A Broken Time

by Anna Oney

  “Hey there, cousin,” the middle man said, gracing her with a smile.

  Cousin, she thought, peering from each man. I’ve never seen y’all before.

  “I’m Maddox,” the middle man continued. “This statue of a man,” he said, reaching up to place a hand on the tallest man’s shoulder, “is my big brother Winston. This hollow head here,” he said and laughed, elbowing the shorter fellow beside him, “is our younger brother Lyle.”

  “Um, uh,” she said, lowering her bow. “H-hello.”

  “As you can see,” Winston said, stepping forward, “we’re here to help you out.”

  “Yeah,” Lyle contributed, lightly shoving Maddox against his shoulder. He tipped his head behind him toward the man they’d strapped to a tree with invisible binds. “Happy to do it, too.”

  The lonely cardinal soared above the three men and dove for Winston. The bird perched on Winston’s shoulder, chirping in his ear.

  “Okay, okay,” Winston exasperatedly replied to the cardinal’s tweets. “We just thought introductions should be made first.” He held up a finger to Reesa and mouthed sorry. “All right. Stop nagging me.” He gave the bird a squinted look and smacked his lips. “Never thought a negative trait like impatience would stick to someone in the afterlife.” He stepped toward Reesa with the cardinal digging its small feet into the fabric of his shirt.

  “Let’s get you and the kids deeper into the woods,” he said addressing Reesa. He flicked the bird from his shoulder using his finger. “You’re scheduled to meet up with someone early tomorrow morning.”

  Someone, Reesa thought, observing the three men clear the distance between themselves and the double doors of the bus. Which someone?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Many hours after his skull had been butted for the third time, Pete’s crusty eyes opened to the sound of whimpers seeping through the broken window of his home. He brought a trembling hand to the side of his head where he felt a dent. Crawling toward the rocking chair Audrey had used to nurse their children, the bowl of his concaved head left a trail of crimson in its wake. He tried grabbing hold of the armrest to use as a crutch to stand up, but it was still at least four feet away. All coordination had been stripped of him. The blood loss and sharp ringing in his ears prevented him from focusing on anything properly. He had no choice but to continue to crawl.

  Pete vomited at the doorway of he and Audrey’s bedroom as he strained to turn the corner. Slowing his pace, he took a couple of labored breaths and managed to enter the room without regurgitating a second time. A heap of bruised, bare flesh lay unstirred near the end of their bed. With a heart burdened by uncontrollable grief, he inched his way on his stomach, knowing the heap was his darling wife.

  The last thing he remembered was two soldiers dragging her kicking and screaming into this room. Her eyes were swollen shut and her mouth frozen, slightly askew, displaying her bloodied, chipped teeth. Nearly every inch of her swollen body was a purplish-blue. Audrey had been raped and beaten to death sometime after he’d lost consciousness. Blood and skin particles were wedged beneath her fingernails as she tried fighting them off. The sight of her skirt hiked up past her waist and reddish irritated skin plaguing her inner thighs had Pete wanting access to a weapon and fast so he could finish himself off.

  He draped his arm over her chest, burying his weeping face into the crook of her broken neck.

  Take me now, Lord, he prayed, wishing to perish beside his wife. And let our children be saved.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  After fetching their horses, Fawn, Davlyn, and Noelle rode in complete silence. A few hours after they’d parted from the Bogan Farm, the sun had risen and warmed Fawn’s skin, but failed to thaw the buildup of ice around her heart. It was up to Davlyn to make decisions for the group, as Fawn had checked out. She couldn’t even be bothered to hold the reins of the second horse they’d brought with them. She followed behind Davlyn and Noelle, her stomach muscles reeling from her heaving, body-clenching cries.

  By the third hour of their trek through the woods, it seemed as though Fawn’s tear ducts had dried up. She’d become numb. The echoing gunshot still ringing in her ears, accompanied by the vison of Hunter’s silhouetted form tipping from Rodale’s back, had her grappling with whether to turn back. Turning back meant certain death, which, right then, didn’t sound too bad to her. Loss was the single most recurring factor in her life. That shot had left her skinned and raw — broken.

  Later in the day, Fawn caught on to where Davlyn was leading them. The familiarity of their community’s winding creek brought memories of she and Hunter laughing as they skinny-dipped. Images of them floating and making a twirled embrace in the murky water sent fresh tears down her half-dried face.

  Back Wood, she thought, swiping her fingers across her cheek. Davlyn’s leading us back home.

  “Cousin!” Fawn called from behind her companions. “I don’t think going home is the best idea.”

  Davlyn pulled on the reins, slowing her horse’s stride, along with the one in tow. She leaned past Noelle, who sat behind her and cut her eyes at Fawn.

  “Then what do you suggest?” she replied, stabs of annoyance and bitterness in her tone. “I think they deserve our attention, don’t you? Who knows what trouble you’ve,” she said and paused, biting her bottom lip, “we’ve caused them?”

  Splashing from the creek ahead of them drew Fawn’s attention from the contempt in her cousin’s eyes. She blinked, adjusting her sight to see Reesa, her bow drawn, sloshing through the hip-deep water. The forehead and side of Reesa’s flushed face was coated with a thin layer of dirt and dried blood mixed with her sweat. About a dozen whimpering, sniffling children were bunched together on the other side of the bank behind her.

  “Aunt Fawn!” she exclaimed, emerging from the water and stepping to shore. She tripped over a jutting cypress tree root and sank to the sand, which was laced with sharp-edged pebbles. “Y-you’re,” she panted and peered upward, locking eyes with Fawn from the short distance between them. “You’re here.”

  Fawn spurred Juniper into motion, galloping past Davlyn and Noelle’s unmoving horses. Fawn pulled on Juniper’s reins, coming to a quick stop in front of Reesa. She swung her leg over, slid to the ground, and swooped up her warrior niece.

  Fawn lowered Reesa to the ground, grasping the girl’s shoulders.

  “Are you okay?” she asked, looking her niece over.

  “I’m okay,” Reesa replied, as Fawn brought a palm to her cheek. “Th-they’ve blocked everyone inside Back Wood’s walls. These three guys,” she said and paused, taking a breath to calm herself. “They helped me,” she shook her head. “Us. They ambushed one of the NWA’s buses.”

  “Three guys?” Fawn asked. “Did you know them?”

  “No,” she replied and licked her bottom lip. “No, but their names were Winston, Maddox, and Lyle.”

  Gran’s first cousins, Fawn thought. The three men were mentioned in her grandmother’s journal.

  “They said we were related,” Reesa continued as Fawn didn’t reply. “That we were cousins.”

  Fawn decided to leave out the fact that Winston, Maddox, and Lyle had died a decade or so before she and her siblings had been born. Winston’s children, Avery and Cason, were now elders of Back Wood.

  “You’ll think I’m nuts for saying this,” Reesa said, peering behind Fawn toward Davlyn and Noelle, and then back to her aunt. “But . . .” She ducked her chin, lowering her voice. “I think they were taking orders from a cardinal.”

  “A cardinal?” Fawn repeated, thinking back to the birds coming to her defense against Big Sneed. “Doesn’t sound crazy at all,” she continued, turning to face Davlyn and Noelle. “We’ve experienced some strange happenings ourselves.”

  They crossed the creek to look over the kids. Huddled together were Fawn’s nieces and nephews. Marie’s daughter, Meadow, and Axton’s son, Jackson, sat beside Pete’s two children, Ally and Cade. Ally sat Indian style with little
Cade sleeping in her lap. Fawn knelt before the four of them receiving tight hugs from Meadow and Jackson.

  Ally peered up from Cade’s head and graced Fawn with a wavering smile. The young girl broke into tears, waking her brother from his slumber.

  “They beat up my Mommy and Daddy,” Ally cried, leaning into Fawn’s side. “Really bad.”

  Fawn rocked Ally and Cade in her arms until they were settled down enough to be on their own. She left Davlyn and Noelle to tend to the children, while she and Reesa sat by the edge of the creek.

  “Can you talk about what happened?” Fawn asked Reesa, who stared at the glassy surface of the murky water. “Did you make it home after we parted?”

  Reesa picked up a stick swollen with water and crumpled it.

  “Yes,” she replied, brushing the splinters from her palms. “But I never made it inside Back Wood’s walls. They kept the entrances blocked for days. I watched them passing out these white suits that covered them from head to toe.” She faced her aunt. “Why would they need suits like that, Aunt Fawn?”

  “I don’t know, baby,” Fawn said, pecking her niece’s forehead. “I don’t know. You never saw your mother and father, or any of your aunts and uncles?”

  Reesa shook her head, bringing her fingers below her eyes that were filling with tears.

  “No, I-I didn’t. I didn’t see anyone. I heard their cries though.” She blinked, sending the tears over her flushed, freckled cheeks. “Ally said they beat Mom and Dad up. I’m scared, Aunt Fawn. What if they’re dead?”

  Fawn draped her arm over Reesa’s heaving shoulders, pulling her niece closer. She pressed her forehead to Reesa’s, taking a deep breath.

  “They’re not,” she replied, trying to disguise her fear and doubt. “We’re strong, right?”

  Reesa raised her chin and nodded, gracing her aunt with a trembling smile.

  “Stronger than most,” Reesa said.

  Fawn smiled back at Reesa and pecked her forehead again.

  “What happened to Winston, Maddox, and Lyle?” Fawn asked, peering over her shoulder at the children. “I would’ve liked to have met them.”

  “I don’t know,” Reesa replied and shrugged. “They stayed with us through the night, but they disappeared just as y’all showed up.”

  “The cardinal, too?”

  “The cardinal, too,” Reesa confirmed, coming to her feet. “Before the guys left, they said to head for Caddo.”

  ***

  They led the kids farther into the woods in the direction of Laken’s community. The women took turns carrying the younger children who couldn’t fend for themselves. Noelle had eased Fawn’s concern over whether the children could be tracked down by the location serum by informing her that any child under the age of twelve was never injected with the serum. It was only meant for adults, as they tended to sneak off and form alliances that disrupted the NWA’s plans. The children were injected with vaccines to prevent diseases. They were, as Noelle remembered Asher had put it, “Moldable minds. Easily modeled to fit the NWA’s standards.”

  By dusk, they had settled down for the night. Fawn waited until all were asleep before sneaking out. With the thought of her people’s fate looming over her, Fawn rode through the darkness on Juniper’s back. Before dawn, she rode up on the willow tree under which Wakiza and Stella had died. She passed through the drooping, swaying branches and grazed her fingertips against the willow’s trunk.

  Let them still be alive, she silently prayed, making a fist around Gran’s cross around her neck. Please Lord.

  Several hours later, Fawn and Juniper were about a mile from Back Wood. Through the woods, they had maneuvered around two Humvees on separate occasions heading up the trail toward their destination.

  She tied Juniper to an oak tree, out of sight from Back Wood’s rear entrance. The sound of clanking metal quickened Fawn’s pace as she came upon the three men causing the clamor. They were clothed in the white plastic suits Reesa had spoken of, their gloved hands busy assembling a device with a barrel, roughly twenty inches long and ten inches wide. They set the device upon a metal base and slanted the barrel upward.

  Peering from behind the nearest pine tree, Fawn watched the lankiest of the three part from the group. Stepping toward the edge of the trail, Fawn drew an arrow and nocked it in place. Emerging from the shadows of the woods, she pulled back the trigger to her anchor point. She released the arrow into the closest man’s chest. He hit the dirt facedown, alerting his other comrade that they were under attack. The second man sprinted for his automatic rifle, which was leaning against the Humvee that blocked Back Wood’s rear entrance. Fawn drew two arrows and bit down on one of the shafts, dispatching the other into the fleeting man’s back. The second man clung to the Humvee’s window and sank to his knees, sending his gloved hand squeaking down the glass.

  She took the arrow from her mouth and nocked it in place. Inching around the rear of the Humvee, she came upon the lanky third man, shakily holding a glass tube full of crimson fluid.

  “Vance,” she said, looking him over. “What do you have there?”

  Brows furrowed, she stared Vance down as his eyes darted twitchingly from the tube he kept outstretched before him, to Fawn, who drew her arrow farther back. One thing was certain — Vance didn’t want to be doused in the red liquid.

  “Please,” Vance said, his gloved hands tightening on both ends of the tube. “You don’t want me to drop this.”

  “Isn’t that what your bulky suit is for?” she asked, stepping forward. “I imagine you wouldn’t be wearing that ridiculous thing to attract the ladies.”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head inside the hood of his suit. “Red Rain. The poison, it isn’t dangerous to us if it’s in its dissolved form. When it’s like this,” he said and paused, grazing the top of his lip with his tongue. “It’ll eat right through my suit, my skin. Everything. Yours, too.”

  Fawn walked up beside him, tipping her head toward the back of the Humvee, from where he’d fetched the tube.

  “Put it back,” she said, aiming the arrow at his chest. “Gently.”

  Relief passed through his anxiety-riddled, tightened face, relaxing the muscles in his jaw. He lay the poison in a mold made to house the tube and turned to Fawn.

  “So,” she said, pulling back the trigger to her anchor point. “Y’all were going to douse my people with this . . . this poison?”

  Vance held his hands out before him.

  “It won’t matter if you kill me,” he replied, his sight darting from the tip of her arrow to her narrowing eyes.

  “You know how to drive one of these things?” she asked, scanning over the Humvee blocking the back gate.

  “Yeah?” he questioningly replied. “Why?”

  “Because,” she said, forcing him toward the front of the Humvee. “We’re going to ram the gate open.”

  Vance came to the driver’s door, looking to Fawn for his next order.

  “Go on,” she urged, nudging him with the tip of her nocked arrow. “Open it.”

  She crawled inside and shuffled backward upon her knees over the driver’s seat to reach the passenger’s seat.

  “Get in,” she said, drawing her arrow further back. “Be quick about it.”

  Upon entering the vehicle, Vance grasped the steering wheel.

  “Another crew is set up at the front entrance,” he said, cutting his eyes in her direction. “Whatever you plan on doing won’t save your people. My crew’s dose was meant to be used as a backup. Their scheduled to release the poison in less than twenty minutes.”

  “I thought you were one of the good guys,” she replied, situating her bowstring across her chest. She stowed the arrow back in its quiver and took her father’s hatchet from the loop at her side. “Sucks to be wrong,” she continued, running her fingers across its blade.

  “They have a way of beating it out of you,” he said, avoiding her gaze. “The good,” he said and paused, shaking off a sudden wave of tears. “I’
m telling you,” he turned his body to face hers. “It won’t make a difference.”

  “I have to try,” she replied, assuming a striking position with her hatchet. “Now, drive.”

  Beaded sweat drizzled down his temples as he turned the key in the ignition.

  “You’ll want to buckle up.”

  They rammed the gate four times. Vance’s forehead collided with the steering wheel, knocking him out. Disoriented from the smoke and jolt of the crash, Fawn had unknowingly dropped her father’s hatchet to the Humvee’s floorboard. Smoke enveloped the cab, making breathing impossible. She scrambled from the vehicle and climbed on top of the Humvee’s steaming hood. The metal warmed her moccasins as she came to her feet. The busted, hissing grill began puffing black smoke. She lunged for the small opening made by the blunt force of the Humvee.

  Coughing through the bitterness, Fawn squeezed her slender body through the opening. She fell to her knees within Back Wood’s walls. The billowing smoke of the Humvee’s smashed grill surrounded her and stung her eyes. Parting from the busted gate, she rubbed her reddened, watering eyes. Poles had been erected within the community’s walls. A medium-sized box was attached to the top of each pillar, reminding Fawn of the speakers on the NWA’s walkie-talkies. Two bodies lying in front of the dance hall piqued her interest.

  Six soldiers, clothed in the same white plastic suits, sprinted past the stables toward the smoking rear entrance. Bow drawn, Fawn slipped past the armed men, ducking out of view under the dance hall’s archway. Shouts for people to keep still and whimpers came from the drooping stalks of the wilted cornfield a few hundred yards away. Halfway through the dance hall, Fawn peered behind the nearest beam, taking note of a dozen soldiers ordering her people to the ground at gunpoint. The cornfield was the same place Heskill’s men had forced Gran’s people to kneel before making them choose between joining his group or being executed — the same place Heskill had shot Doolie in the back.

  With roughly ten minutes to spare before the NWA’s Red Rain was released, Fawn knew she couldn’t do anything for her neighbors huddled together on the ground. She’d have to settle for locating her family and getting them out. If she died in the process, at least she’d be dying alongside those she loved.