by James Hunt
“And my children are no good dead to me,” Wren spit back. “I’m not a soldier, Reuben. I’m not a fighter or survivalist. I’m an architect from Chicago and a mother of three. And the latter is all that matters to me. I’m not going to let my kids die. No matter what the cost.”
Reuben returned his gaze to the cave’s entrance. “I’ll take the first watch. You get some rest.”
Wren didn’t object, and she used a portion of his pack as a pillow. The moment her eyes closed, she drifted to sleep. When Reuben prodded her awake for her shift, it felt as though she’d just lain down, but the plummet in temperature and the bags under Reuben’s eyes told a different story. She kept the rifle close and tried to get comfortable for her watch.
Flames glowed from inside the cave’s depths. No doubt the gang had someone on watch as well. Two pairs of hidden eyes peering through the darkness, each of them locked onto one another in a stalemate of wills. She raised the rifle’s scope to her eye and peered through the magnified lens. Her vision ascended to the pinpoint accuracy of crosshairs, and she saw the faintest outline of a man’s silhouette at the edge of the cave. She placed her finger on the trigger, her arms surprisingly calm. End it now.
But before she squeezed the trigger, another gunshot rang out, this one coming from inside the cave. Wren ducked, trying to elude the bullet meant to kill her, but as a second shot thundered, she realized she wasn’t the target. Reuben was already at her side, gun in hand, staring into the same darkness as she was. “Did you shoot?”
“No,” Wren answered. After the two gunshots, only silence and the shadows of fire filled the night air. She wanted to investigate, but with Reuben frozen like a statue, she stayed put.
“Don’t shoot!” The voice echoed from the cave, and a silhouette appeared at the entrance. “I’ve chosen to give myself up. And if you take me alive, I can help get your children back, Wren.”
Wren peered through the scope to get a better look, but the man had stopped at the edge of the shadows. She recognized the smooth, casual voice of the leader, but in the darkness his features still eluded her. Reuben, who remained in the same position, with the rifle’s stock tucked closer to his shoulder, stared down the tipped sight of his rifle, but Wren placed her hand over the barrel and lowered it. “I want him alive.”
“Could be a trick,” Reuben answered.
“He shot his partners,” Wren interjected.
“He fired his weapon. We don’t know if he shot anyone.”
The voice responded as if he had heard their whispered conversation. “Come check the bodies if you’d like. I’ve placed the weapons in the opening a few feet from the cave. I’m unarmed.”
Reuben rose from behind their cover, still peering through his rifle’s scope. “Step out of the cave, slowly. Keep your hands up and walk toward me.” Wren popped up beside him, and the two walked toward their new captive in sync. The weapons he spoke of were right where he said they would be, but he remained in the shadows of the cave. “Show yourself. Now.” Reuben and Wren both had their rifles aimed at the silhouette, only visible from the waist down in what little moonlight the night provided.
Wren watched him step out slowly, the line of moonlight traveling up from his waist, to his chest, his raised palms level with his shoulders, neck, and finally... “Ted?”
The councilman curved the left corner of his lips up in a smile. “Hello, Wren.”
Chapter 6
Reuben gathered the weapons Ted had discarded and, after a thorough pat down, made him drag the bodies of the two men he’d shot from the cave to confirm his story. The first victim took a bullet to the back of the head, which was caved in and hollow from the sudden expulsion of bone and brain matter. The second victim received his through the neck, choking to death on his own blood.
Ted stacked the bodies on top of one another and dusted his hands as though he’d just taken out the trash. “Unfortunate. They were good men. Loyal.” He nodded in affirmation then looked to Wren. “It’s good to see you again.”
“Did Edric put you up to this?” Of all the people Wren expected to see, he was the last. In camp, she’d never even heard him speak. He was nothing more than a placeholder in the background, one of Edric’s silent cronies that followed him around like a lost puppy.
But when Wren brought up his name, she watched Ted’s face grimace. “The toy soldier?” He scoffed, taking a step around the bodies and closer to Wren. “He doesn’t even know I’m here.”
Wren found a seat on one of the larger rocks and sat before she collapsed. “Why? You sided with the man with all the power at camp. If you had just stayed there, you’d have everything you needed. Why risk turning Edric into an enemy?” The rifle rested on her side now, but Reuben kept his aimed, refusing to give Ted any opportunities to make a move.
She watched an unearthly calm wash over Ted in the darkness. The day it took to travel to Reuben’s cabin had replaced his smooth cheeks with a stubble that ran across his neck and jaw. His hair was disheveled, and she noticed the tears and unkempt clothes he wore. It was the first time she’d seen him look so disordered. “Have you ever been anything more than just yourself, Wren?” He paced back and forth like a professor during a lecture, the tips of his fingers lining up with one another as he slowly became lost in his own thoughts. “Have you ever imagined what the world could be if we stopped getting in our own way? If we set aside our egos, our pride, our unstable emotions? What if we acted on what needed to be done for the betterment of our future, not as an individual, but as a whole?” He looked up into the night sky, his eyes closed, and smiling.
“Whatever end goal you think you’re going to find won’t do you any good with a bullet to your head.” Wren pushed herself off the rock, aimed, and flicked the safety off. “I don’t have time for whatever twisted fantasy you’ve created for yourself. Are you still working for Edric? Where are my girls? Where’s Zack?” She took an aggressive step forward. She thrust the weapon into his cheek, and it rattled from her adrenaline-filled arms. “Tell me!”
Ted kept his hands up and took a step backward, separating his cheek from Wren’s rifle. The barrel left a circular dot on his skin that smoothed quickly after he smiled. “I’m not working for Edric. Last I saw, your girls were with their father, your husband, in case you’ve forgotten.” He twisted the lines on his face into an overexaggerated look of sympathy. “Though I did hear about that ugly outbreak the two of you had before the explosion at the camp. I can’t imagine what that’s like, especially now, in a time like this. All alone, the entire weight of your family on your shoulders, only adding to the pressures the camp offered.” He clucked his tongue lightly. “That’s something you should have never had to bear. I can help you with that. Edric still thinks I’m working with him. I can get you on the inside. I can get you close to your children. I can help you save them.” He whispered with the hiss of a snake, a hypnotic cadence with his words.
Wren shoved the rifle back into his face. “No more games, Ted.”
“I’m not—”
Wren aimed the rifle left and fired into the open air, only inches from Ted’s head. But despite the proximity, he didn’t flinch. The only sign of irritation he offered was the closing of his eyes. She returned the end of the rifle to his cheek, and he flinched his head back to avoid the burn of the smoking barrel.
“Determined,” Ted replied, glaring down at the rifle as he spoke. “I should have spent more time recruiting you, although I hoped you would have gotten the message after the trial. You needed at least three votes. Iris and Ben were the obvious two, and you know Edric would never side with you, which left only me and Councilwoman Jan.”
The cold rush of realization rushed through Wren’s veins, and the rifle dipped slowly from Ted’s face. She’d always wondered who it was, knowing it had to be Ted or Jan. “You? Why?”
Ted smiled. “I wanted to see what you would do. We had a common enemy, and I had never seen anyone get under Edric’s skin the way you did
.”
“Why would you risk everything you helped build at the camp?” The questions tore through Wren’s mind like a freight train. “You had everything you needed. Food. Water. What more did you want?”
“The camp?” The laughter that rolled from his tongue was stressed and hurried, as though he were a young child who’d just discovered the art of crude humor. “That little outpost in the middle of nowhere guarded by a few dozen country boys? If I had a part in building the camp, then it would have been a much more formidable endeavor.” His amusement slowly subsided, the hysterics fading. “The only resource I offered that camp was false counsel. Whatever negligent advice spewed from my lips was meant to weaken it, not strengthen it.”
Wren dropped the rifle and took a step back. She retraced the moments upon her arrival, the bullets in the fence, the random torchings when they tried to rebuild, how the assailants always knew exactly where to attack the weak points, how the guards on patrol always seemed to miss the raiders. As one of Edric’s confidants, Ted had access to all of the knowledge regarding their defenses. “You planned all those attacks on the camp. It was you who helped place the bomb. You wanted everyone behind those walls to die.” Her pulse quickened. My family was behind those walls.
In the time it took for the rifle to drop from Wren’s hands, she had already landed her fist into Ted’s mouth twice. Her mind didn’t even process the assault. All she felt was the harsh knock of her knuckles on Ted’s jaw. Each blow sent a ripple of pain through her arm that shook her entire body. The hot burst of rage seared through her muscles. Her cheeks flushed red from boiling blood.
Wren mounted Ted on the ground, beating his face senseless. He offered no resistance, only laughter. All of the pain and frustration and fear and uncertainty had unleashed a raging beast from its cage. For the first time since she could remember, she felt the unbridled power of certainty. She knew exactly what she wanted. Kill him. But before Wren could realize her prophetic vision, hands and arms pulled her backward. “NO! He did this! He did this to my family!” Her shrieks pierced the sky and puffed a chill into the night air. She kicked and flailed her arms, but Reuben finally managed to subdue her rage.
Ted gargled blood as he laughed, and the claret dripped from his nose and mouth. His right cheek was swollen and red, and his clothes and hair soiled from the dirt where he landed. Ted never took his eyes off her as Reuben dragged him to the nearest tree and tied him up. “You would have done well, Wren.” He spit a wad of blood. “You have the makings of greatness and a foundation of stone. I didn’t think you’d crack, no matter what Edric threw at you.” He grinned, and the black space of a missing tooth where his back molar used to sit disrupted the coy smile he had sported earlier.
Reuben knelt in front of her and gently grabbed her by the chin. He examined her face then her knuckles. “Hell of a jab, Wren.” He wiped the blood from her skin, and she winced from the pressure.
The adrenaline had worn off, and the repercussions of her outburst set in. “You should have let me kill him.” She offered the same defiant glare to Reuben as she had to Edric and Ted. But his response differed from theirs.
“I know.” Reuben removed some gauze from his pack and wrapped her hand, his massive fingers surprisingly gentle and nimble. “But if I let you kill him now, we wouldn’t know what he knows. And if we’re going to get your family back, we’ll need all the help we can get.”
Wren cocked her head to the side. “What changed your mind?”
Reuben concentrated on wrapping her wounds, keeping his voice casual. “I was always going to help you. I don’t think I realized it until now though.” He looked up at her, his eyes glowing under the night sky, surrounded by dirtied cheeks and the mangled beard that covered most of his face. “You remind me of someone.”
At school, Wren had studied and graduated with some of the brightest minds in her field. She’d been a part of meetings with men who commanded respect and awe from their peers and subordinates. But never had she seen anyone dwarf them until now. “Thank you.”
Once the bandages were wrapped, Wren took a step back. She allowed her mind to regain its footing in reason before she slipped back into chaos. She and Reuben approached Ted together, the blood from his nose and lip crusted dry onto his face and shirt. “Who are you?”
“A question many have asked themselves upon my introduction,” Ted answered. He straightened himself as best he could with his arms bound. “But one that you should know the answer to by now, Wren. After all, you’ve met so many of my friends.”
Wren furrowed her brow. “I doubt that.”
“No? But you spoke of them so fervently at your trial and so openly with anyone that would listen back at the camp.”
Reuben backhanded Ted, and a fresh spout of blood erupted from Ted’s lip, and he spit another wad of crimson into the earth. Wren stepped backward, and a cold shiver crawled up her back. It can’t be. “You’re… You’re… with them?”
“What are you talking about, Wren?” Reuben asked, holding Ted up by his shirt as he howled in excitement at her realization. “Wren!”
The events in Chicago flooded her mind, drenching her memories and thoughts in fear and despair until she was soaked to the bone. The car wreck, the hospital, the factory, the riot in the city, the march of death that consumed everything she had ever known. The black masks that concealed the enemy, casting the true nature of their intentions under a veil of secrecy. But here it was unmasked, bloodied, and psychotic. “You’re one of the terrorists.”
“I am,” Ted replied. “I helped destroy your city. I helped detonate the EMP. I’m responsible for your family’s misfortunes. And I am the only person that can retrieve your children in one piece. So I suggest you take these ropes off me before it’s too late.”
Reuben released his grip on Ted’s collar, dropping him to the ground with a thud. Wren watched the confusion spread across the hermit’s face. “Wren, what is he talking about?”
It was almost too much for her to comprehend, but all of the information was there. She just refused to connect the dots. “You wanted me because you knew I could help bring down Edric. Because anyone that’s not on your side is the enemy. Anyone that’s still alive you mean to kill.”
“The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Once the EMP was detonated, we knew pockets of resistance would form around the country, so we started the long process of recruitment to our side long before the device was detonated. We’re everywhere, Wren.” Some of the crusted blood from Ted’s face flaked off his upper lip as he smiled. “And I don’t mean to just kill the camp, no. I mean to purge this entire country of its useless bodies, its backward thinking that has limited our potential for the past three generations.” Ted leaned forward, the fresh cut under his lip dripping new blood. “Edric may be a Neanderthal, but he is well stocked with weapons and men. I don’t have any doubts he managed to secure the compound after exchanging you for the false peace my men promised. You don’t have the resources to take him down. You don’t have the bullets. You need my help. Take me back to town, and I will tell my men to attack the camp.”
“Wren.” Reuben tugged on her sleeve, pulling her out of earshot from Ted. “You can’t trust him. He’ll do whatever he needs to get out of those ropes. We take him back to the town, and he’ll double-cross us.”
“We’re not taking him back to town.” Wren pushed past Reuben and marched toward Ted, their eyes locked on one another. “You don’t care about my family. You don’t care about me. But I know one thing that you hold above everything else. Even your sick ideals. And that’s your life.” She leaned closer. “You didn’t kill your comrades to try and buy some favor with me. You did it because you knew there was only one way out of that cave. So I’ll make you a deal. I’m going to take you to Edric in exchange for my children. You keep your mouth shut, maybe you can weasel a pardon with him after I’m gone. You talk before I have my kids, I put a bullet through your head.”
The charismatic indiffer
ence vanished from his face. An uneasy tingling stirred in the back of her mind. But despite the icy fear gripping her heart, she didn’t break. Ted leaned forward as far as the restraints would allow, until the two were nearly nose to nose, and then he smiled. “Now you’re talking like one of us.”
Chapter 7
Wren allowed Reuben to handle Ted on their trek back to the community, though she didn’t expect a problem from him with a gun to his head and his hands tied behind his back. When she wasn’t watching her footing over the terrain hidden by the cover of night, she stared at the back of Ted’s head like a hawk. More than once she had to remind herself that he was of more use to her alive than dead. While she and Reuben kept quiet, Ted was nothing short of chatty on their journey, only stopping his mouth to catch his breath.
“It’s a missed opportunity.” Ted stepped over a fallen log, balancing awkwardly with this hands tied. “For both of you. I don’t think you understand the influence I have with the organization.”
Reuben smacked the back of Ted’s knee, and he stumbled, but caught himself after a few steps forward. “I said enough.” He bared his teeth like an angry dog. Ted’s incessant chatter had tested his patience since he opened his mouth.
“No reason to get nasty,” Ted replied, shaking the leg Reuben had struck. He looked back at him. “You know, I still remember you from that day in the woods.”
Reuben grabbed Ted by the back of the neck and slammed him against the nearest tree. He pulled a knife and pressed it against Ted’s cheek. “It might work out better for us if he can’t talk. I can take out his tongue now and save us the trouble of wondering when he’ll give us up to Edric to save his own skin.”
“Reuben, enough.” Wren caught up to him and saw that the blade had drawn blood. In the dark of night, the fluid ran black down his skin. “I’m sure we could come up with something more creative than that.”
Ted moaned as Reuben released him. “The lady has my thanks.”