CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jeanell said, “Reeves, you made it out!”
He nodded, rifle still in his hands. “No thanks to you.”
Jeanell answered, “What was I supposed to do?”
Reeves said, “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Ric answered, “What you did isn’t my fault.”
“But you were going to kill us all.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
Reeves leveled his rifle at Ric. “And what choice do you think I have?”
Jeanell was quick to say, “Reeves, no, he’s on our side.”
“You don’t know that, Miss Glenn. You don’t know whose side anybody is on.”
Ric said, “Wouldn’t that apply to you as well?”
Reeves broke a little smile. “Just because you’re thinking, doesn’t mean you’re not dangerous. In fact, the more intelligent you are, the greater a danger you are.”
“Reeves, no,” Jeanell said, “he’s saved me from the chancellor’s goons, and paid a dear price for it. His best friend, even his father; we can trust him, I’m sure of it.”
Reeves looked Ric over, then Jeanell. He said, “Nice getups.”
Jeanell looked down to see her chancellor’s populace costume, and to recall the reason for it. “Just trying to be inconspicuous,” she said.
Reeves seemed unconvinced. “Uh-huh. And how do I know you’re not bringing his forces down on us right now?”
Ric said, “That we’re not? You’re the ones who brought him down on us!”
“A lot can change in a short time,” Reeves said.
Jeanell added, “You can say that again.”
Ric said, “All right, all right, well, thanks for the help with the bear.”
Reeves said only, “You too.” Ric and Jeanell waited for an explanation before Reeves pulled out a net from behind his belt and tossed it to Ric. “Wrap this around the bear, we’ll take it back to camp.”
Jeanell looked at the dead bear and the measly net. “That bear’s gotta be a thousand pounds!”
Reeves smiled. “Five hundred. I’d help out, but I gotta carry the gun.” After a stunned silence, he added, “Between the two of you, dragging it along, it won’t be that bad.” Raising the automatic rifle, he went on, “Might as well get to it.”
Jeanell and Ric exchanged a worried glance. They’d been rescued from the bear, but each had the feeling that they’d been captured yet again, this time by Jeanell’s former friend and workmate. There was no way of knowing what his position was after that short but drastic time of change.
But they didn’t have much choice. Jeanell said, “Can’t we just leave it?”
Reeves shook his head. “Leave all that meat and hide behind? Get to it.” Jeanell and Ric struggled to wrap the net around the huge, lifeless animal. Then they began dragging its carcass along, muscles straining, feet slipping, spines nearly snapping as Reeves drove them back to his camp. They didn’t know what they’d find there, or who, or even if they’d survive the trip.
Reeves said, “They got Brad, and the kid too.”
“Tony,” Jeanell said, shaking her head.
“Yeah, that weakling’ll sing like a bird.”
Ric said, “But you managed to get away,” in a tone that was ripe with suspicion.
“I did,” Reeves said, “and I’m not the only one.”
Jeanell thought to tell Reeves about their collision with Brad in Prague, but one glance at Ric inspired him to shake his head. She swallowed hard and said nothing. Her muscles strained, shoulders and back near to splitting with the weight of that dead bear.
They finally made it up to a ridge with a large cave. When Reeves approached, several bedraggled figures crept out, first among them, the two mute twins.
Reeves said, “Honestly, Truly.”
Jeanell said, “Honestly, truly what?”
Ric said, “The kids’ names; he Honestly, she’s Truly. Guess we never had time to properly introduce you.” He dropped his corner of the bear and knelt to the kids, wrapping his arms around them. They fell into his embrace, but their arms remained at their sides, faces cold, eyes big, mouths small and pouting.
Ric said, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong,” a familiar female voice said from inside the cave as Brooke stepped out of the shadows, “is that you abandoned us, left us to die…” She jutted her chin at Jeanell. “For Dolly Dress-up here.”
Ric stood to hug Brooke, but she was also cold, leaning away from him. “Brooke, I’m just glad you made it out okay.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you cared one bit, the way you grabbed her hand and vanished on us.”
“I didn’t have a choice,” Ric said. “I had to get Jeanell away from the chancellor’s goons. If he gets her, you know how bad that will be… for everyone everywhere, at all times, in every era. It’ll be the death of democracy all over the world, the end of freedom, the end of hope, of life.”
Brooke asked, “What kinds of freedom or democracy do we have now? What hope or life is there for us?”
“Brooke, where there’s hope, there’s life! There’s still a chance, for society, even for the United States. It’s our country, and we’re going to take it back.”
“And how are you going to do that?”
“We, Brooke, we’re going to do it… by killing the chancellor and his whole regime in one fell swoop.”
“What good will that do? Dozens more will rise up behind them.”
“They act out of cowardice,” Reeves said, “fear of a tyrant. They’re right; chop off the head, the snake will die.”
Brooke looked at Jeanell. “And you’re going to have some part in that?”
Jeanell nodded. “Of course.”
Brooke said, “You’ll die, you know that.”
A hot nausea stirred in Jeanell’s gut. She nodded, but could say nothing. Brooke stood there while a few other survivors crept out of the shadows. Brooke finally said, “Well, I suppose we should start dressing that bear.”
They cut strips of meat from the bear and cooked them on stakes over a crackling fire in front of the cave entrance.
During a private moment together, butchering the bear, Brooke asked Jeanell, “So… you love him? Pshshshsh, don’t answer; of course, you do, I can tell that you do. And I think he loves you too. The way he looks at you, I… I always hoped he’d look at me like that, but he never did. And I guess he never will.”
Jeanell asked, “You two were never—?”
“No, that ain’t Ric’s way. Guess it owes to how we were living, but I guess casual sex just isn’t a priority.”
“But you do… um, that is to say—”
“Ric did have a girlfriend a few years back, but it wasn’t me. Colleen. She died though, fell and broke her leg, got infected. It was… she didn’t die quickly, I guess you could say. The screaming, I can still hear it…”
Jeanell put a hand on Brooke’s arm. “I’m sorry.”
“No reason for you to be sorry; weren’t for her dyin’, you wouldn’t have a new husband.”
“Husband?”
“Whaddaya think? And with you two getting ready to storm that tower, get yourselves killed, get us all killed, there’s no time to be frivolous about things. You gotta grab any bit of joy while you can. Most of us don’t even get that much, and none of knows when it’ll all just vanish in the blink of an eye.”
Jeanell couldn’t deny the simple truth of it. She’d already lost everything in her life, all her family and friends, in just a flash of an instant. And she’d seen people die right in front of her, in the service of her escape and her survival. Life was precious, even in those treacherous times, probably even more so. Every moment was valuable, nothing could be taken for granted.
Jeanell took a bite of the bear meat. It was hot and fatty and savory and chewy, filling Jeanell’s mouth and sating her appetite. She took a seat next to Ric.
Ric said to Reeves, “This isn’t one of our safe spots.”
“That’s right. They captured some of your troops too, we knew they’d probably disclose those locations. I found this place myself.”
“And there’s lots of room inside,” Brooke went on, “One chamber after the next, for… for privacy.”
Ric smiled, but it was an awkward expression of his discomfort. Jeanell sat next to him, and she slipped her arm under his, pulling herself closer to him and sending Brooke a clear message.
“Anyway,” Reeves said, “we should be fairly safe here for a while.”
Ric looked around. “That cave should shelter us from any kill holes too. Though the entrance is vulnerable.”
Reeves shrugged. “Nothing’s perfect.”
Ric took a bite of bear meat, chewing slowly. “Doesn’t matter, because we’re not staying here long.”
Reeves said, “You really think you’re going to storm that tower and kill hole the chancellor?”
Ric said, “You have any better suggestions?”
But nobody did, and they continued to eat in silence. Brooke said, “Yer gonna need some things.”
Jeanell and Ric glanced at one another. She was right; their white clothes were soiled and covered with bear’s blood. And they lacked a smartphone and a tablet, two necessary things if they were going to hole across the country into New York. They’d have to be collected somehow, and that would mean sneaking back into town.
After dinner, they retreated into the opening chamber of the cave, two hallways reaching out from each side, other chambers flickering with firelight. Jeanell and Ric gave Brooke their clothes so she could wash them out and hang them to dry. They wouldn’t be pristine, but they would be good enough to get them where they needed to be, to get what they needed to get.
But in the meantime, there was nothing more to do than keep warm by the little coal fire in their private chamber, glowing red under a layer of ash. They snuggled together under an old army blanket, but the heat from the coals was enough to keep them more than warm. Their mutual heat was enough to make them more than hot.