Where We Stand

by Angela White

  Jeremy’s soft question brought an unhappy expression to her face. “More death. There was an earthquake, I think, in the west.”

  “The west?” Jeremy repeated incredulously. She could sense things that far away now?

  “The tremors are still rolling out, sending vibrations through the earth’s crust. I can’t pinpoint it without equipment, but it’s too strong to be from the coast and too weak to be from the New Madrid line.”

  Jeremy had his notebook out. “Worst case?”

  “It’s Yellowstone. If that happens, we only have a few weeks until the winds carry the ashes our way. You know what that is?”

  Jeremy’s mind raced, bringing up history channel specials viewed under better days. “Glass, right? Tiny shards?”

  “Yes. We breathe it, we die. If Yellowstone blows, we’ll have to hole up immediately.”

  “It’s okay,” Jeremy tried to soothe as he finished writing her notes. “She’ll make plans for it.”

  “You’ll tell her as soon as we get home.”

  Jeremy ran a calming hand over Samantha’s hair. “Right now, if you think I should.”

  Samantha relaxed at being believed. She still hadn’t gotten over those scars. “It’s okay for now. Just don’t forget to tell her.”

  “I won’t.” Jeremy gently took her by the arm. “Come on. Neil’s got the food ready.”

  “I told him he wasn’t allowed to cook,” Sam groaned.

  “So do the rest of us,” Jeremy joked. “We always offer to trade, but he insists that he’ll get better with practice.”

  “That makes sense,” Samantha caved.

  “No, it doesn’t,” Jeremy snorted. “It’s been seven months. The taste never changes.”

  “Burnt?” Sam guessed, leaning against his heat.

  “Shit,” Jeremy replied promptly.

  Samantha’s laughter floated over the wastelands and brought life with it. Eggs hatched, bugs dug their way from the ground, and birds broke into song.

  Jeremy missed all of it, busy thinking about getting her settled, but Samantha noticed and was overjoyed to have nature respond. Her gifts had evolved into power that she’d never dreamed to be honored with.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “For what?” Jeremy asked.

  Samantha grinned. “Not you, Fate. I’m glad I’m here, that I am who I am now. The War changed everything.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  7/24

  1

  “Our lookouts at the reservoirs gave a clear. No signs of soldiers, Marc, or anyone else.”

  Quinn wrote it in the logbook they were keeping. “What about the avenues of approach?”

  Shane grimaced. “Roughly halfway. You expecting him soon?”

  Quinn hesitated. What he said here and now, they would hold him to. He looked around at the waiting men, recognizing their hope and their fear. “You guys have met Brady, right? He doesn’t answer to me. And yes, he’s alive. I repeat, you’ve met him, right?’

  There were grins and relieved snorts at that, breaking the tension and reminding them who they were talking about. They’d seen him in the cage and on missions. Marc was a badass.

  “He’ll come when he’s supposed to,” Quinn added another layer of faith. “Angela’s behind us. No way he doesn’t make it back to Safe Haven and we’re his direct path to there. Now go get those AAs covered. I want it all online when he shows up.”

  No one protested the order. Quinn was a steady leader and the danger hadn’t reached them yet.

  Once he was alone, Quinn went to the window, looking west. “Where are you?”

  As if conjured, the radio on the table crackled.

  “Are we 5-by, Quinn?”

  Quinn flew to the radio, beating the other men who came from the hallway.

  Those suddenly energized males ran off to inform everyone that they’d gotten a call.

  “You know it,” Quinn sent, grinning from ear to ear. He controlled the urge to babble in relief like a school boy.

  “Send a rider,” Marc’s weary tone ordered. “The fighting will start soon. It’s time for Safe Haven to make the calls. Adrian will know what it means.”

  Quinn wrote it down, hoping for more, but there was only a parting warning.

  “Watch your six. It’s been way too quiet here.”

  Quinn took it to heart, snapping into full alert. “You got it, Boss.”

  Quinn immediately went to draft a rider. After two weeks, he was sure Angela was ready for news.

  2

  The first thing Marc’s group saw upon leaving tribal lands was the shadow of a lone woman standing at a grave site. Surrounded by a dozen crude markers, she didn’t react as his group of twenty approached her.

  The woman wore a long cloak. With the hood down, Marc spotted rough scars set in weathering skin. What had this one been through?

  He held up a hand for the men to wait and slowly moved closer, sure she’d heard them. It was hard not to notice new sounds in this quiet world.

  When she didn’t turn, Marc swung down from his horse, hands loose and ready. Assassins came in any gender.

  He came to her right, picking out the shapes of guns on her hips and a wrist-blade on her arm. It was such an instant reminder of Angela that Marc froze for a second. God, I miss you.

  Kendle knew danger was on her once again, but she was too tired to run or try hiding. She wasn’t even sure she had the strength to talk. Her eyes went over the markers, lingering on Luke’s. He’d known it was coming and she hadn’t believed him, hadn’t stopped it.

  “Are you…” Marc had started to ask if she was okay, but he caught sight of the disfigurements that lined nearly every inch of her skin and couldn’t force it out. She’d survived whatever horror the War had thrown at her, like the rest of them, but she wouldn’t ever really be okay again.

  “I’m Brady.”

  “Kendle.”

  Her voice held a thousand years of pain and Marc felt like Adrian must, when he could offer some hope. “There’s a refugee camp in the east. Safe Haven is a good place to heal and find peace.”

  Kendle’s rage was instant. Marc could feel it over the wind and through his clothes before she turned to glare at him.

  “I will never have peace. There’s only blood for me now.”

  Glowing red met his gaze and the words, though striking, didn’t matter.

  Marc stared at the kindred, the tortured soul who held secrets that matched his own, and gently took her arm. “If you want to fight, I have room.”

  Kendle allowed him to lead her toward the group of Indians, not betraying any surprise of seeing so many men in one place. It didn’t matter to her. Nothing did except satisfying this lust for blood.

  “She is ill,” Red Stone stated, moving back.

  “She’s been changed by the War,” Marc explained. “We can help her.”

  “I will not have a crazy woman…”

  Kendle’s quick lunge was beyond Marc’s control. Her hands went over Red Stone’s chest, shoving him off his horse.

  She swung up into his place with a sneer, controlling his big horse with little effort. “I killed every one of them. I am no woman. I am a Rage Walker.”

  Marc grinned at the Apache’s surprise. “She’s a little like me, only less… friendly.”

  Since Marc wasn’t considered that at all, it led the group to believe she was also lethal.

  Marc immediately began encouraging that thought. He recognized Kendle as a haunted victim, but he also knew that fire. She would fight with them and be good at it, the same as Angela would if she were here.

  “He’ll like the island woman…”

  The demon began spitting out plans to turn Kendle into Angela for that very purpose. If Adrian had his own special warrior woman, he wouldn’t need Marc’s.

  Drawing on Angela’s training, Marc gave Kendle a hard look. “Give him his horse. You’ll ride with me until I find you one.”

  Kendle slid from the
horse and strode over to Marc without argument, fearless despite her female weaknesses.

  He grabbed her arm. “If you disrespect my men, they will not protect you in battle.”

  Kendle pulled out of his grip, heart slow and steady. “I don’t need their protection. And don’t touch me. Ever.”

  Marc raised his hands in mock defense, but didn’t scold further. Her courage would help her bond with these men.

  Marc swung into the saddle, and Kendle made the jump behind him without waiting for his arm. Her hands went to his shoulders and Marc kneed the horse without waiting for her to get set.

  Kendle hung on tightly, eventually moving to hug his lean waist, and Marc refused to let the feeling of her curves offer a distraction. She would be treated like any other rookie on his team and then he would take her to Safe Haven and gift her, very carefully, to Adrian.

  3

  “What happened back there?”

  Kendle didn’t give him the details. She wasn’t capable of it.

  “They went insane and I killed them. Luke knew it was coming. He...” Her voice choked. “He thanked me!”

  Marc felt her shudder and refused to let himself have sympathy yet. “Why not yourself?’

  Kendle was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, it was chilling.

  “I’m supposed to die somewhere else. My path isn’t complete.”

  Marc knew the feeling, though not the sense that death was on his shoulders. But then, he wasn’t sick.

  “Is it catching?”

  “Not from me. Luke was the carrier. We brought it with us from the island, after the pirates came.”

  “We’ve seen it here. You didn’t bring it,” Marc refuted, not comforted by the news that the south was also fighting their own wars. That was the direction Adrian planned to take Safe Haven.

  Kendle didn’t let the relief heal her heart at all. “Just helped it travel.”

  Marc didn’t argue that point. He had a different one to confirm. “You’ll expect me to kill you when you go that far.”

  “Yes.”

  Marc felt another part of his heart break off and die. “I will and I won’t hesitate.”

  “We understand each other.”

  “Yes.”

  Marc waited for more, but there was only her hot body against his and her light breathing near his ear.

  Running on instinct, Marc shoved into her mind. “You know what I am?”

  Kendle shuddered against him. “Like me.”

  “Yes.”

  They didn’t need to speak about it. Being this way was isolating and neither of them could have explained how it felt to be so different.

  “Why didn’t you go to Safe Haven?” he asked.

  Kendle shrugged, becoming sore already from the bounce of the saddle under her thighs. “I dream about the west and a fight. It’s one we were all on our way to join.”

  Marc heard the anger, but also the desolation underneath in her next statement.

  “It’s the only place we would have been welcome.”

  “Would have been?” he questioned, steeling himself to her pain. This wasn’t his Angie.

  “I don’t think I’ll make it now,” she confessed lowly. “This rage grows faster than I can keep up with.”

  Marc recognized her need and answered it. “You’ll be on our front lines. No one will hold you back. Use that information.”

  Kendle doubted it would be enough. He had no idea how much she longed to draw her knife across his throat and feel that sweet blood cover them both.

  Marc felt the cool chill of danger on the nape of his neck and slowly brought them to a stop. The demon was whispering terrible things and he was listening.

  “The government has an antidote.”

  Kendle froze, processing that sentence. She could be whole again!

  Marc felt her relax and knew he’d chosen the right lie to give. He doubted there had ever been a disease like this one before the War, let alone a cure for it. Kendle would die on the front lines she was longing for and he would be the one to take her there. Oh, how he hated fate at that moment!

  It didn’t stop him from doing his duty, though, and Marc turned them toward Denver with a bleeding soul and a racing mind. So many new plans had sprung up that he was now the one who felt like he couldn’t wait for a moment alone to examine them.

  Knowing he was distracted, Marc fell to the middle of their party to let the others scan for trouble. He needed to consider the new scheme the demon had suggested. It was brutal, treacherous, and absolutely friggin perfect.

  Marc’s concentration was noticed by Paul and Jax, and neither rookie interrupted him. They’d witnessed that expression before. It was dangerous.

  Kendle listened to Marc’s mind, aware that he’d lied and not caring. Once said, her brain and soul had latched onto it. What did he know? Maybe there really was a cure and when they went into battle, it would be a simple matter of torture to find out the truth.

  Kendle rested against Marc and allowed herself to doze. Hope was a powerful calmative.

  4

  Paul and Jax had no problems with Kendle being along. They’d gotten used to having females on duty with them, and on supply runs. It was the bond between her and Marc that each of them felt concern for. It was clear from their first night of camping that she wanted to be close to him. Marc had refuse her and spent an hour drilling her on fighting instead. While they rode, she picked up on the training he was giving them, doing well with her knife.

  It was that common link, those little moments that said she was Brady’s kind, that kept the rookies from offering friendship and left Kendle with only Marc to talk to. The Indians ignored her for the most part, glad when he kept her busy. It wasn’t easy having her along, especially when she refused to look away while they changed clothes or bathed, but they adjusted over the four days it took them to get to Denver. Kendle was different, disturbed, was the common thought among all the group.

  Marc agreed with that assessment, but he also saw the woman she’d been. So would people in the camp who’d spent time even surfing channels in the old world. The survival queen would be an asset. Marc didn’t doubt his choice, but it did make him realize how unfair he’d been to Angela when they first come to Safe Haven.

  “That is why you lost her,” the demon confirmed. “If you had supported her, she would be yours still.”

  Marc didn’t respond, but the words kept him from sleep.

  He took up a spot close to the fire, shaking his head at Kendle when she would have left their bedroll and joined him. He couldn’t be close to her with these thoughts in his mind. She might be able to read him and that wouldn’t do.

  “You are restless,” Natoli commented, holding out a tin cup. “Is there trouble?”

  Marc took a healthy swing of the homemade liquor.

  “In my mind,” he gasped out. “Too many voices.”

  The Choctaw warrior sat down across from him and began loading a long pipe that he hadn’t used before now. When Natoli began to smoke, the thick tobacco permeated the air and layered the fire in fog.

  Marc stared at the swirling white and gold, the flames mesmerizing as they tried to survive the lack of oxygen.

  Natoli exhaled again and the flames disappeared. A third lungful covered Marc in the fog and he huddled there, alone and isolated.

  “You walk a hard path.”

  Natoli’s voice was no longer that of a single warrior, but of all Indian warriors. In his tones was the strength of generations yet to come.

  “Do not stop on the path,” Natoli warned, aware that he’d gone into a trance in front of everyone, something he’d never done before. “Aid comes from many places.”

  The fog began to dissipate on the cold breeze and Marc raised his eyes to Natoli.

  “The woman must be trained and fed, or I will have to kill her, as she did to the people she traveled with before. They have a sickness that makes them feel so much hatred, only blood is satisfying.”

>   “She is a blood-taker?” Natoli asked in horror.

  “Not to eat or drink. Seeing it is the cure.”

  “We have found others like that. They do eat and drink of their victims. We have slaughtered them all.”

  Marc didn’t lie. “I cannot promise it won’t get that bad. Only that when it does, I’ve given her my word that I’ll handle it.”

  Natoli studied Marc, then Kendle’s form that was breathing too evenly to be sleeping. “You would kill your woman?”

  Marc didn’t correct that impression, though his heart protested. If he said he had no interest in Kendle, she would belong to one of these men a minute later. “Yes. Nothing will be allowed to interfere.”

  “Sometimes the spirit puts temptations in our path to test our determination and honor,” Natoli stated.

  “And sometimes they gift you with weapons,” Marc added, leaning forward. “She has incredible power, my friend. And she wants to spill blood…”

  Natoli began grinning as Marc’s plan became clearer. “You will set her loose on the soldiers.”

  “Yes. She hates them more than we do. She thinks they let the rage disease loose during the War, that they’ve caused all this to keep secrets covered up that would have lost them power. She’s a weapon that only needs the proper aiming and care.”

  Those words got every man listening on board, as Marc had known it would. He’d been stewing over the decision to use Kendle on the front lines since seeing her eyes. He’d known right then that she was strong, but since, she’d only proven it by not complaining and being able to keep up. When they camped, she did her own hunting and cleaning, and made a fire to cook it on. The Indians had begun to view her like he needed them to and Marc had chosen to go through with the demon’s brutal plan. The enemy would never suspect them of bringing women along, and it would give them a few small advantages during battle that Marc would use.

  Aware that no one was fooled by her act, Kendle slowly sat up and let her hands go to work on her kit. Marc had given it to her yesterday, telling her to braid all the straps and then he’d fill it for her. While her fingers went over the rawhide strings, Kendle searched the darkness mentally. Killing the fox hadn’t been nearly enough. Animals didn’t bleed the way people did, didn’t smell the same.