Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3)

by Rosalind James

  We’d forgotten about the dog.

  7

  Return of the Hero

  Daisy

  Part of me wanted to curse myself for dragging Gray into this when I’d known better. The other part was just glad he was here. That was what I was thinking when I opened the door with Obedience crowding through behind me.

  The low growl came from out of the night, and then the dog was stalking forward. Seventy-five Kg’s of Anatolian Shepherd, walking stiff-legged toward us, tail held high.

  Gray brought up his shovel and stepped in front of me. I said, “No. Wait,” and asked Obedience, “What’s his name?”

  “Ares.” Her voice was still trembling, and I didn’t know if it was the dog, the escape, or all of it together. This was going to be down to me, then.

  I crouched down, held out my hand, and did my best. “Come on, boy. Come on, Ares. Who’s a good dog?” His father would have been Bane, probably, and Bane, despite the scary name and his job guarding the alpacas, had been gentle with kids.

  Leaving the dogs had been a wrench. A pure one, because the emotion had been unmixed.

  I filled my heart with the feeling of Bane’s tongue licking over my tearstained cheeks, kept my hand out, and said, “Come on, Ares. Come see me.” I told Obedience, “Get down here with me, so he sees I’m not threatening you.”

  She did it, even though I could feel her fear. She was used to doing what people told her. I didn’t take my eyes off the dog, who’d stopped walking, his tail losing some of the stiffness but his head still high, alert. I said, keeping my voice low, “Gray.”

  “Yeh.” Still calm.

  “Crouch down with us. Put the shovel down. Hands open.”

  He could’ve argued. I wouldn’t have blamed him. He’d run into a freezing river tonight and been shocked by an electric fence, and now, I was asking him to make himself defenseless to a dog who could easily kill him.

  Well, probably not easily. I had a feeling Gray would fight back.

  I felt rather than saw him crouching, a half-step behind me. Ares’s gaze flicked among the three of us. He stood poised, but hesitant, as I said, “Good boy. That’s a good boy. You recognize me, hey. Your dad was my friend. Your mum, too. Come say hello.”

  Slowly, slowly, the huge, tawny animal came forward, close enough for me to see the black on his handsome muzzle, his floppy ears. I said, “You’re a pretty boy. Yes, you are. Come on. Come have a scratch.”

  Obedience whispered, “It’s going to be getting light soon. It’s nearly milking time.”

  I said, “I know.” Not whispering, because whispers carried, and they sounded too fearful. “But that’s all right. We’re fine. We’re going to be fine.”

  Ares made his decision. He took the final steps to us, and I put out the back of my hand for him to sniff, then rubbed it over the big head and down his shoulder. I told Obedience, “Give him a pat.”

  She did it, but when Gray put out his hand, the dog took a step back. I said, “That’s OK, Ares. You don’t have to love him. He’s big and scary, eh.”

  “I resent that,” Gray said, and despite myself, I smiled. Maybe the smile did the trick, because the dog wagged his tail. Not much, but some. I stood up, still slowly, took the light from Gray, and said, “Come help us find Fruitful, boy. Come help us get her out.”

  Gray picked up his shovel and held it for the first time as if he were carrying a shovel and not a weapon, and Obedience rose to her feet as well. I took her hand. It was freezing, and she was still shaking. She’d been out in that cold shed for so long, and I knew that her mind would have strayed back, over and over again, to the pillow and the extra dress and aprons she’d rolled and stuffed under her blanket, the curtain she’d pulled closed across her bunk. She’d have been seeing our mum’s hand pulling it back, hearing her call to our dad, hearing him rouse the rest of the men, waiting for the shouts to come closer, for the door to open.

  I knew all that, because I’d seen those same scenes in my own head twelve years earlier.

  I kept a hand on Ares’s shoulder, taking comfort from the feel of the coarse fur, kept the other hand laced through Obedience’s, and headed toward the Punishment Hut. The anxiety twisted in me at approaching that terrible place, but I didn’t allow my steps to drag. This time, I hurried instead, because this time, it wasn’t about me.

  I didn’t dare use the light, and the second time I stumbled over the rough ground, Gray came up and put a hand under my arm. He had to nudge the dog aside to do it. The man had ice in his veins.

  We were getting closer to the feed stores now, to the milking shed. You couldn’t smell the alpacas despite their numbers, out there somewhere in the dark, but the air held the strong scent of manure from the milk cows. The milking shed was next to the Punishment Hut. They’d done that, I was sure, just to make the experience a little more unpleasant. That milking shed would be the first place where men would be moving, but I couldn’t think about that. I had to do this, and I had to do it now.

  The little building stood squat and forlorn, a path of beaten earth around it, a single window high up on one side. I looked at the padlock fastening the hasp to the loop, thought about searching for the key that would be hidden somewhere under a rafter, and asked Gray instead, “Can you break it?”

  “Yes,” he said. He lifted the shovel high and sent the blade down fast and true, straight onto that rusted hasp, then did it again. And again. Obedience flinched with every ringing blow, and I didn’t.

  Four times. Five, and the hasp broke and fell to the ground. I yanked the door open.

  Fruitful was just inside, on her toes, her face indistinct in the dark hut. The board floor was rough under her ugly white trainers, and the air was foul from the jar in the corner and too many jars before.

  She froze in there for a split second, then ducked around me and ran.

  “Fruitful!” I said, as loudly as I dared. “Wait!”

  She paused. On her toes again, frozen in motion, like a game of Statues. After a second, she turned and said, “Chastity?”

  “Yes,” I said. “It’s me. Come on. We have to go.”

  I felt rather than heard them coming. A vibration in the ground, or something like that, because my senses were that attuned. And then a male voice calling a question, and another voice answering.

  Urgency in the voices, and one of them, I could swear, was my father’s.

  Fruitful ran toward me this time, and I reached for her hand, pushed her ahead of me, and said, “Both of you. Run.” I told Gray, “Lead the way.”

  “No,” he said.

  I thought, What? He went on: “You go first. I’ll come behind. If you hear trouble, don’t stop. Keep going.”

  That wasn’t going to happen, but I didn’t argue. I didn’t have time. First, though, I ripped the trousers off and over my trainers. The too-long legs were going to trip me up again, and I couldn’t afford it.

  I was naked from the tops of my thighs down, and I didn’t care. I wasn’t Chastity anymore. I was Daisy.

  I told the girls, “Come on.” And we ran.

  Gray

  Those girls ran like it was for their lives.

  Daisy in front, her legs and bum pale in the moonlight, still holding the younger girl’s hand. Behind them came the older one, the one who’d been locked into that stinking hut. Both she and her sister pulled their skirts up to their knees with one hand in order to go faster, and I kept behind them, covering the ground easily, checking back to gauge the distance from the men’s torch beams as they swept and crossed.

  The shout when they found us, then, or rather, found the bloody dog, because he was dashing between us and the men as if it were a game.

  The men were running now. Not slowly, but not lightning-quick, either, and we had a head start and more talent on our team. We were past the first shed already, the outermost one where Obedience had been waiting. Just a couple hundred meters to go to the fence. We were all good.

  I was just think
ing it when Fruitful tripped over something—a hummock of grass, maybe—and fell heavily. She called out once, a muffled sound, and Daisy was turning back, but I yelled, “No! Go!” I had the girl under the arms, was yanking her to her feet. She started to run, then stopped and said, her voice anguished, “I … can’t. My ankle. Go on. Take Obedience. Go.”

  I told Daisy, “Light the way.” They’d seen us anyway. No point in concealment. I threw Fruitful over my shoulder—they were the smallest-framed women in the world, fortunately—told her, “Hang on,” clutched her thighs in one arm and the shovel in the other hand, and ran.

  The men were close behind us now. Fifty meters, maybe, and speeding up with the promise of victory. Daisy was all but dragging her sister along, though, and she was bloody fast, especially now that she’d turned the torch to its bright-white setting and could see where she was going. We sprinted to the fence, and Daisy dropped Obedience’s hand and leaped across. The girl hesitated, and Daisy said, her voice fierce, breathless, “Bloody hell, Obedience. Jump!” And the girl lifted her skirts and did it.

  I was right behind her, still with Fruitful over my shoulder. A leap, and I was over. The men were close, though, and I set Fruitful on her feet, told Daisy, “Take them to the ute,” and turned, reversing the shovel so the blade was facing the men. I called out, “Stop where you are. I’ve rung the police.”

  They didn’t stop. They came on.

  I was going to have to hit them. No choice. I was going to have to hurt them.

  My aggression was controlled. Always. Now, I wasn’t afraid they would come. I wanted them to come.

  Daisy wasn’t running. Instead, she ducked down beside me and said, “Step back.”

  I barely had time to think, What the hell? before she was yanking the stakes out of the ground, her entire body jerking with the shock as the released wires running along the top of the fence caught her under both arms, freezing her there for a long second. I grabbed the back of her jacket and pulled her off, and the mesh resumed its shape, forming a barrier nobody would want to cross.

  Daisy was swaying some. I yelled to her sisters, “Obedience. Hold Fruitful up, and hold Daisy’s hand. Run. Get to the ute and lock the doors.” I had the key out of my shirt pocket and was pressing it into Fruitful’s palm. She was tougher than her sister and would still be keeping her head, and it would help all of them focus if they had to look out for each other. That was how it worked. You were always calmer with a job to do.

  Daisy didn’t want to go. I knew it. There were her sisters, and then there was me.

  The sisters won. It was the right choice, because I had this. I was facing the men again with my shovel hauled back over my shoulder, ready to swing it like a cricket bat. A cricket bat with iron on the end.

  I was bloody good at cricket.

  There were two of them. They were broad, and hard. Like farmers. They slowed as they approached, their labored breath puffing out in clouds in the cold gray predawn light, the dog beside them. They weren’t used to running. Weren’t used to facing somebody they couldn’t intimidate, either, I’d bet.

  I didn’t wait for them to talk. I said, “Come after us, and I’ll kill you.”

  One of them, the shorter one, said, his voice a rasp, “There’s two of us and the dog against one of you. I don’t think so. And this is kidnap. Those girls are my daughters. Fruitful is a married woman. I didn’t give permission for her to leave, and neither did her husband.”

  “Come after those girls,” I said, “and you’ll find out what I can do against two. They’re sixteen and seventeen, and they don’t need any man’s permission. They’re free to go, and they’ve gone.” After that, I shut up, stood still, and waited. The only way they’d get across that fence was with a running start, and I wouldn’t bet on their vertical leap. If they made it, I’d hit them as they crossed it. I could take two of them, and I could take the dog, too. I was fast, and I didn’t flinch or hesitate. I wasn’t afraid of being hurt. I was used to being hurt.

  I wouldn’t kill them. But I’d put them in hospital. That, I was sure of.

  The shorter man, the girls’ father, said, “You’ll pay for this.”

  I said, “Bring it on.”

  We stood like that, silent, for five tense seconds. Ten. Then I heard the sound of an engine starting, and headlights flashed down the road.

  She came up fast. I actually thought for a moment that she’d go straight through the fence and mow the men down, but she brought the ute to a skidding stop instead, not a meter too soon. I tossed the shovel into the bed with a clatter, yanked the door open, and threw myself into the passenger seat as she punched the locks.

  “Go,” I said, and she went. A quick K-turn, more sprays of cinder, and we were off.

  8

  Chastity Worthy

  Daisy

  When I took the turn onto the sealed road again, the too-light back of the truck fishtailed. I got it straightened out and kept going, my foot pressed all the way down on the gas, and Gray said, “Pull over.”

  I didn’t look at him. I was driving too fast for that. I said, “I can’t.” My brain had one thought in it. Get out.

  He said, his voice raised to be heard over the considerable road noise, but still with that calm to it, “You’re not safe driving just now, and you’re not keeping the rest of us safe, either. Too much adrenaline. Pull over.”

  The girls were silent in the back seat, as they’d been ever since I’d all but thrown them into it. Silent from shock, mostly, and the paralyzing fear of the almost-happened, but they’d be holding their breath for a different reason now. That I was defying a direct order from a man. What would it mean to them, though, if the first thing they saw in this brave new world was Gray telling me what to do, and me doing it? Besides, driving was action, and I needed action now. Action was keeping me from falling apart. I needed to get away, and get them away. I needed to …

  I took the next curve too fast, and the tires squealed as the ute fishtailed again. I thought, You’re going to traumatize them more if you roll this truck, took a breath, eased my foot off the gas, and said, “Help me find a place to do it.”

  Gray said, “Wait,” and thirty seconds later, “A hundred meters up, on the left. Driveway.”

  I pulled off the road and braked to a sudden stop that jerked us all forward, put the truck into Park, and engaged the parking brake for good measure. I kept hold of the wheel, though, because my hands and arms had begun to shake like I was in the grip of late-stage Parkinson’s, with no control at all. And then my legs started to do the same thing.

  My cold legs. My bare legs. I took a look.

  Yes. I was naked from the hips down. Yes, I was. Oh, bloody hell.

  Behind me, Obedience, at least, was crying softly, only the hitch in her breath giving her away. The girls would be holding each other, I was sure, and I should take care of that, should say … something, though I wasn’t sure what.

  What had Dorian said to me, that night when it had been us running? What had I said to him? What had Roger, the farmer who’d picked us up on this very road, said to us before he’d taken us home to his place, to his wife, and started us on our way to the Outside? I couldn’t remember.

  That wasn’t why I didn’t offer any comforting words, though, not really. It was that I was out of reserves. The girls were out of Mount Zion, and I was done.

  Beside me, Gray let out a long, slow breath, like a man who was sincerely thankful that he hadn’t been in another smash tonight and hadn’t actually had to kill anybody, and I started to laugh. Just a little at first, but soon I was shaking all over with that, and as out of control as if I were sobbing.

  I got a hand over my mouth, looked at him wide-eyed above it, and he twisted his face at me and said, “Really? Really?” After that, he grinned with all the punch-drunk joy of survival, started to laugh himself, released his seatbelt, and grabbed me.

  “Oh,” I said when his arms were around me and his face was against my still-w
et hair. “I wasn’t … wearing my seatbelt. Good thing I didn’t roll us, I guess.”

  “Although you wouldn’t be ejected,” he said. “Special glass.”

  “Also,” I said, “I’m naked again. Bugger. Second time tonight. I’m glad you didn’t fry any important bits off on that fence, jumping over. I would’ve felt bad, cutting your manhood down in your prime like that.”

  “Didn’t lose the wedding tackle to the dog, either,” he said. “The dog, now … that was the extra touch. Yeh, I’d call that moment the icing on the cake. Although the nakedness is pretty special, too. Your bum, running away, all white in the dark …”

  That made us both laugh harder. I said, “And the shovel. You with that shovel over your shoulder … Reckon you were surprised to find yourself doing that. Should’ve let me drown, eh.”

  “What, and miss out on all this?” He was still laughing when he took my head in his hands, kissed the top of it, then sat back with his hands on my shoulders. “You,” he told me, smiling into my eyes with his whole face, brown eyes and firm mouth and eye-crinkles and all, “have got some guts. Some ticker. I’m meant to be tough. I think I just met my match.”

  Stunned silence from the back seat. Oh. I’d forgotten them, and they were the whole point. But now, suddenly, all of this felt completely different. Not like a dramatic almost-tragedy at all. It felt like an adventure. Like a survival, where all you wanted to do was shout with joy and relief.

  I twisted in my seat. They were clutching each other, as I’d expected, Fruitful’s arm protective around Obedience, both of them staring at me as if their absent sister actually had become the Whore of Babylon. I told Gray, “And I thought jeans were a rebellion.” Then I said, “Girls, this is Gray. Gray … something. I met him tonight when he pushed my car into the river and me with it, and now he’s helped me rescue you. And I’m not Chastity Worthy anymore. I’m Daisy Nabhitha Kittredge, at your service. Got it on my driving license and all. If my driving license wasn’t at the bottom of the Clutha, that is.”