Promise Me Light (27 page)

“Thank you, Gavin.”

The corner of his mouth lifted in a goofy half-grin that probably had
made the women of Dallas swoon. His long, black eyelashes caught a stray
snowflake, his eyes holding a touch of humor.

“No problem, shorty.”

I smiled, his old nickname for turning my lips upward into a
grin.

Maybe I shouldn’t have smiled. Ryder was mad at me. It was snowing
and I was cold. We didn’t have enough clothes for winter. Our food
supply was dwindling. I missed my dad something awful and I was months
away from having a baby without proper medical care. Smiling didn’t
seem right. Crying? Yes. Wailing? Sure. But I think sometimes happiness
just meant living. Being present. Being alive. Being surrounded by those
you loved.

Even if they made you angry sometimes.

The ride home was miserable. The snow had become heavier, slowly
covering the ground in a light dusting of white. But when it landed on
me, it just became cold moisture, soaking into my jacket and jeans.

My hair was wet, feeling like ice against the skin of my throat and
face. My teeth were chattering and my whole body shook, big chills that
made it difficult to concentrate. I needed heat and I needed it now.

But I never seemed to get what I wanted. Life just didn’t work that
way for me. If it had, I wouldn’t be cold and hungry with snow
covering my inadequate tennis shoes. I would be safe and warm back in my
apartment, laughing with Eva over boys and worried about studying for
finals.

I wouldn’t be worried about a war on our own soil, killing
thousands and starving millions. I would have electricity, a car, enough
food to last through the winter, and clean water that didn’t have to
be filtered. I would have my father. I never would have lost my mother.
But then again, I may not have Ryder or our unborn baby either.

I was telling Gavin about the cryptic message we heard on the
shortwave radio earlier when Cash suddenly pulled back on his reins,
jerking his horse to a stop. When Cash did things like that, I paid
attention. He didn’t make any sudden moves without a reason. And
whatever that reason was, it filled his body with tension.

Gavin and I followed Cash’s lead, pulling our horses to a stop. Our
conversation faded when we saw the look on Cash’s face. His whiskered
jaw looked like it was cut from stone. Beneath the cowboy hat, I could
see his eyes fixed straight ahead with deadly precision. I followed his
gaze, looking for what had made him so tense. That’s when I saw
them.

“Holy hell,” Gavin whispered, his leg bumping into mine as his
horse moved closer to my horse.

My heart stopped. My lungs ceased to breathe. The cold didn’t
matter. The snow falling around us didn’t matter. What mattered were
the soldiers standing in front of the house.

Without making any noise, Cash reached back and slowly removed the
rifle from the scabbard on his saddle. Resting the reins in his lap,
Cash controlled the horse with his thighs as he brought the rifle up to
rest on his shoulder, making it look like the most natural thing in the
world to do. From beneath his cowboy hat, he peered down the scope
mounted on top of the rifle. Without binoculars, it was our only way to
know what we were facing.

“Soldiers. Fifteen or so,” he said, moving the rifle slowly,
scanning the area. “All armed.”

I tightened my fingers around the reins and felt panic bubble up
inside of me. My horse shook her head and pawed the ground, antsy to get
moving again. I didn’t pay attention. My body felt limp, everything
holding me together leaving.

They’ve found Ryder.

Go to him
, my inner voice urged. I dug my heels into my
horse’s side, making her rear her head back in surprise. Loosening the
reins, I let her have her freedom, free to take off in a gallop.

But Gavin stopped me. He reached out, grabbing the bridle of my horse
and preventing her from going very far.

All I could think about was the enemy, gunning for Ryder. Making him
pay for killing their leader. I didn’t want to sit here and watch that
happen. I couldn’t.

“We’ve got to help Ryder! They’ll kill him!” I exclaimed in a
loud whisper, my fear mingling with anger.

“Hold on, Maddie,” Gavin said in low voice, keeping his eyes on
the house.

“They’re Americans,” Cash interrupted, still watching the
soldiers through the rifle’s scope.

“How do you know?”

“They’re wearing U.S. camouflage. They’re not foreign
bastards,” Cash explained.

“Do you see anyone else?” I asked, trying to keep the panic out
of my voice.

“Yeah,” Cash answered, his voice hushed against the wind.

“Who? Ryder?” I asked, tempted to grab the gun and look down the
scope myself.

Cash didn’t answer, which made me worry.

“Cash? Do you see Ryder?” I asked again, trying not to yell at
him in frustration.

Pushing his hat further back on his head, he moved the gun to the
left.

“Yeah, there he is. He’s still on his feet, surprising since
he’s…” Cash stopped, his words dying off. Suddenly, his shoulders
grew tense under his thick jacket. “Oh, hell,” he muttered.

“What?” Gavin asked, watching wide eyed as Cash lowered the rifle
and hurried to put it back in the scabbard.

“They’ve spotted us.”

Trying to control the impatient stomping of my horse, I glanced at
the house. Five men were pointing at us. Suddenly, they started running
our way.

They were coming after us.

A movement caught my eye. Someone else was watching us. He looked
taller than the rest, standing in the middle of the yard surrounded by
men.

Ryder.

That’s when I heard it. A shout.

“HEY!”

I watched with growing panic as the five men spun back around,
forgetting about us for a minute as Ryder yelled at them.

What was he doing?

Turning, Ryder punched the guy closest to him in the face. Then he
landed a fist in the man’s gut. A second later, soldiers rushed
him.

“GET HER OUT OF HERE!” Ryder shouted, barely missing an uppercut
to the chin before someone nailed him in the stomach.

“No, no, no,” I muttered under my breath, knowing what he was
doing.

He’s buying us time.

The thought made me sick to my stomach. He was letting himself get
beaten to a bloody pulp so Gavin and Cash could get me to safety. He was
sacrificing himself so we could escape.

“Shit!” Gavin swore, yanking back on the reins when his horse
reared its head. “What the hell is going on? We’re Americans!”

“What do you think?” Cash said, shouting and trying to control
his own horse. “It’s one big kick-ass party and we just got
invited.”

Ryder’s ploy didn’t work. It only spared us a few seconds.

“Dammit! Here they come!” Gavin warned, watching as the five men
started running through the tall grass toward us.

“Bloody hell,” Cash muttered, trying to control his nervous
horse. “We’re between a rock and a shitty place. If we turn tail and
run, we might have a fight on our hands that involves bullets. I sure as
hell don’t want that when Maddie is with us.”

Throwing a leg over the saddle, he dismounted quickly. Removing his
pistol and the knives hidden in various places on his body, he dropped
them into the tall grass at his feet.

“What are you doing?” Gavin asked, watching as the weapons
disappeared in the stalks and weeds around us.

“I’m remembering my history lessons,” Cash answered, glancing
up at Gavin from beneath his hat. “The government is weak right now.
We’ve heard it and I’ve damn well seen it. Guns, bullets, weapons of
any kind - they’re a commodity that armies need. I’ll be damned if I
give mine up.”

Gavin glanced at the soldiers bearing down on us, looking undecided
on what to do.

I knew what I was going to do. Throwing my leg over the saddle, I
slid to the frozen ground. I didn’t care about the soldiers running
toward us. All I cared about was getting back to Ryder and Eva and
keeping my unborn baby safe.
Stick together.
That
had been our motto for months now and we weren’t going to change it
anytime soon. When we did, bad things happened.

Gavin copied me and dismounted. Ice encrusted grass crunched beneath
his boots, the sound alone making me shiver. Immediately Gavin unhooked
the shotgun hanging from his saddle. With a frown he laid it on the
ground. The gun disappeared from sight in the tall grass around us.

“I’m keeping my knife,” he stated stubbornly.

“That’s your own damn decision. Just don’t screw everything up
by playing the hero,” Cash said. “We’ve got enough of that in
Ryder.”

At the mention of Ryder, all the blood rushed from my head. I could
barely see him now, standing in the middle of the men. I saw fists fly
and knew Ryder wasn’t doing the swinging. He was the one willing to be
a punching bag so I could get away.

I watched the soldiers tracking us. Bile rose in my throat, making me
sick. Each of them had a gun, some with more than one. A few had faces
smudged with black, giving them a camouflaged, battle-ready appearance.
Others looked ready to kill anything that moved, animal or human. I had
a feeling that it didn’t matter much to them.

Gavin and I followed Cash as he started walking through the pasture,
leaving our hidden weapons behind.

“Just play it cool and give them what they want,” Cash muttered,
keeping his eyes on the men as they approached.

My heart raced. My legs grew stiff with the dropping temperatures. It
was cold and I was hungry but we had bigger problems.

“You there! Who are you?” one of the men shouted, raising his
gun. The soldiers spanned out, surrounding us. We were outnumbered and
outgunned. They might be allies but they looked hostile, ready to pounce
on us if we made one wrong move.

“We live here,” Gavin answered, nodding toward the house.
“What’s going on?”

No one answered him. They all stood still, hands on guns and eyes on
us.

“You got weapons on you?” one of the men asked in a deep East
Texas drawl.

“No, sir,” Cash answered.

The man walked over to Cash, weeds smacking against his pants with
each step he took. Stopping two feet from us, he pulled back the chamber
on his gun. It was a threat, a silent warning that he was armed and
loaded.

“You’re telling me that you’re out riding around while the
sonofabitch terrorists are hunting Americans and you ain’t got no
weapon?” he asked, staring brutally at Cash before spitting on the
ground.

“That’s right, mister. We ain’t got squat for weapons. Didn’t
before the bastards hit and we definitely don’t got shit now,” Cash
answered in his own Texas drawl. He fidgeted with the reins in his hands
and shifted from one foot to the other, appearing nervous. I had never
known Cash to be nervous. It was all a front. An act and a really good
one.

The soldier studied us for a minute, taking his own sweet time in
deciding if we were telling the truth or not.

“Okay, join your friends,” he finally said, motioning with a nod
toward the house.

With Gavin and Cash on either side of me, we started walking toward
the house. Gavin led both his horse and mine, staying near me. The men
followed close behind us, ready to shoot if we made one wrong move.

I started trembling, not from fear but from the cold. It seeped into
my bones, freezing me from the inside out. The temperature had dropped
significantly in the last hour or so. The air had become frigid, burning
my lungs as it rushed in and out of them. By the time we had made it to
the house, the snow was drifting down heavier, coating everything. I
started shivering uncontrollably, afraid I might never be warm
again.

The soldiers stopped us in the middle of the yard. Cash was right,
there seemed to be fifteen of them. They all looked hungry and cold but
also deadly with an I-dare-you-to-make-a-move look on their faces. But
there was only one man I wanted to see.

Ryder stood with his hands tied in front of him, a soldier standing
guard on either side. He didn’t have a jacket on but you would never
know if he was cold or not. Like an immortal that didn’t feel, he
stood still, not one muscle moving. His feet were spread apart and the
muscles of his arms were rigid. There was a cut below his eye that was
bleeding and his bottom lip was split. His eyes followed me as soon as I
walked into the yard, assessing every inch of me. With hatred he glanced
at the men surrounding me, his eyes turning cold.

I started to go to him but Gavin reached out and grabbed my arm,
keeping me next to him. I saw Ryder grind his back teeth together and
look away with disgust. His fists clenched and unclenched, pulling taut
against the rope around his wrists. I knew if he had been loose, his
hands would have been wrapped around Gavin’s neck.

I glanced at Eva and Brody. Both stood a few feet away, soldiers on
either side of them. Behind them stood Janice, looking scared and
worried. Roger must still have been at their house, hopefully safe and
secure.

I shifted closer to Gavin as an older man, probably in his fifties,
strolled toward us. He had white hair cut close to his head military
style. His cheeks and jaw were covered in white whiskers and his dark
green pants were wrinkled and muddy. The jacket he wore was not U.S.
Army regulation but I think it would be safe to say that regulations had
been thrown out the window the moment the EMP hit.

“Who are you?” he asked, stopping inches from Gavin. He sounded
like he had smoked one too many Marlboros in his lifetime.

“Delaney. I live here,” Gavin answered, thrusting his chin toward
the house.

The man’s eyes ran over Gavin then across to Cash. Finally, he
looked at me. I wanted to be brave but when his black eyes peered down
at me, I grew petrified. He had laugh lines around his eyes but his gaze
held no humor. Only madness gazed back at me.