Shadows Have Gone (29 page)

“I’m sorry, but I didn’t see. Can you please . . .” The young man wriggled a little and looked up at Carly with pleading eyes. “My arms are cramping, and my ass is numb.”

Carly bent over and cut his bonds. She had to saw at them a bit with the scissors because the blades were getting dull from her tree-cutting, but she finally worked through the cable.

The man stood up, rubbing his wrists. He spotted Sam, lurking in the weeds beside the road. “Oh shit!”

Carly glanced over at Sam. “It’s okay. He’s with me.”

“Is that a—”

“A wolf, yeah.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to have to leave this part out when I tell the story. It’s already too unbelievable.”

Carly brushed past him to the piles of gear. Two rifles lay on the ground with a pair of holstered pistols. A bag lay nearby, and when she opened the flap, she saw boxes of ammo. Carly picked up everything but one of the pistols. “Sorry to rob you, but I really need these.”

“I was sort of expecting someone would come along and take it anyway. And maybe not untie me.” He nodded toward the pistol still lying on the ground. “Can I pick that up?”

“Are you going to point it at me?”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “As I said, lady, it’s been a hell of a night.”

“Go ahead.”

He did, checking the load before he holstered it. “Thanks.”

Carly pointed south. “If you follow this road, then turn east, you’ll come upon a walled town. Tell them Carly said to help you out.”

“Thanks, but I’m heading back to my base.”

“I wouldn’t.” Carly picked up a ration kit she spotted under a knot of weeds and handed it to him.

“Why?”

“Because it’s probably not going to be there anymore.”

Carly changed her direction, heading back the way she’d come. She trotted for a while, until she had to stop and catch her breath, and while she was gasping for air, she admitted to herself that running was hopeless. She’d never catch up to the truck Justin had hijacked. Her mission to intercept had changed to a rescue mission, to get Justin out of whatever trap they’d laid for him in Lewis’s lair.

There was the sound of a footstep behind her, and then another. But Sam didn’t growl. Carly looked down at him in puzzlement. She raised one of the guns and turned toward the sound.

Pearl peeked around a tree. “Carly?”

“Oh my God!” Carly lowered the gun and rushed forward to embrace her. “I’m so glad to see you. Are you okay? Is Veronica all right?”

“She’s fine, if Stacy hasn’t killed her. I took her back to Colby before I set out again myself. What happened to you? Did you escape?”

“Yes, after they took me to their camp at the propane station. Listen, Pearl, it was all a trap for Justin.”

She nodded. “I suspected so.”

“We’ve got to stop him before he gets there. Did you see any sign of him at Colby?”

“He’d been there and gone before I got back with Veronica,” Pearl said. “I think he knew as soon as they told them all three of us were gone.”

“Does he know where the propane station is?” Carly asked, clutching Pearl’s arms in her urgency.

Pearl nodded. “He told Stan he could track the people who left Clatyon. Their truck was leaking oil.”

“Stan? He talked to Stan?”

Pearl nodded again but hesitation was in her eyes. “In case . . . in case he didn’t come back.”

Justin, with all his contingency plans, probably would have told Stan where to find the envelopes that contained his instructions, maps to the caches of food, and weapons he’d squirreled away in case of emergency evacuation. And there was a letter to Dagny from both of them inside. A letter they hoped she would never have to read.

Carly let her go. “I’ve got to catch up to him before he gets there.”

“Carly, he already knows it’s a trap. You’re not telling him anything he doesn’t know.”

“You think I’d let him walk in there alone?”

“He wouldn’t want you there.”

“Don’t start, Pearl. You know this is something I have to do.”

“And you know this is something I can’t let you do. Justin would kill me. For the love of God, go home and take care of your baby, of your community, the way Justin would want. He’s smart. He’s tough. He’ll find his own way out. You know he wouldn’t want you to—”

“And I wouldn’t want him coming after me, either, but do you think that would stop him? Do you think any force on earth could stop him?”

Pearl sighed. “No.”

“Exactly. And nothing’s gonna stop me, either.”

“I will.”

Carly turned to face her. “I don’t want to fight with you, Pearl.”

To Carly’s surprise, tears filled Pearl’s eyes, but her jaw was still set with determination. “Look, Carly, Justin would kill me, and this I mean literally.”

“Tell him I hit you.”

Pearl laughed. “He would never forgive me if I let you go after him, no matter what you did. He’ll never trust me again.”

“I know you well enough to say I don’t think you have the will to do what you’d have to do in order to stop me. I’ve got that will, Pearl. If I have to knock you out, I’ll do it, but I’d prefer not to. You
know
I will. So it comes down to a question of which one of us has the most will at the moment. And I think we both know the answer to that.” Carly stared into Pearl’s eyes and waited. It was the calm, quiet way she gazed into Sam’s eyes until he bowed to her will, recognized her as Alpha.

It was Pearl who looked away. “Carly, you’re putting me into an impossible situation.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. But this situation was already impossible. There’s no way I can
not
go, just like Justin couldn’t—even though he knew it was a trap.”

“Your baby . . . Carly, I’m not a mother. You know what you’re doing creates a substantial probability that you’re leaving her an orphan.”

Carly nodded. She knew Lewis didn’t necessarily want to kill her, but something could go wrong. All it would take was one nervous twitch of a trigger.

“How can you do that to her?”

“All I can hope is that someday she’ll understand why I couldn’t leave her father behind.”

Pearl rubbed her forehead. “I’ll come with you, then.”

Carly hesitated. “I’d rather you went back, so I’ll know . . . so I’ll know I’m leaving the town in good hands. Know I’m leaving my daughter in good hands.”

Pearl gave her a slight smile. “You never know. One of us may live.”

“You sure about this?” Carly offered Pearl one of the assault rifles she’d taken from the soldier.

Pearl took it and, after checking the load, she slung it across her back. “I’m gonna regret this.”

“Probably. I’ll just be happy if we live to regret it.”

The truck was leaking oil so badly Justin thought it must be deliberate. He shook his head, wondering if Lewis really thought Justin would be that rusty. Luckily for him, he’d come upon a second truck he could use to instead of having to head out on foot.

Lewis had done everything but draw Justin a map. The propane tanks in the back had a company logo on it with an address. He just had to follow the road signs to the town where it was located. He hoped the truck had enough fuel to make it, but Lewis would have thought of such things, he was sure.

It felt so strange to be driving after all this time, especially a deuce, a vehicle he had never expected to be in again. Where the hell had Lewis picked these up? Some National Guard station, he imagined. It represented a real commitment to playing army, because surely some of the civilian vehicles scattered around would have been easier to modify for his purpose.

The rural roads were mostly clear, and Justin knew where the bridges were out. He kept it slow, though, not only because speed felt so strange after such a long time, but because he wanted to have time to react to an ambush.

Justin didn’t know what to expect. He didn’t think Lewis would kill him. Injure him, perhaps, because it would be a lot easier to talk to an immobile man, but that had never been his style. He was more apt to engineer a situation he could fully control and then present the person with the illusion of choice. He liked that psychological shit.

Still miles to go to his destination. It gave him time to think. Time he wasn’t sure he wanted. He imagined Carly’s face in the sunshine, and her smile . . . then he saw her tied up, with tears welling in those soft brown eyes as she looked up at a captor that would . . . what?
 

Justin shook his head hard to shake the vision out of his thoughts. Lewis wouldn’t hurt her. Not yet, at least. He might threaten it later if Justin didn’t cooperate, but for now, he would keep her safe. Justin just hoped Carly hadn’t tried to fight her way free and force them to hurt her in order to subdue her.
That
Justin could envision, and it worried him.

She was strong, he reminded himself. Strong and smart, and she had Sam with her for backup. Knowing Carly, she could have defeated the entire group already. He ginned a little, picturing himself pulling up and finding Lewis trussed like a turkey on the ground with Carly’s foot planted on his back.

Damn Lewis for doing this to his family. His anger started to build again, and Justin forced it down. He had to think rationally, calmly. Lewis was counting on Justin being wild with fury because he had taken Justin’s wife. It was calculated to press all his buttons. Like the goddamn cereal.

So how was he going to play this? Justin considered going in silently, dropping anyone unlucky enough to stumble upon his path until he got to Lewis himself. It suited the furious and vengeful emotions roiling in his gut. But Lewis would be expecting that, wouldn’t he? The hotheaded little punk he’d rescued from the streets to reemerge and override all of Justin’s training.

Justin wasn’t going to do it. He was walking into a trap, and he knew it, so why not walk right up and knock on the fucking front door?

The propane station was surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. As Justin expected, Lewis had people stationed at the front gate, but only a small handful, not the full contingent he had expected. He’d had them build watchtowers, elevated, square platforms made of logs with corrugated metal roofs. He saw young faces peering over the half walls down at him as he slowly rolled the truck up to the gate.

A woman approached the driver’s door. Petite with a rounded figure, she was wearing fatigues that were rolled up at the cuffs and far too large for her.
She is so young
, Justin thought. Not much older than Kaden. Her dark brown skin was still spotted with youthful acne, and she wore Hello Kitty earrings.

The earrings alone told Justin that discipline in Lewis’s corps was not all it could have been. That worried him a little.

The young woman held her rifle in both hands, the barrel pointed to the side. It wavered a little with the nervous motions of her hands, but her voice was calm. “Are you Justin Thatcher?”

Justin nodded.

“He’s expecting you.”

“Yeah, I got that impression.” Justin opened the driver’s door and slid out of the truck. “You’ll find your driver near the Route 21 crossroads.”

She sucked in a short breath and clutched the rifle so hard the stock creaked.