by Harley Tate
She inhaled and the smell of him, all sweat and stink and son of a bitch swirled together, made her gag. Melody whimpered.
Ferguson laughed and his hot breath hit her face as he grabbed the front of the dress with his free hand. His fingers dug into her side as he yanked, hard. The cheap fabric ripped straight down the middle, exposing her skin.
A tortured sob bubbled up her throat, half scream, half cry of desperation. This shouldn’t be happening, couldn’t be happening. A month ago at this time, she would be tucked into her own bed and about to fall asleep.
Now she was trapped in a waking nightmare that might never end. The men under Jarvis’s command were no longer the military. They were evil, terrifying soldiers who didn’t care about the people of Eugene.
Ferguson’s hand dug beneath the dress, groping her body, and Melody pinched her eyes shut. I’m never getting out of here. I’m never going to get away. She thought about Dani and how hard she fought off her attackers. How she didn’t let any of them touch her like this.
Melody didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know how to fight back or save herself. She opened her eyes and stared at the man who was about to take what he wanted. Her hands balled into fists. Her toes dug into the floor.
She never played sports or got into a fight or learned kickboxing at the gym, but she had to try. She had to fight back. Melody pulled back her leg to kick the captain where it counted when the door slammed open.
Ferguson shoved Melody onto the bed. “Get out! I’m not even close to done!”
Melody landed with a bounce and scurried back as a man she’d never seen before swayed in the doorway. “Get your hands off my w-woman!” He listed, more drunk than sober, into the room.
Ferguson advanced toward the bed. “You can wait. I’m first.”
The drunk shook his head so far he stumbled with it. “Not a chance. Major trumps captain, remember?” He pointed at a shiny thing on his collar and grinned.
Ferguson swore, his hands hanging in the air in front of Melody for a moment as if he couldn’t decide. At last, he stepped away from Melody. She struggled up into a sitting position and tugged the ruined front of the dress around her body.
The captain snorted. “This is bullshit. I earned this.”
“You wanna t-tell Jarvis that?”
Ferguson cursed again. Ran his hands over his big head. “Fine. She’s all yours.”
“A little privacy, please?”
The captain practically spat at the man as he rushed past. “Don’t wear her out. I’m next.” The door slammed shut so hard, it shook the whole building. The other soldier stumbled back to it and twisted the lock.
As soon as he turned around, all pretense of intoxication disappeared. He straightened up and smoothed his shirt. “Ms. Harper?”
Melody risked a nod.
“I’m Major James Larkin.” He smiled. “I’m a friend of Colt’s.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
MELODY
University of Oregon Campus
Eugene, Oregon
10:00 p.m.
Melody tugged the dress tighter around her chest and stared at the major. Was he serious? Or was this just some sort of trap to convince her to let her guard down long enough to gain the upper hand?
Larkin stepped up to the window and lifted the pink blanket. He spoke so quietly, Melody strained to listen. “We don’t have much time. Ferguson will be back as soon as his raging case of blue balls dies down.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
He let the makeshift curtain fall. “For starters, I’m not pinning you to the mattress and ripping off the rest of that hideous dress.”
“And?”
“I’m going to help you escape.”
Melody didn’t know if his words were enough, but what choice did she have? “How do I know you’re not some psycho who just wants to get me out of here so he can lock me in some abandoned building and torture me for days?”
“You don’t. Guess you’ll have to trust me.” He frowned at her dress and all the layers spilling across the bed. “Please tell me you have some other clothes.”
After pointing him to the hamper, Larkin tossed her clothes at her and turned around so she could change. Her hands still shook and her heart beat like a race horse after a quarter mile around the track, but she managed to ditch the dress and shove her clothes on in record time. “Ready.”
Larkin turned back around, nodding at her black shirt and jeans. “Good. Now let’s get out of here.” He motioned toward the bed. “Get up there and bang it around, will you? Maybe scream, shout for help? This window is going to be loud.”
Melody did as he asked, jumping up on the bed and shaking it about as she banged on the wall. “Get off of me! No! I won’t!”
She slammed the bed into the wall in a rhythmic motion as Larkin shoved the window with all his might. His face turned red, his shoulders hunched, but after an agonizing screech, the glass moved. He motioned for her to keep going.
Melody banged the bed against the wall again as he shoved once more. After a final burst of strength, he pushed the window open far enough to fit through. He ushered Melody over and she hoisted herself up as he cupped his hands around his mouth to shout back into the room. “Don’t you run away! I’m just getting started!”
He slipped out after her and landed on the grass beneath the window. “All right. Now we run. Keep close behind me.”
They skirted the buildings in the dark, weaving in and out of the campus, freezing every time a soldier appeared. Melody didn’t know how far they would go or what Larkin had in mind, but she was free from that hell hole and Ferguson couldn’t touch her now.
She almost ran into Larkin as he pulled up short a few feet from the end of another dorm. “We’ve got extra uniforms in that building over there. If we’re going to get out of here, you need to change. Wait here.”
Melody nodded and waited as Larkin emerged from the darkness. He strode across the road to the front steps of the building where a junior soldier waited. The other man saluted and Larkin reciprocated before launching into some sort of explanation. A minute later, he disappeared inside.
All the air whooshed from Melody’s lungs and she eased down onto the grass. If she wanted to run, now was the time. But where would she go? The second she left Larkin, she would be caught and hauled back to that room.
She shoved down the horror of what might have been and breathed in the cool night air. Trusting Larkin was the only choice. He could get them out of there and with any luck, back to Colt, Doug, and the rest of her little makeshift family.
Just as she made up her mind, Larkin strode out of the building with a bundle tucked under his arm. He said something to the soldier that made him laugh and stepped off the platform. He walked past where Melody was crouched and doubled back.
“I wasn’t sure what size you’d be, so I had to guess. Put them on and the cover, too. Then we’ll see about requisitioning a vehicle.”
Melody tugged the uniform on over her clothes and tucked and buttoned as best she could before shoving all her hair up and away. She would never pass for a soldier in the daylight, but maybe in the dark she had a chance.
She glanced up at Larkin. “What do you think?”
“You’re the sloppiest soldier I’ve ever seen, but it’s better than jeans and a T-shirt. Let’s go.”
He led the way through more mazes of buildings until they stopped at the edge of a parking lot. “Jarvis keeps most of the vehicles under tight control, but since I’ve been off campus for the past couple weeks, I should be able to leave.”
“What if we run into trouble?”
Larkin smiled. “Shoot first. Then punch the gas.”
Great. Melody followed him into the parking lot.
He whispered as they walked. “Straighten up. Add some swagger.” He dropped his voice even lower. “Walk like you’ve got a dick.”
Melody tried, bowing out her legs like a cowboy as she puff
ed out her chest. She felt like Yosemite Sam.
“Shoot for average. Not porn star.”
Her cheeks flushed hot and Melody dropped the waddle.
“Better. Now hurry. Look for a Humvee with a jerry can in the back.” Larkin headed toward the nearest one and peered inside.
Melody followed along right behind. “What’s a jerry can?”
Larkin grumbled about civilians and their lack of knowledge and yanked open the door to the vehicle. “It’s that thing, back there. Now get in.” He left the door open and rushed around to the driver’s side.
Melody glanced at a container that looked like a massive metal canteen. A jerry can. She’d learned something new. After climbing in, she reached for the door. It was flipped all the way around to the outside. How am I supposed to reach that? Melody grabbed the handle and tugged. It didn’t budge. Crap!
Leaning even further out the door, she braced herself on the floorboard. With two hands on the handle and a massive heave, Melody managed to swing the beast of a door and fall into the seat as it slammed shut.
“It’s about time you got in here.” Larkin flipped a metal switch on the dash and waited a moment before cranking the engine. The Humvee grumbled to life and Larkin backed it out of the space. “Hold on. It’s not the smoothest ride.”
Melody grabbed onto the seat as the vehicle lurched forward. They barreled out of the parking lot and onto the road. “Where are we going?”
“To Colt. I’m assuming you know where that is.”
“What about Gloria?”
Larkin cast Melody a glance. “Who’s that?”
“My neighbor. She was taken the same time I was. They dropped her off at a building closer to where we came into campus.”
Larkin thought about it as he drove. “Must be the brig. They converted a dorm over there to a makeshift prison.” He shook his head. “It’s too risky. We can’t do it.”
“But we can’t leave her here!”
“It’s that or get ourselves killed. We can regroup with Colt. Come up with a plan, and break her out. But we can’t do that right now.”
Melody leaned back on the seat. She couldn’t leave Gloria, but what choice did she have? She was right back to zero options. She crossed her arms. “Harvey is going to be furious.”
“Who’s Harvey?”
“Gloria’s husband.”
Larkin grimaced. “Tell me where to go.”
Melody looked at Larkin. From the side he seemed like every other army guy around the place. Clean-shaven, angled jaw, no-nonsense demeanor. Could she really trust him? “How do you know Colt?”
“We overlapped at Walter Reed. I was recovering from back surgery, him from the helo crash that ended his career as a SEAL.”
Plausible. Melody sighed. She could be making the biggest mistake of her life, but once again, the options were this or nothing. “He’s up north of campus on Bellemeade. I’ll show you the way.”
Twenty minutes later, they stopped at the end of the street. “Are you sure this is right?” Larkin squinted into the gloom, idling the Humvee on the side of the road.
Melody couldn’t believe it. She yanked on the door handle and kicked the door open and was running before Larkin could shout a single word.
It can’t be. It can’t be. She tore down the street, her two sets of clothes rubbing against each other like sandpaper. As far as she could see, there was nothing but chaos. Charred beams, collapsed roofs, smoldering ashes. Bellemeade Way was burned to the ground.
She stopped in front of Harvey’s house. Nothing stood except the stone of the chimney. The big beautiful oak tree with its gnarled branches and perfect reading nook sat naked and covered in soot in the backyard. Not a single leaf remained.
Stumbling down the street, Melody looked in horror at house after house. At last she stopped in front of what used to be her own. Jarvis’s words from before the brothel filled her mind. “Burn it down.”
They had burned every last house. She crumpled to the ground next to the mailbox, now blackened and half-falling down. Her parents’ house. The home she grew up in. The place that held the greatest memories of her childhood.
Running through the sprinklers in the backyard. Making ice cream with the hand-crank churner in the shade of the patio. Her first kiss under the porch light. Her parents waving goodbye and never coming back thanks to a car accident outside of Portland.
Larkin’s footsteps stopped behind her.
She sniffed up the sooty air. “Are we too late? Are they all dead?”
He crouched in the street. “If I know Colt, he’s safe.”
Melody wiped at her face. “Then the others are, too.”
“Any idea where they would have gone?”
Melody lifted her head. “Only one.”
Day Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
DANI
Shaw Residence
Eugene, Oregon
1:00 a.m.
Dani squinted into the darkness from her position in the window. Lucas Shaw’s apartment sat on the top floor of a shabby walk-up catering to broke college kids and lower-tier employees. Apart from the lack of drug dealers and loitering addicts, it wasn’t that different from her mother’s place.
A small living room with a futon, beat-up coffee table covered in books and water rings. An eat-in kitchen with a table big enough for two at best. A bedroom that smelled like dude, with a black sheet for a curtain and piles of clothes on the floor.
Dani glanced behind her to the small table Colt, Doug, and Harvey crowded around. They pointed and whispered and made sweeping motions with their hands. Discussing options and plans of attack.
Will was curled up in a threadbare upholstered chair with Lottie in his lap, both fast asleep.
Turning back to the window, Dani closed one eye to peer through the rifle scope. She wasn’t tired. Not by a long shot. How could she sleep with Jarvis planning God knew what, Melody and Gloria missing, and a whole army out there searching for them?
She thought about Melody and what she must have done to save Dani’s life. Putting herself between the soldiers and Dani’s unconscious body. Protecting her when she couldn’t protect herself. She owed Melody an apology. Gloria, too. They had taken her and Colt in, helped them, and the whole time Dani held back, wondering if they were too weak to survive.
Scanning the road through the scope, she eased the rifle barrel across the back of the chair, first to the left then the right. Movement caught her eye and she froze. A vehicle emerged from the shadows, driving with the lights off. Dani tensed and tried to focus on the shape and the size. The closer it came, the more her dread grew.
A brown National Guard Humvee.
Crap. She turned around, about to call for Colt when she hesitated. They put her on watch for a reason. She should handle it on her own. Dani swung back around and watched the Humvee slow to a stop outside the building. Easing her finger around the trigger, Dani waited.
No army jerks were storming this place on her watch. She wouldn’t be caught unaware and unprepared again.
The driver’s side door swung open. A soldier emerged and turned to face the building. Dani pulled back.
No freakin’ way.
Major Larkin stood at the door to the Humvee, gesturing to someone still inside.
Dani lowered her head back down and took aim. That jerk. She knew he was a bad guy ever since he strode out of the model home and demanded her weapon. It didn’t matter that Colt knew him or that he let her go. He was one of them.
The passenger-side door to the vehicle opened and Dani moved the rifle to get a better view. Another soldier who looked like he’d fallen out of bed to make the trip, his shirt and pants a wrinkled mess.
Dani almost smirked. They wouldn’t know what hit them. She took aim. Inhaled and let the breath out through her mouth. Her finger twitched as the second soldier took off his cover. Black hair spilled from the top of his head and the man spun around.
Dani sucked in
a breath of air and yanked her finger off the trigger. Melody? It can’t be.
She stared through the scope as Melody gestured toward the building. Larkin said something and she nodded with a smile. How did he find her? How did they get away? Dani leaned back and forced her lungs to fill with air.
I almost shot her.
She turned around. “Colt?”
He glanced up, mid-sentence, mouth still open.
“Larkin’s here. He’s brought Melody with him.”
Colt hustled to the window. “She’s not a hostage. Looks like Larkin’s flipped sides.” He unholstered his handgun. “I’ll check it out, just in case.”
“I’m coming, too.” Doug grabbed a rifle and followed Colt to the door.
Dani waited by the window, chewing on her lip as she chastised herself. She should have told Colt immediately and let him assess the threat. If she’d shot Melody…
The door to the apartment opened and Melody stepped inside. She looked ridiculous in a too-big military uniform all rumpled and untucked, but she was alive. Dani set the rifle down and stood up, watching while Colt ushered Larkin in and made the introductions.
He waved at Dani and she peeled off the chair to say hello.
“I think you’ve met Dani.”
Larkin raised an eyebrow. “Not just a pesky street rat, huh? I sort of figured.” He stuck out his hand with a smile. “Major James Larkin. But just call me Larkin. Everyone does.”
Dani shook it and pulled away. “Sorry I shot one of your men.”
“Who? O’Riley?” Larkin waved her off. “He deserved it.”
Dani opened her mouth to agree when Melody’s arms wrapped around her in a sideways hug. “Dani! I’m so glad you’re alive.”
Dani winced from the squeeze and Melody pulled back. “Sorry! Is your shoulder all right? Since you’re not dead I’m assuming Colt patched you up?”
She nodded. “Thank you for all that you did. Colt said I’d have died if you hadn’t slowed the bleeding.”