Reawakening Eden (2 page)

On another day they might sing songs as they walked, or go over times tables in a halfhearted attempt at post-apocalyptic homeschooling, but she just didn’t have the energy today. Eden shook her head to clear the low-level buzzing of an oncoming headache.

Lucas trudged at Hannah Rose’s side, more personal bodyguard than playmate, his small shoulders hunched under the weight of his backpack. Eden tried to keep the kids’ packs as light as possible, but he wanted so badly to carry his own share, and she liked knowing if anything happened to her he would have supplies for himself and Hannah Rose.

The rifle strap slipped, and Eden hitched it higher on her shoulder. During the day, she took the longer-range rifle and gave Lucas the scattershot gun, but at night, ever since they’d lost the night-scope rifle that had been in the Hummer, they traded and she took the gun that would hit the widest possible target area.

Who carried which gun—just another decision she’d never expected to have to make in her lifetime.

The high-pitched whine rose in her head, and Eden pinched the bridge of her nose.
Please, not a migraine. Not now.

Then Lucas paused, looking back over his shoulder, and realization smacked her through her exhaustion. The buzzing wasn’t in her head. Not a headache at all. An engine in the distance. Small. Motorcycle or ATV.

Or one of the motocross-style dirt bikes the Seattle soldiers rode, closing fast.

Adrenaline slammed her heart into high gear. She pointed toward the dense forest. “Go!”

Lucas bolted toward the woods without hesitation. Eden grabbed Hannah Rose’s hand, which was sticky with granola, and nearly lifted her off her feet as she dragged the little girl into a run. After five of the slowest yards of her life, Eden shifted her grip and swung Hannah Rose up into a basket carry. She couldn’t run far like this, with the massive pack on her back and Hannah Rose in her arms, but speed was more important than distance. They just had to get far enough from the road to avoid being spotted by the driver.

Ahead of her, Lucas stumbled on the uneven ground and skidded to his knees. She caught up to him but couldn’t spare a hand to pull him up. “Are you hurt?”
Please, nothing broken. Nothing sprained.
Her first aid was amateur at best.

Lucas shook his head once and scrambled to his feet, but they couldn’t keep running like this. The next fall may not be so forgiving.

Eden flicked a glance back toward the road. Through the lattice of trunks, it was distinguishable only as a brighter strip where the trees didn’t provide such heavy shade. If the driver was looking this way, he would easily see the trampled undergrowth, but hopefully he was expecting a car and wouldn’t even glance this way as he passed.

The engine was louder now, but she couldn’t tell how far it was—sound could echo strangely in the mountains. No telling how much time they had.

Eden scanned the area near them, searching for any sort of cover. “There. Lucas.” It was more a dip in the ground behind a tree than an actual hiding place, but anything that would get them out of sight counted as the Taj Mahal of hiding places right now.

Lucas got there first and instantly flattened himself on his stomach, shrugging off his backpack. He was already rolling and tugging the shotgun out of its makeshift holster on his pack when Eden dropped to her knees beside him and set Hannah Rose down. Her chin wobbled, eyes huge, but she didn’t make a sound.

“Good girl,” Eden whispered, wrestling with the shoulder straps of the rifle and backpack that had somehow gotten tangled as she ran. She was seriously considering slicing the damn things with her hunting knife when they finally jerked free of one another. Her pack hit the dirt beside Hannah Rose, and Eden stretched out with the little girl’s huddled form beneath her, rifle held at the ready. Lucas lay on his back at her side, the shotgun hugged in his arms like a teddy bear. “You did great, kiddo,” Eden said softly, reaching out one hand to squeeze his shoulder and keeping it there, that hand holding them all together as they waited.

It wasn’t long. She could hear every cough and grumble of the engine now, not just the indistinct whine. It had to be close, but she kept her head down, tempted to close her eyes as if that would make them invisible.

Drive past, drive past, drive past
, she silently urged.
Nothing to see here.

She hummed Hannah Rose’s favorite lullaby, not loud enough to carry beyond their little hollow. The engine noise would easily drown her out even if she sang at full voice, but quiet was so intertwined with hiding she couldn’t bring herself to raise her voice.

Then the engine noise cut out and she choked the lullaby off mid-note.
No
. Why had he stopped?

The first crunch of boots in leaves sent her heart into overdrive.
No, no, no. Please God, let it be a pit stop. He’s just taking a leak. That’s all.

“Eeeee-den. Come out, come out, princess. I know you’re there.”

Her body jerked involuntarily at the singsongy call. She didn’t recognize the voice, but the tone of arrogant taunting was a familiar memory from the commune. One of Jonah’s soldiers had found her.
How?
Eden adjusted her grip on the rifle but otherwise didn’t move as Hannah Rose began to shake beneath her.
He’s fishing. He doesn’t really know we’re here.

But the leaves kept crunching under heavy feet. Closer and closer.

“Jonah misses you, Eden. He’s worried about you, darling.”

The voice was just feet away now. Any second he’d pass the tree that shielded them and they’d be totally exposed. Eden kicked herself for not chambering a round before the engine cut off. At this point he’d hear her cock the rifle.

“You can’t hide from me, pretty girl.”

Pretty girl. Princess
. She identified the speaker seconds before he rounded the tree trunk walking straight into the sights of her rifle and stopping five feet away. Ben thought his oily brand of charm made him a ladies’ man, oozing endearments and leering invitations. He was a big man—heavyset, linebacker big—but Eden had never been afraid of him because no one touched Jonah Carter’s property, and Eden had been clearly labeled as belonging to the self-proclaimed leader of the Seattle cult from the first day she drove into the commune.

But Jonah wasn’t here now.

“There you are, sugar.” Ben’s smile could have been friendly, but Eden chambered a round. Beside her, Lucas leveled his teddy-bear shotgun at Ben’s chest. Lucas was under strict instructions to never,
ever
pull the trigger unless Eden was bleeding or dead. She would do everything in her power to keep him from having that on his conscience, but Jonah’s man didn’t know that, and the icy stare of an eight-year-old could be an unnervingly effective deterrent. Sometimes.

Ben’s cocky grin didn’t falter. “Where’d you get the gun, princess? It doesn’t suit you.”

“Leave us alone, Ben.” Her voice didn’t shake. Just hearing the chilly determination in it made her feel stronger.

He snorted. “Or what? You gonna shoot me?”

“I will if I have to.”

Ben’s grin grew. “Sure you will, sweetheart.”

He didn’t think she would. Worse, she wasn’t sure she could. She wanted to think she’d be able to, to protect the kids, and a small, vicious part of her loved the idea of putting a bullet through Jonah Carter, but the truth was she honestly didn’t know if she could be responsible for another dead body after all the ones she’d seen.

“How did you find us?”

Two days. Only two days since their near escape in Spokane, and he’d found them already. Had they ever had a chance of getting away clean?

“I have my ways.” Ben crouched down where he stood, which put him out of Lucas’s line of fire. The boy started to sit up to follow the shot, but Eden nudged him with her leg, and he lay back down so her body shielded both children. Her rifle stayed steady, aimed at the center of her target.

“Jonah’s been looking for you, honey. He’s even put out a reward for your return.”

“What kind of reward?” Money didn’t mean anything anymore, and with so fewer people vying for survival supplies, there was a deceptive sense of prosperity. Most people weren’t looking ahead to the months or years later when all the prepackaged and preserved goods would run out.

“The kind worth getting.” Ben brushed his hand in an arc through the leaves, the movement catching her eye. She didn’t notice his other hand reaching behind his back until it reappeared in front of him holding a handgun. Eden’s breath caught.
Shit
. His smile was gone. “Where’s your car, pretty girl?”

Eden had never been so happy to say, “It broke down. We left it.”

“Well, fuck.” Ben glowered.

She decided it was best not to tell the pissed-off, armed linebacker to watch his language around the kids. It was easy to see why he was upset. The engine sound they’d heard approaching was for a vehicle that wasn’t designed for more than one. How was Ben supposed to drag her and the miracle children back to Seattle and claim his reward without anything to drag them in?

The big man shrugged. “I guess you’re walking until we find a car. Get up.”

Eden tried to swallow, but her throat was desert dry, her palms clammy on the rifle. “No.”

She was banking everything on the fact that Jonah’s reward required all three of them to be alive and unharmed, gambling that Ben couldn’t shoot her. And hoping desperately that she could convince him that she would shoot him if he tried to take them by force.

“We aren’t going back with you,” she said, startled again by the calm power in her words. Where had that stone-cold-bitch voice come from?

Ben frowned, considering his options. Even though he knew jack shit about military operations, he wasn’t a dumb guy. Unfortunately. She’d heard he used to work for Microsoft before the plague. She didn’t want to give him time to come up with a plan, but she couldn’t even move without tipping the precarious impasse they’d reached.

Apparently coming to a decision, Ben straightened and started toward them. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, sugar.”

Something deep inside Eden went arctic. Her finger wrapped around the trigger. Could she do it? Was it worth taking a life just to stay away from Jonah? They’d escaped before. They could again…if he didn’t put a guard on her. Hannah Rose made a small sound beneath her. Would the kids be safe?

Eden took a slow, shuddering breath.
Steady, girl. Just exhale and squeeze
. In her head she heard her father’s voice, an echo of her former life, the memory of him teaching her how to fire a rifle as crisp as if it had happened yesterday.

Just exhale and squeeze.

She was so immersed in her thoughts of guns, the sound of one cocking to her left didn’t even seem odd at first. Then a voice that put her stone-cold tone to shame spoke from the shadows.

“I believe the lady said she didn’t want to go with you.”

Chapter Three

Eden kept the rifle trained on Ben but risked looking away from him to search for this new arrival. Lucas jerked the shotgun up and aimed it in the direction of the voice,
bless him
, but he’d be shooting blind. The forest vista was blank. Abandoned.

Eden’s gaze raked the trees, but she didn’t see any sign of the speaker, just an uninterrupted sun-dappled landscape like something out of a Walt Whitman poem.

The wolfhound emerged first, trotting into view with a bouncing step that was at odds with the vicious teeth on clear display and the low growl rumbling out of its massive throat. She recognized the animal from last night, and a shivering sense of unease rolled over her skin. Had it been tracking them? Stalking? Was this a savior or a new threat? Then a figure slipped out from behind a tree only twenty feet away, giving Lucas a target.

A damn big, heavily armed target.

Jesus flipping Christ, it’s Rambo.

He approached slowly, his movements silent and steady. Unhurried. Confident. She’d be confident too, if she was holding a freaking machine gun and packing enough artillery to topple a dictatorship.

As their mystery guest got closer, her impression of size only grew. He had to be six-five and his build was massive, though some of his bulk could have been due to the heavy camo hunting gear he was swathed in head to toe. She couldn’t even make out his skin tone with the camouflage paint smeared across his face.

He stopped ten feet away, his gun held casually but aimed squarely at Ben’s chest. His aim was a comfort, as his words had been, but Eden’s mouth still went dry with fear. Ben was the devil she knew. This man was a devil of a whole new variety.

“This doesn’t concern you,” Ben snarled—clearly trying to sound as menacing as the Rambo Mountain Man and failing pathetically.

“That’s far enough,” Rambo growled. The dog gave a short, snarling bark.

Eden jerked and twisted back to face Ben. She hadn’t realized he’d begun creeping up on her back until the mountain man’s hard voice stopped him. With no success from threats and stealth, Ben switched tactics again, slapping on a lazy just-between-us-guys grin.

“No need to get upset, friend.” He held up his empty hand in a look-how-harmless-I-am gesture, the one still clutching the handgun dangling oh so casually against his thigh. As if Rambo wouldn’t notice it there.

“I’m not upset. Friend.”

Eden believed that. Upset implied emotion and he didn’t seem to have any. Like the Terminator. But was this the first movie or the second? Was he there to kill her or protect her?

“Look, this is a complicated situation,” Ben said calmly. “I can see how you would misunderstand, but trust me, I would never hurt this woman. I’m just making sure she gets home safe. That’s all I want.”

His voice was so reasonable, Eden almost believed him herself. Ben must have been taking charisma and manipulation lessons from Jonah.

Rambo didn’t budge. “If that’s true, let her tell me that and I’ll go.”

Ben turned his charm offensive in her direction. “Tell him, sweetheart.”

Her gaze flicked between the two men. Five minutes ago she’d wanted nothing more than to get rid of Ben, but if she admitted that, she’d be left alone with the Rambo Terminator.
Out of the frying pan…
He might be a Good Samaritan, just a helpful gunman on his way to ambush revolutionaries in the next valley, but after seeing the dog last night, she knew his presence here wasn’t a coincidence.