4
Carin and Jason took the evening to get their things together and packed up enough that they could just haul their belongings on their backs. Jessa, Michael, and Milo helped carry some of the food stock. It would help them all if they didn’t have to stop for a while, especially if they were in an area where nothing could be foraged.
Most days, Jessa was able to find something, but more often than not, an area could be picked clean and having a backup was crucial. Besides that, winter was coming soon. It wouldn’t be as cold in the south, but it still got a few cold fronts, making it difficult to thrive on the road. She wasn’t sure what to expect and was grateful for the preserved food that took some of the uncertainty away.
Milo and Shane seemed happy enough to have more people added to the group. They were now six and though there was more safety in numbers, there were other things to consider. Although they were safer, in a tight spot it might be more difficult to hide six people. But Jessa was convinced that the days of hiding were over. Michael worried about keeping such a large group safe, having a young man and an older woman to think about now, but he would do anything Jessa wanted. He was content to be with her.
As they traveled, Mike and Jason talked for a time. Michael found himself very curious about how the pair had ended up all the way in Florida from Texas. He was able to piece together that Jason and his deceased father had a tendency to say and do things that were not very well-received by others. But it was Jason’s story of losing his family that made Michael listen. He had heard of such men before, riding motorcycles and burning everything in their wake before they moved on to the next town to create more chaos.
As soon as Jason started to tell him about the gang that had destroyed their lives, he couldn’t help but think about the gang he had been looking for. Michael wasn’t sure if there was a connection, but he felt like there was. The whole situation had felt somehow orchestrated – fated in a way, and he began to wonder to himself if there might be a reason why he had run into Jason and Carin. But fate seemed silly; it was more of Jessa’s territory. He must have been around her for a little too long if he was allowing himself to think too much into fate and destiny. But regardless, if he believed that he had met her for a reason, was it that much more far-fetched to think that he had met the young man and his grandmother for a reason as well?
“What more can you tell me about them Jason? Do you remember what kind of emblem they had on their jackets?”
When the kid nodded, he sighed to himself. Jason offered to draw it for him and Michael searched around, trying not to let the frantic adrenaline take over as he looked for something for Jason to draw with. His blood was ice; he just seemed to know that the emblem would be the same as the gang he had been searching for since the fateful day when he lost his family. What he didn’t know was what that would mean for him.
They had holed up for the night in a modest sized house. Jessa and Carin were outside, watching as Milo and Shane played with his small collection of cars. As he sat at the small dining room table with Jason, waiting for the young man to finish up, he could feel his heart rate rising. After what seemed like an eternity, Jason handed him the picture that he had sketched out. Michael’s throat constricted. He suddenly couldn’t breathe. Jason noticed that Mike’s face had gone pale, and asked him if he was okay.
“Are you sure this is what it looked like?”
Jason looked down at the paper and nodded. He was positive. The emblem had been burned into his memory during the worst day of life, much as it had been for Michael. There were some things that his mind wouldn’t let him forget, no matter how hard he tried. In fact, he had been tortured by the memories for years. And why would he want to let go of his need to avenge his family? It had all been so senseless.
“When was the last time you saw them? I mean, where was this at?”
Jason told him where he used to live. Michael had been worried they would have to travel all the way to Texas, but surprisingly it wasn’t too far away from where they were. Maybe a hundred miles back the way they had just come. Michael realized that the attack on Jason’s family must not have been too long ago. It made him wonder if he actually had a chance to catch up with the gang. There was a small chance that they were still around, terrorizing that town. After he had pumped the young man clean of all that he could tell him, Michael was left with wondering what he should he do. Could he really just let it all go?
***
Everyone was sleeping in the house, except for Michael, who couldn’t let his mind settle down long enough to close his eyes. There was no way that he could get to sleep. They were supposed to leave in the morning, but all he could think about was what Jason had told him. If there was a chance that he was that close to the men who destroyed his family, he had to go after them. There was no other option. He knew that Jessa wouldn’t want him to go. He was also painfully aware that she wouldn’t want to come. And for good reason. She needed to protect her own living son, not avenge the ghost of his.
Michael looked over at her sleeping form and was torn, not knowing what to do. He didn’t want to leave her again, especially after what happened last time, but he knew it was more dangerous to let a group of bloodthirsty men like that roam the fragile new world. As with Billy, there had been a decision made that they couldn’t let guys like them go on. Michael hated to think of how many people could have been saved such misery if someone had taken care of the gang before; if he had taken care of them when they had killed his family.
He felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to stop them, but now that there was a chance to do what he regretted not doing before, didn’t he owe it to himself and to all the other people out there like him to take care of it? Jason’s family deserved justice too. How could he walk away from an opportunity like this? As if on cue though, Jessa turned back towards him, snuggling in against his body as she murmured in her sleep.
What if he never saw her again? It was always a possibility when you left someone. They might not be there when he got back. A lot could happen while he went away to seek his revenge. That was, of course, assuming that nothing would happen to him. It was the optimistic hope that he would take them all on and finally be the one that stopped them.
Funnily enough, Michael as worried about that as much as he worried about something happening to Jessa and Shane while he was gone. He knew that Milo would stay and help watch out for them, but he would never forgive himself if something happened to them if he wasn’t there to defend them.
Michael had no idea what to do. There was nothing he could do that night. Tomorrow he would have an answer; he was sure of it. Was it truly a sign that they had run into Jason and Carin on the road? Eventually, his mind couldn’t handle the pressure anymore and he blacked out, his body pulling him into sleep out of pure exhaustion.
***
“Wake up, silly.”
Michael growled at Jessa as she squeezed his shoulder. She kissed him, knowing that he was grumpy in the morning. She also knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold onto the grumpiness for too long if she started him off with a little morning seduction. She turned out to be right, and before long he was pulling her onto his hardness and she squealed, trying to get away. Her method was not a hundred percent and there were still times that it got out of hand.
“I am awake.”
Pushing herself off of him, Jessa’s body screamed with his roughness the last couple of times that he had taken her. Something was on his mind and he wasn’t ready to tell her about it, though Jessa didn’t mind the way that he was getting rid of his excess energy.
“So I can see. You had a hard time getting to bed last night, so I figured I would let you sleep. Now we are both even later. Everyone is waiting for us.”
She got dressed as he watched her lazily from the bed.
“We have to go Mike. You have a tendency to make us late a lot.”
“What is the big rush?”
Jessa shrugged. She didn’t really have a solid reason beyond the fact that something didn’t feel right. It was quickly becoming known to the group how good her intuition was, and she took it more seriously than everybody else. If she hadn’t put any stock into her gut instincts, she and Shane probably wouldn’t have been able to survive for so long. It felt a little too complicated to explain the rush of urgency she felt to leave, but she knew there had to be a good reason.
“I just want to get out of here. Just everything that has happened. I still want more distance between us and the city. If we go straight through for a couple of weeks, we can be there.”
He just sighed and shook his head. “You know that we aren’t going to be able to go straight there. Traveling is never in a straight line anymore. There’s really no rush. In fact, I would just be happy if we got there in the next month or two.”
“You may be right, but I want to get out of this place today. Did you hear what Carin was talking about? Those motorcycle gangs that had given them a hard time?”
He nodded his head, his mind returning to the torturous thoughts of the night before. “Yeah, what about them?”
“She told me this morning that she was pretty sure that she saw them the other night while they were out collecting food. If that’s true, and I have heard what they’ve done, I don’t want to be anywhere near this place. They know that she lives here and it’s only a matter of time before they’ll be back to finish the job. I don’t want to be here when that happens.”
“Okay, you got my attention.”
He got up and started to pull on his clothes. She hated to see the hard muscles being put away, but she was the one who had just ordered him out of bed.
“There will be time for that later, I promise.”
Jessa had to say it for her own sake as much as for his.
Michael moved to pull her to him. “I like the sound of that.”