Enduring Anarchy (Dark Nation Book 2) Page 2

  2

  MOLLY

  Even as the sun inched higher in the sky, it remained painfully dull. The smoke that had started as wisps had turned into clouds, and now the entire skyline seemed black with it.

  “Is it spreading?” Jenna had once again swapped places with Molly and was walking beside Lucky.

  “How would I know?” Lucky replied, his face a little pale.

  “You’re our resident pyromaniac,” Zack butted in. “I thought you knew all there was to know about fires and shit?”

  Lucky rolled his eyes but smiled at the same time. “I know how to light fires. I don’t pay much attention to what happens once they’re in action.” Lucky tilted his head from side to side and put on a professor-like voice, masking whatever worry he might be feeling for his own family with humor. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s still burning and, yeah, probably spreading.” Dropping the voice, he laughed a little. “I mean, I’m guessing there’s as much chance of the firefighters turning up to help as there was the cops back there.” Lucky tipped his head in the direction of the prison.

  Following Lucky’s gaze, Molly shuddered. It wasn’t particularly cold out. Early summer in Maine was always pretty temperate, even at night. But suddenly Molly wished she had a cardigan or a jacket to wrap around herself. Even though they were miles away, she could still feel the looming presence of Fairfield Prison. While the road they were on was quiet, unnervingly quiet, back there at the prison she imagined all hell was breaking loose. Dougie had wanted to keep the prison as a castle—its generator providing a haven of light in a world where light was now a hot commodity. Thanks to Molly, however, Dougie was gone now. Whoever took his place as the prison’s leader might decide on a different plan; they might decide to leave the prison. Storm the town. After all, what chance would a bunch of ordinary townsfolk have against an entire prison’s worth of felons? Any second now, a gang of inmates could come charging after them. She and the kids had escaped twice. Would they be so lucky a third time?

  “Boys,” Molly warned, shoving aside her nerves and directing Zack and Lucky’s attention toward Scarlett and Erik. “Give it a rest, okay?”

  Zack pressed his lips together, then nodded briefly and stepped away to go talk to his brother. Lucky, on the other hand, muttered, “Sorry,” and folded his arms in front of his chest.

  Ignoring the two of them, Erik asked loudly, “How much farther do we have to walk on this damn road? How long did it take you to reach the prison, from our house, Dad?”

  “I had the bike,” Alex replied, patting the handlebars of his bicycle as if he felt guilty for mentioning it.

  “Right.” Erik gritted his teeth.

  “It’ll take a few more hours,” Alex added. “But we can only move as quickly as we can move, Erik.”

  “Tommy said we could take the bikes. Go on ahead. Scarlett and I could share. We could….” When his father shook his head, Erik trailed off and let out a loud groan. His fear for his mother was making him more than impatient—it was making him angry—and even Scarlett was struggling to calm him down.

  As Alex opened his mouth to reply, Erik practically growled at him and stalked off ahead. Scarlett jogged to catch up but stumbled as she reached him. She was tired. They all were. For more than twenty-four hours, they hadn’t slept, or rested, or eaten properly. They’d survived the prison on adrenaline and their wits. Now they were flagging. But thinking as far ahead as nightfall, wondering where they’d end up by the time it came, made Molly’s temples start to throb. So she pushed the thought away.

  Thankfully, after a few more minutes’ walking, the road they were on sloped downwards, easing their journey a little. The trees on either side began to thin, and Molly spotted unmoving cars up ahead.

  “We must almost be at the outskirts of town,” she said to Colton. “Look. Vehicles.”

  Colton nodded in agreement but didn’t look pleased. “Which means we’ll soon come across people too,” he said gruffly.

  “Looks like these have been looted already,” Jenna called as she peered into the open back seat of an old sedan.

  “This one hasn’t.” Lucky was standing beside a large, almost brand-new truck. “Might be something useful inside?” He wiggled his eyebrows at the others.

  “Definitely not.” Molly left Colton’s side and quickened her pace to catch up with Lucky and Jenna. “We’ve done enough damage to private property for one day, wouldn’t you say, you two?”

  Jenna and Lucky, who until a few hours ago had barely even spoken to each other before, exchanged a conspiratorial look and started to laugh.

  With a wistful look in his eyes, probably remembering the explosive display that he and Jenna had created to try and attract the cops to the prison, Lucky sighed. “Ah, man. I bet I won’t ever see anything that cool ever again.”

  “It was pretty cool,” Jenna added, looking at Molly.

  As they continued walking, Molly chuckled. “I’m sure it was. Unfortunately, all we got from inside was the noise. None of the pyrotechnics.”

  “The pyro what?” Lucky frowned at her.

  “Fireworks,” Zack, who was nearby, cut in. “She means fireworks.”

  “Hey guys—” Tommy had been up front with Alex and the Banks twins but now jogged back toward them. “There’s a gas station ahead. We can avoid it, but it’ll add to the distance.”

  Molly was about to suggest that she wait with the kids and Colton while Alex and Tommy checked out the situation—there could be useful things inside, but she didn’t want to walk the kids into something dangerous—when a commotion broke out behind them.

  “Miss O’Neil!”

  She turned to see Jenna and Lucky rushing over to Colton, who was barely managing to stand up.

  “Damn thing!” He cursed at his leg as if it might answer him back. When he looked up and saw Molly hurrying over, he allowed himself to drop to the ground and leaned over to rub at his knee. “Just gave out from under me,” he groaned.

  “Dad... we can’t do this. We need to get home.” Erik Banks was gesticulating wildly, close to panic at the idea of his mother somehow being caught up in whatever was causing the ever-blackening smoke that was filling the sky. Molly couldn’t blame him. The twins had come perilously close to losing their mother once before, five years ago when she was in a car accident that almost killed her. After that, they knew all too well what it felt like to believe she’d been taken from them.

  Firmly, Alex put his hands on Eric’s shoulders. “Your mother can take care of herself, Erik. She has Argent for company. He won’t let anything happen to her. He’d drag her out of a burning building if he had to, you know that.”

  As Molly pictured Laura Banks’ assistance dog Argent, she breathed in and told herself Alex was right. Dogs like Argent were trained to protect their owners. The twins’ mom would be okay.

  Erik swallowed hard, but Scarlett squeezed his arm. “Dad’s right, and besides, Colton helped us when we needed him. We can’t leave him, Erik.”

  Molly was watching Colton’s face. He winced as Scarlett spoke, but she’d be willing to bet it wasn’t because of the pain in his leg; it was because he was mortified that he was slowing them down. No matter how much he wanted to shrug off the pain he was feeling, he couldn’t. This was not a case of mind over matter. He’d injured himself and he simply wasn’t able to move as fast as they needed him to.

  “A splint,” Molly said loudly. “We need to make a splint to support his leg.”

  “Molly.” Colton’s voice was almost a growl. “Please. Just leave me here. Go with the kids. Come back for me when they’re all safe.” He looked up and down the road and lowered his voice. “We’ve been lucky so far, but sooner or later we’ll come across another group and it might not be a friendly one.”

  “You know what’s a waste of time?” Molly folded her arms and for the second time that morning gave Colton her most withering stare. “This conversation. I’ve told you we’re not leaving you. So the more you
repeat yourself, the more time you’re wasting.”

  For a moment, Molly thought Colton was going to yell at her. His cheeks were flushed and there was a narrowness to his eyes that she hadn’t seen before. But he didn’t. “Fine,” he said. “Then what do you suggest?”

  “Get on the bike.” Molly gestured to Alex’s bike—the larger of the two—but Colton shook his head.

  “I can’t ride it. My leg….”

  “We’ll push you,” Molly said, gesturing for Jenna to help her pull Colton to his feet.

  “Push me?” Colton looked horrified.

  “Only over to the gas station.” Molly put her arm around Colton’s waist and motioned for Alex to bring the bike over. “There’ll be something there we can use to splint your leg.”

  Before Erik could butt in and tell them there wasn’t time, Alex nodded in agreement and said, “And we’re running low on water. Food. There’s a good chance the place has already been ransacked, but it’s worth a shot.” Turning to Erik, he added, “Son, we’ll be no use to your mother if we arrive home dehydrated and half-dead from exhaustion. I want to get back as badly as you do, but we’ve got to keep our heads. That’s what’s going to make the difference here, okay?”

  “Dad’s right.” Scarlett put her hand on Erik’s forearm. She smiled at him and tucked her long dark hair behind her ear. Her clothes were rumpled. The black eyeliner she’d so expertly applied on the bus yesterday morning was now smudged and nothing more than a shadow. Without it, she looked more like her brother.

  As Molly, Jenna, and Tommy helped Colton onto the bike, Erik muttered, “Okay. Okay,” and let Alex put his arm around his shoulders.

  “Me and Zack will push him,” Tommy said, offering his bike to Molly.

  Molly took it. “I’ll go ahead and make sure the coast is clear.”

  Before she could ask, Tommy handed her back the gun he’d been keeping in the band of his jeans. “Be careful,” he said. Then, nodding at Alex, “We’ll wait over behind those cars until you give us a signal.”

  As Molly made the short journey across the road, past the extinguished traffic lights and the abandoned cars, toward the gas station, she glanced back. Tommy had pushed Colton forward a few feet and they were now waiting, with the others, behind two cars that had clearly careened into each other when their engines cut out.

  She stopped on the concrete. The usually lit-up fuel pumps were dark, the windows of the store had been smashed and the automatic doors had been wedged open with a large red trash can. Molly got off the bike and rested it against one of the pumps. Straining her ears, she walked slowly forward. It was quiet. Very quiet.

  Awkwardly, she climbed over the trash can and winced as her boots clacked against the tiled floor inside. She walked along the aisles, peering down each one with her fingers flexed and ready to reach for the gun. Most of the shelves were empty and the store seemed vacant of both goods and people. There was no one there.

  When she reached the far end of the store, Molly sighed and leaned back against an abandoned checkout. For a moment, just one small moment, she allowed herself to close her eyes and pretend she was alone in her cabin. In the middle of the woods, looking out at nothing but trees and sunshine, gently swaying back and forth in the porch swing that had belonged to her grandmother. When she opened her eyes, she bit her lower lip, shook her head, and marched back to the exit.

  Climbing back over the trashcan, she waved for the others. Tommy waved back, indicating they’d seen her, and she watched as they started to file across the road. Tommy and Colton were slow—pushing a guy Colton’s size on a bike wasn’t easy and, under any other circumstances, it would have been comical. To an outsider, it looked almost like Zack and Tommy were teaching him to ride, and Molly fought the urge to reach for the cell phone that would usually have been nestled in her back pocket and take a picture of it.

  While the kids hurried over, clearly eager to get their hands on any leftover candy or soda, Alex Banks stopped in the middle of the road. He was looking into the ditch at an old, upturned truck. Eventually he tore himself away but when he reached the gas station, Molly was almost certain she saw him wiping moisture from his eyes.

  “Can we go in, Miss O’Neil?” Lucky had paused at the doorway and was looking at her for approval.

  “It seems like the coast is clear, but be careful,” Molly said sternly. “Take anything useful that’ll fit in your backpacks, although I’m not sure what’s left, to be honest. It’s a bit of a mess in there.”

  Lucky nodded, then grinned at the others. “First to find a can of Moxie wins my everlasting gratitude.”

  As the kids rushed inside, Molly smiled at them. She was glad they had Lucky to keep them upbeat, and she was glad Lucky and Jenna seemed to have formed a more solid friendship since their escapades with the fireworks and the ammo; if things continued to go the way she was expecting them to, these kids would need each other. Really need each other.

  3

  LAURA

  When she woke, Laura expected it to be dark. She felt like she had been unconscious for hours, but the air still hummed with an early-morning freshness, which told her it wasn’t long after sunrise.

  She wasn’t sure why she’d passed out. Exhaustion. Shock. Pain. It could have been any one of those things. But she knew she had because Argent hadn’t been there when she’d last had her eyes open, and now he was. He was lying beside her, nose against her hand, staring at her as if he could will her to be okay.

  “I’m all right, boy,” she said, trying to ease herself up onto her elbows so she could assess the damage to her lower half. “Don’t worry.”

  Looking herself up and down, however, she fought a rising sense of panic in her chest; her lower half was trapped. Whatever had exploded in the distance had caused the old dying tree in the middle of their backyard to finally fall down, and it had landed smack-dab on top of her.

  She couldn’t feel it, of course, which was probably the only blessing so far in the fact that she had no real sensation in her legs. She could, however, feel it in her back. Already, the spot at the base of her spine was throbbing. Just propping herself up had caused shockwaves to shoot up and down her torso, and the pain was making her eyes water.

  “Okay,” she breathed shakily. “Think, Laura. How are you going to get out of this one?”

  As she stared at her trapped legs, memories of the car accident that had left her in a wheelchair began to careen through her head. Except then it had been Alex who was trapped. She’d pulled him free. She’d risked her own safety to save him, but this time there was no one here to save her. She was on her own.

  Laura looked at Argent. She wasn’t completely alone. Argent would do anything for her, but even he wasn’t strong enough to move an entire tree on his own.

  Out of breath and unsure whether it was because she’d injured herself or because she was beginning to panic, Laura allowed herself to flop gently back onto the grass. It was damp and cold. Early-morning dew had begun to seep through her sweater, making her shiver.

  Turning her head, she caught sight of the covered patio furniture on the lawn and tried to slow her breathing as she remembered what was beneath it. Who was beneath it.

  “Think, Laura, think….”

  She was about to start yelling for help when she heard a voice.

  “Laura? It’s Jerry. Are you all right? Me and Barb heard a crash.”

  “Jerry, thank God,” Laura whispered, trying not to start crying. As loudly as she could, she called back, “Jerry! I’m trapped! If you reach over the gate, you can unlock it from the top.”

  She couldn’t see what was happening because the gate was behind her, but she heard a fumbling sound and then the thick clunk of the lock being slid open.

  Argent sat up, ears pricked, tail wagging, but unsure whether he should welcome their visitor or protect Laura at all costs.

  “Dear Lord, child, what happened?” Laura’s seventy-something-year-old neighbor crouched down beside her
and reached out as if he was going to check her over, then thought better of it. “I’ll call an ambulance,” he said, then shook his head at himself. “What am I saying? Of course I won’t.” He tried to smile, but when he took in the tree branch and Laura’s legs, his face paled.

  “You can’t move?”

  Laura grimaced. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll go find help.” Jerry stood up. His face was pale and sweaty, and he looked more than mildly panicked.

  Laura nodded. She couldn’t think of anything else to suggest. A few hours ago, she might have told Jerry not to worry, that Alex would be home soon with the kids, but now she was beginning to doubt it. He’d been gone such a long time, and she had no idea where the explosion that had rocked the tree had come from. What if Alex and the twins had been close to it? What if they were hurt? What if he’d never even made it to the prison in the first place?

  Pushing aside the thoughts, because they terrified her, Laura smiled encouragingly at Jerry. “Perhaps try Mr. Higgins? He lifts weights,” she laughed. “He might be able to help.”

  Jerry nodded. “Mick Higgins. Right. I’ll be back!” As he hurried away, Laura bit her lower lip. Despite trying her best not to, again and again, she was picturing whoever came to help her pointing at the table. Suggesting they use the tarp for something. Pulling it loose… and discovering Dave’s bloodied dead body wrapped in a carpet from her husband’s office.

  She was once again trying to stop her breath quickening into a white-hot panic when she heard the gate. Argent’s ears pricked up but this time he simply tilted his head.

  “She’s over here,” Jerry was saying.

  “Jesus.” Mick Higgins from across the street stepped into Laura’s line of sight, put his hands on his hips and surveyed the situation as if he was calculating how much he was going to bench at the gym that day. “Got yourself in a mess here, Laura.”