Ruled

by Elle Kennedy

  “He owes Reese, doesn’t he?” was Rylan’s stiff answer.

  “Yeah. He does.”

  * * *

  They made it back to Foxworth in one piece. The minute that Travis saw their faces, he sounded the alarm.

  “We have to leave, don’t we?” he said sharply.

  “Yup.” Sloan didn’t have time to explain, so he barked out orders instead. “We’re going to Connor Mackenzie’s camp. Rylan, there’s a sat phone in Reese’s war room. Let him know we’re coming. Sam and Davis, you two go door to door. Trav, grab Randy and get all the trucks, cars, and bikes gassed up and ready to go. We’re gonna roll out in thirty minutes.”

  He didn’t wait to see if everyone obeyed him. He had stuff to do.

  A minute later, he was on Nash’s motorcycle, speeding out to Scott and Anna’s homestead.

  Scott met him on the porch. “What’s going on?” the older man asked in concern.

  “There was an ambush at the Enforcer station,” Sloan explained. “They took Reese, and soon they’ll be sending Enforcers to wipe out the town.”

  Dressed in a heavy barn coat thrown over a long pajama gown, Anna appeared in the doorway with a mug of something steaming and hot in her hands. Sloan accepted it gratefully and chugged the coffee down, not caring that it burned his tongue or his tonsils. He needed the energy kick.

  “We’re not leaving,” Scott informed him.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, searching for patience and finding none. “Goddamn it, Scott. We leave in thirty minutes. Grab a chicken and some clothes and let’s go.”

  Scott’s only response was to wrap an arm around his wife. “This is our home. Let the Enforcers come. We’ve got the cellar under the barn and thirty days’ worth of food. I’d invite you to stay but I suspect you’d be insulted by that.”

  He dragged a hand over his forehead. If Reese and Rylan were standing here with him, he’d probably trample the older couple on his way to that cellar. But Reese wasn’t here, and he was going after her the moment he made sure her people were safe.

  “They took her,” he choked out.

  Anna’s eyes flared with sympathy. “I’m so sorry, Sloan.”

  “We’re getting her back.” He stared stonily at them, daring them to contradict him with reason and facts.

  Nearly eighteen hours had passed since Reese was taken.

  The Foxworth force wasn’t at full capacity.

  Even if it was, the chopper would only be able to take a team of ten or so to the city.

  The only reason Hudson had been saved this summer was because of someone on the inside—her brother Dominik. Connor had admitted there was no way they could’ve rescued her without Dominik’s help.

  “If anyone could bring her back, it’d be you,” Scott agreed.

  Safe room or no, Sloan didn’t like leaving these two behind. When Reese had asked him to make sure Foxworth was secure, she’d meant all of their people. Not all of their people minus Scott and Anna.

  “They’ll come for you,” he warned.

  “Let them.” Scott’s voice rang with confidence.

  “We don’t want you to die out here.” He kept saying we like Reese was standing right beside him, and it killed him each time he remembered that she wasn’t.

  “We’re together,” Anna said, leaning against her man. “This is our farm and we want to stay. You don’t need to save us. Go save the others—it’s what Reese would want.”

  He didn’t have time to argue with them anymore. He handed the mug back to Anna and drew her against him so he could press a kiss against her forehead. “Be safe, then.”

  “You’re making the right decisions,” she called after him as he turned to go.

  He looked over his shoulder. “You don’t even know what those are.”

  “They’re the right ones, Sloan. You trust in that big heart of yours. It hasn’t led you astray before and it won’t now,” she said with a conviction that Sloan didn’t feel.

  With one last look at the older couple, he climbed on the motorcycle and then sped back to town, where he found that all of vehicles were loaded and ready to go. Some had already left under Nash’s tired direction, Randy told him when he reached the courtyard.

  Sloan clapped the teenage boy on the shoulder. “All the kids out?”

  Randy nodded. “All of them. Christine and Bethany are taking charge. We put them all in the same truck and it left about ten minutes ago with Trav in the driver’s seat and Cole protecting them.”

  “Good man. You’ve got everything?”

  “Yep. We’re just waiting for you to get your things . . . and Reese’s.”

  Sloan had to wait a beat for his throat to accommodate the sudden lump. “Give me five and I’ll be ready.”

  Randy lowered his voice. “Con’s man is up there.”

  “Rylan?” Sloan glanced up at the second story of his and Reese’s building, but Reese’s bedroom was in the back.

  “Bethany asked him to gather Reese’s stuff,” Randy said awkwardly. “I hope that was okay.”

  “It’s all good, kid.” He squeezed the boy’s shoulder in reassurance, then headed inside the building and took the stairs two at a time.

  When he passed Reese’s room, he noticed all the drawers of her dresser gaping open, but he kept walking until he reached the bathroom. He grabbed a towel and shoved all of Reese’s stuff onto it—her soap, shampoo, razors, a bottle of lotion that Tamara had brought back from the south. Then he reached a hand behind the toilet seat and jerked down a brick wrapped in cellophane and duct tape. It was a stash of emergency coin along with a gun and ammo. He tossed that onto the pile, secured the ends of the towel into a sack, and slung it over his shoulder.

  When he stepped into the hallway, Rylan was waiting there for him. “You got all your shit?” the man muttered.

  “Almost. I need a sec.”

  Rylan’s face was rigid, each line filled with anger and betrayal. It was nothing like the good-natured expression that he usually wore, and it pained Sloan to see such a drastic change. Rylan’s first instinct was usually to smile, but Sloan had killed that.

  The loss of Rylan’s admiration and affection was carving what was left of Sloan’s heart into thin, brittle pieces.

  He ducked into his room and packed up his meager possessions as the other man watched from the doorway in silent but obvious disapproval. Fuck, he wished Rylan would yell at him or something, because at least that would mean he still believed Sloan was worth the effort.

  He zipped up his duffel and headed back to the door. “Ready.”

  Rylan gave a tiny chin lift, the barest of acknowledgments, and then clambered down the stairs without a word.

  There was one truck left in the courtyard. The two men climbed into the back, while Randy slammed the door behind them and jogged to the front. The truck heaved a little as the teenager hoisted his body into the driver’s seat, then jolted forward as he gassed the engine.

  Sloan leaned his head against the metal wall of the truck and closed his eyes, but all he could see was Rylan’s devastated face and Reese’s terrified one.

  There would be no rest for him until Reese was safe.

  24

  The interrogation room was small, no bigger than ten by ten feet. A metal table and two chairs sat in its center. Against the far wall was a narrow cot with a thin wool blanket. The bed was . . . alarming. Since Reese highly doubted they were going to let her take naps between torture sessions, this could only mean that the cot would play a part in the torture sessions.

  She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since Eric and his men had captured her at the outpost. There was no clock or windows in the room, no indicators to help her figure out what time it was. She didn’t even know if it was day or night.

  Instead of the long drive that Eric had taunted her about, th
ey’d traveled only ten minutes to a nearby airfield, where a military chopper was waiting for them. The bird had taken them not to West City, but to the Enforcer compound east of it.

  Reese had strained to get a good look of the compound, but all she’d seen was a flurry of soldiers on the tarmac. They’d ushered her into this room too fast for her to gather much useful intel, though she did have some previous knowledge of the compound: Hudson had provided a detailed sketch of it to Connor, who in turn passed a copy along to Reese.

  She knew there were about two hundred soldiers living there. That there were barracks in the west building and training facilities in the main one. That it was heavily guarded and surrounded by a twelve-foot electric fence.

  As she stared at the cinder block walls, Reese forced herself not to give in to the fear and worry gnawing at her insides. She desperately hoped that Rylan and the others had gotten away. And she hoped to hell they weren’t planning a rescue for her. Even Connor knew that was suicide—he’d had to make a deal with Dominik in order to free Hudson from this same compound. Security here was tighter than at any other Enforcer station in the Colonies.

  It felt like at least another hour passed before the door finally opened and a stocky, balding man entered the room. He had harsh features, a heavy brow and a square jaw, and wasn’t much taller than Reese’s five-eight. His lips were so thin it almost looked like he didn’t have any—until he smirked and the hint of a curve appeared.

  “Hello, Reese,” he said briskly. “I’m Commander Anthony Ferris.” One bushy black eyebrow flicked up. “You don’t know how long I’ve been waiting for a face-to-face with you.”

  She crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair in an insolent pose. She didn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer.

  Frowning, Ferris strode up to the table and pulled out the second chair. Metal scraped against concrete, a grating sound that lingered in the air. As he sat down, two more men entered the room.

  Dominik was one of them.

  Reese worked hard to mask her reaction. She knew he and Hudson were twins, but the man’s resemblance to his sister was downright eerie. Dominik’s features were more masculine, his hair a slightly darker shade of blond, and he was a good head taller and far more muscular than Hudson. But those eyes . . . those vivid gray eyes were damn near identical. It was uncanny.

  Reese shifted her gaze to the other man, but he wasn’t anyone she recognized. He looked like every other Enforcer, with his black uniform and a gun holstered to his hip.

  Dominik closed the door and then both men stood on either side of it, their attention fixed intently on her.

  “Shall we begin?” Ferris spoke pleasantly, but there was nothing kind about his expression.

  He didn’t pull out a pen or notepad, a recorder or camera. He didn’t need to—cameras were mounted on all four corners of the ceiling, their blinking red lights indicating everything was already being taped. Reese had no doubt the room was bugged for sound too. Oh yeah. Every word was definitely being recorded.

  “You’re not doing yourself any favors by remaining silent,” Ferris told her. “I already know who you are and everything you’ve been up to.”

  She chuckled, speaking for the first time since she’d been hauled into this room. “If you . . .” After hours of silence and not a drop of water, her voice was hoarse, so she had to clear her throat before she continued. “If you already know everything about me, then what’s the point of this interview? Why don’t you kill me now and be done with it?”

  He clasped both hands on the metal tabletop. “That’s not how we operate.”

  She snorted.

  He ignored the derisive noise. “We’re not savages like you and your people. We don’t go around murdering innocent citizens, imposing our ideas of freedom and right or wrong on people and killing those who disagree.”

  She couldn’t stop the burst of laughter that flew out of her mouth. Her response brought a cloud of annoyance to Ferris’s face, but fucking hell, was he joking right now? That was exactly what the Enforcers did. What the Global Council did. If you didn’t agree with their ideals, if you didn’t give them the control they demanded under the guise of preserving resources and preventing another war, they killed you without batting an eye.

  Either Ferris was choosing to ignore that, or he genuinely didn’t recognize the irony.

  “You’ve been living outside the city walls for so long you’ve forgotten what civilization is,” he said coldly. “The government exists to protect its citizens.”

  She arched a brow. “Did the government protect the world all those decades ago? Did it stop all those countries from dropping bombs on each other and destroying our planet?”

  “That system was flawed because there wasn’t one government. Nations implemented their own regimes—dictatorships, democracies, monarchies . . . so many conflicting systems. It didn’t work. But what we have now, it does work. One government. A global rule.”

  Reese faked a yawn. “So I’m here for a politics lesson, is that it? Because that’s even less interesting than the interrogation I was expecting.”

  “Fine. You want to be interrogated? Let’s interrogate you.” An ominous look darkened his eyes. “Who else is responsible for the outpost attacks?”

  She smiled innocently “What outpost attacks?”

  His fingers curled into fists on the table. “Don’t test me, you stupid bitch. You were caught red-handed on the scene, armed with weapons and explosives—weapons and explosives that were stolen from an ammunitions depot a few weeks back. There were others with you. You and your people engaged my men.”

  Reese shrugged. “What people? I was acting alone.”

  “So you admit to being part of the attack?”

  “Hey, asshole, you just said I was caught red-handed. This isn’t exactly surprising news.”

  His nostrils flared. Clearly he didn’t like being talked back to. “I want the names and locations of everyone else involved. And not just in the west. Outposts in the north, south, and east have also been targeted.”

  Satisfaction surged through her. Brynn, Garrett, and Mick had done their parts, then. They were smarter than her, though. They hadn’t gotten greedy.

  Guilt arrowed into her gut, so deep and acute that it made her feel like throwing up. She really hoped Sloan wasn’t looking for her right now. He’d promised that if anything ever happened to her, his first priority would be to take care of Foxworth.

  Reese would kill him if he broke that promise.

  “We already know all about your town,” Ferris said. “My men are on their way there as we speak.”

  Her stomach twisted harder. Fuck.

  “One of my men informed me that he heard there were children living there. That’s a clear violation of our population laws.” Ferris sneered. “In fact, everything you do is a violation. You’ve broken every law in the book, and now you’re going to face the consequences.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You’re doing a lot of talking, Commander, but it doesn’t seem like you’re saying anything important.”

  “How’s this for important? I’m going to set your little town on fire. If you don’t tell me the names of the people involved in the attacks, I’m going to assume they all helped you. I’ll line them all up and shoot them in the head, one by one. I’ll make sure one of my men records it and then I’ll sit beside you while we play the tape so you can watch your people die.”

  She said nothing. Foxworth had protocols in place. Escape plans. Rylan and the others knew she’d been captured—as long as one of them made it back to Foxworth, they would instantly implement a plan and take the others to safety.

  “You’re not going to let those people die,” Ferris said with a harsh chuckle. “I know you.”

  She smiled again. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”

  “Oh, I beg to d
iffer.” He nodded at the blond-haired Enforcer behind him. “Dominik.”

  Hudson’s twin stepped forward, bending over Ferris’s shoulder as he placed a blue file folder on the table. When he straightened up, Reese met his gray eyes and said, “Your sister says hello.”

  Dominik flinched. It was barely noticeable, but she’d been looking for it, waiting for it.

  Then he set his broad shoulders in a rigid line, his lips curling in a sneer. “My sister is a wanted fugitive and an enemy of the Colonies. If you know where she is, you need to tell us her location.”

  So that’s how they were playing it? Reese suddenly had to wonder—was Dominik playing both sides, or did his loyalty really belong to his sister? Hudson seemed to think it did, but Reese was having a tough time reading the man.

  Ferris flipped open the folder and said, “I don’t know you, huh? Trust me, I know everything about you, Teresa.”

  She didn’t even blink at his use of her full name, and when he didn’t get the reaction he’d desired, he began spouting off details from the file.

  “Teresa Robertson, daughter of Sylvia Robertson.” He tapped one of the pages. “We ran your fingerprints when we brought you here—imagine my surprise when I discovered you were a firstborn. That the most feared outlaw woman in West Colony is not even a real outlaw, but spent the first thirteen years of her life in the city. I wonder if your people would feel the same way about you, offer the same undying loyalty, if they knew the truth. That you haven’t struggled the way they have. That you didn’t spend your childhood running and hiding and starving in the ‘free land.’” He used air quotes at the end.

  Again, she didn’t answer. The people she trusted knew she was from the city. It made no difference to them.

  Ferris kept reading. “Last seen the day of her mother’s burning . . .”

  Reese’s stomach churned at the word. Her mother’s burning, not burial. That was how the city disposed of bodies, because the council was too worried about disease. They couldn’t have corpses rotting underground and people breathing that air, so they burned the bodies and held a ceremony that was attended by anyone who cared to attend.