What Survives of Us (Colorado Chapters Book 1) (22 page)

Hades followed her around to the driver’s side, but didn’t jump in when she asked him to.  Instead, he turned to face back down the road, alternately whining and growling.  The hair on Naomi’s nape prickled painfully, and she sharpened her tone.

“Hades!  Up!  Let’s go!”

He obeyed, finally, crowding close to Macy but refusing to sit on the bench seat.  It was then Naomi realized Ares had disappeared.  “Kitty, kitty, kitty!  Ares!  Come on, kitty, kitty, kitty!”

She waited an agonizing minute, then two, then three.  Then, despairing, she slid in beside Hades and ended up with his rear in her face.  She gave his hip a shove, but the normally obedient dog didn’t budge.  He stared out the back window, growling louder now.  Macy stirred and sat up, blinking in confusion.

“Mama?  What’s going on?  What’s wrong?”
              Naomi’s hand was shaking so hard, she had to steady her wrist with her left hand to get the keys in the ignition.  She had no idea what was upsetting Hades, but she shared his anxiety completely.  “I’m not sure, honey.  Hades is sensing something.  Slide down low in the seat and hang onto Persephone.”

“Where’s Ares?”

“I don’t know.  He was here a minute ago.”  She turned the key, then put the truck in gear and took off, gaining momentum as they headed downhill, searching the sides of the road for a flash of grey.  “He saved us, honey.  We ran into some…not-so-nice people, and he figured it out before Hades and I did.  He saved Hades’ life, I’m sure of it.”

“No way.  Seriously?”

Macy’s look was so filled with disbelief, Naomi found a shaky laugh.  “Seriously!  I couldn’t believe it!  One minute we were – oh my God!  Macy, get down!”

Three people, ranged across the road, two holding shotguns, one holding a shovel.  Men, women, Naomi didn’t bother to analyze.  She crouched behind the wheel, shoved Hades down with all her might, and floored it.

They stepped easily out of the way.  One – a woman – raised her shotgun to her shoulder, but didn’t fire.  Naomi flew by them, waiting, waiting for the boom of the shotgun, but it didn’t come.  She watched the rearview mirror as much as she dared, saw when the other person – a man – waved the woman’s gun down, watched until she nearly missed a curve in the road, the tires squealing wildly as she jammed on the brakes.

Hades thumped heavily into the dashboard and scrambled to regain his footing.  Macy had slid right out of her seatbelt and was crouched on the floorboards, clutching Persephone.  A terrible sense of déjà vu gripped Naomi: this was just like their desperate flight into Manitou Springs.  How many
people was she going to have to run down or threaten to shoot before they made it to safety?

She drove on as fast as she dared, trying to remember the way out of the neighborhood, and failing that, just guessing by the sun and the terrain.  Hades settled onto the seat beside her, and Macy was still on the floor, head pillowed on her arms, face hidden.  When they reached Highway 24, Naomi sobbed aloud in relief.

Macy lifted her head.  Her color was terrible – somehow gray and yellow at the same time.  “Mama?  Are you okay?”

No, she was not okay.  She was pretty sure she would never be okay, not ever.  Is this what survival was going to be like?  Children killing family pets for food?  Violent strangers ready to shoot before they’d even talked to her and determined her intent?  Shouldn’t people be helping each other?  So far, she didn’t have any reason to believe they would ever be safe again. 

But she didn’t say these things.  Instead, she nodded, and forced her face to smile.  “I’m okay, baby girl.  I’m just so relieved 24 is open.  It’s clear as far as I can see.” 

They turned onto the highway, and Naomi accelerated until it felt like they were flying.  Wind pounded into the cab through the open window, but she was afraid the smell would overwhelm them if she rolled it up.  She reached down and tucked the sleeping bag more securely around Macy.

“If you’re comfortable enough, let’s have you ride right there.  It’s safer, and it gives Hades some room.  Okay?”

Macy nodded and burrowed into the sleeping bag, covering her head against the wind.  Persephone wriggled free and curled up against Hades’ side, but her eyes never left the lump that was Macy.  Naomi thought of Ares, alone now and with little chance of finding them, and her eyes welled with tears. 

He’d be okay, she was sure of it – he was too savvy and too darn mean to die.  But they had lost so much, the thought of never seeing him again teetered on the edge of unbearable.  She could feel his ornery presence in her heart, next to the strength that was Hades, the sweetness that was Persephone, the pain that was Piper, the emptiness that had been Scott, and the glowing everything that was Macy.  She sent a pulse of love and gratitude through that connection, and prayed it wouldn’t freak him out too much.

The wind had hardly dried the tears on her cheeks when they were pulling into the outskirts of Woodland Park.  It was disorienting to say the least, having spent three days walking, to traverse the eight or nine miles between here and Cascade so quickly.  Naomi slowed the truck, scanning for threats,
feeling
her way along.  Long before they arrived at the blockade at the intersection at Baldwin Street and Highway 24, she
felt
it.

She crept along, her eyes moving ceaselessly, then came to a stop well short of the orange sawhorses that had been placed across the road.  One man stood in front of the blockade in plain sight, holding a shotgun at the ready.  Two more men stood on either side of the road, sheltered behind parked cars but making no effort to fully conceal themselves.  She looked over at Hades, who was on his feet again, staring intently out the windshield.

“What do you think, buddy?  I’m getting ‘wary but not dangerous.’  And I can’t
feel
any but these three, not right here.  What about you?”

Hades looked over at the sound of her voice, and just like that, his perceptions were hers.  He whined softly – she could feel his worry, how badly the encounter with the children had shaken his confidence, but his read on this situation reinforced her own.  She put the truck in park but left it running.  Then she reached behind her and pulled the shotgun free.

She stepped out of the truck with her shotgun in one hand, holding both arms up high.  She wanted them to see that she was armed, but also that she didn’t intend harm.  “Hades, come.”

The men shifted nervously when the big dog bounded out of the cab.  Naomi left the door of the truck open and walked slowly towards them, Hades prowling beside her so close his body brushed her leg. 

“I don’t want any trouble,” she called.  “I’m looking for a doctor, or someone with medical training.  My daughter needs help.”

All three men shifted their weapons to the ready.  Naomi stopped walking, and Hades’ aggressive growl ripped out of his chest so loudly, Naomi jumped. 

“Stop right there,” the man in front said.  “Is she sick with the plague?”

“No.  She survived it.”  She saw the men exchange glances, and willed them to believe her.  “We’re from Colorado Springs.  She got sick April 7
th
, the day after my husband died.  I don’t know what the date is, but that has to have been over a month ago.  No one survives that long with the plague.  But it did something to her body.  She’s…”  Naomi’s throat closed, and she had to clear it several times before she could go on.  “She needs help.  Please.  Please.”

The man in front squinted at her for a long moment.  Then, he lowered his weapon.  “She’s telling the truth.”  He spoke over his shoulder to the other men, but didn’t look away from her.  “At least, she believes she’s telling the truth.”  Then, to Naomi:  “We don’t mean to seem uncaring, but the plague has pretty much burned out here, and we need to protect our own.”

“I understand.”  Naomi brushed Hades’ head with her fingertips and he stopped growling like she’d flipped a switch.  “Can you take us to someone who can help?”

The man smiled.  “We can.”

              “What about guided meditation?”

             
Jack ground his teeth.  In the office adjoining his at the church, which Layla had taken over as her “work” space, Rowan and Layla were brainstorming.  He’d been invited to join the conversation, but had politely declined.  Now, he found himself alternately straining to listen and striving to ignore.  It was maddening.

             
“Hmm.”  Rowan was skeptical – Jack could
feel
it.  “I don’t know.  These are working folks – a lot of them are just desperate for something to
do
.  I don’t know if asking them to sit still and visualize something is the answer.”

             
A worried Rowan had taken a break from her endless medical rounds this afternoon to talk to Layla.  The people, she reported, were scared, and getting more so.  Many of them were not coping with their losses – literally everyone had lost someone – and on top of that, they were dealing with profound, paradigm-shifting changes in themselves.  An exponential increase in intuitive, “sixth-sense” experiences had been reported by the majority of the people Rowan spoke to.  And some of the ones who denied such experiences, she was sure, were too scared to tell her the truth.

             
Grief-counseling, Jack could do.  New Age woo-woo, he could not.

             
He had tried.  Some of his surviving parishioners had come to him, desperate to talk about it, and he had truly tried to help them.  But he’d come off as insincere, no matter what approach he used, and he knew it.  It just wasn’t his area of expertise, and he couldn’t bring himself to parrot what he’d heard Layla say.  It wasn’t his Truth.  He had ended up sending them to talk to Layla instead, and without exception, they had left her comforted, at peace.

             
She had been nothing short of amazing these last few days: calm, quietly authoritative, wise, and respectful of the beliefs of others as she helped the people of their community cope, survive, and take their first steps towards healing.  And while she was busy being a paragon, she was simultaneously shielding Jack, protecting him from the worst of the emotional buffeting they were both enduring.  He had tried to remove that burden from her, had tried to handle things on his own, but even small groups quickly overwhelmed his fledgling “shields.”  He always ended up hurrying back under her wing, never able to stifle a sigh of relief as he felt her protection fold around him like a warm quilt.

             
He was perilously close to hating her.

             
Jack dropped his face into his hands and scrubbed at the tense muscles of his cheeks, his forehead, his scalp.  He felt like he’d been wearing a mask for days, trying to protect himself behind it, trying to keep his feelings private and respect the privacy of others.  What Layla did so effortlessly was a constant strain for him.  That was just item number one on the “Reasons to Hate Layla” list he’d been composing in his head.  He knew it was childish, and didn’t care.  Like everyone else, he was doing what he had to do to cope.

             
The constant proximity wasn’t helping.  He wished he could justify moving back to his own house, but they were encouraging everyone to consolidate, to make the most of their finite resources.  Layla’s place already had a generator, and his didn’t.  End of story.  For now, food and fuel were not issues; so many people had died so quickly, they were able to scavenge what they needed.  But if the rest of the world had been hit by the plague as hard as Woodland Park, they wouldn’t be able to count on supplies from the outside any time soon. 

And if he was going to be of any assistance to his community at all, he had to stay near her as they worked on the endless list of issues the survivors now faced:  Reestablishing communication with the outside world, especially urgent for those who had lost contact with distant family members; clean water, and how to get the municipal water treatment plant back up and running; medical care for the survivors, particularly those with chronic health conditions; and burial of the dead, which was a task no one wanted to deal with.  Rowan warned constantly of the threat of disease, and it was their duty as survivors.  But how to assign such a disheartening task, to an already disheartened people? 

He and Layla had been trying to work out a rotating duty roster, but they were both reluctant to implement it.  And they had barely scratched the surface.  What to do about law breakers?  What laws were still relevant?  What about people hoarding their own food and supplies, who didn’t want to participate in the collective society that was forming?  Did they have that right?  Jack’s head spun with details, his shoulders sagged with responsibility, and his heart burned with resentment, all of it directed at Layla.

             
He knew his feelings weren’t rational or just, but he hadn’t had even a single waking moment to sort them out.  He and Layla had been together day and night, non-stop.  Even in their separate rooms of her little cottage, he was aware of her constant presence.  He would bet he was getting on her nerves, too, but he lacked the courage to lower his “shields” – man, he hated that term – and
feel
what she was projecting.  And even if he wanted to try, he was pretty sure she could control what she projected as well as what she received.  So unlike the rest of them, her thoughts were still her own.  Reason number two on the Hate List.

             
Layla spoke again, and her tone had Jack reconsidering that second item.  Not only did she sound frustrated, he could
feel
her impatience without even trying.  “I’m at a loss.  The people that I’ve talked to seem to be handling the changes, but so many of them just want to isolate, to hide at home.  We can’t help people that just want to cower in fear.”

             
Jack didn’t care for the
contempt
that rolled off her.  He didn’t care for it at all.  How dare she judge?  He was considering calling her on it when Rowan spoke.

             
“Layla, what about that thing you do?  That thing with your voice?”

             
Jack sat up straighter, and his heart started to pound.  They hadn’t spoken of this, and he’d been hoping he had imagined it.

             
“Rowan, I can’t
make
people not be afraid.”

             
“No, but you could encourage them to listen.  With great persuasiveness.”

             
Jack was on his feet and moving before Layla could answer.  He stepped into the open doorway, and glared at them both.  “I don’t like what I’m hearing.  Not at all.  What is it you want her to do, Rowan?”

             
Rowan radiated
busted
.  “I wouldn’t have her force anyone to do anything they didn’t want to do.  But she can do this thing, with her voice, and I just thought…” 

She trailed off miserably and Jack shifted his glare to Layla.  “Why don’t you explain exactly what it is you can do?”

              Layla’s nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed.  She didn’t like his tone – he could both
see
and
feel
that.  “You didn’t have to eavesdrop.  You could have just joined us, like we asked you to in the first place.”

             
He ignored the swipe and kept his eyes on the goal.  “What is it Rowan wants you to do?”

             
Layla and Rowan looked at each other for a long moment, then Layla returned her gaze to him and lifted her chin.  Her dark eyes were as inscrutable as her energy.  He couldn’t feel a thing coming from her now.

             
“I can command people to do things.  I didn’t realize I was doing it – have been doing it my whole life, I guess – until Alder was moving the generator into my house.  He was starting to slide it out of the back of the pick-up, and he didn’t see that the board he was using as a ramp had moved – I thought he was going to drop the generator.  I told him to stop, and he froze.  He says he literally couldn’t move.”

             
Chills of alarm raced up Jack’s spine and prickled across his scalp.  “Like that time you told me to ‘stop.’  In your living room, that first day we met with everyone at the church.” 

Layla nodded, and Jack’s stomach tightened.  He could see why she’d kept this a secret.  Such power was not from God.  It couldn’t be.  He kept his eyes on Layla, but spoke to Rowan.  “Could you please leave us alone, Rowan?  We have some things to sort out.”

              Rowan’s
relief
wafted after her like a perfume as she zipped out the door and shut it behind her.  For a long, long moment, Jack stared at Layla.  Intellectually, he recognized her value and importance to their community.  The smart thing to do would be to talk to her, gather more information, find out exactly what they were dealing with calmly and rationally, before leaping to condemn.

             
Instead, he cocked his head to the side, read every nuance of her posture and emotion he was able to, and calculated his words for maximum damage.  “So.  Were you saving that little parlor trick for a special occasion?  Waiting for a chance to show it off in front of a crowd?  Pretty good strategy - bet it would give your little Tarot card racket quite a boost.”

             
A flare of white-hot rage kicked off her before she locked it down behind that hateful wall of ice.  “I won’t even justify that with a reply.”  She rose from her seat and moved towards the door, head high.  “When you’re ready to talk about this instead of hurling ridiculous accusations…”

             
Jack moved to block the door.  “You’re not calling the shots right now, Layla, and you
will
talk about this.  You and Rowan didn’t give me much choice about assuming a leadership position here, and now you get to abide by that.  It’s one thing to accept that we can both read people’s emotions.  It’s something entirely different to learn that you’re capable of the kind of manipulative power Rowan described.”

             
“You can do it, too.”

             
Her soft words derailed him completely.  He blinked at her, and decided he must have misheard.  “Excuse me?”

             
“You can do it, too.  I’ve seen you.  Or rather, I’ve
heard
you do it.  That first day, when you talked to the crowd.  And every day since, whenever you need someone to do something you want.”

             
An awful recognition teased the edges of his righteous anger.  No, she could not be right about this.  He didn’t think he could take her being right about one more thing while he stumbled around on unfamiliar ground, trying to regain his footing.  “I’m persuasive.  There’s a world of difference between that and
commanding
people to obey your will.”

             
“They’re not exactly the same, I’ll give you that.  I can use one-word commands to influence a person’s immediate actions.  Rowan and I have done a little experimenting, a very little, there just hasn’t been time.  But the effect is momentary only.  What you can do lasts much longer.”

             
His heart was pounding.  No.  “Layla, you’re trying to deflect this, and it’s not going to work.  I offer my thoughts and opinions.  Others are free –
free
– to make up their minds as to whether they agree or disagree, and then act accordingly.  I don’t use force or coercion of any kind.”

             
“No, you don’t.  But you
read
people, and you’re able to manipulate their thoughts and feelings.  You choose just the right words, the exact, precise words.    You’re so good at it, people think your words are their own thoughts, their own opinions.  I think you’ve always been able to do this, just like I have.”  She looked down, and a tiny vulnerable crack in her wall of ice appeared.  “I thought I was just a good teacher with exceptional classroom-management skills.  Turns out I probably had an unfair advantage.”

             
He could
see
, through that crack, how to cut to the heart of her.  How to make her doubt herself and her own integrity, how to wound her so deeply, she might never heal.  That he was even considering using that knowledge was what stopped him.

             
He turned away from her and shut his eyes, searching for anything in his heart or mind that felt familiar.  “I hate this.  I hate feeling like I’m on an alien planet.  I don’t understand anything.  I feel like I can’t trust myself or anyone around me.  I don’t know what’s real or imaginary anymore.” 

He turned back towards her and opened his eyes.  She had returned to Remote Ice Queen mode, and he could not stop the sneer that lifted his lip.  “Sometimes I hate you, too.  I hate that you seem to understand all these changes, when I don’t.  I hate the words you use to talk about this – intuition and shields and cones of light.  The words are so stupid, I can’t even talk with you and Rowan about it.”

He didn’t give her a chance to reply, and took a step towards her.  Now that the floodgates were open, he had to complete the purge.  “I hate the way I feel when I’m around you.  Awkward.  Stiff.  I’ve always felt this way, and it’s worse now.  I don’t recognize myself when I’m around you, and I don’t like myself.  What the hell?  Is that you or me?”