The Life After War Collection

by Angela White

  Exhaustion swamped Angela as Adrian continued to feed the witch. When the heaviness swarmed over her, she didn’t try to fight it. Angela slumped against the wood.

  Adrian tugged a blanket up to her chin, but he didn’t stop trying to heal her, sending huge streams of energy and love that lit them both in brilliant blue. If she was scared of these train people, they were big trouble. He would give her everything he had.

  “When did you give Peggy and Hilda the idea of female leadership?”

  Adrian had been waiting for her to ask, so that his actions could be explained. It didn’t mean as much if he blurted it out when people weren’t ready to hear it. “With Tonya. It was their last straw.”

  Angela saw it then–the ripples he’d created by punishing Tonya in his own, very male way. She instinctively knew there was more and raised a brow. “What else did you get from that, besides revenge and triggering Hilda and Peggy’s desires to have women rule the world?”

  Hearing it spoken so bluntly was something of a power kill for Adrian. Humility came through in his answer. “I had hoped the camp would examine her lack of morals and vote on us having more. It went the opposite way and told our populace that if the boss could do it, they could at least try to.”

  “And so we got Samantha caught in that web. She tried to fight the life she’d led in the past, but confirmation of Tonya’s treatment told her you had loose morals and she could too?”

  “Is it really loose morals?” Adrian asked, sensing she meant them now and not Sam’s triangle. “Why must we be bonded to one person? We’re social creatures. We need others.”

  “Beyond all the other arguments? It doesn’t feel right to me.”

  “It doesn’t to him and that bleeds off on you. Take Neil and Jeremy. As soon as they stopped fighting, they found happiness. Neither male would change things now.”

  “Simply because it would disrupt the peace,” Angela refuted. “They both secretly wish she would pick one, even now that she’s carrying twins. Human nature doesn’t change. We’re made to be in pairs, not triplets, groups, or clans. We’re not animals.”

  “Well, I am,” Adrian argued without anger. “I’ve often enjoyed more than one woman at a time. So has your precious Marc, in case you’ve overlooked that fact. We’ve also shared women with our men, at home and in the field.”

  “This is different,” she refused.

  “No, it’s not. His jealousy prevents it. In the Corps, over this situation, all three of us would have been shunned by now, but his treatment would be the worst because the other two are willing. We weren’t meant to own each other, Angie. You know that.”

  Angela wanted to protest the assumption that she wanted such a setup and she wanted to scream that Marc was good and they were bad, but both of those options required too much energy, too much caring. Instead, she pulled the blanket over her head, ending the conversation.

  “I also got two other things from my brief time with Tonya,” Adrian said, switching to the TV to check their surroundings.

  “What?” came her muffled voice.

  “One was the best orgasm of my life. I wasn’t hung up on you yet and when Tonya’s willing, she’s willing.”

  The muffled choking sound made Adrian snicker. “I also got a glimpse of the person she would be if I could actually reform her. I didn’t see how it could happen until you joined. I’d already made her a pariah and shoved her into Kenn’s arms without knowing it. When you came, and she showed her jealousy over Kenn, I knew she cared for him. She didn’t have that emotion for Joe and I was able to use it to help stir her determination to keep her new man and place. She became a strong, loyal companion for Kenn–something I owed him for all his support.”

  Angela didn’t answer. She was busy tracing those steps and ripples, and discerning the other small things that had come from it, including her own dislike of the redhead when she should have befriended Tonya and helped her.

  “That wouldn’t have worked with her,” Adrian reminded. “Tonya and Kenn are perfect for each other because they’re both so stubborn. When they’re right, they’re absolutely unshakable.”

  “I use that against him whenever I can,” Angela revealed, blanket obviously down by her clear voice.

  Adrian didn’t turn as he said, “So did I. He knows. It’s part of his reform.”

  “I haven’t forgiven him. Does he know that?”

  “Of course. He knows you can’t. Forgiveness is a myth people use to comfort themselves.”

  “Yes.” With that sad agreement, Angela covered up and fell into a restless sleep to avoid more conversation. He’d already given her the answer she came for. Forgiveness didn’t exist and life was actually hell. She’d known that all along.

  Chapter Four

  Let’s Go To Market

  Near Americus, GA

  September 28th, 2013

  1

  Kendle snapped out of her nightmare, staring around. She had fallen asleep not long after they’d come through a long, dark tunnel that had reminded her of her time with Ethan. She’d been taken straight to dark caves and hungry teeth instead of the rock-climbing book she’d tried to read as boredom set in.

  Kendle scanned the black, wet road and then the trees lining the highway. There were no homes in sight, no evidence of people, but the streets were clear on both sides. Abandoned cars and other debris had been pushed into the median for miles. It made the team wonder how many survivors there were around here. The war damage was the same as in the rest of the places they’d gone, but there was also a sense of something else they hadn’t identified yet. Kendle would be glad when Americus was behind them, even though they hadn’t had any trouble. So far, the trip had been boring. They hadn’t seen a single person in the eight days they’d been on the road.

  Kendle studied the driver, glad she had insisted on giving Conner a chance behind the wheel. She wasn’t trying to help him get into the camp’s good graces, but it hadn’t escaped her attention that Adrian would be grateful to her if she could.

  “Are you okay?” Conner asked, steering around the carcass of a recently deceased cow. Like his father, he was good behind the wheel. “Wanna talk or something?”

  Kendle shuddered. Discussing it would make it real, would bring Ethan’s drooling memories back into clarity. It would interfere with the progress she’d been making.

  Conner didn’t push. He’d picked up enough from her and others to know that Kendle’s time before Safe Haven had been intolerable. He would’ve known that from her scars anyway, but it was also in her reactions to other people. He’d witnessed it in Little Rock among the snake women who’d been locked in the prison. Adrian had promised that Safe Haven could heal anyone, but unlike most of the citizens in that refugee camp, Kendle wasn’t settling down. She hadn’t been with Adrian during his leadership and Angela hadn’t had the time or the inclination to welcome another descendant into their midst while fighting for their freedom. Conner was still hoping Adrian would be able to help Kendle. He was certain that Marc felt the same way, but he had no idea how Angela felt about Kendle. Conner had assumed that this trip was an excuse to get the castaway as far from Marc as possible. There were signs that said it wasn’t necessarily the case, but for the moment, it certainly felt that way. Conner was reserving judgment. Angela and his father had come into Arkansas and freed him under impossible circumstances. They would have freed the kids, if they hadn’t been murdered. Safe Haven’s leaders were good, strong. Surely, Angela wasn’t corrupt enough to send someone to their death just because they were a rival?

  Kendle, cackling from the next seat, was not a comfort to Conner. He had his strongest mental wall up. Was she still getting his thoughts?

  “Of course, boy. But you have nothing to worry about from me or from Angela. Despite the things she’s done, her soul is not as corrupt as everyone believes. Certainly not as corrupt as she and her precious Ghost think,” Kendle sneered.

  Conner refused to be drawn into that conv
ersation. He checked the mirror, hoping the five men in the Tahoe with them were sleeping. It was hard to tell with the high level Eagles. They had spent time laboring with Angela and Adrian, learning how to block their minds. Conner didn’t want to dig in and make enemies now that he had a second chance. It was frustrating.

  “Tell me about it, kid,” Kendle muttered. “I walked that line my entire life. At some point, you get tired of it and fall off.”

  “Is that what happened with you and my dad?” Conner inquired nosily. “Have you fallen off the line with him?”

  “Is that what happened with you and Candy?” Kendle shot right back. “Did you fall off the line with her?”

  Conner turned red. “I love her and in time she’ll love me. We were meant to be together. I would never hurt her. They misunderstood.” Conner snapped his mouth shut. Why am I spilling my guts to someone I barely know and don’t even like?

  Kendle snorted, “Well, at least we have something in common.”

  “What?” Conner asked, bracing for rudeness.

  “We both know where we screwed up and neither one of us is willing to change it,” Kendle answered, tugging her jacket together against the damp wind.

  There was silence from both of them as they considered the implication behind those words. It meant they didn’t intend to try to reform or resist the temptations that lie ahead of them.

  Kendle smiled. “Maybe you and I can be friends.”

  “Do you suppose she sent you out here hoping you might get killed?” Conner asked suddenly. He’d been trying to resist the question for a week now.

  “I seriously doubt it. Like I said, she’s not as bad as everybody believes.”

  “Is Marc hoping for it?”

  Kendle’s profile tightened in pain.

  Conner sighed, easing off the gas as the rain thickened and lightning flashed. “I’m sorry.”

  Kendle forced herself to accept it. “Honestly, yeah, he probably does. I’m the unwanted third wheel. You know what that’s like, don’t you?”

  Conner was alive with agony at the reminder of the rejection. “Yes, but it won’t always be that way for me and Candy. At some point she’s gonna realize I love her and she’s gonna want that, because nobody else does.”

  “Are you sure?” Kendle asked. “Candice is pretty; she’s smart and strong, and she’s a fighter. She’s also about to give birth to the next generation. I think that makes her special enough to claim a mate.”

  “That might be true, but none of those guys will love her for who she really is,” Conner replied, again steering around the carcass of an animal that appeared to be a cow. “No one wants her. They want the babies or the strength she’ll bring to a match. I want her because she’s wonderful.”

  Kendle heard the longing and felt another bond form between her and this odd teenager.

  Conner also felt the magic, but he refused to be drawn into it. He slammed down on the thoughts in his mind and continued to drive through the rainy darkness.

  Pop!

  “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Conner answered distractedly as he fought to control the truck. “The wheel feels funny. I have to pull over.”

  Ryan rolled down the window and leaned out, squinting against the rain and wind. “I think it’s a flat tire.”

  Conner carefully pulled onto the breakdown lane. He made sure there was nothing blocking an exit before joining Eagles who were evaluating the problem.

  “Front right is flat.”

  “So is the rear,” Scott stated, pushing up his jacket sleeves. “Get the equipment. I’ll do the front. Dexter can take the rear.”

  Kendle and Conner, along with half of their men, stood watch. All of them were drenched and miserable in less than a minute. This rain didn’t burn, but it was uncomfortable, like a gel sliding down their necks. Keeping them on edge, the wind blew stiffly, moving things through the trees around their stopped convoy as the thunder crashed steadily.

  “Someone’s coming,” Conner warned.

  Kendle alerted Tommy and took a stationary position in front of Conner, the most valuable member of the group as far as she was concerned. Kendle scanned nervously for the trouble. She refused to assume it was anything else.

  “There!” Kendle pointed to a small cluster of flooding trees a few hundred feet away, where the person was huddled.

  “Doesn’t seem to be a problem,” Conner stated loudly, wiping rain from his face.

  Kendle turned from a stiff blast of wind. “I agree.”

  Tommy and the other Eagles would have left the vehicles to investigate, but Kendle refused them, saying, “This is why I’m along. Get us ready to roll.”

  Kendle motioned Conner to follow her as she tracked through the mud to meet their company. This could be a good training moment for him, as long as nothing went crazy. If it did, she was certain he would rely on that Mitchel survival instinct that had apparently kept him alive in Arkansas.

  Kendle hurried forward, waving at the stranger. “Do you need help?”

  The shadow was a tall, beaten man with ragged breathing and beady brown eyes. Kendle expected him to run, but he didn’t.

  “Can we help you?”

  Sighing, the man spat blood into the mud. “No, but I’ll be able to help you.”

  Kendle frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “What happened to you?” Conner asked, wanting to heal the man. He didn’t, though. His dad had said to act normal on this run and not use any magic except for the check-ins.

  “Just a few more seconds now,” the man muttered.

  “What do you want?” Kendle demanded. The bad pall over this place was growing rapidly.

  “Everything you have.”

  “What?”

  The beaten male peered up slyly, ignoring the rain pelting his injuries. “Ten seconds.”

  “What happened to you?” Kendle asked.

  “It was my turn,” he answered through the blood trickling from his mouth. “They drew our number.”

  “Your turn for what?” Kendle demanded through the wind.

  “To earn my keep!” the man spat, trying to get his breath. “Our names go into a bucket. If it’s picked, we bring in supplies.”

  “What kind of supplies?” Kendle questioned, noting Conner staring at the man with a blank face. The boy was obviously searching mentally.

  “The kind you have in those trucks.”

  “You’ve been following us?”

  “What’s going on here?”

  Kendle and Conner surrounded the man, body language threatening.

  The man glanced up at them in bruised satisfaction. “Thank you for stopping. Will you help me up?”

  Splashing and fumbling, all of them were mud-splattered by the time they got the stranger to his feet.

  “Who are you?”

  “Baker,” he replied in a gasp, holding his ribs. “Can you help me home?”

  “Who beat you up?”

  “What did you mean about ten seconds?”

  Baker turned away without answering.

  The Eagles-in-training automatically put an arm around him when he staggered.

  “Where do you live?” Kendle asked, hating it that they were getting out of sight of the team. She was about to order Conner to go tell Tommy what was happening when the man between them gasped out a laugh.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, not caring. How long would this pit stop slow them up?

  “I will be now,” the man told them in tired contentment. “You can go.”

  He shrugged off their arms, limping toward the woods.

  “What’s going on here?” Conner asked, confused.

  Kendle, who had witnessed this technique before but couldn’t place it, grabbed his arm as it snapped into place. Ambush! “Come on!”

  They ran through the wind and rain to their vehicles, but there was no one in sight.

  There’s no one in sight! Kendle panicked. Our team is gone!

  Both desce
ndants splashed to the vehicles, searching for their fellow teammates.

  “Tommy!” Conner shouted. “Tyler!”

  Kendle glanced back to find the decoy limping away. “Son of a bitch!”

  Conner stared in disbelief at how fast things were going wrong. “What do we do?”

  “We get that decoy,” Kendle ordered, grabbing a few things from their vehicle. “Keep him in your mental grid. If we lose him, we lose our team.”

  2

  Kendle and Conner quickly tracked their mystery male through the rain, thanks to the prints in the thick mud. They followed him into a thicket of trees that had mold growing up the trunks.

  “You ready for this?”

  “Not really, no. All that time in Safe Haven made me soft.”

  Kendle understood. She took the lead into the dark woods.

  The prints disappeared abruptly, but the man hadn’t had time to conceal his exit. Blackness glared at them from the hole in the ground.

  “Oh, hell.” Kendle’s face was pale in the flashlight glare. It appeared that the top of a sewer tunnel had been broken out to create an exit. Kendle motioned the boy to enter first.

  Conner dropped into the slippery darkness with a sense of home that revolted him. He didn’t want to be a sewer boy. He didn’t want to belong down here, but he had spent so much time this way that it wasn’t possible to fight the wave of confidence that let him calmly sweep the darkness. “I found more prints.”

  It took Kendle a moment to force herself to join him. Her gun was in her hand as she hit the bottom of the tunnel, eyes wide and body ready to react.

  Conner noticed her fright and anger, but there was no time for it as voices echoed through the darkness.