by Tate, Harley
“So you don’t know that kid?”
“Who? The scrawny thing with the bad attitude?”
Larkin nodded.
“Naw. I never saw the little shit before tonight.”
“I’m surprised she knew how to handle a rifle. Kids these days usually only know how to work a phone.”
“Damn right about that. You should have seen the passengers when they got off the plane. Instead of being thankful to be alive, so many were furious their calls wouldn’t go through and the lights weren’t on.”
Larkin launched into a spiel about boot-enlisted guys in his unit these days and Colt only half listened. From what he could gather, Larkin didn’t know anything about Colt’s run-in with Jarvis or the operation here in Eugene. Colt planned to stay around until morning, reminiscing and attempting to get any additional information out of the guy, but after that, he could write Larkin and his little band of idiots off.
They wouldn’t help him defeat Jarvis or turn him in, which made them a distraction at best. But Colt was overdue for some friendly company and the bad booze didn’t hurt. “So tell me about Portland. If you all left, it’s got to be bad.”
“Horrible is more like it. It’s chaos. Complete and utter chaos.”
Colt relaxed into his chair as Larkin got on a roll, telling him all about the National Guard’s involvement in the bigger cities. A few more hours of this and he’d take his leave. Hopefully with one of the rifles he’d seen just lying around.
At some point, once his old friend found out what Jarvis really intended for the little town of Eugene, Oregon, maybe Colt could convince him to switch sides. Until then, he opted to abide by the old, trusty adage: keep your friends close and your enemies closer. He smiled as Larkin took a breath. “Sounds like you’re a damn hero.”
“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I admit, I’ve done some good work these last few weeks. Feels good to get out from behind a desk, that’s for damn sure.”
Colt nodded and drank some more beer. Sooner or later Larkin would have to make a choice. He hoped it would be the right one.
Chapter Ten
DANI
Streets of Eugene, Oregon
5:00 a.m.
Exhaustion tugged at Dani’s eyelids, but she propped them open enough to keep moving. The cat had been one elusive pain in the neck since she rescued him from those thugs. If the stinkin’ thing didn’t have a wad of duct tape still attached to its tail, she would have given up hours ago.
At least chasing it kept her mind off of Colt and whatever he was doing with the army jerks back at the house. She didn’t even know he was in the area; she’d just been drawn by the sound and the light. After spending a couple of hours searching for Colt with no luck, the model house was too tempting not to check out.
She never expected to shoot a man or watch Colt walk inside almost arm-in-arm with the soldier in charge. He wanted to hang out and play macho man for a night? Screw him. Dani would be fine on her own, even if she didn’t catch the cat.
Half teasing, half tormenting her, the cat always stayed a few feet out of reach. Dani had tried everything. Whispering. Rubbing her fingers together while she held them out. Sneaking up on it. Staying still in hopes it would come to her.
Nothing worked.
While the cat mocked her from the safety of a bush ten feet ahead, Dani crouched low in the shadows of a house and regrouped. Through some crazy luck, the cat managed to head in the right direction. Dani couldn't be more than a block or two from the Wilkinses’ place.
Maybe I should just give up.
Dani frowned. No way. Not after coming this far. That cat would be in her arms or she would have the scratches to prove she tried before she admitted defeat.
Dani eased forward in a crouch, fingers out once again in an attempt to coax it toward her. “Spss, spss. Here, kitty kitty.”
Closer and closer she crept, closing the distance from five to four to three feet. When she could almost touch the striped fur, Dani lunged.
The cat got away.
“Damn it to hell!” Dani stood up in a rush, lashing out at the nearest bush in a fit of disappointment. If she couldn’t catch a cat, how could she hope to survive outside of a city? Food didn’t come in a can or on a shelf in the wild.
“Dani? Is that you?”
She jerked her head up. In all of her fit-making, she’d lost sight of her surroundings. A woman stood on a dark front porch, only lit by the early morning light.
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Melody. Are you in trouble? Do you need some help?” Melody Harper stepped down her front steps and hurried to the street where Dani still stood. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail and button-up pajamas on, she looked younger than Dani first thought.
Dani exhaled. “I’m trying to catch a cat. It won’t come to me.”
Melody scanned the area. “Is it hurt? Does it need help?”
“A couple of jerks tried to tape a firework to its tail.”
Melody gasped. “How do you know?”
“I stopped them.”
“Are you all right? Did they hurt you?”
A vision of the man she shot appeared in her mind, but Dani shook her head. “I’m fine. But the cat has tape all over it. I just wanted to get it cleaned up.”
Melody motioned toward her house. “Come with me. I have an idea.”
Dani stayed a step or two behind Melody as they climbed the stairs. “Do you live here?”
Melody opened the door and ushered Dani inside. “With my brother, Doug. It was our parents’ house. When they died in a car accident, we inherited it.”
She lives with her brother? Dani scrunched up her nose. “Why didn’t you sell it? Why live together?”
“I don’t know. It just seemed like the thing to do.”
Dani shut the door behind her and stood in the entryway of Melody’s home. The front door opened into a small living room with a white couch and a pair of uncomfortable-looking chairs. A dining room table sat just beyond, and past that, the kitchen.
Melody ushered her toward the back. “I think I’ve got a can of tuna left. Even if the little stinker isn’t hungry, he’ll come for tuna.” She opened a pair of tall cabinets and squinted into the dark. “It’s so funny how much I used to take for granted. Lights. A full pantry. Gas in my car.”
She reached in with one hand and batted around in the dark. “What I wouldn’t give for a cat’s vision.”
“Why?”
“Give a cat the tiniest amount of light and they can see as well as we can in the daylight.”
“Really?”
“Yep. They might not have opposable thumbs, but they can see a mouse in the middle of a corn field at midnight.” Melody pulled out her arm and wiggled a single can of tuna in the air. “I knew it!”
After opening the can and scooping a spoonful of meat and liquid into a dish, Melody ushered Dani back outside. Within minutes, Melody’s strategy worked and she scooped the cat up into her arms and trotted back into the house with Dani on her heels.
They set to work cutting the tape out of the cat’s fur while it snarfed down the fish. The last piece of tape came away just as the cat licked the bowl clean. Before Dani could even think about petting it, off it ran out the front door.
Melody shut and locked the door behind the cat and offered Dani a seat on the sofa.
Dani hesitated. Hang out with Melody? “Maybe I should be heading back.”
“Not at this hour. You go knocking on their door now and you’re liable to get your arm blown off. Harvey’s not a morning person these days.”
Dani frowned, but gave in, opting to sit on the edge of the couch covered with a dark blanket. She didn’t trust her jeans to be clean. “Thanks.”
“Are you hungry? Thirsty? I can get you some water and something to eat, if you’d like.”
She shook her head. “It’s okay. I’ve already taken your time.”
Melody tucked herself into one of t
he chairs across from Dani, her feet disappearing beneath loose pajama pants. “So what has you out in the middle of the night?”
Dani nibbled on her lower lip, unsure how much truth to tell. “I wanted some fresh air.”
Melody nodded. “I know the feeling. I love this house, but three weeks trapped here with nothing to do and even I’m going crazy.”
“Why don’t you go somewhere? Scout out the neighborhood or take a walk?”
“And risk getting picked up by a patrol?” Melody shook her head. “No, thanks. I’d rather go crazy than get rounded up by the militia.”
She had a point. Dani never intended to confront the men at the model house. When she heard them laughing and talking and carrying on, she only meant to observe, not shoot one. But she couldn’t watch them kill that cat. “How long do you think we can stay here without getting caught?”
“You and Colt?”
Dani nodded.
Melody’s eyebrows dipped as she thought it over. “As long as they don’t find that little room in Harvey’s basement, I’d say as long as you want.”
It might have been the lack of sleep or the clarity of the early morning, but something made Dani go right to the heart of it. No small talk. No pleasantries. “Do you all intend to fight? Would you really go up against Colonel Jarvis and his men?”
Melody inhaled and her chest swelled with the trapped breath. As she exhaled, she shifted in the chair, bringing one knee up close to her chest before wrapping her arms around it. “I’m willing. Harvey is, too. I don’t know about the rest.”
“What about your brother? He’s a firefighter. He’s got to want to help.”
“Doug’s…” Melody trailed off, eyes wandering to the photos of her childhood on the wall. “Doug’s a rule-follower. It happens with oldest kids a lot. He’s not willing to stand up to the army. Not when they are in charge.”
Dani bounced on the couch, almost standing up in outrage. “But they aren’t the army anymore! Jarvis isn’t reporting to anyone but himself!”
“I know it. You and Colt and Harvey know it. But Doug… He’s reluctant to see it.”
“They ambushed Colt and tried to kill him. They used my gran—” Dani choked on the word, but forced her voice on, “to get to me. If Colt hadn’t rescued me…” She couldn’t say it. She wouldn’t relive the terror of that night in the apartment. That soldier’s hands all over her. His eyes as they popped inside his skull.
She focused on the floor. “They are bad men. They deserve to die.”
“I’m sorry for what you went through.”
Dani pressed her lips together, but said nothing.
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like.”
“It would have been a hell of a lot worse without Colt.”
Melody’s voice grew soft. “How did you two meet?”
Dani picked at a loose thread on her borrowed jeans. “He saved me from a soldier in the street. The guy caught me stealing from a convenience store. He was going to take me in. After that, we ended up sticking together.”
“Lucky you. Colt seems like a good man.”
Dani flicked her eyes up. “He is, so don’t hurt him.”
Melody leaned back, her eyes wide. “I wouldn’t.”
“Good.” Dani pushed off the couch and forced her lips to curve. “Thanks for helping with the cat. I should be going.”
“Are you sure?”
Dani nodded. She couldn’t stay there another minute. She needed to be alone. “Thanks.”
Before Melody could say anything more, Dani acted like the cat and bolted for the door.
Chapter Eleven
MELODY
Harper Residence
Eugene, Oregon
6:00 a.m.
Melody counted off four minutes in her head before shoving the plunger of her french press down and squishing the coffee grounds to the bottom of the carafe. She poured a fresh, steaming cup and brought it to her nose. The pick-me-up goodness of coffee always made her morning.
Too bad there wouldn’t be many more like it. She eyed the dregs of her ground coffee. One more pot? Two? She should save it for a special occasion. Maybe when they took down the army and got back to their lives.
Melody snorted at herself and headed to the living room. The sky tinged gray with morning, lighting up the street enough to see the Cliftons’ place across the street. Before the collapse of the grid, John would be out in his front yard stretching his hamstrings before taking off on a run. Now his house sat quiet and accusing like Melody’s Aunt Mary at a family reunion.
She sipped her coffee with a frown. All these people. The street. The neighborhood. There used to be a sense of community, a friendship of sorts by nature of living next to each other and sharing the same patch of dirt and looking up at the same sky.
Colonel Jarvis and his men ruined that. Now everyone cowered inside, waiting… For what? She eased down onto the bench in front of the window. The sky brightened bit by bit, changing from dark gray to almost purple to pale blue.
Not even Lottie came to greet her this morning, content to sleep the morning away upstairs in her bed rather than face another breakfast of crunched-up crackers and canned soup. The poor dog even missed dry dog food at this point.
Thanks to Gloria and Harvey, Doug learned how to dig a pit toilet in the backyard. At ten feet deep, it took him days to dig, but he heaped the dirt around it in a berm to keep out rain and even rigged up a tarp as a quasi-cover. It wasn’t much, but Melody appreciated going to the bathroom in some semblance of privacy.
She wondered about the rest of her neighbors. Were they using the water the army delivered to flush their toilets or had they come up with something similar? Not being able to talk for fear of an unexpected raid turned their entire lives upside down.
How could they band together and rely on each other if being caught in the street or at a neighbor’s house could mean the loss of freedom? Melody thought back to the first “inspection,” as Jarvis and his men liked to call it.
A soldier with a megaphone jumped down from a Humvee, demanding everyone come outside. There were families and children, and pets in the yards, all waiting with hope and promise. It didn’t take long to dash it.
He laid out the rules: curfew every night, inspections every week, all weapons and pets confiscated. Everyone needed to stay inside as much as possible. If you were seen on the street, even during the day, you were treated as a hostile combatant and dealt with appropriately.
People balked at first. Some shouted, raised their hands, shook their heads. It wasn’t until the inspections started and the soldiers dragged dogs and cats and other pets out of homes that some of the neighbors lost it.
John from across the street was the loudest. He stomped up to the nearest guardsman, a burly man with a permanent scowl. John’s finger hovered an inch from the guy’s chest.
“Who do think you are? Coming in here and telling us all what to do? You’re treating us like criminals and we haven’t even done anything!”
The soldier braced himself. “We’re following orders, sir.”
“Whose orders? I want to know who has the nerve to come into our neighborhood, take our animals and weapons and order us to stay put! Who would do such a thing?”
Melody stood beside Gloria on the Wilkinses’ front porch, watching with increasing unease.
The door to one of the rear Humvees opened and a broad-shouldered man with gray hair and solemn face exited the vehicle. He walked up to John and the soldier. “Is there a problem, Sergeant Mitchell?”
“This resident is asking about you, sir.”
The older man turned. “I see. And what is it you would like to ask me?”
John puffed out his workout-shirt clad chest. “What gives you the right to order us around? Who are you?”
“My name is Colonel Malcolm Jarvis and I’m in charge of the National Guard Brigade Combat Team assigned to this area. I can assure you, we’re following standard protocol for a s
ituation like this.”
“By taking our pets? Rooting through our houses? How?”
“Our primary goal is to keep you safe and alive. It’s easier to do that when we know what you have and what you need.”
“You can do that with a questionnaire! You don’t need to rob us!”
Colonel Jarvis stepped forward and his voice dropped low enough for only John to hear. Whatever he said caused John to step back, shock on his face.
The colonel smiled and glanced around. “Any more questions?”
No one spoke up.
“Good. Inspections begin now. Please return to your homes and wait.”
Melody remembered scooping up Lottie and rushing inside the Wilkinses’ house. Gloria ushered the little dog into the back basement room with a leftover bone from dinner and pulled the paint cans in front of the door. The entire time the soldiers searched the street, she prayed they wouldn’t find Lottie.
It worked the first time, but would it work again? How many inspections would they survive? What would happen if they found the little dog? She glanced back at the Cliftons’ dark house. One day John just stopped coming outside. She didn’t know if he decided to stay in, or if the army finally rounded him up and carted him off.
Either was terrible. The army destroyed everything that made this neighborhood great. In a month, another six weeks, would there be anyone left? When everyone was dirty and hungry and beyond desperate, would they beg to be either put out of their miseries or put to work? Was that the plan all along?
Take upstanding, rule-following citizens and turn them into indentured servants to support Jarvis’s need for power?
Melody wished she understood the point of it all.
The familiar sound of little feet trundling down the stairs brought a smile to her face. Lottie scampered up to her, eyes bright and tail wagging. She scooped her up and nuzzled her little neck. “Hey, there, little girl. How are you this morning?”
As she stood up, about to take Lottie out to the backyard so she could do her business, Melody froze. A low growl rumbled up from Lottie’s chest and she poked her head around Melody’s body, struggling to see out the front window. Melody shushed her and stepped closer to the glass, shielding Lottie from view while she looked out.