Hunting Daybreak: A Post-Apocalyptic Survival Romance (Shattered Sunlight Book 2)

by E A Chance

  “Literally in the middle of nowhere,” Riley said, chuckling.

  “Then you don’t know about the new country?”

  Dashay sighed and rubbed her forehead. “Maybe it would be quicker for you to start at the beginning.”

  “About a month ago, we started hearing rumors that the western states have split from the US and formed a new country because they don’t agree with what Kearns is doing. We didn’t believe it was possible at first, but people fleeing St. Louis said they’ve heard the soldiers talking about it. Kearns is sending troops to the border to take back the states that seceded.”

  Riley was stunned. Kearns was a despicable person, but Riley couldn’t accept that part of the country would rather secede than remove her from office. Although, with the world in its current state, that wouldn’t be a straightforward proposition. Nothing made sense in their insane world anymore.

  “You believe it’s true?” she asked softly.

  “It is true,” Monica said without hesitation. “We’re sure of it.”

  “Which states?” Dashay asked, sounding as shocked as Riley.

  Monica ticked off on her fingers as she named them. “Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and California. Get this, I heard Oregon and Washington were annexed into Canada. North and South Dakota are still trying to decide which side they’re on.”

  Riley slowly got to her feet. “You said Colorado?” Monica nodded. “That’s where I’m from. We’re headed there. Are you telling me my family lives in a foreign country now?”

  “Yes. I’ve heard they don’t let anyone over the border without someone to vouch for them, and you have to get past the US military to even reach the border. It might be better to find somewhere else to live, at least until after you have the baby.”

  The men had wandered over and the smile slid from Coop’s face when he saw Riley. “What’s the matter, Babe? Is it Miles?”

  Riley repeated what Monica told them.

  Coop gave a low whistle, then said, “Where’s this border?”

  “Along the boundaries of Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas. All the states west of there, except Oregon and Washington, are part of the new Western States of America,” Cody said. “That’s the name of the new country, and Kearns is sending the military out there for war.”

  Riley locked her hands behind her neck and began to pace. “This is absurd. I won’t believe it. If these western states are in anywhere near as bad a condition as the states we’ve passed through, how did they mobilize and organize so quickly? How did the states’ leadership communicate without technology? How did they form a new government from scratch? I can’t wrap my head around it.”

  “How has Kearns been able to do what she has?” Adrian asked. “She controls the entire rest of the country.”

  “I don’t know about any of that,” Monica said, “but you’ll be walking into a hornet’s nest if you keep going west.”

  Riley spun around to face her. “My two youngest children are there. I’ve been trying to get home to them from DC since the CME hit. My oldest daughter is headed to Colorado with other members of my family. What’s going to happen to her?”

  Coop put his arms around her and kissed the top of her head. “Take a breath. We’ll figure this out. First, we have to find out how much of it’s true. You know how rumors spread.”

  Riley stepped away from him and took a breath. “You’re right. We need to get out of this heat and rest, then we’ll plan our strategy. Where’s the gazebo?”

  “It’s a few blocks away at the park. You can’t miss it,” Cody said. “I’m sorry to give you bad news after you saved Miles’ life. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

  “Thank you,” Dashay said. “I hope you’re right.”

  “We’ll bring you dinner in a few hours,” Monica said. “Go. Get some rest.”

  “We will,” Coop said as he put his arm around Riley and guided her toward the cart. “And thank you again for the water. You’ve saved our lives, too.”

  After a four-hour nap in the gazebo and a delicious meal of cold chicken, bread, and salad from Monica, the four of them sat talking softly and staring up at the stars in their camp chairs. Biscuit hungrily chomped the grass after a long drink from a koi pond in the park, with fish darting about in the water and toads croaking along the edge.

  They’d all agreed to spend another day in the park, resting and figuring out what to make of the bizarre and devastating news from Cody and Monica.

  “My brain doesn’t want to accept it’s true,” Riley said, “but Monica and Cody believe it. That might explain why we never ran into patrols in St. Louis.”

  “If it’s true and we somehow make it across the border, it would solve our Kearns and Yeager problem,” Adrian said.

  Riley sighed and slumped in her chair. “It would, but how the hell are we going to cross the border? We already barely evaded Yeager, and from what Aaron told us, he doesn’t sound like the type of man who gives up easily. We’d have to get past him and the whole US military in the middle of a civil war.”

  Coop leaned forward and looked at her. “Are you saying you want to stop trying to get home?”

  She pushed herself out of the chair and glared at him with her arms crossed. “Never! I refuse to let Kearns stop me from reaching my children. I’m saying this is going to take a carefully crafted plan. I’m just not sure what that is yet.” Turning to Adrian, she said, “Have you figured out who Cousin Jack is? If your family is with him on this side of the border and you cross over, they’d be lost to you.”

  “That occurred to me,” he said. “That’s likely to happen anyway, but after giving it some thought, the only person I could come up with is Kenzie’s cousin, John Clark, in Fort Worth. I’ve only seen him a few times, but I remember hearing family members call him Jack. If I’m right, I could cross the border into Colorado with you, then make my way to Texas. The hardest part will be remembering John’s address. I’ve only been to his house once.”

  Dashay clicked her tongue. “That will be the hardest part? You’re always going on about your eidetic memory. Isn’t this a perfect time to put it to use?”

  “It’s eighteen years since I was there. That’s a stretch, even for me.”

  Coop stood and put his arm around Riley. “We have a thousand steps to consider before your trip to find Cousin Jack. What are our immediate concerns?”

  “I’ve been thinking we should do what we can to change our appearances,” Dashay said. “And Riley was right to give fake names earlier. I wasn’t thinking when I told Cody and Monica my actual name.”

  “Yeager’s people may not know Riley’s pregnant, so that might work in our favor, too,” Coop said.

  Adrian shook his head. “I’m sure librarian boy gave Yeager detailed descriptions. He probably wanted us caught as much Yeager.”

  “Either way, Dashay’s right,” Riley said. “I could cut my hair. I was thinking about doing it since it would be cooler in this heat.”

  Dashay got up and ran her fingers through Riley’s hair. “I hate to see you lose your lovely curls, but you’re right. You should dye it black, too.”

  Coop made a face. “Not looking forward to seeing that. Is it safe to dye your hair when you’re pregnant?”

  She nodded. “Yes, as long as I’m careful about the type I use. I should only need to do it once if we make it over the border in four weeks. I can look for root touchup in the meantime.”

  “What about you, Dashay?” Adrian asked.

  “I’ll lose the braids, then straighten and bleach it. My friends and I used to do that all the time when I was a teenager. What about you two?”

  Coop rubbed his chin. “We don’t have beards in the sketches, so we’ll let them grow and our hair. Even my baseball cap and Adrian’s straw hat might be enough to fool people.”

  “Zach used to talk about how even minor changes are enough to keep people from recognizing you,” Riley said. “W
e should have thought of it sooner.”

  “That’s one box checked,” Coop said. “We’ll look for the materials to carry out our disguises tomorrow, but we should wait until we’re away from Cody and Monica to make the changes. What’s next on the list?”

  Riley held out her sandaled foot. “Boots and clothes for me. We need to replenish the medical supplies, and as Monica says, food. Always food.”

  Adrian gave a sniff. “They’re not hurting too bad in that department, evidenced by that feast they gave us.”

  “That could have been nothing more than gratitude,” Riley said. “They might share more or direct us to where we can find our own. I was thinking earlier that as we continue to move west, we should see corn fields like Aaron’s if farmers have been able to cultivate them. That’s a versatile and filling nutrition source.”

  Dashay yawned and stretched. “I’m having a hard time putting two thoughts together, so my first order of business is sleep.”

  “I agree,” Adrian said. “I know we’ve gotten off our daytime sleep schedule, but I’m exhausted after my brush with death today.”

  Coop nodded. “I’ll stand the first watch and we’ll pick this up in the morning.”

  Adrian and Dashay made their way to their tents, but Riley sat next to Coop to keep him company while he stood guard. They hadn’t run across anyone but Andy and Monica since they’d been in the village, but they still had to be vigilant.

  Coop rested the rifle against his chair, then reached over and twisted a curl of Riley’s hair around his finger. “I’m going to miss your fiery locks.”

  She pulled his hand to her lips and kissed it. “It’s only temporary. You might like my new look.”

  He gave a warm smile, and she melted at the sight of his dimples, as always. She hadn’t seen them since leaving the cottage.

  “Doubtful,” he said. “You’re taking the news about this new country better than I expected. It’s a blow when we all thought we were home free from here on.”

  Riley gave a soft laugh. “I haven’t thought I was home free since five seconds after the CME struck. This latest obstacle is a kick in the gut, but we’ll figure it out. We have weeks before we’ll be close enough to know if the reports are true. I’ll save my meltdown for later. Until then, we’ll have smaller obstacles to face, like finding safe water and food on the plains in record-breaking heat.”

  He leaned closer and gave her a lingering kiss. “Have I told you how incredible you are?”

  Keeping her eyes closed, she whispered, “Not for the past hour. You’re falling down on the job.”

  “I promise to step it up.”

  She wove her fingers into his tangled hair and pressed her lips hard to his. At that moment, she felt that even if the world was crashing down around them, as long as she had Coop, there was nothing to fear.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Riley hit snooze on her watch alarm, hoping for ten more precious minutes of sleep.

  She felt Coop roll over to face her. “You’re wasting your time with that snooze function. You never fall back to sleep.”

  “You know what they say, never give up. Today might be my lucky day,” she mumbled. “It’s getting harder to get up every day, especially with this kid kicking me every two minutes all night. I remember why I never camped when I was almost seven months pregnant.” She watched him in the faint moonlight that was shining in through the tent window. “Why are you smiling?”

  “I’m still not used to that short black hair of yours. I wake every night thinking a strange woman is in my bed.”

  She kissed the end of his nose. “Isn’t that every man’s fantasy?”

  He rolled onto his back and tucked his hands behind his head. “Not this man’s, and it’s tough to fantasize about a woman who looks like she swallowed a basketball.”

  Riley groaned as she pushed herself to a sitting position. “It’s been more than a month since I dyed my hair. If you’re not used to it by now, you never will be. I’ll grow it out and change the color back once we’re safely over the border.”

  Coop climbed out of his sleeping bag and pulled on his jeans. “Speaking of the border, we’re roughly a week away from it and still we have absolutely no plan for crossing. I climbed to the top of that grain silo in the field just after sundown to have a look. Military encampments fill the plains west of us.”

  “It’s what we expected with the number of convoys heading west these past few weeks. We’ll know more when we’re closer to the border.”

  He helped her to her feet, then kissed the back of her hand. “I’m not happy going into this blind.”

  “Our disguises have kept Yeager off our tails despite those posters being plastered on the walls of every town we pass. As bad as it is, I have to admire their determination. Don’t worry about the border. I’ll convince the guards I’m from Colorado Springs. They’ll welcome us with open arms.”

  Coop grabbed his dirty clothes scattered on the tent floor and shoved them into his pack. “Sure, you’re awake? Sounds like you’re dreaming to me. They’ll most likely arrest you as soon as they get a look at your face.”

  Riley shrugged and reached for her pack. “What’s with the gloom this morning? We’ve been making great time and haven’t run into trouble in weeks.”

  Coop stopped packing and stared at her. “Now you’ve jinxed it.” He spit on his finger three times, copying Riley’s ritual. “Let’s eat and get going. We’re losing moonlight.”

  Riley watched him leave the tent, wondering what had brought on his foul mood. Their trek had been uneventful for the past month. They’d been fortunate to find nature trails that kept them off major highways but provided cleared tracks wide enough for the cart. They’d had plenty of clean water through occasional thunderstorms and Adrian’s ability to locate underground springs.

  Getting food had been the bigger challenge and had taken a toll. Riley was growing concerned at how thin Coop was. He’d worked to maintain the muscle mass he built on the farm, but diminishing protein consumption was eating away at him. Dashay and Adrian were facing the same situation. Riley was the only one carrying a healthy amount of weight because the others refused to let her do strenuous chores and insisted on giving her the biggest food portions. She felt guilty eating in front of them, but needed the calories and nutrients to keep the baby healthy and growing.

  Coop hunted for small game, but ammo was running low and animal sightings were growing infrequent. Adrian and Dashay caught fish when they could, but water sources became more scarce the farther they progressed into the plains. Their only other animal protein came from the occasional wild boar or deer Coop shot. Corn was the one staple they never seemed to lack. Though Riley was pleased to see survivors cultivating crops, she swore to herself that once they reached home, she’d never eat another kernel of corn in her life.

  Adrian continued to augment their food supply with a variety of plants, wild fruits and nuts he gathered along the way. Overall, they’d rarely gone hungry or thirsty and had become proficient at living off the land. She’d considered herself a skilled outdoorswoman before her ill-fated trip to DC but had been little more than a novice. She’d realized her modern conveniences had spoiled her. She’d since grown confident that she could do more than just survive in their bizarre meld of nineteenth and twenty-first century worlds.

  “You’re far away,” Dashay said, as she came into the tent carrying two bowls of corn mash and field onions with chunks of fish.

  Riley sank onto the folding chair Coop had found for her since it had gotten too hard for her to use the camp chairs. “I was thinking how much this experience has changed us. You and I aren’t the same people we were when we met in Branson’s compound.” She took a bite of the corn mash and was surprised at how much better it tasted than it smelled or looked.

  Dashay took a spoonful from her own bowl. “What’s got you in such a philosophical mood?”

  Riley shook her head. “Coop and pregnancy hormones, maybe. I
’m so close to home I can taste it, but there’s this enormous wall blocking my way. I miss my babies, Dashay. Will I ever hold any of them in my arms again, especially Julia?”

  Dashay squeezed her hand. “I won’t give you false assurances and say everything will be fine. I can’t predict the future, but if those children have even a fraction of their mother’s courage and determination, they’ll be waiting for you on the doorstep.”

  “You two about ready?” Adrian called from across the camp. “Coop’s champing at the bit to get going.”

  Riley finished her last few bites of mash, then wiped the bowl and held out her hand for Dashay’s. She rested her hand on Dashay’s arm, and said, “Thank you, friend. You said just what I needed to hear.”

  “Good, then let’s get you home.”

  “It’s time we chose a name for this baby,” Coop said as he rode next to Riley in the cart.

  They’d created a system of the three riders rotating two-hour breaks of riding in the cart so they wouldn’t get too fatigued on the bikes. They were becoming experts at repairing tires, which was usually required a couple of times a day especially when traveling on the rougher surfaces. That day, they’d been traveling for just over six hours, and Coop was on his second break. He’d brought up the baby’s name earlier and had given such ridiculous suggestions that Riley laughed so hard she had to beg him to stop. But she was relieved to see he’d returned to his usual jovial mood.

  “I’ll only discuss this if you promise to be serious. If it’s a boy, the name is decided. Neal Xavier Cooper, IV. To avoid confusion, we’ll call him Neal since you go by Coop.”

  He pulled off his cap and ran his hand through his tangled hair. “I never liked the name Neal, hence Coop.”

  “What’s wrong with Neal? It was your father’s name.”

  “He went by Junior with family.”

  “We’re not calling our son that. What about Xavier? Xav for short.”