I turned to Mercer. “I’m here with two other people. A big guy with scars on his neck and a small Mexican woman. If you see them, don’t shoot!” I hated using stereotypical descriptions, but it was the fastest way to get it across.
“They inside?” Mercer asked.
“No.”
“Then they’ll be fine.”
Gunfire came from inside, directed right at us. We returned fire as we snaked around the side for cover. Rose came running up to me, her eyes wide.
“What the hell’s goin’ on? One of the mercenaries yelled ambush on the other side of the bar and then they started shootin’,” Rose said. “Who are these guys?”
Had they spotted Lucas?
“I’ll explain later. They’re on our side,” I said.
I ran past her toward the front of the building. I had to get in there. Rose followed behind me as well as Mercer and a couple of his crew. Rose was giving them curious glances, but didn’t say anything. Mercenaries were spilling from the building, trying to run from the firefight. I tossed down my bat and swung my AR15 from my shoulder and started firing. One leather-clad guy was thrown against the car he was trying to open as my bullets impaled him.
Mercer’s crew opened up fire as well, helping me kill the cowards who were running away. Once they were taken care of, we ran to the front doors to head inside. I was pushed aside as Mercer maneuvered his crew in first. They looked like a professionally trained SWAT team. Maybe one of them had been a police officer beforehand. Rose and I followed in behind them, the smell of booze and stale smoke permeating the air. The floor was sticky under my feet. So gross.
Most of the firing had stopped. Dead men lined the entryway. The dining room had been turned into a battlefield. Tables were toppled over for cover, and they were periodically shooting at each other from opposite sides of the room.
“Give it up, Shawn. We have more men than you, especially since we just decimated half of your guys,” an authoritative voice echoed throughout the room.
“Fuck you!” Bullets sprayed, some in our direction.
I ducked away behind one of the dining room walls with Mercer. He was whispering something to another one of his cohorts, them nodding intently. They took off through the swinging kitchen door, leaving Rose and I at the edge of the dining room behind the wall separating it from the entryway. We were not part of their crew, so I wasn’t sure if we should follow them. I dared a look around the wall again. I couldn’t spot Zoe or any females, just overturned furniture and the occasional knee from the men hiding behind the tables.
They were at a standstill, neither side daring to make the first move. Rose leveled her rifle, aiming for something inside the dining room. She let off a round and we heard the sucking sound of a bullet hitting flesh, then a crash to the floor. I yanked her behind the cover of the wall just as fire was returned.
“You just gonna get your men to pick us off one by one then?” an angry voice yelled.
“Eh,” the first voice I had heard when we entered said. “Looks like there’s more than just my guys here.”
Our presence must’ve thrown the guy off. Oops. We were technically on their side. A hand touched my shoulder and I practically jumped out of my skin. It was Lucas.
“What the hell is goin’ on? I saw you enter with a bunch of other people.”
“Apparently, they’re on our side,” Rose said with a shrug.
“They’re the ones pretending to be the gang, and somehow the operation didn’t go according to plan,” I whispered.
“Yeah, one of the mercenaries spotted me,” Lucas said, his hand rubbing the back of his neck.
So, it had been him.
“Shh,” I said, returning my attention to the stand-off.
The two leaders—I assumed—were arguing back and forth. The one guy was trying to negotiate a surrender for the other side, while the other was just refuting every effort.
“Fuck you,” snarled the angry voice. “I always knew somethin’ was up with you, man. Shoulda listened to my gut.”
More bullets.
“Just surrender, Shawn, and you will walk away from this,” said the authoritative voice. “And the rest of your men.”
Someone spat, and then there was the sound of a gun being cocked.
“This what you want?”
A tall and lanky man stood up and began firing at random. A few men on his side started to shoot as well. The other side returned fire from their cover and a hailstorm of bullets took over the bar. Stray shots started to get closer to us until a new barrage of weapons joined in. Mercer and his people, who’d snuck into the kitchen, appeared through another door behind the mercenary’s side and began shooting them up from behind.
They were completely taken off guard. A bunch of errant bullets pounded into the wall we were hiding behind. We dove for cover, Lucas covering my body with his. I couldn’t tell if that was on purpose or just the way we had landed. His body was tense and rigid above me as the bullets ricocheted off of nearby surfaces. I let out a yelp when a round landed not even a foot from our heads. When all the noise stopped, we slowly got up from the floor.
My ears were ringing and I had to wipe off drywall plaster from my clothes. The bullets had shredded the wall we had been using for cover. Not a smart choice in hindsight. Tables scraped across the floor and I tensed. Who had won? There was no way the mercenaries walked away from that play.
“Bailey, you and your people can come out,” Mercer’s voice said.
Lucas and Rose both raised a brow at me.
“We introduced ourselves outside,” I explained. “That’s how he knows my name.”
Cautiously, we rounded the corner to see Mercer and his team still standing. Couldn’t say that for the mercenaries, though. They were bloodied and slumped over dead on their side of the dining room. A rather short man from the other side walked over and peered down at the fallen mercenaries with a scrunched look on his face.
“You kind of ruined our operation,” the leader said. It was the authoritative voice from before. “Now we’ll never find the compound where they keep the girls.”
He was talking to us.
“We just came from there,” I said.
The man looked up from the carnage to me. His gaze was intense.
“Where is it?” He calmly sauntered over to me as if this was just another day on the job.
“It’s a hotel off of the I-10. We took it out and freed the girls. We’re heading back there; you can follow us if you’d like,” I said. “But first, have you seen the girls they brought here?”
The man looked at one of his team members and nodded. The other guy scampered off to another portion of the bar and grill.
“Once Shawn handed them over, we had our people bring them to another room to make it look like we were sampling the merchandise.” The disgust in his voice was obvious. “Needed to keep up appearances.”
I held my breath as footsteps from the hallway to our right got closer. Please be Zoe. The first girl that came through was the blonde one. She looked terrified and refused to let go of the man escorting her out. Behind them a head of black hair came into view.
“Zoe!” I yelled.
She looked surprised at first, then ran past the men to us. I couldn’t move—I was in shock. Relief and a dozen other emotions ran through my body. I wanted to cry, I wanted to smile, I wanted to yell. I had finally found my best friend. She hugged me tight as she shook and cried. We pulled back and I noticed the busted lip and shiner she was sporting. Huge black circles hung under her eyes.
“How did you find me?” She sounded incredulous.
It was like a miracle at the end of a hard road.
“Good detective work?” I said.
I didn’t really want to tell her that we shot up a compound at the moment.
“I take it she was the friend you were looking for?” Mercer asked.
“Yes, thank you.”
Zoe turned from me to the leader of the crew. “T
hank you for getting me away from those monsters.” Her voice broke a little at the end.
The man gave her a smile. “Just doing my job, miss.”
“Job?” Lucas asked.
The others regarded him like they had forgotten he was there.
“Well, not a job in the sense that I get paid,” the man explained. “I just like to do what’s right. These mercenaries have been plaguing this area worse than the infected.”
The man held out his hand for me. “Name’s Wesley.”
I took his hand. It was a firm grip. “Bailey.”
“Well, Bailey, mind taking us to that compound now?” Wesley asked.
Chapter 34
I sat in the back seat with Zoe while Lucas took us back to the hotel compound and tried to engage her in conversation. Other than at our initial reunion, Zoe had pretty much resorted to one word answers. I tried to draw her out, but she wasn’t ready to talk about what had happened to her. She asked what was in the back of the truck and when I told her, she barely reacted. She just turned from me and peered out the window.
She was acting like a husk of the Zoe I knew. What had those men done to her? Maybe she would come around when she saw that we had killed all of them back at the hotel.
“So those people were pretendin’ to be gang members?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” I said for the second time. She didn’t seem to be grasping the concept of them being double agents.
“They comin’ back to the motel with us?”
“I … don’t know,” I answered honestly.
I had no idea what really came next. Once we got back to the compound, we could leave for the motel. Wesley’s people never mentioned that they had a place, but if they were looking for the girls, chances were they had a place to bring them back to. Were the girls even going to come back with us? It was selfish, but I was kind of hoping that Wesley’s people took them. We didn’t need more bodies to take care of. We were coming back with less mouths to feed, though. I shook my head violently, refusing to think about Ethan’s death and what I would have to say to Chloe. I was the queen of procrastinating.
The hotel was within sight, infected still roaming around. A woman in Wesley’s crew was standing in the back of one of their trucks, picking them off with deadly precision as we drove up to the compound. How she was keeping her aim straight was a mystery. Lucas brought the truck to a stop and we got out, shooting the nearest infected, no longer concerned with making noise. Once they were dead, we re-entered the building, our people meeting us in the lobby.
John limped over to me and gave me a one-armed hug. It was all he could do without toppling over thanks to his injured leg.
“Glad to see you,” he said. He looked from me to Zoe with a smile. “And you too, Zoe.”
They had their own awkward embrace, Zoe slinking off to the side when they were done.
“Who are they?” John jerked his chin at Wesley’s crew.
They were all on red alert with their guns at the ready as they entered the lobby.
“That would be the gang the mercenaries were dealing with,” I said.
When John’s eyes bulged, I continued. “They aren’t really a gang; they were just acting so they could gain access to this compound and free the girls.”
“Wesley?!” one of the girls cried out and ran to him straight across the lobby, leering eyes be damned.
He scooped her up and swung her around, placing a wet sounding kiss on her head. “Mary.” He was practically in tears. They pulled apart and started kissing until it became awkward.
Mercer cleared his throat until they toned it down, but he had a small smile on his face as he did it. John pulled me away from the scene by placing a hand on my shoulder. “I don’t see Ethan.”
I dropped my eyes. “He got bit.”
“Oh God, Bailey, I’m so sorry.”
Why was he telling me he was sorry? He should be feeling sorry for Ethan—he was the one who was gone. But I guess the dead were just that—dead. They weren’t the ones left to pick up and carry on. That was for the living.
“Where …?” John asked.
“Just outside here. He saved me from a pile of infected,” I said, struggling to relive it. I’d rather pretend it didn’t happen. “His body is in the back of the truck. I couldn’t just leave him there.”
“We’ll give him a proper burial when we get back, along with Leo,” John said. “That way everyone can say goodbye.”
By everyone he meant Chloe; he just didn’t say it. Wesley walked over to us with Mary tucked under his arm. He looked like he wouldn’t be letting her out of his sight for a while.
“Thank you,” he said sincerely. “They took my love here.” Mary smiled at his words. “And I wouldn’t rest until I found her.” Wesley looked back at his crew before adding, “Would your people want to come with us? We built a little community on a small plot of farm land. Nothing fancy, but there’s some walls and a roof to sleep under,” Wesley offered.
“Thank you, but we have some people waiting for us,” I said.
“Well, our doors will always be open for you should you change your mind,” Wesley said. He crooked his finger. “Mercer, come here.”
Mercer walked over as he pulled out some paper from his jacket pocket. He scribbled some stuff down and handed it to me. It was directions.
“When you get back to your people, this is how you’ll find us,” Wesley said. “Now, let’s get these girls outta here.”
Most of the girls had decided to go with Wesley, thanks to Mary’s coaxing. Only a handful decided to come with us, which was the best-case scenario at this point. We couldn’t take on the burden of thirteen more mouths. Sheri was wary of their crew at first, but Mary explained how she loved and trusted Wesley. After all, he had become like an undercover cop to find her.
John informed me that they had neither seen nor heard from the mercenary we had locked in the closet, so we just let him be. Chances are he wouldn’t make it very far being injured and by himself, to boot. He’d get what was coming to him one day.
I helped Rose get Leo’s body into the back of our truck alongside Ethan’s. I took a moment to say something while Rose rejoined the others standing by the front of the truck.
I’m so sorry, Ethan. You gave your life to save me and to find my best friend; to help rid this world of some truly bad men. I wish that you were still here and that I could still see you run your hand through your hair or laugh with Chloe. I promise you that I will take care of her. I will treat her like my own sister. We all will. Goodbye, Ethan.
I dabbed at the small tear hanging from the corner of my eye. I meant every word.
Epilogue
1 Month Later
“Make one more comment about me bein’ Mexican and I’ll skewer you,” Rose growled at Lucas.
They were at it again. I would have thought after everything we had been through that we could all get along, but alas, that wasn’t the case. Rose was trying to heat up a can of refried beans with some camping gear and Lucas was giving her a hard time.
I found myself still surprised that Lucas had stuck around. Out of all the people we had met, I figured him for the runaway. Too bad that damn cat had stuck around too. It had scratched up my leg more than once while trapped in the truck with it for hours on end. Colin threatened to eat it once and whatever Rose had said to the teen had him staying miles away from her afterwards. I had eventually gotten the chance to have my talk with Colin about his sickness. He told me that he just wanted to live what was left of his life without being treated like he was dying.
“Do I look like Augustus to you?” he joked, then on a more serious note, he continued, “I don’t want to be known as the sick kid who people pity. I want to be the funny kid with the blue hair. I want to go out like that.”
It was a hard thing to hear from anyone, let alone a fifteen-year-old boy who was supposed to have a full life ahead of him. I struggled with what to do, but in the end I went against my better
judgement and let the subject drop—not that there was anything I could even do for Colin. I would honor his request. That much I could do.
We were currently hunkered down for the night in an abandoned field with our vehicles surrounding us, protecting us from the blustery night and any wandering infected. Of course we still had people on look out, but with our smaller numbers it was impractical.
Once we had returned to the castle-themed motel with less, yet more faces, we had a decision to make. Did we stay or did we go? After Ethan and Leo were put to rest properly, with a side service for Roy, Mac, and all the others we’d lost at Hargrove, we decided to seek out our new life. A new start.
The directions to Wesley’s little paradise burned a hole in my pocket. They didn’t aggressively sell us on the place like the welcome committee at Hargrove had done. This was the real deal. I could feel it.
I looked over the fire to see Chloe and Amanda sharing a plate of food. I was just glad Chloe was eating again. After we came back with Ethan’s body, she had gone into shock. She wouldn’t eat or talk much. She wasn’t sleeping at night. She just stayed away from everyone. Slowly, she had come around, turning back into the kid I remembered, the one who was too big for her shoes. Kids are resilient.
Zoe too was mostly back to normal, but she never talked about what happened while the mercenaries had her. I didn’t push her on it. She didn’t force me to talk about Ethan or what happened at the hospital either. It was an uneasy truce. Not a very healthy one either. I knew you weren’t supposed to keep things bottled up, but I just wasn’t ready. My time at the hospital, Ethan’s death—they were still fresh wounds.
I took out the folded piece of paper and re-read the directions for the hundredth time. I had long since memorized the words, but it was more like a ritual at this point. John noticed me reading and leaned over from his spot beside me, his finger pointed at the creased paper.
“That paper ain’t long for this world.”
Maybe I had taken it out one too many times.
“Don’t worry, I got it all up here.” I tapped a finger to my temple.
This Would Be Paradise (Book 3) Page 24