as before.
As if the man had read his mind, Dinnley pushed the door open, and hollered into the rain. “You didn’t think we’d miss you…again?”
Keel pulled his coat closed and waved at the others to wait for him. He ran up to the doors and pulled Dinnley into the downpour. “We have an emergency,” he said.
“Another one? You and I are going to have to work on our communication skills,” Dinnley said, his voice hitching an octave higher than normal. He reluctantly allowed Keel to pull him toward the truck.
“Yeah, sure, whatever,” Keel blurted. “This is a real emergency.” It was impossible to even see Riley underneath the pile of bedding, but Keel pointed inside the truck anyway. “We have a stabbing victim. A gut wound. We need Steele to fix her up.”
“We?” Dinnley repeated, searching each of the cold and wet faces that were slowly climbing out of the truck.
Keel cleared his throat, hoping it wasn’t audible over the pitter-patter sounds of the falling rain. “They. They need your help,” he mumbled.
Drake pulled back the covers, exposing the side of Riley’s body, and Zoey. The dog snarled at the stranger, and Dinnley jumped away from the truck, surprised.
“I know you…all of you…wasn’t expecting to see you back here,” Dinnley said. Then, as if he couldn’t stand the rain any longer, he gestured for everyone to follow him. “Let’s take this inside, where it’s dry. I just changed my damn socks, too.”
“You have a stretcher?” Connor called out.
Keel was certain they did have one, and rushed ahead of Dinnley to the medical bay where two plastic backboards were shoved in a corner, never used. He grabbed one and then jogged back through the lobby, where Kris and Cole were showing Lily the gaudy Christmas tree, and the others were waiting impatiently in the rain by the truck. They had Riley inside within minutes, and Dinnley led them to the first room with a bed, and called Steele on his handheld radio to come meet them for an exam.
“She’s in bad shape,” Dinnley told him, after pulling him into the hall. He glanced at the lobby and nodded. “You brought them back, well done.”
Keel almost asked the man to explain, but when he looked down the hall and saw Kris standing with the baby next to Cole, he realized why the guards were so lenient in allowing him back in, and why Dinnley was being overly cooperative. He had brought them back. Kris, and the baby she was growing. Her precious cargo.
“Ah, fuck,” he mumbled under his breath.
Dinnley clapped him on the back and stepped aside when Steele rounded the corner. “Come see me in a bit, so we can talk.”
“Looking forward to it,” Keel snapped. “Wait,” he said, remembering a request Drake had made before they set out on the trip. “Keep Fern away. They don’t want her near Riley.”
He didn’t argue, but Dinnley’s eyebrows shot up. “Fine. But, Keel, remember to come see me.” Keel was awfully close to stepping around his pissing tree and into Dinnley’s yard, but he wasn’t going for a power play. Dinnley could stay the alpha dog, Keel didn’t want the responsibility.
Suddenly feeling as if the floor would open up and swallow them, Keel was reluctant to let anyone out of his sight. Especially the girl. “Hey, kids,” he called up the hall. When he had their attention, he signaled them over. “Stay close,” he told Kris. Without questioning him, she nodded and handed Lily to Jacks, who looked as if he’d been run over by a semi, twice.
Keel bet he didn’t look much better, and hovered near the doorway as the doctor spent less than five minutes checking Riley’s wound. “She needs surgery, now,” he said, vanishing from the room. Down the hall, he barked out orders for a woman in plain clothes that Keel assumed was the only nurse on duty, and then the older man disappeared behind a narrow set of double doors.
“Surgery?” Kris sniveled.
“We figured as much,” Connor said, hugging her from the side. “That’s why we brought her
here.”
Kris nodded, but continued to leak around the eyes. She was trying to be tough, he could sense that, but everyone had their breaking point, Keel included. He stepped out of the room and stormed down the hall to the elevator that led to Dinnley’s apartment. He needed a drink. A stiff one. Because he had a feeling that some pretty nasty shit was about to hit the fan, and he had no desire to confront said shit-storm sober.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
RILEY
The lights of the surgery room ceiling were blinding, that’s all I could focus on, because the pain had faded into a fog after the doctor poked my arm and hooked up an IV, flooding my system with medication. His face, scruffy from the previous day’s stubble, loomed over my own several times, asking me questions I didn’t have the full capacity to answer in my semi-lucid state. What’s your blood type? When did you eat last? Have you ever had complications from anesthesia? When I couldn’t answer the last one, the doctor decided to do the surgery with me awake, but numb. So, the lights became my world for a while. As the doctor did his thing, tugging, pushing, pulling, and occasionally, cursing, I stared at the long bulb above his head, and counted the times it flickered, only noticeable if you were staring at it. I lost count after ten, and started again, losing count after reaching fifteen. Realizing that the light was more distracting than helpful, I decided to count something that had more stability to it, and chose the beeping machine at my side, monitoring my heart rate or blood pressure, I wasn’t sure which. But the noisy bleeping was faster than the flickering light above me, and I lost count before hitting the double digits. My vision faded not long after, and drifted into a long string of odd dreams, none comforting, and most more than a little terrifying.
With his blood still wet on my face, I smoothed back my messy hair and peered down at the raised bump of earth, underneath which the carefully wrapped body would spend the rest of eternity. However long that ended up being.
"Riley, I'm sorry," Drake said. His voice was gravelly, like the road beside the green slope we stood on.
"It's not your fault," I whispered. The breeze took my voice and carried it over the grasses and weeds before bouncing off the nearby pine trees and disappearing into the early morning. Gone forever. Like Connor.
Slowly and with deliberate care, I reached my hand up to my neck and wiped the blood off my skin. His blood. My palm came back a rusty red color.
Kris had refused to come to the burial. She stayed curled up in a ball in her bed. Inconsolable. Angry. She would never forgive us for what we did. For ending his life the way we had. Maybe when she was older, she would understand that we saved him from the same suffering we'd watched our loved ones endure just two years before.
Perhaps more shocking than the fact that Connor was truly dead, was the realization that none of us were safe from the virus. We weren't immune. Lily had already been sick. Jacks was showing signs. Once this second wave of the plague swept through our refuge, we would all fall victim.
There would be no survivors. Not this time.
"What do we do now?" Drake asked, wiping sweaty dirt from his forehead. He looked tired. Dark circles had dug craters below his eyes and his face had a sunken-in shape to it.
With a sigh, I looked away from him. I didn't have to say it out loud. He already knew he was dying.
"We wait for tomorrow to come. If we’re lucky enough to survive today...we wait for tomorrow."
He pulled gently on my hand, bringing my body beside his, and placed his shaky fingers on my swollen abdomen. The morning sickness had passed weeks before, making the end of the second trimester more bearable.
"When I'm gone...tell our child about me." The wind snatched up his whisper like it had mine, but the words echoed loudly in my head.
The intense pain between my temples was back. The clammy sensation on my skin no longer went away. And I didn't have the heart to tell Drake the baby wasn't moving anymore.
With my knife safely sheathed to my hip, I spit out the iron taste of my former lover's blood and smoothed my hair back again.
Life was a cruel bitch.
“Hey, Riley…can you hear me?” Connor’s face, his perfect cheekbones, and perfect lips, and perfect nose came into focus.
“Connor?” I blinked at him, waiting for him to vanish like every other shadow from my past, but he didn’t. He reached out and touched the side of my face, and felt just as real as I remembered him.
“Hey,” he whispered. He leaned forward, like he was going to kiss me, but stopped short and shifted his weight, placing his free hand on the other side of my body.
“You’re alive?”
“Of course,” he laughed. “You are too, thanks to Dr. Steele.”
“I didn’t kill you?” My dream was still so fresh, I could taste the metallic flavor of his blood on my tongue.
He frowned at me, and stroked my hair. “No, baby. I’m here. We’re all here, just…they only want you to have one visitor at a time.”
“Why?” When I tried to sit up, a sharp pain jolted through my stomach. “Ow,” I moaned.
“Don’t sit up,” he warned me, gently pressing my shoulders back into the bed. “Not yet. In a few more days, maybe.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“You don’t remember?”
I let my hand roam across my body, feeling over my breasts, which were hidden under a hospital gown, and then over my stomach, where a large bandage covered the lower left part of my abdomen. The pain was radiating from there, and as I fingered the edges of the tape, my memory came back in pieces. Blurry chunks, like a movie playing from a damaged DVD. It skipped around some, but enough returned to explain where I was and what had brought me there.
“Where is she?”
“Who…Ashlyn?”
I nodded. “Where?”
“Uh,” Connor stammered, looking around the room for help, but we were the only two in it. “She’s dead, Riley.”
I sighed. “I know. But where is she?”
His look turned from confusion to concern. “She’s back at the lodge, under a blanket in one of the out buildings. Why?”
“So, you didn’t burn her?”
“There wasn’t much time, nor interest in properly disposing of her body. I don’t understand why this matters right now.” He shifted, sat upright, and ran a hand through his hair, which was finally growing back in. His scars were lighter too, still visible, but not horrific to look at.
“I’m glad you didn’t burn her. I want her soul to roam that valley for the rest of time, miserable and alone,” I snapped.
“Oh,” he mumbled. “I see.”
A soft knock on the doorframe made Connor jump, and he pushed off the bed with a start. When the doctor stepped into the room, he had a small folder with handwritten notes clipped to one side, and what looked like several prescriptions clipped to the other. “Am I interrupting?” he asked with a broad smile.
I went to nod, but Connor blurted out, “No, no…I’ll come back later.” He gave me a small wave and left the room in a rush.
“I think I make him nervous,” the doctor said with a wink.
With a grunt, I readjusted the pillow behind my head. “I think I make him nervous, too.”
“Beautiful women always make men nervous, Riley. It’s always been that way, I’m afraid it probably always will.”
“You haven’t noticed the decline in the female population over the last two years, have you?” I teased, struggling to keep myself from picking at the tape around my stomach.
“Well, then that makes the women left even more beautiful, doesn’t it?” He patted my leg and set my folder down on the edge of the bed. “Now, let’s take a look. How’s your pain level?”
“How about we start with an easier question, like, do you have Jell-O or pudding?”
His laugh filled the entire room and echoed back to the source. With another leg pat, he assured me there would be pudding. Chocolate. Swirl, if I was a really good patient.
&nb
sp; DRAKE
During Riley’s emergency surgery, he paced the lobby until he knew exactly how many feet it was from one side of the room to the other, front to back and corner to corner. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, despite Dinnley sending food over for the group. No one was hungry, or in the mood for small talk, they were just tired. Drake didn’t trust them, either, the faces of the Ark drones that delivered rounds of hot coffee and bread for snacks. When no one from the group dropped dead from food poisoning, he supposed the offerings were exactly what they were meant to be, gifts.
But there was an undeniable undertone of something hidden, like a well-kept secret, even though their group had spent time there. Like it was something that perhaps Drake and the others were never supposed to know about. Keel, not part of their group, but seemingly not wanting to be a member of the Ark, knew what that ‘something’ was. As did Dinnley, the unsuspecting soft spot of the Ark leadership that seemed to only mean well and want success. It was all bullshit, Drake thought. Dinnley couldn’t have gotten to where he was as Amanda and Heston’s sidekick, had his hands remained clean. Nah, Dinnley had spilled blood, or convinced someone else to do it for him. He was as innocent as the rest of them, which meant he was just as guilty as them all.
When Riley pulled through the surgery, the doctor let them in one at a time, and Drake suggested they allow Kris in first. The kid needed to see that Riley was alive, before the glimmer in her eyes that Drake used to have was gone completely. Kris was on the precipice of dying out like a star. Going supernova, and never turning back. He wasn’t close to her, and she definitely didn’t confide in him, but she was family to Riley, which made Kris part of his family, too.
According to Kris, Riley didn’t wake up during their visit, but the color in her face was already coming back, due to the IV drip and a steady round of antibiotics. It would be days, the doctor told them, before Riley would be anything close to recovery. Connor was the next to see her, which Drake hated but also appreciated, because it meant when it was his time for a visit, he could stay longer. Even if he had to sleep on the floor by her bed. The dog was the most anxious of them all. She wasn’t allowed inside to see Riley, and was kicked out of the lobby the moment Riley was taken back for surgery. Between the lot of them, they walked her, sat outside with her, and kept her as quiet as possible, but she barked often, and whined constantly. Like a small child who had lost her mother, Zoey didn’t understand where Riley had gone, again. She did understand food though, so they fattened her up over the two days that Riley was in and out of her drug-induced sleep. That second day was Drake’s day.
Find Me Series (Book 4): Where Hope is Lost Page 30