by Kyla Stone
“She used to sleep with that one beneath her pillow.” Bishop’s voice cracked. “She thought her sister was going to borrow it and forget to give it back.”
“I hit the bullseye with this one. She was going to come back for it, and then we got distracted…” She held it out to him, her throat constricting. “You should have it.”
His eyes went glossy. He blinked. A tear trickled down his brown cheek. “You keep it. She adored you, you know. She would’ve wanted you to have it.”
Her fingers closed over the marble. She gripped it tighter than she’d ever held anything in her life, until her nails bit into her palms and the cuts throbbed. The pain kept her from bursting into tears.
Bishop gestured at her to come closer. “It’s been a while since we’ve talked.”
Without thinking, she trudged across the muddy, matted grass and stood beside him, her arms limp at her sides, her swollen face stinging from the cold.
Quinn sucked in a bracing breath, steeling herself. “I know I messed up.”
“I won’t pretend what you did was smart, Quinn. Liam is foolhardy, too, but at least he knows what he’s doing. You’re lucky you’re still alive. And that Liam is alive, too.”
She looked down at the marble and rolled it between her fingers. Guilt scoured her insides. “I know it.”
“Sutter is dead. That nihilistic group is gone. It was reckless, what you did, but God had His eyes on you. He kept you safe.”
Her head lowered. She felt numb, emptied out. Sutter was dead by her hand. She’d killed him, but the risks had been too great.
She could see that now. She’d never be so stupid again.
With all her heart, she longed to save people, not the other way around.
“How do I make it right?”
“Apologize to the people you’ve hurt. And then move on. You have great things ahead of you, Quinn. You’re a fighter. Anyone can see that. You deserve a chance to fight for what you believe in.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“I doubt that. You’ll figure it out. You can always ask me for advice.”
Quinn made a face.
“Point taken. Just so you know, if you don’t want to talk to me, you can always talk to God.”
“I bet God hates me.”
“Why do you think that?”
“I’ve killed people.” Her mind seared with images of Sutter sinking to his knees, blood gushing from his thigh. Of Rosamond clutching at her blood-soaked throat. “And I’m not sorry.”
Bishop chuckled.
“I’m not.” There was darkness in her heart—the part that wanted to kill and keep killing. Her face burned with shame. “Does that make me a bad person?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“How can you be a soldier and a pastor? How can you preach love and mercy and then kill people?”
“I fight when I must. When defending the innocent is the right thing to do. In the Old Testament, many of God’s people were warriors, called by God to fight to end tyranny, slavery, and great evil.”
“Oh.”
“People are more than one thing. They carry both good and evil inside them, darkness and light, violence and peace. Mercy and justice.”
Bishop stared at the crosses. “The key is to make sure your cause is righteous. And to keep the darkness from taking over your soul.” He gave a heavy sigh. “Easier said than done on both counts.”
“How do you not give in to it? The anger. The hatred.”
“Find that thing that keeps you human, and hold onto it with all your might. For me, it’s my faith.”
“Okay,” she said in a choked voice. Her split lip hurt, but she kept talking. She needed to get it all out. “I’m still so angry.”
“Be angry. Nothing wrong with angry. But control it, channel it. Use it; don’t let it use you.”
She let that sink in.
“Anger can fuel you. Empower you.”
“Huh.”
“There’s an anger that motivates you, that drives you. That seeks righteous justice. There’s nothing wrong with that anger. But it can turn bitter and toxic. If you’re not careful, it can eat away at the part of you that makes you who you are. That’s the anger you have to watch out for, Quinn. It’s like fire. It both gives life and destroys. How you use it is what matters.”
She nodded, letting that truth sink in deep.
She didn’t want to end up like Xander, a boy consumed by his rage, who’d wanted to destroy everything, to tear down the world.
The fight inside her needed to be controlled. Not diminished, but changed.
Something shifted within her. A release. Like a dam had given way and the darkness inside her had leaked out. Anger still roiled inside her, but it was different now.
It was hard to name or describe, though she felt it.
“I have faith in you, Quinn.”
“You mean that?”
He shot her a broad smile beneath his beard. “Absolutely.”
A great weight inside her chest lifted.
It wasn’t gone completely, but it was a start.
“I doubt Liam feels that way, though.”
“Don’t be so sure.” Bishop rose to his feet, his knees cracking, and brushed off his pant legs. “Talk to him. Shame thrives in secrecy and silence. Talking frees us.”
She kicked at a stray pile of dirt-encrusted snow. “I knew you’d be helpful, Pastor. You should charge a fee.”
“I’ll take some of Molly’s lamb’s ear plants.” Now it was Bishop’s turn to look sheepish. “I’ve run out of, you know, TP.”
Quinn made a face. “And that’s my cue to go.”
“Quinn.” Bishop reached out, took her forearm, and squeezed it. “After everything, it is love that endures. We need people to survive. We need each other. It’s the only thing separating us from the darkness.”
The blue marble pressed against her palm—round, cold, hard. And beautiful. Quinn slipped it into her pocket next to her slingshot. A reminder she didn’t want to forget.
Hannah
Day One Hundred and Three
Dave’s blue eyes twinkled. “I have a surprise for you.”
“As long as it’s a pleasant surprise.” Hannah adjusted her grip on Charlotte in her carrier. Her daughter kicked her feet and giggled as Dave tickled her toes through her soft-soled shoes. “We could use more of those.”
“Pretty sure you’ll think so. Come round back.”
In his early sixties, Dave’s hair was graying, his face weathered with smile lines.
He owned fifteen rural acres and the Fall Creek Inn. The militia’s fuel stash had allowed the inn’s generator to keep running, so Dave had taken in Fall Creek’s elderly and medically fragile.
Dave was a helper, always putting others first without complaint. He used his ham radio contacts to connect family and friends from across the state and even across the country. He’d also stepped up to fulfill the role of unofficial superintendent now that Rosamond was dead.
Dave led her deeper into his fifteen-acre property. They passed two sheds and a pole barn, then several rows of cherry trees and his grape arbors.
Craning her neck, she gazed up at the huge antenna towering forty feet into the pewter sky. Gray clouds cloaked the horizon like a thick woolen blanket. No wind or snow, but no sun either.
They needed a turn in the weather to plant their seedlings. They had the tractors, biofuel, and the volunteer workforce. Spring needed to make its entrance.
Of course, they had to survive the General first. No sign of his army—yet.
While Dave, Annette, and Hannah focused on logistics such as food, water, power, and fuel, Liam took command of security. Whatever Liam ordered, they did without complaint or question.
Hannah prayed it would be enough to fend off the General.
Doubt gnawed at the edges of her thoughts. But for how long? And then what?
Dave led her to the office tacked onto the backside of his detac
hed garage, opened the door, and gestured for her to enter. “I found someone who wants to talk to you.”
Her chest constricted. “Is it—?”
Dave grinned. “You’ll just have to see.”
They entered Dave’s office, a large room filled with shelves of ham equipment—a radio and transceiver, scanners, two-way handhelds, and a couple of desktop computers. Knots of power cables snaked along the floor. A generator hummed in the background.
Cloudy gray light streamed through the single window. A portable propane heater in one corner provided warmth.
Hannah sank into the soft leather chair, one hand clutching Charlotte to her chest as she reached for the mic with the other.
Charlotte bounced in her lap. She grabbed the mic with two chubby hands; her pink mouth opened like she wanted to eat it.
Hannah pushed it out of her reach and swallowed, anticipation fizzing in her belly. “Hello?”
“Hannah?” The voice on the other end was achingly familiar. “Hannah, is that you?”
Her breath hitched in her throat. She closed her eyes, mouth dry, unable to form words. Childhood memories filled her mind: camping, hiking, family dinners, trips to the grocery store. Football games and late-night study sessions.
Dave squeezed her shoulder. “You okay?”
His touch brought her back. She opened her eyes and inhaled sharply. Keying the mic, Hannah said, “It’s me.”
Silence on the other end, as if the speaker were as overwhelmed as she was. Not just any speaker—Oliver, her brother. After five horrific years, she was speaking to her brother.
“I can’t believe it,” Oliver sputtered, joy and disbelief in his voice. “We thought…all this time…they told us you were dead…”
“I’m not.”
“I can hear that. I still can’t believe it. Man oh man, this is unbelievable! I can’t wrap my head around it—” A beat of silence. A note of doubt crept into his tone. “How…how do I know it’s really you?”
She leaned forward. Tears sparked in her eyes, her voice husky with emotion. “When I was ten, I found a garter snake in the yard and put it in your bed as revenge. You called me a scaredy cat because I was afraid to jump off the embankment at the lake. I showed you, though. When it was your turn, you screamed like a little girl.”
Merry laughter burst from the mic. “Little sister, it’s good to hear your voice. After everything, the whole world falling apart…I didn’t believe something good could still happen.”
She smiled so hard her cheeks hurt. “There’s still good in the world, Oliver. I promise.”
“Damn! How I’ve missed you! If only Mom and Dad could see us. I wish—I wish they’d lived to see this moment.”
She blinked the wetness from her eyes. “Me too.”
For the next hour, they reminisced about their childhood and shared memories of their parents, who hadn’t survived the day of the EMP. They caught up on each other’s lives while Dave sat at the other end of the desk and busied himself repairing a broken receiver.
Hannah gave Oliver the shorthand version of her captivity and escape from Pike. She told him how Liam had found her in the woods and saved her. Charlotte’s birth in a cabin in the middle of a blizzard. How Pike had hunted her. How she and Ghost killed him.
Some parts were painful, but with every word she spoke, it became easier and easier. The act of telling her story was freeing—and powerful—in a way she hadn’t expected.
When she’d finished, Oliver was in tears. So was Dave.
“And Noah?” Oliver asked.
So, she told him about the militia and Noah’s death. It had been almost two months since Noah had died, three months since her return to Fall Creek. She still grieved for him, but in a different way.
She’d come to terms with his actions, both the bad and the good. He had spent his life protecting their son. Though they’d disagreed on the methods, she could forgive him for it.
She did forgive him.
And with that absolution, that small mercy, she could move on.
Next, it was Oliver’s turn. He explained how his fellow Yoopers, natives of the Upper Peninsula, had come together to survive the brutal winter. The EMP had affected the entire United States—sans Hawaii and Alaska—and the lower parts of Canada.
Like the residents of harsh, remote Alaska, Yoopers were tough, independent, and hardy. They had to be; the winters were long and cold, the towns small and scattered amid miles of rugged wilderness.
The Upper Peninsula, or the U.P. as Michiganders called it, hadn’t experienced the same level of anarchy and lawlessness ravaging the rest of the country.
Survival was difficult but possible.
“Things are tough, but I’m making do.” Oliver hesitated. She could almost feel him thinking through the radio, a little tentative; not daring to hope but hoping anyway.
“What is it?”
“There’s room for you here at Mom and Dad’s place. For you and the kids.”
Their parents had owned a farmhouse on thirty acres just outside of Brevort, a tiny town close to Mackinac Bridge separating the upper and lower peninsulas. The property was nestled at the tip of Lake Michigan, surrounded by the Sault Ste. Marie National Forest.
“We can make it here, Hannah. We can.”
Her heart squeezed at the hope in his voice, the eagerness and passion as he spun a vision of a tiny house deep in the woods, of gardens, a well, and prime hunting grounds. Remote and isolated. A safe place sheltered from the world.
“Would you consider coming here?” she asked instead. “To Fall Creek?”
Oliver didn’t answer right away. She could imagine him hunched over his desk, blond brows scrunched in a frown, his lank overgrown hair spilling into his brown eyes as he scratched at his goatee.
She didn’t know whether he still had a goatee—whether he was clean-shaven, or whether he’d given in and grown a mountain-man style beard like their father.
An ache opened deep in her chest. She missed him intensely. She missed her dead parents.
“Someday, maybe,” he said. “There are so few people up here. They know how to live off the land. You know how it is. It’s different. I belong here.”
Hannah bit her lower lip, pushing down her disappointment. “I know. I understand.”
“I’ll keep adding to the supplies, you know, in case you change your mind. You’ll always have a home here.”
“We’re in the same state, but it feels like we’re oceans apart.”
“Just for now. I promise, it won’t be forever. We’ll see each other again. I don’t have a ham radio, but Stanley Barnes does. Remember him?”
“Of course. Cranky old guy who lived at the end of the road since forever, always yelling at us to stay out of his woods or he’d tell Dad to give us a good whipping.”
Oliver laughed. “Yeah, that guy. He’s too old to yell anymore. I’ve been checking in on him. Stay in contact, little sister. I don’t want to lose you again.”
“Me either,” she said. “Me either.”
After she’d signed off, Dave handed her a clean handkerchief. She sniffed and wiped at her eyes as Charlotte batted at the white fabric.
“Sorry,” she said.
“Nothing to apologize for. Family means more than it ever has. And it always meant everything. We were just so busy and distracted, some of us forgot.”
She let Charlotte have the handkerchief and rested her hand on Dave’s arm. “And friendship. Yours is priceless. Thank you.”
“It was my pleasure.” Dave shrugged, his weathered cheeks reddening. “Anyway, I’ve got a scheduled radio call with Captain Hamilton. You got time to join in?”
Hannah glanced at her watch. “I promised Molly I’d help transfer some seedlings in her winter garden to the greenhouses, but I have a few minutes before I’ll need to feed and change Charlotte. Travis agreed to watch her. She and L.J. are hitting it off.”
Charlotte often shared a crib with L.J. They were becoming
so attached to each other that they slept holding hands or curled into each other like kittens.
Dave tugged at Charlotte’s socks, and she let out a peal of laughter. “As only babies can.”
A few minutes later, Dave had contacted Charlie Hamilton, the captain in charge of the National Guard unit stationed at the Cook Nuclear Power Plant in Stevensville, about fourteen miles west of Fall Creek on Lake Michigan.
Hannah and Dave had organized a couple of food drops to keep the soldiers, the engineers, and their families fed after FEMA discontinued supply deliveries. The engineers kept the plant maintained, so once things got back online, they’d be ready.
Hamilton’s brisk, cheerful voice filled the room. “How’s Fall Creek this morning? By the way, you’re speaking to a newly promoted major.”
“Congratulations, Major Hamilton,” Dave said.
“It has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? It’s been a long time coming.” They could hear the grin in his voice. No matter the difficulties arrayed against him, he always maintained a positive, jovial attitude. Hannah liked him. “Now, how’s my favorite Delta?”
“Recovering.” Hannah filled Hamilton in on the craziness of the last few days—including the threat from the General.
“I’ve received standby orders,” Hamilton said. “From the Governor himself. No details. Brass is tight-lipped about everything. Communication is crap.”
“For now, we’re keeping our people within the town’s borders,” Dave said. “If someone can pick up supplies, we can offer some fresh vegetables for the kids, at least.”
“As always, we appreciate your generosity,” Hamilton said. “I’ll send one of my men tomorrow morning. And stay alert. We’ve had reports of large movements south of the Michigan state line. A large group of organized criminals calling themselves the Syndicate, led by a man named Alexander Poe. They’ve amassed a civilian army with military-grade weapons. They’re taking over towns and FEMA shelters, using forced labor, and selling supplies, drugs, and weapons. Rumor has it they’re selling people, too. Women and children.”
Hannah stiffened. “Liam ran into them outside of Champaign.”
“Then you know. They’ve taken over Chicago and most of Illinois. Last night, they breached the Indiana border. A fighting force of over two thousand men poured into Gary. We have reports of dozens of civilian deaths and other atrocities.”