Daughters of Eve Collection (Books 1, 2 & 3)

by Bourdon, Danielle

  “Where do you want to go?” he asked, grinding his teeth in frustration. He needed a phone and he needed it now.

  “Five miles,” the youth demanded, pointing south with the hand not holding the gun. “You take us now!”

  Rhett's best estimate put the delay of the phone call at an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. Those were minutes he didn't really want to waste. But he had little choice and no bargaining tool to use against them. If he refused, the men were so agitated they might shoot them both.

  Shielding Evelyn, he jerked his head for the men to get in.

  ***

  The sudden cessation of rain woke Alex from a dead sleep. Instead of twitching upright, she opened her eyes slowly, bringing the stormy, strange day into view. Behind her she felt Dracht, muscles flexing and tensing while he rowed. They had worked into an exhaustive routine of paddling for hours, until their arm sockets burned and their bodies screamed for release.

  After hydrating themselves with rainwater cupped in their palms, Alex sank into Dracht and he held her while she slept. Only once did she slump forward instead of against him. She had expected Dracht to sag against her when it was his turn to rest, but he'd laid back, head lolling with the current of the sea.

  She wasn't sure if this was the end of their second day or their third, though her stomach was protesting the lack of food with severe hunger pangs that made her weaker by the hour.

  While the rain stopping was a blessing it was also a curse; their fresh water source was now gone. That put their time limit on living at an extreme disadvantage.

  “You feeling all right?” Dracht asked at her ear, taking a break from the rowing.

  “Little rested. You?” she asked, voice just a murmur.

  “Hanging in there.” It was his standard answer.

  Alexandra knew that even if he was in distress he probably wouldn't tell her, just to keep her from worrying.

  Her body protested when she straightened away from his heat and got a better look around them at the gloomy sky. The thunderheads were still thick and dark, rolling through the atmosphere at a steady pace.

  “What comes after this?” Dracht asked.

  “Well. If the next seal is broken, then we'll have this again times ten, plus earthquakes like we've never seen, volcanoes erupting all over the world. Like that.”

  “So we just have to wait it out?”

  “Pretty much, Dracht. There's no way to tell--” Mid sentence, something ahead in the water made her squint. She realized it wasn't in the water, precisely, but...

  “LAND! Dracht! I see land!” It looked grainy, like an old photograph, barely discernible.

  “I see it! Row!” His oar splashed into the water.

  Alexandra picked hers up off her lap and fumbled with it. Turning it around, she clapped the end into the tide and rowed for all she was worth. The more the clouds moved, the more she realized they were closer than she thought. Shapes began to emerge, little by little. The outline grew sharper instead of hazier.

  Behind her, Dracht grunted, putting all his strength behind each pull.

  “We're not that far out,” he said.

  “I know. We'll make it.” Even if her arms fell completely off, she wouldn't stop until they got there. This was their chance to get off the ocean.

  It took them three hours of grueling, gut wrenching rowing until they drew close to the shore. In another hour, maybe less, night would fall. A small bay made the approach easier. Instead of huge docks, they rowed right up onto the shore, through the lapping waves, until Alexandra slid off onto the sandy beach. Her legs felt like they were stuck in a straddling position and she cried out when she tried to straighten them. Stiff joints, aching back, rigid neck.

  She felt like she'd been hit by a truck.

  Dracht suffered too, groaning and stumbling after throwing down his oar. He stretched his legs and glanced around like he was trying to see where exactly they'd landed.

  Alexandra had no idea, not yet. There were buildings further to the west still partly obscured by the low hanging clouds. It took her more than fifteen minutes to be able to stand upright without severe stabs of pain running through her back and hamstrings.

  “Any idea where we are?” she asked. Dracht had the same issues with his body she did. Being forced into the same position for so many days took its toll.

  Standing bent over with his hands on his thighs after another bout of stretching, he looked around. Insects covered the shore and up into the shrubs, clustered into groups that were most dead from drowning. Straightening, he gestured toward a low sandbar.

  “Let's go up there and see what we can see. I can't tell yet,” he said.

  Alexandra followed him up the slight slope, inwardly groaning at the pressure it put on her already overworked muscles. Not the type to complain, she crested the rise the same time Dracht did. A city stretched out over relatively flat landscape and a few signs that she could barely make out alerted her to their location.

  “Egypt,” Dracht said at the same time.

  “We're in the right place. Thank God. We need to get hold of a car and get on the road. It's gonna be a day and a half drive down to Aswan.” Her shoes were sopping wet and uncomfortable to walk in, but she trudged along the sandbar with Dracht toward civilization, wondering what they would find when they got there.

  ***

  Stuck on the other side of Rhett, between him and the edge of the boat, Evelyn regarded the group of men with assessing, wary eyes. They looked close to frenzy, eyes wild even as they launched onto the water, babbling about the end of the world. Some of them prayed, some cried, others tore at their hair. They talked about family, life, death.

  There was nothing anyone could say to take their fear away, and Evelyn didn't try. Carrying the knowledge around that she did made it somewhat easier to cope. These men only understood what they saw going on around them and they weren't the only ones freaking out.

  Rhett, jaw clenched tight, steered them down the Nile at a good clip.

  More people were out now, some near the banks, others fleeing to cars or on foot to places she couldn't guess. Relatives, mosques, grocery stores looking for food and water. Soon, night time would make everything that much darker. Already the looming clouds covered most of the gloomy rays of the black sun but the advent of evening made it harder to function simply because it was so hard to see.

  One hand on Rhett's back, the muscles stirring under her palm as he drove, she looked from the group to him. His face a mask of intensity, jaw clenched tight, he reminded her of a man set on a grim mission that he took no pleasure in. The stubble on his jaw had grown out considerably, giving him a rugged, gritty look. Hair loose around his shoulders, he reminded her of a mythical warrior on his way to war. His effort to save his family while guarding her was just one of the reasons she loved him.

  The thought hit her like a sledgehammer when it came of its own accord.

  He'd told her so on the boat, informing her of that which he saw and she didn't. Rhett had seen the signs before she allowed herself to understand them. It seemed impossible in such a a short time yet she couldn't imagine feeling any other way. He'd earned her trust, her faith, her loyalty. This was a man who deserved it.

  The young man with the gun pointed it at the edge of the water, toward a set of rickety docks that didn't look like they would hold too much weight before collapsing. No other boats were tied to the anchors.

  Rhett steered them toward it, pulling in at a crawl until they were flush with the wooden planks. This, Evelyn knew, was the dangerous part. Would the young man shoot them or let them go? They'd delivered on their end of the deal, but he was highly agitated, waving the weapon around, teeth bared, face a mask of distress.

  Once the boat stopped they all clambered out, including the man with the gun, who didn't so much as wave it their way. None gave thanks; they simply hit the dock running, shoes grinding dead insects beneath them.

  Everywhere there were reminders.

>   Evelyn couldn't see any buildings from here, not over the low rise of terrain arching up from the water's edge. In this particular spot there were no trees, only bristly looking grass and plants that sat clustered together between hard packed spots of sand.

  “Are we staying?” she asked, breathing a sigh of relief.

  “I'm not sure where this is exactly,” Rhett said, scanning the landscape with his eyes. “But if we leave here it could be another fifteen minutes or half hour before we find a dock that looks worth pulling into. Might as well give this one a try. C'mon.”

  He shut the motor down and grasped her hand, pulling her up onto the dock.

  Nimble and light footed, she hopped onto the creaky planks and ran with him up the sandy rise. The flat desert spread out before them, doused in murky gray shadows. A handful of buildings—a gas station, a seedy motel, souvenir shop and market—crowded close together past a parking lot without asphalt, where six or seven cars waited for owners who had either fled the scene or who were hiding out in one of the buildings, too afraid to come out. Water puddled in low points and depressions but the rest had been sucked straight into the arid ground or had run off into the Nile.

  Homes were further out, square shaped structures she could just make out in the distance. This was a stop over between bigger cities, an outpost for tourists who deviated off the main highway that cut a snaking line a half-mile out. She could see the blacktop, an artery for motorists still taking cover. No cars moved toward or away from them.

  The group of men they'd given a ride to bypassed the buildings completely, running pell-mell toward the highway like their feet were on fire. Even as Rhett tugged her into motion, she watched them cross it and continue toward a group of homes that must be where their relatives lived. Their desperation to reach their destination sent chills down her spine.

  “This way.” Rhett said, pulling her toward the gas station.

  The first obvious spot to check for a phone.

  As the countdown began toward full dark, she ran with him over the rugged ground, stomping bugs under her soles, hair flying out like a banner behind her. The wind from the boat ride had dried it thoroughly along with her clothes.

  Rhett searched the outside of the decrepit gas station first. The structure needed paint, a new sign and new concrete sidewalks. Stuck to the east facing wall, a public phone jutted out with the curving shell protecting it from most of the elements. He went right for it, dropping her hand at the last second to pluck the receiver out of the cradle.

  Evelyn held her breath. The phones had to work.

  He put it to his ear, and tapped the steel tongue that served to hold the receiver in place. Right away his mouth pressed into a thin line. He tapped it again, then jabbed his finger onto a few buttons.

  “Shit.” He spat a curse into the receiver and clapped it into the holder.

  “Nothing?”

  “Not even a hiss of static. Could just be out of order. Let's try inside.” He took her hand again and led her around to the front doors. Smoked glass, with stickers and advertisements in Arabic lettering, they proved to be unlocked when he yanked one.

  Following him inside, staying close to his flank, Evelyn saw the store had been ransacked between one event and the other. Ransacked but not destroyed. There was still food on the shelves; random canned goods, packages of pastries, bags of nuts, seeds and trail mix. A motley assortment of fruit bars and beef jerky littered boxes of cereal and candy bars all jumbled together on one shelf. It looked like the raiders had gone for mostly canned meat or stew since that section had been obliterated. Nothing remained.

  Evelyn snatched two granola bars and a package of trail mix on their way by, thankful that even way out here in the middle of almost nowhere that something familiar from home could be found.

  He let her go when they rounded the service counter and she took the opportunity to eat one of the granola bars, chewing quickly while he picked up a telephone under the cash register.

  “Let's hope there's a dial tone,” she said between bites. The other granola bar she saved for Rhett.

  “And it works,” he said a moment later with the receiver at his ear. “Let's hope I can call out of the country on it.”

  She hadn't thought of that. Some businesses restricted calls to local locations to save on the bill. There really wasn't any reason for employees to be dialing foreign countries.

  “It won't go through.” He snarled his frustration.

  Outside, the eerie gray descended into all out black. Night had fallen.

  Chapter Twenty

  Holding her breath, Alexandra crouched next to Dracht behind a dumpster. The city had come alive in the aftermath of the torrential rains that left huge sections of the streets under water. The commercialization of the landscape trapped it there between buildings and parking garages, hotels and restaurants. Other parts were damp but drier and easier to navigate.

  Creeping into the outskirts, they dodged people where ever they could but as far as Alexandra could see, no one cared they were there. The people who'd come out of hiding were buzzing around like bees from a knocked down hive, rushing here, rushing there. Even though night had fallen, they bustled on whatever business sent them from their homes to begin with.

  All they wanted was a car. So far, too many people had been around the ones they'd found empty in lots or along the street. People would notice if they busted a window, though Alex wasn't sure they would care.

  A fight turned into a melee drove them behind the dumpster to wait it out. Dracht wasn't in any mood to enter the fray or try to find a way around it and she didn't blame him. She didn't feel up to kicking butt right now, either. He'd spotted a smaller parking lot with a handful of cars in it belonging to an apartment building—on the other side of the hundred person brawl.

  She waited, listening to punches being thrown, heads hitting pavement, screams of rage and whimpers of pain. For all she knew it could have started with someone trying to steal a car.

  No wonder Dracht was being so careful. Weaponless, they only had their wits and their hands to defend themselves. Dracht, she knew, was no slouch in that department by a long shot. Against a handful of men, she would put her odds on him winning. On two dozen or more it was suicide.

  “Go, come on. Right now.” Dracht snatched her hand and lurched to his feet with no more warning than that.

  Snapped out of her mental wandering, she followed him up and winced at the searing pain lancing through her thigh muscles. The crouching hadn't done her any good. Breaking into a run with him leading, they aimed for a low fence that she could have hurdled any other time. Tonight she had to climb over, hopping on a foot until she got her balance back.

  They cut through what looked like a schoolyard, around a swing set and circumvented the fight. Once they'd crossed the street, they skulked toward the parking lot of the apartment building. He tested the door of every car parked there. Locked, locked, locked—open.

  Alex ran to the passenger side when she saw the door give way in his hand and got into the mini van. In its former days, the black vinyl seats and utilitarian dashboard had probably been appealing on a mental institution transport level; for comfort, it sucked. The ripped carpet on the floorboards peeled up to expose metal underneath and the visors were smudged with fingerprints and grease.

  It was easy to hotwire however, and Dracht got them moving in less than a minute.

  “That standard Templar training?” she quipped, trying to rub feeling back into her legs.

  “Would you be surprised to learn that it is? As you can see, you never know when the talent might come in handy,” he retorted, grinding over fallen plaster to get them through the lot and onto another street that wasn't filled with bodies pummeling each other. Only one headlight worked, spearing a beam through the growing darkness.

  “What else can you do?” Alex found it easier to fill the time with questions that weren't hard to answer.

  “Anything you want me to.” His tone d
id not boast arrogance or conceit; Dracht, self-confident, believed he could do whatever he put his mind to.

  That's how Alexandra regarded him, as capable and steady. Rock solid. She eyed him across the van while he maneuvered them out of the heart of the city, bypassing streets filled with water.

  For one moment, he met and held her gaze. His eyes were deep and dark yet Alex didn't misunderstand the blatant protectiveness harbored there.

  She curled a smile that he glanced at before looking ahead to the road.

  “Which direction?” he asked.

  “South. Just head south.”

  ***

  “It won't go through, or it's not working at all?” Evelyn asked.

  “It's working, they've just got it blocked to prevent employees from calling long distance.”

  “I wonder if there's a code we can punch in, like an over ride.”

  “There's nothing taped to the phone, which defeats the purpose of keeping the employees out anyway.” He picked the phone up and looked beneath.

  Nothing.

  Evelyn glanced away toward the back of the store. “What about the office? There should be another phone in there. If that one's blocked too, then maybe there's a code somewhere the employees wouldn't think to look.”

  “Let's try it.” Rhett dropped the receiver into the cradle and led her through the debris field of sunglasses, visors, gumballs and postcards toward a short hallway leading off the main room.

  One led to the restrooms, the other into the office.

  All the lights were still on and working, giving them plenty of light to see the small space set up with an old metal desk, a crooked folding chair, three filing cabinets and a framed picture of King Tut on the wall.

  The top of the desk looked like someone had been interrupted in the midst of running numbers; three accounting books sat open with a calculator next to them, the pen used to fill in the blank spots left right on the page. An old desktop computer, screen blank and dark, filled an entire corner. And a phone, with a rolodex built into the body, waited for use next to the accounting books.