Flesh 01 (26 page)

“Your girlfriend? She went out on a supply run with Erin,” Santa said with a sigh. “They headed out just after dawn. Can’t even keep my own daughter safe.”

Finn’s professional face gave way to horror. Ali was out there? The ground beneath Daniel’s feet seemed to give way. The pain in his chest almost brought him to his knees. How he kept to his feet he had no idea. “Oh, fuck.”

***

Daniel stood beside Finn, staring at the mammoth garbage truck serving as Blackstone’s front gate. The sun was setting, lighting the horizon in shades of gold. It had been the longest day of his life. Fear and fatigue should have long since left him numb. It would have been kinder. Thoughts of Ali lying dead somewhere kept repeating in his head. He couldn’t escape them.

But she’d be okay. She would be.

The raiding party had been headed for a town forty minutes due west. They should have been back by now. They would be back any moment. Damn but he wanted his girl back – like, yesterday.

Daniel knew she was independent, knew she wanted to take care of herself. But there had to be a happy middle ground that allowed everyone to sleep at night. Something to stop the heart attack, or whatever it was, threatening to throw open his chest.

He wasn’t the only one in pain. Finn stood beside him, buzzing with tension.

“She’s fine.” Daniel leant against the side of a pick-up.

“Fine like Lindsay?” Neither man spoke for a minute. Then Finn turned on him, face set. “She doesn’t do this again. Run off out of our sight.”

“You gonna put her in a cage?”

“Fuck’s sake,” the kid bared his teeth. “You cannot be okay with this.”

An older man approached, hand in hand with a young woman. The fair-haired prince might have been strung out, but no one else knew. Finn was in pillar of the community mode, answering questions and offering reassurances. Yes, it was very sad, a great loss to the community. No, plans had not yet been made regarding the funeral. On and on it went. Death might be familiar, but Lindsay’s supposed suicide had rocked the town.

When the couple wandered away, Finn turned back to him. “You’re going to let her pull this shit? Are you serious?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“Same thing I’ve been saying all day. Calm down, wait and see what she comes out with.”

The kid grunted. “You could not be more fucking wrong. I thought you wanted to keep her safe.”

“How do you think you got an invitation into our bed in the first place?” Dan snapped.

Finn scowled at him, eyes furious. Yeah, wel . It was going around.

“Her safety comes first with me. Always. Bossing her around wil only drive her away. Trust me, I already tried it.”

An approaching rumble of engines brought the argument to an abrupt halt, as did the cry of the lookout sitting atop the cab of the garbage truck. The truck powered up and slowly reversed, clearing the entrance. A minute later, the first of the vehicles, piled high with supplies, cruised in.

The raiding party was in good spirits. Didn’t last long.

The flow of greetings cut off sharply as the pall engulfed the returning crews. And there she stood, all intact. Oh, thank fuck for that.

Seemed sensation returned where he’d been deaf, dumb and blind before. His girl lived on and all was okay.

Finn marched up to the pick-up truck Ali rode in. She stood in the cage on the back of the bed, hair windblown and nose pink from the sun. She stil ed at Finn’s approach, reading his body language just fine.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Lindsay’s dead, amongst other things,” Finn said, shoving a hand at her. “Come on.”

“What?” The color dropped from Erin’s face. Her father beckoned her down while Finn cursed in a low voice. Apt, since he had wel and truly messed up breaking the news.

“How?” asked Erin.

“I’m sorry, honey. She kil ed herself.” Santa scowled, helping his daughter down. “I don’t know what to say.”

“She wouldn’t. It doesn’t make sense.” Erin stepped into her father’s waiting arms. “She … No. Why would she do that, Dad?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He wrapped a beefy arm around his child and led her away, holding up an arm to keep others back.

“Come on.” Finn ushered Ali through the crowd as Daniel fell into step by her side, taking the hand she offered. Needing the connection.

Everyone spoke in hushed voices. Like the pro he was, Finn avoided getting them held up by the gathering. They were hustling her up the staircase toward home in no time, the sliding glass door downstairs firmly locked behind them.

The kid gripped Ali’s elbow like she was a criminal about to make a run for it. Nothing Dan could do. This spat was going to happen.

Probably needed to. He had his own concerns with how she had taken off without a word, but going medieval was not going to work.

He stayed close, ready to intervene if required.

“Finn.” She wrenched her arm free and turned about, facing them down. Something in the kid’s face had her flinching, mouth pinched and pained. “Relax, would you?”

“You think this is a joke?” Finn roared. Very young male lion. It would have been funny, except it wasn’t.

Dan opened his mouth to intercede, but his girl held up a hand, flicked him an unhappy but entirely capable look.

“No, I don’t think this is a joke,” she said. “But you do need to calm down. One of us needed to go. I went. End of story.”

“Like fuck. We’re trying to protect you here, Al,” Finn bit out. “You just go ahead and make the decision to put yourself in danger?

Without discussing it with us first?”

“I want to protect you both too. Can you get that?”

“Protect us?”

“Yes.” Al threw herself into the nearest camp chair and started removing a boot with angry tugs at the shoelace. “If I’d mentioned the supply run to either of you, you wouldn’t have let me out of your sight.”

“Babe …” Dan took a big step forward, making to touch her, only to receive the stop-sign hand again.

“No.” Ali wrestled off a boot, dropped it with an almighty thud. “Did you think it would work differently for me? I care about both of you. The thought of either of you going out there … I couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t. It was easier to go myself. I’m not going to apologize.

I’m not going to promise not to do it again.”

“Like hell you’re going out there again,” Finn said. “Ever. Over my dead body, Al.”

“Don’t you get it?” Daniel cleared his throat. “That’s what she’s afraid of.”

His girl glared at Finn, ready to re-launch the war. Shit, enough already. “There are going to have to be rules, for al of us,” Dan said.

“She’l get herself killed!” Finn hissed. “How could you agree with this?”

“‘This’ being our girlfriend? The woman we’re supposed to be in a mature, adult relationship with?” Daniel enquired, tipping his chin at the foxy if furious Exhibit A. “Because we’re meant to be on her side. Within reason. I didn’t talk her down from the roof just to lock her up somewhere else. I do not want to lose her.”

The kid growled, and paced like a caged animal. Up and down, up and down, while Ali watched, nonplussed. “Fine, we’l ease up.

But you do not go out again.”

His girl rose to her feet, radiating fury. Dan was singed just being in the same room. “Not good enough. I won’t be wrapped in cotton wool while you two take all the risks. Do you really believe they’ll let us stay in your precious town if we’re not seen to be contributing?

Seriously?”

“Al …”

“I’m not budging on this.”

“Then we have a problem,” said Finn.

“No, Finn. You have a problem,” his girl said. “There are some things I can’t do. Standing back while you’re in danger is one of those things.”

Finn’s nostrils flared. “I’m trained to handle dangerous situations. You are not.”

“I don’t care.”

“Al …”

“No, Finn. I love you, but no.”

The kid gave a good impression of a man who’d had the fight sucker punched right out of him. He stopped and stared. “You love me?”

“Yes. I love you,” she said.

Finn stared at her, face rigid and hands balled tight. “Shit.”

“Is that real y so bad?” she asked.

The kid grabbed her and held on tight. And his girl fitted herself against Finn, her face in his neck, arms wrapped around him like she couldn’t let go.

Inside Dan’s ribcage something hurt, just like it had earlier today when he thought he’d lost her. No amount of rubbing the heel of his hand at it helped.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Ali stood belowground in a hardware store basement a half-hour north of Blackstone. Her itchy scalp and damp hair lay beneath her helmet-and-flashlight combo. The confining, dark, hot and dusty space reminded her of old times, only this time she was under a building instead of above a house.

She and her supply buddy, Andy the goth, sorted stock. Others did the same above, clearing the shop floor. Boxes of rope and nails, flashlights and batteries sat in nice piles. Al of the useable items were moved beside the stairs, where Andy then hauled them up to the trucks.

Dan was somewhere aboveground helping load, it being his day to babysit from afar. Keeping her men at home was no more feasible than their hopes to ground her were. No one was completely happy. The last few days had been full of terse words and tense silences.

Eventually, something was going to have to give. Sweat covered her, sticking her t-shirt to her back. Hours must have passed because her muscles ached and her throat was bone dry. She squeezed by the stacks of boxes, searching for her water bottle.

“Andy?” He had mentioned getting a drink and disappeared a while back. She wore no watch. Had no clue what time it was or how long they had worked. “Andy, you there?”

And it was quiet, too quiet.

No reply came to her call, the echo of her own voice and her breathing the only sounds. Labored and loud. Shit.

She couldn’t say when the dozen sets of feet thudding overhead had petered out, but she knew she was alone. The building sat silent.

They had left her behind. How? No way in hell would Dan leave her, and yet the quiet was complete.

Her water bottle sat on a box containing snail bait, right beside where her gun should have been. Without a weapon, she’d be dead.

Panic bent her double and her lungs flattened like a hand held her down.

“Stop it,” she snarled, wincing when it echoed back. Quiet. She should be quiet. The sun couldn’t have set yet, impossible. Where was a fucking watch when she needed one? “Calm down,” she whispered. “Think.”

All comfort bled out of the space and the dark pressed in claustrophobical y. She needed to get upstairs. She forced slow steps, made her way over and around the boxes. Tiptoed up the stairs and through the door with its broken lock. She flicked off her light, set her helmet aside, delaying.

What was the point? Either way, she needed to know.

Ali stepped out onto the shop floor. It was empty. Nothing moved. Things were scattered here and there, articles deemed unimportant. The afternoon sun shone through dusty plate-glass windows with splendid shades of copper and red. It lit up the dust motes floating about.

Her heart fisted as a meltdown commenced, which helped nothing.

Something nudging the side of her boot snagged her attention. It was the weight of the holster shifting on her leg. Finn had buckled the ankle holster onto her himself this morning before heading for the station, making her love him that much more.

She was so fucking scared it was hard to think straight. Trembling fingers fumbled for the catch, pul ed the weapon free and flicked the safety off.

The hardware was wide open, front doors busted, the back the same. Things were stirring out on the street. Shadows moving. The moaning might have been her muddled mind, but it was doubtful.

The sun ducked behind the line of buildings across the way. Above her was a foam ceiling. It wouldn’t hold her.

Out on the street there came a low, drawn-out groan. Her muscles trembled.

Move.

She bolted for the back door, keeping low, trying not to make a target of herself. The building behind this one was three-stories high, blocking out the afternoon sun and casting her in shadow. Still a better bet than the open space of the street front.

There was an overgrown patch of grass running alongside a fence, a docking bay with a van parked in it. The windows had been blown out and a long-dead body sat in the driver’s seat, rotted arm hanging down, skin like leather.

A forklift was parked alongside the back of the building, a pal et stacked with bags of potting mix weighing down the front. In lieu of a ladder, it looked good. It was also the only option.

More moaning.

“Go. Go. Go. Go.” Ali chanted under her breath, navigating the climb from inside the forklift’s cab onto its front load. The gun in her hand slowed her down.

Something grabbed her. She almost screamed. The noise stuck in her throat, wanting out.

A grasping hand clutched at her boot. She kicked out, dislodging it for a moment. Where the hell had it come from so fast? Over her shoulder she saw decaying features smeared with dirt and dried blood, eyes empty of color, as though the irises had bled to white. The remains of his torn greasy shirt named him “Mike”. In less than a minute she could put a bullet smack bam through Mike’s forehead. Be done with him, no matter the noise. But noise would draw more of them.

Fuck. The rabbit went wild in her chest.

She scrambled onto the forklift roof. Mike tugged at the hem of her jeans, scratching and clawing at her pants, trying to pull her back, skewing her balance and sending her onto one knee.

Nothing could save her sweaty grip on the gun.

The pistol slipped from her hand, clattered to the ground. Going, going, gone.

She gave a helpless groan, shaking with fear and adrenalin. “Oh, fuck you, Mike.”

She kicked out, boot connecting with the hard bone of his skull. Mike reeled back onto his ass.

Ali scrambled to her feet, perched atop the forklift. There was a narrow window off to the side of the building, about the right height to give her the leg-up required. It would be difficult. She stretched out. Her fingers could just reach the edges of the gutter. The muscles in her legs screamed in protest, thighs and feet and everything in between. Ali pulled herself forward, increasing her hold on the gutter inch by inch. Metal dug into her fingers, but she had it. It held and she wasn’t letting go. She stuck her left leg out to kick in the window, the crack in the glass painfully loud.