Surviving the Swamp (Survivalist Reality Show Book 1)

by Grace Hamilton

  Regan saw the exact moment when Tabitha noticed the small crowd of people that had gathered to watch her work. She looked a little uneasy with all the attention, finally, as she should have before.

  Regan cleared her throat. “Thanks for stopping by. You should go now.”

  “Not without you,” Tabitha argued as she turned, the crowd seemingly forgotten. “You’re coming with me.”

  “I think Regan would prefer to stay,” Carla intervened. “She’s doing well here.”

  Tabitha, ever the small but mighty protector, took a step toward Carla, her eyes narrowed into slits as she stared up at the woman. “I don’t think so. You need to let her leave. I’m taking her with me.”

  “It’s okay, Tabitha. Go. I’m staying,” Regan said, her eyes on Carla as she spoke.

  “I don’t believe that for a second. I know they’re holding you against your will,” Tabitha said, glaring at the men who had come to stand beside Carla like sentries.

  Regan shook her head, hoping she could dissuade Tabitha from her notion. The woman didn’t realize she had put her own life in jeopardy by using her medical training to help the boy. The co-op would never let her walk away if they realized the extent of her knowledge. She’d end up a prisoner, like Regan.

  Regan stepped in front of Tabitha, facing her and making her look directly at her. She once again tried to communicate with her gaze that things were not as they seemed. Tabitha’s eyes darted around the area in response, and finally she seemed to get it. Regan didn’t know if she was giving up on getting her out or not, but she was at least about to leave—that was something.

  “Well, we’ll be going now,” Tabitha said with a curt smile. “Thanks for the hospitality.”

  The snide remark made Regan cringe. She’d thought they were past this.

  Carla stepped toward Tabitha. “I’ve changed my mind. Regan is free to walk out of here right now if she wants. In fact, we would prefer it if she did. Goodbye, Regan.”

  “What?” Regan gasped, her mouth dry.

  “Leave. You’ve been a pain in the ass from the moment you got here. Your skills are not so valuable that we need to keep you and put up with your bad attitude. Go ahead and leave. No one is going to stop you,” Carla said in an icy tone.

  Regan wasn’t going to question the new development. She could barely hold back a grin of surprise. She took her friend’s arm and nodded. “Let’s go, Tabitha.”

  The women stepped to the side, prepared to walk around the wall formed by the large men who had moved to stand in front of them. Regan was allowed to proceed, but they stopped Tabitha.

  “She stays,” Carla snapped.

  Regan spun around and cried out. “Carla, no! Tabitha, let’s go!”

  One of the men grabbed Tabitha’s arm, holding her firm.

  “Let go of me!” she shouted, but she wasn’t strong enough to pull away. Regan’s stomach fell, watching her friend attempt it. She looked around, but Carla and the guards were ready for anything from her, and she could see it.

  “We need someone with your skills. Be nice and follow the rules, and you’ll be given your own room with plenty of food and water,” Carla explained.

  “You’re not keeping her here,” Regan fumed.

  “You don’t get to decide that,” Carla said on a laugh. “Get out of here! Now!”

  Tabitha looked at Regan, fear in her eyes as the guard began dragging her toward the building’s entrance from the courtyard. She began shouting for him to stop and let go but the guard tightened his grip on her.

  “I’m not going to let you take her.” Regan’s voice was low, and she meant it to be. She’d be killed if necessary, but she wouldn’t allow them to hold onto Tabitha.

  The man dragging Tabitha stopped to look at her. Regan knew she was probably going to die in the next few minutes. She didn’t care. There was no way she would let Tabitha be made a prisoner. This was her mess. She had been the one to willingly walk in here.

  Carla broke into wicked laughter. “Get her out of here.”

  Regan reached into her back pocket and pulled out Wolf’s knife, holding it up, bending at the knees and taking on a defensive position. All she had to do was distract them long enough to give Tabitha a chance to run. She could fight for that long. Obviously, there was no way she was going to win against all of them, not Carla and these three guards, but that wasn’t the goal. She didn’t have to win. Her only goal was to give Tabitha the break she needed to run like hell. Geno would never have let Tabitha go to the cooperative on her own. He was likely beyond the walls, and would get her to safety as soon as Tabitha got through the gate.

  “Regan, don’t,” Tabitha screamed, freezing at the sight of Wolf’s knife.

  “Listen to your friend, Regan. This is going to end badly for you. Take your knife and leave,” Carla ordered her.

  Regan shook her head. “Let go of her. I will cut you. I won’t miss. I’m going straight for your throat,” she said in a low growl.

  That seemed to get the guard’s attention, and while the others were still waiting for her to change her mind, Regan took advantage of the man’s brief loosening of his grip on Tabitha’s arm and lunged forward. She didn’t go for the man’s throat. She wasn’t dumb enough to have revealed her target. With the man’s arms up to block his head and neck, she stabbed him in the groin.

  “Run!” Regan screamed.

  Tabitha began screaming loudly as she made a beeline for the gate of the courtyard that led beyond the building.

  Regan was slashing her knife through the air, keeping her attackers at bay when she saw a man tackle Tabitha to the ground. In a moment, she realized she’d only held up Carla and two of the guards. One had hung back and gone after her friend. The sight of Tabitha’s prone, unmoving body was the trigger Regan needed to move faster and stab with deliberate jabs of the knife. The man who she’d stabbed in the groin was down after another injury, and now she ducked and jabbed out, slipping out of the second man’s reach as she made a sprint toward her friend.

  “No!” she shouted once she broke free from the circle of people that had surrounded her to watch the fight and started running toward Tabitha, who was still on the ground at the guard’s feet.

  She watched as Tabitha sat up, holding her head, blood streaming through her fingers. The man who had tackled her unceremoniously yanked Tabitha to her feet.

  “Get off her!” Regan screamed, reaching the man and slashing at his back before shoving her blade deep into his lower back.

  She felt something plow into her from behind, but managed to keep her footing. The second guard, she realized. With the knife still gripped in her hand, she spun around slashing. She stabbed at the guard who had grabbed her, jabbing the knife into his forearm stretched across her waist, inadvertently nicking her own skin with the blade. The man let go of her when his blood began spurting out, giving her the freedom she needed to go after the other man who was now trying to drag Tabitha back toward the building and inside to whatever cell they had waiting for her.

  “Get them both!” Carla screamed.

  Everyone paused when they heard a roar from outside the courtyard. Suddenly, the gate flung open and Regan was shocked to see Geno and Wolf running in. Looking around, the men quickly took in the scene. When Geno spied Tabitha, he roared again, rushing toward his wife. Tilting his body as he ran, he rammed into the guard who was holding Tabitha sending him flying before he reached Tabitha’s side. Dropping to his knees, he touched her head before turning to look at Regan with murder in his eyes. She knew loud and clear that he blamed her for this and he was right.

  Regan jumped when she felt someone behind her. Whirling around she was relieved to see Wolf. He had her back and was doing his best to fend off several attackers, including a woman, which surprised Regan. She’d made the incorrect assumption that it would only be the few guards in the courtyard who would be a problem, but it seemed like others had taken this as a chance to impress Carla. Biting down on an arm that gra
bbed at her, Regan and Wolf made their way to Geno, who was cursing and flushed, seemingly ready to rip apart anyone who came too close. Regan didn’t blame him, his fear for his wife was making him slightly crazed as he jerked her body into his arms and began walking backward toward the gate. The guards were all down now and Carla seemed unwilling to dirty her own hands. Everyone simply stared until Carla growled something at a skinny man who’d been watching nearby.

  He hesitated for only a moment before making a run toward them, but Regan brandished the bloody knife, waving it back and forth. “I will kill you. Let us go. We’re not worth it.”

  The man stopped, nodded his head, and held out his arm when a middle-aged woman Regan didn’t recognize tried to rush toward them.

  Regan felt Wolf’s hand on her shoulder tugging her backwards and she trusted him to get her out the gate while she kept an eye on everyone still in the courtyard. She felt her feet step off concrete and then their bodies spilled into the street.

  “We have to hurry,” Regan said, hiding the fear in her voice.

  Geno ran across the street carrying Tabitha while Wolf and Regan walked more slowly keeping an eye out for more guards to spill out from the apartment building.

  “Over here!” a male voice shouted from behind them.

  Regan spun around, ready to stab the new threat. Her shoulders slumped forward in relief when she saw Fred emerge from an alcove nearby and come racing toward them, holding the Colt in the air. He stopped in front of Geno and Tabitha. Regan still clutched the knife tightly in her hand and jumped when she felt Wolf reach out to her.

  “It’s over,” Wolf said, taking the knife from Regan’s trembling hand. “It’s over.”

  Swallowing down emotion, Regan stared into his soulful brown eyes and nodded her head. “You’re here.”

  He wrapped her in his arms for a brief hug before stepping back and putting his hands on her shoulders. He studied her face, and she could see the look of pity in his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in a gruff voice.

  She nodded her head. “I’m fine. We need to run. More guards will come after us.”

  Wolf glanced back toward the courtyard gate. “Let’s move!” he shouted, spurring the group on with Geno leading the way.

  24

  “What the hell happened?” Geno shouted. He was carrying Tabitha in his arms as they moved away from the apartment building, whispering and muttering to her when he wasn’t demanding answers from Regan, but she was too out of breath and shaken to give him a coherent response. He wasn’t really listening anyway, far more concerned with his barely conscious wife.

  Regan kept glancing backward as they hurried forward, waiting to be attacked from behind. Wolf was doing the same thing.

  “They’re not following,” Regan managed to get out. She was panting from the adrenaline and the exertion.

  “They will,” Wolf assured her.

  Sure enough, her old friends, Craig and Dylan, came through the gate as Regan glanced back again but they didn’t give chase. Instead they stood there, watching them walk away.

  “We need to get out of this area,” Wolf said, stating the obvious.

  Regan glanced over at him and felt a sense of calm that helped ease the constriction around her heart. She hated to admit it, but fighting off Carla’s goons with Wolf by her side was comforting. He’d had her back like he said he would.

  “What happened before we got there? Why is my wife bleeding?” Geno demanded again.

  “We need to get out of here. We’ll deal with the details later,” Wolf said in a low tone. “She’s breathing fine. Keep moving.”

  “She’s losing a lot of blood,” Geno near sobbed. “We have to stop the bleeding.”

  Fred broke in, placing a hand on Geno’s shoulder as they moved. “It’s a head wound, Geno. Look for yourself. Head wounds tend to bleed a lot,” Fred assured him.

  Geno turned sideways without stopping, shooting a fiery glare at him. “I don’t like it! She’s not talking!”

  “I know where to go,” Regan murmured. “Turn right up here.”

  “We don’t need your help!” Geno snapped. “You’ve done enough.”

  “Where?” Wolf asked, ignoring Geno’s comments.

  “There’s an Urgent Care clinic. It’s been stripped clean, but I found a van in the back. I think it runs. I mean, I didn’t start it up all the way, but the lights came on when I turned the key and it looked like it had a half tank of glass,” she explained.

  “How far?” Geno demanded.

  “A couple blocks.”

  Fred kept pace beside Geno. “Tabitha, can you hear me?” he asked.

  Tabitha moaned, her eyes buried against Geno’s shirt. “Yes.”

  “Stay with us. We’re going to get you somewhere safe. I’ll take care of that cut,” he said in a soft, soothing voice.

  “Regan?” Tabitha mumbled.

  “I’m here,” she called out. “Hold on, Tabitha, we’re almost there.”

  As they walked, it became more and more clear Geno was tiring. He had slowed down and was continuously bouncing Tabitha up his arms to keep from dropping her. His ashen face reminded Regan he still wasn’t fully recovered from whatever illness he’d had.

  “I’ll take her,” Wolf said, not giving Geno the opportunity to say no. He came around Geno, reached out, and cradled Tabitha in his arms so that they barely had to stop to make the exchange. The fact that Geno didn’t protest was further evidence that he’d been struggling.

  “It’s right around the corner,” Regan said, pointing ahead. “I, uh, I got some antibiotics for Geno,” she said in a soft voice.

  “I don’t need them,” Geno groused.

  “Thank you,” Tabitha said in a weak voice.

  “I don’t see anyone following us,” Fred interjected. “Do they know where we would be going?” he asked.

  Regan shrugged. “I don’t think so. I did come here yesterday on a run with a couple guys.”

  They finally reached the clinic and scrambled inside. Wolf gently laid Tabitha on the carpeted floor while Geno looked around for anything useful to help his wife. He grabbed a coat hanging on a hook and balled it up to act as a pillow, staying close while Fred inspected the wound in the light streaming through the window.

  Fred was calm and cool as he pulled the first aid kit from his pack and gingerly wiped away the blood that seemed to be slowing.

  “It’s not too bad,” he assured Tabitha, who seemed to be fading in and out of consciousness. “You’re going to have a nasty bruise and a bad headache, but you’ll be okay.”

  Geno spun around, his nostrils flared as he stared at Regan. “What happened?” he demanded again.

  Regan took a deep breath, and then breathed out, shrugging helplessly. “They wanted her to stay.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She has the medical skills they desperately need in there. They collect people with different skills. Once you’ve been recruited, you can’t leave. Tabitha helped a little boy who was hurt, and they saw it. They were going to force her to stay,” she explained in a monotone voice.

  Geno shook his head, taking another step toward her with his fists balled, so that Wolf stepped in and put a hand on his shoulder to hold him back. Geno glared at him, but didn’t fight his hold. Instead, he looked back to Regan with his eyes narrowed in on her. “Yeah, right. They didn’t force you. They told Fred you could leave at any time.”

  Regan shook her head. “They lied.”

  “How did Tabitha get hurt?” Geno had practically shouted the question, and Regan stumbled back in surprise at the ferocity of it. She leaned against a wall shaking her head, her eyes moving to the window to see if they’d been followed.

  “She was running away, and a man tackled her to the ground. It was a concrete sidewalk that she fell on.”

  Geno was all but trembling, his face red with anger. “Were you chasing her?”

  “No,” Regan said on a sigh. “I told her
to run.”

  “How deep is it?” Tabitha’s weak voice stopped Geno’s interrogation, and he turned back to crouch by his wife.

  Fred pulled back and gingerly probed the gash above Tabitha’s left eye. “I don’t know. I can see layers of tissue. It’s about three inches long.”

  “Clean it,” Tabitha instructed. “Don’t close it until it’s been washed out. Water?” she panted as Fred poked at the wound.

  Wolf reached into his pack and handed a bottle of water to Fred. Under Tabitha’s instruction, he gave her a small sip and then poured the water over the wound, letting it run down the side of her face.

  “Look again. Do you see any dirt?”

  Fred sucked in a breath of air. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Do it. If there’s dirt in the cut and you close it, it’s going to get infected. I’m only letting you close it because it’s deep—otherwise, I would leave it open,” she explained in a strained voice.

  “I understand,” Fred said as he used a small piece of gauze to probe at the wound.

  Tabitha winced, causing Regan to flinch, as well.

  Geno waved his hand, grabbing Regan’s attention. “Why would you let them hurt her?”

  Wolf intervened. “Why don’t you see if that van will run, Geno? Regan, show him where it is. We need to get out of here in case those guys figure out where we are. I’ll keep an eye out.”

  Regan nodded her head, but before heading down the hall to the store room, she dropped to her knees beside her friend and took her hand.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  Tabitha gave her a weak smile as Geno scowled down at the two of them. “It’s okay,” Tabitha promised, her eyes moving back and forth between Regan and Geno. “I’m okay. We’re out of there and everything will be fine.”

  Regan gave a quick nod of her head before moving for the hallway. Geno came stomping behind her.

  “It’s this way.” Regan tried to push the door open wider for him.

  “Whatever,” he growled, and used his girth to push the door open the rest of the way. The room was swathed in darkness.