Beasts of Byron (Silvers Invasion Book 2)

by Alex Mersey

  Williams had never wanted to come to this damn town. And each day he’d stayed thereafter, he’d stayed for Chris. There was no getting around it. Williams died by the weight of my choices. That wasn’t even blame, it was just fact.

  But Rachel, if she hadn’t blabbed about him, Jake and Todd wouldn’t have tied him up in the forest, he wouldn’t have been taken with the rest of the town, would never have gotten the chance to lay those breadcrumbs that had brought Williams to him.

  Williams would still be alive.

  But that had been last night, when Chris had raged against the world. He didn’t blame Rachel this morning. He knew about the deaths. He knew about Raven and Doc Nate and Brandon’s dad and God knew how many others. He knew Rachel would be dead, everyone would be dead, if he hadn’t left that trail for Williams to follow. How could he blame Rachel for that?

  Rachel released his arm, stepped around to face him, chewing on her lower lip. “Raven is…”

  “I know,” he said when she couldn’t finish.

  “It doesn’t feel real,” she said, wrapping her arms around her waist. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  The dull ache of hurt, grief, pain, pressed against his numbness. Chris pushed back hard. “I’m sorry, Rachel, but I don’t have any answers for you. I need to go.”

  “You’re leaving.”

  “I was always leaving.”

  “Today,” she said. “I mean, my dad had a meeting with the town council first thing this morning. They wanted Sean McAllister to stay a while, help them reorganize and prepare the town, in case, you know, it happens again. He said he’d do what he could, but that he was heading out for Colorado, and he intended to be gone by nightfall.”

  “That’s the plan,” Chris said.

  “I’d like to come with you.”

  “You’ll have to take that up with Sean.”

  “I will,” Rachel said. “He’s already agreed to take Bran, but, well…after the way we ended things, I just thought I’d let you know first, that I was thinking about it.”

  Chris gave a slow shake of his head, not sure why they were having this conversation, and continued walking off. “Do whatever the hell you damn want, Rachel. I really don’t care either way.”

  - 22 -

  Beth

  Death stuck to the town of Little Falls. It stuck to the doorways of grieving homes. Stuck to the lampposts and the children loitering around them. It stuck to the pavements and it stuck to the rubber of her boots as she jogged passed the gas station.

  She didn’t blame Sean for not wanting to spend another night here, although his reasons were strategic rather than emotional. Little Falls was a trap, a ghost town waiting to happen again and again, an optical illusion of safety and normalcy.

  That’s what the Silvers excelled at, using the trappings of human securities against them.

  They’d done it with the Medical Center, left the buildings standing to draw in the misplaced and injured like a beacon. Then they’d razed it to the ground.

  Mystery solved, why the Silvers were leaving the small towns in peace to flourish. They needed people, live subjects for whatever the hell they were doing with that tentacle chair. We’re pigs in a bloody pen.

  Beth’s feet pounded the asphalt, the forest on one side, the wind rustling corn fields on her other, the town at her back, but death and the Silvers wouldn’t be left behind.

  They’ve turned our spirit of community against us.

  Our hospitals.

  Our soldiers.

  They’ve turned us against ourselves.

  That was possibly the most frightening of all, the power of suggestion the Silvers were able to plant, red-tagging as some of the guys were calling it. The soldiers had truly believed they were protecting the townsfolk, that those six Silvers were the town’s saviors and not their tormentors, that the only way to keep everyone safe was to keep them inside those cages.

  The soldiers were mostly back to normal now, those who weren’t laid up in the medic tent or still sleeping it off. That had been Sean’s idea, the sedatives to induce sleep, and it had worked. It seemed whatever glamor the Silvers cast wore off when the mind lost consciousness.

  Clint had made camp about a quarter mile south of town and she slowed to a cautious walk as she approached. His grand prize, the tactical vehicle, was pulled in tight beneath a press of Douglas Firs. He would have probably been long gone, back to his ruins and rubble, if not for Samson’s serious injuries. She was just happy he hadn’t kidnapped the army doctor. Then again, it could still be on his To Do list.

  The remains of a campfire charred a large circle in the clearing, but where were…? Click. Crack. Crunch. Aaah, there they were. Beth raised her hands into the air, turned to stare down the wrong end of a pistol, an assault rifle and…she squinted into a shaded patch at what on earth was in the third guy’s hands…a long-handled hatchet. Seriously?

  “I’m looking for Clint,” she told them.

  The pistol waved her toward the vehicle. “Boss is in there.”

  “Now, don’t let’s be hasty.” The one with the Elvis Presley mutton chops looked her over. “Maybe we should strip search her.”

  “Your mouth’s bigger than your fucking brain,” muttered the one in shadows.

  The guy with the pistol gave big mouth a shove and all three melted off into the scrub again.

  Clint’s men were such a pleasure to have around. Not. Beth sighed and made her way around to the back of the vehicle. She put one foot on the bumper step and paused.

  I could still do it, take Alli and run.

  Would Clint hunt her down?

  She didn’t know.

  Would he go after Sean to extract his pound of flesh?

  She didn’t know and that wasn’t what had decided her mind in the small hours of the morning. At least she’d gotten last night with Alli. It was enough. Alli was alive, free, and soon she’d be on her way to some safe hideout in the Colorado mountains. That was enough.

  Beth drew aside the flap of canvas and climbed up onto the bed of the vehicle. The inside was lit up with a lantern and her eyes easily picked out Clint rummaging through the plastic bins and his new stash of weapons deeper in.

  “Taking inventory?” she called, letting the canvas fall closed behind her.

  “Catch,” he said and tossed.

  Beth caught and found she’d hooked a bedroll in her arms. Standard army issue. She wondered what else Clint and his men had been looting from the army camp, but she only arched a brow and said, “What am I supposed to do with this? Stitch my name tag?”

  “It’s not for you,” Clint said, coming around a stack of bins. “Help me make Samson’s sick bed.”

  “He’s okay to be moved?”

  “Depends on who who’re asking.” Clint shrugged. “Samson doesn’t want to sit around and be Silver bait any more than I do. He’ll be okay. The bullets tore through muscle, but missed all the major arteries and the army quack’s patched him good.”

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “Samson will be glad to hear you care.”

  She was surprised to find she did, although that was only part of it. Her chest restricted and she pulled the ties to let the bedding unroll, went down on her knees to spread it out so she didn’t have to look at Clint.

  “Listen, I’m here, but whatever you have planned for me, Sean can never know and it has to be far from here,” she said in a quiet, fiercely determined voice. “I won’t start another war over this.”

  “You haven’t told Sean?”

  She hadn’t told Alli, either. She’d given Lynn a watered down version of the truth, said she’d promised to join Clint’s gang and scavenge for him in exchange for his help. Lynn wasn’t happy about it, but she understood and she was the only one who could make Sean understand. Alli would never understand and never forgive, but that was okay. She’s alive. She’s going to be safe.

  Clint made his own de
ductions about her silence. “You make our business arrangement sound like some sordid back alley deal.”

  She tilted her head to glance up, to meet the bemusement in his eyes.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Beth,” he drawled. “In spite of your colorful suggestions, I would never hurt you.”

  “So you keep saying,” she said, not sharing his amusement, “and yet here we are, again.”

  “You walked yourself in here through the…” He glanced at the rear canvas and shrugged. “Through that flap.”

  “I gave you my word.”

  “And you kept it.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m starting to get the hang of this whole honor amongst thieves concept.”

  Clint gave a dry laugh. “You need my help again.”

  “Not yet.” Hopefully never…but you never know and it’s a small, violent world these days. If Sean, Lynn and Alli ran into trouble on their way to Colorado and needed Clint’s help, Beth didn’t want to be the reason he refused, not again.

  The humor in Clint’s eyes faded as he turned from her, ducked behind the plastic bins to the sounds of more rummaging. He came back with a grin and a bottle of amber liquid. “Your Captain Davis had a taste for the good stuff.”

  “So naturally you took it for yourself,” she snorted, shifting to sit with her back against the side of the truck bed as he settled down on the end of the bed roll.

  Clint uncapped the bottle, tipped it her way. When she didn’t take it, he added, “I’ve got something to say, and you’re too wound up to hear it.”

  She scowled. “The last time you said that to me, you stole my jeep.”

  “Just drink the damn whiskey,” he said in an oddly gruff tone. “It’ll put some fire in your belly.”

  “Just tell me.”

  He sighed and lifted the bottle to his lips. Gulped down the equivalent of a double shot before lowering the bottle, wiped his hand across his mouth, his eyes on her. “You should consider bringing your sister with us.”

  “No,” Beth choked out. “Absolutely not.”

  “She’d be under my protection,” he said firmly. “I’d never let anything happen to her.”

  Beth looked at him, her shallow breaths slowly easing. Clint was as tough on the inside as he was weathered and craggy on the outside, but she didn’t doubt him in this.

  “I know you wouldn’t,” she said, and her heart ached to say yes, to keep Alli with her, but that wouldn’t be fair. “Alli stays with Sean.”

  “Little Falls isn’t safe,” Clint said gravely. “It never was.”

  “We know that now and they’re not staying,” she said. “Sean wants to be gone by nightfall.”

  “Gone where?” demanded Clint.

  Beth hesitated, but couldn’t see the harm. Clint was too content amongst his ruins to go chasing off across the country. “There’s a research station built into the Colorado mountains. It sounds like a good, safe location.”

  “You’re sure it’s there, this research station?”

  “We know it’s there,” she said, stopping short of telling him they had it on good authority, the highest authority, straight from the president’s son.

  “Well…” He scratched his beard, thinking it through. “That changes things, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He drank from the bottle again, took his time before answering. “You’ve got someplace safer, better, to be,” he said. “I won’t keep you from that.”

  “You’re letting me go?”

  “You’re not exactly cuffed and bound,” he muttered. “For God’s sake, it’s not that inconceivable that I want what’s best for you.”

  “But what about your men?” she asked, the overwhelming relief she should be feeling clouded with suspicion. “You promised them my head on a platter, remember?”

  “You honestly believed I’d throw you to the wolves?”

  “Maybe, I don’t know,” she said irritably. “But I thought you’d at least make a show of pretending to appease their bloodthirst and need for vengeance.”

  “I’ll deal with my men,” Clint said dismissively.

  “That easy, huh?” Beth blew out a noisy breath, shaking her head at him. “You’re such a bastard, Clint. It was never your men, was it? You just refused to help because you could. It’s all a game to you, see how desperate the girl is, see how far you could push me, how low I’d sink to save my sister.”

  “Hold you damn horses.” Clint put a hand up. “Okay, I admit that wasn’t my finest hour, but I was angry.”

  “Because of Dale,” she said. “I get that, and I’m so, so sorry, Clint, about Dale, about the men you lost last night. If you don’t know how terribly sorry I am, then you don’t—”

  “That was only the half of it,” he growled. “I thought you got it, Beth, I sure as hell thought Sean got it. This isn’t our planet anymore. We’re damn cockroaches and cockroaches scurry in the dark, that’s how we survive. Instead I learn that you fools are living the quintessential small town life, carrying on as if the fucking end of the world never happened. Damn careless fools, with your lives and with the lives of my men, because I knew I couldn’t let you fight the Silvers on your own, that was never going to happen.”

  The bubble of irritation deflated over her. “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “We wanted to make a stand, to fight back.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “We grew complacent, we didn’t know what we were dealing with and we should have tried harder to find out, but that doesn’t make us wrong for wanting to try.”

  “Not wrong, just idealistic idiots.”

  “Says the cockroach,” she said with a smile.

  Clint grunted. “When you offered yourself to me, I only accepted because I thought at least that way I could keep an eye on you, keep you out of trouble.”

  “We made mistakes, and it nearly lost me Alli, and I know what they cost you, and the town. Too many good men and women are dead. I can’t even begin to thank you for coming to our rescue. We’ll take more care from here on out, I promise.”

  “I’ll take that,” he said and offered her a swig of whiskey again.

  This time she accepted, raised the bottle. “Here’s to you, here’s to me, and all the favors owed between us.” She threw back a large gulp, grimaced as the burn stroked her throat.

  Clint took the bottle back, warmth settling into his eyes as he looked at her. “I’m gonna miss you.”

  “Buena Vista, or a couple of miles west of there as the crow flies.” She’d looked it up on the map, had wanted a name to place where Alli would be instead of just a pair of coordinates. “That’s where we’ll be if you’re ever in the vicinity.”

  “Buena Vista.” His lips thinned in disgust. “Sounds like a damn postcard greeting.”

  “Don’t let that put you off,” she laughed. “I’m sure it’s perfectly horrid.”

  “Eh, we’ll see.” He raised the bottle at her. “I’ll keep my toast simple. Stay off the roads and the hell away from the towns. Take care, Beth, and safe passage.”

  Emotion thickened her throat and on a whim, she leant over, threw her arms around the gruff bear of a man. “You take care, too, Clint.”

  - 23 -

  Sean

  The rope ladder tugged at his feet. Cassie’s impatient reminder that she was coming up, whether there was anything to see or not.

  There wasn’t.

  Sean hauled himself onto the thick wall and shuffled aside to give her room before he sat, legs dangling over the side. He’d had one last thing to take care of. The dead Silver was loaded in the back of the truck. He had a plan of sorts. The Silver had gotten them inside the cages, maybe it work for the battlecruiser, too. But the hour’s drive to the hilltop fort had proved a total waste of time.

  The battlecruiser was gone.

  The smoky obsidian gate that had remained rooted into the ground was gone.

  The rubble and the ragged seams of the hole they’d blown out of the
wall was still there, but the Silvers had moved out and cleaned up their alien trash behind them.

  “Look on the bright side,” Cassie said as she scrambled up beside him. “At least we know they’re not planning on turning this place into another spa resort for human test subjects.”

  “There’s that,” Sean agreed. “It would have been nice, though, to get a look inside that ship.”

  “Is that all?” She straddled the wall, her gaze sliding past him, down into the valley and the square of packed dirt in the courtyard. “I was hoping we’d get the ship into the air. That would cut a hundred days off our road trip, give or take a day.”

  His eyes lifted from the valley, studied the thoughtful expression on her face.

  “What?” she said when he didn’t say anything.

  “You said our road trip.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re collecting stragglers left, right and center,” she said, a defensive edge to her tone. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I tagged along.”

  He wasn’t collecting them, but he couldn’t say no, either, not if there was a safe haven out there in the mountains.

  “I don’t mind,” he told Cassie. “What about your unit?”

  ”My unit?” She gave a dry, sober laugh. “SPU 14 doesn’t feel like mine, not anymore.”

  Sean put a hand on her arm, gentled his tone. “Because of them, or you?”

  The soldiers had been fully aware the whole time, and now they had to live with the Silvers’ atrocities and civilian blood on their hands. Cassie had turned her gun on her own unit, shot her captain in the head. It wasn’t simple, it wasn’t easy, it was a prime example of how effective the Silvers’ war machine was. Even when you win the damn battle, you lose.

  “It’s not only that,” she sighed, drifting into silence for a long moment. “It’s you.”

  Sean pulled his hand back to shove through his hair. “What have I done wrong now?”

  She swung her legs up, tucked her knees beneath her chin. “I thought I had it all figured out. Put my head down, do my duty, and maybe we’d save our small part of the world. And if everyone was doing that, saving their small part, that’s how we saved the whole world and all those left in it.”