by Toby Neal
Cash controlled his voice with difficulty and dropped the binoculars into Billy’s hands. “I need a minute.”
He pulled back from the surveillance position and strode past the knot of Grimesville residents, clustered in a nervous group prepping their weapons and speaking in whispers. Cash walked over behind a cluster of boulders and doubled over with pain. He lashed out, smashing his fist into the rock and letting out a string of muttered curses. Shaking out his hand, Cash thought of his brother Dolf, a wall puncher from childhood. That had never been Cash’s way. He’d always played through the pain—until he met Sunshine.
Cash wanted to stop the ceremony, now. But they needed to stick with the plan. Cash and his team would disable the sentries and cut their way in, tasks best done after full dark when the skinheads were good and drunk. Outnumbered, outgunned and on the wrong side of a ten-foot fence topped by coils of razor, they must be strategic.
That left Sunshine to deal with her hulking bridegroom on her own.
He’d be the first to go down when Cash got inside.
Cash’s bruised knuckles ached as he clenched his fist. Sunshine burned away his pretenses, denials and his self-protection with the purity of her love. Thank God he’d had a lot of practice being bad, or he wouldn’t be much good in this situation.
Back in control, Cash returned to Billy and Jeb. “We’ll give it a couple of hours and move in when the party’s winding down.”
Billy’s dark eyes shone with sympathy. “We’ll get her out of there as soon as humanly possible.”
The ceremony ended and the giant engulfed Jolene, his mouth over hers. She stayed limp and pliant in his arms, her body melded against his as her arms hung by her sides. Cash couldn’t watch. There wasn’t a gun to her head. She didn’t scream and kick to get free of him. Cash batted the cruel thoughts away. She was being forced!
A fresh wave of terror rocked him. Sunshine didn’t have a choice but to be chattel for her brother’s hateful goals. If they didn’t get to her soon she’d be forced to consummate this sham of a marriage. He clenched his fists again, and the pain stretching the bruised skin over his knuckles helped Cash to focus. He was going to kill them all.
By the time the party was winding down, only two sentries were still at their posts, and they’d been shot through with arrows and killed. Cash’s forward team pulled the bodies away into hiding.
The small band from Grimesville faced superior numbers, but Cash hoped they could do some serious damage with the dynamite they’d brought. The explosions should also provide a big enough distraction for them to grab Sunshine and Tiny, and get out.
Waiting as two of the men worked with bolt cutters to get through the fence in the deep shadow of one of the outbuildings, Cash palmed the unfamiliar weight of a Glock.
Sunshine, holding her new husband’s hand, had walked with him into a nearby white trailer. Cash’s hands shook with the need to kick down that door and save his love, though the way she’d held that guy’s hand, it seemed she was the one in charge.
Adrenaline brightened colors, sharpened sounds and increased the intensity of touch. Cash loved a good thrill, but the rage that edged this one threatened to overtake him. Billy set a hand on his shoulder. “She’s going to be all right.”
Cash nodded.
The last link of the fence parted, and the Grimesville peacekeepers poured through the opening in a silent arrow formation, scattering off. Two men headed to the area they’d identified as the women’s and children’s quarters to guard the entrance and make sure none of them got into harm’s way. Billy and a couple of men and women experienced in the use of explosives jogged toward the mine entrance, where they’d seen most of the men retreat.
That small team would set off an explosion as a distraction, and perhaps trap some of the men inside the mine. Several others navigated toward the central mine office, the Compound’s headquarters, to set it on fire.
Cash and Jeb struck out for the white trailer.
Bent down to minimize exposure, they kept to the shadows of buildings. Cash’s knives were a familiar and welcome weight at his waist as he moved through the shadows.
A deep growl followed by a familiar “Woof!” coming from a small metal shed caught Cash’s attention. A band of light surrounded the door of the shed, and as they silently approached, Cash heard a male voice, wheedling and yet filled with menace. “Come on, you worthless dog. Come! Get over here, bitch.”
Tiny growled again and Cash heard a yelp.
A film of red rage blinded Cash. That animal was hurting his dog. He was done being cautious.
Cash kicked in the flimsy door of the shed and the bang of the metal door reverberated in the space. The man who’d been threatening Tiny turned, his eyes wide in surprise.
Dwight Kane held a whip in one hand and a piece of meat in the other. Tiny had been forced into a corner, her lips curled back over shining teeth.
Dwight Kane was beating and baiting his dog.
Cash shot Kane in the leg. The man dropped to one knee, a grimace of pain contorting his face as he cried out. Cash raised his Glock and aimed it at Jolene’s brother’s chest.
“Wait,” Dwight held out a hand, palm up. Asking for mercy.
Cash pulled the trigger again. The sound of a second shot filled the shed with vibration, ringing in Cash’s ears. And it felt good.
Dwight fell back with a shout then lay still, his chest unmoving, as blood soaked the dirt floor.
“So much for the element of surprise,” Jeb stood in the doorway. “You’d better go get Sunshine before something else happens.”
Cash ran forward and released the collar around Tiny’s neck. The big bear dog whimpered ecstatically, appeared relatively uninjured, and bounded after them as they ran out of the shed toward the trailer. Jeb got there first, yanking open the door so that Cash leapt up the few metal steps unimpeded and into the dimly lit interior.
Cash hit the overhead light. Harsh fluorescents lit a tableau he’d never forget: Sunshine in bed with another man. Jolene sat up, eyes wide, and the mountain of a man cursed and heaved his legs out, reaching down for his jeans.
“Cash! Oh my God! You’re alive!” Jolene’s voice cracked with emotion as she tugged at the bedclothes and flailed to get out, but she was trapped between the wall and the blond giant, her husband.
“Don’t move.” Cash took pride in the steadiness of his voice as he aimed at the man’s head. The man froze, slowly raising his hands. The thought of this mammoth man married to Sunshine, touching her, clouded Cash’s vision with rage again. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“No, Cash! Don’t!” Sunshine, wearing a filmy white nightgown with billowing sleeves, flung an arm across the ape to block Cash’s shot.
“Move aside, Princess.” He used the pet name like a dagger. “I’ve killed too many getting to you, only to find you in bed with him.” Cash gestured with the weapon.
“His name is Hank. I’ve known him since he was four. Don’t shoot him, please.” Jolene’s voice held a note of pleading. It was probably the same tone she’d used to ask her mother to stop hitting her, and now she was using it on Cash to save this skinhead bastard’s life?
The rage receded, leaving Cash shaking inside with grief and loss, an abyss opening where his heart once was. She was with this guy now? He forced his lips to form words. “Okay. We’ll leave you with him then. Since that’s what you want.”
Jolene frowned, her eyes wide. “What? We need to go!” She yelled, her voice tinged with desperation. She was terrified. But not of her husband.
Finally free of the bedding, Sunshine ran around the big man toward Cash. Her frilly nightgown looked like a multi-layer wedding cake, and hid everything from her neck to her toes. The fact that she was so completely covered up calmed Cash.
Jeb grabbed the cords of the window blinds. “If we can’t kill him, we’d better tie him up.”
Hank stared at Jolene, clearly poleaxed by the heartbreak Cash also felt. “You’re my wife, Jolene!�
�� Hank yelled. “You promised that if I helped you…”
Jolene ignored him and reached for Cash’s free hand, looking up into his face. “I can’t believe you’re here, Cash. Let’s go before Dwight comes after us!”
“Dwight won’t be coming after you ever again.”
Cash felt a stab of regret at his harsh words and his impetuous action in killing her brother as he watched Jolene’s eyes get bigger, and the bright color of exertion drain from her face.
Just then, the trailer rocked as an explosion from the direction of the mine lit up the night, sucking at their eardrums. Hank took advantage of the moment to leap at Jeb. The two went down, grappling for Jeb’s gun, until Cash stepped up and cracked his weapon against Hank’s skull. The big man collapsed on top of Jeb.
“Thanks,” Jeb panted. “Get him off me, will ya?”
Cash extracted Jeb from beneath the unconscious behemoth. Both of them ran for the door after Jolene, who was already out and down the steps, her nightgown rucked up in both hands and her feet flying.
Jolene didn’t seem heartbroken that she’d left her bridegroom on the floor of the trailer, knocked out, wearing only a pair of tighty-whities.
But that wasn’t enough to erase the memory of her protecting her new husband from Cash. Nothing would.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jolene
Stones bit into the bottom of Jolene’s feet but she didn’t care. She was getting away.
A strong hand on her bicep pulled Jolene tight against a male body as an explosion rocked a nearby structure, wood and glass raining down. Jolene fell, the man’s weight landing on top of her.
A primal scream ripped from her throat as she fought uselessly under his bulk.
“It’s me! Billy!”
Jolene blinked, focusing on the familiar face of her friend hovering above her, stark with shadows from the blaze to his left.
A sob wrenched her chest. “You’re here, too.”
Billy grinned. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He stood and helped Jolene up, keeping a strong grip on her arm as he led her through the chaos. People ran in every direction in the flickering light of the burning buildings. She recognized Grimesville residents as they fought with her brother’s men.
The townspeople were winning!
Intoxicated from the wedding celebration, Dwight’s soldiers struggled to combat the smaller, sober team of invaders. They had picked the perfect time to attack.
Cash was alive! She turned back to see him running after her, his face set in a hard grimace. A large, broad skinhead, one of the newer recruits Jolene didn’t recognize, raised a gun. She halted, throwing out her hands in an effort to protect Cash, but the man fired.
She screamed as the gunshot reverberated through the air. The ground exploded at Cash’s feet and he shied away, turning toward the threat and raising his weapon. He fired, the kickback of the gun jerking his arm. The new recruit’s head rocked back from the impact, his knees buckled and he went down, gone in an instant.
Cash turned toward Jolene, his eyes glinting in the firelight: not with love, but with rage. She shivered at the fierceness in his gaze.
He’d killed her brother.
The violence around her was worse than something out of a video game. Was any of it real?
A black Ford F-250 roared up to where Jolene and Billy stood, spitting up dust and dirt behind it. The hulking truck shuddered to a halt in front of them. Billy quickly opened the back door and ushered Jolene in. She stumbled, caught up in the long nightgown, but Billy’s strong hand at her waist maneuvered her into the seat. He climbed in after her.
“Go, go, go!” Cash yelled, waving at the driver as he turned back and shot another man. The truck pulled away as the soldier fell to the ground and Cash pivoted to fire again.
Jolene stared through the dusty rear window at her sweet, brave lover. Cash stood in the firelight, blood splatter in his hair and shirt. The golden glow of the blaze caught the elegant planes of his face. The gun in his hand looked like an extension of his body. Cash’s lips, so tender when kissing Jolene, were set in a hard line.
He was terrifying and electrifying.
The truck swerved wildly, headed for the exit as another explosion rocked the night.
Jolene faced forward. Maud drove the truck, a gleeful grin on her face. She cackled as they blew through the gate, now fallen off its track, and hit the winding dirt road, the truck swaying on its axles.
“Whoa, Maud!” Billy gripped the door to steady himself.
“I rarely get the chance to open ‘er up like this. Let me have some fun. You boys got to do all the killing.”
The older woman’s statement chilled Jolene.
Jolene had infected Grimesville. She’d brought her brother’s anger and hate with her into that civilized, compassionate community.
Violence was as contagious as the Scorch Flu.
And Cash had killed Dwight.
Jolene began to shake, adrenaline draining from her system as a wave of relief washed over her.
She was finally free from Dwight. She shouldn’t be so happy about it, but she was.
Billy put his arm around her. “You’re okay now. You’re safe.”
Jolene shook her head. “You don’t understand.” Her throat tightened. How could she explain it to Billy? How would she explain it to Cash?
Jolene had married another man and offered to be his partner, to really be his wife, in exchange for her life, in order to secure the vaccine in her veins. Sobs tore from her throat as relief, pain, anguish, hurt, and so much more emotion washed over her.
“I thought I’d have to do it alone.” She choked out. “I thought I was all alone again.”
“Hey, we’re here for you. Right, Maud?”
Maud found Jolene’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Don’t worry kiddo, we’ve got you.”
Jolene turned her face into Billy’s chest and scrunched his shirt, crying deep heaving sobs of relief, shame and fear. Too many emotions—a tsunami of them—a giant, pulsing wave, the length and breadth of which could only be experienced after a major seismic event deep within.
“You should’ve seen Cash,” Billy petted her head. “He was a man on fire. And here I thought a fireman was supposed to put out the blaze.”
A laugh seeped into one of Jolene’s sobs.
She couldn’t be with Cash now.
She wanted nothing more than to have Cash back. The fact that he was even alive made the world a more beautiful place. Jolene couldn’t do to Cash what she had done to Hank: pretend like they could be a couple, an equal partnership, when it wasn’t true.
But she had to get to the Haven. The scientists there would know what to do with her blood.
She refused to manipulate Cash by pretending she hadn’t made a deal with Hank, hadn’t promised to be his wife, for real. She had to tell him what she’d done as soon as she saw him.
Jolene couldn’t speak or process any of it, so she just held onto Billy as emotions shook her. One moment she was all alone, carrying the cure for the most devastating plague the human race had ever experienced, surrounded by enemies and hate-filled cultists. Now, her lover was alive, her brother had died, she’d escaped and was enjoying the embrace of a friend.
Finally her brain simply shut down, and Jolene fell into a deep sleep, curled up against Billy.
Jolene woke alone in the darkened truck—Billy and Maud must have decided she needed the rest. She turned, blinking, and saw a shadow in the window, heard the door open. She cringed back in fright.
“Hey, it’s me.” Cash’s familiar voice filled the cab as he leaned in toward her, his hand falling gently onto her thigh.
She didn’t deserve him, but she needed him. Despite her resolve to warn him off, to tell Cash that she wasn’t worth his efforts, her hand fell on top of his.
Cash smiled. “I’m glad to see you.” His face was wiped clean, but his shirt still told the tale of their narrow escape, dotted with rust red blood
and smears of soot. Cash’s eyes were dark and close, his lips hovering above hers as he leaned across the seat. His scent of blood, man and gun smoke, enveloped her.
“Okay, you two, get a room,” Billy called over Cash’s shoulder.He joked with Maud as he helped unload the back of the pickup.
Cash smiled and Jolene couldn’t help but giggle.
“Come on, Princess,” Cash held out his hand. “Let’s get cleaned up.” His smile didn’t imply that he wanted to get clean, though. It looked to Jolene like Cash wanted to get dirty.
Her center throbbed, that core of love aching to be filled by him.
How could she do it, though? He’d shown her she had value, that she was strong and brave. And then she turned to manipulation and lies to protect herself and the cure within her.
She had to be totally honest with Cash.
“I married Hank.”
Cash was still leaning into the back of the cab at an awkward angle, but at her blunt statement he stepped back, his arms dropping. He frowned. “Obviously. You were forced to.” He bit out the words, anger making his voice deeper, darker.
“Yes, I was forced into it. But I promised Hank that someday I’d be his real wife, if he gave me time to get to know him.”
“Get out of the truck.”
Jolene climbed out to stand in front of Cash. She wanted to reach up on her tiptoes, place her lips against the hard line of his mouth and convince it to soften under hers.
But Cash deserved the whole truth.
“I almost killed myself when Dwight told me you were dead.”
Cash’s arms dropped to his sides as his mouth dropped open. He took a step toward her, the distance between them shrinking to mere inches. Jolene couldn’t be this close to him. She stepped back.
Her throat tightened with unshed tears. “Aren’t you hearing me? I didn’t fight. I didn’t see a way out of my situation. So I grabbed Dwight’s gun and…” Jolene choked on a sob.
“Fucking guns.” Cash muttered, his hands balling into fists, holding himself back from her.
And how she wanted to be grabbed up! But not yet. He had to know the full truth, then decide for himself whether he still wanted her.