Where We Stand

by Angela White

  The men on the area, Wade and Max, wouldn’t be getting up. Angela was the only one they were supposed to leave alive if caught.

  10

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Nothing,” Becky answered, finally starting to like her new life just a bit.

  She took in Seth’s tense posture and waved a hand. “Go on. I’ll find Angela for a check-in.”

  Seth was extremely uneasy. The voice in his mind had only shouted one word and he hadn’t been able to make it out clearly. Had it been a call for help?

  Seth thought so and began a round of the camp, searching for problems.

  Becky disappeared into the medial tent, but came out seconds later, with a pale man behind her. They’d all thought Angela was with Adrian.

  Adrian wasn’t worried about spooking the herd, only finding his lost lamb. He hit the radio. “Raven location?”

  Silence.

  “Raven, check in.”

  More thick silence.

  “Damn it!”

  Adrian went to do his own searching and Becky stayed with him, gun in hand. Too worried to think about anything else, Becky didn’t realize the honor she was being given by the other Eagles who let her guard their idol. They’d knew how serious she was now, how dangerous she could be. She’d been noticed.

  “Angela?”

  The calls began to float through camp, waking people who joined the search. It wasn’t long before the entire camp was roused, but the person they all wanted to see come from a camper or tent didn’t appear.

  Seth made it to the outer perimeter, not noticing anything out of place until he actually got to the tape. Behind the yellow banner was a section of their new fencing. It had been cut.

  Seth raised the alarm with worry burning brightly in his gut.

  11

  “Stop playing around and kill her!”

  Clifford reluctantly positioned his bloody blade at her throat. None of his wounds were deep so far. He wanted her to suffer first, but the drugs made that impossible.

  “Her hand’s showing!” the other child hissed. “Grab it.”

  Clifford snatched her wrist and jerked it under the tarp as the area flooded with people and light. All three of them were above-ground, only hidden by a cleverly painted tarp. They’d planned to stay down, drugging her until they could take her out of camp, but the plan was death if they were discovered–hers.

  A hard male voice cracked over the radio. “Lock us down! We have a breach in the north wall!”

  Three minutes after Seth’s call, Adrian and Kenn had followed Angela’s light, but well-known tracks to the animal area. A dozen men surrounded them as they searched.

  Seth ran through the camp, doing a fast search, and found himself in the animal area as if being called to it. Adrian and Kenn were busy scouring the ground for tracks, but Seth didn’t join them. He could almost feel her, almost smell her. What the hell? Was she hiding from them?

  Seth’s eyes widened as he made the connection, and motioned to Adrian.

  Adrian snorted angrily as the pieces fell into place. “We have a sleeper, gentlemen. Start kicking and slicing the trees and ground. If you hit a vein, let them bleed.”

  No one said Angela might be hit, but many of them were thinking it.

  “She’s here,” Seth declared suddenly. “I’m close.”

  Before he could kick the area in front of him, a dart sailed out and plunged into his thigh.

  “Seth!”

  Becky was at his side as he fell, ignoring the warnings from the men around them.

  Another dart flew out of nowhere and hit her in the neck.

  “There!”

  Adrian and Kenn tackled the tarp-covered forms that sprang up and tried to run.

  “There she is!”

  Eagles surrounded Angela’s bloody body, glad to find her breathing. Each time this happened, the feeling that they would only recover a body was stronger.

  It quickly became clear that the assassins weren’t adults to be handled in the usual way. Kenn made the discovery after knocking Clifford unconscious through the tarp.

  The boy fell out of cover and Kenn leaned back in revulsion. “Who the hell send kids to do their wet work?”

  Adrian shoved the other boy into Kyle’s angry arms. “Our enemy. Dump them outside the fence and get the hole patched up.”

  “You can’t win. Surely you know that.”

  The matter-of-fact tone of the second child chilled the blood of the men listening. What had this child been through that he held no compassion?

  Adrian waved Kenn on and the Marine hefted the unconscious child over his shoulder, then pointed the way. “Start walking or I’ll knock you out, too.”

  The sullen boy did as he was told, throwing glowers over his shoulder at Adrian.

  “I’ll get the doctor,” Cynthia offered.

  “I’m here.”

  They peered up to find Jennifer pulling the bleary new man through the trees. She didn’t let go until he was at Angela’s feet.

  They were all quiet as the doctor examined Angela’s wounds, then started binding them.

  “Well?” Becky asked snottily. “Your mouth work?”

  Dr. Brooke frowned up at the girl. “As well as yours. You got a question? Ask it.”

  Becky flushed angrily. “Is she okay?”

  He tied off a bandage. “All shallow, only a few stitches needed, breathing’s good. Help me get her to the medical tent.”

  Kenn and Kyle unloaded their burdens at the fence after taking their darts.

  “Go on. Get lost.”

  The older boy immediately turned west and began walking.

  “Hey!” Kyle called. “Take him with you!”

  The boy didn’t slow down or even glare at them.

  “He was supposed to kill her, not slice her up. He’s your problem now.”

  Kenn and Kyle stared after him in shock, both thinking a quiet bullet right now would be the best solution for both intruders.

  They turned away reluctantly. Assassins or not, these were only brainwashed kids who should be with their mother, not roaming the wastelands on murder missions. It was yet another heinous crime that their enemy would be made to pay for.

  12

  “Where was her shadow?”

  Adrian looked around in fury. “Who had duty?”

  Zack pointed to the two bodies in the shadows. “Wade and Max.”

  Adrian swore under his breath. The enemy knew kids wouldn’t be suspected. He’d almost lost her again. It was time to implement the second part of Brady’s plan. Angela wouldn’t like it, but she couldn’t argue now.

  Adrian spotted Charlie and Conner near the QZ gate, and joined them in their observations of the unconscious boy.

  “Do you know him?”

  Conner’s voice was cold. “Clifford and his brother were in charge of the others. They like pain.”

  “And what do you think we should do with him?”

  “He’ll probably take off as soon as he wakes,” Conner stated. “Charlie and I want to deliver a warning for him to take.”

  Adrian left the teenagers alone, able to feel their anger. When the fight started, these two would be in the thick of it, extracting their pound of flesh. The enemy had no idea how big of a mistake this was. Even the camp members were calling for blood, many of them lining the tape behind Conner and Charlie. When the peace-loving herd wanted blood, there was hell to be paid.

  13

  “Please… help me.”

  The pitiful whisper made the man seem more human and Sam moved closer, as she always did in her dreams, her nightmares.

  “What can I do?”

  “Kill me,” came the immediate answer.

  Before she could tell him no, her hand raised the gun.

  The man moaned. A wet, liquid sound, she heard the grinding of his jaws as he coughed violently. Scarlet flew from his mouth, ejecting one of his teeth, and reddish drops of agony rolled down his distorted face.

>   “Please!” he begged.

  Sam raised the gun again as his gasps for air filled the room. His body was no longer responding to his commands, the radiation destroying him from the inside out.

  The man raised a finger, skin sliding nauseatingly to the side of the bone. “Please…do it now. Don’t know... anything else.”

  She tried to smile as she raised the gun. “I’m Samantha.”

  “Pat... M-Michaels.”

  She smiled in horrified recognition, and when he closed his eyes and tried to nod, she pulled the trigger.

  The shot echoed, his body jumping like Melvin’s had when she hit him with the Taser.

  Sam jerked awake, covered in a fine sweat.

  She sat there, listening to the active camp as she tried to get her breathing under control. Pat Micheals was a ghost she would be haunted by forever.

  Samantha slowly became aware that there was a problem. The voices were loud for this time of night and angry. Footsteps weren’t crunching peacefully, but stomping about in determination. Something happened.

  Samantha hurried to pull on her boots, mind going to her men. Were they okay?

  Haunted by her nightmare, Samantha wasn’t ready to be grabbed as soon as she came from the tent. Her shriek pierced the air.

  Neil let go as if burnt. “Hey, it’s okay! It’s Neil! Easy.”

  Samantha breathing came in gasps.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Nightmare,” she forced out, sending a sheepish look around to let those who’d come running know she wasn’t hurt. “Sorry. I’m jumpy.”

  “With good reason,” Neil stated and quickly filled her in.

  “Until they’re finished sweeping camp, I’d like you to stay close.”

  Sam didn’t have a problem with that. “Where’s…”

  “Right behind you.”

  Samantha turned to find Jeremy helping calm the camp, and felt her heart ease from the knot it had twisted into. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if anything ever happened to either of her men.

  “I need to check the showers and supply trucks. Come on.”

  Samantha fell in on Neil’s right, giving Jeremy a soft smile as they went by. She could tell he’d been concerned for her too, had probably been waiting for her and Neil to show up so that he could concentrate on his duty. She loved him for it. They may hate the setup, but it was powerful.

  Jeremy caught sight of the female trailing them and rolled his eyes. Didn’t Bridget understand they were Sam’s? Everyone else did.

  14

  Bridget kept after the couple even when they both turned to glare at her. She wanted Neil, wanted them both to know it. The trooper would be hers before too much longer. She had a plan.

  “Neil, can you…”

  “Not now!”

  His tone was sharper than Bridget felt it needed to be and she turned for camp in a huff. “Keep blowing me off, Neil. You won’t sense my hit until it flattens you.”

  Samantha couldn’t stay quiet, not after the way she’d woken. “You need to talk to her if you’ve changed your mind about me.”

  Neil stiffened. He hadn’t thought Samantha knew that he’d accepted the offer from Bridget. “I don’t want her.”

  Samantha did what she didn’t want to. She offered him freedom. “You’re entitled to company when I’m not around, Neil.”

  “And Jeremy?” Neil blurted out. “Is it okay for him, too?”

  “Yes.”

  Neil stopped, hands going to her shoulders. “But will you still want us… me?”

  Samantha ran a gentle hand along Neil’s jaw, but couldn’t lie. “No.”

  “That’s not fair,” he protested half-heartedly. He didn’t want anyone else.

  Samantha sighed. “Yes, it is unfair, but that’s life in case you hadn’t noticed.”

  Neil had known deep down and wasn’t as upset as he knew he should be. “I had, as a matter of fact.”

  Neil slid his arm around her waist and pulled her close as he got them moving, trying not to consider what would happen for them if Jeremy found someone else and Samantha refused to be with him anymore. The odds on that were as likely as himself running into someone else’s arms. The descendants let their mark on a person, be it man or women, and there was no escape. When they wanted you, that was all that mattered.

  15

  By dawn, there was a large group of camp people and Eagles waiting around the QZ gate. Clifford hadn’t woken yet from Kenn’s single hit, but they were all waiting for him to. His reception wasn’t going to be nice, but it was the only thing these caged-in camp members could do. They wouldn’t leave the safety of the fences, however. Conner and Charlie were the only ones to do that, with a heavy escort.

  Clifford began to groan as he woke, and Conner motioned for Charlie to be ready for an attack. “They train us to shoot first.”

  Clifford hated the two boys on sight, but he seemed to know an attack would get him killed by the Eagles clustered around them.

  “What do you want?” he snarled angrily, standing up. “Kill me and be done with it.”

  “We don’t kill kids,” Charlie stated, trying to get inside his mind. “Why would you work for someone who does?”

  “They don’t kill us,” Clifford spat. “They send us out to…”

  “Die,” Conner interrupted. “They didn’t expect you to accomplish the mission. Your deaths were only meant to scare.”

  Clifford sneered. “I could have killed her. I had the chance.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  Clifford spotted Angela on the other side of the fence and lunged her way.

  Conner and Charlie hit him at the same time. It was a mental blast that took the rebellious child to the ground.

  “I killed his brother, in Garret’s compound.”

  Charlie glanced up in surprise as he read it from her mind. “You did that?”

  Angela didn’t betray her own waves of guilt. “Yes. This is war.”

  Clifford began foaming at the mouth, held in place by invisible bonds that the camp was staring at in suspicion and wonder. “Let me go! I have to hurt her!”

  Anger surged from the crowd around Angela and she calmed them down with only a few words. “He’s not staying, but it’s not all his fault, either, The same as it wasn’t with Matt. Outside influences change things. You all know that.”

  Angela waved for the Eagles to escort her boys into the QZ gates. It made her nervous to have them outside of it.

  “Let him up. He’ll leave. Won’t you?”

  Clifford tried to resist the voice in mind, her voice. He didn’t want her there!

  “No!” he paused, shaking with the effort of battling her in his mind. “Get out!”

  Angela raised a hand and jerked it toward her.

  Clifford froze like he’d been shot, then slumped over.

  “She killed him.”

  “Is he dead?”

  “He deserves to be!”

  “Did you catch that?”

  “She did that without a knife…”

  Angela lowered her arm and slowly turned to face them. “He’s sleeping. When he wakes up, he won’t remember ever being here. Let’s pack up and roll.”

  For one instant, no one moved, each making their choices. The casual demonstration of power had been done so openly that shock was the biggest emotion and the bubble above them vanished.

  Unaware of the power-shift that could happen here, Charlie gave Clifford a nudge with his foot as he went by, but saved the vicious kick he’d wanted to deliver for his mom’s injuries. It was hard to hate the boy after hearing the ugliness in is mind. It was easier to pity.

  The camp felt vindicated by Charlie’s action, and it snapped them out of the fearful consideration they’d fallen into. With only a few leery looks, they began to go to their tents and vehicles. In the parking area, Sam and the water team left mostly unnoticed.

  Angela didn’t look at any of them, including Adrian. She could feel his rage
at her choice to expose herself without any protection plans, but it hadn’t been something she’d meant to do yet. Clifford’s mind was indeed ugly. There was no chance they would ever turn him to their side. Making him forget it all for a while was the best thing she could do. Killing him, a ten year old boy, wasn’t ever considered. Safe Haven didn’t do that to her children, any of them, and Clifford would have been one of theirs if fate hadn’t decreed him to serve the other side.

  “What’ll happen to him?” Charlie asked.

  “They’ll take him back when he remembers who he is and reaches their bunker,” Adrian said. “They don’t have many as angry as that one. They’ll want him.”

  “Will he be punished for failing?”

  “Of course. Our enemy has no mercy.”

  16

  “Why are we stopping?” Samantha asked groggily.

  Neil put it in park. “We’re a mile away. We’ll go in at first light so we can evaluate the danger.”

  Samantha shrugged sleepily. “Makes sense.”

  “You okay?”

  Samantha opened her door as the guards gave an all clear sign. She’d fallen asleep not too long they’d piled into the trucks. The nightmare had drained her.

  “Yeah, just tired.”

  “We’ll get you in a tent and fed, asap.”

  Samantha snorted in protest. “I’ll take a bedroll like everyone else and you’re not allowed to cook. I know all about you.”

  Neil chuckled. “I was the king of the microwave. Never used flame.”

  “It shows. I need to do some… searching.”

  “Stay in the perimeter.”

  Samantha didn’t answer, slowly wandering westward, and Neil waved two of his team with her. She had a job to do, too.

  Samantha sank down to the sloppy ground, ignoring the shadows and the mud, listening. The wind gusted against her, cool and dry now, and the blades of grass trembled delicately under her fingertips.

  Waves of energy, of life and also death came through the ground, powerful, unstoppable. Despite all the damage mankind had inflicted, mother earth had woken and was trying to heal herself–violently where necessary and even where it wasn’t.

  “What do you feel, Sammi?”