The Last Sanctuary Omnibus

by Kyla Stone

  “We need you.” Jericho stared up at Finn, who towered a full half-foot above him. “You understand that?”

  “Will you fight, at least?” If she were Finn’s size, she’d have found a way to save Zia and her mother. She’d have mowed down any terrorists stupid enough to get in her way. “You could slam two of those Headhunters’ heads together and crack their skulls open like eggs.”

  Finn shook his head. “I guess I’m a delicate flower,” he joked, but it fell flat.

  Horne and Jericho stared at him like he’d transformed into some bizarre creature they didn’t recognize. Silas sneered in contempt. “More like a pansy-ass coward.”

  “Silas!” Micah said. “Stop it.”

  Finn only looked down at the rifle in Jericho’s hand. “He’s right.”

  Willow touched his arm. She didn’t agree with his resistance, but she understood it. Finn was gentle, a giant teddy bear. He didn’t have a violent bone in his body. He was simply goofy, soft-hearted Finn. Her Finn. Her friend. “You’re no coward.”

  “He’s right,” Finn said sheepishly, his shoulders slumping. “I would freeze, failing when you needed me most.”

  “We aren’t going to escape the next gunfight unscathed,” Jericho said. “Do you understand that? We need to win. And to win, we need manpower.”

  Willow stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

  Silas made a contemptuous, disbelieving noise in the back of his throat.

  She ignored him. “Teach me to fight.”

  “Right,” Silas scoffed. “You’re just a pathetic little girl.”

  She raised her chin. “Exactly. You not only underestimate me, you barely even see me.” She had no skills. She had no clue how to fight. But she was stronger than they expected from her years of hefting fifty-pound bags of fertilizer. And she was stubborn and determined as hell. She would do anything to protect Benjie. Anything. They’re your responsibility. Take care of them.

  Her desperate resolve had to be worth something. She turned to Jericho, her gaze fierce. “You can use that, can’t you? The element of surprise?”

  “We’re not playing, here,” Horne said sternly, like she was actually a little kid. “These are real guns, with real consequences.”

  Willow scowled. “You don’t see me as a threat. I get that. But no one else will, either. So use that. Teach me to be a threat.”

  “Maybe you should give her a shot,” Micah said. Willow gave him a grateful look.

  “Maybe you shouldn’t,” Silas said, his voice dripping with disdain.

  Micah cocked his head. “It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog.”

  “Didn’t Mark Twain say that?” Finn asked.

  “Who cares,” Silas said.

  Jericho said nothing. He stared at her with a hard, appraising gaze.

  “You aren’t seriously considering—” Horne started.

  Jericho raised his hand to silence him. “Show me what you can do.”

  Relief flooded through her, strengthening her resolve. She could do this. She would do this.

  “Hit Silas.”

  “I’d be happy to.” Her pulse jumped, her mouth instantly dry. She entered the circle of trampled grass and faced Silas.

  He put up both hands, palms out, as targets for her to aim for. He widened his stance, a mocking smile on his lips.

  She tensed, gathering her strength, and punched his left palm. His hand didn’t even move. Silas smiled wider.

  “Try again,” Micah encouraged.

  She gritted her teeth and struck Silas’s right palm. It landed weak and pathetic as a slap.

  Silas sneered. “Done yet, little girl?”

  Horne whispered something in Jericho’s ear, a self-satisfied smirk plastered on his face. Jericho started to turn away, glancing back toward the house. They were already dismissing her. She was losing her chance.

  Willow huffed a breath and shoved her hair behind her ears. Come on. Focus! She could do this. She was tired of feeling helpless, tired of being a victim. She needed to be a fighter, a warrior. And this was how she was going to do it. “One more.”

  Silas shrugged and lifted his palms.

  She made to strike Silas’s other palm, but instead, she lunged forward, swinging high to draw his attention. At the last second, she raised her knee and slammed it into his groin.

  Silas bent over, gasping. He clutched at his crotch and crumpled to his knees, swearing a blue streak.

  Jericho turned back around. Horne and Micah stared at her, mouths gaping.

  Finn clapped. “Well played, my fierce friend. Well played.”

  “You—broke the rules!” Silas croaked.

  She fisted her hands on her hips, the heat of victory flushing her cheeks. “The only rule of fighting is to win.”

  Silas’s face turned an angry red. She tensed, waiting for him to swear at her, snarl ugly insults, or even punch her, like he’d beaten Gabriel. She didn’t put anything past a bloodthirsty sociopath like him. Instead, he did something so startling her mouth fell open.

  He laughed.

  She stared stupidly at him.

  He still bent double, clutching his groin and sucking in ragged breaths. Tears leaked down his cheeks. “I will. I’ll—teach you.”

  Instead of spouting something clever, all she managed to sputter was a lame, “What?”

  For once, his mouth twisted in pain, not a sneer. Yet his eyes sparked with something she couldn’t read—bemusement? The faintest glimmer of admiration?

  He straightened with a wince. “Jericho trained me since I was twelve years old. You want to know how to take out an opponent twice your size, how to shoot worth a damn? I can teach you. I won’t offer twice.”

  Silas was the last person she would’ve chosen, but she’d seen him kill on the Grand Voyager, and she’d watched him spar with Jericho. He could fight. Desperate times called for desperate measures, didn’t they? “I accept.”

  Jericho nodded in approval. He handed her a handgun and a holster. “You start now.”

  She liked the heft of the gun in her hand, the cold, hard feel of it. She attached the holster and slid the gun inside it. She liked the comforting weight against her hip. She could get used to this.

  For the next two hours, they trained. Jericho worked with Micah and Horne while Silas showed her how to fight dirty as hell. There were no rules now except staying alive.

  He showed her the proper fighting stance—legs shoulder-width apart, knees bent, hands up to protect the face.

  She crouched, studying his movements. “Okay.”

  “On the count of three. Ready? One. Two—”

  He made to punch her in the face. Startled, she jerked back, but not fast enough. As his right fist grazed her cheek, he seized her hair with his left hand and yanked so hard, several strands ripped from her scalp.

  “Ouch! You didn’t wait until the count of three!”

  He flashed her a mocking smile. “And your hair didn’t spontaneously combust. The world is full of disappointments.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “There’s no honor in survival, cupcake.” Silas opened his fist and let her black hair swirl to the grass. The smirk slipped from his face. “There’s you or him. That’s all. You think you can do whatever it takes? You think you can bite, rip, kick, and claw? Kill?”

  She touched her scalp gingerly, blinking back traitorous tears. Her sister’s face flashed in her mind—her dull, unseeing eyes. “Yeah, I do.”

  “If your attacker’s hands or arms are close to your face, bite him. Sink your teeth into muscle. When you kick, aim at the kneecap. Try to shatter the bone. Bite his face. Gouge his eyes. Dig your thumb deep into his eye sockets. But those things won’t take him out. They’ll buy a few seconds, if you’re lucky. You need to know your next move, and your next.”

  His gaze traveled over her body, studying her. “Your smallness is your weakness. But you can make it your strength. You nee
d to concentrate on low blows, literally.” He smirked at his own joke.

  She didn’t. “How?”

  He showed her the sensitive parts of the body: how to do the most damage to the throat, the groin, the nerve clusters in the upper thighs, where to slice the femoral artery. Silas lost his sardonic tone as he worked with her, his expression focused as he demonstrated several strike moves.

  He moved with a supple grace, with a coiled, deadly instinct, like a cobra or a panther. No wonder Jericho had agreed to train him to fight—he was born to it.

  In contrast, Willow felt like a lump of inert clay. But she would learn. She had to.

  Silas flicked his wrist near his waist and slipped his knife into his right hand. “Your blade should be felt, not seen. Hide it until you’re ready to use it.”

  He juked to the right. She tensed, focusing on his knife hand, expecting him to swipe at her. He’d get a thrill out of scaring her. She’d make sure he failed. She wasn’t going to fall for any more of his nasty tricks.

  She barely glimpsed the left hook arcing toward her head. She managed to raise her arm in a block, but he struck her with such force that her arm bent like paper, the blow sending pain spiking into the side of her skull. She staggered, her vision going blurry.

  “Ready to give up yet?”

  Nausea swirled in her stomach, but she forced herself to stand and face him. “No way.”

  “Okay, then.” A faint, satisfied smile ghosting his lips. “Don’t block a strike from a bigger, more powerful opponent. It’ll knock you out. Dodge it. Cover your head with both arms, duck, and move in swift and sudden, like this. Your guy’s not even done swinging, and you’ve got access to all his vulnerable spots. A punch or a knife blade to the liver, here—” He demonstrated, punching her lightly beneath the ribs.

  She gasped from the pain. “You bloody bastard.”

  “You wound me.” Silas bowed theatrically.

  “One can only hope.”

  “You’ll have to try harder than that.” He crouched, gesturing for her to attack him. “Don’t hold back. Come at me with everything you’ve got.”

  She wiped sweat out of her eyes and steadied her breathing. The pain fed her anger. She wanted to wipe that smug look right off his face. She wanted to hurt him. “Oh, I’m going to.”

  He grinned, his cunning gray eyes as close to sparkling as she’d ever seen them. “Good.”

  18

  Micah

  The next morning, they set out at dawn. Micah took the lead with Silas, Horne, and Jericho. Gabriel glowered behind them, while Finn, Willow, and the others took up the rear. Amelia and Benjie still trailing the group by five to ten yards.

  He could hear Amelia coughing, though she claimed she felt fine. She was too quiet, her eyes slightly glassy. “Headache,” she’d mumbled when he asked her.

  Micah bit the inside of his cheeks. If she was infected, they needed to get to the FEMA treatment center as fast as possible.

  They spent the morning walking alongside a road lined with empty houses, most of their cars still in their driveways. A few of their windows were broken, and the stench of dead and rotting corpses wafted in the cool breeze. The masks did nothing to filter the fetid stink.

  By early afternoon, the wind had picked up, ripping gold-tinged leaves from the trees and sending them skittering across the road. The sky thickened with roiling, rapidly moving clouds.

  He shivered in the chilly air. They needed to find sweaters and jackets. Winter still came eventually, even though global warming delayed it more and more.

  “Storm’s heading our way.” A wind gust raked his wavy hair across his face. “It looks like it could be bad.”

  Willow rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the update, Captain Obvious.”

  “We’ll find shelter soon,” Jericho said. “It’ll hold off for a while.”

  They turned a corner and passed yet another row of abandoned cars, though most of them were pushed to the shoulder, making a single-lane path.

  “Someone’s come through here recently,” Gabriel said.

  Jericho nodded grimly. “Look alive, people. Stay on your toes.”

  Something orange and black flashed in the corner of Micah’s eye. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared into the bed of the gray, mud-splattered truck directly to his left.

  Gabriel bumped into him. Micah flinched but didn’t move. “A tiger,” he whispered. Then louder, half-disbelieving his own eyes, “There’s a tiger in that truck.”

  “Stuffed, I hope.” Silas smirked.

  “No, a real one.” Micah stepped closer for a better look. The huge tiger filled up most of the truck bed. Its massive paws were larger than Benjie’s head. A single red bullet hole was drilled through its forehead between the golden eyes.

  It felt surreal, staring at a tiger up close in the middle of a suburban neighborhood. “Where in the world did it come from?”

  “Probably the zoo,” Gabriel said. “People still want to hunt exotic game, even in the apocalypse.”

  “Do you think it’s modded or the real thing?” Finn asked.

  “No way to tell.” The only differences between modded and unmodded were the creatures’ disposition and temperament. Scientists genetically modified apex predators to be as docile as sheep. The elites enjoyed parading their pet cheetahs and leopards around their marble mansions.

  “I wanna see!” Benjie squealed from behind them.

  “Hush,” Amelia said. “I’ll show you. Hold on.”

  “Keep moving.” Jericho gestured for them to follow him. “Whoever did that didn’t leave it here without a reason.”

  Both doors of the truck slammed open and two men burst out. Before Micah could get his own gun up, the men trained semi-automatics on them.

  “Don’t move!” the first man said. He was dressed in a jean jacket and a ‘Truckers Unite’ baseball cap turned backward. He wore a face mask and gloves. “Guns down on the ground! Now!”

  Jericho swore under his breath. He lowered his weapon. The others did the same. Gabriel slid behind Jericho, hiding his cuffs. It was smart. Who knew how these guys would react if they knew Gabriel’s true identity? Micah wiped his sweaty palms on his pants.

  “Hands up!”

  Micah obeyed. His glasses started to slide down the bridge of his nose, but he didn’t move. His heartbeat jackhammered in his ears. “We’re friendlies.”

  The second man stepped forward, patting them down with one hand, still aiming his gun with the other. Then he stepped back. “Always better to be safe than sorry.”

  “Name’s Gonzales,” the first man said. He was a Mexican-American guy in his late twenties with long hair bound in a knot at the base of his neck and a broad, friendly face. The second man—an Irish guy in his thirties with a russet-orange beard and sharp, twitchy eyes—introduced himself as Russell, no first name.

  “You live in the neighborhood?” Horne asked.

  “We’re around,” Russell said evasively. “We just changed a dud tire. That’s how you got the drop on us. But when we saw you and your kid, we thought we’d introduce ourselves.”

  “What’s with the tiger?” Finn asked.

  Gonzales grimaced. “Soon as the world started coming undone, folks went crazy. A bunch of animal activists released the animals from every zoo, shelter, and wild animal sanctuary in the country, it feels like. Now we got ‘em wandering around like Georgia is a damn African jungle.”

  “Good thing most of ‘em are mods.” Russell patted the tiger’s hindquarters. “Easy as cake to take ‘em down.”

  “You using it for meat?” Micah glanced at the tiger. He hoped not. It seemed tragic to see such a magnificent creature killed for any reason. He couldn’t imagine eating it.

  “Nah. The Headhunters got a thing for pelts.”

  Micah tensed. “You’re with them?”

  “No, but they’re traders,” Gonzales said. “We’ve gotta have things to trade.”

  “Makes sense,” Horne said agreea
bly. “We’ve all got to survive somehow.”

  “Where are you folks headed?” Russell’s voice was affable, but his gaze shifted from Jericho to Horne to Gabriel and back again. It made Micah uneasy.

  Jericho hesitated for a fraction of a second. “The FEMA regional medical center.”

  Both men took a step back, their expressions hardening. “You got the sickness?”

  Micah pointed. “Those two back there might have been exposed. We’re being cautious.”

  Gonzales nodded. “Smart move.”

  A gust of wind blasted them, almost knocking Micah’s glasses off. He shifted to keep his balance as leaves swirled angrily around his feet. The sky boiled with a mass of storm clouds now.

  “Why haven’t you guys headed to the safe zones?” Micah asked.

  “We figure we’ll hunker down ‘til the government gets things back online.” Gonzales raised his voice over the wind. “No reason to trust ‘em any more than we have to. They screwed things up plenty. Besides, we’ve got what family survived with us already. Most of the world lost everybody that mattered. Without the ones you love, people tend to go real cold, real fast.”

  Lightning lit up the underbelly of the storm clouds glowering on the horizon.

  Gonzales pointed at something over their shoulders. “We gotta be on our way, but you should watch your back.”

  “What do you mean?” Micah asked, even as the hairs lifted on the back of his neck.

  “Watch the wildlife, especially those damn dogs. You’re being hunted.”

  Before Micah could ask what they meant, thunder crashed overhead. Lightning sizzled the sky. The trees creaked and moaned.

  “And get yourself inside. Storm’s coming quick!” Gonzales twisted his cap so the brim protected his face. “These houses are all diseased. There’s an empty warehouse a quarter mile up Wickingham Lane on the left, plenty big enough for your group.”

  “Thank you!” Micah called after them. The men hurried back into their truck, started the engine, and drove away, swerving to avoid the cars stacked along both sides of the road.

  The first fat drops of rain struck Micah’s head and shoulders. Lightning clawed at the sky, way too close.