The Valley: A Lee Harden Novel, page 47
As Lee clambered up the sloped wall of the drum towards the outside world, Sam took the initiative on the comms: “We’re in a cement truck, two blocks south of the megachurch.”
“Roger ‘at. Twenty seconds.”
Lee thrust his hands through the opening and pulled himself up. Heat washed over his face from a hundred small fires, and one very large one, directly across the street. The entire side of the building facing Lee had been struck down, and was now ablaze. The street had been smashed into a cratered moonscape. Smoke hung as heavy as fog, making the twinkling fires bleary and unfocused. Lee couldn’t even see more than twenty or thirty yards in any direction.
He pulled himself through the opening by a piece of metal framework, then leveraging his legs out and dropping to the ground. He realized that was a poor choice as his knees buckled on impact. He landed on his ass with a grunt, then quickly hauled himself to his feet again, scanning everywhere for movement.
It was difficult to make sense of the cataclysm that had been wrought. The blacktop was pummeled to chunks. For a moment, it seemed like the jagged remnants of the street was empty of bodies, but as his eyes adjusted to the scene and began picking out details he’d missed on his first pass, he realized that there were great swaths painted in steaming wetness. In amongst the broken hunks of concrete, he could see pieces of bodies. Only knew them for bodies because they were a different shape and texture than the rubble. He couldn’t see a single piece bigger than an arm. And it seemed there were as many pieces as there were chunks of concrete.
He could hear the others tumbling out of the cement truck behind him, cursing and slipping and clanking their way to the ground.
The sound of an engine drew Lee’s attention back in the direction of the megachurch. Headlights speared the brown gloom of smoke and dust.
“We’re passing the church,” Abe said. “Ten seconds—oh shit!”
There was the sound of tires chirping. The headlights dipped momentarily, and then rocked up as the truck came to a halt, still two blocks away from them.
“What’s the problem?” Lee said, starting to jog in that direction.
“This road is fucked!” Abe said, urgency in his tone. “I can’t drive over that shit or I’ll rip the undercarriage out! You gotta come to us!”
“Let’s move.” Lee picked up the pace, his slung rifle and grenade launcher banging dumbly into his thighs as he ran. His shoulders ached. His ribs ached. His knees ached. Aw, hell, everything ached. Two tears in a bucket.
He kept his pistol up, scanning from side to side, but there wasn’t much to see outside of smoke and destruction. Just the headlights ahead, a beacon promising safety.
“Can you see us?” Abe transmitted, flashing his high-beams.
“Yeah, we got—”
“Contact,” Sam uttered, his voice oddly quiet. Almost defeated. “Two o’clock.”
Lee slowed, but didn’t stop moving. He panned his pistol in the direction of two o’clock, and saw what he’d taken for shifting smoke, now coalescing into a multitude of shadowy figures. And then he did stop.
He glanced at the headlights again. Distance was hard to judge when all you had was light shining in your eyes, but he figured it was about a hundred yards to their extract vehicle. Almost directly between them and their salvation, a pack of twenty or so primals were emerging from a side street.
They weren’t running, but moving hectically about, like a dog trying to find the scent of something. Confused by the smoke and the fires and the disruption to the landscape. They hooted quietly back and forth to each other.
Lee very slowly eased the grenade launcher off his shoulder and set it gently on the ground, careful not to make noise. He kept the rifle, but the damn launcher was heavy, and something told him he was going to want to be light on his feet.
Lee started to move again, but this time slowly, picking his foot placement, and angling for the opposite side of the street from the primals. Maybe they wouldn’t notice them through the haze of smoke. Maybe their scents would be covered by it too. “Abe,” he transmitted, his voice an urgent whisper. “Kill those headlights—we got company.”
Abe didn’t respond, but the headlights winked out.
Lee kept his pistol directed at the shadows moving through the smoke, but glanced over his shoulder to confirm the others were staying with him. “Move quietly,” he breathed. “They might not notice us.”
Agonizing seconds brought them painstakingly to the pummeled sidewalk on their left, hugging the line of ruined buildings. They were approaching the intersection where the primals had emerged. The creatures were still mostly on the far side of the street, but a few had begun to circle wider and wider out into the intersection. They moved on all fours, heads low to the ground as though searching for something. They stopped frequently and seemed to smell things on the ground.
The pieces of their packmates?
Lee was shocked to realize that their worried hoots back and forth had taken on an anguished tone. Did they feel the loss of their family? And why was that so hard to believe? Perhaps because Lee had been fighting these creatures for so long, he’d forgotten that they used to be human. They were still social animals. They cared for each other and, at times, even displayed what Lee had to admit was something like affection.
Strange to see the destruction you’ve caused sour from a sense of victory into a low sense of guilt. Not that Lee wouldn’t do the same damn thing in a heartbeat, especially if it meant saving the lives of actual humans. But wholesale eradication of another species is just a slightly harder pill to swallow when you can hear them mourning for their dead.
He was also well aware that their mourning could turn instantly to rage if Lee and his people were spotted.
“How we looking, Lee?” Abe’s voice came, hushed.
The nearest primal was only fifteen yards away. Lee didn’t dare speak, so he responded with two clicks of his PTT.
Maybe if Lee hadn’t been injured, or perhaps if his legs had been a little fresher, he would have picked that left boot up the inch higher it needed to clear the bit of rebar sticking out of a chunk of rubble. But he was injured, and he was exhausted, and his left leg was his bum leg.
His boot caught on the rebar and he stumbled.
The chunk of concrete shifted.
The primal came upright, its head swiveling to Lee. Through the dense haze, Lee could only just make out the thing’s eyes. But they must’ve seen him too, because they were locked on. The primal snarled and lunged.
Lee had no choice but to fire his pistol. One shot that snapped the primal’s head back and sent it tumbling in mid-lunge. But that one shot was like a starter pistol, and the second it went off, every other primal seemed to burst from their strange, mourning ululations with renewed vigor.
“Go!” Lee barked, knowing there was only one thing to do about this. “I’ll hold them off!”
There was no time to argue. If there had been, Sam and Jones would have. But with no ammunition, and no time, and with twenty-something primals bearing down on them, they just bolted in the direction of the pickup truck.
Sam was already transmitting: “We’re coming in hot! Get ready to peel out!”
Lee fired again and again, choosing his targets, yes, but also trying to gain their attention. Yes, look at my bright muzzle flashes! Focus on me! His rounds were steady and evenly paced, two into that shadow, three into that one, always targeting the nearest ones while he moved laterally after the retreating figures of Sam, Jones, and Bea.
He wasn’t going to make it—back to snowball’s chance in hell—but he wasn’t just going to stand there in his last moments. If they wanted him, they’d find him a high-priced commodity.
Something came from behind him. It hit him in the shoulder right as he was pulling the trigger, sending his shot into the ground just as a primal was charging straight at him, a dozen of its packmates just behind it. Lee barely had time to register the whirl of white-blonde hair before Freya’s arm came down on his gun hand like she was chopping wood. He tried to tuck the weapon into retention, but she moved too fast for him, and the pistol went flying out of his grip.
“Motherf—” Lee stabilized himself after the shoulder-check, targeted the back of Freya’s head, and started to launch himself at her—
Wait.
The back of Freya’s head.
She’d moved past him already, and now stood between him and the charging primals, arms stretched out wide, snarling and barking like Kat had done to the challenging Alpha. The rushing primals skidded to a stop in front of her, their howls of rage turning instantly to plaintive, curious cries.
Another figure launched itself into the midst of this, taking a position shoulder to shoulder with Freya, and facing down the rapidly decelerating pack.
Kat. Standing side by side with her sister.
The primals coalesced into a jumble, forming a small crowd in front of Kat and Freya. They milled about but came no closer to the two hybrids. They craned their necks around and over each other, their feral eyes catching on Lee, and whenever they looked at him, their lips would peel back, revealing all their teeth.
But none of them came at him.
Freya and Kat would not allow it.
Lee’s chest worked hard with pent up breath. He glanced to his left, in the direction of the truck, and saw nothing but smoke. Sam and Jones and Bea had disappeared. Had they made it to the truck? Had the truck already left and Lee hadn’t heard it because he’d been shooting?
His answer came a split second later.
“Lee!” It was Abe. “You with us? Talk to me, brother!”
Lee very slowly raised his hand to his PTT, but again, didn’t dare to speak for fear that his voice would rupture the fragile truce before him. He clicked twice again.
“We got fifteen rifles that can come after you right now!” Abe said. “Gimme two clicks and we’ll come in guns blazing!”
Lee’s finger trembled on the PTT button, but he didn’t press it.
The grunts and growls from the pack of primals had settled now into mutters. Kat and Freya were no longer barking, but simply staring the creatures down, immovable. There was a distinct sense that if Kat and Freya let them, they’d rush Lee and tear him to pieces. They still wanted him. But in the strange hierarchy of the primals, what a hybrid said was law.
After a few more moments, Kat took a step back, then slowly turned her head to face Lee.
Lee met her gaze. Licked a dry tongue onto dry lips. “Uh…Thanks,” he croaked with a nod.
Kat blinked a few times, appearing to consider him. Lee didn’t care for that look. It bore a flavor of deciding his worth. Deciding whether or not to let him live. Finally, she spoke.
“Bran. Alive?”
Lee held eye contact and pressed his PTT. “Marie. Is Bran still alive?”
Please be alive. Lee suspected Kat’s decision hinged largely on that. It was the deal they’d made, after all.
“Standby,” Marie replied, sounding choked with relief just to hear his voice.
Lee waited, locked in with Kat, feeling the time drawing taut.
She shifted her feet. Her fingers curling and uncurling.
“He’s alive,” Marie finally said. “He’s alive and awake.”
Lee let out a slow breath through pursed lips, then nodded at Kat. “He’s alive. And he’s awake.”
Kat’s eyes blinked rapidly, pinched in the corners with an obvious flood of emotion. Her shoulders drooped with relief. “You and me,” she said. “We go. See him.”
“Okay.” Lee was entirely agreeable. Anything to get him off this God-forsaken street and out of this hell hole.
Kat turned to Freya and the two regarded each other for a long time. Then they spoke to each other in words, instead of hoots and barks.
“You come?” Kat asked, hesitant and awkward. “With us?”
Freya seemed to consider this. But then shook her head. “I stay.” She turned and looked at the pack of primals before them. “Family. Mothers. Stay for them.”
And that was it. There were no other words spoken. No signs of affection between the sisters. Kat simply looked at Freya for another moment, then bobbed her head and turned back to Lee.
He glanced at his pistol on the ground, then questioningly at Kat.
She shook her head. Best to leave the weapon where it had fallen.
Lose a pistol in exchange for his life?
Lee figured that was fair enough.
Chapter 46
This was the weirdest fucking ride Bran had ever been on.
And he’d been shackled in a van that was transporting him to prison, getting stared down by a massive prison guard with a shotgun, who chewed bubblegum like he was imagining it was Bran’s liver.
This was way more awkward.
“How are you feeling?” the woman named Marie asked, squatting in front of him in the back of the truck bed.
Bran could do nothing but stare at her for a moment. What an insane question that was. How was he feeling? Well, let’s see. He’d just been shot twice by the very people that now surrounded him. And then, apparently they’d patched him up. Marie had patched him up. A few hours after he’d been shooting at her. And maybe ten hours since he’d left her for dead.
So, how was he feeling?
“Like a bit of a heel, honestly,” he answered. The words were a little sluggish. He was definitely still out of it. And the pain from his wounds had become…extremely distracting. But he wasn’t so out of it or addled by his pain that he couldn’t feel the shame burning his cheeks and scalp.
Or maybe he was about to faint again?
Marie clearly hadn’t forgot about him leaving her for dead, or trying to kill her, or trying to kill the people she was trying to help. Her expression remained implacable. “I meant physically. You feel like you can sit up a bit more? Maybe even stand?” She cast a glance over her shoulder. “For Kat’s sake. So she doesn’t get pissed at us when she sees you.”
“Do I look that bad?”
“You look pretty bad.”
Bran chewed on that for a moment, fearing the answer to his next question, but fearing not knowing even more. “Am I gonna live?”
Felt like a fucking hypocrite to ask that question.
Marie shrugged. “I couldn’t begin to guess.”
“Come on,” he said, a little intensely. “Don’t leave me in the dark. Gimme something.”
Marie sighed through her nose. “Bran, I’ve seen people die from the dumbest wounds, and other people live after what should have killed them.” She got a thoughtful look on her face. “You know, Jax was shot through the lung one time. He actually died. Was dead for a few minutes. But they reinflated his collapsed lung and gave him CPR. Shouldn’t have worked. But it did.” She looked at him, and her expression was open and frank. “As far as I can tell, the biggest deciding factor is how much the person wants to live.”
“I see ‘em!” one of Marie’s teammates called out. They were all in the truck bed with her, along with a few people Bran recognized from the Redoubt. The one that had spoken was the kid named Sam.
Very strange to be wounded amongst these people. At best, some of them didn’t care if he died. At worst, many of them probably wished he would.
Marie stood up and offered her hand. “Come on. Kat’s walking up. Try to stand.”
Bran stared at that hand for a moment, thinking about how standing up sounded like scaling Everest right about then. But Marie was right. Kat was likely to be a tad volatile. If he looked like he was on death’s door, she might have a poor reaction. And, frankly, Bran had had enough violence for one night. He’d really like some peace and calm.
He grasped Marie and she pulled him up. Straining, at first, until Bran convinced his legs to wake up, and then he was on his feet. Pins and needles. Waves of hot and cold over his skin. Vision all swirly. He clung to Marie for balance until his head cleared. And she let him.
Bit of a heel, he’d said. But that was an understatement.
Nothing humbled you quite as much as being shown compassion by an enemy.
As the faintness passed, he saw them striding up to the passenger’s side of the truck. Kat in the lead, followed by Jax. Kat looked about like she always did, except for the fact that her hands and face and chest were all covered in bright splashes of gore that stood out like neon signs as she walked through the beams of the headlights.
Jax looked like he’d spent the night in a tumble dryer.
The second Kat spotted Bran, her eyes did a strange thing. They filled with…relief. A relief so strong, it could only come from the fear of losing a loved one. And that hit Bran hard. The last time anyone had looked at him like he was anything worth loving was…
Well, shit. He couldn’t remember.
Kat vaulted into the truck bed, earning a stir of worry from the Redoubters, though she didn’t even spare them a glance. She went straight to Bran, and then just halted, frozen with her arms at her sides, like she didn’t know what to do. A few times her hands jerked up, like she was thinking about touching him, or wrapping her arms around him. But she’d never once shown that type of affection.
She’d never once received it.
She swallowed audibly, her mouth working. A lot of words to say, but a limited capacity to express them. Her eyes darted to his wounds. “Better?”
Bran considered that question for a moment, as he felt unfamiliar feelings rising up in him. He’d never felt so high and so low all at once. Nor was he the type of man to really be able to pin down his emotions. He just felt them, and accepted that they were beyond his ability to explain.
Was he better? Fuck no, he wasn’t better. But Kat had so much hope in her eyes when she asked it, that Bran didn’t have the heart to say the truth, and the love he felt coming off of her was so strong, he didn’t have the heart to lie to her either.
Instead he raised his good arm and put it on her shoulder.
When she didn’t draw away, he pulled her into him. She smelled of blood and sweat and night wind. She smelled like Kat.
His ears were ringing and his throat was clogged up with mysterious emotions and his eyes were burning and starting to leak. But he still registered Jax’s voice.
