Finding Home - A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 2) (20 page)

“Oh, and if he does anything questionable… shoot him,” I added.

Chapter seventeen.

“I’m not going to do anything stupid. It’s true I’ve had all sorts of training at HOME and even before that. I can disarm a person pretty easily but not with my hands tied behind my back. I’m not a magician,” he said sounding mildly annoyed.

“Of course you have,” Owen said with a groan, “come on. Let’s go.” He grabbed his arm tightly and lifted him off of the floor. Owen practically dragged him out of the door. Dean pulled out his gun and followed behind.

“We’ll be back soon. Lock the door, don’t let anyone but us inside,” Dean said and closed the door.

I locked the door the second it had clicked into place and sat next to Sienna on the sofa. I put my arms around her shoulders and squeezed before I asked her to come upstairs with me. For some reason I felt safer waiting for the boys up there. I sat by one window and Sienna sat by the other. We kept ourselves tucked back behind the curtains so that no one would be able to see us if they were looking inside.

“I’m sorry,” I said to Sienna, cutting through the silence between us. Not that it was my fault she had a crush on Penn, but it was my fault she had even met him in the first place. And that I had given the impression that he was one of the good guys. I should have never let him inside this house. All of this was because of me.

“It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. No one knew,” she murmured as she tapped her foot nervously against the floor.

“Dean knew,” I said rubbing my hands together as if I was washing them with air.

She glanced at me for a second before turning her gaze back to the window, “He didn’t know. He just didn’t trust him. It just so happened he was right.”

I placed my hand against my forehead and rubbed hard as if trying to wipe the memories of all the good and helpful things Penn had done for me away. Maybe what he was telling us now was the truth. I wished there was a way we could know other than just taking a leap of faith.

It had been a solid two hours, probably more, before a car came down the road. I had an awful vision of Penn coming alone. He barged in holding both Owen and Dean’s guns, taking Sienna and I hostage, forcing us to go back to HOME with him. Thankfully as they pulled in I could see all three heads in the car — two in the back and one in the front. A small wave of relief washed over me as they stepped out and Dean led Penn towards the house still tied up. He hadn’t disarmed and attacked them, at least not yet. And he had produced a car.

Sienna and I ran downstairs to let them in. Penn stumbled as Dean shoved him inside. I quickly locked the door behind them once everyone was inside. Maybe HOME wouldn’t even bother with knocking the door down. If they wanted us all dead, they probably wouldn’t hesitate to set the whole place on fire. And if any of us tried to run outside to escape, they’d just shoot until we were all dead.

“Let’s pack up some new stuff, we’ll stop at the SUV, salvage what we can and then head south,” Owen said stomping towards the kitchen. It was painfully obvious he wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. Then again, we all did.

We packed up most of what was left of the food and water and I found my seed packets and stuffed them inside my pocket. Maybe I’d have better success with them one day. I was actually happy they hadn’t gotten left behind. One day all the prepackaged and canned food would run out.

When we walked outside, I got a better look at the car they had brought back. It wasn’t as big and spacious as our SUV had been but it would do. Our new ride was some kind of mix between a station wagon and an SUV. It would be a tight fit, but there would be enough room for all of us once we found Ryan. Even if we let Penn stay with us.

“Let’s get out of here,” Dean said when we had everything packed inside our new ride. “Ros, you sit in the front. Sienna in the middle.” He opened the door and pushed Penn towards the back.

“Come on, I’m tied up,” Penn said, getting annoyed with the roughness. “Not to mention I don’t even want to do anything to any of you.”

“Lies, lies, lies,” Dean sang, but he stopped pushing him.

Before we were even all belted in, Owen pulled away from my little cabin once again. It was funny how saying goodbye to the place I had lived in alone for so long was so much easier the second time. The house felt tainted because of how Penn had betrayed me. It didn’t even feel like it was my home any more. Now it felt like it was just the place HOME let me stay in while they figured out what to do with me. It was an extension of HOME and I was glad to be going away from it.

Owen drove carefully down the road towards our old SUV. I didn’t know if he was worried it was going to self-destruct or if he thought maybe Penn had done something to this car too. Either way I didn’t complain even though I wanted to get away faster. I leaned back and watched the scenery go by. It was too bad I was constantly distracted by the side mirror. I kept finding myself looking in it expecting to see speeding cars and helicopters chasing us down.

The car skid slightly when Owen stopped it at the edge of the wet road. I opened the door and Owen put his hand on my arm to stop me. He turned to face the others in the backseat. “Ros, Sienna and Dean, gather what you can and pack it in anywhere you can squeeze it in. I’ll stay here with Penn,” he said taking his gun out and pointing it at Penn. “You hear anything at all, or even if you get a bad feeling, run back here ASAP. We can always get new stuff.”

He let go of my arm and I walked away scanning the ground once again for anything that might have fallen out during the roll-over. I picked up all the water bottles I could carry and brought them back to the car. I pulled open the hatch and started stuffing them inside randomly. When I glanced up, Dean was approaching with his bow, and a bag filled with food. The simple fact that everything was still here made me think that not many people were out traveling in this neck of the woods. If they had been, our stuff would have been long gone.

“Get in,” Dean said to Sienna and me after we finished taking what we could. Dean ran back to the SUV and climbed down inside.

Owen kept his eyes firmly planted on Penn and anxiously tapped his foot on the floor. “What’s he doing?” Owen asked out of the side of his mouth.

“Not sure,” I said watching for him to pop back out. After a few minutes he climbed out with two of our packs. He walked fast towards the car, shoved the bags in the back next to Penn and pulled his seatbelt on.

Owen put the safety back on and slid his gun back inside his waistband. He put the car in drive and started back down the highway.

I turned around when I felt something tap against my arm. I looked at Sienna and raised my eyebrow.

“Here,” she said pushing something at me.

I looked down at the maps and smiled. “But how?” I started to say but Sienna just pointed at Dean. I realized when he went back for the bags, he must have also grabbed my maps. I opened them to verify we were heading the right way. It was a good thing we had them with us, although we probably could have found new ones along the way. But I liked looking at the maps to keep myself busy. They helped distract me from everything else I could have been dwelling on instead.

We were going to have to go southeast for a long time until we would even need to worry about switching highways to head towards Seattle. And that was assuming that all the roads would still be in good drivable condition.

This area was rather desolate. Seeing another person was very rare, which was good for us because it meant more supplies just waiting for the taking. Even though the population had already been severely diminished after the storms, it was shrinking every day as more people failed to survive. Or maybe more and more people were traveling to join HOME every day. I didn’t know where the surviving people were, but I did know they weren’t around here.

“I guess this will take two days or so with no stops and perfect driving conditions,” I said without looking up from my maps to gauge reactions. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t anything we could do about it. “Non-stop driving. Can we even do that?” I said wondering how we’d handle driving and sleeping now that we had to keep an eye on Penn too. “Maybe three days,” I said knowing we’d have to make some stops. Gas. Bathroom breaks. Restocking supplies.

“I should put in one more call,” Penn said softly as he kept his focus on the passing scenery.

“Are you kidding?” Dean said with a phony laugh. “How stupid do you think we are?”

“I don’t think you are stupid at all,” he said glancing towards me. “Which is why you’ll let me make the call. I can buy us more time. The more time that passes before I check in, the sooner they send people looking for me. If I tell them you’re heading east, or something and that I don’t know when I can check in again, that could buy us a week, maybe more.”

“Us?” I said with a frown. He lost the ability to say ‘us’ when he lied to me. When he told HOME everything about me. “Why are they even letting us go at all?”

“Oh they won’t. They’ll send people east eventually… they won’t let us get too far. I’m almost sure of it. I think they are waiting to see if you reveal your plan… and I tell them. As far as my job, it was to get people, as many as I could to HOME. Until I could convince them to go, it was my job to keep them in the area. Report anything and everything I learned about them. But I’ve never been in a situation like this one before. It was usually easy to get people to HOME, and they never escaped. No one really questioned it… until you,” Penn said nodding at me.

“Wonder why they are letting us live… even just for now,” I said looking out the window.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out myself,” Penn said looking as if he might know more than he was letting on. “Well, it helps they don’t know exactly where you are as of this moment.”

“I think there is something else you aren’t telling us,” I said turning to stare at him. There were probably lots of things he wasn’t telling us.

“No, but I do know HOME has enemies… like some organized group I think. Maybe they think you are someone you aren’t, or working for someone else.” Penn shook his head as if he was trying to make pieces of a puzzle fall into place. “I really don’t know much. Our relationship was really very one-sided. I’d give them information, and they’d tell me what to do.”

Were they only keeping us alive so they could try to get information from us? Information we didn’t have. Pretending we did could keep us alive longer if it came to that. But we didn’t have any top secret information about anything. We were just trying to get Ryan back.

I let out a sigh. None of it made sense, but I was happy they weren’t hunting us down. At least not yet, or not that we knew of. That didn’t mean we’d let our guard down. What did HOME want from us?

“I’m with you all whether you like it or not. I don’t want to go back to HOME. Let me at least do one thing for you guys… let me help you get away.”

“It’s probably some kind of trap,” Dean said, and Owen nodded in agreement.

“You can keep your guns on me at all times. If I say something you don’t like you can just shoot me… or you could just leave me and drive away.”

“That won’t matter if you tell them where we are going!” Dean shouted.

There was something inside me that believed he wasn’t going to do anything to sabotage our getaway. I didn’t know exactly what it was but there was something different. My guess was it had something to do with him seeing them slaughter Slade.

“Let him do it,” I said turning to look at Dean so he could see I was serious.

“Are you kidding?”

“No, it could make all the difference between finding Ryan and not finding Ryan. Worst he can do is lie and start telling them where we are. Then we aren’t really in much worse shape than we already are considering they already know approximately where we were anyway. His communication device probably had GPS or something. I think it’s worth a shot because if he is telling the truth,” I glanced at Penn, “it could buy us enough time to make a difference.”

“I think maybe she’s right,” Sienna said looking down at her fingers that were grasping so hard onto one another her knuckles were white.

“Owen?” Dean said asking for another opinion. If he was out numbered, I knew he’d go along with it and he’d let Penn make the call.

Owen pounded the steering wheel out of frustration, “Ugh! Shit!” I knew what he was going to say before he even said it. He was mad at himself and was worried, but he was willing to take the risk. “Where do we go?”

“There’s a small place coming up on the right. They have something there.”

“Don’t think for a second I won’t kill you,” Dean muttered to Penn, but I think we all heard it.

Owen drove a mile or so before we saw a small house on the right. He pulled in and when no one came running out to kill us, we all turned to look at Penn to tell us what to do.

“It’s inside there. Could someone take me in?” Penn said nodding towards a little shed to the side of the house. Owen slammed the car into park and went around the side of the car. Dean stepped out and Penn scooted out after him.

“We’ll be right back,” Dean said closing the door behind him. They walked him to the shed with their guns pointed at him. I knew it was probably pointless because they’d never shoot him. At least not unarmed. Dean said he would kill him but I wasn’t pretty sure he wouldn’t. Owen had used his gun to shoot someone before but that was when bullets were flying at us. In this case, I was almost positive he’d never pull the trigger. He might want to, but he wouldn’t. I couldn’t help but wonder if Penn knew that too.