by Harley Tate
He took aim and the world slowed. His breath sawed into his lungs like a bellow filling with air. His heart beat low and long like a gong underwater. His vision tunneled and all he saw were the sights and the target.
Colt fired and Steve’s hand holding the bat practically exploded.
The man screamed, loosened his grip on Dani, and she ran. A tortured yell ripped from her throat as a massive clump of her hair tore off her head and she stumbled, but it didn’t matter. She was free.
Colt didn’t waste any time. He fired again and Steve fell to the ground with his friends.
Dani ran up to Colt, tears leaving streaks down her dirty face. She crushed against his chest, thick sobs muffled by his shirt. She tried to speak, but he couldn’t understand a thing. Now wasn’t the time to have a heart-to-heart.
Someone, somewhere, heard those shots. They might be on the middle of a street full of closed-up shops, but there were houses and apartments not that far away. The National Guard patrolled on the regular. That no one else appeared in the street while it had all gone down was a miracle.
Eugene might be quiet, but it wasn’t empty. They had minutes at best. He reached down and pulled Dani far enough away to look her in the eye. “Can you run?”
She blinked through the fear and relief. “I-I think so.”
“Good. Grab your things. We need to disappear.”
The sound of a truck horn in the distance shocked Dani into action. She ran for her backpack and tugged it back on before grabbing the cart with water.
“Leave the water!”
“What? No!”
“It’s not worth your life.” Colt grabbed her by the hand. “Let’s go. We’ll grab my bag on the way.”
He didn’t know if they would outrun the rig headed their way, but they would have to try.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DANI
Eugene Corner Pharmacy
Eugene, Oregon
10:00 a.m.
If only the shakes would go away. Dani twisted her hands around each other and tried to force her limbs to stay still. It didn’t work. Now her whole body trembled.
During the entire escape from the four men in the street, adrenaline kept Dani going. Faster, faster they ran, through alleys and backyards, at least a mile away from the scene of the crime. No matter how she looked at it, she couldn’t escape it. Colt killed those four men and Dani wasn’t sad about it.
Did that make her a monster? Was this how it would be from now on? Kill or be killed? She’d been sheltered inside the nursing home, pretending the outside world wasn’t falling to pieces, slowly becoming more and more like the world her mother lived in all the time.
Now she sat in a looted pharmacy, hiding behind the counter while Colt searched for supplies. A moment later, he eased around a toppled-over shelving unit with his hands full and came to crouch beside her. “Turn this way so I can get a look at your head.”
“I… It’s fine.”
“Nonsense. You’re bleeding. Turn around.”
Dani begrudgingly complied, twisting until Colt could get a good look at the new bald spot in the middle of her scalp. She winced as he dabbed it with antiseptic. “How bad is it?”
“You lost a good bit of hair and some skin, but it should heal up no problem.” He hesitated. “But I don’t know if you’ll ever regrow the hair.”
It could have been worse. “Thank you for what you did back there.” She couldn’t bring herself to say killing those men, although she was grateful for it.
“You’re welcome. I’m sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.”
“It’s okay. I’m just thankful you came at all.”
Colt grabbed her by the shoulders and spun her around. The look in his eyes turned her throat to sandpaper. “Dani, I promised you that I would protect you, and as long as I’m around, that’s what I’m going to do. Like I said before, I’d be a terrible dad, but I know how to kill people. That’s one thing I’m good at.”
“You’re a better dad than I’ve ever had.” As soon as she said the words, she wished she could take them back. Colt let her go like she’d burned him. She rushed to fill the silence. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
He stood up in an awkward rush. “It’s all right. I’m going to poke around the place. See if I can find any medicine to take with us. There’s still a few bottles here and there.”
Dani bit her lip hard enough to hurt. She knew Colt didn’t want to stay. She could tell in the way he always kept himself a bit apart, how he never talked about what he would do more than a day in the future. No matter how hard Dani tried to hold onto him, Colt would leave.
Just like everyone did.
While Colt busied himself searching the wreckage of the pharmacy, Dani thought about the past twenty-four hours. She’d been caught stealing food by a National Guardsman, rescued by a badass who then insisted on being her shadow for the rest of the day, took him not only to see the roach-infested hell hole she’d been living in, but then to meet her grandmother.
No wonder the man wanted to get away.
Today, when he’d tried to help her gather supplies she almost got herself kidnapped. Colt had not only saved her, he’d killed for her. She would never be able to repay him. Maybe leaving would be the best thing for him. How many times would she need saving? How many times would he be able to protect her before their luck ran out?
He traipsed back into the alcove where she sat, a huge grin on his face. “Cipro and Z-Pak. How lucky is that?”
Dani stared up at him blankly.
“Shelf-stable antibiotics. They’ll both last at least five years if we keep them out of the sun.”
There were so many things she didn’t know. “Any chance you found some Advil back there?”
Colt winced. “No, sorry. But I bet your grandmother will have some.”
Gran. She was probably taking her mid-morning nap, oblivious to the danger her granddaughter kept finding around every corner. “Right. So are we headed back there now?”
Colt stuffed the antibiotics in his pack and crouched back down to look her in the eye. “We’re far enough away from the scene that we should be fine if anyone stops us.”
“You mean the National Guard?”
Colt nodded. “They’ll assume some rival gang took them out, not a kid and an old man.”
Dani hid most of a smile. He wasn’t that old. “What do you want to do?”
“First, we’re going to find you an apartment.”
“What?” She must have misheard him.
Colt smiled. “There have to be tons of empty apartments near the nursing home. It’s so close to the campus, lots of places probably rent to students. Most of them left town the second the power went out. The whole university is like a ghost town. Apart from the people I knew there, it’s basically all military at this point.”
Dani still didn’t get where he was going. “So?”
“So there will be a bunch of off-campus apartments full of furniture with no one to live in them. You’re going to pick one.”
She raised an eyebrow. “I’m going to live in my own apartment?”
“Beats the hell out of a spare bed in a nursing home, don’t you think?”
Dani let a full smile shine. “Yes, it does.”
52 Houghton Street, Apartment 310
Eugene, Oregon
2:00 p.m.
“Are you sure? It’s awfully big.” Dani spun around the living room, taking in the view from the corner windows. She could see almost all of the college campus and the nursing home and a few blocks beyond.
“It’s perfect. All the windows mean tons of natural light. It’s got good vantage points, and the building is still secure. The place looks mostly empty, so you won’t have to worry about people outing you as a squatter.”
Colt walked over to the front door and gave it a thud. “The metal door means you can stay safe. Between that and the concrete walls, you could probably even
ride out a fire inside the building.”
Dani never thought the end of the modern world would give her a loft apartment overlooking a ton of town, but she wasn’t complaining. “You’re sure we can do this?”
“Yes. I’ve been through the desk and the mail by the front door. It’s a student’s place. She’s from Southern California. I’m sure she took the first chance she could to go home. There’s no food in the fridge and it looks like she took her cat. She’s not coming back.”
“Okay. Then, I guess I’ll stay.” She shouldn’t ask, but she couldn’t help herself. “What about you?”
Colt shrugged. “I figured I could sleep on the couch until you got comfortable. A few days, maybe.”
“And then?”
He voiced the words she hoped she wouldn’t hear. “Then I’ll be moving on.”
“Right. Okay.” Dani flashed him a fake smile and turned back to the windows. She wouldn’t let her disappointment show. Colt had done so much for her already. The least she could do was be grateful. If he wanted to leave, she wouldn’t get in his way.
With this new place and more food and supplies, she could make it on her own. Dani turned back around and exhaled. “So what do we do now?”
“Now we clear some space in the living room and I teach you how to fight.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
COLT
52 Houghton Street, Apartment 310
Eugene, Oregon
5:00 p.m.
Dani dodged the soft punch Colt directed toward her jaw and Colt smiled. “Good. You’re getting the hang of it.”
She palmed her hips while sucking in a lungful of air. “You really think so?”
“Definitely. With a little more practice, next time you’ll be able to handle yourself.”
With her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her ragged sweatshirt tossed on the chair, Dani looked far younger than fifteen. If Colt had been a guessing man, he’d have said twelve. Mostly skin and bones, the poor girl looked like she hadn’t had a good meal ever since her grandmother got sick.
What she lacked in muscles and strength, she made up for with innate smarts. She couldn’t fight someone Colt’s size and win, but she knew how to bob and weave and how to evade. If she could master the maneuvers he showed her that afternoon, she stood a chance out there. Even if he left.
“Now we’re onto attack.” Colt stepped up to Dani’s side and grabbed her hand. “When someone comes at you, what advantages do you have?”
Her brown eyes flitted to the ceiling as she thought it over. “I’m small, so I can get away?”
“That’s one. But you’re also fast.” He spun around to face her. “Say I’m coming at you and you can’t outrun me. What can you do?”
“Scream?”
“What else?”
“Kick or punch?”
“Better. But your punches won’t faze a guy like me.”
She screwed up her face and Colt grinned. “I’m over two hundred pounds, Dani.”
Her mouth fell open. “You are?”
“Yep. To your fist, I’d be a slab of concrete. That’s why you have to go for the softer areas. Eyes. Groin. Feet.”
“Your feet?”
Colt nodded. “As soon as we can, we need to hit a sporting goods store and get you some good boots with a steel toe and a lug sole. If you stomp on someone in those, you can break their toes.”
Dani glanced down at her faded, dirty sneakers. “Or I could kick you where it hurts.”
Now she was catching on. “Exactly. You aim a solid kick with a steel toe to a guy’s family jewels and he’ll be rolling on the ground calling for his momma.”
“What about eyes? That sounds gross.”
“It is. But if someone gets a hold of you like Steve did,” Colt rushed up to her and wrapped his arm around her throat, dragging her back until her body fell against his. Dani fought, but couldn’t get away. “Instead of squirming and fighting, what can you do?”
She tentatively reached up over her head and felt Colt’s face. “Gouge your eyes out?”
“Bingo.” He let her go and waited for her to turn around. “If your hands are free, take your index and middle finger together and hold them straight out like a spear. Then jab as hard as you can right into his eye.”
Dani’s mouth turned down and looked a bit green. “I don’t know if I can do that.”
“If it’s pop someone’s eyeball or be tortured and killed, which would you rather?”
She exhaled. “Eyeball popping.”
“You’re damn right. I’m not saying it won’t be hard. Fighting back is the hardest thing you’ll have to do.” Colt had seen it so many times. Innocent people who weren’t conditioned in hand-to-hand combat never wanted to be aggressive. “It’s easy to stand still and let someone hurt you. It’s hard to take a stand. But that’s what you have to do to survive.”
Dani nodded, but her eyes seemed far away. After a moment, she spoke up. “Have you done a lot of this? Hand-to-hand combat?”
“More than I’d like. But it’s necessary in times of war. And that’s sort of what we’re in, Dani. The military might be out there now, patrolling the streets, but at some point, they’ll leave. When the law enforcement is gone, this town will fall back on its Wild West roots. It’ll be every person for themselves.”
“What if I try all of these things and it doesn’t work? I still get captured.”
Colt ran his fingers over his lips. He didn’t want to tell her the truth. That she might wish for the day her heart stopped beating just for the pain and horror to end. He’d known a prisoner of war. The stories he told…
Colt cleared his throat. “Never give up hope. If you’re always looking for a way out, you’ll find one. Some way, somehow, you’ll find an opening. It might not happen right away. It might take longer than you imagined, but if you keep searching, you’ll find it.”
“Never give up. That’s what you’re saying.”
“The second you do, you might as well be dead.”
Dani nodded. “I can do that. The last few years with my mom… they weren’t easy. But I always kept my eyes and ears open. It was how I managed.”
“Then if the unthinkable happens, fall back on those skills. At some point, you’ll find a weakness and exploit it.”
Dani glanced past Colt toward the kitchen. “Any chance your current weakness involves dinner? I’m starved.”
Colt agreed and let Dani lead the way into the kitchen. She opened the cabinets one by one, standing up on her tiptoes to see into the back. It had only been a couple days, but Colt was really growing to like the girl. Never in a million years did he ever think he would get some bug to be a dad. It wasn’t in the cards for a Navy SEAL or an air marshal.
Too dangerous and too many missions and trips overseas. Colt always said if he couldn’t do something 110 percent, then he wouldn’t do it. Parenting, relationships, his job. The same. So he’d ended up giving it all to the job. Maybe that had been the wrong call.
Dani pulled down a box of crackers, a can of tuna, and bag of sunflower seeds. She waved them in Colt’s direction. “It’s five-star cuisine tonight.”
His stomach growled and she laughed.
Maybe he didn’t need to leave. While Dani fished around in the drawers for a can opener, Colt made himself busy finding plates and napkins. They might not have a dishwasher or running water, but they could still eat on a plate.
Dani deserved a chance to grow up protected and cared for. He never wanted to be a father, and he wouldn’t have wished for this circumstance in a million years, but people change. Maybe now was his time. Maybe this was his chance to experience a different sort of life. One without airplanes and threats and bad guys halfway around the world.
There were plenty of bad guys right here in this small college town. He could protect Dani and help her grow up. Give her a glimpse of a grownup who cared.
“Finally!” She pulled out a manual can opener, her brown eyes shining in the evenin
g light. As Dani opened the can of tuna, Colt pulled out the crackers. He piled a handful on each plate and divided the seeds in half.
Dani scooped the fish onto the plates and they carried everything over to the little table tucked against the wall. She sat down and took a look around. “You’re sure we can do this? Just stay here and use all these things?”
Colt leaned back in his chair. “For now, yes. If the girl who lives here comes back, we can apologize and leave. But I don’t think she’s coming back. Without airplanes or running gas stations, how far is anyone going to get.”
“I’ve seen some cars on the road. More over by my mom’s place.”
“It’s been over two weeks. The college kids are long gone. After the college told them to leave, they did. Everyone else in town had to hear the same announcements. If they had family somewhere, I’m sure a lot of people left.”
Dani shoveled a bite of tuna into her mouth with a cracker. “But what about the police?”
“I haven’t seen any, have you?”
She shook her head. “Not since the National Guard rolled in.”
“Then I think we’re fine. But that’s something you need to keep in mind. We may need to leave at a moment’s notice. You should always be prepared to walk away.”
Dani stilled. “I can’t leave Gran.”
Right. Her grandmother. If he hadn’t promised the old woman not to tell Dani about the cancer, he would have done so already. She deserved to know the truth. But he couldn’t break the confidence of a dying woman.
Colt scooped up some of the fish and topped it with some seeds before shoving it all and a cracker into his mouth. “Mmm. You’re ready for Top Chef, you know that?”
She smiled. “When I lived with Gran we watched so much TV.”
“Really? I’m surprised she didn’t say it would rot your brain.”
“Oh, she did. That’s why there were rules. Cooking, gardening, nature shows. I could watch all of those I wanted.” She scooped up some sunflower seeds and took a bite, swallowing it down with a gulp of water. “The X-Files was the only show I could watch that didn’t have to be true.”
Colt almost dropped his tuna-laden cracker. “The X-Files?”