The Age of Embers {Book 3): The Age of Reprisal

by Schow, Ryan

  And then the presence took her to a most glorious place far, far away from there.

  Draven found her that next morning. For a long time he sat there, by her side, sobbing nearly uncontrollably. He did not feel the people around him, or the hands on him, but he knew he was both alone and not alone. It was Brooklyn who managed to rouse him from this pain, from this cocoon of grief and perceived solitude.

  “She wanted you to live,” Brooklyn told him, cradling his head upon her heart. “She wanted you to have that chance.”

  That day, Draven insisted on digging his grandmother’s grave himself. It took him close to five hours, and when he buried her, he asked that no one speak, that they just give her a moment of silence. During that time, he said a prayer for her in his mind, and vowed not to fail her, to make the most of the life she was giving him.

  And then he thanked her.

  Chapter Forty

  Sometime later…

  Jill knew she had to give up on Rock. He wasn’t cold or resentful or mean…he was just detached. More and more, she found Gregor by her side, unwilling to shrink before her swinging moods, anxious to take the pressure off her where he could. She knew she was doing a good job with the new homestead, as Gregor liked to call it, but it was taking a toll on her and she needed to delegate some of the pressure elsewhere. She couldn’t do it to Rock, because he worked as hard as her, if not harder. The obvious thing would be to shift some of the responsibility to Gregor, but she still wasn’t sure if he was the type to stick around.

  “Why don’t you go back home?” she finally told him.

  They were sitting on the porch drinking warm beers after a long day. The night was just cooling off and it was peaceful outside.

  He laughed, tipped his beer then said, “What would be the point?”

  “You have family,” she replied. “That would be the point.”

  “They didn’t like me when I was there,” he said. “Besides, they may or may not be there if and when I get back. But you’re here, and these people are here.”

  “Would they like this version of you?” Jill asked, pressing the issue. “Because I think you’re actually a pretty decent guy. Maybe you weren’t before, but this is a new world and we can be anyone we want.”

  “Actually,” he said, “I want to be with you. That’s the real reason I’m thinking about staying.”

  “I can’t do the math on that,” Jill said, quickly dismissive.

  “Well one plus one equals fun in my book,” he said, making a hole of his thumb and forefinger in one hand, then pushing his pointer finger in and out of the hole mimicking sex.

  Laughing, she playfully slapped his arm then said, “One and one equals fun?”

  He drained the rest of his beer, then burped and said, “Most women find me sexy.”

  She laughed again. If anything, she found him charming. Still, she wasn’t able to make that leap. Maybe because she was expecting Rock to come around.

  He’s not coming around.

  Sadly, this was becoming real, her separation from Rock. Others saw it, too. Thankfully no one asked her about it. She wanted them to say nothing lest it be real for them, too. But now Gregor was saying something.

  “Sexy or not,” she said, “I’m not ready.”

  “Well when you are, I’d like to say I might not be here, but I think you’re a catch, so I’ll wait until you tell me there’s no way.”

  “And then what?” she asked, looking up at him.

  “We’ll blow up that bridge when we come to it,” he replied. “In the meantime, I need to get some shuteye. Lots to do tomorrow.”

  “Night, Gregor.”

  “Night.”

  As she sat on the porch relishing the night, she found herself thinking of Maisie. The ex-actress, ex-makeup artist had taken quite well to the group. By all appearances, they’d taken to her as well. Specifically Corrine, Amber and Abigail.

  They were all newbies, Jill reasoned, so they had that in common. And Amber didn’t know the history between Rock and Jill, or Rock and her, so she’d given Maisie the chance Jill never did.

  Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Maisie wasn’t a bad girl. Whatever she went through in Hollywood, it didn’t seem like she was one of those highbrow nut jobs. Maybe Jill was being too hard on her. Maybe she was hurting, too.

  That only left Rock.

  Maisie had been right when at the reservoir she said Rock ran the risk of losing them both if he couldn’t choose one or the other. In the end, he chose neither of them, so maybe they all lost out on each other. Maybe Rock lost out on himself, too.

  Is that why he’s turning me away?

  Janice said Rock’s ribs were better, and now that they were, he seemed to work harder than most. And why shouldn’t he? His house was officially ground zero to a new compound, a homestead he once told her they had to nurture and defend.

  But maybe he was hard at work for other reasons, too. She knew he was thinking about Fiyero, Adeline and the kids. That must weigh on him, not knowing about his family…

  In the end, she felt it best to try thinking about a life post-Rock, maybe see if there was a way to define her future without him.

  What would that look like?

  It pained her to consider such a thing, but she was a realist. Still, they’d fought before, broken up before, gotten back together before. So maybe there was a way back for them. Maybe this wasn’t the end. The only thing she really knew for sure was that if she could get back to him, she might finally be able to rest.

  Rock was laying in bed in his tent out near the edge of the common part of the property, his body weary from another hard day of working. He was thinking of Fiyero, about how everything went down with Ice, how he missed his father. The memories were deep and painful, and they often left him wondering if what he’d done in this life was ever going to be good enough. He wasn’t worried about anyone else, he wanted this for himself. He wanted to be okay with this life.

  The night was warm, the crickets loud, and his eyes just wanted to shut, if only so his mind would let the rest of him drift off to sleep.

  That’s when he heard the flap of his tent open and the zipper slowly being undone. Someone was coming inside his tent.

  It was dark inside the tent, and dark outside. He couldn’t see anything. He smelled fresh feminine skin, though, and he listened to the movements of a woman. His mouth almost smiled. At first he thought about asking the intruder to identify herself, but his soul was weary and he felt alone. Perhaps this prowler was the answer his soul needed.

  The knee came down beside him, a hand nudging his body to move over. She slid inside his bedding, snuggled up beside him. He let out a euphoric sigh at the tickle of a warm breath upon his ear.

  When the hand started to tug at his shorts, he lifted his hips, let her take them down. When she moved on top of him and began to seduce him, he didn’t stop her. When she made them one, when she took control of their bodies and gave them both what they so desperately needed, he brushed her cheek where her injuries had healed and said, “You changed your mind.”

  “I did,” the former actress said, her voice honey with post-coital lust. “I came to realize you and I just needed a better start.”

  “I like this start,” he said.

  “I do, too.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Over the next couple of days, Carver followed Maria, the remaining girls, Marcus the lumberjack, Mr. GQ and the hungry hottie into the nightmare that was San Francisco. He kept his distance, stayed alert and vigilant. His risk had just quadrupled. There were now four adults he needed to conceal his movements from rather than just one, which meant four chances to blow his cover and alert Maria of his presence.

  The hunger pangs were hitting him hard now, his eyes raw from microelements in the air, particles he felt but did not see.

  Smoke, soot, dust.

  He was coughing regularly now, his throat raw, his eyes so dry they burned sometimes. His lips were parched and
split, exhaustion tore at his body, his mind wouldn’t even let him rap because he couldn’t seem to put anything resembling a rhyme together.

  But at least he was scratching himself a lot.

  Once they got inside the city, the nightmare that was San Francisco unfolded. He walked with his binoculars in hand because from time to time, the group disappeared from view as they worked their way around and over a multitude of obstructions.

  Maria and her people moved past, over and around shelled and leveled buildings whose rubble spilled into the streets covering cars and people alike. They moved in and out of charred husks of every kind of car imaginable. They made wide berths of the multitudes of hapless survivors who wandering aimlessly through the streets looking for food, help, evidence of the God that failed them. They walked past smoldering piles of bodies (who is burning the dead?), stray dogs tearing at corpses, long rows of pitched tents where garbage and human waste covered the streets and sidewalks.

  The entire landscape left Carver feeling sicker than he already felt.

  Nightfall came and still the group kept moving. He closed the distance and because of the lack of visibility, he worked hard to keep them in view. The only way to do that, he realized, was to get close and stay as quiet as possible.

  As they headed up and down the city streets, as night set in and the air grew cold, he felt his energy waning. More than once, the aches and pains in his body became so ardent he longed to just give up.

  He walked half a mile at one point thinking only of laying down and going to sleep.

  Why did he need to follow Maria anymore? What was he going to do to her? Just sit back and watch her live her new life while having no life of his own? Was he just supposed to sleep in the dirt, in abandoned homes, lose weight, dehydrate, get eaten by insects and die?

  What kind of a crap ass life was that?

  When they finally got to their destination, his body flooded with relief. All he wanted to do was close his eyes. The relief, however, was short lived. All the houses in the neighborhood were burnt down, the entire street smelling like charred wood and soot.

  At some point, he might have started to cry.

  Mr. GQ walked through a slew of bodies out in front of one particular house, then up on the porch where the deep shadows made it too hard for Carver to see what was going on.

  Are they going in?

  That’s when the hungry hottie joined them, flicked a lighter and read what looked like a sign made of cardboard. Then they were traveling again, Carver trying all the while to keep up. His feet hurt so much he’d started to walk funny, which was doing a number on his right hip and the upper left side of his back. And at some point, he knew he couldn’t take much more.

  He went on like this for maybe thirty or forty minutes, maybe less. It was hard to tell because he was in a daze. He was stumbling along, his mind forsaking him when the group came to a very large building half on fire.

  The closer he got to the building and the fire, the more he saw. For a moment, he felt his energy returning. With a second wind upon him, he used the noise of the building and what looked like some major battle unfolding in the streets to move in closer.

  While some people were fighting on one side of the building, a whole lot more of them were pouring out the other side—women and children alike. He heard gunfire, saw Marcus and Mr. GQ put down three guys with guns.

  Carver dropped down, close enough to see what was happening, but the noise of war made it hard to hear specifics.

  The surfer or skater guy, Mr. GQ, saw someone he knew, a pretty blonde woman. He gave her a long hug, introduced her to the hungry hottie, then Maria’s group came upon them. After a moment, Marcus and Mr. GQ started giving directions. Maria, the hungry hottie and the girls moved with the group of people who’d run from what looked like a inner city college down to a park.

  He wanted to get eyes on the firefight, but he was afraid he would lose Maria. He took the chance, running through the darkness around the building to where he could get a better look at the fight. What he saw was like something out of hell. Marcus and the skater were in a gunfight in the middle of the street, along with a handful of others.

  One of the other fighters was a girl, this lithe little thing with a bow and arrows who looked completely fearless. She moved gracefully, launching arrow after arrow quicker than anyone he’d ever seen before. Even crazier, she was hitting her targets.

  The thing about survival of the fittest was, only the fit survive. This ferocious little archer would survive for sure, so would the lumberjack, Mr. GQ and Maria.

  But would he?

  As he backtracked to the park, he saw Maria and the girls. He saw the hungry hottie. Within a half an hour, the battle was over and it looked like they were moving. Interestingly enough, the group was being led by the archer, this fascinating little girl. They walked maybe a good hour through the darkness, the group moving slow enough for him to keep up.

  The way it looked, they were headed back to the burnt down neighborhood they’d just come from. He was partially right. They made their way to the neighborhood on the other side of a dirt road called Dirt Alley. There it looked as though most of those homes had been abandoned.

  The survivors began shuffling into them.

  With their skirmish won and people claiming homes, he felt it was time to lay down. In the dirt alley behind the homes, he found a large plastic shopping cart with a bit of garbage stuck to the sides of it. There was a dead guy curled up beside it.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” Carver said.

  Carver turned it over, rolled it a hundred feet away, then tipped it over sideways, curled his body up and slid into it. He pulled the blanket over him, closed his eyes and had the longest, best sleep of his life.

  You know you slept well when you don’t know what time it is, what day it is, how long you’ve been out or even what planet you’re on. That’s how good he slept.

  That’s also why, when he heard someone trying to wake him up, he realized he’d made a critical error.

  “Hey man, are you alive?” a girl’s voice asked. Half his face was under the blanket; the rest of it tangled around his legs. Opening that one eye, he saw that he was laying in the dirt, the sun was shining and a very cute girl was standing over him, speckles of blood all over her face, arms and hands.

  “What?” he asked, so tired he sounded drugged.

  “I asked if you were alive,” she said.

  He pulled the blanket off his face, looked around, saw he was alone with her. She had a bow slung over her shoulder, a quiver of arrows on her back.

  This is the archer, he thought.

  To her question of whether or not he was still alive, he said, “Barely.”

  “You’re going to catch your death out here.”

  “Death has thus far forsaken me.”

  “You sound disappointed,” she mused, moving in such a way as to block the sun from his face. “What’s your name?”

  “Carver,” he said, sitting up, straightening his hair as best as he could. “And you?”

  “Indigo.”

  She reached down with an inviting hand and he shook it.

  “This isn’t a pleased to meet you, Carver,” she said when he let go of her. “This is me helping you up.”

  “I’m fine down here,” he said. “There’s something about laying in the dirt not too far away from some dead guy that really nourishes the soul.”

  “Why are you here?” she asked, not a glint of humor in her eyes. “I mean, why this neighborhood?”

  “I’m here because I have no where else to go.”

  “There’s a whole city out there.”

  “I’d heard that.”

  “What kind of a person are you?” she asked.

  “Right now, a tired, hungry person.”

  “Yeah, but what kind of a person are you really?” she asked, pressing him.

  “I don’t know. Before all this, I was decent I guess. A little introverted maybe,
but hopeful in life, you know? I don’t know what you want me to say.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ran private security team tasked with watching over a state of the art quantum computer.”

  “Can you handle yourself in a fight?” she said.

  “I can,” he replied, honestly. “Maybe not now, but normally, yeah, I’m good.”

  “So you don’t have a criminal record?” she asked.

  “I don’t,” he said. “How old are you?”

  “Old enough. Listen, there’s plenty of space and a community for you if you want to try us out. But you can’t be a creeper, and you can’t be lazy. And you have to clean all this up,” she said, making a circle with her forefinger to indicate his whole body.

  “With all due respect,” he replied, “I’m neither lazy nor a creeper. And I’m a pacifist, if you can believe that.”

  She gave him a brief conciliatory laugh, but then she was back to business.

  “Why don’t you drag your ass out of the dirt and let me get you to a shower. With all due respect, you look like hell, you stink and this is an opportunity you probably won’t get again.”

  “Are you sure I’m not imposing?” he said, thinking they didn’t know the kind of danger they were in with Maria.

  “If we start to feel you’re imposing, we’ll let you know. And if you’re lazy or piss off enough people, we’ll kick you out, or kill you.”

  “As lovely as that sounds, I can just stay out here,” he said, more scared of Maria than they knew. “It’s kind of cozy.”

  “If you decide to stay here,” she said, “someone will surely see you and shoot you. Think of this as me saving your life.”

  “But you don’t know me.”

  “If you’re worried about me, or us, there’s no need. If you get on our bad side, or if this proves to be a catastrophic error on my end, I’ll kill you myself.”