by Alyssa Cole
“Where would she go?” John asked.
“She had a boyfriend in Florida, but I don’t imagine she’d try to trek that far,” I said, trying to figure out what the hell Maggie had gotten herself into. I’d expected embarrassment or anger and avoidance today, but not fleeing-into-the-wilderness-during-a-possible-apocalypse-level avoidance.
“How do you know all of this stuff?” John asked with an incredulous shake of his head.
“She talked about him during our lessons sometimes,” I answered. “But it didn’t seem like anything important until she mentioned him during her drunken ragefest last night. She was more upset about your parents not being here than the boy. Where does the chick they went to help live?”
“Darlene lives a couple of towns over, in a more remote area,” Gabriel said.
“More remote than this?” I asked.
“It’s a good day and a half hike from here. I didn’t chance it before, since Maggie would have been here alone, and then you two came along but you were injured...”
His mouth clamped shut as he seemed to remember just how we’d come to be hurt. Our attackers were dead, but who knew what other monsters lurked out there waiting for Maggie to fall into their clutches?
“Goddammit!” I bit out. I wanted to punch a wall, or scream, or do something crazy to get rid of the dread and restlessness that made my skin crawl. I turned to Gabriel. “We have to go. Maybe we can track her?”
“Since when can you track anything, Sacajawea?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. “Weren’t you the one who got us lost in the woods, and now you think you’re gonna go save the day?”
His icy words stopped me in my tracks.
“I’m sorry, I’m such an asshole,” I said, shaking my head as I realized my blunder. His words were harsh, but it was pretty jerky of me to plan around him as though he was window dressing when it was his own sister who was missing, on top of his parents. I didn’t know what else to do with my energy, so I rushed over and hugged him. His crossed arms pressed into my chest. “You’re right. You should go with Gabriel.”
“No, I’m the asshole. You’re just trying to help.” He gave a contrite sigh and then wriggled his arms free to wrap them around me. “This just sucks and I hate it. I fucking hate it.”
“Light’s fading. Which of you is coming?” Gabriel asked, hefting the bag onto his back. He slipped the pistol into his coat’s deep pocket, and terror coursed through me. I sincerely hoped he wouldn’t have a reason to reach for his gun.
“Arden, you go,” John said. His arms slid up to my shoulders and squeezed tight. “I can use the shotgun to protect the homestead, and I know these woods like the back of my hand if I need to make a quick getaway.”
We agreed to rendezvous at a place familiar to the brothers if anything happened at the house.
“Have the gun and one of the go bags near you at all times. We’ll try to check in if anything comes up, so keep your walkie-talkie on,” Gabriel barked. He stalked over and stared down at his brother before pulling him into a rough hug. It wasn’t lost on me that they were the last two accounted-for members of a rapidly shrinking family. We had all lost so much in the past few weeks. I gripped the edge of the kitchen table tightly and closed my eyes. After taking a deep breath, I sent a wish to the universe that nothing more would be taken and that all would be restored. Like I’d said to Maggie during our first foray into positive thinking, it didn’t hurt to put it out there. We needed all the help we could get.
The sound of Gabriel’s footsteps passed me, and I opened my eyes to see John holding up a walkie-talkie that looked as if it had been invented shortly after the telegraph.
“Do those things even work?” I asked doubtfully as Gabriel stuffed the matching walkie-talkie into an inner pocket and zipped his jacket. Both of them ignored me, and I chose to interpret that as “yes, they’re fully functional.”
John’s eyes latched on to mine, fear broadcasting from their dark depths. “Take care of my brother,” he said. He turned to Gabriel. “Take care of my Arden.”
Gabriel nodded and opened the door to the freezing air and wintry whiteness beyond. I felt rooted in place. The house had become my refuge, and being forced from it was terrifying. But Gabriel started walking, and I took one hesitant step after him, and then another.
“Be safe,” John said as he stood in the doorway watching after us.
“Make sure you have dinner waiting for us, darlin’,” I said in a faux frontier-man voice, and he gave me exactly what I needed—that sunny smile of his. Then the door closed and the locks clicked.
“Ready?” Gabriel asked. His face was a blank slate, all of his anger and fear tamped down under his sense of duty. But he still reached out and pulled me close. His lips pressed into mine quickly, leaving a lingering warmth behind. “Thanks for having my back,” he said as he started forward, eyes now on the ground searching out Maggie’s footsteps in the snow.
“Anytime,” I murmured, walking close behind.
Chapter Seventeen
I had thought it frigid before, when John and I had trekked miles and miles in the snow to reach what we’d thought would be refuge. Now I knew that frigid was just a mile marker on the way to whatever temperature it was as Gabriel and I searched for Maggie. My eyeballs hurt from the cold, and the snow was covered with a treacherous icy crust that made for slow going even with our boots’ reinforced soles. Occasionally, we’d get the awesome surprise of stepping onto a weak spot and plunging in up to the knee.
Funny, when we’d made that first trek, I’d only hoped for a place to stay that was safe and warm and had something to eat besides stale nuts. The thought that I would meet a man I was starting to fall for and a teenager who I’d be out of my mind with worry over had never occurred to me. But here I was, following said man and searching for said teenage friend—that was what she was, I realized. A friend. Despite our argument, despite the fact that I would throttle her when we found her, Maggie was no longer some hypothetical extension of John. She was flesh and blood to me now, and I knew all too well how easily she could be hurt.
“I am going to murder her,” Gabriel said through clenched teeth as he kicked at some icy brush with the toe of his boot.
Not if someone else has done that already. I stomped forward, as if I could crush the pernicious thought underfoot.
“I’m just going to set her on fire,” I said, an odd attempt at keeping things light.
Gabriel turned to look at me, the winter sunlight reflecting off the snow and illuminating those beautiful eyes of his.
“What? It’s freezing out here and she’s flammable. Inflammable. Whatever,” I said with a shrug as I turned in a circle and surveyed the area, trying to remember what little I’d learned during my brief fixation with Little House on the Prairie. They’d had to search for one sibling or another in the snow, right?
Tree, tree, tree...the surroundings all blurred together, until my eyes alighted on a hot-pink beacon in the midst of the tree bark.
“Shit.”
The word slipped out of my mouth, and Gabriel was already following my line of sight, running toward the fuchsia-fletched arrow embedded in the tree trunk ahead of us.
He stopped short, almost skidding to a halt on the icy crust covering the snow. I jogged over to him, my stomach dropping at the sight before me. There was a deep indentation in the snow. If we’d been at the local park, I would have guessed that a couple of giant dogs had been rolling around having a grand old time, or perhaps that a very uncoordinated sumo wrestler had tried to make a snow angel. But we were in the middle of the woods, and Maggie was missing. What we were looking at was what they would call “signs of a struggle” on the police procedurals I used to glom.
The arrow stuck out from dead center of the tree. One set of footsteps approached it from head-on, small steps that dragged a bit, like most surly teenagers’.
A second set could be see
n approaching from behind, but at an angle. These were widely spaced, and it didn’t take an experienced tracker to figure out that this person was much larger and had been running. There was a disturbed area of snow where they’d struggled, a stomped-in and kicked-up circle where Maggie had fought her opponent.
She’s tough, like you, Arden. She wouldn’t go down without a fight. Maggie’s words from dinner just a few nights ago rang in my head as Gabriel hunkered down and grasped at something in the snow. A long strand of black hair hung from his fingertips. Crystals of snow clung to it, sparkling like diamonds in the afternoon light.
There was a trail leading from the impromptu outdoor fighting arena, a trail left by flailing legs that had dug deeply into the snow and kicked out at branches, seeking purchase. Or leaving a way for us to find her. Either way, I was impressed underneath the metric shit-ton of fear pumping through my system.
Gabriel was still hunkered down, staring at the strand of hair. I crouched down next to him, aware of the fact that we’d been in this position before, but last time, John had been bloodied before us. Hurt, but alive and accounted for.
The strand shook gently, and for a second I thought it was the wind, but then I saw the shattered expression of Gabriel’s face and knew that it was him. Impotent fear crept over me on little icy feet. I was sitting right next to him, but I couldn’t undo whatever had happened to Maggie. My heart was thudding in my chest and I was ready to rip the woods apart looking for her, but Gabriel was cocooned in his own personal horror story. I wrapped my arms around him awkwardly, holding him close and trying to transmit security and calmness that I didn’t feel within.
“Let’s go get her,” I said quietly.
He glanced at me, the fear sharp in his eyes, and I shook my head in answer to the question he hadn’t had to ask.
“No time to worry about what-ifs,” I said, trying to infuse my voice with the command that came so easily to him.
He nodded and lurched to his feet, pulling me up with him. His face was blank now, and deathly pale. I couldn’t imagine how he felt; I’d only known her a short while, and the coffee I’d downed before leaving was surging at the back of my throat. This, combined with what had happened to his parents, and to John and—it seemed presumptive to think this, but I knew it to be true—to me, this had to be very near the straw that would break the camel’s back for him.
“She’s waiting on us,” I urged, following the trail that led into the woods. He nodded again, and came after me. I was genuinely worried now. Gabriel’s go-to self-defense method was withering remarks or general assholishness, and I was pretty sure that us having bone-shatteringly great sex hadn’t magically changed that side of him. The fact that he was silent as we walked spoke to just how close to the edge he was.
I didn’t think he’d want to be pitied, but I threw my hand back and held it there. His thick-gloved fingers closed over mine and we both hustled forward through the quiet trees. I fervently hoped that at the end of this trail wasn’t a scene that would haunt us both forever.
My breath quickened as I thought of Blue Hat sitting on my chest, eager to hurt me just because he could. I didn’t let my imagination stray to any similar scenarios involving Maggie. Any time a bad thought crept up on me, I bit my tongue, hoping the pain would serve as a sacrifice that would keep my horrid thoughts from coming true.
We were walking quickly, trying to remain quiet but opting for speed over the element of surprise. Quite suddenly, it seemed we wouldn’t need it.
The silence of the crisp winter morning was broken, but not by us.
The wail scared the shit out of me, a banshee crying out from the depths of hell. But then there was a hiccup, a quieter cry and the familiar pattern that had ruined many a flight, movie and restaurant dinner in my time.
A baby. There was a goddamned baby at the end of this trail.
We ran then, thrashing through frozen underbrush and slipping on icy snow, fingers freezing as we dug them into the snow to maintain an upright position.
We were on them before we knew it.
Maggie kneeled in a patch of skinny young spruces, mouth gagged by a green bandanna and arms drawn up behind her like she was bound. Her red-rimmed eyes widened when she saw us approach, the tracks of frozen tears cracking on her cheeks as she began to yell.
There was a figure in front of her wearing a bulky white down jacket. Gabriel had slipped off his gloves while he ran, and the gun was in his hand now. He didn’t pull the trigger quickly, as he had with Blue Hat. His hand was unsteady and his eyes were tight as he took aim. The figure spun around, and a ruddy, haggard face peered out from under the hood. A woman, not much older than me judging by her appearance, gaped at us. Her gaze swept over me, but landed on Gabriel and stuck.
“I told him not to do it,” she sputtered. “I told him to just let them go, but he was coming off his fourth tour, and he was supposed to be taking his meds but he ran out. It’s the PTSD, and he says chemical agents messed up his brain or something.”
“Um, what are you talking about?” I asked, inching toward Maggie.
The woman didn’t seem to be armed, but she suddenly lunged for the zipper of her coat, sliding it down and grabbing at both lapels.
I heard the safety click off on Gabriel’s gun and wished this didn’t have to happen. Again.
“Don’t hurt the baby!” she cried, ripping the jacket open to reveal a red-faced infant strapped to her chest like adorable, snot-nosed C4.
“Fuck!” Gabriel yelled, quickly pointing the gun down and slipping the safety back into place.
The baby cried out, perhaps sensing something momentous had just happened.
“Don’t hurt us,” the woman who had to be Darlene cried out. “If you hurt us, I can’t tell you where your parents are.”
Chapter Eighteen
Gabriel had gone still, his eyes burning with hatred as he stared at Darlene, who stood dumbly petting her child like it was a lucky rabbit’s foot that could keep her safe.
When Gabriel spoke, his voice was low and ugly, shocking me with its ferocity. “You kidnapped my parents and my sister, and you dare try to bargain with me?” he bit out. “Why should I give a fuck about you or your baby?”
Muffled sobs from behind Darlene caught my attention, and I hurried over to Maggie and pulled the gag from her mouth. I was frightened by the fury Gabriel was unleashing, but I trusted him. I’d seen the desolation in his eyes after he’d killed Blue Hat and friend, and I was positive he wouldn’t hurt a woman who had a new baby to care for, no matter her misdeeds.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” Maggie sobbed. Her words came out in strangled squeaks. “I just wanted to get some air, I wasn’t going to travel far, I swear. I was about to head home when he jumped me. I tried to fight back—”
I pulled her into a hug and she leaned into me, raising her arms up behind her. My fingers worked at the rope tied around her wrists as she sobbed into my jacket. When her hands were free, she threw her arms around me.
“Arden, I can’t believe what an idiot I was last night,” she said through a voice thick with tears. “I kept thinking I would die and the last thing you’d remember of me would be those hateful words. I didn’t mean them, and I wish I could take them back.”
I had thought my heart was already too full to bear, but I was wrong. I refused to let my tears fall, but I squeezed the annoying teenager who’d crept past my defenses and into my heart, and hoped my next words were true. “It’s okay. We’re gonna be okay,” I said, my eyes on Gabriel and Darlene, who were staring at each other. The baby hiccuped and whined a bit before quieting down, and Darlene rubbed its little belly soothingly. It was so cold, and despite the idiocy of its parents, I was worried for the small thing.
You would think that dealing with an apocalypse would harden a person, but I was getting softer by the moment. If a woodland creature jumped out right then, I would have dissolved into tears.
“I couldn’t stop him,” Darlene finally
said, forlorn. Tears began to stream down her face, and words from her mouth. “The baby came early and your parents stayed to help, but then Dale showed up out of the blue. What was I supposed to do? He’s my husband. I love him. I promised to stick by him in sickness and health, and he’s real sick.
“They’d shipped him back because he got into some trouble and needed R & R. I thought the episode would pass, and he’d let your parents go, but it didn’t. It’s not his fault he can’t get his medication. I have no idea what the hell I’m doing with this baby or how we’re supposed to survive. Dale told me he’d hurt us, too, that we were either with him or against him. I’m so sorry.”
The woman was sniveling and shaking like a leaf, and I was shocked to feel a twinge of compassion for her too. I couldn’t find it in me to despise her even if I hated what she’d done to survive.
Gabriel stared at her hard. I could sense him going over the horrible options in his head. His eyes widened and his mouth screwed up, and for a second I was sure he would shoot her out of frustration. Instead, he spat out a string of expletives as he walked toward me and Maggie, who was still sobbing. He enveloped the both of us in his arms, resting his head against Maggie’s while briefly closing his eyes in relief. It felt good to be hugged like that.
It felt like home.
When he opened his eyes again there was less fury and more fear. “Where are my parents?” he asked.
“They’re in their van, it’s parked a mile or so away,” Darlene said. “They’re okay, just tied up. God, that’s an awful thing to say, ‘just tied up,’ but I was so scared he was going to kill them this morning. They’re alive and unhurt.”
Relief washed through me, and I felt the tension in Gabriel loosen just a little bit. Maggie cried silently, as her relief had apparently struck her mute. But despite the fact that one mystery had been solved, there was another more pressing one.