Shelby didn’t attempt to hide her agitation. “I thought you didn’t trust them.”
“I’m not saying I do, but we obviously are going to need help to get into the heart of Austin.”
Everyone in the group nodded in agreement, though Max noticed Shelby did so quite reluctantly. The others made their way back to the circle, but she held back, glaring at him, standing with her arms crossed. A sixth sense that told him she now questioned his judgment. That and the accusatory look on her face hurt him in ways that shattered glass never could.
“Anything else you need to tell me?”
“Shelby, I’m sorry.”
“That’s not going to cut it. I need to know the things you know, all the things you know. What if we were separated?”
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
“You might not be able to prevent it. We were separated from the others. It could happen to you and me just as easily.” She stared past him for a moment. When she turned her gaze back toward him, the look of despair—of naked fear in her eyes nearly broke his heart.
“I’m glad you’re here, Max. I’m glad you all came along, and I even…I even want Bhatti to find the medicine Abney needs. I won’t say I completely trust him. I can see he’s a good doctor, though. And I’m starting to think he has good instincts for this kind of thing.”
“I was going to tell you about the Remnant.”
“You didn’t, though, and that information you withheld could have made all the difference. We can’t afford those types of mistakes. We can’t afford any mistakes. The stakes are too high. What we’re doing could mean whether Carter lives or dies.”
Now there was a steely resolve in her eyes, and somehow that eased the ache in Max’s heart. This was the Shelby that Max knew—tough as nails. One way or another she would patch, hammer, or hold her world together.
“I’m not going home until I find his insulin, with or without the help of the Remnant.” She put virtual quotations marks around the last two words.
“That’s why we’re here,” he assured her. “And it’s what we’re going to do. Now let’s go see if Clay can help.”
He turned back, stepped closer, and lowered his voice. “That journal of yours? I think it’s a good idea. I want you to get it out and take notes as we talk. We’re witnesses, Shelby. Witnesses to something monumental—both the destruction and hopefully the rebirth of our society.”
“Okay. Yeah, I agree.”
“But do not specifically name the Remnant or put the code words in your journal in case it falls into the wrong hands.”
“You don’t think that someone would target them for simply trying to help folks?”
Max glanced around the barn before settling his gaze on her again. “People are attempting to fill a power void—good people and evil people. If your pack or that journal ends up on the wrong side, I have no doubt that they would try to dismantle what little exists of this group. I don’t want to be responsible for that, and I know you don’t either.”
They walked over to the circle of people waiting. Clay had placed a battery-operated lantern in the middle. Shelby took a seat near the lantern, pulled out her notebook and pen, and waited for the meeting to begin.
Jamie and Kenny had gone out to replace two of the men on perimeter patrol. Those two came into the barn, but they didn’t join the circle—opting instead to collapse against hay bales set in the far corner of the room and doze.
Shelby didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “I’m here to find insulin for my son.”
Clay nodded his head once, but he didn’t interrupt her with questions.
“Dr. Bhatti is looking for medications the people in our town will need. We have items to trade if you have anything at all.”
“We don’t. It’s a problem in every community, and we’ve had other folks coming through looking for food, fuel, and medical supplies.”
“Did they find any?” Bianca asked.
“If they did, they didn’t come back this way.”
“So you can’t help us?” Shelby’s voice wobbled, but she bit down on her bottom lip and made a valiant attempt of putting on an expression that said I’m fine.
“He didn’t say that, Shelby.” Max met her gaze and held it for a long moment, willing her to wait this out. Over the past three weeks he’d seen the violence and betrayals and tragedies they’d experienced scrape away at her optimism, leaving her soul raw. What he didn’t want was for her to become jaded. There were still good people to be found, God continued to provide for their needs, and it was possible that the Remnant could in fact help them.
Clay glanced between them before addressing his next comment directly to Shelby. “We don’t have what you need if that’s what you’re asking. Where were you planning to look?”
“Our thought was to head to downtown—to the capitol building,” Max said. “Surely the government has supplies. We tried going south on 183, but the road was blocked at the SH 45 interchange.”
“We saw some military vehicles to the south.” Shelby tapped her pen against the notebook. “It looked like they were trying to carve a path through the cars.”
“Not yet. What you saw was almost certainly a patrol. They’re not able to do much as far as eliminating illegal activity, but from what we’ve heard, they want to maintain a presence.”
“You’re telling me the National Guard can’t control some two-bit vandals?” Patrick shook his head. “I have trouble believing that.”
“They’re spread pretty thin. We haven’t been downtown to see things firsthand, but from what we’ve heard, the governor’s plan is to solidify the area immediately around the capitol square and then slowly push out…block by block.”
“It’s been twenty days.” Shelby sat straighter, crossing her arms. “How long is this plan going to take? And what are people supposed to do in the meantime?”
“No one knows how long it will take. Until then people are going to have to depend on their own resources. More than one source has told us that the state government and the feds are at odds. What that’s about, I can’t tell you. But because of it, much of the Texas National Guard was sent to cover our state borders.”
“That would explain the troops we saw going through Abney.” Patrick reached for a water bottle and uncapped it. “There were rumors about defections at Fort Hood.”
“We heard the same thing, and that it’s happening at all of the military bases. Our military personnel are not cowards, but if their orders aren’t clear or if they feel it’s contradictory to the Constitution, there is a fair probability that they’re not going to follow through.”
Patrick guzzled the contents of his water bottle and stuffed it into the side pocket of his pack. “Most of the enlisted men I served with had never read the Constitution, or if they did, it was in a high school government class that they probably slept through.”
“Yeah. But if their CO tells them to seize the resources in a local town, and if they have any connection to the people in that town, then many of them aren’t going to do it. Instead, they disappear in the night, go home, and take care of their families. It’s not…it’s not the same as being in Fallujah or Kabul. Many of our soldiers are not clear on who the enemy is.”
“Everything has unwound so quickly.” Bianca pressed her fingertips to her forehead. “This is America. What you’re describing isn’t supposed to happen here.”
“Agreed, but we’ve never faced a catastrophe of this proportion. Sure, we’ve had plenty of natural disasters—floods and fires and tornadoes. We’ve even had the occasional civil unrest, but we’ve never had a situation where the majority of Americans don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”
“The Great Depression,” Max muttered.
“Maybe. Which was what—two, maybe three generations ago? In my opinion, we’ve become somewhat soft since then, and many people have never even imagined the scenarios we’re facing today.”
“All righ
t.” Shelby held up a hand to stop him. “But there is a central government in the capital. We need to try there first.”
Max noticed Clay waited until each person in their group had nodded in agreement.
“We can get you close—within five blocks,” Clay said. “Word is they have a heavily guarded perimeter fence, and they’re not letting civilians through.”
“We’ll worry about that when we get there.” Patrick pulled out a map and set it on the empty crate between him and Clay.
They discussed routes and obstacles. Clay began to outline a plan. As Max listened, he glanced up, expecting to see signs of sunrise. After all, they now had a plan. There was at least hope that they could find Carter’s insulin and the medical supplies that Abney needed. Such progress should be accompanied by morning light splashing across the fields.
Instead, he was surprised that the sky outside remained blanketed in darkness.
EIGHTEEN
Carter saw the man raise his rifle, take aim, and shoot, but he was powerless to move. The bullet pierced his stomach. He felt nothing. He looked down, surprised to see his hands and clothes soaked in blood. He held one hand to his stomach and attempted to grip his rifle with the other. His hand was too slick. The rifle slipped from his grasp as the man walked closer. Carter fell to the ground.
Mom was worried I’d die from my diabetes. She never imagined I’d go this way.
Then the man was standing in front of him, crouching down, and grasping his shoulders. Shaking him and repeating something that made no sense to Carter. He tossed his head and tried to pull free, but the man was too strong.
“Son, wake up. You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, now.”
He opened his eyes to see Roy’s wrinkled face only inches from his own. “It’s only a dream. Here, drink this.” Roy pushed a bottle of water into his hands.
Carter stared at his fingers, surprised to find no blood there. He tried to slow his hammering heart, sipped from the water bottle, and finally pushed the covers off. “Sorry. I…”
“Bad dream?”
“Yeah.”
“Take a minute.”
“Yeah, okay.” He took another swig from the bottle, but then he realized that Roy was in his room. “Is everything all right?”
He set the bottle on a crate he was using as a nightstand and reached for his rifle.
“Everything’s fine. You missed breakfast, and Georgia was worried.”
Carter wiped the sweat from his eyes. Glancing out the screened wall of the porch, he saw that it was much later than he’d guessed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sleep in.”
“You two were out late last night.” Roy stood and walked to the screen door. “Sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah. I’ll meet you in the barn.”
“Take your time and get some breakfast first. I don’t need you passing out from hunger.” He paused before walking out the door and added, “We have a lot to do today.”
For some reason, those last seven words made Carter smile. Somehow the memory of Kaitlyn hurt less when he was busy. Those first few days after her death, lying on Bianca’s couch, he’d thought that there was no point in even trying to survive. If you could die walking down the sidewalk, then why even make an effort?
But Georgia and Roy needed him. He’d noticed the day before how Max’s dad paused to massage his hands.
“Arthritis,” he’d muttered when he caught Carter staring. “Enjoy your youth while you’re pain-free.”
Carter’s pain was inside, but he understood what Roy was saying. It didn’t hurt when he grasped a bale of hay or cleaned a fish or weeded the garden. Still fully dressed, he scrambled out of bed and checked his blood sugar levels. A few years earlier, he’d switched to using an insulin pen. Each pen held 300 units, which generally lasted him three to four days. Once opened, it didn’t require refrigeration. It was the boxes of unopened pens that his mom had freaked out about. They were supposed to be kept cold.
The pens he used contained premixed insulin which combined rapid acting, what he needed before meals, with intermediate acting, what he needed to get through the day. He primed the pen, dialed in the correct dose, and injected it into his stomach. After storing his supplies on the crate next to his bed, he glanced around the small cottage, grabbed his ball cap, and jogged over to the main house.
“Hungry?” Georgia asked.
“Yeah, but I have to wait a few more minutes for my insulin to kick in.”
“Then we can talk about the day.” Georgia sat down across from him, cradling a cup of coffee. He’d seen that same posture so many times from his mom that it almost made him laugh.
But then he remembered how things had been between them when she’d left.
“Penny for your thoughts.”
“I should have said goodbye.”
“You were upset.”
“Yeah, but that’s not much of an excuse.”
“Your mother knows that you care about her, Carter.”
“Still, she’s risking her life for me…both my mom and Max are, and instead of thanking them, I acted like a brat.”
Georgia sipped from her coffee, studying him for a minute.
Carter waited.
Finally, she tapped the table and said, “They’ll be back here soon, eating at this very table. When they are, you say you’re sorry. A simple apology goes a long way toward soothing hurt feelings.”
Carter nodded, reassured by the thought of them all eating again around Georgia’s table.
“Now about today. Roy needs your help in the fields, and I have to go and check on Tate.”
“Do you need me to go with you?”
“Not this time, but if he’s progressing as well as I hope he is, then I’d like you to go tomorrow.”
“All right, but what do I do when I get there?”
“You’ll need to check his wound for infection, clean it, and rebandage it. Do you think you can do that?”
Carter shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He didn’t want to do it. Open wounds made him queasy. But if Georgia needed him to, which she obviously did or she wouldn’t have asked, then he would. “Yeah. You showed me how last night.”
“Good. Hopefully that will be the last bullet wound we’ll have to attend to.”
“No idea who shot him?”
Georgia stood and bustled around the kitchen, pulling out food for his breakfast. “Oh, we have some ideas. Later this afternoon there will be a meeting in our barn to talk about that.”
“Even if you know who did it, what would you do? It’s not like you can call the local sheriff, and you can’t just take the law into your own hands. Can you?”
“I honestly don’t know. It’s something Roy and I have been praying about. Something that each person will have to wrestle with in their own heart.” She made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Everything isn’t perfect at High Fields, so don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it is.”
“But you all work together. You share your food, man the roadblocks—and there’s even that old lady who moved in with the other family because she didn’t feel safe.”
“All those things are true, but not everyone has bought into the concept of a regional watch group. Some families are insisting that they’re better off on their own. They don’t want to share, and they don’t want to spend time on the roadblocks when they could be hunting or fishing.”
“Sounds kind of shortsighted.”
“Maybe they’ll come around. Until they do, it’s best you go directly where we tell you and nowhere else.” Georgia set a plate of food in front of him. It held a warmed biscuit, a slice of cheese, and something that looked like wet rice.
“What is that?”
“Grits. They’re healthy. Eat them.” She placed butter and salt and pepper on the table. “But doctor them up first.”
Carter remembered eating some pretty strange meals at his house before it blew up. He’d even had tuna for breakfast. Grits? Couldn’t be any worse
than that.
NINETEEN
Shelby was restless, eager to be on their way, but Clay insisted that they wait until the sun was well up before leaving. “Other people will be out by then. If we have any hope of blending in, it will be in the middle of the day.”
Patrick cleaned their weapons, though they hadn’t been fired and each of them knew how to maintain their firearm. “I like being busy,” he’d said when Shelby had pointed that out to him. He had given her a wolfish grin, making her laugh in spite of their circumstances.
Bianca found a corner of the barn where a weak shaft of light was slanting through, curled up with her backpack under her head, and promptly fell asleep.
“I’m envious,” Shelby confessed to Max. “I couldn’t sleep in a barn full of strangers if I tried.”
“That would be because you can’t sleep in public.”
“You remember that, huh?”
“Sure. That time when I was sixteen and you were—”
“Fifteen.”
“And our families went on vacation together.”
“To Florida.”
“Something about free airline tickets that our parents had earned on their credit cards.”
Shelby sighed. “Planes, credit cards, and loyalty points—all things of the past.”
“I imagine so. That trip our flights were delayed due to weather or something.”
“Lightning strikes. They’d had lightning strikes around the airport, so all flights in and out were delayed.”
Max slid down onto the ground and patted the spot beside him. Shelby started to resist, but what was the point? They weren’t leaving anytime soon, and she wasn’t going to sleep. Why stand on her feet until Clay gave the go-ahead?
“We were in that airport, delayed, for six or seven hours.” Max leaned his head back against the barn’s wall and allowed his eyes to drift shut.
“Seemed like an eternity.”
“You didn’t sleep there, and you didn’t sleep on the plane.”
“It was still public.”
He opened his eyes and squinted at her. “We finally made it to the condo on the beach. I can still hear my mom saying that like it was emblazoned on tour vouchers…Condo on the Beach.”
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