“No thanks,” Jake said, hoping his voice sounded dangerously close to breaking. If the man thought Jake was slightly unhinged, he might think twice about making a move. “I’d rather blow your guts all over the kitchen counter.”
“No need to do that, brother,” the man said with a sketchy grin. “Look, man. Hawk don’t hold no grudges, and neither does Tre. You got that cell tower working, and that impressed them. We could use a man like you. I’m telling you, you’ve got a future with us if you want it.”
“Just shut up,” Jake said as more shouts sounded from outside. They weren’t urgent shouts, just near enough that Jake was starting to panic.
“They’ll be expecting me to respond soon,” the man said. “If they think I’m in trouble, they’ll come running.”
“Right into this,” Jake said, raising the gun slightly before he leveled it at the man again.
Marcy came down the steps as fast as she dared and then stood by Jake, holding up the roll of duct tape.
“You’re going to turn around and put your hands behind your back,” Jake told the man with a pointed look. “And this lady is going to tie you up with this tape. If you so much as try to mess with her, I’ll blow you away.”
The man leered at Marcy and then chuckled darkly in his chest.
“Don’t test me,” Jake warned as he took two steps closer and raised the gun level with the man’s head.
“Okay, okay.” The man’s leer disappeared with a flinch, and he turned to the side and held his hands behind his back.
“Go ahead.” Jake nodded for Marcy to get to work, so she went over, ripped a piece of duct tape free, and wrapped it around the guy’s wrist. Jake caught movement on his right, and he glanced back to see Alice and Timothy standing on the steps, clutching their packs to their chests and regarding Jake with sleepy eyes. Marcy and Jake’s packs were on the steps next to them. Marcy had become superb at getting things together and ready to bug out at a moment’s notice.
Jake turned his attention back to Marcy and the man. Marcy finished with his hands and stepped back, looking to Jake for what to do next.
“Now sit down on the floor,” Jake said, motioning to the man with his gun. When the man complied, Jake directed Marcy to wrap the man’s ankles with duct tape as well.
“Oh, come on, man,” the X-Ganger said in an impatient tone. “You could have been long gone by now.”
“With you running behind us, screaming and hollering the whole time.”
“No way, man. I wouldn’t—”
Marcy strapped a piece of duct tape right across the man’s mouth, cutting off his words sharply.
“That’s better,” she said, and the man glared at her as she strode across the kitchen past Jake to collect their backpacks off the steps.
“Thanks for that,” Jake said, relaxing his gun hand. “He’s a chatty jerk, for sure.”
Marcy handed Jake his backpack and then stood there with the kids behind her and a serious expression etched onto her face. “We’re ready to go.”
Jake turned to the kids and knelt down, looking back and forth between them, hoping they didn’t pick up on the panic raging through his brain. “There’s a bunch of bad guys around, so that’s why we’re leaving so suddenly. We have to be really quiet, but fast, too. Know what I mean?”
“Are you going to leave us behind, like Mommy?” Timothy said, his voice defiant as tears welled up in his eyes.
“Your mom didn’t leave you,” Jake said firmly, his heart breaking that the little boy thought such a thing about his own mother. “And neither am I. I’ve got you, okay? I’m serious.”
Timothy blinked at Jake as tears filled his eyes and raced down his cheeks.
“It’ll be fun,” Alice said, patting Timothy’s shoulder. “Just like the dinosaur ride at the park, remember? Pretend Jake is a big, stupid dinosaur, and you have to ride his back.”
Jake blinked at Alice, then he made a ridiculous monster face at Timothy before saying in a growly, monster tone. “You want to ride my back, little boy? I’ll carry you through the Jurassic forest.”
Timothy’s eyes went even wider, but his fear had been replaced by anticipation and surprise. He watched Jake do his dinosaur impression, buying into it second by second until he finally cracked a smile and nodded his head eagerly.
“Then get on my back,” Jake said, turning around in his crouch. “Put your arms around my neck and don’t let go.”
Timothy did as he was told, and Jake waited until the boy was situated before he stood up. He carried his pack in one hand, a gun in the other hand, and Timothy and his backpack hanging around his neck. Moving to the door, Jake stopped and looked over at the X-Ganger. The man was staring back at Jake with a mixture of uncertainty and bewilderment in his eyes.
“You might have kids someday, man,” Jake said, gruffly. “If you don’t get yourself killed gang-banging like an idiot.”
“Take a lesson,” Marcy threw in as she put her arm around Alice’s shoulder. “Sometimes you have to man up, or dinosaur up in this case. Whatever it takes.”
With that, Jake unlocked the door, opened it, and eased out onto the porch.
Chapter 18
Jake, Boston, Massachusetts | 5:40 a.m., Thursday
Jake led Marcy and Alice through a yard filled with debris. They sneaked from an overturned picnic table to a wide tree trunk before he stopped to listen, unsure of where the X-Gangers were, except that he could hear voices from random directions. It was impossible to tell where they were or how far away.
They were not using their flashlight to see, but the whites of Marcy’s eyes glowed in the early morning gloom, and Alice was looking around like a frightened rabbit. Timothy clung to Jake’s neck like a monkey, the boy staying quiet.
“Where to?” Marcy asked.
“I’m thinking we take a right turn here and move along the sidewalk,” Jake said. “We can use wrecked cars for cover, and it’s still pretty dark.”
“That will help,” Marcy said.
Jake stepped away from the tree and onto the sidewalk, head swiveling in both directions as he looked for signs of the gang. He squinted at a thick shadow in the middle of the street. The shadow began to move around the edges, and then one piece of it broke off and started walking toward one of the houses on the other side of the road.
Spinning to his right, Jake made for a wrecked car that sat on the sidewalk directly ahead. Jake squeezed between the car and a fence and crouched down on the other side.
“What did you see?” Marcy asked, coming up beside him with Alice in tow.
“There’s a group of X-Gangers standing in the middle of the road,” Jake said, “but if we stay low, they might not see us.”
“Great,” Marcy said with a frown as she raised her gun, adjusted her grip, and took a deep breath.
Jake lifted himself to a slightly higher crouch and began moving away from the car, eyes set on another vehicle a hundred feet ahead. It was turned on its side and would give them much more protection if they could just reach it.
His legs and back strained as he carried the heavy pack in one arm and the child on his back. The car seemed like it was a hundred miles away; there was no way he could stand and sprint to it without drawing the attention of the gang. He just hoped none of them looked in their direction or they might see the three shadows slipping away.
“You okay, Timothy?” Jake whispered with a strained grunt.
“Mm-hm,” Timothy said in a tiny voice.
“Just hang on,” Jake said, sucking air between his teeth. “Keep your feet wrapped around my waist.”
The boy tightened his grip around Jake’s neck and tried to hook his feet around Jake’s mid-section, but his legs were too short. Still, it helped keep the child balanced. Jake willed himself onward, keeping low as they came closer and closer to the next car. He could see the undercarriage and make out the axle, transmission, gas tank, and exhaust system.
There were only fifteen more feet to go.
“Almost there,” Jake said, clenching his jaw as his left leg cramped up and pain shot through his lower back.
“Come on, Alice.” Marcy hissed the words at the little girl. “Stay with me.”
“I am, I am,” Alice said in an equally hissed tone. Then the little girl gasped and jerked Marcy’s arm, pulling her to a stop, drawing Jake’s attention.
A woman stepped out of the yard ahead of them, but she hadn’t seen them yet. She was fastening her jeans as if she’d just relieved herself in the bushes, and Jake could tell in the pale gloom that she had a mohawk and a neck full of tattoos.
She was an X-Ganger.
The woman must have sensed them standing right there, because she jerked her head up with her eyes darting back and forth between Marcy and Jake. She seemed caught between running and fighting, then she made the decision to grab a gun from her waistband, lift it, and aim it at Jake.
“Stay right where you are,” the woman said as her eyes glanced past Jake and Marcy to where the rest of the gang was gathered.
“No, you drop it, or I’ll shoot.”
Jake looked over to see that Marcy had raised her gun and had the woman in her sights. He’d been so focused on getting to the car, and the cramps in his legs and back, that he’d been slow to react and still held his gun at his side. He didn’t dare lift it, or he risked being shot.
The X-Ganger shot a look at Marcy. “You shoot me, and I’ll make sure he goes down, too.”
“Drop it,” Marcy repeated the threat, this time stepping forward while pushing Alice behind her. She was standing within five feet of the woman. There was no way she could miss.
They stood in a death triangle, Marcy pointing her gun at the woman, and the woman pointing hers at Jake.
“Just let us go,” Jake said to the woman. “We’ve got kids…” Jake let his words trail off as if that explained everything. “Have a little compassion here.”
“Give me a break.” The woman scoffed angrily. “I let you go, Hawk will hang me. He and Raven have been looking for you and we’ve got direct orders to bring you in. You’re half the reason we’re out here sweeping the block.”
“They don’t have to know you let us go.” Jake tried to speak in a placating tone as he stood a little straighter to relieve his cramps. “You can just keep walking. Go back and tell them you didn’t find anything.”
The woman seemed to think about it, eyes moving back and forth between Jake and Marcy’s gun. Jake could feel the woman’s uncertainty as she weighed the life-and-death decision. She shook her head slightly, and Jake was keenly aware that Marcy’s firm, measured breathing had increased, almost like she was starting to gasp for each breath. He glanced over and saw she was squeezing and releasing the gun grip, and her eyes were focused on the woman like two laser beams. It seemed like she was working herself up to something.
“Please,” Jake said, turning his attention back to the X-Ganger. “Just—”
The woman shook her head harder, looking over Marcy’s shoulder as she raised her voice so the others could hear. “No. You’ve got to come in with me. Hey, guys. Hey. Over here—”
Marcy fired twice into the woman’s chest, sending her tumbling backward until she fell on the cement. Jake’s head rang with the gunshots, and Alice threw her hands over her ears with a cry.
Jake exchanged a look with Marcy, the woman’s eyes wide with terror and regret.
A gunshot rang out and something hot whizzed past Jake’s ear, sounding like a hummingbird flying by at Mach speed. Jake ducked and ran for the car.
More gunshots rang out, bullets pinging off the metal of the car as Jake reached it. He ducked behind the protection of the vehicle, quickly followed by Marcy and Alice. Jake grabbed Timothy’s arms and broke his hold, dropping the child to the ground. Then he quickly stepped around the front of the vehicle and fired three shots at the shadows running towards them. The shadows ducked and scattered like roaches in the dark.
“Let’s go,” Jake said, crouching down once more. “Back up, little buddy.”
Timothy obediently wrapped his arms around Jake’s neck and his feet around Jake’s waist. Jake raised up and started running as fast as he could with another hundred pounds or more weighing him down. It was worse than wading through the floods all over again, at least until more bullets went whizzing past them into the dark sky. Two bullets glanced off the concrete around his feet, throwing up shrapnel.
Jake turned, putting himself between Timothy and the flying lead, raised his weapon, and fired two more shots toward the moving shadows coming around the overturned car. One of the shadows dropped their weapon and clutched their arm while the other retreated.
Marcy fired two more shots as well, hitting the top of the car both times. While she didn’t make contact with an X-Ganger, the sound of lead pounding the car’s roof gave the gang pause.
Both Jake and Marcy turned and ran as fast as they could. Jake cut sharply through a side yard and wove between the mountains of siding and brick that had been stripped from the surrounding homes. He heard the X-Gangers shouting things to each other as they tried to home in on their prey, Jake vowing he wouldn’t make it easy for them.
Adrenaline slamming through his bloodstream, Jake ran around a child’s play set and then stepped on a steel fence that had collapsed between the yards. Leaping that, he moved quietly between two houses and stepped into the front yard of a house set back from the road. Jake led them out to the roadway and looked both ways, noting a handful of cars and fallen trees on the road. He tapped Marcy’s shoulder and then took off across the street, sure that there were no gangbangers in the immediate vicinity.
A weak flashlight beam cut across the road in front of them, jerking back to focus right on them. Jake ducked as a hail of bullets followed, but the shots were wildly off the mark.
They plunged into cover on the other side of the road and kept running. Jake knew the chances of one of them spraining an ankle or running into something was high, though he couldn’t allow them to slow down. He desperately hoped Marcy could keep up with her injured leg.
Jake didn’t have the breath to ask her how she was doing, and he could tell from her heavy, determined breathing that she was still with him, so Jake pushed himself even harder, leaping, sprinting, and running to the next bit of cover, half-expecting bullets to fly at them at any second.
But they never did, and the shouts of the X-Gangers faded as the sounds of rain and thunder replaced them. Jake had no destination in mind, only the instinct to get away. To get safe. To put as much distance between them and the bad people as he possibly could. They’d run until they couldn’t run any more. They’d run to save their lives and the lives of the two children they’d taken out of a sagging, weather-beaten building.
They’d run to keep their adopted family together.
Chapter 19
Sara, Gatlinburg, Tennessee | 12:15 p.m., Thursday
Sara watched the rain come down in sheets from where she sat in one of the plain deck chairs they had arranged around a small table. Dion and Natasha sat across from her while Todd sat on the corner of the wooden frame that encapsulated the hot tub.
A pitcher of water and a small coffee carafe sat on the table between Sara and the Gardiners. However, Natasha wasn’t a coffee drinker, so she held a warm cup of a wonderful smelling tea in her hands.
All three of them sat facing the rain and dark, angry clouds, their view broken only by the occasional lightning strike in the distance. Parts of the valley were still flooded, and wind gusted against the side of the mountain in swells that caused Sara’s hair to flutter around her shoulders. But it wasn’t just the flooding they were worried about.
In the hills to the southwest, trails of smoke wound upward into the sky and an orange glow danced across the ridge line.
“Gatlinburg must be on fire,” Dion said, glumly.
“It sure looks that way.” Sara stared at the surreal scene with a sick feeling in her stomach. It appeared
that the lawlessness Mike said would come had finally arrived.
“Hard to believe anything can burn in this rain,” Natasha said.
“It would have to have been started from the inside of one of the buildings,” Sara said with a twist of her lips. “Probably on purpose.”
“Definitely on purpose,” Todd said, the rising strain of his voice showing his tenseness. “Look how bright it is. It has to be at least five or six buildings burning. Maybe even an entire block.”
“You don’t know that, son,” Sara said, yet she knew it was probably true.
“And we can’t do anything about it,” Natasha said.
“We could do something about it.” Todd’s voice dripped resentment. “We could go try to help put the fires out.”
“We talked about this, Todd,” Sara said, feeling her own anger start to rise. “What’s happening stinks, but there’s no way we’re leaving the mountain and possibly putting our lives at risk. We can only hope the people got out safely and no one got hurt.”
“Wishful thinking?” Todd’s words dripped sarcasm.
“Smart thinking,” Sara said, turning toward her son to stare lasers into him. “We couldn’t make it through the floods anyway. Not even with the Subaru.”
“That guy at the bottom of the mountain has a Jeep, right?” Todd asked, still defiant although his eyes fell to the floor beneath Sara’s glare.
“I get your point, Todd,” Sara said, not backing down while also not dismissing her son completely. Todd was a capable young man, and he’d had good ideas before. Sara didn’t want to shut him down and leave him stewing in resentment. “But we can’t just go take the guy’s Jeep.”
Dion and Natasha exchanged an uncomfortable look before Dion offered, “We could go talk to them again.”
“The guy pointed a gun at us.” Sara’s expression was incredulous as she turned her attention to Dion. “A big gun. Are you volunteering to go knock on his door?”
Weathering The Storm (Book 2): Surge Page 11