Kingdom Come (12 page)

The dead were lucky. We were the ones stuck in hell on earth.

“Come on,” Ethan said, rising to his feet and wiping his eyes.

He held his hand out for mine, and I eyed it for a minute. Ethan was good. Honest. Brave. Much braver than I. I wished I could figure out where his strength came from, because I didn’t have the motivation to even stand. Fresh tears pooled in my eyes as I stared into his, which were filled with understanding. They also still held that fierce determination I’d come to know him for. Maybe if I took his hand, some of that strength would spread to me. When I did place my hand in his, however, I didn’t feel stronger. I didn’t feel braver. But I did feel like I wasn’t in this alone, which was better than nothing.

“Stay together,” he said as we fell into our attempt at a jog. It more closely resembled hobbling down the road.

“Wouldn’t dream of anything else,” I said breathlessly.

“What the hell was that horse thing?” he asked.

“Soldier of the apocalypse. Guess it wasn’t a crock, after all.” I squeezed my eyes closed and tightened my hold on his hand, trying to force out the mental image of Dr. Fowler lying in the road. I couldn’t believe we’d just left him there. Alone. After all he’d done for us, we left him to die alone.

“Watch out!” Ethan shouted.

My eyes popped open just as he yanked me out of the direct path of a fireball that collided with the broken pavement. The two of us fell to the ground, and I landed on top of him with a
thud
. We scrambled to our feet in time to escape another one that hit where we’d landed, setting off an explosion of flames to our right. We broke into a full-on sprint down the road, pumping our legs with every ounce of energy our bodies could muster. I didn’t think about the pain. I didn’t think about the lack of air in my lungs. All I could think about was survival.

We came upon the rest of the group a few minutes later, and we stopped the second we reached them. They stared at us, confused, while we panted for breath.

“Where’s Fowler?” Danny asked.

Ethan took in one more haggard breath before starting down the road once more. “Gone,” was his only explanation. Haven gasped and Danny’s eyes widened. Nate seemed unaffected, but honestly, I was learning not to expect much from him in terms of emotion. Danny was right—there was no loyalty where Nate was concerned.

“Where’re the bags?” Danny called to Ethan’s retreating figure.

Ethan froze, and my heart skipped a beat. Our bags. Our food, our blankets . . . all of it had been left scattered on the road. I turned and looked in the direction from which we’d come, only to see that very road burning in the distance.

“Gone,” Ethan repeated. He turned to face us, walking backward while speaking. “We don’t have time to stand around. We need to find a safe place to stop and make a plan.” He turned again, and without question, the other two guys fell into step behind him.

As I started to follow, Haven reached out and touched my shoulder. Her face was white, her eyes weary. “He’s really gone?” she whispered. “Dr. Fowler?”

“Yeah,” I answered with a small nod. “Heart attack, I think.”

She looked at me for a beat longer before glancing to the sky. I followed her gaze, and saw that the sky was now a dewy orange color.
Fitting.

“May the angels lead you in, Dr. Fowler,” Haven said softly. 

My eyes snapped back to her, and her own were closed with her face lifted toward the sky. I wasn’t sure why, but her words spiked nothing but bitterness, which burned inside me. How could she believe in a heaven at a time like this?

My mom always made sure I said my prayers at night. She said we had to be thankful for all we’d been given, and that prayer was our direct connection to God. He and his angels were up there, watching over us and helping us when need-be. All I could think was, if they
were
up there, they were pretty damn crappy at their jobs.

Chapter 12

The cave we stumbled upon some time later wasn’t ideal; it was damp, moldy, and smelled like raw sewage. Of course, we didn’t smell much better. But there was no fire. That made it good enough for the time being.

We huddled together just inside the cave, peering out the opening as fire streaked across the sky. It crashed into trees, into roads—anything it could consume and engulf in flames. The
only
reprieve was the rapid shift in temperature. Instead of being well below freezing once the sun set, it was now warm enough to stop the shivers. At least we didn’t run the chance of freezing to death anymore. There was a bonus I never imagined.

Ethan stepped in front of me, and his bloodshot eyes and stubble-lined jaw broke my heart. He was a far cry from the boy in the cellar. Now, I wanted to be the one to wrap my arms around
him
, to tell him we’d be okay and that he wasn’t alone in this. Instead, for some stupid reason, I hesitated. He held out his hand to me.

“Can I see the map, please?” he asked.

I nodded, reaching into my pocket to pull out the paper I’d jammed in there earlier. It wasn’t much more than a crumpled ball, but it was still readable. He unfolded it, studying it while Danny stepped over to look at it too.

“We’re right about here, I think,” Ethan said, pointing. “And we need to get here, according to Doc—” He cleared his throat to cover his choked up voice.

“Ethan?” I asked softly. “Are you all right?”

He shook his head, his closed eyes telling me to stop. “The doctor said he—Bennett—should be in Kentucky. At that safe place he was going on about on the radio call.”

Danny clapped his hands together. “All right, then. Off to the hills we go. What’s the plan?”

Ethan hesitated, looking outside once again. Things hadn’t calmed down at all. We couldn’t possibly go out there, right? Not in that mess. I stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder. I expected him to flinch away or shrug me off, but he didn’t.

“What’re you thinking?” I asked.

“We have to walk to fucking Kentucky,” he murmured, shaking his head. “
Kentucky
, Kerri. That just seems so—”

“Insane?”

“Exactly.” He sighed and walked away, and my hand slipped from his shoulder. He ran a hand through his hair while pacing the length of the cave. Guilt filled me in knowing we’d just kind of forced the leader thing on him, but who else made sense? Danny wasn’t the leaderish type. Physically, Haven was as weak as I was. And Nate . . . well, he was something all his own.

Ethan placed his hands on his hips and took a deep breath. “Guys, I wish I had this drawn out plan. But damn it, I’m just as clueless as the rest of you. My only suggestion is to follow the route Fowler mapped out, and hope it takes us where we need to go.”

“He said Bennett’s family has an estate there,” I added. “So maybe, if we follow this” —I pointed to the map— “then we can just, I don’t know, narrow it down when we find a huge house?”

Danny smiled—one of those “bless your heart, you naive girl” kind of smiles. “He broadcast to the world—the
world
—that this is a safe haven. So, it’s gonna be more than a ‘big house.’ It’s going to be a sprawling estate on a massive chunk of land. Hell, it may even take up half of Kentucky, for all we know. And plus?” He tapped his temple. “Think about it. Don’t you think that people will still be heading in that direction? People desperate for safety, especially now? For all we know, he’s already come back to the radio and made another announcement during all this chaos. I say we just follow the crowd, because you know there’s going to be one.”

He had a point. Before I could tell him that, however, Nate scoffed. The rest of us looked over at him, leaning back against the far wall of the cave. Danny blew out an exasperated breath, like he was dealing with a kid in the middle of a tantrum. Pretty accurate, actually.

“Got something to add?” Danny asked. “Out with it.”

Nate rolled his eyes, kicked off the wall, and strolled back over to us. “I’m just wondering what the hell you all plan to do if we actually make it to this place.” He stopped in front of Ethan. “Seriously, oh wise one. What’s the point of all this? Why do you even care?”

“I care,” Ethan began, “because if there’s any way to stop this, then as decent human beings, we should. I care because—”

“Not only that,” Nate broke in, “but if—and that’s a big if—we get there, don’t you think the damn place will be crawling with guards? Security? You think a guy that smart is going to be out in the open, waiting for someone with a bright idea to come strolling in and put his game to an end?”

I swear, if looks could kill, Nate would have been six feet under already. Ethan balled his shaking fists at his sides.

“Didn’t think about that, did ya?” Nate asked with a smirk. “Dude, you’re fucking pathetic. I guarantee the only reason you’re even pretending to care is so you can get into crazy chick’s pants over here.”

My jaw dropped when he pointed at me. “Excuse
you
—”

The words were barely out of my mouth before Ethan grabbed the front of Nate’s shirt and shoved him back against the wall.
Crap.
Danny and I rushed over just as Ethan yanked on the shirt, only to smack him against the wall again. I cringed when Nate’s head hit with a
thud
, but it didn’t seem to faze him at all. Then again, with his mouth, he was probably used to getting the crap beat out of him.

“Leave her out of this,” Ethan said. His face was flushed, his jaw rigid as he stared Nate down. “Let’s get one thing straight: you talk shit about her, you answer to me. And I don’t think you want to do that.”

As much as Nate deserved a black eye, I couldn’t let Ethan do this. Not for me. I inched forward and placed my hand on his arm. His stance slacked just a bit, but he didn’t break his hold on Nate.

“Stop,” I said firmly. “He’s not worth breaking your knuckles over.”

The two of them glared for a long moment, each daring the other to make the first move. All the muscles in Ethan’s body were tense with rage, and while I guess I should have been flattered he was quick to jump to my defense, I didn’t want this. Nate wasn’t worth it, and I didn’t want Ethan getting hurt over me, either. I knew this wasn’t who he was—he was too good for this. For all of it.

Finally, he released his hold on Nate and backed away with a shake of his head. “She’s right,” Ethan muttered, turning away and picking up the map from the ground. He smacked it a couple of times to get the dirt off, then walked to the back of the cave, where Haven was balled up with her knees to her chest. God, I felt bad for that girl, but I had no clue how to help her. I was
this close
to falling apart myself.

A loud smack to my right made me jump. I glanced over and Nate was holding his bleeding hand, which he had apparently punched into the wall.
Hot-headed idiot.
I rolled my eyes and my gaze traveled to Ethan, whose back was to me. I headed in his direction.

“Ethan?” I called when I got closer. He didn’t turn. Was he embarrassed? Still angry? My money was on pissed. When I reached him, I gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Don’t worry about him. He’s just looking for a fight.”

His shoulder shook ever-so-slightly under my hand. Slowly, I moved until I stood in front of him, and my heart broke as soon as I did. His face was still beet red, but now, there were tears streaming down his cheeks. When his eyes met mine, I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him into a tight hug.

“I’m losing it,” he rasped, grabbing on to me. “I’m turning into the guy my parents said I was.”

As much as it pained me to do so, I pulled away to look him square in the face. “No, you’re not. You’re good, Ethan. There’s nothing you can do to change my mind about that.”

“I wanted to kill him,” he blurted. “Every muscle in my fucking body twitched with the urge to beat him until he was dead. That’s not normal.”

No, it’s not
. Blinking away my own tears, I reached up and cupped his cheek. “We left normal behind a long time ago. And no, it’s not normal. But you’ve got my back, and I’ve got yours. I’m not going to let you kill anybody, ‘kay? Pretty sure Danny won’t, either. Heck, he might do it for you, if you ask nicely.”

He tried to laugh, but it came out as a mix between a snort and sob. He stared at me hard, as if he was trying to figure me out. He’d have to stare a long time. I couldn’t even figure myself out these days.

Footsteps sounded close by, signaling Danny’s arrival. He slapped Ethan on the shoulder, then looked between the two of us. “What’s the consensus?” he asked. “What’re we doing now, oh fearless leader?”

Ethan shot him a glare, but sighed and glanced back to the map he still held in one hand. “We have a long way to go, and not a lot of time to get there.”

I studied the map, grimacing when I saw the long, ragged line that led to Kentucky. Ethan was right, though. We didn’t exactly have time on our side. “Well, look at this,” I said, pointing to a huge red dot. “It’s in the mountains, right? Aren’t there usually tons of signs along the main roadways? If we find our way to one of those, then it should be a straight shot.”

“There aren’t gonna be signs.” Danny sighed. “They’re probably all blown to shit by now.”

“I don’t know if you guys realized something,” Haven began. I jumped at the sound of her voice, as I’d actually sort of forgotten she was there. She walked to Danny’s side, her own face dirty and streaked with tear stains. “We can’t exactly go strolling outside when it’s raining fire. Did you forget that detail?”

Ethan and I stared at one another, and with a nod, he replied, “Guess we’re taking a break for the night.”

I scrunched my nose at the surroundings, but knew we didn’t have any other choice. It was sleep in a mold-infested cave, or chance burning to death. Without another word, I plopped down onto the ground. It was hard to believe that just last night, I was curled up on a couch with a blanket and pillow. Now, as I sat on a patch of dirt, that luxury was nothing more than a distant memory.

Ethan sat next to me, and Haven and Danny sat beside him as we all faced the cave’s opening. Nate’s back was to us, perhaps gazing at the outside world as everything we knew likely burned to ash. I couldn’t wrap my head around the insanity of it all. I didn’t know if I wanted to.