“We’ve got a problem,” Jamie said, crouching low and pointing to the dirt.
Graham jerked to a stop, and Zach stumbled into him.
“What do you mean, ‘We got a problem’?”
“I think they caught up to your girl.”
“What? How?” Graham asked. He bit back the automatic ‘She’s not our girl’ retort.
Jamie pointed to scuffed dirt. “Someone was dragged.” He stood and followed the marks to a stand of trees about twenty feet away.
Zach shoved Graham aside and scouted the area around Jamie. “I’ve got some wrappers over here. An MRE and a … peanut butter Power Bar?”
Graham pictured the grin on Ro’s face when she’d spotted the stash at the gun range, and he swore silently. “It was her. Or at least her backpack. I’d lay money on it.”
“Got knife marks in the tree. Like someone was using it for target practice,” Jamie said.
Graham hated to ask, but needed to know. “Blood?”
“No. Got tracks leading away from here, though.”
“Let’s move.”
Ro stumbled over a downed sapling trying to keep up with Len as he jogged through the pitch-black woods. After becoming frustrated with her slow pace, Len had taken the lead, tying Ro’s bound hands to his belt with another piece of rope. It was like being dragged by a pissed off mule. Despite his appearance as a lazy redneck piece of shit, the man could cover some ground. She’d recognized the last major highway they’d crossed, and estimated they were within fifteen miles of home. Home. Knowing she was finally going to make it there was … surreal. Even if it wasn’t exactly how she’d planned, Ro was thankful to be making it there alive. Another stumble. Another bite of pain. Another curse from Len. Ro hurried to keep up, not wanting to feel the burn of the jute digging deeper into her torn and bleeding skin. Len and Ronny each had a headlamp to guide the way, but Ro’s feet were bathed in shadow. Another yank. Another stumble. Ro fell to her knees, the rope pulling Len to a halt.
“Get up, bitch.” The light blinded her as he turned. A brown stream of tobacco juice spattered the edge of her face.
The exhaustion that had been dogging Ro all day crashed down. She tried, tried, to find a second, third, even a fourth wind. But there was just nothing left. She was tapped out. She considered her options. Keep stumbling through the dark and get home, but endure the searing pain in her wrists. Sleep for a few hours and hope like hell they don’t rape her. As choices went, they blew, but Ro’s screaming muscles wouldn’t last another hundred yards, let alone another fifteen miles.
“Look, we’re close, okay. Really, really close,” she said. “But it has to be after midnight. Is there any way we can take a break for a couple hours and get some rest? It would be better to show up at dawn rather than in the middle of the night. I’d hate to find myself on the wrong end of my dad’s shotgun by accident.”
“We stop when I say we stop. You ain’t gotta say.” Len spun, tightening the rope connecting them.
“Awww, come on. Let’s just stop for a few, and then we’ll pick it up at daybreak. We been out here for days, and I’m whipped, man. Fuck, I don’t think I can even get it up to fuck her.” Ronny leered at Rowan. “Tomorrow, sweet thang, you goin’ be the meat in a Len and Ronny sandwich.”
Len’s lip curled in disgust, but before he could speak, Ro said, “Sounds great. I’ll even make you dinner first. We’ll make a night of it.” She figured the Almighty was obligated to forgive her for that revolting lie.
Ronny reached out a perma-dirty hand to touch her face, and Ro forced herself not to flinch. “It’s a date, sweet thang.”
“Would you mind?” Ro held her fake smile and lifted her wrists up toward Ronny.
“Fuck that, bitch. You stay tied up tonight. Ain’t takin’ a chance you’ll go runnin’ off,” Len replied.
“Could you at least untie me so I can pee?” Ro asked. “Unless you want to sleep in a puddle ...” Ro could have kicked herself for letting the snark out. She blamed the exhaustion.
Len grunted, but pulled out his buck knife and twisted around to slice the rope off his belt. He yanked her wrists up and sliced between the jute tying them together. He pointed the knife at a bushy evergreen about ten feet away. “You go behind that tree. You got two minutes. Leave the backpack right fuckin’ here. You take one step in the wrong direction,” he brought the blade to rest against her throat, “and I will gut you.”
Ro swallowed, but didn’t waste time dropping her pack and hurrying toward the tree. She followed the path lit by the beam of Len’s headlamp and ducked behind the thick trunk to take care of business. Peeing in the woods as a woman was more of an art than a science, especially considering Rowan was trying not to flash her ass to her audience. She really needed to not be the ‘meat in a Len and Ronny sandwich’ tonight. Ro lamented her lack of toilet paper for a moment before dragging her clothes back into place. Her wrists burned as the weeping, broken skin rubbed against the cuffs of her filthy sweatshirt. Heading back toward the light, she noticed that Len and Ronny had already helped themselves to the contents of her backpack—including her sleeping bag. She was surprised to see Len toss it to Ronny. They could keep it. No way in hell would she use it after they did. She’d guess that showers had been an every-other-week thing for them, even before the grid went down.
“I’ll take the first shift. It’s probably about two o’clock. You sleep for an hour and a half, then we’ll swap. We’re out of here as soon as there’s a hint of light. You hear a sound, shoot first, ask questions later,” Len ordered. Ro shuddered when he pulled the roll of paracord from her backpack and cut off three lengths. “Get over here, bitch.”
With no choice but to comply, Ro went. He yanked her wrists behind her and tied them together, knotting the nylon cord so tightly around her abused wrists that she tasted bile.
“Sit down. I’m doing your feet, too. You ain’t goin’ nowhere once you’re hobbled.”
Ro blocked out the pain as she leaned back against the trunk of a tree and inched herself to the ground. Len worked quickly, tying her legs together, just above the tops of her hiking boots. He shoved her to her side, face in the dirt, and looped the last length of cord between her wrists and feet. Hog-tied. It wasn’t overly tight, but Ro’s back still bowed, and she knew the discomfort of the position would make sleep nearly impossible if she wasn’t totally exhausted. Ro yawned, tasted dirt, and tried to focus on the positive: she was almost home; she wasn’t dead; and she hadn’t been raped. Low bar for good things, but she’d take it. She barely had time to dwell on her undignified position before her lids lost the battle and sleep consumed her.
A boot connected with Ro’s bound ankles, and she jerked awake. She rubbed her dirt-covered face against her shoulder and struggled to sit up. Pain lanced through her wrists when she accidentally tugged on the cords binding them together.
Len leaned down and sliced through the paracord trapping her legs. Another slice and her wrists were free. Ro brought them forward, needles stabbing her arms as the blood rushed back after hours without movement. Pieces of black paracord stuck to her blood-encrusted wrists. She plucked them off, wincing as fresh blood welled. Ro reached for her backpack, but froze when the knife flashed in her face.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Len asked.
“I … I just wanted a wet wipe, or my first aid kit, something to clean up my wrists,” Ro said, eyes riveted to the silver blade.
“Make it quick. We’re moving.”
Ro grabbed a wet wipe from the package in her bag and dabbed at the dried blood. It felt like sandpaper against her raw skin. Once her wrists were relatively clean, she dug deeper into her pack and pulled out two folded bandanas and her first aid kit. She smeared on the antibiotic ointment and wrapped the bandanas around her wrists before tying them off. Apocalypse-chic first aid. Len gave her a mocking look and ordered her to put on her backpack before he retied her wrists in front of her and fastened them to his belt.
Almost home. Almost home, Ro chanted silently.
The cushion of the bandanas blunted the bite of the narrow cord, and the ever-lightening morning sky allowed Rowan to see where she was walking. Staying just off the county road, the landmarks were all familiar now. There was the crooked silo that had looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa since Ro was kid. She spotted the obnoxious blue metal roof of the Johnson’s house. Above it, the sky was a vibrant work of art, all reds and pinks and oranges smeared like oil paints across the horizon. They turned down an empty dirt road lined with row after row of corn, and Ro finally let herself wonder about Zach and Graham. Were they disappointed to find her gone? Did they even consider coming after her? Or did they just write her off as a failed experiment and move on with their lives? It was hard to swallow the idea that she could be so easily forgotten, especially since she wouldn’t be forgetting them anytime soon. If ever.
They made a final turn and a half-mile later, a peeling green and yellow mailbox came into view. Ro wanted to drop to her knees and kiss the ground. She was home. Finally.
“It’s that one. The driveway on the right.” Ro gestured with her bound hands. Len grunted and paused at the end of the gravel drive. Unsheathing his knife, he sliced the paracord off his belt and from between her wrists.
“Don’t want your pa gettin’ the wrong idea,” he said. Or the right idea, Ro thought. Looking behind her, she took in Ronny’s grinning face.
“Can’t wait to get set up with all new shit and a new place. It’ll be like fuckin’ Christmas. Especially with you under me tonight, sweet thang.”
Ro curbed her disgust and faked her smile, looking over his shoulder to avoid meeting his eyes. And that was when she saw it: a flash of light from the cornfield. It reminded Ro of sun reflecting off a mirror … or a riflescope. Ro rubbed her bandana-covered wrists against her jeans and glanced over again. The flash was gone, but she could make out a dark figure crouched low in the yellowing stalks. Her heart pounded. It was possible. It could be them. But that would mean … they left the ranch—even after Graham told her they couldn’t spare the men—and had been trailing her the whole time. Ro casually turned toward the house, digesting the information and considering what kind of plan they might have. Adopting a normal mien, she took the lead when Len gestured for her to go first. As they headed up the driveway, both men studied everything in front of them and nothing behind. Ro’s breathing picked up. Don’t look back. Just pray to God they’re really back there and you’re not hallucinating.
Six-foot tall stalks lined both sides of the gravel drive for a quarter-mile before it veered to the right, leading up to a patchy yard dominated by a giant oak with a frayed rope dangling from a thick branch—the remnants of a long ago tire swing. The house was built in the traditional farmhouse style, with white clapboard siding, peeling black shutters, fronted by a wide covered porch held up by spindly columns. The wooden barn, painted red with white trim, sat off to the left of the driveway. A John Deere tractor was parked half-in and half-out of the sliding barn door. Ro could picture her dad, comfortable in the cab with a giant thermos of coffee, getting ready to drive out to the field when the electromagnetic pulse had hit. She hoped like hell her dad and Erica were okay and she wasn’t too late. The telltale sound of a pump action shotgun being racked halted their trek toward the house.
“Stop right where you are,” a very familiar baritone called out. “Don’t take another fucking step and put your hands in the air.”
Ro had just started to raise her hands when Len yanked her in front of him. Neither man moved to comply.
“I’m hoping you’ll roll out a warm shotgun welcome for these two gentlemen here, Dad,” Ro called.
Len jabbed her in the back as the warped front door creaked open and the barrel of the shotgun slid out.
“That really you, Rowan Elizabeth?”
Ro dropped her hands. “In the flesh.” She could almost hear her dad repeating the first words she’d spoken. Hell, that was about as clear as she could make it.
“How about you grab my ball cap out of the cab of the tractor, sweetheart.”
Ro attempted to sidle away from Len toward the steps leading up to the cab of the tractor, but Len wrapped his arm around her waist.
“I think you should stay right here, bitch,” he muttered in her ear, his rancid breath making her gag. He yanked her tighter against him and reached for the gun holstered at his hip when Ro heard the metallic sound of a rifle chambering a round.
“Down!” her dad yelled. She tried to drop to her knees, but Len’s arm constricted painfully around her stomach. The report of a rifle cracked through the still morning air. Len swore.
“I’ll fucking kill her, I swear,” he yelled. And then to Ronny he said, “Fucking shoot ‘em.”
Ronny snapped into action, yanking his shotgun out and unloading shell after shell in the direction of the front door before ducking behind the tractor. Rat-a-tat-tat. A burst of automatic weapon fire exploded, and holes punched into the metal panels of the tractor. Ronny pin-wheeled toward the tire. Len swung around, dragging Ro with him, and shot wildly in the opposite direction of the house. Ro couldn’t focus to count the shots as someone unloaded serious firepower in Ronny’s direction. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat. Ronny wasn’t moving.
“Fucking shoot me, motherfuckers! I’ll take her out with me!” The hot barrel of Len’s revolver jammed into her temple. “I will fucking blow her brains out if you take one more shot.” For once, Ro thanked her shorter-than-average stature and shrank down. She’d seen enough movies; someone could totally go for the headshot. For a moment, the sounds of the gunfight quieted. Ro slammed her heavy hiking boot backward into Len’s shin. She jabbed her elbow into his gut and the arm bracketing her body loosened. Ro dove toward the rows of corn and covered her head. The crack of a rifle sounded, and Len’s body landed on the gravel drive with a thud.
“He’s down. Go, go, go!” Graham yelled. “Jamie, check the other one.”
“Get the fuck away from my sister!” Erica’s scream was earsplitting. “Back off, or I will shoot you.”
Ro started to rise, but instead found herself caught up against a hard chest. “Jesus, babe, don’t fucking scare me like that again. I will tan your ass until you can’t sit for a week,” Zach breathed, pressing a hard kiss to her temple.
“Are you deaf, asshole? Don’t you fucking touch her!”
Ro turned in the safety of Zach’s arms and beamed when she saw her sister, dressed in camo, armed to the teeth and ready to start shooting. Again. “It’s okay, E. They’re okay. Weapons down.”
“Then you better get your ass in here, because we’ve got a big fucking problem.” At her words, Ro noted Erica’s deathly pale face. Her sister disappeared back into the house, leaving what remained of the door open. Ronny’s shotgun had obliterated over half the wooden panel. Ro pushed away from Zach and headed toward the house.
“Whoa, sweetheart, I’m not letting you get out of arm’s reach for a long fucking time,” Zach said as he snagged her arm. “We go together.”
“This one’s dead,” Jamie called from the vicinity of the tractor. Ro didn’t need anyone to tell her that Len, who was missing most of his head, was also dead. Graham flanked her other side and they headed to the house as a unit.
“What happened?” Ro asked as they climbed the wooden stairs to the covered front porch. Erica didn’t have to answer, because Rowan caught sight of their dad. The right shoulder of his black t-shirt was shredded and blood pooled on the worn hickory floor. Erica looked up, tears streaming down her face. “Do I put pressure on it? There’s wood stuck in it. Shit. I don’t know what to do.”
Graham knelt next to her father’s unconscious body and yanked open his pack, pulling out a black plastic package. He tore it open with his teeth and extracted what looked like a white gauzy sponge. He applied the sponge directly to the wound. “Zach, give me yours and some bandages.” Zach was already digging through his bag and tearing open a similar package, which Graham pressed to the exit wound. Pads of gauze followed as Ro realized the sponges had to contain clotting agents, because the flow of blood was already slowing. Graham looked up, his dark gaze trapping Ro’s. “We need to get your dad back to Beau. ASAP.”
Ro’s heart dropped as she considered the trip back to the ranch on foot. He’d never make it. Her heart clenched to think she might’ve spoken her last words to her father. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. And it was her fault.
“You got a doctor?” Erica demanded.
“Yeah, but he’s over a day out on foot.”
“We’ve got wheels. We’ve just been waiting for Ro to get home so we could bug out. We’re all packed and ready,” Erica said. “So let’s go.”
Graham nodded to Jamie. “Go with her, check it out, and see if you can bring the vehicle around so we can load him.”
Jamie followed Erica as she led him toward the door that opened into the garage. Ro looked to Graham, his hands still pressing the bandages against the wound, and then to Zach, who knelt beside her.
“Thank you. For coming after me. I know …” Ro’s words trailed off as Graham flashed her an intimidating look.
“Now’s neither the time nor the place. We’ll discuss it later.” He shifted his attention to Ro’s dad, effectively ending the conversation.
Zach looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. He whispered in her ear, “It’ll all work out, babe.” He paused before adding, “Anything you need to get out of the house before we head out? Because I don’t think you’re coming back.”