Going Gone, Book 2 of the Irish End Games

T
he adventure continues
when tragedy strikes the family of three displaced Americans in Ireland. Sarah Woodson is brutally taken across the Irish Sea to the pastoral beauty of England's Cotswolds and discovers the horrors of a post-apocalyptic sex slave trade.

D
etermined to escape her captors
—including a monster who's vowed never to let her leave England alive—and to survive the impossible journey of a thousand miles through the harsh Welsh wilderness, Sarah uses every resource she has to find her way home again.
Going Gone
is an tale of heart-stopping proportion showing the resiliency of the human spirit and the unfathomable depths of a mother's love.

M
ike Donovan looked
up from the drawings in front of him on the makeshift wooden desk, his reading glasses perched on his long, very un-Irish nose. His sister, Fiona, stood in the opening of the lean-to, an empty cook pot resting on one hip, watching him. He sighed and removed his glasses, tossing them down on the desk.

“We've got a problem,” she said, pursing her lips as if she'd just tasted a lemon.

“Whatever it is, Fi,” he said, “couldn't you have softened the blow with a cuppa?”

“It's Gavin,” Fi said, jerking her head to indicate the direction of Mike's son. “And young John.”

He looked up with interest. “John?” he said, frowning. “What trouble has Gavin gotten the boy into now?”

Gavin was a good lad, and immensely helpful as an extra hand, but he lacked the judgment that would enable any sane body to call him mature. The fact that he had taken Sarah's boy, John, under his wing as the little brother he never had was rarely to anyone's benefit.

“Their roughhousing knocked the chicken stew in the dirt. It's only fit for the hogs now.”

“None of it could be saved?” Mike stood up. Wasting food was a serious offence. Probably would have been even before The Crisis, but now it could mean the difference between life and death. And there were none of them that didn't know that to the very marrow of their bones. “Where are they?”

“Waiting for you. In the barn.”

“Shite.” Mike stood to his full height then ducked to avoid hitting the short lean-to's ceiling. His hand rested on the belt around his waist.

“You'll not beat them?” Fiona asked. She stepped out of his way, as if half expecting him to bowl her over in his eagerness to reprimand the boys.

“Gavin's too old,” he said tiredly. He glanced at his sister, whose eyes snapped with irritation over the ruined stew.

“And little John?” she said. She stared him down, challenging him. He knew what she was thinking. Sarah's boy. You wouldn't dare.

“Tell Gavin to take the night watch on the south pasture,” he said. He knew he had to send him mounted. No sense in sending the daft bugger on foot—although Mike was sorely tempted to do it—in case he needed to sound the alarm. “But he's wasted enough food for one day. He can do it on an empty stomach.”

“And John?” Fiona repeated, more gently this time.

“He knows what's coming,” Mike said gruffly. “Tell Gavin to go. I'll be on my way directly.” He could see his answer satisfied her, which annoyed him. “And maybe you can find something in the way of replacing the meal we'll be needing in a few hours?” he added acerbically.

She nodded and hurried off toward the barn.

Shite. Mike took a moment to look over the edge of the camp to where David and Sarah's cottage sat. He hated that they refused to join the community. But they let John come as much as they could spare him. And they knew the rules as well as he did. Even so, he didn't relish telling the American soccer mom, who only countenanced “time-outs” and lengthy written exercises as punishments, that he was about to beat the pants off her boy with a leather belt.

D
avid and Sarah
arrived at Donovan's community late in the afternoon. A skinned rabbit was carefully wrapped and stashed in a hamper sitting on Sarah's knee. Every time Sarah came to the camp she was surprised at how much had been built to make it the little bustling community that it was.

The first person she saw was Fiona Donovan. “Hey, Fi,” Sarah said, hopping down from the cart. “Brought ya a bunny for your crock pot.”

“Sure, I'll never understand your American humor,” Fiona said, taking the meat from her and giving her a hug.

“John in shouting distance?” Sarah asked, looking around the settlement. A large campfire anchored the middle of the camp, with recently constructed huts, tents and bedrolls fanning out around it.

“Oh, he's around here somewhere,” Fiona said. “Good afternoon to you, David,” she said, as David jumped down from the cart seat. “You'll be wanting to put the animals up in the barn. Just leave the cart where it is.”

David unharnessed the pony and led him away from the center of camp. Fiona and Sarah walked over to the large black pot hanging from a hook over the fire ringed in stones.

“Mmm-mm. Smells good.” Sarah peered in the pot.

“If you lived here,” Fiona said, leaning over to pick up a steaming kettle of water, “you'd eat with us every night.”

“We're doing fine over there.”

“Who said you weren't?” Fiona said, pouring boiling water into a large, chipped teapot. “It's not just about protection or getting enough to eat. It's about fellowship, Sarah.”

“I know, and I agree with you.” Sarah continued to crane her neck, searching.

Fiona handed her a cup of tea.

“Hey, Mom. Looking for me?”

Sarah turned to see John who had materialized at her elbow. She had recently learned not to hug him—at least not in public. Her smile dissolved when she looked more closely at him. “John, what happened to you?” She reached out to him.

“Nothing happened to me,” he said, pulling away from her grasp. "Stop it."

His eyes were red and his face tear-streaked. Sarah knew it took a lot to get tears from her boy. She looked at Fiona and was rewarded with a hasty glance away. “What happened, Fi?”

“Nothing, Mom,” John said. “Why can't you leave it alone?” He turned on his heel and bolted away from her.

Sarah watched him go, her mouth open, then turned back to her friend. “You're not going to tell me?”

“Not if the lad doesn't want me to. Drink your tea.”

Sarah turned in the direction John had gone and forced herself to let it go. He was all in one piece. That was the main thing. Whatever had happened, he didn't want to share it with her. She had to admit that had started to happen more and more. On top of everything else, she thought miserably, I'm losing my little boy, too.

She sipped her tea, letting the heat slip down her throat and soothe her. A young woman approached and spooned up a bowl of soup. Sarah couldn't help notice how outlandish the woman, Caitlin's, outfit was. Dressed in skintight leggings with a low-cut top, she looked like she was dressed for a night of clubbing, not eating stew by a campfire. The girl made a dramatic show of looking at Sarah from head to toe before sneering and turning away.

“What the heck is her problem?”

Fiona sighed. “Well, Caitlin is a special case, there's no mistake. But still, you can't be too surprised not to have people waving flags when you show up, what with you so standoffish and all.”

“Standoffish? Are you serious?”

“Sarah, we've talked about this before. You and your setting up in Deidre and Seamus's old cottage far outside our walls—”

“First, Fiona, you don't have walls, and second, you know we took their cottage because it's hidden from the road. We're safer there.”

“There's nothing safer than numbers,” a voice boomed out, making Sarah spill her tea on her jeans. Mike Donovan definitely had a big way about him, not the least of which was his voice. Using it now, while he was still a good twenty yards away, her first thought was incredulity that he had heard enough of their conversation to enter into it.

“Hey, Mike,” she said. “Still banging on that drum, are you?”

“Sure, and I'll be banging on it until you and David come to your senses and move out of the McClenny place and over here with us.”

Mike squatted down next to the two women and Sarah couldn't help but think it wasn't an easy feat with his long legs. “You doing alright, Sarah?” His eyes pierced hers in anything but a casual inquiry and his directness made Sarah catch her breath.

“We're doing good, Mike,” she said, smiling at him. “We're hanging in there.”

The look he gave her said that was not the question he had asked. Before she had the chance to divert him along safer lines, a commotion behind him in the direction of the stables did it for her. She looked past him to see David and John walking quickly toward them. John was trying to talk to David and was running along beside him. David was walking, his chin high and confrontational, his fists clenched at his sides.

“I want a word with you, Donovan,” he said abruptly as he approached the group.

Mike stood up slowly and turned to face him. Sarah saw him rest his hands on his hips in a gesture of calm and insouciance. She stood up too.

“Woodson,” Mike said calmly.

“It's none of your business,” John said hotly to his father. “It's my business and I've taken care of it.”

David ignored him, his eyes drilling into Mike Donovan. “Some of the guys at the stable mentioned to me that you beat my son today?”

Sarah gasped and couldn't help looking at Mike and then John.

“It's none of your business!” John said, jerking his father by the sleeve to get his attention. “I screwed up.”

“I asked you a question, Donovan,” David said, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“That's right,” Mike said. “John knows the rules. He broke ‘em. He was punished for it.”

“You…you struck him?” Sarah asked, looking at John with the streaks of dirty tears down his face.

Mike turned to her. “I gave him a hiding, same as I'd do to anyone if through horseplay and uncaring they deprived the community out of hard-earned food.” He turned back to David. “You think this is a game, Woodson? You think we're camping out here? This is life and death, man.”

“You arrogant bastard,” David said. “You got your own private dictatorship here, don't you? Donovan's Kingdom.”

“No, Dad,” John said walking over to Mike and standing in front of him. “It's not like that. I was wrong. It's the rule. We gotta have rules. Especially now.”

Sarah gritted her teeth and took a long breath to keep control of her emotions, but she saw David lose his own as his face contorted into a mask of fury and intent.

Just when she knew he was about to launch himself at Mike, the earth rumbled beneath their feet and a roar of thunderous noise bombarded the camp, building to an excruciating pitch until the noise obliterated everything.