- - End of All Things, The (17 page)

“I always thought of tracking them down, to say I was sorry for everything I put them and their family through, but I never did it, and now I’ll never be able to.”

“It’s not your fault, you know.”

Justin chuckled. “Oh, Carly, you’re so sweet. But it
was
my fault. I have to own my actions. I was old enough to know right from wrong, and I chose
wrong
.”

“You were just a kid. A kid who’d had a horribly hard life.”
Has he been carrying this burden all these years? Has he been hating himself for something he did when he was a child, a lonely, scared little boy who’d never had anyone in his life that didn’t abandon him?

“And not every kid who has a hard life makes the kind of decisions I did. I can’t make excuses, Carly. I made my choices.”

“You’re not just talking about the Altons, are you?”

“No.”

Carly sighed. “Everything that happens in our lives shapes us into who we are. I made mistakes, too, Justin, but looking back on them, I realize I wouldn’t be who I was today if I’d made different choices. Right or wrong, good or bad, we’re the product of all of those decisions. You wouldn’t be the Justin who was selected to be in The Unit, and you wouldn’t have learned all of this survival stuff, and you wouldn’t be the Justin I know now.”

“Maybe I’d be a better one.”

“Better in what way? If you’d lived a nice, middle-class life with the Altons, would you have been a tax accountant? You never would have met me, that’s for sure, since you wouldn’t have gone into the army, and you wouldn’t have been wandering around Alaska, headed to a motorcycle rally. Would the other Justin have given away some of our supplies because he was thinking with his heart, not with his head? Would the other Justin have had the stomach to go into those buildings where the dead were to collect the supplies we need in the first place?”

Justin rubbed the back of his neck again. “I see your point.”

“So what’s the point of living with regret? Let’s say you had tracked the Altons down and apologized to them. Would it have changed anything? Would it have repaired any of the pain in the past?”

“You might want to practice what you preach, sister,” Justin said, but his voice was mild, lightly teasing. “I can see you have your own regrets you carry with you.”

Carly touched her father’s ring—the bump it made below her T-shirt. “I’m carrying them in my heart, not my head. I can’t help what my heart feels. It doesn’t use logic. But my brain knows some of the things I regret couldn’t have been changed. You, on the other hand, have them stuck in your head but aren’t using logic. You know all that psychology stuff. Use it on yourself. You know why you acted as you did, so why not accept it as a lesson learned, the path your life had to take to lead you to where you are now, and let it go?”

“Easier said than done.”

“Sure. It’s a process. But you’ve got to want to do it. Maybe you’re having too much fun beating yourself up over it to let it go.”

Justin was startled again. He stared at her, and his mouth hung open slightly.

Carly shrugged. “Some people like to wallow in guilt. I don’t think you’re one of them, but you kind of seem like you do it on occasion.” She glanced over at him and narrowed her eyes. “Did you use any of that psychology stuff on me when we first met?”

“Yes.” Justin admitted it without a qualm. “You weren’t thinking clearly, Carly, and I had to get you out of that apartment. So, yes, I tricked you a little and manipulated your emotions. If that upsets you, I’m sorry, but I don’t regret doing what needed to be done in order to shake you out of your state of shock.”

“I’m not mad about it. I understand what you mean about me not thinking clearly. And you sure weren’t doing it for your own selfish benefit or anything like that. You were doing it to help me.”

“I picked your locks, and I . . . uh . . . I turned off your water.” He actually blushed a little at this confession.

Carly gave a bark of surprised laughter. “Tricksy hobbit!”

“That white pipe I took off to show you there wasn’t any water in it? That was your sink drain.”

Carly laughed so hard she had to coast her bike to a stop or risk falling off. “You’re kidding!”

“Jesus, Carly, didn’t you ever look at what pipe goes to what?”

“No. To tell you the truth, I don’t think I’d ever looked at any of the plumbing under the sink.”

“Too busy alphabetizing your cleaning bottles?”

“You’re just jealous of my organizational skills.” Carly remounted her bike and began to pedal again. Maybe she was fooling herself but biking for long stretches of time seemed to be getting easier. Her calves weren’t even sore yet.

“ ‘Jealous of,’ no.
Disturbed by
, slightly.” Justin tossed a grin at her. 

Carly stuck her tongue out at him, and he chuckled.

For a while, they pedaled in silence, and then apropos of nothing, Justin said, “Tell me about Noah.”

“What about him?”

Justin gave a small shrug. “The usual. How long you were together. How you met. That sort of thing.”

Odd for him to be interested,
Carly thought. “He was a friend of a friend. I’d been introduced to him a couple of times, but I didn’t know him all that well. Then, one day, he sent a flirty text to my phone. I messaged back, just a funny little quip or something, and we messaged back and forth for a few minutes. He asked me something about my brother, and I said I didn’t have a brother. At that point we figured out he’d thought he’d been talking to another girl. He called me to apologize, and we chatted for a bit, and that’s when he asked me out. We dated for about two years.”

Justin waited for a moment. “That’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?”

“What is it you want to know?”

“Were you . . . serious?”

Carly looked at him blankly. “What do you mean? I mean, we talked about getting married, but it was just talk. He never proposed, and I didn’t have a ring or anything.”

“Did he live with you?” Justin’s voice was casual. He reached down to the frame of his bike and plucked his water bottle out of its carrier.

“With my dad two floors down? He would have gone after Noah with a shotgun.”

“Oh.” Justin squirted some water into his mouth and offered the bottle to her, but Carly didn’t think she could manage to control the bike with only one hand. She shook her head. She could tell he was looking for a way to phrase something, and she sighed. 

“Do you want to know if we slept together?”

“I . . . er . . . I . . .” 

Carly thought she detected a hint of a blush on his cheekbones, and she was enchanted. “Yes, we did. Does that reduce the number of cans of ravioli you’ll be able to sell me for?”

Justin laughed, but it was a little strained. “Sorry. I was just curious.”

“Why didn’t you just ask?”

Justin opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again.

“What about you?”

He seemed taken aback. “Me?”

“Well, if we’re going to talk about my sexual experiences, shouldn’t yours be open for discussion, too?”

Justin rubbed the back of his neck. “What do you want to know?”

“How old were you when you first did it?”

“Fifteen.”

“I’ll bet you’ve had
scads
of experience,” Carly said. “Traveling around the world, a woman in every port.”

“You’re thinking of sailors.”

Carly shrugged. “Same difference. Well?”

“Not as much as you might think.”

“Really? Why?”

Justin grinned. “I’m picky.”

“
You see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet
,” Carly quoted, and Justin laughed.

“Speaking of shoes, we need to stop and get you another pair,” Justin said. “You really shouldn’t be wearing sandals to ride a bike.”

“I like these shoes,” Carly said in protest. They were her favorite pair, strappy white leather with pink flowers stitched across the instep. “They’re very comfortable.”

“But not very safe. What if your toe got caught in the chain?”

“That can happen?” Carly looked down in alarm at the gears of her bike and nearly ran off the road into the ditch. She overcorrected and ended up sprawled gracelessly in a bush. Sam let out a sharp yip and bounded over. He sniffed Carly and bumped her with his head as though urging her to get up. 

 Justin hopped off his own bike and helped Carly to her feet. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride,” she muttered. He helped her to her feet, and they froze for an instant with his hands resting on her upper arms. The tension grew. Carly bit her lip, and Justin’s gaze lingered on it for a moment. He seemed about to say something, but he turned and walked to the back of the wagon to begin unloading their camping gear. She caught herself eyeing the back of him as he walked away and forced herself to look away.

“We’ll stop here for the night.” He didn’t look at her as he said it.

“I’m sorry,” Carly whispered. Shadowfax lumbered up to her and snuffled at Carly’s ear, and Carly hid her face against the horse’s neck. She hated that Justin was mad at her, but she guessed she had been kind of dumb to crash her bike like that.

Chapter Four

The animals and Justin were on high alert as they approached Carcross. Something just wasn’t right. It was so silent that Carly could hear the wind whisper through the long grass beside the road and the tiny waves that lapped at the shore of the lake.

Justin took another gun from the wagon, stuck it in the back of his belt, and pulled his T-shirt out over it. He told Carly to check her weapon to make sure it was loaded, and she fumbled through the process while he scanned the town, his eyes sharp and intent.

Beside Carly, Sam let out a soft whine. His ears swiveled as he searched for sounds. Justin cursed. “I don’t like this.” 

“Neither does Sam.” Carly tried to reassure the wolf by stroking his soft ears, but he ignored her. Behind them, Shadowfax gave a snort and shook her head.

“I’d leave you here to wait if I thought that would be safer,” Justin murmured. “But I don’t think we should split up right now.”

“Is there someone here?”

Justin nodded. “I think so. No need to assume the worst; it could be someone just wanting to trade, and they’re watching to see if we’re friendly or not.”

“Let’s go around. We don’t need any supplies right now.”

“We can’t go around,” Justin said. “This is the only way across the lake, and we’re leaving the Klondike Highway here. This is the last town you’ll see for a long while.”

“I don’t care about seeing a town. Can we maybe go around once we get on the other side of the bridge?”

“We’ll be all right, Carly. Just don’t wander off.”

The end of the bridge opposite the town had two police cars parked nose to nose to block traffic. Someone had tried to ram their way through in a Chevy Cavalier, and the front of the car was crushed all the way up to the cabin. Carly avoided looking at the interior. Behind the crushed car was a line of vehicles, which stretched all the way across the bridge into the little town. Carly kept an eye on the buildings while Justin scavenged a few things here and there from the cars themselves, canned goods, a few cases of bottled water.

Sam let out another soft whine, and Shadowfax stamped her hooves with a toss of her head, as if to say, “Come on! Let’s go!”

“We’ve got to grab supplies wherever we come across them,” Justin said, and Carly wondered whether he was speaking to the animals or to her.

The last vehicle in the line was a van. It sat just a few feet from the end of the bridge. Justin slid the side door open. “Jackpot!” It was loaded with food and water, even a couple of twelve packs of soda.

A shot rang out and hit the road behind the van. “Down!” Justin shouted at Carly and used the corner of the van as cover while he fired off shots in the direction from which the gunfire had come. Carly was only a couple of steps behind him when the gunfire started, and she immediately crouched down behind the wagon. Shadowfax, who had strolled ahead, let out a squeal of fear at the sudden noise. Sam darted toward Justin just as a man surged up from under the end of the bridge behind them and threw a fishing net over Sam. Carly fumbled for her gun, but she didn’t have Justin’s quick reflexes. The man grabbed her around the waist and yanked her back against him. He pressed a knife to her throat so hard that she felt it burning as it sliced through the top layer of skin before she felt a small trickle of blood.

“Don’t move, bitch,” the man said with a hiss. His sour breath fanned across her face, and Carly gagged.

Justin spun to face them, his back to the van and his gun pointed straight at the man behind Carly. Beside them, Sam snarled and writhed in the net, entangling himself more with every movement.

“Drop it, asshole,” the man spat at Justin. “Or the bitch dies.”

She had seen the icy calm in Justin’s face only once before—when she had been attacked in Fraser. Justin opened his hand, and the gun fell with a clatter to the pavement. 

“We got ‘em, Mikey,” the man shouted.

A second man emerged from behind a corrugated metal building with the words “General Store” painted on its pink, false front. He crossed the road to them and grinned at the man holding Carly. “She’s a cutie. We’re going to have a lot of fun with this one.”

“Kill him,” the man holding Carly said in the same mildly contemptuous tone he might have used to direct Mikey to step on a bug. 

“Nah, it’s more fun to tie ‘em up and make ‘em watch.” Mikey began poking around in the wagon to see what they had brought.

Then several things seemed to happen all at once. Carly heard the clomping of hooves on asphalt as Shadowfax ambled up to the man holding her. Out of the corner of her eye, Carly saw the horse stop just a few feet away. Her captor glanced back once but ignored the horse, turning his gaze back to Justin. Casually, as though she were munching on some grass, Shadowfax extended her neck and chomped down on the man’s shoulder. He bellowed, and the hand holding the knife to Carly’s throat fell away as he grabbed his shoulder. Carly let her legs go limp before she dropped like a sack of cement to the road in front of his feet. Justin moved so fast she could barely track him. He whipped the gun out of the back of his belt and shot the man who had been holding Carly.