The Price We Pay (Life After War Book 7)

by Angela White

  The other passenger was the first hostage they’d captured.

  Donner didn’t speak right away. He liked to size up the person before the interrogation. What he saw was a pretty whore about to lie her ass off. He wasn’t picking up anything mentally, though the brick wall flashing in his mind was a bad sign of things to come. The waiting lies were in the fidgeting, the averted eyes, and the white knuckles on her own handgun.

  “If you fire by accident, we’ll kill you,” Donner finally said, watching for the correct reaction.

  “Not if I kill you first,” Jennifer stated shakily. “I’m pretty good with this thing.”

  Both of Donner’s men snorted. The trembling hands kept the barrel of her 9mm jumping all over the place. She obviously had no idea how to kill someone with a gun, not like they did.

  Donner held out a hand. “Give it here. Keep the two in your belt and the knife in your other hand.”

  Jennifer swore furiously, bringing laughter from all three of the men. She clumsily gave Donner the gun and slid back against the door. “I told her I couldn’t do this.”

  Aware of the game beginning, Donner motioned for his driver to get them rolling and stashed the 9mm in the kit at his feet. He would examine it later for clues.

  Jennifer didn’t try to hide her fear at being surrounded by these evil men, knowing it would help with her mission. She and Conner had ridden the waiting dirt bike all night to get here.

  “Who sent you to spy on us?”

  “You know who. I’m supposed to kill you or bring you in.” Jennifer slammed her hand against the seat. “I hate being a decoy.”

  Donner already wasn’t sure which part was lie and which was truth, and didn’t rise to the bait. He watched her frown in the mirror, but she didn’t say it again or try a different line, and Donner was impressed. He had no doubt she was working from a script, and he would let her go through it all before rewriting the lines.

  “Where are we going?”

  “For a drive,” Donner responded. “You were found on the edge of this campsite with a gun. You’ve said you were sent here to kill me. You’re a prisoner of war.”

  Jennifer shuddered. “I’ve been that since it happened.”

  Donner heard the truth there and immediately understood how he was being played. She wouldn’t have been sent in alone.

  “Pull over.”

  The driver brought them to a fast halt and Donner got out, slamming the door. He jerked open Jennifer’s door and grabbed her by the arm, ignoring her attempts to get to one of her other weapons.

  Louis slammed his hands across her arms, bringing a satisfying cry, and they hauled her roughly to the side of the road.

  Donner shoved her to her knees, then again, onto her back. His man put a boot on her neck to keep her there, grinding enough to get her attention.

  Donner unzipped his trousers and the cheers of the men rolling by echoed over them.

  “Tell your guard to come out,” Donner ordered as he knelt down

  Struggling to breathe, Jennifer was helpless as he forced his body on top of hers.

  “Call for help,” he ordered, as very real tears oozed down her cheeks. He put a hand on her jeans, tone deepening into need. “Once these come off, you’re mine in every way.”

  Jennifer screamed.

  Donner nodded at Louis, who assumed a sentry position.

  “Again, girl!” Donner insisted, sliding that hand up her shirt to rip the front of her bra apart.

  “Kyle! Kyle! Kyleee!”

  Donner squeezed greedily, thrusting forward. “Later, we’ll get back to this position.”

  He rose in a quick move, fastening his pants to be ready for her to run, but she only sobbed as she rolled over.

  Donner waved at his man and Louis grabbed her roughly, yanking her to her feet. As she veered toward the jeep, Donner came around and punched her in the temple.

  The Special Forces man caught her as she fell and hefted her over his shoulder as Donner got into the jeep.

  Louis tied her hands after he dumped her into the seat, hands lingering on her soft hair before he shut the door. His late girlfriend had been a brunette and about this size. Maybe after Donner was finished, he would pass her around, like the ones in Canada.

  2

  “Shhh!”

  Charlie and Becky stayed silent and still as they woke. The male voices were loud, close.

  Charlie eased toward the curtain he’d hung and slowly peeled open a corner. He quickly shut it and moved to where Becky was clutching her gun like they were about to have a shootout.

  “A small group, five of them. Probably scouting,” Charlie told her.

  “What should we do?” Becky whispered.

  “Wait until they go, I think,” Charlie said, quietly gathering up their things. “Let’s be ready to run if we have to.”

  “Wait.”

  “What?”

  “We’re searching for them anyway, aren’t we? Kinda?”

  Charlie got her point and spent a moment considering it. “We are supposed to be hunting… You sure?”

  Becky nodded shakily. “Yes. It’s us or them.”

  “Okay. Let’s slip out the back first and come around,” Charlie instructed wisely. “I want this cave to run to if we need it.”

  “We’ll leave the curtain up and no one will find it for at least twenty years,” she praised nervously.

  Charlie understood, as much as he could. “My mom said you don’t have to do this.”

  “I know,” she responded. “But I’m good now. Let’s go give ‘em hell.”

  “You know it.”

  The pair slipped down through the rear of the cave, where the narrow opening would prevent all but the thinnest of adults from getting through from this direction, and emerged into the dim, cold daylight.

  It took a few minutes to circle around, but it would have been hard to miss the loud male voices comparing life underground to life on top. They weren’t being quiet or careful, clearly not expecting to run into anyone this far away from Lookout Mountain.

  Charlie waved Becky behind him as they came into view and the five soldiers tensed. Hands went to holsters, faces cruel, and Charlie felt Becky tense behind him.

  “It’s okay,” he whispered. “I’ll do it. You just keep it together.”

  “Okay,” Becky sniffled nervously; almost unable to believe they were here, doing this.

  Charlie held up his hands, grinning. “Hey! Maybe you guys can help us!”

  The soldiers were ignoring him in favor of leering at Becky, and Charlie put his hands down. “We’ve been alone for a while and my sister needs help.”

  “Oh, we’ll help her, kid,” the closest man leered. “Come on over here, baby.”

  Becky took a step and Charlie yanked his gun from the pocket of his hoodie and began firing.

  The soldiers were too surprised to react and the shootout was over before they knew it had begun.

  Charlie’s first shot hit the farthest man in the chest, knocking him to the ground and the second quick pull of the trigger dropped the Corporal next to him with a trim through the throat. Blood gushed as he began to suffocate.

  The three remaining men started to raise their weapons, finally reacting, but the grenade finished the short battle. The soldiers dove to avoid the explosion and Charlie managed to shoot all three of them in the chaos.

  “Down!” Becky shouted. She had remembered to count.

  They hit the dirt as the grenade exploded.

  As the debris settled, Charlie made sure the men were all dead with extra rounds, and Becky watched without reacting. She didn’t fear death or pain, only being raped.

  Charlie grimaced as he used blood to write the message on the jeep seats, as he’d been instructed. “You can do the next one.”

  “Okay.” Becky agreed. It would be easier now that she’d seen how it was supposed to go. She’d been terrified that the soldiers wouldn’t be distracted enough, that she was too ugly to keep th
eir attention while Charlie killed them, but Angela’s outfit had certainly done the trick. The bathing suit top and blue jean shorts made her feel almost naked and she quickly donned her long coat while Charlie gathered the guns, ammo, and a few other items on their lists of things to never leave behind. Angela knew they would need these supplies later, but it was also to make sure the enemy couldn’t come through and resupply themselves. Without reinforcements and fresh ammunition runs, the soldiers would be at Angela’s mercy and she didn’t have any. Neither did her teenage son.

  Charlie and Becky returned to their little cave long enough to erase their tracks and signs, and then continued down the mountainside. They were both happy enough with their first test of adapting to a new situation.

  “I’ll let him know, if you want,” Becky offered, using her grid to make sure they were in the correct place. “We should run into them shortly.”

  “I’ll let him know now and give him time to blow off steam before we meet up.”

  “Okay.” High on getting justice in any form, Becky giggled. “Good idea.”

  The soldiers were the enemy, the same as Rick had been. It felt good to kill them.

  Charlie frowned a bit, picking up her happy thoughts, but he didn’t say anything. Killing wasn’t supposed to be fun… Was it?

  3

  “Get on there, you son of a bitch!”

  Samantha had been fighting with her blind for an hour now and still didn’t have it the way she wanted. The sun was getting higher in the sky, a time when she needed to be under cover, and yet here she was, fighting with a straw curtain.

  Sam sighed, correcting herself. She was doing fine with the blind. It was her mental state that wasn’t so hot. She hated waking up alone and hadn’t shaken off the morning fog yet.

  Her fingers slipped the tied wire over the stick frame and she exclaimed happily as the rest of it fell into place the way it had in classes. Her time with Kenn had been a huge help, though he still didn’t know why she’d asked for lessons on it. When she’d dug the sniper training out of him, he’d assumed she wanted it for one of her boyfriends, not for herself.

  The trees here were a mix of healthy and dying, many with mold growing up the trunks, but Samantha didn’t mind. Her gear was thick overalls and sturdy gloves, and she had scaled the trunks without concern. Her only worry up here was hitting wet leaves and falling while trying to get her blind in place. The foliage was busy getting set for the change of season as well and the crunching over underbrush was an easy alert that someone was nearby.

  Samantha finished setting her cover and got on the next part of her instructions. The escape plan was something she would definitely need and she took her time choosing the correct path through the cliffs.

  It was rocky and rough here, hard to walk, let alone run up or down, and she kept low as she traveled. There was no way to know who might be in this area with her, theirs or her own, and she stayed hidden, as she’d done during her time after the war. Only now, she had weapons and knew how to use them.

  Sam also kept an ear out for engines. According to her instructions, the supplies she needed would be delivered in the next few hours and she didn’t want to miss that. Those long crates were critical.

  On the cliffs above Samantha, her protection was sweeping their surroundings alertly. If Sam wasn’t able to get under cover in time, he had instructions to delay whoever was about to discover her. Billy had already decided he would do that by Sam’s side if there were more than she could handle. He’d witnessed her using the equipment that was coming and Angela was right to worry over the success here. This side of the mountain would see a lot of action. Samantha was good and she would have the element of surprise, but she also had common sense. If they were overwhelmed, she would welcome an extra hand.

  Billy used his binoculars to view the land around her, spotting animals, but no people. He then checked the area around himself, hoping for the same. A faint flash of sunlight off someone’s rifle glinted and Billy’s heart stopped before he realized he recognized the shadow keeping to the trees that lined the cliffs to the left.

  The Eagle waved, then motioned, and Billy grinned in relief. He gestured and then pointed to where Samantha was now carefully marking her escape route with natural forage items. Then Billy curled up to grab a few hours of sleep. He’d been wondering how he was supposed to stay awake all the time, but Angela had that covered too.

  Jax stared down at the blonde placing a thick rock by a fork in the path before kicking leaves and dirt over it. She knelt down and blew odd patterns in the sand that would seem natural, and then swept away her tracks with a crooked branch. After tossing a few handfuls of dirt and leaves onto the path, Sam relieved herself and then settled into the blind. She appeared to be fine and under control, but Jax couldn’t help the concern. He had no idea what she was supposed to be doing, but if she got into trouble, he was breaking his instructions of no contact and damn the price. No female under his watch could ever be killed. It was his single biggest goal as an Eagle now. There was no way he could live with all that guilt, not after what losing Leslie had done to him. He didn’t think he’d ever feel normal again and she’d only been a lover. He hadn’t had enough time to discover if it had actually been love and the robbed feeling was a sharp blade that continued to slice him open months after her death. Had she been the one?

  4

  “Answer me!”

  The mental shout was so strong that it felt like someone had fired a gun inside a closed space.

  Adrian drove faster, hoping their next stop would cool Marc off, though he did understand the wolfman’s outrage. He and Brady had listened to Charlie’s mental message with horror and anger.

  We took out five of them. They stumbled across us while we were sleeping. Tell her we’re good and rolling.

  “She’s using kids as killers!” Marc bellowed, making everyone in the truck jump.

  “Yeah, we got that,” Kenn sneered. “Now shut up. we need to think.”

  Marc controlled himself by a hair. “She didn’t tell me he was going in!”

  Adrian and Kenn both enjoyed that.

  “She probably assumed you would try to interfere,” Kenn said. “So cool down and do what you keep telling the rest of us: follow your instructions,” he sneered.

  Marc controlled his outrage. He would deal with Angie later.

  “Can I listen in on that?” Adrian asked, suddenly worried. “I don’t know where she sent Conner either.”

  Silence fell for a moment and then Marc shrugged angrily. “You will anyway.”

  Adrian wisely didn’t agree.

  “We should see a mark any time now,” Kenn said, reading from his envelope. “Should be a-”

  “There she is,” Marc told them, pointing to nothing that any of them could make out. “Park under that tree and we’ll have a smoke while we unload.”

  They knew that meant Marc wanted to spend a minute checking out the area and verifying Samantha was okay. None of them had been happy to discover who their contact was upon opening the next instructions at dawn. The idea of a woman out here alone, pregnant with twins, didn’t set well with them.

  Marc snorted. “I should have known better. She has two Eagles guarding. Sam doesn’t know about them. We’re all good.”

  “You know where she is?” Kenn asked. He was searching for the blind that Sam would have been instructed to set up, but he couldn’t spot it.

  “She used the training in lesson Five C,” Adrian approved, easily spotting her once he remembered her preference for heights. “Though how she got that blind to stay there, I don’t know. Tell Angie I’d bump her up a full level for it.”

  Marc climbed into the backseat. “She already knows how good Sam is, otherwise she wouldn’t have sent her out here alone.”

  “But she’s not.”

  Marc scowled at Kenn. “Don’t you ever tell her she wasn’t. You hear me?”

  Kenn nodded, not about to fight over something like this
when he couldn’t care less.

  “Good,” Marc answered the thought. “Let’s go.”

  “Where to next?” Kenn asked, taking point.

  “East for a mile. Charlie and Becky are waiting for us there.”

  “For what?” Kenn wanted to know.

  Marc didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He had no idea what the pair was doing and wouldn’t unless they were allowed to tell him. It was scary, maddening.

  “I know what they’re doing,” Adrian stated. “And she didn’t say that I couldn’t tell you.”

  Marc was aware that Adrian was using this instance to cause trouble. “Spill it, then.”

  Kenn moved them into a grassy area with a thick tree cover, and only listened with half an ear. Neither Charlie nor Becky interested him very much. They were walking over piles of stones that hadn’t been cleared form these hiking paths since the war, sometimes climbing over full trees that had come down. Nature had piled up here and it would make it harder on the soldiers who had to come in after them. Kenn wanted a better vantage point to determine if any of those men might be close yet.

  “As this fight goes on, we’ll be hearing stories and rumors of groups of renegade people who aren’t following orders. Instead, they’re attacking soldiers, taking out patrols and perimeter camps.”

  “And the kids are providing support, right? Lookouts or something,” Marc insisted angrily. He knew better, but hated to accept it.

  “She sent them out here to hunt, to kill.”

  “You knew!” Marc growled, turning to slam his fist into Adrian’s jaw.

  Adrian let himself fall backward to be splayed out on the dirt and rocks, and stayed down. “Worse than that. She took it directly from one of my notebooks.”

  “You gave her this idea?!”

  “Yes.” Adrian frowned. “And this is one of the nicer plans.”

  “Do I want to know the others?” Marc asked grouchily, calming down a bit.