by Vivi Andrews
“Not really.”
She smiled to herself. He was probably more of a Spike TV kind of guy. “I loved it,” Eden admitted. “Every year they would build these dream homes and give them away in a massive sweepstakes.” She rammed another thermal shell into the pack. She might have to resort to sitting on it to get it to close. “A couple years back they gave one away in New Mexico. It was totally green. Self-sustaining. Solar panels, windmills, the whole nine.” She began zipping the pack, slowly feeding the teeth through as she shoved the contents down. “When we were in Seattle, I couldn’t stop thinking about that house. I don’t know if we’ll actually go there, but it’s a destination. Once we get out of the worst winter climates, we’ll start looking at towns to see how things are.” The zipper closed and Eden propped the pack up, suddenly not knowing what to do with her hands now that she was done. Time to go. “The important thing is to be somewhere safe.”
One of Connor’s silences met that statement.
Eden straightened. “Hannah Rose. Lucas. Coats and boots.”
Lucas started to collect his things, shoulders slumped and feet dragging the whole way, while Hannah Rose developed selective deafness, continuing to cuddle and coo at Precious without even glancing in Eden’s direction. Connor shoved his hands in his pockets and turned away, studying the snowy landscape beyond the window.
“Hannah Rose,” Eden said sharply, using her get-your-butt-in-gear voice. “Now, young lady.”
The little girl sniffled noisily, batting her eyes furiously and working up a good chin wobble. Eden was sure she was really upset to be leaving, but the dramatics were a standard manipulation tactic, and she told herself not to be moved—even as the damn chin wobble ripped her heart out. It wasn’t like she wanted to leave any more than the kids did, but they were too close to where Ben had found them and Jonah was too fanatic. They couldn’t stay.
It would be better in the south. And best if they left quickly. Like ripping off a Band-Aid—as if jerking off a few layers of freshly healed skin was actually a good strategy.
“C’mon, babygirl.” Eden crossed to Hannah Rose and picked her up as she let loose with the hysterics, moaning, “Nooo, Precious. I want Precious,” in between gulping, bone-racking sobs.
Eden wrapped Hannah Rose in her fluffy down jacket and zipped her up then went to work on her boots as Hannah Rose kicked her feet halfheartedly. When she was ready, Eden set her beside Lucas. He stood, booted and buttoned up, staring listlessly into space.
“Why don’t you two take Precious outside?” Connor suggested.
Eden didn’t think five more minutes with the dog was going to make the separation any easier—it wasn’t only Precious they would miss—but when the kids looked to her for permission, she nodded her consent. When the door closed behind them, she didn’t look at Connor, moving instead to don her own jacket and boots. If this was their goodbye, she’d just as soon skip it.
“You could stay…if you like.”
Eden’s head snapped toward him. The offer was a shock. She didn’t think it had been an easy one for him to make, but as much as she might want to take him up on it, she just couldn’t. “Jonah won’t stop looking for us,” she said softly, making the words a no with the low seriousness of her voice—no hope, just facts. “We’re too close. Too easy for him to reach here. He won’t stop trying to bring us back.”
“You know I won’t let him take you.”
“You know we won’t ever have any peace,” she countered. “Not here. He knows we were in this area. It’s best for everyone if we just vanish.” Eden looked down at her hands, suddenly nervous. “You could come with us…”
Silence again. That long, thoughtful, Connor silence. And then, “No. This is my home. This place…it’s my life.”
Her ears played tricks on her and for a moment she thought he’d said it was his wife. And it was, Eden realized. This was her house, and her memory was bright and constant here. The pictures may be turned down on the tables, but they were never out of reach. The furnishings were still hers. The dog hers.
Connor was still hers.
And she couldn’t fault him for that. Even if it hurt. Lots of people clung to the past. At least the memory he was clinging to was one of love.
“Take Precious.”
Eden gaped at him, certain she couldn’t have heard him right. “Connor, we can’t—”
“Take her. She loves the kids. She’ll just mope when you’re gone.”
“She’s your family—” I don’t want you to be alone.
“Take her, Eden,” he snapped, his tone brooking no resistance.
Eden met his eyes, putting her entire swollen, constricted heart into her gaze. “Thank you.” I love you.
Connor nodded. His eloquent, accepting nod that seemed to reflect everything she felt back to her.
The moment lingered, then he cleared his throat with a cough. “Light’s wasting.” And those two words were the end of them.
Eden wasn’t having second thoughts about going back to Connor’s cabin.
Instead, as the first miles rolled under the wheels of the Suburban the man she was not thinking about had jumpstarted for them in St. Maries, she entertained herself wondering exactly how far she would make it before she started fantasizing about turning around—planning her future second thoughts was not the same as having them.
The children were listless and silent in the backseat, even with Precious sprawled in the far back with their packs, taking up more space with her massive bulk than both children combined. They’d lit up for a moment when Connor had told them Precious was going with them, then Connor had admitted he wouldn’t be accompanying his dog and Hannah Rose had burst into tears. Precious wasn’t the only one the kids had grown attached to in the last few days.
Forty minutes on the road and they hadn’t begged to go back yet. She’d take that as a victory. Eden would say no, no matter how they pleaded, but that didn’t mean she didn’t conjure up vivid fantasies of dramatic U-turns. Visions in which she would find Connor hadn’t been able to let them go and had followed them down the road. They would leap from the cars, running toward one another—in slow motion, of course—and Eden would throw herself into Connor’s waiting arms, before convincing him to come with them.
Had she really done all she could to convince him? She hadn’t argued. She hadn’t fought. Weren’t you supposed to fight for love?
Realizing the Suburban had slowed to a crawl as she daydreamed, Eden set her foot back to the accelerator, tipping the speedometer up to a daring twenty miles per hour. The V-shaped plow Connor had hitched to the front of the SUV shoved the snow out of their path. The mountain road out of St. Maries was high and twisting, with a cliff face to one side and a drop-off on the other. Without being able to see the pavement through the snow, she really needed to be on point to keep them on the road, but here she was mooning over the man she’d left in the rearview mirror miles back.
Focus, Eden. The weather had given them a head start on the Seattle bounty hunters, but they didn’t have time to dawdle. Especially since they were restricted to main roads and leaving such an obvious trail with the plowed swath behind them.
No time for what-ifs and could-have-beens.
The Suburban muscled up another curving incline, the pristine, snow-covered scenery stretching out in front of them like a Christmas card. It was another of those deceptive blue-sky days, when the world was so gorgeous she felt out of step for the hollow ache in her chest. No quantity of beautiful vistas could make this a good day.
Then the Suburban rounded a blind turn and the day became much, much worse.
An industrial-sized snowplow flanked by a pair of silver Land Rovers blocked the road. Eden stomped on the brake, gripping the wheel tightly and correcting as the SUV fishtailed in the snow. Her heart thundered against her ribs, and the children screamed, high, thin, nervous wails. Men piled out of the Land Rovers, running toward the Suburban as it skidded to a stop.
St
upid. She’d been so stupid. Why had she assumed Ben and his reinforcements would wait out the storm? The entire time she’d been playing house, they’d been swarming around her, setting traps, creating roadblocks.
She couldn’t get around them without driving off a cliff, she couldn’t back up without running the risk of backing into a ravine. Damndamndamn. Eden slammed the gearshift into park, double-clicked the locks and reached for the shotgun on the passenger seat.
“Mama?” Hannah Rose’s plaintive whisper tugged at her, but Eden didn’t have time for reassurances. A rifle butt slammed into the window beside her head. The glass cracked, but held—though it wouldn’t forever. The children shrieked. A low rumbling growl from the far back reminded her of the wolfhound’s presence. Not entirely alone anymore.
“Get in the back with Precious and cover your heads. You stay with her and if you get the chance, you run. Run all the way back to Connor if you can. Got it?” They could make it. Following the tracks. Twelve miles back to town, another six to Connor’s place.
“Mom—”
The left rear window shattered above Lucas’s head, glass tinkling. “Down, Lucas!” She shoved the shotgun barrel into the hole and squeezed the trigger. The recoil threw her back right as the driver’s window gave way. Another pair of hands closed on the shotgun before she could bring it around to fire again, trying to yank it out of her hands.
“In the back! Now!”
The children scrambled over the seat—she couldn’t tell if she’d hit anyone, but her shot had given them a few seconds without hands reaching through the rear window. Eden clung to the shotgun, her last defense, but she was twisted in the seat without any leverage and it was wrenched from her grasp. More hands reached through the window, gripping her by the hair, dragging her by her sweater. She raked her nails into any bit of skin she could get her hands on, punching and clawing, but every time she fought off one set of hands there was another there to take their place. Tiny shards of glass bit into her skin as they jerked her torso through the window.
Precious’s barks and snarls mingled with the children’s sobs and the shouted curses and demands of their attackers. The dog was trapped in the confines of the SUV, unable to do much to defend the kids. Fish in a barrel. Eden lashed out with one foot, managing to stomp on the hatch release before she was yanked bodily through the shattered window.
Gravity smacked her into the pavement. The force of her landing rattled her teeth and jarred her bones, more shock than pain. She knew she’d feel it soon, but she was too busy kicking everything in sight to bother with little things like cracked ribs and concussions.
Her foot connected with something soft, and one of the men trying to get a grip on her swore and clubbed her with his rifle. Her world blurred and fractured, breaking into a puzzle with half the pieces knocked out of place.
She heard another blow landing, but didn’t feel it. “Jonah doesn’t want her hurt, you idiot!”
She felt herself being lifted, upside down, sideways, she wasn’t sure she knew which direction was up anymore. Then she was thrown onto a firm surface. Her hands were bound behind her back. She heard more boots crunching through the snow—an army of boots, the sound strangely loud.
“We’ve got the kids. What do you want me to do with them?”
No. Eden groaned and twisted, trying to find her way free, or at least to some sort of bargaining position—not the children—but the puzzle pieces refused to come together.
“Put them in the other car. The reward is for the breeder, but Jonah might double it if we bring the brats too.”
Doors slammed, the car rocked and Eden managed to open her eyes enough to see a man jump into the passenger seat of the car where she was sprawled in the back.
“Damn dog,” he snapped, setting his rifle on the console next to his chair.
If I can just reach that gun…with her hands tied behind her back.
“Did you get it?” the driver asked.
“Clipped it. Bitch won’t get far, but no dog meat for dinner tonight.”
Precious. This asshole had shot Connor’s dog. And with her any chance that Connor might figure out what had happened to them. She was on her own. She needed a plan, something to interrupt their progress.
Then they went over a bump, her head hit the door, and her battered brain lost its tenuous hold on reality, the blurry edges of her awareness closing to nothing.
The house felt like a mausoleum. Utterly devoid of life. More dead now than it had ever seemed before. The man sitting in front of the potbellied stove could have been at a wake. His posture screamed of grief, of chances for a future wiped away in a heartbeat.
Perhaps he would have stayed there, sitting vigil, for months on end, if not for the scratching at the door, the high whine.
When he opened the door, Connor fell to his knees, reaching instantly for his dog. Precious lay on the doorstep, one flank matted with blood. A gunshot wound.
Connor’s heart froze into a hunk of ice. He’d been a fool to let them go without him, to leave them unprotected. And now…
It isn’t too late. It can’t be.
Chapter Eight
Eden woke in a bed so soft it seemed to suck her into its depths like quicksand. If she could call it waking. Her head still throbbed and her senses felt thick and remote, like her connection to her body was on tape delay.
Through blurry vision she thought she recognized Jonah’s Seattle mansion, but it was so cookie-cutter chic it could have been any bedroom with crown molding and a beige accent wall in the United States. Could they have gotten all the way back to Seattle already? Just how hard had she hit her head? The trip should have taken the better part of a day. She vaguely remembered coming to and struggling. Then one of Jonah’s goons had stuck her with a needle of something that burned as it hit her bloodstream and she’d lost time.
Her wrists weren’t bound anymore—but she wasn’t in her own clothing either. Her sweater, jeans, sports bra and thermal-silk shirt were gone, replaced by a filmy satin nightgown that stopped mid-thigh. A cloyingly sweet perfume drenched her skin and made the back of her throat burn. Nausea roiled in her stomach, though she wasn’t sure whether it was an aftereffect of a concussion or a reaction to the realization that someone in Jonah’s camp had stripped and bathed her in perfume while she was unconscious.
She tried to sit up, but her muscles refused to respond. She felt like her entire body had been packed in pudding, a gooey resistance dragging her down. If she focused, she could move a couple inches, but gravity was not her friend right now. Escape wasn’t an option yet.
With her body incapacitated, her brain whirred, a mess of questions. Were Hannah Rose and Lucas nearby? Were they frightened? Hurt? Would Jonah try to use them to barter for her cooperation like he had in the past? What about Precious? Had the dog really died of her wounds? Or had she, by some miracle, made it back to Connor? Would he come for them? Would he even know where to look? She’d told him some about the commune, but had she given him enough details to find them? Dammit, she should have drawn him a freaking map, just in case. Of course, that was presuming he even cared enough to stir himself for her. And that he had any way of knowing something was wrong.
The sound of a toilet flushing in the bedroom’s en suite slapped a stop sign in front of her racing thoughts. She strained to hear, picking up the sound of the faucet running, and then the connecting door opened. Jonah Carter himself strolled into the room, his eyes widening and a bright smile lighting his face when he saw her watching him.
“Finally. You’re awake.”
Her reactions were all sluggish—even the reflexive recoil she felt in his presence was delayed and muted. She must still be feeling the effects of whatever they’d given her to knock her out.
Jonah approached the bed. His smile shifted into an expression of benign disappointment that could have belonged to a teacher scolding a favorite student. She’d always thought there was something vaguely professorial about him.
<
br /> Jonah Carter didn’t look like she’d expected a zealous cult leader to look. Clean-shaven and attractive in a nondescript kind of way—as if his face’s perfect symmetry crossed a line and became uninteresting—he was average height and had a wiry build, but his looks weren’t his strength. It was his voice that could hold an audience for hours.
It rolled over her now, rich, warm and filled with layers of feeling. “You shouldn’t have run off like that, Eden. Our people need you. You know that.”
She tried to respond, but her mouth felt gummy and no sound emerged.
He stood next to the bed, looking down at her with a martyr’s smile curving his lips. He gently brushed tendrils of hair away from her face, never even glancing at the body that had been laid out like a buffet for him. For all his preaching about the need for sex and repopulating the planet, Jonah Carter was not an overtly sexual man. Even when he’d attacked her in the sanctuary, it seemed like it was because his God told him he needed to more than any physical attraction he felt for her. She was a symbol to him, not a person. It hadn’t even occurred to him that she would say no.
“You’re the key,” he said softly, almost lovingly. “I know it is a heavy burden to bear, but we must stay strong for our people. They’re depending on us.”
This was another of those moments when she wasn’t sure if he was a con man, a religious zealot or a complete whack job. When she first met him she was convinced he was an opportunist—just someone who had seen the vulnerability in others and knew how to exploit it to elevate himself to a position of power. But the more he preached, the more convincing he became. And the more she realized he might actually buy his own line—which was much more frightening than the alternative. Eden had found herself watching him, searching to see if she could detect the uneven edges of his faith. His belief was like a wax mask pressed over his skin, but it never cracked. It was seamless. Perfect.