The Survivors Book III: Winter (27 page)

"
He's drugged her," I surmised, picking up the little white prescription vial.  "Sleeping pills, and alcohol by the smell of it.  Our best bet is to try and get as much of it out of her system as possible.  It's not going to be pretty, but we need to make her vomit."

The man just nodded.
 With surprising confidence, he turned the young girl onto her belly and stuck his finger down her throat.  Her entire body convulsed.  The man held her until she finally threw up the entire contents of her stomach all over the floor.  The stench of it was terrible, a combination of far too much alcohol, and half-digested sleeping tablets.  As soon as she stopped convulsing, the girl curled up in a ball and started sobbing piteously.

The man just sat beside her, gently holding her through it all.
 "It's okay, honey.  You're safe.  I'm here."

"
Onīsan?" she sobbed, her voice slurred.  "I want to go home."

"
I know, Lil.  I know."  The man looked up at me suddenly, and the light finally hit his features.  "Thank you so much.  These kids mean everything to me."

I had no response.
 He'd gained a lot of scars and one of his eyes was milky and blind, but I would have recognised his face anywhere.

"
…Gavin?"

The man blinked his one good eye in obvious surprise.  "You know me?"

I didn't have any words to express how I felt.
 I just reached up and folded my hood back, revealing my own face for the first time.  It took a few seconds before recognition dawned, and his mouth fell open.

"
Sandy!" he cried.  Before I quite knew what had hit me, I felt a strong arm clamp around my shoulders and I was pulled into a hug.  "I thought you were dead, kid."

"
I thought you were dead, too," I admitted, my shock finally passing enough for me to figure out how to use my words again.  I shoved myself back out of his embrace, and gave him a long look.  "You've seen better days, old man.  We'll have plenty of time to catch up later, but for now let's focus on getting Lily home."

Gavin nodded his agreement, and looked back down at the battered young body nestled in the crook of his arm.
 "How about it, little sister?  You ready to go home?"

The girl nodded weakly and gave him a smile.
 I took one look out the window at the driving rain, and then I shrugged off my coat and held it out to him.

"
Here," I said.  "Wrap her up in this.  It won't keep her entirely dry, but at least it'll keep her warm."

Gavin hesitated for a second, but Lily's needs outweighed any concerns either of us might have had about me.
 He took the garment and gently wound it around her frail body, pulling the hood forward to protect her face.  I took a deep breath, and used the moment to broach the subject of what to do with the farmer.

"
Gavin," I said quietly, resting my hand on his shoulder.  "The man who did this to her, he's still alive.  You probably heard that we don't kill indiscriminately.  However, we do have a code of justice.  I've already put the fear of God into him on your behalf, but if you want to, we can bring him back with us and have him put to trial before a judicator--"

"
No," Gavin answered sharply, shaking his head.  "I don't want to put Lily through that.  Right now, the only thing that matters is getting her home safely."

I nodded silently and rose to my feet.
 Gavin picked up the child's leather-wrapped form, and followed me back to the front door.  We found Michael and the others waiting for us there.

"
Where's the farmer?" I asked, shooting a wary look back towards the living room.

"
Curled up in the foetal position, crying like a baby," Michael answered dryly.  "I think you scared him, honey."

"
Honey?"  Gavin shot a startled look at me, his brows raised.  "You have changed."

"
I had to," I answered with a shrug.  "Gavin, this is Michael, my fiancé.  The bloke with the dreads is Tane, and the one with the tattoos is Iorangi.  Guys, this is Gavin.  He's… an old friend."

"
Oh?"  This time, it was Michael giving me the surprised look.  "I wasn't aware that you had any old friends."

"
Neither was I, until about five minutes ago," I admitted sheepishly.  "Looks like reports of his demise have been greatly exaggerated."

"
I wouldn't say 'greatly'," Gavin said.  "It was pretty close for a while."

I gave him a curious look, but it wasn't really the time or place to ask.
 Instead, I pushed my curiosity aside and turned my attention back to what mattered.

"
We need to get Lily back to Doctor Cross," I said.  "I don't think she's been… violated, but she's been beaten and drugged.  I want him to make sure she's going to be okay.  Michael, she's not entirely conscious so I want you to ride double with her.  Gavin, you can ride with me."

"
Much appreciated," Gavin replied dryly.  "It's a long walk back."

"
In this storm, it's going to be a long drive, too."  I shook my head and gave him a wry smile.  "Come on.  If we leave now, we should make it back before sunset."

All four men nodded their agreement.
 Michael started to unzip his jacket with obvious intentions of giving it to me, but I didn't give him a chance.  I'd already made up my mind about getting wet, so I wasn't about to let him take on that particular burden this time.  Out into the driving rain I went, leading the way across the compacted gravel towards the edge of the bush beyond.

The rain hit me like a waterfall, soaking me to the bone within seconds, but I refused to let it bother me.
 Some days, it felt like I was never going to be dry again.  By the time I made it to the shelter of the trees, I was absolutely drenched.  I paused to wait for the others, hugging the thin fabric of my old army surplus jacket close around my shoulders to preserve what little warmth I had.  Michael was on me a second later, with a dark look on his face.

"
You didn't have to get wet," he protested, obviously annoyed with my stubbornness.  "I would have given you my jacket."

"
I'm already wet," I said with a shrug.  "No point both of us getting drowned."

"
Sometimes I really don't know what I'm going to do with you," he answered, sounding exasperated.  I just grinned at him, and reached out to touch his hand in the cavernous gloom.  Before either of us could say anything else, the others caught up with us and our brief moment of privacy was gone.

We arrived back at our bikes a few minutes later, wet and muddy but intact.
 Gavin and I helped Lily up in front of Michael, so that he could catch her if she started to slip.  The girl was only half-conscious and trembling convulsively; even though he was a stranger, she huddled into Michael for warmth, her eyes glazed and distant.

I put my hand on Gavin's shoulder in some small attempt to reassure him.
 He just nodded faintly, and gestured for me to lead the way.  I did, and soon we were on our way back to Tokoroa, bouncing along, with me in the lead, and Gavin's arms around my waist.

Once we burst back out onto the road, I found myself having to conte
nd with stinging rain; I made a mental note to find some goggles for our riders to wear in bad weather, and squinted at the road in an effort to try and see where we were going.

Maybe helmets, too.
 Suddenly, helmets seemed like a very good idea.  The last thing I wanted was to lose one of the last remnants of my species to a farm bike accident.

The wind howled around us, wailing like the mournful ghosts of the billions of souls lost to the plague.
 Lightning illuminated the sky in a blinding flash.  The sun had begun to go down by the time we made it back to town, and it was so dark that I barely saw our turnoff in time.  At the very last moment, I spotted a light glowing out of the corner of my eye, and that turned out to be the beam of a torch.

I hurled the bike around the corner with such reckless disregard that Gavin shouted in alarm, but we made it intact.
 Some part of my brain warned me against that kind of behaviour, but my conscious mind didn't care.  I only had one concern, and that was the little girl nestled in my lover's embrace.  Another stray.  Another child, a forgotten throw-away left behind when civilization abandoned her.  At least this one wasn't entirely alone, like my poor little Priyanka had been.

By the time I brought the bike to a stop in front of the radio station, there was a crowd of people waiting for us.
 They shouted greetings and questions, waving frantically at us from beneath their makeshift rain-gear.  Behind me, I heard Gavin's sharp intake of breath.

"
There are so many people," he said softly, just loud enough for me to hear.  "Sandy, did you join a gang?"

"
I did at one stage, but that's another story," I replied.  "This isn't a gang.  The group you see before you are going to be the founding members of the first city our country has seen in far too long.  We just need to make it far enough south to lay the foundations."

"
Good God," he murmured, easing himself off the back of the bike so that I could get up as well.  "Sounds like we're going to have a lot to talk about."

"
And you're going to have a lot of names to try and remember," I teased.  I killed the bike's engine, and went over to meet my friends.  It was just at that moment that I realised something was missing.  "Guys, where are the cars?"

"
We moved them around the corner," Skylar explained.  She rushed over and threw her arms around me, hugging me close.  Then she shoved me back roughly and gave me a disgusted look.  "Ugh, you're sopping wet!"

"
And now you are, too," I replied with a playful grin.  "You're welcome."

She snorted in mock annoyance, but then she suddenly seemed to remember why we'd gone away to begin with.
 "Did you find her?"

"
Yes," I said, looking back over my shoulder at the other riders, who were just coming to a stop beside my bike.  Gavin rushed over to help with his young charge, his discomfort apparently forgotten for the moment.  I looked back at Skye, and gave her a sad smile.  "She's in bad shape, though.  Where's Doc?"

"
He's around the corner, too," she answered, jerking a thumb over her shoulder.  "There's a big, abandoned office building behind the radio station.  It's not much, but it has a kitchen and toilets, and it's dry.  I left him, Anahera, and the kids setting up beds, but they should be about done by now."

"
Can you take us to him?" I asked.  She nodded and beckoned for me to follow her.  I passed the gesture along to Michael and Gavin, and soon the four of us were hurrying through the driving rain, leaving the bikes to be tended to by the rest of the group.

Skylar ducked through a wild garden that had probably once been a courtyard, and down a pathway between two buildings.
 We came out next to a glass door that was, miraculously, still intact.  Skye rapped her knuckles on the metal frame, and we waited.

A minute later, we saw Doc's face appear on the other side of the glass, ghostly pale in the dim light.
 He nodded, unlocked the door, and let us in.  Everything seemed fine, right up until the moment that he saw Gavin, and realised that he was a stranger.  He took a step backwards, blocking the hallway leading deeper into the building.

"
And who is this?" he demanded warily, jerking his chin at Gavin.

"
This is Gavin.  He's an old friend of mine," I replied, glancing back over my shoulder at him.  "Gavin, this is our doctor, Stewart Cross."

The doctor's brows knitted, and Skylar turned to look at me in surprise.
 Her eyes widened so suddenly that I realised she hadn't figured out that Gavin wasn't one of our own until that moment.  With his hood up and the rain in her eyes, it wasn't all that surprising.

"
Please elaborate, Ms McDermott," the doctor demanded, his brows knitting into a frown.  "Do we know him well enough to let him near the children?"

"
Don't worry, it's fine," I replied.  "Gavin's good people.  He helped me a lot when the plague first hit – I probably wouldn't have survived without him.  I think it's fair to say I know him well enough to vouch for him."

"
Wait, is this the honey guy?" Skye asked, curiosity flickering across her face.  "I thought you said he was dead?"

"
I thought he was dead, but he wasn't," I admitted with a shrug.  "Just like I thought you were dead, but you weren't.  Apparently, I'm just really bad at keeping track of the people I care about."  I made an abrupt gesture with one hand to derail the conversation, and directed it towards the more urgent topic.  "Anyway – Doc, we need you.  Lily's hurt."

My words seemed to touch just the right nerve.
 Doc dropped his gaze to the leather-wrapped bundle in Gavin's arms.  He glanced briefly at me, then looked at the girl again.  Whatever else he might have been feeling, his healer's instincts clearly took precedence; he nodded once, and gestured for us to follow him.