The Renegades (Book 5): United

by Jack Hunt

  A loud knock at the house door startled me. It wasn’t a knock as much as a fist banging hard against it. They were coming in.

  CHAPTER 15

  BAJA

  JESS HADN’T MADE it there. With all the roadblocks we had managed to catch up with her. Rowan jumped out of his vehicle and in true caveman style yanked her off the bike and carried her back to the jeep. She was cursing and smacking him all the way. I’m surprised she didn’t take an eye out with the way she was clawing at his hair and face. When he reached the jeep he tossed me the keys to the motorbike.

  “You drive it back.”

  “Rowan, put me down,” Jess was yelling

  “I’ve never driven one.”

  “Well, now’s your time to learn.”

  My eyes widened at the thought of it. All my life I had driven regular cars. Never once had I got on a motorbike. It wasn’t that I didn’t like the things, but after seeing someone have a gnarly accident, I just gave them a wide berth.

  “You know what, it’s probably best you drive it.” I tossed the keys back. He blew out his cheeks and tossed Jess in the rear seat. “Now behave. Holy crap, what the hell did you think you were doing?”

  “Izzy’s dead because of that bastard.”

  “And you think you are going to change matters by acting all suicidal? You wouldn’t have got within spitting distance of that guy.”

  “At least I would have tried.”

  “Listen, I’m not going to argue with you now, enough is enough.”

  I guessed all the yelling caught the attention of Fritz’s men as they were making their way down to us.

  “What is going on?”

  “It’s nothing,” Rowan said. “Just a family dispute.”

  “Show your ID’s.”

  One by one we pulled them out and handed them over. They radioed back in our details. We fully expected them to yank us over to a truck and haul us away but they didn’t.

  “Just get that heap of shit off the road.” The one guy gave a nod to the bike.

  “Will do.” Rowan tossed Jess a disapproving look before he went over and got on the bike. It rumbled to life, he turned it back around and shot by us without even a nod or glance.

  “Don’t say a word,” Jess said as I got into the jeep. “Just get me home.”

  I did a huey in the road and started heading back just grateful that none of us had ended up with a bullet in us. The journey back to Montauk was slow and for the most part Jess said nothing.

  “We all miss her, Jess.”

  “Don’t you even dare.”

  “I miss her more than anything. Hell, I loved Izzy but do you think she would have wanted you to do this?”

  “You sound like Johnny.”

  “Yeah, well maybe he talked some sense into me. Perhaps I can do the same for you.”

  The relationship between myself and Jess had always felt a little odd. If it wasn’t for Johnny dating her, I doubt we would have ever given each other a passing look in the hallways of our high school back in Castle Rock. When I’d learned that Johnny started seeing her I had to admit, I was kind of weirded out by it. Back then she was the new girl in town. Johnny had a thing for anyone that looked lost and new. It probably didn’t help that her father was a cop. I was pretty sure he had told her to stay away from our group.

  Our group were the oddballs, hers the influential, Izzy’s well… her father was in everyone’s business. Then of course there was Dax, he was just in a category of his own. So much had changed in the time we had been together. The year inside the community had drawn us back into our social cliques. Even in an apocalypse it could happen. People were people at the end of the day. Given enough peace, people soon gravitated back to who they were before the upheaval.

  “I kind of feel bad.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Well you know, the way things turned out for you and Johnny. I wished I hadn’t opened my mouth now.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I don’t know about that. Seems that way. Anyway, I just assumed you would give him another chance.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, everyone deserves another chance, don’t they? I mean hell, if this whole apocalypse has taught us anything it’s that humanity makes mistakes. Okay, admittedly this was one for the history books but I didn’t see what he did as anything anyone else wouldn’t have.”

  “What about sleeping with someone else?”

  “Oh come on, Jess. He had no way of knowing if he was going to live to see the next day. Everyone has been finding comfort in whatever they can. Whether that is at the bottom of a bottle or in the arms of someone else. Who knows when we are going to leave this mortal coil?”

  “So that makes it okay?”

  I glanced at her as we drove by a family that looked as if they were packing up their vehicle to leave. Good luck. The chances of them being let out alive were slim. Whatever Fritz had planned, I didn’t think it just involved the cure. His ego was too big for that. No doubt he would want to govern over everyone, and create his own version of the community. However screwed up that was.

  “I’m not saying it’s okay, Jess. I’m just thinking that the way you handled it was a little harsh.”

  “How I handled it?” She got all uppity and red-faced. I knew I was walking on dangerous ground but I thought it needed to be said. Johnny wouldn’t have said it. Or maybe he had but she didn’t listen.

  “He risked his ass back there at Rikers. He risked a lot trying to find you. Hell, Dax wouldn’t have died had it not been for the fact that we came looking for you.”

  “Oh, don’t you dare try and place Dax’s death on me.”

  There was a break in the conversation. I could see that I had stepped over the line and probably shouldn’t have said what I had. But I called it as I saw it. Facts were facts, he had risked his life trying to find her and after all that, she just decided she was going to hook up with someone else. Okay, maybe he didn’t deserve to have her. Maybe he shouldn’t have thought with his dick but it didn’t take away from the fact that everything he had done from the Fortress to here had been for her. At least that was the way I saw it.

  “You hurt the guy.”

  “Oh fuck off, Baja. What about how I felt?”

  “Point taken,” I said. “But couldn’t you have worked it out? I mean according to him you started seeing Rowan before you even found out if it was true. I mean, him and Danielle. It’s almost like you wanted out. Hell, maybe you were glad to know that he’d hooked up with someone else as it made it that much easier to hook up with Rowan.”

  She tossed me the bird. “Can you go a bit faster? I’m getting tired of listening to your shit.”

  “That’s your problem, you don’t listen to anyone. You are as bad as Johnny.”

  “People change, Baja. You wouldn’t know that, would you?”

  “Yeah, just toss it back at me. You probably did the same to Johnny?”

  She swiveled in her seat. Her eyes narrowing, her lips pursed. If I had hit a sore point before, I had just hit the jugular now.

  “What the hell has it got to do with you?”

  “Uh, maybe because I actually give a shit about you and Johnny. You guys had something. Call it what you will. But you had something that others don’t get. Some type of chemistry. But you passed it up at the first sign of someone else showing you attention.”

  “Bullshit. He cheated on me.”

  “Oh and you’re such an angel, Jess. What about at that party back in Castle Rock a year before the shit hit the fan?”

  She frowned, deep lines formed along the top of her brow.

  “What party?”

  “Rachael Weathers.”

  Then it dawned on her.

  “Oh yeah, I saw you and that guy. I never mentioned it to Johnny but I think he knew.”

  “And?”

  “You are the pot calling the kettle black.”

  “I still don’t see why this has anything
to do with you?”

  “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “What?”

  “In those weeks after we arrived here, he watched you guys every day on that balcony. I saw him. Every day, like clockwork. But I have a feeling you knew that. I think you purposely flaunted yourself with Rowan in front of him just to get a reaction out of him. You fed off his misery.”

  She scoffed. “You are crazy.”

  “Am I?” I paused. We were getting close to the house. I could see she was getting more and more agitated by the direction of the conversation. “Yeah, I know you think I’m not all there, but I pay attention to the little things. There’s not much that slips by my eyes. I think you got bored with him, perhaps you get bored with everyone. Johnny. Rowan. I wouldn’t be surprised if you hooked up with someone new in a year or three years from now. I think it has less to do with Johnny and more to do with you.”

  She looked away. “I’m not listening to this shit.”

  “That’s right, you only tune in to your own radio station.”

  “Stop the jeep, I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  I pulled up and she hopped out.

  “I don’t see why you feel the need to bring this up again.”

  “Because you tore him apart, and he’s my friend.”

  She scoffed. “I tore him apart? Let’s not forget you were the one who told me. You did it, not me.”

  “Let’s face the facts, Jess. You get scared and run when someone actually gives a shit about you. You don’t know how to handle it. So Johnny made a mistake. So what? You did too back in Castle Rock. But to turn your back on him the way you did, that’s not right.”

  She tossed up a finger and kept walking. The truth was hard to hear.

  I drove past her and saw her in my mirror looking back. I shook my head. In over a year she had barely spoken to him. She was too focused on herself. Too consumed with what she got versus what mattered to him.

  When I pulled up in front of the house, Rowan was scowling. “Where is she?”

  “She’s walking.”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “Something she should have heard a year ago.”

  CHAPTER 16

  THE MEN who’d knocked on the door were inside rooting around. Wren and I sat there quietly. There was a lock on the outside of the door. The owner of the house had locked it after we ducked inside. Why anyone would have placed a lock on a small room below the stairs led me to wonder who lived here before. I know it wasn’t that family. I’d seen photos on the walls of strangers. Either way it was odd. You never really knew some of the weird shit people were into when you met them out and about. People could genuinely look like nice folks then behind the curtains their lives could be screwed. All of society wore masks.

  We’d seen our fair share of homes along the way from Castle Rock to the eastern shore. The number of times we had rooted around searching for food and come across weird shit in people’s homes seemed countless.

  “Have you seen this guy?” a gruff voice asked. It dawned on me that they probably had a copy of my ID. ID’s were one of the first things that the community created as a means of keeping track of everyone. In an apocalypse it might seem strange that anything like that was important, but when you lived behind walls and they wanted to ensure that no one dangerous had slipped it, it was an easy way for the four officers to check. As helpful as it was, it was now being used against us to track me down.

  I shouldered my assault rifle before aiming it at the door. I fully expected them to search it.

  “No, I haven’t seen them.”

  “Are you sure?”

  We were worried that the wife, who didn’t seem keen on us being there, would say something but she didn’t. She remained quiet as the men went around. We heard one of them go upstairs and check the rooms.

  “Let’s go.”

  Then there was silence. For a second I thought they had left but then a shadow appeared from under the bottom of the door. The door was yanked a few times.

  “Open it up.”

  “I don’t have a key.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “I don’t know, we only moved in here a few days ago. We don’t have any belongings. I assumed it was a storage area.”

  They gave it a few more tugs and I assumed they would shoot the lock off, but then we heard someone call to them from outside. A few more tense seconds and they were gone.

  A door closed. More silence, then the door was unlocked. We came out from the stuffy dark room and thanked the man. Wren went to the door and peeked out from behind the curtain. We waited there until the trucks pulled away. They left in a hurry.

  “Thank you again, I realize the risk you took.” I looked at the wife and kids. We didn’t hang around any longer. We pressed on, threading through the side streets that would take us to a forest close to section A.

  “You still love her, don’t you?” Wren asked.

  I didn’t reply but continued to trudge through the thick undergrowth. It was dark in the forest. A canopy of dense branches above us blocked out what little light was coming through.

  “Well?”

  “Things have changed, Wren.”

  “But if you she came back to you, you would give her another chance, wouldn’t you?”

  Without replying, I was giving her a response.

  I’d known Jess for years. She was my first, real, steady girlfriend. The others before her had always had some issue with me, or with themselves. The longest had lasted a couple of months before she decided a sporty guy was more her thing. There were others, ones who strung me along. Played me like a fiddle. Those were the attention seekers. The kind of women that would never be satisfied with the love of one guy, they always had to have someone paying attention to them. They fed on drama and at times pulled me into theirs. They spoke behind people’s backs, thinking it was perfectly fine. Yeah, I didn’t have time for those drama queens even if they were nice girls at the start. They soon showed their true colors. The fact was I had grown up with a father who was loyal to my mother; despite all his flaws and ridiculous fascination with the army, he was the kind of man who worked through shit. My parents fought like cats and dogs before she passed away, but somehow they would always get through it and come out stronger. I snorted at the thought of it as we weaved our way through the trees.

  I knew what Wren was asking. Did I still have feelings for Jess? Of course I did. That would never change. It’s not like you could just cut someone out of your life. Some things lingered even if anger ruled most of your thoughts about them. Jess and I had been through some ups and downs. It wasn’t like this was the first time. Even though she had denied it, I knew she had cheated on me back in Castle Rock. I could have thrown that up in her face the day she asked me about Danielle and me but I didn’t. The fact was, I think she had always been on the fence about me. Unsure if I was the one for her. Regardless of the apocalypse, we probably would have broken up.

  Of course those who heard about my time with Danielle, might have thought I was the one being a jerk. You had someone, a few people said. But the reality was, I didn’t. Jess was never fully there. I mean, she was there but her heart was all over the place. Never satisfied. I was never enough. Certainly that didn’t justify the connection I made with Danielle but if people could have seen the complete picture they might not have rushed to judgment about me. But that’s the thing, folks were guided by their own views, moral high ground and sense of what should or shouldn’t be done, regardless of the circumstances that people found themselves in. In our case, Jess would have eventually moved on from me. The relationship would have dissolved — with or without Rowan.

  As we came close to the tree line, we crouched to stay out of view. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on. Men who usually guarded the wall were no longer there. Two helicopters were nearby. Where was Fritz?

  “Doesn’t look like Jess or the others are here.”

  Wren looked perpl
exed. “Maybe they reached her.”

  We waited there for five, maybe ten minutes observing the comings and goings of Fritz’s men. From the corner of my eye I could see Wren glancing at me.

  “What is it?” I asked while trying to make out why there was a sudden increase in trucks.

  She looked as if she was about to say something, then before she could, my eyes widened. Being dragged out of the back of a truck were Rowan, Jess and Baja.

  CHAPTER 17

  BAJA

  “GET your fucking hands off me, man,” I said as one of them shoved me in the back, and another dragged me forward by the rope tied tight around my wrists.

  We hadn’t been back at the house more than ten minutes when the trucks rolled in. From there everything turned to chaos as Fritz’s men burst through the door with weapons aimed at us. We were thrown to the ground, our wrists were bound and then we were loaded into one of their trucks. All the while we were trying to get a clear word out of them as to what we had done. I figured Fritz had learned about Johnny being on the island and wanted to bring us in for questioning. The afternoon sun was bright as they brought us up in front of a large trailer. The door opened up and out came Fritz. He had this smug look on his face as if he had the whole world on a string.

  “Well done, Steadman.”

  We were tossed to the floor on our knees and told to keep our eyes downcast. Obviously I ignored the command only to feel the full force of a whack to the side of my head. My ear stung like crazy and I was sure it was bleeding.

  Fritz walked back and forth in front of us, not saying anything for a short while.

  “Rowan,” he pointed at him, tapping the air. “I had high hopes for you. My fault, really, I shouldn’t have trusted a member of the resistance.”

  Rowan spat near Fritz’s feet and Steadman swatted him with the back of his hand. “Humanity. Crazy. One minute we are floating along down the river of ignorance and the next, scrambling to find a cure.”