From The Ashes (Life After War) (3 page)

“
You have no idea,” he retorted.

Adrian opened the door and did a fast sweep. Dusty but undamaged when they’d arrived, the rest stop was now the scene of a high-budget action film. Death and absolution coated the smoking set.

“
I brought her in because she belongs here.”

“
And if she dies?”

Allan's question made the other Eagles wince.

“
We’ll honor her by remembering that the freedom to choose this, is what she gave her life for.”

“
Mine… to give,” Angela uttered weakly, drawing their attention. Adrian's need had brought her around, but where was Brady?

“
Tell them… Cyn,” Angela choked out, torso burning. She let the darkness reclaim her, the pain too much to fight. If Marc wasn't here, she didn't want to be, either.

All eyes, except Adrian’s, went to the reporter. He was busy listening for the Witch, hoping to hear those empty minefields tell him that Angela would live. He wasn’t worried about Cynthia’s coming words, despite this being her first real chance to bring it all down. He cared only for the Witch’s comfort, and the continued silence was deafening.

Cynthia slowly raised her head, splattered in red drops that were tacky on her skin and clothes. Her dark gaze held a familiar glint of strength, but the men were unprepared for the depth of her scorn. Her contemptuous words raked them brutally. “Did you think he was
bluffing
when he said your life for his sheep? Are you all that blind?”

Cynthia looked at Angela’s bloody body, and then down to the filthy gun that she would never part with. “It’s too late to go back now… for all of us.”

There was a stunned silence, where every Eagle there realized that the days of fighting with Cynthia might be over.

Cynthia glanced up at the man she would have destroyed if given enough time. Would Adrian reward her awful sacrifice?

Still in the doorway, tempting fate, Adrian’s blue eyes glowed for her, for what she’d done. “You have one request.”

Cynthia looked back down at the murder weapon she’d grabbed without a thought as they ran for cover. Cesar’s blood was flecked across the muddy barrel. “I want to do it again. I want to be her XO.”

Adrian ignored the disbelieving glares and snorts, giving Cynthia a hard stare. “You’ll have to work for it. Samantha also wants that place.”

Neil opened his mouth, but didn’t follow through with the protest. He’d known that, just hadn’t really faced what it meant.

“
I’ll earn it.”

“
Yes, you will. Welcome to my army, Cynthia.” Adrian glanced at Jeremy, who was staring from the corner in disbelief. “Take care of it until we get back? I’ll assign someone else then.”

“
Whatever you think is best,” Jeremy forced out. He hadn’t thought Cynthia would ever become a convert.

“
She’s shivering.” Kyle drew attention back to the other female. “Do we have a heat source?”

“
Didn’t think we’d need it,” Neil informed them regretfully.

“
We’ll use body heat,” Adrian stated.

Neil knew Adrian hadn't slept at all the night before they'd left camp. “You’re beat. Take the first shift and Kyle can relieve you.”

Adrian’s mind flashed to the waiting nightmares and then to the man speeding through the apocalyptic darkness to get here. “I’m good. Kyle first, you next.”

Kyle stored the change. He and Neil had both seen and heard enough over the last month to know that Adrian wanted to be the one holding Angela, no matter the reason. The fact that he hadn’t taken the opportunity said Brady wouldn’t be okay with it.

With the excessive speed and reckless driving they all assumed he would use, the Wolfman should arrive in about five hours. Adrian had timed it so that Brady's best friend would be the one doing heat duty when he arrived. Marc had discovered Adrian’s other secret, then–he wanted Angela for more than the safety of his flock.

It was something they’d never discussed, but Kyle and Neil knew it was coming. Somewhere down the road, Adrian might become unworthy. They could only be loyal to him if he remained honorable. The instant Adrian crossed that line, he would lose it all. If Angela lived, his margin for error in the future, especially where she was concerned, would be slim. If she died, that would put their hard-assed leader into the red now.

Kyle ignored everyone watching him carefully lie down between Angela and the wall. He tucked her against his chest, unable to stop a grim smile as he saw her left hand tighten around her secondary gun.

Kyle adjusted them until she was fully covered and breathing evenly, then laid his head by hers. “Easy, rookie. I’ve got you.”

As if she heard, Angela’s hand slid from the gun.

Kyle took her cold fingers into his warm grip and closed his lids. When shit hit the fan, he was the one to call, but he also had a soft side that most of the camp would have been surprised to discover. Holding Angela, so that Adrian could burn her, was a torment, a bond that Kyle didn’t think he would ever be free of.

Jeremy slid down next to Cynthia, noting that she still had her gun in hand. He wrapped his jacket around her shoulders, but didn’t tell her to put it away. Though only a rookie, she was an Eagle now, with her own choices to make.

“
Thanks.” The smell of his jacket was thick with the battle, but the heat was welcome. Cynthia wasn’t sure she would ever be warm again.

“
Sure.”

Jeremy waited, wondering if she wanted to talk, but the reporter only leaned her head against the brick wall. After a minute, Jeremy did the same, glad he didn’t have to deal with it yet. He wasn’t sure how he felt about her joining, or even what she’d done, beyond being as grateful as everyone else. Cynthia was an Eagle… one of them. That dangerous fact would require some adjustment.

Still a bit dazed and not totally sure he or any of them had really survived, Jeremy let the darkness take him away.

Sleep, however, came cruelly–snatching rest and providing moments of heart-wrenching terror that snapped Eagles awake with fearful, desperate breathing. It was the only noise heard for hours.

5

The sound of a snarling engine being pushed to its limits jerked men into a tense, groggy alertness.

They exchanged worried glances as they waited, but didn't draw weapons. That was a Safe Haven setup roaring through the cleared road behind the rest stop. Brady had made the five hour trip in three.

Adrian himself went to open the door.

Walking through the smoldering wreckage in front of the rest stop, Marc’s mind spun furiously. The plan had worked–perfectly, it appeared. The carnage was indescribable, but she’d been hurt. What hadn’t he accounted for?

Marc’s tortured gaze landed on the tacky pool of blood congealing near the main door. He knew who it belonged to, and fear shoved against his wall.

Marc bent down and retrieved Angela’s Python, mind screaming to brace. There was only one way you took a gun from Angie’s fingers...

“
Please let her live. Please. I'll give anything. I'll get on board with the dream or assassinate him. Whatever you want, just please, let her live!”

There was no answer.

Marc didn’t look at Adrian as he came to the door, not sure his wall was strong enough to hold. He was glad when the leader got out of his way. Right now, there was no one on the planet that he wanted dead more than Adrian.

“
John’s in the truck, armed.”

Swallowing the icy chill of being treated like he was nobody, Adrian obeyed the unspoken order and went outside to get the doctor.

Kyle motioned Seth after the humbled leader, glad there hadn't been a fight. None of them were sure how Marc would react, though Neil had said there wouldn't be a problem until word came on Angela. If she lived, the trooper thought the two men would sort it out. If she died, so would one of them-though, at this point, it wasn't a lock on who that would be.

Marc wasn't aware of the concerned mutters, but it wouldn't have mattered anyway. The sight of Angela lying there, so still and bloody, made him shore up sudden cracks in his mental defenses. “How bad?”

Neil didn’t lie. “Too soon to tell.”

Marc staggered, reaching out for the wall to keep from falling.
Angie!

Silence.

He'd called for her all the way here, and received the same. It was terrifying then, but here and now, looking at her lifeless form, it was enough to flip him into the Marine. He locked down on all of it and moved back, arms crossing over his chest as John came in.

“
I need more light!” John barked as he rushed to Angela.

The Eagles hurried to assist.

“
Did it go through?”

“
Yes.”

“
She woken at all?”

“
Not for hours now.”

Marc's profile became menacing when John peeled the bandage off.

“
There wasn’t time for more.”

Marc gave Kyle a curt grunt. He’d assumed that as soon as he saw the awful lengths they’d gone to in order to stop the bleeding. It had been life or death… still was.

There was a thick silence while John worked and everyone was glad that Angela didn’t come to when he had the helpers roll her onto her side. Marc didn’t glance away once.

“
I don’t feel any fragments… If her fingers work, we’ll know about nerve damage…” John was carefully probing the wound. He didn’t tell them that he was noticing pockets under her charred skin–implying she was still losing blood, though at a very slow rate. The bullet had probably nicked an artery, but she wasn’t stable enough to undergo surgery. It would have to wait.

Cynthia asked the question that the rest of them were afraid to. “Will she live?”

“
Ask me again in 24 hours.”

Even Adrian recoiled this time. “How long before we can move her?”

Marc sensed the self-loathing underneath as Adrian observed what he’d failed to prevent.

“
Another day would be best. Half that if it’s not safe here, but slow travel,” the doctor answered tersely.

“
You’ll stay with her.”

“
Of course,” John confirmed, covering her back up. Until she was stronger, there was little he could do but what these tortured men already had been–wait and hope.

Anne had wanted to come too, but John had refused and left her standing with a scowl. Safe Haven was well protected right at the moment, and the doctor wasn’t letting her leave that light. These men may have to accept their heart being torn up, shot at…
killed
, but not him. Because of her age, Anne couldn’t be in Adrian’s army.

“
Don’t you think… she would be safer as an Eagle?”

Angela’s tightly controlled voice said she’d been awake for his doctoring.

John’s timbre, in contrast, was a furious denial. “I’ll never allow that!”

Marc immediately went to Angela's side, not caring about the conversation–only that she was part of it.

Her lashes fluttered. “It's already… happening.”

John’s countenance was a mask of thunder. “What?!”

Before he could shout, Cynthia spoke up–full of the new, unarguable need to protect and defend. “It was her idea. Anne came to his tent while I was… spying.”

Her admission earned instant forgiveness with the Eagles, even those who hadn’t known of her vendetta. Honesty was everything.

“
What did my wife say?” the doctor demanded.

Adrian brutally spilled the secret that John had tried to keep from everyone. “She told me you’re dying of Cancer, and she'll leave unless Angela tries to help you. She said she'd just as soon rot alone somewhere than to keep serving the very people who let you die.”

John was speechless, and Adrian tiredly finished the ugly intervention.

“
She also said she understood it wasn’t likely to save you, but that she
wants
to be an Eagle so she can watch your six as you fade. So long as we try, she'll take your place.” Adrian held a hand out. “Her words,
not
mine.”

The doctor stifled a wounded sob as Angela’s faint croak came.

“
She had… to hide it from you.”

The weakness in Angela's voice was enough to make Marc slide to his knees at her bedside. He'd been on battlefields too much to ever mistake this feeling. Death was here, lingering close by.

“
Because I lied when we came, she couldn't ask.” John was trapped inside his own hell for this moment. “You would have told Adrian.”

Angela’s nails dug furrows into Neil’s wrist as surges of agony twisted through her shoulder. “She has a… job to do. Let her.”

Angela's body tensed as the pain grew deeper and Marc snapped his head around to glare at John, telling him that was enough.

John’s gaze went over the crusted, bloody outlines of Kyle’s fingerprints on Angela’s chest and closed his mouth.

Angela was barely aware of a sharp prick as John set up a fresh IV tap and gave her a light dose of relief. She'd read the part in Twilight and thought she'd understood, thought she'd
felt
it, but this was a level of hell she'd never been to. Even childbirth, with its dull aches and ripping pains, couldn't compete with the burning.