by Angela White
Neil forced his feet to take him closer. Samantha hadn’t made any promises and he’d known better than to ask for one. This was how she wanted things.
Neil cleared his throat as he neared the truck, stomach boiling. “You guys awake?”
Jeremy raised a hand and made a curt motion. What?
Neil kept his distance. “It’s time for the meeting.”
Jeremy sighed. “Yeah, okay.”
Neil left without spewing any of the vileness coming to mind, proud that he could. He’d shared an amazing night with the woman currently rolling over into Jeremy’s arms. Neil spun around as she allowed Jeremy to give her a tight hug. Even that was too much to witness.
Jeremy helped Sam sit up, sympathizing with her small moan at the soreness. Nothing said aches and pains like sleeping on a hard, flat surface that you weren’t used to.
Samantha stretched, arms going around his neck. “One more minute gonna matter to the new boss lady?”
Jeremy tugged her close. “We’ll make it up later.”
Sam surrounded herself with his quiet protection. Yes, she did want him because he was safe, but boring? She didn’t view him that way and when she finally told him he didn’t have to hold back with her, no one else would think that either.
“Come on.” Samantha kept her arm around his hips, a bit embarrassed at some of the glares as they walked, but determined to live life by her desires instead of someone else’s expectations. She needed both men, in different ways, and now she had them. It was finally her turn for happiness.
Neil winced at the sight of Samantha and Jeremy walking into the meeting together, but it was his only reaction. It calmed some of the Eagles, but the tension was thick as everyone began to gather inside.
Neil went to a far wall and was dismayed when Samantha immediately led Jeremy to his side.
The two men glared at each other for only a brief moment, and then Jeremy gently placed Samantha between them.
Sam put a hand on each wrist, sending a flare of pleasure up both arms.
“Thank you,” she whispered, not letting go when they both tensed under her fingers. “This is all I need for now.”
Neither man fully understood the details of it, but there was no denying the waves of contentment coming from her. Knowing Samantha was happy meant more to them now than their desires of ownership.
Because they were accepting it, the other Eagles had to, but there was little chatter in the half-filled tent as they all waited for Angela to arrive.
Kenn and Kyle exchanged a quick look in the silence. They had their own plans for the outcome of this meeting and the tension already in the canvas would help it along. The air of danger would be hard for Angela to miss.
The noises of music and fireworks filled the tent as Marc stepped inside, sweeping every person before ducking back out. He looked exhausted.
Kenn recognized the security check and gave Kyle a nod that said to stick to the plan.
The mobster gave one in return that told Kenn he would do his part. Too much depended on this to make mistakes.
Cynthia came in next, followed by a few senior Eagles, and the tent began to heat up as glares were thrown and caught.
Not just Kenn and Kyle had put thought into this meeting. There were many ways that an Eagle could rise in Safe Haven. Usually, those involved hard work, but in a moment like this, a promotion or demotion could happen instantly. Angela wasn’t Adrian–she wouldn’t have the same needs from a staff–and all of them were fighting flashes of previous competitions for their current place as they waited.
7
Angela entered the tent to find three dozen men and two women waiting. She turned a raised brow to Kenn. “This is a few?”
The Marine shrugged. “I only brought the team leaders and their XOs. They brought the others.”
Doug stood up. “You’ll want all of these men.”
Angela didn’t argue. She went to the front of the tent and sank down into the waiting chair with relief. It felt great to sit. Marc’s energy was keeping her on her feet, but she’d stopped the witch from taking more than he could tolerate. He hadn’t realized how empty she was.
Kevin handed her a cup of coffee and she sipped it, surveying the area. The tension in the tent was thick.
“The Major had troops out gathering supplies. They returned to find our mess and now, they’re on the way to Utah. The government will know about Adrian escaping–and about Safe Haven–in short order.” Angela glanced at Marc, then Kenn. “How long for them to reach Utah?”
They conferred briefly.
“Ration conditions, eighteen hour days...”
“Two supply stops...”
“Roughly two weeks.”
Angela was impressed and horrified. She viewed Kevin next. “How long did John say?”
“At least five days, depending...”
“On Adrian’s recovery,” Angela finished. “Okay. We’ll stay the full five that John is recommending and then go.”
“Hard and fast,” Kenn added.
Angela studied the Marine. “Would Adrian run?”
“Yes, and he’d say do it now, to leave him,” Kenn answered, sure that she wouldn’t.
The reminder that the camp mattered more than any of them echoed through the tent.
“Are we going to take off, try to hide?” Neil asked quietly.
“No, Adrian’s Eagles don’t run,” Angela answered firmly.
Silence...then a cheer that she had to wait on before she could continue.
“In the next three weeks, we have to tell the camp that the government is coming, convince them to fight, and get to the mountains to make our stand.”
Neil and Kyle exchanged a look. She had known. She’d lied earlier. Why?
Silence again as the enormity of the challenge struck. Angela let them think it through. Most of these men had expected to hear that running was her solution.
“What happens if we hold a camp meeting and tell them? A lot of them already suspect that some of our people are...different,” Kevin wanted to know.
“We only tell them about the government coming,” Neil stated firmly. “Otherwise the camp will ask them why they can’t defend Safe Haven on their own, with just their gifts.”
People immediately began turning toward Angela, wondering the same thing.
“Magic,” she supplied. “It’s time we used the word among ourselves. There are people here who were born different. We have magic to use.”
“But there’s a reason you guys can’t stand and fight alone, right?” Jeremy asked, ignoring the scowls.
“Of course.” Angela viewed Marc. “Please.”
Marc grunted unhappily. “Fear. If the camp witnesses the power, but doesn’t share in the fight, they’ll be scared of her–of them all.”
“They’ll start sneaking off in the night, a few here and there, and then whole parts of Safe Haven’s population will go openly. Even the Eagles will be torn between us and loved ones,” Angela predicted.
“Why not go out and eliminate them, like we did the slavers?” Kenn asked, earning ugly glares.
“I haven’t ruled it out,” Angela answered. “It depends on what type of a warning we get and how many soldiers they send the first time.”
“That’s right! There’s a lot of room in even one bunker. They’ll still outnumber us.” Zack was worried for his rebellious sons. “When the first group reports, they might even send planes!”
“Not if we kill them all.”
Marc stood straight and unflinching in the silence caused by his cold suggestion. “Adrian told me he thought the mountains were a bad idea–that bad things would happen there and push the camp into agreeing to go south. I say we stick to his plan.”
Marc lit a smoke and tossed it toward Angela, who caught it with a juggle. She waved for him to go on. Convincing the troops was his job now.
Marc raised his voice over the murmurs and mutters. “Adrian knew we’d have trouble with the government at some point.
It was what tipped him in favor of leaving for a while. We can heal and get stronger, but only if we have the time. If the government comes and we lose or even negotiate, that puts them in charge of us. We’ll have to register our location, give information on the people here, and their doctors will want access to all of John’s patients.” Marc perched on the edge of a crate. “That’s just for starters. The war never officially ended. We’re still under martial law, the draft. They’ll come in and take every Eagle here. Then, they’ll sort through the camp and demand a cut there.”
Marc looked to Angela, who took up the scene-setting moment.
“Those like me will have to run. If the government gets their hands on us, it’ll be like with the Major, but worse. We’ll be drugged, abused, locked up, and our power will be in their hands. We’ll try to escape, of course, but I won’t ever leave Charlie behind. Jennifer wouldn’t leave her babies. Adrian wouldn’t leave Conner, and so on. It’s very unlikely that we’d see the light of day again. So we’ll scatter across the country to keep it from happening. We’ll go back to being what we were before Adrian called us together–doomed.”
“So keep to the plan, let the bad shit happen?” Billy asked, leg propped up on the seat next to him.
“That’s what we have to decide,” Angela stated. “But, yes, I believe so. We’ll make our stand in the mountains, then go south. By the time they find out and send a real force, we’ll might even be gone.
“What about planes?” Daryl inquired. “Won’t they find us on the open ocean?”
Angela pulled a paper from her pocket and handed it to the closest Eagle.
“Adrian assumed otherwise. He thinks they won’t want to chase us, that they’re already low on men due to fighting, escaping, and being made examples of. And that they’ll fear their men joining us.”
Marc and Angela exchanged concerned looks as the mutters increased. Showing them the page from Adrian’s journal was the fastest way to gain the full support of these men, but it was also dangerous. It revealed how much Adrian had known, expected, and chosen to allow fate to control.
“What does he mean by young sacrifices and nuclear blood?”
“The children we’ve lost, the hell we’ve suffered through the war.” Angela was prepared to answer those questions, but the next one hadn’t even been considered yet.
“What if we skip the fight all together?”
Cynthia flushed at the attention swinging her way. Samantha had waved her along–Jennifer busy scanning people at the QZ–but she knew she didn’t belong in this tent.
“You mean run for a ship now or try to disappear?” Angela tried to clarify.
The reporter cleared her throat. “Neither. I mean make a deal. Sort of, anyway.”
Not able to stand a disjointed report, Angela’s tone got sharp. “Spit it out, already.”
Cynthia’s nervousness was replaced with defensive anger. “I meant make a deal with the camp–to get them to fight. The government battle we can’t run from.”
“Why not?” Kenn asked. “And while we’re at it, why not supply a body?”
“Make them think he’s dead?” Angela considered it, ignoring the pros and cons being called out. The final choice was based on ability.
“I don’t think John can do it well enough to get us a match, but it could buy time. We’ll probably use it.” Angela viewed Cynthia. “Do you honestly understand why we can’t run?”
“Yes. It’s not just our freedom at stake,” Cynthia stated gravely. “If they take Safe Haven, they officially run the country again. We’re the only opposition party.”
“Excellent,” Angela praised. “And terrifying to carry all the responsibility for it.”
Angela glanced around. “We’ll come together again in 24 hours with fresh ideas. One day after that, we will have a plan.”
There was no room for argument, but more importantly, there was no doubt. If Angela said they could do it, then they could. Nearly everyone left the tent with a version of that thought in their minds. She’d never been wrong.
Angela and Marc were among the last people in the humid canvas and they stayed quiet, listening to the few ideas that hadn’t been openly discussed.
Kenn and Kyle had each been working on the problem since being inside Little Rock and finding out that the government had also survived the war. Both men were brutal in their thoughts, and for once, on exactly the same page.
“That’s what I’m saying. If we get ugly enough, they’ll back off.”
“I think so, too. They can’t outnumber us by that much. It’s only one bunker.”
“That we know of,” Marc interrupted. He didn’t like where this was going.
“If they had another, they would have gone there. Anywhere is closer than Utah,” Kyle protested.
“Let me be sure I’m clear,” Angela interrupted the starting fight. “You’re both saying we should drop a decoy body for the first group they send, get the herd south, and then follow them to Utah.”
“Yes.”
“Yes. We’ll grab a couple of them and pry out some basic details–then we take it down.”
“Attack a bunker? Like the slavers did to NORAD?” Marc snarled.
Angela put a hand on his arm. “All options. I’d hear this one.”
Marc grunted angrily, but held his tongue.
Kenn and Kyle went back to unveiling their amazingly similar plans. Neither of them cared about Marc’s displeasure in this moment.
“A few of the gifted people will have to come along to provide personal shields,” Kyle stated.
“And that means we don’t have to kill them. Adrian would prefer it that way and I know you would too, but for us, it means those soldiers can be converted into Eagles,” Kenn explained. “They’ll be able to help with the training, fill out the missing careers and culture gaps.”
“We’ll get the others they’re probably holding–others like Conner. I think we’ll also get a nice add to the herd,” Kyle told Kenn, deep into his first mass ambush. He hadn’t thought of using non-lethal methods.
“How do you figure?” Kenn asked.
“Draft families. Some will have survived and made their way inside, but with that many males locked up together, I’d guess the bunker is encouraging relief sources. Sex makes a good distraction.”
Kenn hadn’t thought of that, but it instantly made sense.
Both trained killers peered at Angela eagerly.
“We can do this.”
“It has a lot of benefits.”
“And so many flaws that I can’t count them all,” Marc accused, unable to hold silent anymore. “You don’t know how many, where, or what type of hardware we’d be facing. It’s suicide.”
“Put it on the list.” Angela’s words sent a cold chill through the tent. “Work out the kinks before you mention it to anyone else. They won’t agree to kidnapping and torture, and neither will I. Not even if we’re the ones doing it.”
Kenn and Kyle left the tent without another word, both surprised to have gotten that far.
The instant they were alone, Marc opened his mouth to protest.
“Wait,” Angela cut him off. “Can you give me a few minutes? I need to look.”
Marc stomped from the tent, huffing in annoyance at the drunken partiers and loud music. He spotted Kenn and Kyle lurking nearby, but was again stopped before he could vent.
“Adrian wouldn’t ever agree to this.” Kenn gave him one of their older, snotty glares. “Why do think she would?”
Kenn left him standing there–speechless.
He’s right, Marc realized after a few minutes of thinking. Angie would never agree to anything so reckless. She’d been placating Kenn and Kyle, keeping them busy.
But Kenn knew that and wasn’t upset... Confused, Marc observed the two men now talking quietly as if there had never been a problem between them, let alone hatred. What was going on?
8
“What do you think?”
Kenn shrugged
. “Her mind works like Adrian’s. She’ll look. If it will work, she’ll give us the green light when the time comes.”
“And you’re sure?” Kyle asked. He hated manipulating her this way, but they had to know.
“Yes. She’ll do whatever it takes to hand this camp over to Adrian in the same condition that she received it.”
“Even kill innocent people?”
Kenn stared at the canvas walls, that stiff shadow. “If she needs to.”
“When will we know?”
Kenn settled back to wait. “She’ll tell the others at tomorrow’s meeting, but we’ll find out when she comes from the tent. Watch her face. She doesn’t handle death as well as everyone thinks.”
Angela found Kenn first as she came from the tent. The hateful glower they exchanged made Kyle tense. They’d spent the half hour chatting about baby furniture, of all things.
Angela’s face tightened into a mask of pain and anger, and Kyle realized she and Kenn were talking. He forced himself to wait until she turned for the medical tent.
“Well?”
Kenn was staring after her in concern. Kyle understood it wasn’t good news. “What did she say?”
Trying to redo their plans, Kenn growled, “That when it comes time, you and I will be on the front lines, not Brady!”
Kyle wasn’t sure what to make of that. “It will work? Fool them?”
“She wouldn’t tell me. But she’s pissed, so I’d guess it will.”
Kyle frowned. “What’s the problem, then?”
Kenn gave one last look over his shoulder, toward where she was vanishing into the dim tent that held Adrian. “She has her own plans and I think maybe we just became her Point men for them.”
“Is that bad?”
“It could be. She knows we were trying to manipulate her.”
“What do we do now?” Kyle asked.
Kenn’s answer wasn’t encouraging.
“Wait until she gives the orders and follow them. She’ll still hold the meeting tomorrow and then the one to announce the plans, but in her mind, it’s a done deal.”
“What is?”
“A future-deciding battle with the government. Even if they don’t figure it out, she’ll bring them to us. We really are done running.”