The Deadly Nightshade (26 page)

Chapter 46

Connor and I follow Nate and Sheppard back into the building. They guide us back through the obscure hallway, up the stairs, and into the main room where a large group of Sweetbriarans have gathered. Reina spots us as we enter, and her eyes widen in alarm as they lock onto Connor and me. The townspeople, noticing their leader’s sudden distraction, turn to see what has caught her attention and, upon seeing us, begin to panic.

“What are they doing here?” Reina shouts over the commotion.

“They wouldn’t leave,” explains Nate. “They want to help.”

Upon hearing these words, the distressed expression on Reina’s face fades and her lips curl upward at the ends in the subtlest of smiles. Her eyes meet mine and she gives me a nod, which I return. Then she turns to the Sweetbriarans, who demand to know why Connor and I are running loose and what Nate meant when he said we “wouldn’t leave.” Placing a manicured finger to her red lips, she silences them.

“Listen to me,” she says. “I know this is a shock to you, and I know you feel like I have lied to you—well, because I did, I did lie to you. But I did what I had to do. The fact of the matter is that this man and his gang are not going to leave Sweetbriar in peace, despite what he claims. They have found our home and even if they were to leave, we cannot risk the possibility of them ever coming back when we are not expecting them. That is why I have gathered you all here—you are the only people in the entire town who have experience with guns, which means you are our only line of defense against these savages. Now there are only nineteen of us, including Nightshade and Connor—who have agreed to help us fight—which means we are outnumbered. But we know this town, and we have the gate and walls dividing us, which gives us an upper hand.

“They may have the numbers, but we have the passion. This is
our home,
and we have to show these people that Sweetbriar is not for the taking. We are fighting not just for our lives, but for the lives of every man, woman, and child in this community. Now, there is no doubt that there will be casualties—”

The townspeople begin to panic again, murmuring to each other in anxious tones and looking around and wondering who won’t live to see tomorrow night. It’s a funny thing, how the idea of death changes people, changes their perspective on life. It’s possible many of these people will be dead by morning, maybe even all of them. Hell, it’s possible
I
will be dead by morning, and so will Connor. No, not possible—
probable.

“Listen!” she shouts over them. “I know you are scared, but this is how it has to be. We have no other choice! I mean, what else can we do but fight back?”

“Why don’t we just evacuate?” suggests one woman. “There has to be another way out of here besides the gate. If we all leave Sweetbriar then nobody has to die.”

“
Leave Sweetbriar?”
Reina snaps. “No one is going to
leave Sweetbriar,
Autumn. I spent over a year of my life looking for this place, and even longer building it into what it is now. I am not going to just abandon it, not after all I have gone through, not after all our people have gone through. Besides, what will we do if we leave, huh? Do you think places like these are easy to find, easy to create? Why do you think those people want it so badly? We would be lucky if we found another Sweetbriar in our lifetime! And during that time how many of our people do you think will die? It has been years since anyone here has lived outside of these walls. Half of us would not make it through the spring, and forget about the winter months. No, leaving Sweetbriar is completely out of the question. I would rather die here, protecting my home, than live outside of it. This place has kept us safe and allowed us to live peacefully for years, and now it is our responsibility to defend it in return.”

The Sweetbriarans mutter amongst themselves for a while, trying to decide if this really is the best course of action. After a minute of discussion, they appear to come to a general consensus that their leader is right and they must fight to protect their camp from Roman’s gang. Leave it to Reina to rally a hot-headed, fearful group of civilians into an army.

“But what about the kids?” calls out a familiar voice. I notice Sophia standing in the back beside Claire, her eyebrows stitched together with threads of worry. “We need to keep them someplace safe, someplace far from the fighting.”

“And the old people,” adds Claire. “They’re just as vulnerable.”

“You are right, both of you. We have a lot of defenseless people here in Sweetbriar who have no experience with weapons of any kind. My plan is to gather all of the children, the elderly, and anyone else who is not willing or able to fight and stow them away in the bomb shelter in the basement of this building. It is big enough to fit everyone, so we can be assured our people will be safe as long as we manage to do our jobs and stop Roman’s group.

“I want each and every one of you to go to every house two hours before daybreak, collect their inhabitants, and bring them here. Ask those who are able if they will fight with us, and if they say yes give them a quick tutorial on how to fire a gun. If they ask what is going on, tell them we have evidence that the gang outside is absolutely going to attack by morning. If they question you or disobey, send them straight to me and I will handle them.

“Now of course I will try to talk to this group’s leader before anything happens and warn him that we are ready and able to fight back. He thinks we are a passive people, and he believes we are going to turn Nightshade and Connor over to him in the morning, so he will be unprepared for this news. Maybe—if we are lucky—he will see our people armed and prepared for a war and he will be dissuaded from pursuing his plan of attack. That would still leave us with the problem of them returning, of course, but that is a matter that does not need to be immediately addressed.”

Although a few of the Sweetbriarans begin to nod their heads in agreement and exchange hopeful glances, I know there is no chance Roman will just scurry back into the woods at the sight of a few armed gunmen. This man is relentless—his obsession with finding Connor and me has proven that—and if he wants something then he will do everything in his power to take it, including mine and Connor’s lives.

But everyone seems set on the plan. They break into excited chatter, forming small groups to discuss what morning could possibly bring. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a crowd of people more nervous for the sunrise in my entire life.

Reina’s eyes meet mine, seeming to beckon me over to her. Following her lead, I meet her at the staircase. She takes two steps up and stares down at the group below, her thick lips set in a firm line and her hard face devoid of all emotion.

“I am glad you decided to stay,” she whispers.

“Me too,” I say. “Me too.”

“If I may ask: why did you?”

I hesitate for a moment, asking myself the same question. “Because I care about this place and these people more than I probably should. I couldn’t just leave, not with a clear conscience.”

The straight line her lips have formed bends upward at the edges. “I hoped you would.”

With that, she steps down from the staircase and walks over to join Nate. The two of them exchange a few hushed words and unite in a tight embrace, not a trace of the hostility between them from earlier to be found. This may well be the last hug they ever share.

Feeling a gentle hand on my shoulder, I turn to find that Connor has snuck up on me. He smiles wryly and wraps an arm around my neck, pulling me close.

“I’m glad you came back,” he says. “Once you got to the top of that wall, I thought you were gone for good. I thought, that’s it, you know, I’ll never see that girl again. But when I saw you looking back at us, well, I knew you weren’t going anywhere.”

“You were right,” I admit. “This is our fight, and we brought it to these people. The least we can do is stand beside them.”

“You know, I had my doubts about you at first, but you really are a good person, Nightshade. You really are.”

I smile, but there is no emotion in it. His words linger in my mind.
You really are a good person, Nightshade.
No, a good person wouldn’t have climbed even halfway up that wall. A good person wouldn’t have even considered abandoning Sweetbriar and leaving these people to clean up the mess she made. A good person wouldn’t be as self-centered, or as hard-hearted, or as devoid of empathy as I am.
Connor
is a good person, not me.

But I did come back, and that has to count for something. I’ve never thought of myself as a bad person, not really, but I’ve always known I wasn’t a good one. But maybe I don’t have to be. Maybe I was only ever meant to be an average person with selfish tendencies and the decency to do unselfish things under the right circumstances. Maybe I was meant to be human.

Chapter 47

The nineteen of us talk amongst each other for a few minutes, preparing ourselves for the storm ahead, before Sheppard makes an announcement. He declares that he would like to pray for our safety in the coming hours, as well as our victory over Roman’s gang, and asks that we all join hands. Per his instructions, we form a large ring and extend our hands to the people on either side of us, which for me are Connor and Reina. I take the leader’s delicate, slender hand and Connor’s large, soft hand in my own rough, callused ones. Sheppard stands almost directly across from me, his head raised to the ceiling and his eyes tightly shut.

“Please, Lord,” he says, his deep booming voice reverberating around the room. “Protect these people from the approaching danger. Keep them safe under your watchful eye and let no harm come to them. Let us be victorious over these depraved miscreants who threaten our peaceful civilization with violence. And if lives must be lost, take those souls into your care and deliver them to eternal happiness, where they may be reunited with their friends and family who were taken before them. Blessed be those who stand and fight with us today, and may those who stand against us be defeated.”

I shut my eyes as the preacher’s words fill the silent room, feeling their power. Suddenly, like electricity coursing through a wire, I feel a strange energy pass through me from Connor to Reina, and it is as if the strength of the group flows freely through the circle, unifying us not only by the physical bonds of handholding, but mentally and emotionally as well. When I open my eyes again, I feel as though I am living for the first time, renewed, reborn.

When Sheppard has finished his prayer, Reina snaps her fingers to get our attention. Although it pains her to say it, she says, we must prepare our weapons now while there is still time so we can be ready before dawn. Each and every Sweetbriaran in that room bows their head low, and it occurs to me that this is probably the first time since they arrived in this town that the majority of these people will touch a gun. For them this is not just a battle, but the end of a way of life. After that first gun goes off, who knows how many other people in the area will hear the noise and find this place, and who knows what type of people they will be.

Reina leads us downstairs into the obscure corridor with the room Connor and I had been held in and veers to the right, unlocking a different steel door that leads to another flight of stairs. We follow her down one by one into a large room probably capable of fitting a hundred or so people. The walls and floor are all made of concrete and the room is windowless, similar to the one we were imprisoned in just hours ago. Dozens of weapons hang from one of the walls—enough to make up a complete arsenal—and boxes of ammunition sit neatly stacked on a small table. I spot my two handguns immediately, as well as Connor’s rifle and revolver, which sit directly below my own weapons. With Reina’s permission, the group approaches the wall of guns and begins to get a feel for them. After I have reloaded and acquired enough ammunition to take out Roman’s entire army by myself, I holster my handguns and turn to Connor, who is studying his revolver with a thoughtful expression.

“Are you sure about this?” I ask him. “Do you really want to fight?”

He looks up at me in surprise, as if offended that I would even as such a question. “Of course I want to fight,” he says, trying to mask the subtle quiver in his voice. He spins the cylinder of his gun absentmindedly. It is unloaded.

“You’re going to need some bullets for that,” I say, gesturing to a box of ammo on the table. “Conn, do you really think you can shoot someone? I mean, you said yourself you’ve never killed anybody.”

“I shot at Roman’s gang the day they attacked us.” He picks up the box and begins pressing bullets into each chamber. “If I have to kill someone, I will.”

“Then you’re going to need more than just that revolver,” I say, scanning the remaining weapons for something he could use. “Six bullets aren’t going to be enough, not at the speed you reload at. You can use your rifle, but personally I think you need something with more capacity, maybe something semi-automatic since speed is going to be important in this situation.”

“Might I suggest this,” interrupts Reina, grabbing a compact, military-style submachine gun from the wall and stroking it gently in the way one would pet an animal. As she stares at the weapon, her worn face turns grim and she emits a long sigh. “I hoped I would never have to pick up another one of these in my lifetime, but I guess we cannot always get what we wish for.”

She hands Connor the gun, allowing him to get a feel for it while she describes its capacity and recoil, and presents him with a magazine of .45 caliber bullets to reload it with. After she has finished explaining the gun’s specs and Connor has thanked her for her assistance, she scans the weapons on the wall as if looking for one in particular, then grabs an automatic shotgun from the center. She runs her hands along its body, caressing it like a lost lover she is just now seeing for the first time in years. She then reaches for a handgun, but as she goes to holster it on her waist she sighs; the tight black dress that hugs her curves leaves no place for a gun to sit. After a moment, she excuses herself and heads back upstairs, her heels clicking with every step, and shuts the door behind her.

I decide to leave Connor’s side for a moment to assist Sheppard, who has been staring stoically at the shelves of weapons since we entered the room. Although he remains expressionless, his jaw clenches and unclenches ever so slightly in displeasure. Spotting an assault rifle that I believe would suit him well, I grab it from the wall and present it to him.

“Need some help picking, Shep?” I ask. “Why don’t you take a look at this one?”

He flashes me a lukewarm smile as he takes the gun from me and studies it. With tears in his eyes, he turns to me and says, “I just can’t stop seeing them, Nightshade. My girls, my wife—that’s who I’m fighting for today, not just these people. Their faces, their screams, they haunt me. I thought I had laid them to rest years ago, but it’s like this gang has brought them back. Sweetbriar is my family now. I can’t keep losing the people I love, Nightshade. I can’t let what happened last time happen again.”

“It won’t,” I assure him. “We’re going to kill them—every single one of them—I know it. Trust me, if there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s this.”

He smiles as a tear escapes from the pool in his eyes and slides down the grooves of his rugged cheek, getting caught in his scraggly beard. “I want to thank you, Nightshade, for everything. After all these people put you through, you came back to fight with us, and you being here just might make all the difference. You’ve been a friend to me these past few months, and you have no idea how much your companionship has meant. You have a good heart, you know, and I love you for it. Thank you for being a part of my life, no matter how short that part was. Thank you.”

I stare at him, dumbfounded, because everything he just said are words I would have spoken to him if I had known how to articulate them. Feeling breathless, I clutch the preacher close to me and bury my head in his chest, trying to blink away the stinging sensation in my eyes. He pulls me against him and places a long kiss on the top of my head, stroking my hair delicately.

“You know,” he whispers, “if my daughters could’ve lived, I would’ve wanted them to be just like you.”

Tears have just begun to well in my eyes when I hear Reina call out to get our attention. When I let go of Sheppard to look up at her, I find my leader dressed in tight black pants, a red tank top, and black high-heeled boots. Her perfect spirals of long black hair, which almost always hang freely unless drawn up into a stylish braid, have been pulled back into a ponytail. Her black wings of eyeliner have been retouched, a fresh coat of lipstick has been applied to her lips, and a new layer of blush sits on her cheeks. She looks almost otherworldly, like an angel of Death.

“Alright, everyone,” she says, “it appears the hour of judgment is upon us. You all know what to do—collect everyone from their homes and recruit those who wish to fight beside us. Go quickly—we need to get everyone in here before sunrise or the consequences could be disastrous. Everything changes in a matter of minutes, my friends, but it is up to us to see that this fight goes our way. We will meet back here as soon as possible and I will inform everyone of the crisis at hand. Once everyone is locked down, we will take our places and prepare ourselves. Remember, all of Sweetbriar is depending on you. Today, we are saving lives.”

As everyone begins to file out, Reina stops Connor and me and tells us we must not go out to help for fear of inciting panic. Instead, she orders us to wait upstairs in the entrance hall with her to help keep count of everyone who walks through the doors.

Only a few minutes pass before the townspeople begin to trickle into the building. Upon catching sight of Connor and me, the majority shoot their leader appalled and questioning stares, some ask what the hell we’re doing here, and others demand to know why we are armed. She tells them she will explain in a moment but it is essential that they follow whoever brought them here downstairs. The authority and urgency in her voice seem to convince them that following her orders unquestioningly is their best course of action. Without the mob mentality to give them power and stir a frenzy, they are much more eager to do as they’re told. The trouble will occur when they are all together again.

Sophia escorts Savannah and Ash into the building, holding her nephew tightly by the hand. Spotting the red-haired teacher, Connor rushes to her and they lock in a tearful embrace. She shudders as she falls into his arms, her tiny body heaving with the force of her sobs.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” she cries. “What’s going on, Connor? What’s happening? Why do you have a gun? She wouldn’t tell—”

“Listen to me, everything is going to be okay. You’re going to be fine, Savannah, and so are the kids. Follow Sophia downstairs to the bomb shelter, alright? Just do what she says, we’ll be there soon.”

“Bomb shelter?” she cries, her pale face draining of any and all color and her lips quivering. She stumbles backward a step with the force of the implication of these words, her breathing strained and wheezy. I watch as she places a hand against her chest and claws at it violently with her nails, choking out sobs all the while. All of a sudden her knees fail her and she collapses against Connor, who reacts just quickly enough to keep her from flopping to the floor. Panicked, he looks around for assistance, but I have no idea how to calm her down from her hysterical state, so I stand back, helpless.

Little Ash, whose fright-filled eyes watch the whole ordeal, begins to cry. He buries his face in his aunt’s abdomen, clutching at her desperately for protection from whatever caused Savannah’s meltdown. Reina immediately takes charge of the situation, ordering Sophia to soothe the child and directing her attention to the unstable young woman in Connor’s arms.

“Savannah!” she shouts, startling the teacher back to her feet. “What are you doing? Look at him, look at what you have done!” she yells, indicating the crying little boy. “These children look to you for guidance, Savannah! They look at you to see how they should behave. If you are crying, they will cry; if you are calm, they will be calm. It is your responsibility to comfort them and protect them, and in order to do that you need to get your shit together and relax. Do you think you can do that for me? Do you think you can do that for
him?”

Savannah stares at the sobbing child for a moment, sniffling, and regains her composure within a matter of seconds. The color returns to her skin, her breathing slows to a normal pace, her back straightens, and her knees cease their violent shaking. Wiping the tears from her face, she plasters on her signature smile and kneels down to the boy’s level. Ash runs from Sophia’s arms into those of his teacher, who hugs him tightly and whispers soothing words into his ear.

After she releases Ash, she takes his hand and begins to follow Sophia toward the stairs. Connor grabs her arm before she is out of reach.

“This won’t be the last time we see each other, you know,” he murmurs. “I promise.”

The tears return to her emerald eyes, but for the sake of the child whose hand she holds, she doesn’t let them overflow. With a slight upward curl of the lips, she turns away from him and leads Ash out of the room. Connor watches her go until she is out of sight, and even then his eyes linger on the spot she disappeared from.

“You should go with her,” I say.

“What?”

“Savannah needs someone to comfort her too. Besides, those kids need you just as much as they need her. I think you should stay with them.”

He shakes his head, as if unable to believe what he is hearing. “Nightshade, no, I’m not going to turn my back on the fight. We need as many people as we can get on the front line. Savannah can take care of herself and those kids, trust me.”

“She just had an anxiety attack in front of you and you’re just going to leave her alone down there? You need to stay here and protect them, make them feel safe. This is where you belong, Connor.”

“I belong with
you,
” he insists. “I belong out there by your side fighting Roman and his gang.”

“You don’t belong anywhere near there!” I snap. Why won’t he just listen? If he stays down there, he is guaranteed to live unless every single Sweetbriaran fighter dies first. But if he goes into battle I have no way of ensuring his safety, no way of protecting him. “You’ve never killed anyone in your life, you barely know how to shoot a gun—what good are you out there? You won’t make it, Connor. You’ll get yourself killed before you can take down a single man.”