by Anna Oney
The rain lasted well into the first night. Noelle cut her red shawl in half to bandage Davlyn’s hands. By dawn of the second day, Davlyn and Noelle were exhibiting flu-like symptoms. Noelle had explained that these effects were common from the reversal serum, and they needn’t worry, as the symptoms would soon pass. Noelle and Davlyn began feeling better by dusk of the second day, putting Fawn’s mind at ease.
A chipper, hyper Noelle felt inclined to fill her new sisters in on some of the NWA’s secrets.
“Those of us who go from community to community are referred to as the, “Traveling Crew,” she said, after they stopped to feed the horses two slices of apple each. “There are others who stay behind at the communities to keep people in line. Once the powerplant in Austin is fixed, they’ll communicate to all the community’s leaders to flip the switch at the same time, creating a pulse of electricity that’ll give power to all of the buildings the NWA has built.”
On the third day, Fawn came to the realization that traveling with company proved slower than by her lonesome. She had to take the wants and needs of Noelle and Davlyn under consideration. On more than two occasions, she had to bite her tongue when they felt inclined to stop and rest. The peaches and apples were enough to sustain them for their journey through the woods. They were blessed to come upon a meadow for the horses to graze in by dusk of the third day.
A few hours before dawn on the fourth day, the three women arrived about a mile outside of the Bogan Farm. To enter the community without being detected, they needed to make themselves as small as possible. Fawn was certain that trotting between the NWA’s tents on horseback would only alert the soldiers to their appearance.
With a heavy heart, Fawn tied Juniper’s reins to the lowest limb of a pine tree and kissed above her closest friend’s snout.
“I hate to leave you again,” she whispered, running her palm down the side of Juniper’s neck. “I really do, but I don’t see another way.” Juniper bobbed her head fervently, stomping her front hooves at the ground. “I’ll be back before sunup, for sure.”
Davlyn and Noelle secured the other two horses to a tree near Juniper. Bow drawn, Fawn led the way. They emerged from the woods into the tall grass that stood between them and her lover’s community. The morning dew had begun to settle on the tips of the grass, wetting their shins as they shuffled through.
An owl perched upon the highest point of the NWA’s nearest tent held Fawn’s attention as she crept toward the back of the dwelling. Nocking an arrow, she moved across the side of the tent with Davlyn and Noelle in tow. Her focus was pulled from the angelic creature by the sight of two soldiers frozen in conversation. The men stood roughly twelve feet from the tent she, Davlyn, and Noelle hid behind. Fawn recognized one of them as the man who had shoved her in the chest when she’d tried visiting Hunter.
Behind the stilled soldiers, the full, neon moon illuminated a post Fawn remembered from a distant dream. She shook her head at the image of the scarred blind man that had been strapped to that post, saying, “I always knew,” and then, “Red Rain. Red Rain.”
She swiped a trembling hand over her brow, and then turned to Davlyn and Noelle, mouthing for them to stay put while she approached the post.
She emerged in the clearing, about seven feet from the post. She noticed three other guards stationed around the pillar, who were also frozen. The one to the far right had a hand shoved between the cheeks of his backside. His head was turned to the left. His wide-eyes and turned-down lips suggested he was making sure no one looked as he picked at his ass.
Fawn stood before the lonesome post, waving Davlyn and Noelle over. She concluded that Joy must’ve had something to do with these fellows’ unresponsive demeanors. Upon Davlyn and Noelle’s arrival at her side, Fawn’s interest was piqued by a set of pawprints making a half circle around the post. The pawprints turned to footprints at the back of the post. Ropes that had been used to keep someone attached to the post lie severed amongst the footprints of that person’s savior. She squatted, bringing her fingers to the strangeness of the scene.
“The footprints,” Davlyn said, her voice barely a whisper. “They continue this way.”
Hunter, Fawn thought, clenching her jaw.
“We’re going after them,” Noelle said, clutching her automatic rifle. “Aren’t we?”
Weapons drawn, they followed the footprints with Fawn in the lead. They came to the massive barn with Hunter’s grandfather’s initials burned into the archway. They shuffled alongside the barn’s outer wall in the same direction as the footprints. They came upon two stilled soldiers, their gapping-mouthed profiles facing one another.
“Wonder what happened to them?” Davlyn whispered at Fawn’s side. She peered behind her toward the guards they’d parted from, and then back at the two men before them. “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t know,” Fawn replied, her eyes latched to the ground ahead of her. “But the footprints lead to Hunter’s cabin.”
They reached the door of Hunter’s residence, which barely clung to its hinges. Except for Hunter’s belongings, the room was completely empty. A trail of footprints, stretching from the doorframe to the far side of the barn, where Fawn knew Aiden’s quarters were, triggered her to follow them.
“What’re we doing now?” a distressed Noelle whispered to Davlyn behind Fawn. “Who knows when these men will snap out of whatever spell they’re under.”
Ignoring Noelle’s remark, Fawn came to the side of the barn. The footprints disappeared inside Aiden’s cabin, twenty feet or so away from where she stood. Fawn could hear the scuffling of Davlyn and Noelle’s feet as they came up behind her. She made sure the coast was clear before tackling the short distance.
The door to Aiden’s quarters was slightly ajar. She peered through the crack. Hunter whimpered softly on his knees beside his sickly father’s bed. Aiden’s eyes came fluttering open, locking on to Fawn at the door. Aiden’s fingers seemed to move in slow motion as he beckoned her inside.
The squeaking of the door as it fully opened cast Hunter’s forehead from the edge of the bed. He sucked in a deep breath and expelled it as he rubbed his puffy, reddened eyes in disbelief.
“Fawny,” he said, wobbly coming to his feet. He looked from Fawn to Davlyn, who entered behind her, and then to Noelle who entered last. “You-you’re here. Just like Tom said you would be.”
Fawn walked around the side of the bed without registering the last of what Hunter had said and wrapped her arms around him. Her heart sank as he winced at her touch.
“You’re hurt,” she said, loosening her grip. She glided her palm down his back. The rise and dip of her fingers over the scabs of long slashes on his flesh brought a lump to her throat. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
He enveloped her in his arms, bringing his lips to the crook of her neck.
“God, I missed you,” he said, pecking above each of her brows. “But you can’t stay here. You and Davlyn,” he said and paused, tipping his head toward Noelle, “and your new friend there need to leave. You’ve got less than ten minutes before these guards come to.”
She stared Hunter in his blistered, sunburned face, and shook her head.
“What—”
Before she could finish her thought, Aiden cleared his throat, drawing their attention.
“Dad,” Hunter whispered, sitting on the edge of the bed. “What is it?”
“F-f-f-fawn,” Aiden stammered, the heavy lids of his brown eyes bobbing up and down. “C-c-come h-here.”
Fawn knelt by the side of the bed closest to Aiden’s head, remembering the night she and Hunter had spent inside their cabin at the Boom Hole. The night Hunter had said that his father needed to speak with her. She leaned forward, bringing the back of her fingers to his cheeks and stroked his faded, timeworn face.
“Yes, sir?”
He turned his head on the pillow to face her, and motioned with his fingers for her to come closer. With her ea
r hovering an inch above his thin, frail lips, Aiden whispered, “D-d-d-don’t do to m-my son what E-e-e-emma did to my f-f-father.”
Fawn jerked her head and came to her feet, staggering backward. Tears puddled in her bottom lids as she locked eyes with the man on his deathbed.
Aiden turned his head from Fawn to gaze at the empty side of his bed. The imprint of a hand on the pillow opposite the one on which Aiden rested his head turned Fawn’s skin into gooseflesh.
“T-t-take m-me,” Aiden hoarsely said, stretching his hand toward the empty space of his bed. “I-I’m r-r-ready, D-Dad.”
The slow rise and fall of Aiden’s chest ceased after those words were spoken. Passages of Gran’s journal were brought to the forefront of Fawn’s mind.
Gran had met the rugged cowboy named Reed when she’d been caught by a snare he’d rigged to catch a, “big black cat,” which he’d sworn he’d spotted roaming the woods. Reed had handed Gran over to his father, Heskill, who, years prior, she’d denied a loan to save his home from condemnation. Reed had set her free when his father’s murderous plans for her were revealed. A rift developed between Gran’s then-boyfriend, Tom (who, a year later became her husband), and Reed after the two men were introduced to each other.
In her memoir, Gran hadn’t mentioned anything untoward happening between herself and Hunter’s grandfather, Reed. The last journal entry Gran had made pertaining to Reed was exactly fifteen years after she’d brought her brother, Griffin, home. She’d fallen through the frozen creek after leaving her then sixteen-year-old son, Samuel, in their deer stand. She’d gone into detail about how Reed had shown up at that pivotal moment, saving her from a bitterly cold, watery grave, although, his heroics had been in vain, as she’d succumbed to a lung infection two short weeks later.
For the first time, Fawn realized she hadn’t known Gran as well as she’d thought. Fifteen years was a large gap of time to be missing. What awful thing had her grandmother done to Reed to have impacted Aiden so deeply? It had to be something pretty terrible for Aiden to use his last words to tell Fawn about it. She blinked, sending swollen tears gushing over her cheeks.
“Hunter, I,” she said, sitting beside him. “I-I’m so sorry.”
Hunter breathed in deeply and ran his palm down his face. He glided his fingers over the lids of his father’s eyes to close them.
“What,” he said, on the brink of tears. “What did he say to you?”
“I-I,” she stammered, not sure how to reply. “I couldn’t make out what he said.”
Hunter shook his head and buried his weeping face in his hands. Fawn’s concern for her lover’s state of mind was disrupted by Davlyn coming up beside her.
“Cousin,” she whispered, breaking through the sound of Hunter’s heartache. “I hate to be that person.” She looked to Noelle behind her. “But we need to get going.”
“If what he said is true,” Noelle joined in, stepping forward. “We don’t have much time left.”
“I—” Fawn began.
“They’re right,” Hunter interrupted. “Come on,” he said and sniffled, swiping his finger below his nose. He rose from the bed and grasped Fawn’s hand, coaxing her to join him. “You ladies, y’all can’t be here when they wake up.”
Neither can you, Hunter, Fawn thought, as he tightened his grip on her hand. What’re you saying?
Hunter led the three women through his father’s cabin door. Fawn’s balance behind Hunter was compromised as he quickened his pace and tugged at her hand. About six feet from the door, he stopped and looked about, making sure no one stood nearby. He turned toward Fawn and kissed the top of her hand. Letting out a raspy breath, he tipped his head toward the straight shot into the cover of trees behind his father’s quarters.
“All right,” Fawn said, studying Hunter’s glistened, troubling gaze. “Let’s go, then.”
Davlyn and Noelle were the first to step in the direction of the woods. Fawn gripped Hunter’s hand tighter and attempted to follow, but an anchor held her back.
“Without me,” Hunter said, prying Fawn’s hand from his. “My darling, my love,” he continued, his voice unsteady. “You have been the light that’s made life bearable for me.” He backed away from her, thinning the string that linked their hearts together. “Remember that.”
Fawn stared after Hunter as he advanced toward the towering backdoor of the barn. Out of her peripheral vison, Fawn caught a blurry sight of Davlyn and Noelle coming to a halt.
Davlyn peered over her shoulder at Fawn, prompting Noelle to do the same.
“Cousin,” she hissed, outstretching her arms. “What’re you doing?”
Fawn’s heart pounded against her eardrums as she watched Hunter disappear into the barn. The guards at the front began to stir and she could hear their groggy moans as they fully came to. Time seemed to move in slow motion as she cleared the steps between herself and the barn’s gaping door.
Inside the barn, Hunter mounted Rodale without bothering to saddle him. His eyes latched to Fawn’s as he backed Rodale up. She stood in the middle of the doorway with three small words lingering at the tip of her tongue, desiring to be confessed.
“No, Fawny,” Hunter growled, clenching his jaw. “I can’t go with y’all,” he said, riding up beside her. “Whatever they injected me with allows them to keep track of me. I’ll lead them away — cause a distraction. Give you ladies a chance to escape.”
“Hunter, I,” Fawn said, grasping his ankle. “I—”
“Fawn, we have to go,” Davlyn interrupted, as she arrived at the barn’s back entrance with Noelle at her side. Davlyn widened her eyes at Fawn as she tugged at her cousin’s arm. “Come on.”
“Now,” Noelle urged, twitchingly looking about. “We have to go. The men — they’re beginning to wake.”
“Go then!” Fawn snapped, tearing her arm from Davlyn’s grasp. “Leave us.”
Fawn turned and met Hunter’s pleading gaze, trying to ignore the obscenities Davlyn grumbled under her breath.
“Hunter, I-I love you,” she said, chin quivering with fresh tears welling in her eyes. “Just thought you should know.”
Hunter leaned over the side of Rodale’s back, bringing his fingers beneath Fawn’s chin. He joined his lips to hers in a passionate kiss. A faint moan escaped her heart-shaped lips at the sensation of his palm cradling the back of her head. He parted from her lips to peck around her freckled face.
“Circumstances aside,” he said in a low, husky voice. “It was worth the wait.” He kissed her again, but before they’d finished, he spurred Rodale into motion, kicking up dust.
Fawn’s lungs were emptied of air as she stared after him. A sense of loss enveloped her soul. Davlyn smacked Fawn’s cheek, prompting her to sprint alongside the other two women as they exited the barn. She had no choice but to go along with Davlyn and Noelle. She risked being captured if she didn’t, which would mean Hunter’s sacrifice would be in vain. That, she could not have.
The three women reached the cover of the woods without being detected. A deafening gunshot ripped through Fawn’s emotions, which she was desperately trying to keep together. She turned her head just in time to witness Hunter tipping from Rodale’s back and plummeting to the ground.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
With the company of a lonely cardinal, which refused to leave her side, Reesa spent five restless nights a mile outside of Back Wood’s walls. A storm on the fourth day kept her huddled inside her musty lean-to shelter. The survival tactics Fawn had taught her kept her fed and alert.
She spent her time casing Back Wood’s front and rear entrances, hoping to find a way to free her people. The days went by without any changes in the NWA’s methods of keeping her loved ones locked inside. She couldn’t scale the walls, for they were too high. She couldn’t pierce the ground to go underneath them, for the earth was too hard.
On the fifth day, devoid of hope, Reesa sat at the base of her usual pine tree, spying on the never-changing rear entrance of her com
munity. She leaned back against the tree and began to rest her eyes when the Humvee blocking the gate roared to life and drove off. The towering doors came screeching open. The screams of her people exploded within the walls.
“My children!” they wailed. “Not my children!”
A large, yellow contraption with numerous wheels and small windows barreled through the rear entrance. The bus drove past a gaped-mouthed Reesa, who took in the faces of the weeping children peering out the windows. Four of them belonged to her little brother and sister, and her cousins, Jackson and Meadow.
Without thinking, Reesa drew her bow and sprinted through the woods beside the bus, suffering a gash on her forehead from a jutting limb. The cardinal that had been keeping her company appeared overhead, sending Reesa tweets from above that encouraged her to push through the stitch in her side. The cardinal flew out ahead of Reesa and exited the woods, disappearing down the trail behind the bus.
A sharp squealing, squeaking noise erupted down the trail as the bus came to a halt. Reesa caught up with the yellow contraption, taking a knee behind a tree close to the front of it. Bitter, black smoke spiraled from the bus’s engine, forcing Reesa to cough into her fist. Three strapping young lads, clothed in blue jeans, plaid shirts, and sweat-stained caps, had the driver of the bus tied to a tree five strides from the large vehicle. A lonely cardinal sat atop the unconscious man’s head, pecking his shaved scalp at random.
“You can come on out,” the largest of the three men urged, waving his hand in Reesa’s general direction. “It’s safe.”
Bow drawn and arrow nocked, Reesa crept from the woods. She drew her arrow farther back as she came close to these three men. The children in the bus looked out from the small windows, recognizing Reesa.
“It’s Reesa!” they cheered, pounding the bottom of their fists against the glass. “It’s Reesa! Reesa’s come to save us!”