by Stone, Kyla
Resentment pierced his heart. He didn’t want to feel this way. It made him feel small and spiteful. He hated himself for it.
This wasn’t him. It wasn’t who he was, who he wanted to be. And yet.
These were Noah’s friends. This was Noah’s family.
Then why did Noah feel like the intruder?
41
Quinn
Day Thirty-Three
Quinn wasn’t alone.
The back of her neck prickled. She whipped around, staring behind her. The shadows were thick and dark. The storage shed in Noah’s backyard smelled of wood and grease.
The flashlight wavered in her hand. Dust motes swirled in the narrow cone of light.
The shed was huge, more like a pole barn, maybe twenty by twenty. The shelves along the back wall were lined with lawn care equipment: sprinklers, coils of hose, hedge trimmers, cans of wasp spray. Hooks hung on the wall for rakes of various sizes, brooms, and a big shiny snow shovel.
A hulking John Deere riding lawn mower was parked on the right side. The huge stack of seasoned firewood that the militia kept replenishing lay beneath a tarp on the left.
The flashlight beam revealed nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing out of place. Everything quiet and still.
It just was a feeling she couldn’t shake.
Images of the ravaged, bloody church flashed through her head. Billy Carter leering over her. Ray Shultz’s hands around her throat.
She expelled a white puff of breath. “Don’t be stupid. You’re fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
But that was just as stupid. There was plenty to be afraid of.
It was the terrors of the past refusing to let her go that she hated.
She turned back to the firewood, her heart still thumping against her ribs, already regretting her offer to grab more firewood from the shed.
It was after nine p.m., almost pitch black, and freaking cold. She just wanted to get back inside Noah’s house with the warm fireplace, real lights and running water, and the frozen pizzas that Bishop had tossed into the oven.
Bishop had stopped by to visit Noah—“To make peace,” he’d said—but Noah had driven Hannah to their old house to gather toiletries and some of her old clothes. Apparently, Noah had never had the heart to get rid of her stuff. They’d taken Ghost with them.
Quinn was reluctant to see Hannah and her dog go, even for a short while.
The more time she spent around Hannah, the more she liked her. Hannah was both different and the same. Still genuinely kind and thoughtful, but also strong and brave. The bravest woman that Quinn had ever met.
She liked Liam Coleman, too. He looked dangerous. It wasn’t just the weapons strapped everywhere, but the rugged jaw and the intensity in his dark eyes, his lean body radiating strength, competence, and power.
She felt safer every time she was in a room with him. She imagined him as an assassin or terrorist-hunter. He probably knew sixty exotic ways to kill a person.
Maybe one day he could teach her some, if she could ever work up the guts to ask him.
And Ghost. If she ever had a dog anything like Ghost, she’d think she’d died and gone to heaven.
Milo had just gone to bed. Quinn had been teaching him to draw superheroes and monsters while Bishop chatted with Liam Coleman.
Liam didn’t seem like the chatty type, but he and Bishop had hit it off. They talked about their time in Iraq, exchanging war stories and other soldier stuff. They’d discussed the state of affairs in Fall Creek, too.
It was easier to talk about stuff without Noah around. He got all irritated and snippy whenever Quinn tried to point out how bad things were getting.
He didn’t want to see it. He refused to see what was right in front of him.
He wanted to believe that as long as everyone kept their heads down and followed Mattias Sutter’s orders, everything would be okay.
She liked Noah. They’d been through a lot together. But in this, he was dumb as a box of rocks. And she couldn’t understand why.
She didn’t get why every citizen in Fall Creek wasn’t gearing up to fight back.
The militia didn’t own this town. They were the outsiders. They’d been invited in—they could be disinvited.
By force, if necessary.
She sucked on her teeth in frustration. She could feel the crackling tension. They all could. Fall Creek was like a rubber band stretching tighter and tighter. Eventually, it would snap.
But how? And when? And who would be the ones who snapped?
Quinn shivered. It was cold and getting colder. Time to get herself inside. She tucked the flashlight between her upper arm and her ribs, the beam aimed at the firewood, and pulled up the tarp.
A soft skittering sounded from somewhere nearby.
Adrenaline kicked her heart. Quinn went still. She strained her ears, every sense on alert.
Silence from outside. Inside the shed, there was nothing but her own juddering pulse.
The skittering sound came again.
She craned her neck, searching for the source of the noise.
A rat darted from a hole between several logs at the bottom of the wood pile. It scampered across her boot, scurried toward the rear of the shed, and vanished into the darkness.
She swallowed a squeal. Gross. So, gross.
Quinn Riley wasn’t squeamish. She’d hunted squirrels, raccoons, pheasants, and deer. Gran and Gramps had made sure she knew how to gut and skin an animal and cook it for food.
She’d survived the Crossway massacre by spreading the still-warm entrails and blood of another human being over herself and Milo. She wasn’t squeamish, not by a long shot.
Rats, though. They were a different story. Ever since she was six and a big black rat had scuttled across her pillow in her mother’s junky trailer, she’d hated—
A soft rustling came from the back of the shed.
She grabbed a log from the top of the pile, intending to chuck it at the revolting rodent, and spun toward the sound. “Listen, you little—”
Movement in the darkness.
A large shadow lurched toward her.
Panic spiked through her veins. Before she could react, the log was bashed from her fingers. The flashlight fell and went skittering across the concrete floor.
Something struck her in the belly, knocked her breath from her lungs. Pain exploded beneath her ribs. She staggered back and nearly fell.
A strong hand seized her arm. A second hand clamped over her mouth.
She was shoved back against the wood pile. The spiky ends of the logs poked her spine.
A body pressed against hers—large, muscular, and strong. She glimpsed white eyes in a thick slab of a face.
A chill raced up her spine. Even in the shadows, she knew him. Sebastian Desoto.
Desoto’s teeth flashed. “What a pleasant surprise.”
A second shadow emerged behind him. This one was tall and lanky with a gaunt face. He was dressed completely in black with black grease smearing his face. So was Desoto. They wore heavy gear like soldiers, with body armor and big menacing weapons hanging from slings.
The gaunt-faced one flicked on a flashlight and shone it in her face. She squinted against the harsh glare. “Is this the girl that shot you with the BB gun?”
“It was a slingshot.” Desoto’s voice was still raspy. The welt on his throat had turned a nasty shade of purplish green. “This is her. Hard to miss that blue hair.”
She tried to scream but the sound was muffled against Desoto’s thick ham of a hand. She attempted to bite him, but his fingers were clamped down so tight across her jaw that she couldn’t move her mouth at all.
She writhed and squirmed. Desoto’s body might as well have been a brick wall for all the good it did her.
“Stop fighting,” Desoto said. “It’s pointless.”
She didn’t stop. She thrashed against him, struggling to free her arms so she could punch him or claw at his eyes. She kicked frantically, desper
ate to connect with whatever part of him she could.
Her foot connected with his shin. Desoto cursed. She kicked him again. He grunted but didn’t falter. Grimacing, he punched her hard in the side of the head.
Lights flared behind her eyes. Her ears rang. Against her will, her body wilted like a rag doll.
“Don’t let her scream,” the gaunt one said.
“I don’t plan to.” Desoto shifted and glanced around the shed. “Toss me the rag hanging from that hook.”
Gaunt brought Desoto the rag. She fought him, kicking and flailing as hard as she could, but it didn’t matter. He outweighed her by a hundred and fifty pounds at least.
Gaunt pointed a pistol at her head with one hand and held the flashlight in the other while Desoto stuffed the filthy rag into her mouth and knotted it tightly against the back of her skull.
The harsh chemical taste of oil and cleaning agents stung her tongue and choked the back of her throat until she nearly gagged.
“I’ve got some paracord,” Gaunt said. “We can tie her to the riding lawn mower. She won’t be going anywhere before the job’s done.”
“She won’t be going anywhere ever,” Desoto said. “Not when I’m through with her.”
She screamed through the rag. The sound was pitiful. Pathetic. It wouldn’t even carry outside the shed itself, let alone all the way to the house.
Dizziness from the fumes swept through her. The pain skewering through her skull made it hard to focus. She jerked and flailed anyway, desperate for an opening, a way to slip free.
She managed to shove her hand in her coat pocket, searching for the slingshot, but it wasn’t there. Her fingers closed over empty air.
She had taken it out at Noah’s house to show Liam and Bishop. They’d both been impressed with her skills. She’d been so proud.
Pride was worthless to her now. She’d neglected to put it back in her pocket. And the .22 she’d brought with her was left back inside the house, too.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Who was the idiot now? A mistake like that could be fatal. She pushed down the panic and fought to calm down, to freaking think.
Gaunt frowned. “She’s not the job.”
Desoto grunted as he wrestled her against the woodpile. “She is now.”
“But he said to just take out—”
“I am aware of what was said, Benner. Things change in the field. You have to be ready to adapt. Liam Coleman is in the house. Atticus Bishop, too. You know what he said about Bishop.”
“Two for the price of one,” the guy called Benner said.
Desoto’s eyes gleamed with loathing—and malice. “Now it’s three for the price of one.”
42
Quinn
Day Thirty-Three
Desoto was going to kill her.
Quinn saw it in his flat, hard face, in his cruel eyes. Desoto wasn’t going to let her go. He was going to murder her for what she’d done to him.
Her breath came in shallow, desperate gasps. Her heart jackhammered so hard that it felt like it was going to break out of her chest cavity.
“I don’t know, man,” Benner said, his voice hesitant. “She’s a kid.”
“No, she isn’t. She just looks young. She’s old enough to attack a soldier, so she’s old enough to pay the price for it.”
Fake soldier wannabe! she thought but couldn’t say. She screamed helplessly against her gag. Screw you!
“Just look away if you have to. It’ll be over in a minute. Which is faster than this little slut deserves. Then we’ll get Coleman and Bishop.”
Benner gave a reluctant sigh. “Fine. Make it quick, before the targets start getting anxious and come looking for her. We need the element of surprise against those two.”
Desoto grunted dismissively. “The pastor and that ex-army flunky? Nah. He’s no badass. We’ll get the drop on both of them. Shut up and let me get this done.”
If Quinn didn’t do something right freaking now, she was dead meat.
She wouldn’t be able to warn Bishop and Liam. She wouldn’t be able to help Milo. She’d be no good to anyone if she died.
She didn’t want to die. Every cell in her being thrummed with her will to survive.
Another breath. Another day. No matter how hard. No matter how much it sucked. She wanted to live.
She forced herself to focus, to take everything in, to be smart. Her back was to the wood pile. Her flashlight was somewhere on the floor.
Desoto in front of her, Benner a few feet behind him and to the left, between Quinn and the shed door. It was ten feet from the wood pile to the exit. At least a hundred feet from the shed to the house.
She wouldn’t make it. They had size and speed on her. And weapons. All Benner had to do was grab her, and she was done before she’d started.
Desoto held her in place with one hand. With his other, he fumbled at his belt and withdrew an object. A wicked-looking curved blade glinted in the dim light.
Quinn didn’t give him a chance to use it. She used the slight distraction to act. With everything she had in her, she surged forward and rocketed her leg up, punching hard into his groin, kneeing Desoto in the crotch.
With a groan, Desoto hunched in on himself. She didn’t stick around to notice anything else. She wrenched from his grasp and catapulted herself sideways.
Pulse roaring, legs pistoning, she plunged into the shadows toward the back of the shed.
“Get her!” Desoto rasped.
She banged into the back shelves and grabbed at whatever was closest. A bunch of dark shapes and glinting objects. Her fingers closed over sharpened steel.
With a scream no one could hear, she grabbed the hedge trimmers and spun around.
Benner was lunging for her, arms outstretched, flashlight in one hand, rifle still attached to the sling.
Handles held tight against her ribs for leverage, pointy ends out, Quinn turned and thrust herself at him. She shoved with everything she had in her.
He wasn’t expecting that. He’d expected her to keep fleeing, not turn and fight. He shifted to the right at the last second. The sharp ends of the hedge trimmers sank into his lower left side beneath his body armor.
He let out a shriek of agony and jerked back.
Instinctively, she let go of the shears.
Damn it! Another mistake. She should’ve held on. Should’ve yanked them out and used them to defend herself.
She had no time to react. Desoto was already coming at her, gripping that curved knife.
She half turned, fumbling along the shelf for something else, for another improvised weapon. She seized a clay gardening pot, whirled, and hurled it at him.
It struck his right shoulder and crashed to the concrete. He kept coming.
Nails. A box of three-inch nails on the shelf at her eye level. She scrambled for them, fingers stiff and unwieldy in her fear.
She could poke one between her fingers and make a fist. Stab him right in the throat or maybe through his eyeball, finish him off the right way this time—
Desoto reached her just as she closed her hand over the box. Something hard struck her in the back of the head.
Pain exploded inside her skull. More stars filled her vision. Her legs sagged.
He took hold of the back of her coat and hauled her around to face him. He slammed her back against the shelves, his left forearm pressed hard against her throat.
Her larynx felt crushed. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t even swallow.
“Benner, you okay?” he growled.
Benner leaned against the far wall next to the hooks holding the shovels, rakes, and weed trimmer. He’d pulled out the hedge trimmers, dropped them, and now held his hand to his stomach. “She nailed me good. I got a decent gash here. You think that thing was rusted? How do we get a tetanus shot these days?”
“No idea,” Desoto said.
Quinn struggled weakly. She scratched and beat at his hands and tried to pry his forearm from her throat. She cursed helplessly again
st the gag.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.” Desoto grinned. He leaned in closer. “Too bad we don’t have more time. You’re a mouthy little slut, but you’ve still got some worthwhile parts.”
She wanted to claw his eyes out. To bite and scratch and kick until she was free, and he was dead. Deader than dead.
It was no use. Her vision was fading, her brain deprived of precious oxygen. Her body was doing its best. This time, it wasn’t good enough.
Desoto jabbed at her coat. He hooked it with something and lifted the bottom. Something sharp scraped against her belly through her sweatshirt. “This is a karambit knife blade. Have you ever heard of it?”
She refused to shake her head. She refused to give him anything. She clung to consciousness, clung to her outrage.
She couldn’t believe this was actually happening, that this pathetic thug was really going to be the last face she ever saw.
Desoto smiled at her. It looked garish on his flat face. “I’m gonna gut you and spill your insides all over the floor for you what you did to me, you little—”
“Desoto,” Benner said, his voice tense. “Hurry up. We need to go. I’m really bleeding, man. We need to get out of here.”
“Not before we finish the job!”
“But I’m hurt, man—wait, did you hear that?”
Desoto stilled. “What?”
Quinn didn’t hear anything. She didn’t hear anything but the rush of blood in her ears as unconsciousness took hold of her.
43
Liam
Day Thirty-Three
Something was wrong.
Liam stood beside the wall next to the window and peered cautiously outside.
Clouds covered most of the moon. In the dim moonlight, he could just make out the tracks. Quinn’s footprints went into the shed. They didn’t come out. The shed door was closed.