The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 29
Predictably, no one did.
“That’s the sound of the truth,” Colin practically whispered. Then with more force: “I asked you a fucking question, and what I get is fucking…silence. And doesn’t that just tell me everything I need to know? Doesn’t that tell me the truth, right there?”
Still, no one responded.
Colin slammed his fist down on the desk, making them jump. “DOESN’T IT?!”
But again they refused to respond.
Colin straightened, frowning as anxieties creeped into the edges of his mind.
What’s happening right now?
—you’re losing your shit—
Why aren’t they talking?
—because you’re crazy—
Why won’t anyone just tell me the truth?!
—because everyone’s fucking lying to you—
Yes, that’s true. Everyone always fucking lies.
—unless it really is because you’re crazy—
Am I crazy?
—are you crazy?—
Is any of this real?
—no—
Am I just paranoid and lashing out at the only allies I have left in the world?
—perhaps—
His thoughts twisted and turned on themselves, like a bucket of worms. But at least now he had the strength and resolve not to let them tear him in two. His center would hold. For now.
“Was it Jax and Marie?” Colin asked tonelessly.
Was Colin imagining it, or was that a furtive glance between Bran and Kat?
His heart dipped further. You, too, Bran? Would you lie to me too?
But then Bran nodded. “Yeah, I got a good look at them. And I’m pretty damn sure it was them. I just…”
“What?” Colin asked, feeling pretty wise and magnanimous for not screaming at that precise moment. He really was a good leader. Wasn’t he?
Bran grimaced. “I just don’t know how they survived.”
Colin’s eyes slid to Kat once again. “What about you, Honeybuns? Do you know how they survived?”
She shook her head.
“Say it,” Colin hissed. “With your fucking words.”
“No.”
Colin pictured the little pocket pistol in his desk drawer. What would happen if he just pulled it out and shot her right in the face? How would Bran react? Colin was almost curious enough to do it. But then he thought, If I kill her, I can’t control the infected. If I kill her, Lander might get mad.
Colin didn’t like to admit when someone else was stronger than him, but for now he reconciled himself to it. You don’t piss off the guy who controls all the infected in a twenty-mile radius of you. That’s bad for business. Especially when your business is free-range cattle.
Then another thought came to him.
What if it was Lander? What if he was the one that saved Jax and Marie?
But why? To what end? Why would Lander betray Colin, when Colin was giving him exactly what he asked for? What he’d been wanting for so long now?
“Where are they?” Colin said, a bit absently.
Bran stirred. “Bea and the other guy?”
Colin nodded.
Bran hiked a thumb over his shoulder. “They’re in the empty silo. Tied up. Guards posted.”
Colin glanced at his office window. The shadows were already lengthening. How long until dark? A few hours. He had time.
“I want to talk to them,” Colin said, and, without waiting for a response, stalked around the desk and out of his office, heading for the old, empty silo.
Chapter 29
The time between when Sam had been captured and when he’d been tied up in the old, empty silo had been some of the strangest moments of his life.
The buttstroke from Bran’s shotgun hadn’t knocked Sam out, though it’d rung his bell something fierce. He remembered still seeing everything around him—albeit blurred and doubled. He heard the screams and barks and gunfire, and tasted the blood pouring down the back of his throat.
But as far as conscious, rational thought? No, he didn’t get that back until he was already in the utility bed of the ATV, roaring towards points unknown. He’d been flat on his back. His right shoulder smushed against the sidewall. His left shoulder smushed against Bea’s. And Kat, crouching over both of them, her teeth bared, a hand on each of their throats.
The threat had been implicit by the grip Kat had on his windpipe. If he tried something, Kat could—and would—rip his throat out. It was as good as being held at gunpoint.
So Sam had lain there, and gathered his jangled senses, and marshaled his strength. He waited for an opportunity. For Kat to make a mistake. Or for Bran to drive them over a big bump that set her off balance. Something. Anything.
He was not so lucky. Bran drove like he knew every nook and cranny of the terrain, and never once hit a bump so big that it did anything more than jostle them a bit. And Kat? Kat was intensely focused. Not once did her attention wander. Not once did she adjust her tense body to make allowances for a straining muscle. Not once did her grip on their throats shift.
He found himself wondering how the hell she could keep it up. He knew that primals were possessed of some pretty insane strength and endurance. But the drive was long and unstable, and Kat never showed even a hint of fatigue, mental or physical.
It was the mental thing that got him. Because animals couldn’t maintain that level of focus for so long. Shit, neither could most humans for that matter. And what did that mean?
Hybrid vigor, he thought, with a wash of surrealism that made him feel like if he weren’t already flat on his back, he’d’ve stumbled under the vertigo of it. Maybe they’re stronger AND smarter than us.
Maybe they’re a better species altogether.
Maybe this was just evolution. Maybe homo sapiens was destined to be outbred and outperformed until they were extinct. Just like the Neanderthals.
It was an otherworldly experience to lay there, completely at the mercy of a being who was so obviously superior to him. He began to wonder about the other aspects of humanity—the aspects that the primals seemed to be missing. What about a sense of right and wrong? Kindness? Goodness? Compassion?
No other species seemed to be capable of those things in the way that humans were. And yet Sam wondered if those were just the things that were going to get them all killed.
Evolution could punish a species for their mental characteristics just as much as their physical ones. After all, the dodo went extinct because it had no fear of man, and was subsequently hunted mercilessly. Were all those high-minded ideals of the human condition just latent weaknesses lurking inside of them, waiting for some other, tougher version of their species to take advantage of them?
And if humanity went extinct, and no other species was capable of those ideals, would those ideals go extinct too? Would compassion die out with the only species that had ever grown to have a sense of it?
For some reason, that idea burned hot in Sam’s chest. Made him want to fight all the harder. Made him want to preserve that precious spark that lay somewhere in the mind of humanity. It was the first and only of its kind. It could not be allowed to go out.
And that was the strangest thing of all: to suddenly be confronted with the knowledge that all of your previous motivations were thin facades, manufactured by the mind to cover what truly animated your actions.
The question was, Why are you still fighting? He’d never pressed himself hard enough for the answer. He’d always assumed he was doing it because It’s better to die fighting and It’s about the guy next to you and Never give up, never surrender and various other gung-ho rationales he’d heard from others along the way.
And so he’d covered the truth with those facades. And only now did they fall away to reveal the plain, terrifying reality that he’d always known, but never wanted to look at: If humanity died out, then everything good about them would cease to be, and never be again.
Perhaps an idealistic notion for someone whose adulthood had been formed in the savagery of the collapse. That he hadn’t allowed it to completely rot out the good in him was kind of a miracle. Somehow, through it all, Sam had managed to find beauty where he could. He’d become a sort of emotional camel, sustaining his soul through all-too-infrequent waterings in a desert of cruelty. His oases had been glimpses of the good that still remained.
People who didn’t know if they’d make it through the winter, sharing what they had in honor of a holiday barely remembered. People who helped a stranger, even when they knew it could cost them their life. A light-hearted joke passed between friends on a dark day. A pretty girl’s passing smile in a wasteland of hardships.
Despite the hand gripping his throat, Sam cast a sidelong glance at Bea, and almost laughed. In a way, the whole thing between them was silly. To risk your life for someone you barely knew, based on a glance, and a moment of attraction. But life doesn’t mean much if you lose your soul. And this was how Sam kept his alive.
By not just noticing those beautiful moments, but actively seeking them. After all, Bea had yet to smile at him. But sometimes you have to make the beautiful things happen, even in the unlikeliest of circumstances. Sometimes you have to dig to find water.
He wanted to say something to Bea in that instant, but felt like Kat’s hands were heavily suggesting that silence might be the better option. A few moments after that, the strangely cerebral experience was broken by the sudden deceleration of the ATV. It trundled to a stop. Sam couldn’t see anything but Kat’s face and the bright blue sky, but he could smell manure and livestock. Without the tires rumbling under him, he could hear the sounds of them too. Some bored lowing in the distance.
He guessed they’d taken him and Bea back to the ranch. There was a whole lot of ways that this could go, but trying to formulate a plan at this juncture was just speculating without data. Based on what Bran had said just before walloping him in the face, Sam didn’t think he or Bea were in immediate danger of being killed.
That, of course, is an easy thing to realize academically. But it does nothing for the pit of helpless dread you feel when a bunch of strangers with guns rip you out of a utility bed, slam you on the ground, and start tying your hands behind your back.
Just stay calm, Sam told himself, forcing his mind from a nightmarish parade of images. Meat hooks. Cattle prods. Bullwhips. Branding irons. There were a lot of ways to fuck someone up on a ranch.
He focused instead on the moment. This moment right now. Stay present. Watch. Listen. Absorb.
All lessons that Lee had taught him. Lee had some experience with these things, but this was the first time Sam had found himself in unfriendly hands.
First time for everything, Sam thought as he was hauled roughly to his feet by someone who immediately snaked their arm through Sam’s and torqued his shoulders, forcing him to hobble along, bent over double and staring at the ground. All he saw of his captor was a pair of battered boots.
Had Kat or Bran been wearing boots? He couldn’t remember. It probably wasn’t Kat. The legs and feet made him think it was a man.
He snuck a glance behind him, and saw Bea being hauled along in a similar position by a guy Sam didn’t recognize. A bit further back, the ATV, and Bran and Kat standing beside it, seeming to be in the middle of a heated conversation. Whatever the hell Bran was so mad about, he wasn’t advertising it to the rest of the ranch. His voice was just hissing whispers over the sound of Sam’s feet scuffing through the fine gravel.
He thought about saying something to his captor, but the way the man was yanking him along told him he’d probably just get a punch in the face as a response.
After twenty-one steps—Sam was counting—they passed into a heavy shadow. It was dark enough that Sam could barely see. They were inside of something. The sounds of the ranch grew suddenly distant. Their breaths and the scuffing of their feet echoed sharply. The smell of horses and cows and manure were replaced by the dingy smell of old grain.
The man pulled Sam deep into the shadows, and then swiped his legs out from under him, sending him face-first into what felt like a concrete floor. Fine dust puffed into Sam’s mouth and nose as he inhaled. He coughed it out, thinking, What a dick—that wasn’t necessary.
Sam rolled onto his side and craned his neck to look at his captor. He couldn’t see much but the light from outside glimmering across the side of the man’s sweaty face.
“You move,” the man growled. “I’ll beat you until you can’t.”
Sam opened his mouth to say, “No problem, Chief,” but then thought that might be a bit glib. Best for his captors to think of him as scared and easy-to-control. So he gave the guy a slack-jawed nod instead.
Sam didn’t enjoy killing other human beings. However, this was one of those moments where he figured that perforating someone’s skull with a handful of five-five-six projectiles would probably feel pretty satisfying.
The man who’d been pulling Bea along gave her a similar warning and then departed. Neither man fully left, though. They stepped through the door of what Sam was beginning to realize was a grain silo, and posted themselves on either side. Close enough to keep an eye on them.
Sam let his head rest back on the concrete. A pall of grain particulate swirled in the sunlight coming through the door, stirred up by their passing feet. Above him, the steel walls of the silo disappeared into darkness.
What do I do now?
It hadn’t been hard for him to sell being scared to the guy guarding them. He wasn’t pissing his pants and shaking, and he certainly intended to fight back if he could, but he was scared. And, unfortunately, there weren’t many fighting options available.
The door to the silo was maybe ten yards away, and already Sam had seen both of the guards peek in on them. So he’d have to stay put. If he started moving around too much, the guards would notice, and likely beat the shit out of him. Or worse.
Trying to talk to the guards wasn’t exactly a guaranteed failure, but it didn’t look hopeful. Sam put a mental category on that one: Last Ditch Effort.
Getting free and charging them? That just wasn’t going to happen. They’d tied their hands and feet good and tight. Sam could already tell from wrenching his wrists and ankles that there was zero budge in them. And he had no means of cutting himself free.
Besides all that, even if they did manage to escape, what were they going to do? It was broad daylight in a ranch filled with armed men that were roughly as irritable as yellowjackets around a kicked nest. Sneaking out wasn’t a realistic option. And fighting his way out was such a long shot, he put it about on par with talking his way out.
So, yet again…
What do I do now?
Bea gagged and coughed—probably on the grain dust.
Sam inclined his head in her direction. Saw the line of her body lying on its side, facing away from him, a few yards away. The sunlight coming through the open door illuminated her bare skin. Sam had ripped her shirt off to handle her wound, but now felt bad for leaving her so compromised. Being stripped to her dirty old bra while being held captive would only compound her sense of vulnerability.
After a moment of looking at her, he realized she was shivering hard. He didn’t think she’d lost enough blood to be experiencing shock. And the silo was borderline sweltering. But sometimes the pain and trauma alone can set a body to shaking.
“You okay?” he breathed out in a low whisper.
She didn’t respond. Had she not heard him, or was she unwilling to talk?
He couldn’t let her retreat into herself. She needed to stay with him, whether she liked it or not.
“How’s your shoulder?” he pressed.
“It’s got a fucking hole in it,” she hissed back, not turning to look at him.
Sam wasn’t put out by her response. He actually found it encouraging. If she had the energy to get pissed, then she was doing pretty good, all things considered.
Now, how to keep her engaged?
“So,” he whispered. “Finally got you alone.”
He saw the way her head jerked. She was still for a moment. Then she contorted herself with a grunt, and managed to roll so she was facing him. Just enough sunlight coming in to see the glare on her face.
“Are you fucking serious?” she said, a bit loud.
“Ssh.” Sam glanced at the door, but it didn’t seem either of their guards had heard. He looked back to Bea. “And no, I’m not serious. Just…trying to bring the mood up.”
“This isn’t a fucking party.”
Sam managed a shrug. “You got a knife?”
The shadows across her face morphed into a frown. “No.”
“Anything on you at all that you can use to quietly and discretely cut yourself free?”
She thought about it for a moment. “No.”
“Yeah, me neither,” Sam grunted. “So, since we have no solution to our current predicament, we can either sit here and obsess about how fucked we are, or we can try to be pleasant for what might be the last hours of our life.”
“So that’s it? You’re giving up?”
“Definitely not. I’m keeping my eyes open.”
“For what?”
“Any possibility to get out of here. And if it comes, then we take it. But it hasn’t. So…” Sam shifted to get his shoulder in a position where his arm wasn’t going numb. “Now, we sit in silence, or we talk. I prefer to talk.”
“Maybe I prefer silence.”
“That’ll just make you more nervous. Or at least it will me. Talking helps.”
A pause. “You’ve been in this situation before?”
“Not precisely this, no,” Sam admitted. “But I’ve been forced to wait for an unknown fate a handful of times. Like I said, talking helps.” Then, rather than continue bandying about with whether they were going to talk or not, he decided to say something that might spur Bea on. “Is there any reason why Colin Horner would want to capture you specifically?”
He’d expected a hard negative response. What he got was an unsettling length of silence.
Sam frowned and turned his head to see her better. “Bea? Do you know why they targeted you?”
