by Harley Tate
He caught a flurry of movement to his right. “Over here!” He shouted for Brianna and the others to hear.
Another round of gunfire and Tracy screamed. No! She fell back, rifle in her hands, and brought it up to her shoulder.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Again and again she pulled the trigger, firing in the direction of the incoming shots.
A shout filtered through the sound of gunfire.
Walter could barely keep his eyes open and he landed hard on his butt in the dirt. Before he could blink, a pair of arms reached up under his and began to pull him back. He blinked Peyton into focus. “No! Get back. You’re going to get yourself killed.”
Walter flailed, trying to push the kid away.
“You’re not dying out here.” Peyton dragged Walter behind a building and propped him up against the wall.
Something tight cinched around his leg and the world went dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MADISON
University Farm, CSU Chico
12:30 p.m.
What the hell happened? Madison frantically looked through the scope of the rifle, trying to find anyone to kill. The man who shot her father lay dead in a heap thanks to her mom, but there were others still out there, she could feel it.
Tucker crouched beside her, his handgun no match for the rifle Madison carried. “Is your dad all right?”
“I don’t know.”
Madison wanted more than anything to find him, but she couldn’t. Not until it was safe. Her mom crouched behind a water barrel, gasping for breath but otherwise unharmed. How she’d managed to free the rifle and not get killed, Madison had no idea.
She shouted to her. “Mom!”
Her mother whipped her head around. “Madison! Are you all right?”
Madison nodded and pointed at the building across the open area. “There are more!”
Her mom nodded and turned back around, pulling up the rifle to peer through the scope. She brought it down and shook her head.
Nothing.
Madison’s lungs ached with the need to scream. This had all gone so wrong so fast. She turned to Tucker. “I’m going out there.”
“Not a chance. Your father already tried that and got himself shot.”
As Madison started to move, Tucker grabbed her arm. “You’re the best shot with the rifle. You need to stay here.”
She cursed under her breath. He was right, but she couldn’t stay there and do nothing. As she opened her mouth to argue, the sound of an engine revving cut her off.
Their truck barreled into the clearing, a man she’d never seen before behind the wheel. He hollered out the window. “Get in! We’re movin’ out!”
One by one a group of men poured out from various buildings like wolves converging on a kill. Madison counted six. As the first two reached the truck, her mom popped up from behind the water barrel and fired.
A man with a ball cap on backwards and one leg over the side of the pickup bed jerked and buckled. He fell back off the side. A volley of shots rang out from inside the cab of the truck and Madison raised her rifle. She fired, but her shot missed.
Again she shot, but the truck’s wheels began to move, tires spinning in the dirt and coughing up dust. The driver had put it in neutral. With the dust screen giving them cover, she couldn’t make out a clear shot.
They were going to get away. A horn sounded to their left and the Jetta appeared from out of nowhere, headed straight for the pickup. Drew sat behind the wheel, eyes focused on the side of the truck.
“He’s going to hit it!”
Tucker jumped up. “He can’t! There’s a whole row of gas cans in the back!”
Madison shook her head. “What’s that matter?”
“If he hits them and they burst or there’s a spark anywhere, they’ll explode. There’s too much vapor in the cans!”
Before Madison could ask another question, Tucker took off, darting out from behind the half-open barn door, waving his arms and shouting.
The Jetta didn’t slow. Oh my God. Madison raised the rifle. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t shoot Drew, but Tucker was headed straight for him.
Brianna busted out of her hiding space behind the harvester, shotgun blasting at the truck. Madison joined in, firing into the cab, trying to hit the driver.
With the dust and the movement of the truck, she couldn’t get a clean shot. More shots rang out. Madison didn’t know if they were from the truck, her mom, or somewhere else, but she kept firing.
Shouts and shots and confusion. The truck lurched forward, heading for the exit and the road beyond. The Jetta followed, gaining speed as it entered the clearing.
A shot hit the windshield of the Jetta and the glass shattered.
“Drew!” Her mother stood up, rifle in one hand as she raced toward the car.
It slowed and her mom gained on it, reaching the driver’s-side door as the car careened to a stop, front tires stuck in a drainage ditch. The truck peeled out of the farm and landed hard on the paved road, racing away as the dust in the middle of the buildings cleared.
“Tucker!” Brianna screamed and Madison spun around.
Oh, no. Please, no. She raced forward, stumbling to a stop at Brianna’s side. Her roommate bent over Tucker as he lay sprawled out on the ground, blood coagulating in a pool around him as it mixed with all the dust. A bullet wound marred his chest and another ripped his pants at the thigh.
His eyes stared up at the sky, vacant and empty.
Tucker was dead.
Madison eased forward and reached for Brianna, but she shoved her away. “Get away from him!”
Brianna scooped her boyfriend up in her arms, cradling his lifeless form against her chest. Blood ran in a trail down his arm and off his fingertips and his head lolled as Brianna hoisted him up closer to her face.
Deep, throaty sobs echoed up from her roommate’s chest and Madison ached for her. She wanted to help, support, do anything but stand there like a spectator on someone else’s grief.
Where is everyone else? She spun in a circle, eyes landing on her mother wrestling with the driver’s side door to the Jetta. Madison rushed over, adding her strength to the fight. Together they tore the door free and pushed it wide.
Drew sat slumped in the seat, head resting on the dash, floppy arms at his sides. Her mother reached inside the cab and felt for a pulse. After a moment, she pulled her hand away.
Madison exhaled. “Is he?”
Her mother nodded. “He’s dead.”
None of it seemed real. First Tucker, now Drew. That only left Peyton and her father. Madison grabbed her mother’s shoulder. “We need to find Dad.”
Her mother nodded. “He’s with Peyton by the grain stores.”
They took off together, her mom slowing as they passed Brianna still kneeling on the ground with Tucker in her arms. Her father sat up against the wall of a barn, a tourniquet on his leg and a grimace on his face.
“How is he?” She stared at Peyton, willing him to tell her good news.
“Looks like the bleeding is under control and he’s regained consciousness, so that’s good.”
“I was only out for a minute. Pain can do that to a guy.”
Madison kneeled beside her father. “Tucker and Drew are dead.”
He tried to move, but fell back against the barn with a wince. “How about Brianna?”
“She’s… with Tucker. Physically, she’s fine.”
He nodded. Madison’s mother kneeled down beside him. “I’m sorry, Walter. I shouldn’t have come. I should have—”
Her father silenced her with a finger to her lips. “Not now. We need to focus on getting back to the house. The rest can wait.”
“What about Tucker and Drew?” Madison couldn’t leave them there.
Peyton stood up. “Is the Jetta still drivable?”
Her mother answered. “I think so. It only stopped because Drew…”
Peyton nodded in understanding. “I’ll get
them into the Jetta. It won’t be pretty, but I’ll get them home. After I back it out of the ditch, let’s get everyone loaded up.”
Madison focused on her father. He’d been right to question coming here. Chico brought them more misery than anything. If they had stayed on course and driven straight to Truckee, Tucker and Drew would be alive. Her father wouldn’t be shot.
They would be safe. Not ravaged and brutalized and exposed. Madison stood and wiped the dirt from her knees. “I’ll go help Peyton. You stay here and rest.”
Her father nodded. “Don’t think I could go anywhere if I tried.”
Madison turned in time to see Peyton kneeling next to Brianna, easing the burden of Tucker’s dead body from her grasp. Whatever happened next, Madison wouldn’t let those men get away with this. Somehow, some way, she would make them pay.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
WALTER
863 Dewberry Lane, Chico, CA
8:00 p.m.
It took Peyton and Madison all afternoon to dig two graves. Walter hated watching his daughter lift shovelfuls of dirt over her shoulder beside her best friend. They shouldn’t have been out in the heat of the day, preparing to bury their friend and his co-pilot.
Drew. A man he’d dragged through a riot and killed for to keep alive. He’d survived downtown Sacramento, the suicide of his fiancée, and an infected gunshot wound, all to die when he should have been right here, safe.
They had a plan. His wife and Drew were to stay behind. If they hadn’t shown up… If they hadn’t interfered…
“You’re right to blame me. I’m the reason Drew and Tucker are dead.”
Walter glanced up. His wife stood in the doorway, a dish towel in her hands. She twisted it as she leaned against the wood trim, her face stoic, expression void of emotion.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you thought it. And you’re right. We should have stayed here.”
“Why did you come?”
She pushed off the doorway and made her way into the living room. “Something didn’t feel right. I stood in the kitchen, staring out at the Jetta and I couldn’t shake the sensation that you were all about to die.”
“So you just showed up with no plan and blew it all up.”
“Not exactly. When we got there, the truck was gone. It wasn’t where you told me it would be. I panicked.” Tracy eased herself down onto the coffee table, perching on the edge. “I thought we were too late.”
Walter adjusted himself on the couch. Peyton’s belt had done the job of a tourniquet out at the farm and by the time they made it back to the house, the major bleeding had stopped. Now his leg sat on a mountain of pillows, bandaged to stop any secondary bleeding. He’d taken the first dose of antibiotics from their reserve supply already to ward off an infection.
Unless something changed, he would survive.
He swallowed and asked the question he couldn’t shake. “Would you have gone off with that man if he’d asked you to?” The fear of her answer twisted his heart.
His wife exhaled and stared him straight in the eye. “If that’s what it would have taken to ensure my family’s survival, in a heartbeat.”
Walter opened his mouth, but she put up her hand.
“Right then, I cared more about flushing them out and finding out where you were. Like I said, I thought we were too late. The truck was gone.” She glanced down at the dish towel. “If you and Madison were already dead…”
Her voice cracked on the last word and Walter reached out to touch her hand. Tracy looked up through a curtain of unshed tears and the sight almost broke him. “I wouldn’t have had anything to live for, Walter. You have to understand that.”
He squeezed her hand, desperate to ease the pain etched into his wife’s face. “I know exactly how you feel. When I saw you out there, talking with that man, something inside me broke. I couldn’t let him touch you.”
“I would have been fine. I had a gun.”
“I didn’t know.” He let her hand go and rubbed his beard up and down in frustration. “If I hadn’t rushed into the clearing… If I’d trusted you…”
Tracy reached up and stilled his hand. “You were trying to protect me.”
“And I got two people killed. Tucker was just a kid for goodness’ sake.”
“He chose to run into the middle of it, Walt. Just like Drew chose to drive the Jetta. You didn’t tell them to do it. You didn’t make those choices.”
“But it’s my responsibility.” He pressed a fist to his heart. “They were my responsibility.”
“No, Dad. That’s where you’re wrong.” Madison stepped into the room, her jeans and shirt covered in dirt, smudge marks marring her beautiful face. “Ever since you found us on the road, you’ve been trying to shoulder all of the burden. But you can’t. You have to rely on us, too.”
“I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She smiled, but it was out of sadness. “You can’t protect us. All you can do is help us to the best of your ability. Even as a pilot you’re not on your own. There’s a whole crew of people helping you keep that plane in the air and land it safely.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“You can’t tell me that in the Marine Corps you didn’t rely on others to do their job. You weren’t out there on your own, trying to take down all the bad guys like Bruce Willis in a Die Hard movie.”
“That’s not what I was doing.”
His daughter raised an eyebrow. “It wasn’t?”
Walter exhaled. She had a point. But purposefully putting his wife and daughter in harm’s way wasn’t something Walter was sure he could ever do. “It’s different when it’s your job. Those men and women signed up to risk their lives. They aren’t my flesh and blood.” He reached for her and she stepped closer. “They aren’t my daughter.”
Madison bent down and wrapped her arms around his neck. Walter breathed in the scent of her. Youth and innocence and the tang of hard work. His daughter was right. Without everyone pulling their own weight, they would never survive.
This wasn’t a mission to complete or a plane to land. It was the future.
It was life.
She pulled back and he smiled. “I’m never going to give up trying to protect you.”
“And I’m never going to stop proving I’m capable.”
As Madison stood up, Peyton entered the room. He nodded at Walter. “If you think you can stand, everything’s ready.”
Walter eased his leg down to the floor. “If you can help me up, I’ll make it.”
Peyton rushed forward and slipped his shoulder underneath Walter’s and wrapped his arm around his back. On a one-two count, Peyton lifted and Walter stood up. The room spun for a moment, the pain in his leg shooting straight to his toes, but he didn’t pass out.
“Let’s go.”
Peyton started slow, easing around the coffee table one small step at a time. After what seemed like forever, they made it outside to the makeshift cemetery. Peyton eased Walter down into a plastic chair and stepped away.
A candle burned at the head of each grave, and every living member of their makeshift family held a light of some kind. Brianna stood by Tucker’s grave, clutching his phone that still held a charge thanks to his solar panels. Her face was swollen and raw from crying and Walter wished there was some way they could comfort her.
But no words said over Tucker’s grave would bring her boyfriend back.
Walter cleared his throat. “We’re gathered here to celebrate the life of two men, Drew Jenkins and Tucker Eldrin. They gave their lives today as brave men, fighting to save all of us from death.”
Brianna choked back a sob.
“Although we can’t bring them back, we can honor their memories by remembering the joy they brought to our lives and those of everyone they touched.”
“Drew might have had a hard time adjusting to this new world, but he did. Even after getting shot and losing Anne, he persevered. He dug down and found a way to survi
ve. We are all thankful for the time we had with him and only wish it were longer.”
As Walter finished, he said a small prayer and his wife and daughter joined in.
Brianna waited until they were finished to speak. “Tucker…” She paused, her voice trembling too much to carry in the night. “Tucker was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
She kneeled down beside his grave, the light from his phone casting her face in a glow. “He loved me for who I was and didn’t try to change a single thing. Even when I was being stubborn and irrational, he never blew me off.”
Smiling through tears, she kept going. “This one time we were going kayaking in the river. He kept telling me the water levels were too low and we’d never make it, but I insisted.” She wiped at her face and let out a small laugh. “We ended up carrying that stupid boat for three miles along the shore since the river was too shallow to paddle, but he never complained. Not once.”
She paused and bent her head. “That was the day I knew I loved him.”
Tracy reached for Walter’s hand and squeezed, holding on as Brianna told more stories about the young man who had changed her life. Walter would have given anything in that moment to bring him back. But they couldn’t change the past.
They could only keep moving forward. No matter the challenges or the obstacles in their way, they would keep going. Walter would get that girl to her parents’ place in Truckee if it took his very last breath.
At last, Brianna turned off Tucker’s phone and placed it at the head of his grave. She kissed her fingers and placed them on the screen before standing up. “I know you all planned to come with me to Truckee, and you’re still welcome. But I can’t leave here.”
She wiped away another tear before wrapping her arms around her middle. “I’m going to track down the men responsible for Tucker’s death and I’m going to kill them. One by one. They don’t get to take the only good thing in my life away from me and keep breathing.”
Walter nodded. He understood the need for vengeance. “Whatever we can do to help, you have it.”