by Vivi Andrews
Eden’s gaze shot down to study Lucas’s face, taking in the hint of wonder there. He looked like a child. For the first time in far too long, he wasn’t carrying the world on his shoulders. He was just gaping over a big-as-a-pony dog. Damn, I should have found him a pet months ago.
“Is she friendly? What’s her name?” Lucas asked as Hannah Rose simultaneously said, “Can I pat her? I’m gentle,” at her most wheedling.
Rambo sent Eden a look of such helplessness it was almost endearing. Maybe not a daddy after all.
Hannah Rose was smiling up at him, practically batting her eyelashes to get her way. Another knot of distrust loosened and unraveled in Eden’s gut. The five-year-old had amazing instincts when it came to people. She’d hated Jonah Carter on sight and frequently cried in his presence, but this man seemed to have the Hannah Rose seal of approval.
And in spite of all the rules Eden had made for herself to keep them all safe, for some reason she wanted to trust this man. Taking a deep breath, she relaxed her stance, straightening to her feet and shifting the rifle to hang from the strap over her shoulder. “Does she have a name?”
“Precious.”
Eden’s eyebrows flew up and she bit back a smile. Not a name she would have expected Rambo to give his mine’s-bigger-than-yours dog. Maybe someone else named her. “Is it okay if they pet her?”
He nodded and stepped away from the dog, who whined in protest, somehow knowing Eden would want some distance between him and the kids. His stiff posture relaxed as the kids squeaked with delight and bounded over to the dog. Precious pricked her ears up and then dropped onto her stomach, her tail sweeping the ground.
Eden followed more slowly. “She’s great with kids,” she said softly, a peace offering of sorts. Sorry I pointed a gun at you after you saved my life. No hard feelings.
He looked up from watching the kids lavish adoration on his dog and met her eyes, acknowledging their uncomfortable truce and accepting her earlier mistrust with surprising equanimity. Close up she could see his features better through the paint. He was younger than she’d originally thought—maybe only a few years older than her own thirty-two. His eyes were a clear, sharp green. Kind of gorgeous, really. Eden’s mouth went dry, and her train of thought took a detour into Lustville.
“Connor.”
“Sorry?”
“My name. Connor Reed.”
She blushed at the direction of her thoughts. “Eden Fairfax. And these two are Lucas and Hannah Rose.” It occurred to her after she spoke that she could have lied about their names. That perhaps she should have lied. If anyone else from Seattle came through asking questions about them, would he tell them where she’d headed?
Not that he’d seemed particularly inclined to help Ben, but not all Jonah’s people were bullies, and several of them were very good at getting their way. Especially some of the girls when it came to coaxing information out of men.
Of course, they had to find her rescuer first, before they could interrogate him. They were in the middle of nowhere…
Eden’s heart stopped beating for a moment, then restarted at a hare’s pace. How had Ben found them?
He’d worked for Microsoft. Computers. Electronics still functioned when they had the electricity to power them. Generators and solar cells were still going strong. Satellites were still in orbit.
“Shit.” The curse was loud and involuntary, and the children looked up at her, frowning their confusion. Eden barely noticed. She rushed over to the pack she’d dropped earlier and yanked it open.
Could a tracking device of some kind still function? Had Ben somehow given himself a leg up on other bounty hunters by tricking her into bringing one with her?
Their few precious possessions quickly littered the forest floor as Eden ransacked the pack. Would she even know what a tracker looked like?
“Lucas. Hannah Rose. Bring me your packs.”
The bags appeared at her side and she grabbed for them, only belatedly noticing it was Connor who held them rather than the children. “You okay?” he said under his breath, a slight edge of stop-freaking-the-kids-out in his voice.
“He found us.” Eden was breathless as she dumped the contents of Hannah Rose’s bag onto the ground. “He knew exactly where to look. How could he do that?”
“You think he tagged you.” His calm voice was an odd counterpoint to the pounding panic in her veins.
“He must have.”
Connor knelt at her side and picked up the empty nylon of her bag. He ran it through his fingers. She was tempted to snap at him that she’d already checked that one, but bit her lip on the impulse. Of the two of them, he seemed a much more likely candidate to know what the hell a tracking device looked like.
When he went still, Eden found her own hands stopping as well. He reached into one of a dozen pockets on his camo suit and pulled out a small black hunting knife. Eden flinched back, but before she could even think about panicking and running for the hills, Connor carefully slit the seam he’d been testing and used the knife to pop out a tiny disc that looked a little like a watch battery.
Her breath left her in a whoosh. “Is that…?”
“Looks like. Pretty damn impressive it still works.”
“Impressive,” Eden whispered. “If I just smash it…?”
“That’ll kill it.”
Faster than the thought to do so, she snatched the disc out of his hand and pulverized it with a rock. The tentacles of panic that had squeezed around her fell away as she brushed away the microchip dust. “Thank you.”
He nodded and pocketed the knife.
He was close, hunkered down beside her, but his size wasn’t threatening. More a wall of comfort than a force of intimidation. She wanted to lean into him, to touch him. The men at the commune had made her skin crawl, but this one was a breed of masculinity she’d never met—even before the plagues. She’d thought his type only existed in action movies. But he was real, beside her, and damned if he didn’t smell good.
Eden found herself swaying toward him. He gave a little grunt and rose abruptly to his feet, striding away until several feet separated them. She knew she should be relieved, but she missed his bulk at her side.
Eden flicked a glance to where the children were still fawning over Precious. And winced sympathetically. “Hannah Rose, don’t climb on her back like that. She’s not a jungle gym.”
A twitch of a smile almost got hold of Connor’s lips. So he isn’t made of stone after all…
“Boise, huh?”
“I have to get the kids as far south as I can before winter hits.” Eden looked at him, trying to keep the naked pleading off her face. She needed his help but was all too aware that when he looked at them all he would see was more trouble than it was worth. She’d never been very good at wheedling and persuading. Maybe I should get Hannah Rose to ask him.
Connor looked down at the kids lovingly harassing his extremely tolerant dog. He was silent for a long time, so long Eden began to shift uncomfortably from foot to foot. She stopped herself from begging and badgering, giving him his silence, until she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Could you…?”
“St. Maries,” he grunted. “I’ll get you that far. You might be able to find a car there.”
Relief nearly buckled her knees. “Thank you.”
He nodded, his face stony as he flicked a look up at the sky. “We should get moving. This weather won’t hold.”
“Right. Of course.”
Eden peeled the kids off the dog and got them in order as Connor moved deeper into the forest. South. Precious bounded after him. The kids fell into line with Eden bringing up the rear. She didn’t hesitate to follow where this stranger led, but her hand was back on the rifle butt. Lingering misgivings refused to let her go. Would he really see them to St. Maries? Could she trust him? Or was he just a far cleverer brand of thug than she was used to, leading them far away from any hope of rescue before he revealed his real plans?
She
could only wait, and walk, and see.
Chapter Four
Eden held her hands up to the campfire. It smoked and spat sparks, but since she pretty much sucked at starting fires, the fact that someone else had built it went a long way toward warming her.
It was still twilight and Connor had told her they had farther to go tonight, but they’d stopped for some food and to let the kids rest. Eden watched as Connor tossed the remains of the soup cans from dinner into the flames while Hannah Rose and Lucas napped in a huddle near its heat with Precious curled around them protectively like a mama lion.
Connor settled himself on a log a few feet from Eden, flicking a glance from the snoozing kids to her and then staring into the flames. They hadn’t spoken much. Her initial assessment that he wasn’t much of a talker had been an understatement. It was almost as if he’d forgotten how. Not surprising, that, but it left her with the powerful urge to remind him how to be sociable.
Eden cleared her throat softly. “Have you always lived near here?”
“No.”
“But you moved here before…” Eden never knew what to call it. The plague? The epidemic? The end of the world?
“My wife grew up near here. We bought a place here in oh-nine.”
His wife. She didn’t want to assume the worst, but she couldn’t ask. Who knew what memories it would dredge up? Families hadn’t survived intact.
Before she could frame her next question, he spoke, a low gravelly admission. “She went in the first wave. I was called back from Afghanistan, but she was gone before I arrived.”
“I’m sorry.” The words were simple, heartfelt, and all she had. He nodded his understanding of their inadequacy.
The world had mourned the first wave. The loss of the first hundred and thirty thousand lives had been a tragedy of unspeakable proportions. The nation came together, politicians vowing nothing like this could ever be allowed to happen again, never suspecting that the next wave was less than two months away and it would be much, much worse.
Some survivors spoke of the as-yet-unseen Third Wave with near-religious fervor. The same way some might speak of the Rapture. Eden couldn’t fault them. Whatever allowed you to cope.
Afghanistan. Eden turned the word over in her mind. He didn’t say much, but each word was another clue into him. “You were in the Army?”
He grunted in the affirmative.
It wasn’t hard to imagine him as a soldier—the hunting camouflage was one step removed from fatigues. His ease with weapons, his calm in dealing with Ben, it all pointed toward the sort of training she didn’t have. He was better equipped to deal with this new world. That much was obvious. Her extensive knowledge of the Dewey decimal system was not, tragically, a valuable survival skill.
“I was a librarian,” she volunteered when he didn’t ask. She didn’t know much about army life. The only time she’d ever been on a base was a few months back when she’d broken into Fort Richardson to commandeer the Hummer.
Connor poked the fire with a stick, and the logs shifted and settled until they didn’t look like they might tumble toward where the kids slept. “Where’re you coming from?”
The question startled her, and for a moment she didn’t want to answer, afraid of sharing too much, giving him too many clues that would lead back to Seattle. After the silence stretched uncomfortably long, Connor nodded. He was able to say a lot with that gesture, Eden was coming to realize. This one acknowledged her reluctance and withdrew the question, taking a step back, putting distance between them again.
But she didn’t want to step back. She suddenly hated that distance.
“Alaska. We’re from Alaska.”
His head came up at that. She’d managed to pull his gaze from the fire. “Seriously?”
She smiled, enjoying the common reaction more than usual. “Seriously.”
“Were there many survivors up there?”
“Not as many as some places. It was still winter when we lost power and heat, but there’re about sixty that we know of in Anchorage. They’ve banded together.” Her shoulders unknotted, tension eased by the familiarity of the conversation. This she knew. Sharing tales of survival, passing along news of who lived and how things were up and down the roads.
“Why’d you leave?”
Eden shrugged. “It’s not really a place that’s easy to survive long term without modern conveniences.” And she’d thought there might be other children farther south. A more normal way of life in places where the climate wasn’t quite so harsh. “We drove out as soon as the roads cleared in the spring.” In the stolen Hummer, packed to the roof with food, camping gear and extra gallons of gasoline.
“Just the three of you?”
“Just us.”
He jerked his chin toward the pile of children on the opposite side of the fire. “They yours?”
“Yes.” It wasn’t a lie. Biologically a fib, but they were still hers in every way that mattered. And the resemblance was strong enough that no one questioned it. Hannah Rose’s hair was more platinum than her own sandy blonde and Lucas’s a little darker, but they could easily have been hers.
“Unusual.”
Not much of a talker, this Connor Reed. Most people composed odes to the children’s survival. But there was something to be said for strong and silent. “We were lucky.”
For some reason that pulled his gaze away from the flickering flames. “Mm.” He looked toward the kids for a moment, and then turned back to her with a stare forceful enough to have her squirming. “Now would be a good time to tell me what that guy wanted from you, don’t you think?” His low voice carried only as far as her ears, but was icy and unavoidable enough to have goose bumps jumping up across her arms.
A fleeting cowardly urge tempted her to lie, but Connor deserved to know what he was helping them escape from. Eden swallowed around the thickness in her throat and began.
“We arrived in Seattle around the beginning of June. During the drive we’d seen groups of survivors—ten, twenty, almost fifty in Whitehorse—but in Seattle there were thousands. It was a gathering place for survivors from all across the Northwest. A real community. We tried to blend in quietly, under the radar, but the kids… So far they’re the only surviving children anyone has seen and they draw attention.
“It wasn’t until later that I realized the Seattle group was already fixated on children. They’d started a sort of repopulation plan. Their leader, a guy named Jonah Carter, kept preaching about security coming to them when children played among them again. He called it the birth of the New Eden. When I showed up—a new Eden, strolling into town with a pair of kids—everyone took it as a sign, especially Jonah. I went along with it at first because the children’s presence seemed to give people so much hope. Everyone had expected a baby boom, but there hadn’t been a single pregnancy. No one knew why. The group’s doctor said he didn’t see any reason why everyone would be infertile, but things were…dark. When we arrived, everyone lit up again, and I was glad to be a part of it. At first. But the religious fervor of it started to creep me out when Jonah started bringing me up during his gatherings—holding me up as the Madonna of his new religion. Most of his preaching was basic love-your-neighbor, work-as-a-community, form-a-new-family and build-a-new-world stuff, so I couldn’t really complain about being a part of helping people cope.
“Then a few weeks back, Jonah told me he wanted me to bless some of his repopulation parties with my presence.” She swallowed back the nausea the memory called up. “The parties were essentially orgies—but it wasn’t about pleasure or even breeding. It was… You know people being possessed by the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues? It was like that with sex. I didn’t want any part of that, and I realized I didn’t want the kids growing up worshiped as demigods, but Jonah didn’t want us to leave.”
And no one said no to Jonah Carter. No one.
“We left in the middle of the night. His people caught up with us the next morning in Spokane, so we ran again
. When our car broke down, we left the main roads, but Ben found us anyway. Apparently Jonah wants us back.”
She strategically omitted the part where Jonah had cornered her in the sanctuary of his cathedral that last night in Seattle, and she’d had to nearly brain him with a candlestick to keep from being raped. Connor didn’t need to know that.
“You think he’ll keep coming for you.”
It wasn’t a question, really, but Eden answered anyway. “Jonah won’t give us up without a fight. He’s charismatic, and people were desperate for someone to tell them what to do when he took power in the commune, but I think things were starting to slip away from him right before we arrived. He needed a messiah to put at the center of his religion, and when we arrived everything solidified for him. Losing us—not just our absence, but the fact that we chose to leave him—it’ll be a blow. Jonah Carter isn’t a man to give up control easily, and we were his power.” And she’d started to believe lately he wasn’t the con man she’d originally taken him for, but the much more frightening breed of cult leader who was drinking his own Kool-Aid.
“Do you have a plan?”
“Run fast and hide well. It’s a big country.” Eden met his eyes. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t tell you where we’re going. It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for your help.”
Connor nodded once, and she had the sense she’d passed some kind of test. A wry smile played across his mouth. “I wouldn’t tell me either.” He rose to bank the fire. “Wake the kids. There’s a cabin not far from here where we’ll spend the night.”
Chapter Five
The cabin was actually a two-bedroom bungalow-style house. She’d expected some woodsy hunter’s retreat, but instead it was sweet. Pretty. The furnishings and finishes definitely blessed with a woman’s touch. It was the American Dream family home—as long as you didn’t pay too much attention to the ten-foot barbed-wire fence circling the property.
A realtor would probably have dubbed the tight confines cozy and charming, but it was well cared for, showing evidence that someone—likely Connor himself—had been living here recently enough to clean away any dust and debris, and modify the motion-activated security lights to run on batteries rather than electricity.