Final Awakening (Book 1): Dawn

by J. Thorn

  He stood in front of the building and looked up at the faded sign. He couldn’t read the full name of the shop, but he could make out the words “Dry Cleaner.” He placed his hand on the door and paused before pulling it open. He told himself it might be best to leave her alone—as she’d asked. If something happened to her, that’d be her fucking problem.

  Dax sighed before entering the dry cleaner.

  Damn it.

  Chloe stumbled past piles of wire hangers and around a cash register that had been ripped from the counter and thrown to the ground. She moved through the dry cleaner, keeping a hand in front of her mouth in hopes of avoiding the stench of chemicals and solvents now puddled on the concrete floor. Whatever clothes had been cleaned and waiting to be picked up were now sitting in the puddles. Someone had pulled down the hanging rods.

  She stopped at a sign that read “Employees Only.” The door already stood open an inch or two, so she pushed slowly, listening to the hinges creak as it opened. The sun came into the office through a window high on the wall, letting in some light from the alley behind the building. Hopping over to a chair, she then sat down at a desk in the center of the room. Her remaining leg screamed at her, the muscles tense from her heel all the way up through her glutes. She grimaced as she massaged the back of her leg.

  Chloe searched around the room for a real cane or maybe even a pair of crutches. Looters wouldn’t value those kinds of things, but then again, people wouldn’t leave them behind either.

  She jumped when the front door opened.

  Chloe looked around the room again, this time hoping for a weapon or an object she could use to defend herself. Her cane might work, but that would mean she’d have to balance on one leg. She rifled through the desk drawers and spotted a decorative letter opener. It wasn’t long, but it was more than sharp enough to jam into a person’s neck if they got close.

  She sat still and held her breath, the blade in her hand.

  Someone moved through the front part of the shop and then knocked on the office door. She gripped the letter opener.

  “Chloe, it’s me.”

  She rested the letter opener in her lap. “Jackson?”

  He walked through the door, wearing the same bloody cop uniform he’d had on earlier.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. I told you to leave me alone.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said as he entered the room.

  Chloe let out a heavy sigh. “Whatever. Sit on the other side of the room. I don’t want you near me.”

  Dax raised both his hands and took a step backward. “All right. No problem.”

  He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. Chloe glared at him. She examined the blood stains on his uniform. The blood was still dark and wet, but the shirt was also marked with lighter, dried stains. What had he been up to since all this had started? As she thought about what he’d done in the alley, Chloe realized that he had probably saved her life. And the man he’d killed would have murdered again. She was only starting to understand that this was probably how the world was going to be unless the government turned the lights back on and restored order.

  She thought about the people at the daycare center and knew she had to get back to them. Neil, Isaac and the others would be worried about her by now. And the children. She wanted to see the kids and let them know she was all right.

  Dax kicked at an empty aluminum can, and it spun off into a darkened corner of the office.

  “All right. I can’t ignore it anymore, and I’m sorry if the question offends you. But I’ve got to ask about—”

  “My leg?”

  Dax nodded.

  Chloe took a deep breath. Under normal circumstances, she’d get as far away from this man as she could. He murdered someone right in front of her. But he had done so to protect her, and given the situation on the street, it didn’t seem as horrific to Chloe as it would have only a few weeks earlier.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “No, it’s okay. Really. I’m honestly surprised you didn’t ask sooner.”

  Chloe leaned forward on the chair and tried to decide what to tell him first.

  “You remember how I went to LSU on a track scholarship, right?”

  “Of course. They were on a fucking tear. It was all you could talk about when you got accepted.”

  “I was so damn good.”

  Chloe swore she could still feel the discus in her hand, right there in the looted dry cleaner. “I was good at all of it, but especially running.”

  “I remember.”

  “We were in North Carolina at Duke University. I was a senior, and we’d defeated USC for the National Championship. And, it happened to be my friend Catherine’s birthday, so we decided to head out to a club to celebrate.”

  Chloe went back to that tragic event in her mind, as she had done so many times before, recalling the details as she told Dax the story.

  Chloe was smiling as she walked out of the club. Her two best friends, Catherine and Becky, stumbled alongside her, laughing as she tried to keep them on their feet.

  Catherine’s birthday celebration had started with chimichangas and a few too many margaritas at Miguel’s Cantina and ended with the three young women dancing their hearts out at a nearby gay club.

  The self-imposed designated driver, Chloe had stopped drinking after her third margarita, and several hours had passed since her last swig. She now struggled to keep her drunk friends on their feet while she maneuvered them to the car.

  “Why do all the good ones have to be gay?” Becky asked, slurring her speech.

  Chloe laughed. “You haven’t found the right one yet. He’s out there.”

  “Ha.” Becky coughed after she let the word out. The other two girls laughed.

  “What about you, Chloe?” Catherine asked. “You had Jackson. Didn’t you think he was the one?”

  Chloe’s smile disappeared. She knew her friends were drunk, but it still upset her that they’d bring up her ex. Especially when they didn’t even know him. Jackson had been her high school sweetheart, and she had truthfully thought she was going to marry him. Even considering the high school puppy love, they had been unusually close. And though it had been three years since they’d broken up, and Chloe had dated a few decent guys while in college, the memories of their split still cut deep.

  “Yeah, well, that didn’t work out. Okay?”

  “I think I’d have made that work out, girl,” Becky said. “Just thinking about all the pictures you showed us of him—that boy is one fine piece of something. That chest. Those abs. I mean damn, I’d like to—”

  “Really?” Chloe stared at Becky.

  “Sorry,” Becky said, seeming to sober up a bit.

  Chloe shook her head. “Let’s just get to the car.”

  They had left the car on a side street near the Mexican restaurant. The street had been lined with vehicles when they’d gone in to eat, and then to the club, but it was now one of only three vehicles remaining.

  Chloe felt awake, but her contacts were dry, making her appear sleepy.

  “You gonna be able to drive us, Hayward?” Catherine asked Chloe.

  “I’m fine. I need to get some drops in my eyes.”

  Chloe climbed into the driver’s seat while both of her friends got into the back.

  “You’re gonna make me ride up here by myself?”

  “You’ll be fine,” Becky said.

  “Yeah. Drive, bitch. It’s my birthday.”

  Both girls laughed. Chloe shook her head.

  Chloe pulled the drops from her purse and wet her eyes with the solution. She opened her eyes wide, letting out a single yawn. Chloe put the drops back in her purse, started the engine and dropped the car into drive.

  As Chloe pulled away, Becky said, “Turn on some music.”

  Although she wasn’t in the mood to listen to anything, the radio would drown out her drunk friends. Chloe turned the volume knob, and an Aaliyah song came to life on t
he radio.

  Catherine said, “Damn, it’s my song.”

  Both girls sang every lyric. When they noticed Chloe wasn’t singing along, they reached up and grabbed at her hair.

  “Come on, girl. Sing with us.”

  Chloe smiled and decided not to hold her friends’ drunk behavior against them. She had been driven home many times herself.

  She sang, the volume of the music drowning out memories of Jackson.

  Chloe hadn’t been paying attention to how fast she was driving. She didn’t see the police officer sitting in the parking lot of the bank with his lights off. Blue lights flashed in the rearview mirror, and she saw the car move, readying to pull into traffic.

  “Damn, girl. How fast were you going?” Becky asked.

  Chloe sighed, ignoring her friend’s question. She saw a vacant laundromat parking lot ahead. She’d pass through the oncoming traffic light, which had flashed green to give her the right-of-way and pull into the lot.

  “Maybe I can show him my birthday goods,” Catherine said, pulling down the top of her dress to reveal cleavage.

  Both girls laughed and hollered.

  “Will you two shut up? I don’t want to have to take a breathalyzer. Now I’m serious, just be”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe caught a glimpse of the headlights. She slammed on the brakes as her whole body tightened, her eyes wide in the blinding illumination.

  “I don’t remember much about the moment of impact.”

  “Jesus.”

  Chloe chuckled. “Yeah, I think He had a hand on my shoulder that day.” She drew in a deep breath, licked her lips and then continued. “I woke up some time later. The other driver had tried to make a left turn and T-boned our car. I can’t tell you how fortunate I am the crash didn’t kill me on impact. But for whatever reason, God decided to let me live.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it anymore.”

  “No, it’s okay. I like doing this every now and then. It’s therapeutic. And I’d say any kind of therapy is good right now.”

  Dax smiled.

  “I went into shock because I couldn’t feel anything. I remember a lot of blood and the vehicle being folded over me. It seemed like the paramedics were there almost instantly, and I think that’s because of that cop who was about to pull us over. He saw the whole thing and was able to radio EMS as soon as it happened.

  “They had to saw the vehicle open to pull me out. I remember looking down and seeing one of my legs pinned beneath the dashboard. But the minute the car’s frame moved off my pinned leg, the pain hit. It was the most excruciating thing I’ve ever experienced. I passed out and, when I woke up, my leg was gone. The impact of the collision destroyed it from the knee down. The doctors told me later they were surprised it even stayed attached. They had no choice but to amputate. So that’s how this happened.”

  Dax didn’t say anything. He rested his elbows on his knees and looked around as if he were searching the room and looking for something to say. Chloe waited only a few moments before breaking the silence.

  “Can I ask you something now?”

  Dax shrugged. “Sure. Anything.”

  Chloe glanced down to the police uniform. She nodded at the badge and what was left of the light blue shirt that had been mostly covered in blood. Then she raised her eyes back to his.

  “Did you steal that from an officer when you broke out of prison?”

  9

  Chloe kept her eyes focused on Dax’s face. He wouldn’t look at her. He stared at the ground, his hands, his feet—anywhere that wasn’t her face.

  “How did you know?”

  She smiled. “Really? You ever heard of Facebook? I made a hobby out of looking for people from high school to see what happened to them. You don’t think I’d look up the guy I was head-over-heels for? I found a couple of guys from the basketball team who both gave me the same information. You never looked me up? Would’ve been pretty easy to find out what happened to my leg.”

  “I’ve been in prison, but apparently you already know that.”

  “Yeah, I do. I know it has something to do with some stuff that went down during Katrina, too, but that’s about it.”

  “I guess your Facebook searching isn’t all that great then.”

  “What happened?”

  Dax stood up and pushed the chair aside. He put his hands on his hips and turned his back to Chloe, facing the wall.

  “That bad, Jackson?”

  “I can’t do this now.”

  For a moment, Chloe considered pressing him, knowing she could get him to open up right now if she really wanted to. But they had more important things to deal with... so she cut him a break, for now.

  “All right. Maybe another time.”

  Dax sighed and turned back to face her. “This center you were staying at. Is it close?”

  “Not too far.”

  “We need to get back there before the sun goes down. We don’t wanna be on the streets when all the crazies come out. Can you lead us back?”

  Chloe was silent for a moment. She believed in her heart that he was harmless, no matter what he’d done. But convincing the group was going to be tough given everything that had happened, even if she vouched for him. Neil trusted Chloe, though, so she was confident he would understand.

  “Yes, I can. But when we get there, you’ve gotta let me convince them you’re all right.”

  Dax narrowed his eyes.

  “Look at yourself, Jackson. You’re in a police uniform that barely fits, and you’re covered in blood. We have children at our center. You don’t exactly look like a birthday party clown.”

  Dax chuckled as he looked down at his clothes.

  “There’s the guy I remember,” Chloe said, acknowledging his laugh.

  “You got me,” Dax said, looking at her and smiling.

  She smiled back. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Dax stopped a few doors down from the cleaners. Chloe looked up to see the sign for a drugstore. A few people could be heard inside, and one guy came up behind them, hollering and slapping Dax on the back as he ran into the store.

  Dax removed the gun from its holster and held it out to Chloe.

  “You know how to use one of these?”

  Chloe nodded.

  “If anyone fucks with you, don’t hesitate. All right?”

  Chloe nodded as she accepted the weapon, her hand shaking as she took the grip.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Some shopping.” Dax ducked into the store.

  Chloe had never held a gun before. She shoved the Glock into her waistband, trying not to touch the trigger. She held herself against the wall as she looked around, placing her other hand at the center of her stomach where she could easily grab the weapon if it were needed. A shirtless black man emerged from the far end of an alley, shouting with his arms spread. He wore a backpack packed so tightly that the zipper was broken. He took one look at Chloe before noticing her missing leg. Then he shook his head and ran, ducking into a building down the street.

  Chloe closed her eyes and took a deep breath. When she opened them, she was looking across the street at a man on the upstairs balcony of his Creole townhouse, leaning back in a lawn chair and wearing sunglasses and a fedora as he smoked a cigar. He had no shirt and wore a pair of suspenders to keep his trousers from falling to the ground.

  “Whoo!”

  A gangly white guy in a blue bandana stepped out of the drug store with an armful of orange prescription pill bottles.

  He looked at Chloe and then to his loot. He held a pill bottle out to her and shook it like a baby rattle. “Well, hey there.”

  Chloe had started to reach for the Glock when Dax ran from the store and moved inbetween her and the skinny guy.

  “Got a problem?” Dax had four inches on him and outweighed him by at least fifty pounds.

  The guy backed away and raised his hands. “All good, brother. All good.” He turned and hurried away.
/>   It wasn’t until Dax turned around that Chloe noticed what was in his hand. Her eyes lit up.

  “Look what you found.”

  Dax handed her a set of crutches.

  She put one under each arm. They fit well, and she didn’t even need to adjust the height.

  “Figured this would help get us back to your friends a lot faster. I found some fresh bandages for my arm.”

  She handed the Glock back to him, smiled and moved down the sidewalk.

  “You’re fast on those things.”

  She looked over her shoulder “See if you can keep up.”

  Chloe cruised down the street. She saw Dax walking faster, his face flush as he sped up to keep pace with her. Chloe’s arms began to burn, but she soon fell back into a familiar groove.

  But the closer they got to the day care center, the heavier her upper body felt. Her thigh muscles burned and an ache had spread from underneath her arms. Chloe remembered her days on the track and that feeling of fatigue near the finish line coupled with an unmistakable drive to cross it.

  When the back side of the day care center finally came into view, she smiled. She stopped on the sidewalk across the street and pointed to it.

  “There it is.”

  Dax adjusted the collar on his shirt and took several deep breaths. “It’s a lot quieter down here.”

  Chloe shrugged and crossed the street. Dax followed her.

  She came around the front of the building and immediately noticed that the main door was open. She hobbled faster down the sidewalk and quickly saw that it was not only open but that someone had broken it down.

  “This definitely wasn’t like this before,” Chloe said.

  Dax stepped around her, and raised his gun and looked into the building through the open door.

  “Shit.”

  10

  “Stay here.”

  “No, Jackson. I’m coming in with you.”

  Chloe looked at him with tight lips. The color had drained from her face, and her big brown eyes appeared wet. He felt as if they were back in high school again, sharing a thread of mental communication.

  “No, you’re not. Stay here at the front and keep a lookout.”