by Angela White
8
“Make sure you tell him the truth if he asks.”
Jeremy couldn’t answer, too shaken. Being with Samantha was...indescribable.
Samantha lovingly kissed his lips and dislodged their bodies. She couldn’t resist a last feel of his hair as she brushed it off his forehead. Intentional or not, Jeremy’s new haircut was the exact opposite of Neil’s neat trim. Shagged locks lightly streaked with gold and red met her fingers, struck her with the glinting softness.
Samantha ran a calming hand over his scarred leg, telling him it didn’t bother her, and felt him relax further. At some point, Jeremy would understand she saw those parts of him as proof that he was a survivor, like her.
Samantha moved away from him before the need could start back up, leaning under the water. She groaned at the feel of it. “Nice.”
Jeremy leaned against the shower wall as she washed, stunned into that perfect place where it felt like nothing could go wrong.
Fate appeared to take that as a personal challenge.
Samantha tensed, shampoo bottle freezing in midair.
Jeremy saw the color drain from her face and grabbed for his pants and gun. “What is it? Where?”
“Get down.” Sam’s mind went into survival mode.
The door opened and Jeremy ducked down as a cool wind spun into their steamy sanctuary.
He heard the door close and footsteps come closer, but it was Sam’s knowing grunt that he hated. They’d overlooked their first assassin.
“Hello, Samantha.”
Samantha set the bottle on the shelf, ignoring the gun pointed at her. “Good evening, Shellie.”
The stone thrower raised the gun a bit higher as Sam reached for the towel.
“Easy.”
Samantha slowed her movements, wrapping the towel around herself and securing it in front. “What did they offer you?”
Shellie smirked quietly. “Nothing, of course. I’m the best at our game when you’re gone.”
Sam stared in understanding and anger. “For the thrill and glory, then. That’s why you’re going to die.”
Shellie snorted arrogantly. “You’ll be gone first, baby.”
Samantha waited for either gun to fire and realized she had to trigger the moment. Now that she was here, Shellie might not have the stomach for it.
“Sam? Jeremy? Everyone okay in there?”
The call from outside ruined the element of surprise and sent Jeremy to his feet.
He fired once and didn’t miss.
Samantha hated the death and violence that marred everything good about Safe Haven. Weak and angry at this newest evidence of how hard things would become, she began crying.
Jeremy had her in his arms when Neil and the others burst through the locked door.
It only took them a couple seconds to sort out what had happened, but in that time, no one noticed the absence of someone who should have been there.
9
“Go on. I’ll live long enough to watch Marc rip you apart with his bare hands. Go on!”
Angela glared at the gun, daring the traitor to fire.
Crone hesitated again. His companion, Denny, was already on the ground with a broken nose or maybe even dead. The syringe the top Level Eagles had planned to use was currently in Angela’s hand. Her knife was in the other.
At least it’s not the gun, Crone thought, darting a quick look around to confirm they hadn’t been noticed yet.
“What are you waiting for, coward?!” Angela roared, drawing attention to those searching for her. “Do it or I will!”
Unable to follow through, Crone started to lower the gun and Angela’s hunger lunged forward. “There’s no turning back!”
She pitched the knife at his chest and when the Eagle threw a hand up to block, she leapt forward and plunged the syringe into his neck.
Angela wasn’t sure if it was meant to kill or knock her out, and she observed a bit curiously to discover if he fell asleep or died.
When Crone’s face turned blue and he stopped breathing, she had her answer. There wouldn’t be many attempts to capture her now, only to exterminate.
Marc rushed to her side and took her away from the bodies, motioning Jax forward. “Get her knife.”
Jax jerked it from Crone’s limp forearm and gave the body a swift kick. “Piece of shit.”
Marc grunted his approval, leading Angela into the main camp as she began to roll out orders.
“I want a complete check-in, the entire camp accounted for. Crone’s been here six months, Denny even longer. This has been in the works for a while and I doubt it’s over yet.”
10
Adrian felt the knife go against his throat and almost let it plunge through to end his hell.
“Check-in!”
Angela’s shout brought his arm up to snap into his assassin’s unprotected throat instead.
The man slumped to his knees and Adrian hit him again, knocking him over the next cot.
The assassin didn’t get back up.
“Men down! We have men down in the parking area!”
Angela appeared in the flap, verifying that he was safe, and then she was gone to answer the call.
Adrian slumped onto the cot, closing the wall around his mind and heart. The camp had to know that she could handle the bad, too.
Kaaaablammmm!
Adrian picked himself up off the floor and struggled to the flap, ears ringing. He gripped the tent pole tightly, vision blurring. What he saw was any leader’s nightmare, but also an exact copy of his dreams.
Wounded people stumbled by, bleeding and crying, shouts and screams echoed through the darkness. Smoke layered everything in an ominous gray.
“The medical camper! They got the camper!” someone shouted from the other side of the tent.
“Grab a hose and find Ray. We need the truck!”
Adrian put a hand to his shoulder and pulled back red fingers. I’m next to the medical camper, he thought, swaying dizzily. Am I hit?
His legs went limp, dropping him roughly to his knees. Adrian groaned, “Not again.”
Wait.
John was in the camper, along with…“Conner!”
Adrian fought to his feet and joined the panicking mass outside.
11
“The com truck and medical camper are both a complete loss. Everything else can be salvaged–including the two cars that were wired. The people who did this didn’t know what they were doing.”
Angela listened to the reports as she worked on their wounded. The medics on each team were lending a hand with the minor injuries and emotions, but it was no substitute for who they’d lost.
“We have ten bodies. Six are the enemy. We lost…”
“I know who we lost!” Angela snapped, cutting the thread on the last stitch in Daryl’s leg. “Next.”
Kevin took up the recital when Kenn spun out of the tent to keep from snapping back.
“People panicked, but only a few took off. We’ve accounted for two hundred and seventy one, so far, but we’ve got men tracking, so that number will go up.”
“Pull them off of it. We have other work for them,” Angela ordered, moving to the next cot in the line of wounded left to be tended. They were arranged in order of seriousness. Peggy and Doug had organized a quick triage, but it was still chaos.
“You want us to let those people go, then? Not look for them?”
Angela peered down the row. “Yes. Tell Marc I said those who stayed are our priority now.”
Three cots over, Adrian winced, but didn’t contradict the order. She was right and it was a choice that he wasn’t sure he would have been able to make.
“Keep going,” Angela ordered curtly.
Kevin cleared his throat. “Marc’s…talking to the two surviving assassins. He’ll come straight to you when he’s finished.”
Angela didn’t respond and the Eagle went on, “Neil and Jeremy have our backup radio under constant monitoring. All static. Our perimeter h
as been shrunk, all posts are overloaded, and Li Sing has hot drinks rolling out of the mess. He says it’s a tea to help calm everyone down.”
Angela felt the silent rage in the row of wounded men, able to hear it in their silence, their furiously tense bodies and clenched fists. They were waiting for her to declare war in return for the betrayal, but they didn’t realize that she’d already had Adrian do that with his call.
“There will be fighters coming in over the next few days. Don’t turn them out.”
“How do we know if they’re like these were?”
“We don’t,” she answered grimly. “But we have to have the help. I’ll find a way to screen them and remove those who don’t belong.”
Bang! Bang!
The lower level Eagles around her drew their guns, but the top men took control of them.
“Those are ours.”
“Brady’s Colts.”
“He must be finished,” Kenn stated, lingering outside the flap.
Angela’s face tightened, but she didn’t spit out the vileness in her mind. Instead, she knelt by the next wounded man and began working on his injuries. Most of this line was men who’d been on duty needing stitches from fights, mini-stampedes, and a bit of shrapnel from the two small blasts in the parking area. The com truck had been there for refueling, along with the profusely geared security jeep that always followed it. Both could be repaired. They’d gotten lucky on their vehicles.
“But I don’t feel lucky,” she muttered, tightening the bandage. “How do I feel?”
The man under her care at the moment was Dale. He’d been burned while helping Ray and the fire team extinguish the blaze in the medical camper.
“Betrayed,” Dale supplied. “You want them dead. Just like we all do.”
The Eagles standing tensed, but those on their backs added low agreements that left little doubt as to her next course of action.
“They hit us in the rear.”
“They sent in spies to kill us!”
“They didn’t even try to negotiate.”
“They are the enemy.”
Angela stood up and glanced over the row of beds again. She took their anger and their pain, and directed it to where fate meant it to go.
“Implement Marc’s full security plan. Do it now.”
12
Angela left the Eagles to get rid of the bodies, not caring that Marc had hurt the traitors for information. This was war.
Marc didn’t feel ashamed, but he was worried about Angela’s reaction. It hadn’t taken much pain to break the men, it never did, but that didn’t mean she was okay with it.
“Neither of them knew about the other,” Marc stated, blocking the images from his mind so Angela didn’t get them. “They were told to settle in and wait until the 8th of July to carry out their orders. Each one was probably forced. Those two had family inside the bunker that was going to be turned out.” The disgust in Marc’s voice was thick. “They heard Safe Haven’s calls before Cesar attacked NORAD, knew we would be a future problem. How many more sleepers are here, waiting for their given dates to act?”
Many, the witch and demon warned Marc at the same time.
“But it doesn’t change the path,” Angela stated, eyes foggy. “You have work in the west.”
Marc grimaced. “Ugly, bloody work.”
“I’ll love you no matter how much of it you spill.”
Marc kissed her lightly. “I’m your Ghost now.”
“Little Rock Air Force Base can be your defense operations center,” Adrian stated, hoping his tone didn’t show his jealousy. “There’s a river and three reservoirs within a hundred clicks. It has medical facilities, barracks, stables and supply warehouses, terrain restrictions, and natural obstacles that will make it hard for them to cross.”
“It’s also near a lot of places we can use to resupply,” Marc agreed.
“If you can’t hold it, you can slow them down by blocking the routes with concreted cars,” Kenn suggested.
Marc didn’t need their ideas. He had his own.
He gave Adrian a pointed glare and left the tent.
Adrian immediately figured out what was coming and began trying to brace against the joy and pain. He would have a visit shortly.
13
Adrian glanced up to find Marc taking the bench across from him at the deserted mess, dressed for silent infiltration.
He met Marc’s bitter gaze gravely. “You shouldn’t have told her that.”
Marc tried not to be angrier that Adrian already knew. “You’re monitoring her.”
“Of course,” Adrian admitted. “But in this case, I asked myself what I would do in your place.”
Marc raised a brow. “And?”
Adrian grunted. “I’d need to know that if I didn’t make it back, she and my son would be cared for.”
“And will you?” Marc demanded angrily. “Or will you use them up?”
Adrian winced at the accusation. “I’ll care for her as if she were mine.”
Marc scowled. “If I don’t return, she will be.”
Adrian closed his eyes. “Yes.”
“You do realize you’ll have to snap out of this plan of yours to stay out of her way, right? You’ll have to be closer than that.”
“Yes.”
Marc studied the man he could have idolized if not for feeling this coming. “And when I return? You expect to share?”
“She’s not like Samantha,” Adrian back sent defensively. “She’s yours until you die. You know that.”
“Yes.”
Marc hesitated and Adrian sighed. “Safe Haven needs you. I expect you’ll be back in a month to reclaim what’s yours.”
“And until then?”
Adrian’s eyes opened to reveal tortured eagerness and dread. “I’ll love her.”
Marc spun from the tent before he could protest. That was what he wanted. No one else would look out for Angie the way that Adrian would.
14
Marc spotted Charlie by the trucks and joined him, glad the teenager wasn’t shouting anymore. Charlie hadn’t taken it well when he’d learned that Marc was leaving.
“You okay?”
Charlie kept his attention on the ground. “Yep.”
“You gonna stay pissed and shut me out the whole time I’m gone? Be pissy and refuse to give me updates?”
Charlie wanted to return fire, but the worry was too strong. “No. Be careful!”
Charlie threw his arms around Marc for a tight hug that his father returned. Marc barely remembered the time when he hadn’t known his son, hadn’t loved him.
“I’m coming back.”
“Say it again!” Charlie demanded, wiping at tears.
Marc grinned. “I’m coming back, boy. My word on it.”
“Good,” Charlie stated, glancing at the medical tent. “If you don’t…”
Marc sighed unhappily. “He wouldn’t make a bad father, if I...”
Charlie punched Marc in the mouth.
“Don’t ever say that! You’re my dad!”
Marc shook off the surprise from the uppercut and clutched the boy close. “I’m coming back.”
Marc and his chosen team left the safety and warmth of home a few minutes later. He refused to let himself stare in the mirrors. There was only the future now, this mission ahead of him, and he would keep it that way. Anything less and he’d never make it home.
You may not survive, even if you do return, the demon warned.
Marc knew that, too. Coming here after the battle could be worse than death, depending on how much Angie loved him, on how loyal she was in his absence. This is where he discovered his true place in her heart. If it were below Adrian, Safe Haven wouldn’t be his home anymore. The wastelands would.
15
Angela and Adrian stood side-by-side to view the changes sweeping over Safe Haven. Their faces were unreadable, but their minds were full of regret at what they were losing. This new way of running the camp would be more
effective and safer, but the casual days of living together in cooperation and peace were over for a while.
Fences with rolls of wire would now line the perimeter, with a second roll inside of it, creating a two-foot barrier, but also a new flow path for those who were coming to help them in the fight. Despite the attacks here, the calls asking to join the fight had tripled.
Angela studied the new panels of the wall that were being outfitted with metal sheets. This final barrier was inside the perimeter and had two gates–one at the QZ entrance to direct newly released camp members, and a large exit near the mess for a fast escape of the entire population. Big rigs loaded with their most needed supplies were being rolled into place near the large exit, along with their water tankers, fuel trucks, and weapons.
Marc didn’t like putting so much of their stock in one place any more than Adrian had, but Angela assumed if the enemy got that close, it was too late to worry over it anyway. She wanted everything they needed in one spot. It’s there the camp would go when the firefight broke out, where they’d be protected by the Eagles who wanted the weapons covered, where the chain of command would gather for reporting and meals. It was also where the assassins among them would be exposed.
“Look out! Clear a path!”
Kenn and Neil came by the pair on Bobcats, delivering the next panels. They had two full teams working on the wall today, with three more finishing the barbed wire defense that the Eagles had been secretly working on for some time. Adrian had known this was coming. Every plan she came up with, Angela had found directions for in his books. All she had to do was implement them. Later, when his ideas were exhausted, she would come up with her own.
Across from her, training classes were already in session, showing camp members the basic skills they would need for survival. Few people, other than the Eagles, recognized it as the same training that Adrian gave his army. It would not only prepare them for being on their own if the battle went sour, it would also train them to assist during that fight. Even now, older camp men and women were being shown how to reload guns, make small cocktails, and bandage wounds. Every portion of Safe Haven’s population would be used.