What's Left of My World (Book 2): This We Will Defend

by C. A. Rudolph

  Christian laughed to himself. He re-holstered his Glock and then began slicing at the patch with his kukri, removing a letter that he felt didn’t belong anymore.

  “Guess you’re the Sergeant-at-Arm, now, aren’t ya?” he teased.

  The biker was outraged. Before he could offer any reply, Christian pulled his Glock from its holster again and emptied the magazine into him. As the slide locked backward, he fell to his knees in exhaustion.

  Grace jumped up and pulled off the heavy body armor she’d been wearing and dropped it on the ground. She sprinted past the biker’s distorted body and slid on her knees to Christian’s side. She pulled frantically on his gear, trying to get a better look at the bullet wound in his shoulder.

  “You’re an idiot,” Grace said. “God…you are such a fucking idiot! Please…tell me you’re okay.”

  “Yeah,” Christian murmured. “I think I’m okay. Thanks for asking.” He placed his hand on Grace’s head and brushed the hair away from her face when she got close enough to him. “What about you? Are you hurt? He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  “No. I’m not hurt,” Grace assured him. “Thanks to you. You saved my life just now.”

  Christian nodded and smiled. Any other answer wouldn’t have been good enough. He knew what’d been at stake moments ago and was more than happy that he’d been able to pull it off.

  Grace pulled off his IFAK and began going through the contents without knowing what she was looking at. She removed a battle dressing and pulled open the package. “I don’t have any idea what I’m doing here—I could use a little help, please.”

  “Here,” Christian said as he took the dressing from her and placed it carefully over his wound while he cringed.

  “Jesus, Christian…are you sure you’re okay? It doesn’t look good,” Grace said with a sniffle.

  “It’s a bullet wound, Grace. It’s not supposed to look good.”

  “Well, are you in a lot of pain?”

  “Getting shot usually doesn’t feel very good,” Christian said.

  “Dammit—this is my first time dealing with someone’s being shot.”

  “And in all fairness, it’s not my first time being shot.”

  Grace gave Christian a fractious look and shoved him on his uninjured shoulder. “Funny. It’s also not the first time you’ve been a complete idiot,” she said while shaking her head in disbelief. “You know—I don’t get you. Even after all that’s happened today already. Even after getting shot and getting into a stupid knife fight that could’ve gotten you killed, you’re still cracking jokes. It’s like you’re…irrefutably predisposed to being an idiot on a daily basis or something.” Grace paused, looked away for a moment, and then returned her stare at him. “Dammit, you have to tell me why though? You have to man up, be real with me, and tell me why in the hell you did what you just did.”

  Christian shrugged and winced and he put pressure on the dressing that covered his wound. “Seemed like a good decision at the time.”

  “Well, it was a stupid decision.”

  “I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as the only decision,” Christian quipped. “What exactly was I supposed to do, Grace? Let him kill you? Wait…don’t answer too fast…you only get one chance if you answer wrong.”

  “Look, I’m not trying to sound unappreciative,” Grace said, “so please don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way. A shitload of crazy stuff has happened today and now this. It’s just, surreal. I mean, come on…how am I supposed to react? I just watched you cut a man’s arm off!”

  “It’s okay,” Christian said. “I’m not the least bit offended.”

  A few tears ran from Grace’s eyes as her emotions started to break free from their bonds. “Dammit. I’ve never been so scared in all of my life,” she began. “I mean—I almost fucking died today.” Grace paused and, through her whimpers, wiped the tears from her eyes. “I don’t know why you suddenly decided to show up in our lives, Christian—but I have to admit—I’m glad you did.” Grace paused a moment. “God…I can’t believe you just did that. I can’t believe you just risked your life like that…for me of all people.”

  Christian looked away for a moment contemplatively before returning the look that Grace was sending him. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  “Why wouldn’t you what?”

  “Why wouldn’t I risk my life for you?” Christian pondered. “You’re worth it, aren’t you?”

  “I’m not following you, Christian. Help me out a little bit here.”

  Christian shrugged. “What Michelle said to me the other day hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn’t get it then, but today, sitting here, right now, with you—it makes sense. That guy was going to kill you, and in that moment, all that mattered was finding a way to save you—I didn’t care what happened to me. I’ve never felt that way before. Until today. Until just then.”

  Grace scowled and pulled defensively away from him and then folded her arms over her chest. “Let me give you fair warning, Christian, don’t mess with my head.”

  “I’m not messing with your head, Grace.”

  Grace hesitated. “It sounds like you are. It also sounds like you’re saying—”

  “That I’d die for you?”

  Grace bit her lip. She stared hard at Christian as her mind raced and her heart fell about a dozen stories to the ground.

  “You know—no one…has ever said anything like that to me before,” Grace admitted as her eyes started to well up again.

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Well…believe what you want. It’s the truth.”

  “If it’s the truth, then it’s a shame,” Christian said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  Christian leaned forward, his expression softening. “Because you deserve it.”

  Grace shook her head in disbelief as her cheeks flushed with color and the tears slid from her eyes. She stared off into the woods and up at the sky, trying everything she knew not to look at Christian.

  “Damn you,” she said. “Damn you to hell. Why do you have to be so…so amazing all the time.”

  Christian smiled and used his dirt-covered finger to move Grace’s bangs out of her eyes, thereby leaving a greasy mark on her forehead. “And why do you have to be so sassy all the time?” he joked.

  Grace smiled through her tears, which were much quicker to dry up this time around. “I’m going to caution you, okay…I’m not an easy person to love.”

  “I don’t see that. I don’t see that at all.”

  “Well, many men have tried to win my heart before, Christian. Every single one of them has failed miserably.” Grace paused to catch her breath. “For some reason though, it’s like you’re doing it without even trying. I mean, who the hell are you?”

  “I’m just a normal guy, in the right place at the right time,” Christian said. “For entirely too long I’ve been living my life for me. I don’t know how much time I have left on this earth, but I want to learn what it feels like to truly care about someone—other than myself.”

  “Please tell me that there’s something behind those words,” Grace pled. “Tell me that you’re not just saying them to calm me down or pacify me.”

  Christian shook his head. “No,” he said. “I meant everything I said. I know I’m a big jokester, but I think you know when I’m being sincere—even if those times are few and far between.” He paused as a grin spread across his face. “I’m kind of a work in progress.”

  Grace nodded and wiped what remained of her tears from her cheek. “I do know. I don’t know why…or how, but I do.”

  Grace and Christian paused when they heard Fred Mason’s unmistakable command voice from the direction of the road. He was walking toward them in a group with John, Lee, and Norman. Michelle followed with Megan not far behind.

  Grace sighed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I don’t know how to take all this.”

  “How about—day by day?”

  Grace reached fo
r Christian’s hand and shook it. “Day by day works for me.”

  When the group reached Grace and Christian, Fred peered down at the deceased biker amputee. His eyes soon found their way to the man’s newly edited title patch.

  “This your work?” he asked Christian while pointing down at the body.

  Christian nodded, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of Fred’s reaction.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Fred while he grinned and shook his head. “You’re a sick son of a bitch, Christian. I like you. You can be my wingman anytime.”

  Michelle, while constantly scanning the road and surrounding woods, asked, “Lauren wasn’t with you guys?”

  Grace stood and helped Christian to his feet.

  “No,” Christian said. “After she went Ripley on all those men in the road, she said she was going back to the cabin to reload. I think the full auto M4 got the best of her.”

  Concern struck Michelle’s face with the force of a bolt of lightning. She turned and, without another word, took off in a gallop in the direction of her ATV. John sprinted immediately behind her.

  Chapter 30

  When Lauren noticed the cabin’s front door was standing wide open, her heart sank. She immediately began regretting her decision to go off on her own. She slowed down and pulled the ATV to a stop just off the driveway, locating it behind the largest tree in the front yard, and then shut off the engine. Regardless of what Lauren did from here on out, she knew if someone was inside or elsewhere on the property, they were now aware of her presence.

  Lauren began shedding her gear piece by piece, making sure not to take her eyes off the open door. The suppressed Larue M4 came first. Without any ammunition left to feed it, it was useless to her. As she leaned it across the back deck of the ATV, she could still feel the heat radiating off the barrel through the rail system. She had blown through all the thirty-round magazines she’d carried with her and was now starting to wish she’d had just one more. Running out of ammunition was the last thing that she ever wanted to do. She could literally slap herself for being the person that it happened to first, especially after the advice she’d offered the others about not running out.

  Lauren dropped her pack to the ground, unholstered her Glock, and did a press-check. A round was in the chamber. She pressed the mag release and let the magazine fall just far enough to see the reflection of brass in the witness holes. From what she could see, she had a full magazine of fifteen rounds—all of them lethal one-hundred-sixty-five-grain hollow points.

  Taking particular care to stay behind the tree that was now her only means of cover, Lauren dismounted the ATV and stepped backward to move behind it. She presented her pistol using both hands and began mentally preparing herself to breach and clear the cabin on her own—which was something she hadn’t received a lot of training on. One thing she knew for certain was that it was preferable, as well as safer, to do it with a partner or—even better—a group. Both of which she didn’t have at the moment.

  Without a radio, there was no way to get anyone to back her up. Lauren could turn and run to the nearest house—perhaps the Masons’. If someone was watching from inside the cabin, they could easily gun her down while she ran. She could wait for help to arrive eventually, but every minute she waited gave her less options and she’d already run out of options that were safe. It was time to be deliberate. Lauren took a couple of deep breaths and broke cover.

  As Lauren took off in a sprint toward the cinder-block grill, a burst of gunfire sourced from the forest that formed the dividing line between her home and the Ackermann’s hummed over her head. It sounded like the buzzing of bees—and it was unmistakable. Lauren dove to the ground and landed hard on her stomach, but managed not to get the wind knocked out of her. She pulled herself to within inches of the grill and began to search for a target as more rounds accelerated past her. When she spotted a muzzle flash in the woods, she squeezed the Glock’s trigger, firing several times in that direction. She didn’t know if she’d hit anything, but her return fire had caused the shooting to cease.

  A moment of intense, uncomfortable silence passed as Lauren tried desperately to control her breathing, watch for threats, and keep her head. It wasn’t easy and panic wasn’t something she wanted or needed right now.

  A masked man dressed in all black tactical clothing suddenly broke from his place of concealment and charged toward her, a large black rifle in his grasp. Lauren rolled herself over onto her back, adjusted her sight picture, and fired twice at him. He fell in a heap, his own momentum causing his body to dig into the soft ground below him.

  Lauren heard another man’s voice scream, “NO!” from the woods and rolled herself back behind the cover of the cinder-block grill. She heard heavy, fast-paced footsteps approaching on the soppy ground. Then the man started shooting rapidly. His rounds cut chunks from the cinder block, sending pieces of it flying over her and covering her in dust. Lauren had always been taught that hesitation killed just as quickly as inaction. If she waited too long to act, he was going to be on top of her, and a second after that, she’d be dead. She got up as fast as she could. As she ran toward the edge of the woods, she acquired her next target—a man dressed almost exactly as the first. She turned to him and began to sidestep as she started pulling the trigger, the first few shots going wild. The last few struck true, hitting him center mass, and he fell to the ground just as he was lifting his rifle to get off a shot at her.

  Lauren dropped to one knee and began scanning the area while trying to estimate how many shots she had left. She didn’t know if there was anyone else in the woods, but knew it was entirely possible. While one man couldn’t stand the sight of his comrade being shot and killed, it was perfectly plausible for another, not-so-compassionate one to being lying in wait. She decided it best to backtrack and return to her original position near the ATV. Anything was better than being out in the open.

  Lauren began to walk backwards while keeping her Glock trained on the tree line. She swept back and forth but didn’t see anything. If someone was really out there, surely he’d had enough time to take her out by now. It was what she would’ve done if their roles had been reversed. Just as she started to feel a bit safer, she remembered the open door. As she went to turn her head to glance over to it, she felt something on the back of her neck. Something cold and hard. Her heart sank again. It could only be one thing. Lauren was certain that what she was feeling was the muzzle of a pistol.

  “Easy…easy,” a man’s voice said.

  Lauren released the tension in her body and began to slowly move her right hand away from her pistol. She moved it out and to the right in a show of submission.

  “That’s it,” the man said. “Now, just drop the gun on the ground there in front of you. You don’t want to get shot, do you? It might mess up your hair.”

  Lauren shook her head slightly and began lowering her weapon. As she did, she heard multiple shots of gunfire coming from across the road. It sounded like several different guns going off and had to be coming from the Masons’ house. She guessed that some other men, perhaps friends of the men she’d just killed and of the man who now had her at gunpoint, were making a move to free their buddy. She hoped that some of the shots she was hearing belonged to her neighbors who were fighting back.

  Lauren was beginning to feel helpless, but it was coupled with something else this time around. It was like the feeling she’d had when she and Christian were being chased by the DHS men right after she’d sprained her ankle. But something was different this time. Even though she was alone, Lauren didn’t feel afraid. She wasn’t sad. She felt—daring. Almost fearless. For the moment, she really didn’t care what happened to her anymore—like she didn’t have anything left to lose. Like she could accept her fate, no matter what it was.

  The man behind her laughed when he heard the gunfire. “That’s music to my ears,” he said. He pushed his gun into Lauren’s neck a bit harder. “Go on, now…drop the damn gun.”

 
Lauren unwillingly let her Glock fall to the ground and it imbedded itself into the soft, soppy grass. She lifted her hands upward little by little in surrender.

  “Good girl,” the man said. “Now, let’s take a little walk inside.”

  Lauren hesitated at first, but did as the man requested. She knew that he could end her life at any second and for any reason. She wondered why he hadn’t already. Surely the sight of watching two of his men die right in front of him was enough for him to want to kill her, so why didn’t he just get it over with? He was keeping her alive for some reason.

  Once inside, Lauren saw another man standing inside the cabin near the hallway. He was stocky and muscular and had a certain essence, as well as an odor about him. She couldn’t see his face, but he was smoking a cigarette and had a chrome-plated pistol stuffed into the front of his pants.

  “Put her over there,” he grumbled while pointing to the corner of the kitchen. “And watch the door.”

  He had an accent that reminded Lauren of someone she’d met before from New Jersey or maybe even New York. The other man shoved Lauren by the shoulder over to the kitchen counter and then turned and moved to guard the front door as ordered.

  “You two enjoy yourselves,” he said.

  Before Lauren turned herself around to face the man in the hallway, she began looking around for anything she thought that she could use as a weapon, but didn’t see anything. There was a pile of porcelain dinner plates sitting between the sink and Norman’s bucket water filter. She pushed the thought away—there wasn’t much dinner plates could do against the man’s gun. Lauren started looking for possible exits, which were limited. The kitchen window was closed, hard to get to, and therefore out of the question. If she made a run for the door, the man would most certainly intercept her or, worse, just shoot her. She was officially cornered. Seeing no other viable option, Lauren turned around leisurely and faced the man.

  “Well, hello there,” the man said. “You’re a fine-looking specimen, aren’t you?”