The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) (56 page)

“And what would you know about love?” Alexandra asked, her chin quivering as she folded her arms defiantly.

Judah paused as he gazed back at her silently. He had killed grown men. He had run through war and watched as those he loved were murdered and broken. He had left boyhood behind him as he charged forward into becoming his own man, and yet Judah still wasn’t sure he could do it. He didn’t think he had the courage to tell the most attractive girl he had ever known how he felt. He didn’t think he had it in him to do anything but turn away from her in her brokenness and….

“I know you’re the most beautiful thing I have ever seen,” Judah said, facing her as he stopped thinking about his lack of courage and simply said what he should have weeks ago. She looked up, the tiniest hint of hope breaking through her gray mask. “I know I’d walk a thousand miles just to see you smile. I know I’d endure battle just to hear you laugh. I know this world has tried its best to forge me into a ruthless killer while your very presence makes me want to be a poet.” Judah stepped closer, his eyes never faltering from her dark, teary pools of sorrow and hope. “I know love still exists because I love you, Alexandra. I know you’re hurt and want nothing to do with me, but I’d stay by you and protect you forever, even if we were nothing more than friends. I know that child—that living human being that grows inside of you—I know I will fight to protect that life as well. I cannot believe the foul actions of a few men call for another act of evil. You are a good person, Alexandra, and the good that is inside of you will always triumph over the bad that tries to defeat you.”

“I’m just…I’m so afraid,” Alexandra replied, wiping the tears from her cheek. “I’m afraid I’ll look at that child and only see the man who did this to me.”

“No,” Judah said, taking one more step closer. “You’ll look at that child and you’ll see yourself. You’ll see love, you will love, and I’ll be there with you if you’ll let me. I’ll never leave you again.”

“I want to believe that,” Alexandra replied, meeting his eyes. “God knows I want to believe that with everything in me. But I’m tainted now, Judah. I don’t know what you thought you saw in me, but I’m not the same. You can’t continue to—”

“Your eyes—those endless and unforgettable eyes—they still shine like suns, illuminating an ashen world,” Judah said, reaching out to grab her hand. “Your laugh can still warm a winter day. Alexandra, you’re not tainted. You’re perfect. You always have been and you always will be.”

Judah paused, holding her hand as her eyes probed his face as though she was beginning to believe him. Suddenly, she ripped her hand free and leapt forward. She threw her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder as she wept. Alexandra pulled herself in tighter and tighter as though she were afraid he might let go. She lifted her head and whispered lightly in his ear.

“Thank you.”

Judah pulled her in tighter, her embrace overwhelming him with love and bliss. They both stood together silently, two young adults who had lost so much.

A young couple that had gained the world.

The rain outside fell softly as Sarah sat quietly in the living room of her new home. Elizabeth, Grace, and Eva were already down for the evening while Eric, Judah, Alexandra, and Trey remained elsewhere. Sarah smiled, realizing it was the first time she wasn’t worried that someone wasn’t in sight.

She glanced at the door and frowned as she thought about Eric. He had been gone the entire evening and she was hoping he would return soon. She had so much she needed to say to him and the time had passed for her to say it. Now, as she finally had a moment of privacy, she simply hoped he would return before that moment fled.

She glanced to her right at the two suede chairs that occupied the far wall next to the fireplace. On some small level, it reminded her of Rick and Judi’s home in Southern Colorado. She thought back to her mornings sitting in similar chairs, visiting with her husband and his parents. Now, all three were dead. She had never even had the chance to say goodbye to Adam. She had never….

Sarah realized in that moment that she had never actually said goodbye to her husband. Over the past few months of traveling from one dangerous location to the other, she had never found the time to be quiet and say farewell in her heart. She smiled as she reminisced about Adam. Her thoughts suddenly shifted from Adam to the Bible in her back pant pocket. It tugged at her. It beckoned Sarah to rise from her chair and find an empty room somewhere away from temptation and noise so that she could lose herself in its pages. She hungered for its words. She knew she needed to….

The front door opened and in walked Eric, shaking the rain from his jacket. She pushed the calling inside her aside and stood up, smiling as Eric wiped his boots on the front rug. He glanced up at her and returned the smile.

“Hello, Eric,” Sarah said.

“Sorry I’m late,” Eric replied with a nod as he leaned his rifle up against the wall. “It’s really starting to come down out there.”

“How are you?” she asked.

“Good,” he replied. “I’m happy I finally got the chance to survey the town. I already have a few ideas on how to make it all better. Good news is they seem to be willing to listen. Regardless, they have this place locked up pretty tight.”

“Is that right?” Sarah said, placing her hands on her stomach nervously as she slowly approached him.

“Yeah,” he said as he began to remove his jacket. “That gate we passed through to enter the campus is but a fraction of the inner wall. The entire thing consists of a couple hundred shipping containers reinforced with downed lumber to enclose the main campus in the event of an attack. It seems they half expect it to hold back an entire army one day, though I doubt it will do much against tanks or drones. The good news is they really took the time to utilize every natural barrier they have at their disposal. For example, there is an old creek that circles south of the main campus. They widened it, deepened it, and filled it with water to create a legitimate moat.”

“It sounds like they thought of everything,” she replied, now standing a couple feet away as he unfastened his Kevlar vest.

“Oh, it gets better,” he said, tossing his heavy vest to the floor. “They’ve also erected a grid of fifteen defense locations inside the walls to overlook the open areas. There’s a Lieutenant Hicks overseeing all base defenses, but he’s been up north of here analyzing the defenses at a quarry and won’t be back until sometime tomorrow.” Eric paused and grinned, shaking his head as he chuckled lightly.

“What’s so funny?” Sarah asked, her eyes soaking up his smile.

“He was the highest ranking officer here with the Guard and I apparently outrank him,” Eric replied with a grin. “A fact of which Tyler assures me will irk the man to no end. I hear he’s quite eccentric and likes to let everyone know who’s in charge. I’m sure it will make for an interesting sit down, but I’m not here to throw around rank like a trump card. He’s already doing a few things I’d be doing differently. I’m just glad they have a veteran who apparently knows what he’s doing. They’re lucky to have so many non-Chambers firearms, though the local militia still relies on older hunting rifles. Still, Hicks has maintained a standing force of two hundred trained snipers, machine gunners, Guardsmen armed with makeshift rocket launchers, and—”

Sarah reached up and kissed Eric, cutting him off midsentence. She could feel him almost recoil with shock, but his hesitation passed and he quickly kissed her back. It wasn’t a long embrace—the two of them standing silently in the entryway, holding each other as the rain fell gently outside. When she finally pulled away, she smiled.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” Eric asked, looking down at her.

“For saving us,” she replied. “You didn’t have to help. You could have easily fled on foot without us when this all started. But you were always there, fighting for my family every step of the way. Adam would have been grateful for everything you’ve given us.” Sarah paused, looking up at him with inviting eyes as she pulled him slowly toward the stairs. “I’m grateful.”

Adam…I miss you,
she thought as she quietly led Eric up the stairs.
I miss you so much. I wish you were here. I wish you were him. For the past few months, all I have wanted was to be next to you.
She glanced back at Eric and smiled as he followed her down the hall to her room. She knew she should stop—the urge to halt almost overshadowing the urge to continue—but she kept walking.
I’ve changed, Adam. This land that was once so full of life is now desolate of almost anything but sorrow. But now…now I’ve found refuge. I’ve found hope. You’re the only thing holding me back and I…I need to move on.

Sarah loved Eric, though nothing like what she had felt for Adam. That had taken years to cultivate and she hoped she would have years with Eric. She hoped they could find a home—be it Fort Harding or elsewhere—and survive this world together.

Goodbye, Adam,
she thought as she walked into her bedroom door, Eric closing it behind them.
I won’t ever forget you.

C
hapter
T
wenty

The Dragons of Men

The smell of sweat and taste of fear were heavy on the air as Adam Reinhart gradually opened his eyes. He glanced over at the far end of the room. Jack rested on the floor, eyes open and staring absently at the ceiling above. Adam’s eyes quickly shifted to the middle of the room, finding the steel pliers.

The tool hadn’t moved since it were placed there so many painful days ago.

Pliers,
Adam thought as he attempted to rub a headache out of his temples. He tried to envision murdering a man with a tool intended to pry nails free of lumber or tighten a loose pipefitting. As he did so, his frown slowly rose to an insanity-induced smile. His grin quickly changed into a chuckle that drew Jack’s attention.

“What in the world could possibly be funny?” Jack asked.

“Pliers,” Adam said, fighting to contain his laughter. “How the hell do you kill a man with a pair of pliers?”

“You of little imagination.” Jack rose from his back, leaning up against the wall. “Those aren’t just any pliers. That bad boy is ten inches of hardened American-forged steel. It can open its jaws to two inches and lock into place, unyielding like the chops of a pit bull.”

“I doubt they have as vicious of a bite.”

“Doesn’t mean they can’t kill,” Jack replied. “For starters, you could latch onto my throat while I slept and rip out my esophagus before I had time to realize it wasn’t merely another bad dream. You could also remove those rubber grips on those handles and force those steel points into my eye sockets. Even if I did see it coming, it’d be the last thing I see. If we really want to get morbid, you could knock me out and pull my teeth with them so I couldn’t eat, starving me to death. All that, or you could simply go old school and beat me to death with the business end. So no, it’s not impossible. You just have to be creative.”

“Sounds like you’ve thought everything through,” Adam replied with a grin.

Jack stared back at Adam before glancing down at the pliers, his hollow eyes flickering before he shuddered and lowered himself back to the floor.

“And you haven’t?” Jack muttered.

Adam’s smile slowly disappeared. Despite the days of electrical torture, neither he nor Jack had shown any signs of giving in to temptation. They had endured the sinister lure by dreaming about the future and discussing their pasts. Jack told one police story after another while Adam shared every detail he could remember about life before the fall. They had grown close over those days of cruelty and Adam had thought they had passed the stage of being able to kill one another.

Now, he wondered how long Jack had been dreaming up ways to end the pain and leave the room alive. As though he could read Adam’s mind, Jack cleared his throat and spoke.

“If you’re thinking I’m going to kill you, think again.” Jack rose to his feet, shuffling over to the middle of the room. He grabbed the pliers, pausing as he took a deep breath and tossed them over to Adam. “There’s only one of us leaving this room and it shouldn’t be me.”

“Don’t say that,” Adam replied. “We’ll figure out—”

“Figure out what?” Jack cut in. “You see the irony in pliers, don’t you?” Adam shook his head. “Why give us pliers? Why not give us a knife or a gun?”

“Cause we could use those to fight back when they bring our food.”

Jack shook his head, pointing up at the security camera mounted in the corner. “They can see everything we do. We pick that gun up and do anything but kill one another with it and they’d fill this room with flash bangs or smoke before storming in here. We know they have plenty of men. Derrick said he wanted a certain
caliber
of man. It’s easy to shoot someone if you’re scared enough, but kill a man with pliers…well, like I said earlier. You have to get creative. You have to be certifiably insane. That’s who and what they need. They need soulless men to do the work of monsters.”

“We can still hold out,” Adam said. “We can figure out a way.”

“Adam, I’ve been keeping track of the meals and torture sessions. It’s day eleven. He said they’d have those drugs by now and we both know we can’t afford to prolong this any longer.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Adam replied quickly. “You’re the one who has something to live for.  You’ve got a family. You’ve got your wife Leila, your best friend Alan, and everyone else who had been depending on you for months. They’re out there, thinking we’re likely dead. They need you. Me? I’ve got nothing. I have no one.”

Jack’s eyes began to glisten as Adam finished. He gazed back at Adam for five silent seconds before letting loose a laugh and glancing to the side.

“You’re wrong about that,” Jack said. “I might have forty people to unite behind me, but you have a nation to revive. In the end, uniting America together saves ten thousand families. Maybe ten times ten thousand. Don’t let me be the reason we lose our best chance at saving America.”

Adam stared back at Jack silently, trying and failing to produce an argument. Jack and the others had looked to him for leadership since leaving the homestead. Even Gene had let Adam become the shepherd. However, the simple truth was that Adam didn’t want to keep fighting. He didn’t want to safeguard the flock. Even the dream of raising America from the ashes of war was a daunting and demoralizing thought. He had lost everything in his failed quest to keep America united, and he couldn’t help but believe he would somehow lose even more attempting to resurrect his fallen nation. He wanted nothing more than to pass on from the world that had collapsed around him and save one man’s family in the process. If he could die doing that, then he would die a happy man. If he could convince Jack that he was the one who should live, then maybe….

“Why Red?” Adam asked, his lips returning to a grin.

“Red?” Jack replied, confused.

“Alan,” Adam began. “You’ve called him Red since the first night I met you.”

Jack’s face twisted into a smile before laughing.

“Not just me,” Jack replied. “Everyone at Metro called him Red his rookie year. Being his closest friend, I guess I never got over the name.”

“Why?” Adam asked with a smile.

“Because he was the man with one of the most legendary rookie calls in the history of Nashville’s police department,” Jack replied.

“What happened?”

“It was our first night on patrol,” Jack said, lowering himself back to the ground with a wince. “We graduated the academy together and we were as green as a wild Tennessee field. Alan and I were working West Nashville in a little suburb called Bellevue. We were about a mile apart—each one of us in our own car ready to chase down some thugs or do some big drug bust. Nevertheless, Bellevue was a quiet suburb and we hadn’t done much more than join our sergeant for some late night pancakes. That is, until we got a call. There was a railroad that cut through town and two trains had reported a flashing red light near the tracks. It was about two-thirty in the morning down this old road no one really traveled at night, so Alan went out to investigate. Care to guess what he saw?”

“I don’t know,” Adam said. “Abandoned car with drugs, maybe a bomb?”

Jack smiled, shaking his head. “Alan had rolled up to a fifty-three year old drunk who had stuck a red battery-powered light bulb between his two fat cheeks before proceeding to moon each passing train.”

“You’re kidding me,” Adam said.

“I shit you not,” Jack said, chuckling. “We had twenty year veterans saying they’d never heard something so outrageous in their careers. Now the police department’s official stance on hazing was a zero tolerance policy, but that didn’t really stop anyone from giving him a nickname and asking him if he had to catalogue the evidence himself.”

Adam burst out laughing. They sat there cackling, their laughter a welcomed substitute for the constant fear. Eventually, Jack wiped the tears away and continued.

“He hated the name alright,” Jack said as they heard a loud bang—the sound of the latch down the hall that always echoed a few minutes before their torture. Adam glanced that way and his grin quickly faded, though Jack only stared at the pliers next to Adam. “Alan and his wife were always good family friends and I promised not to tell anyone the truth about the name I gave him. Seems that’s a trivial promise to keep when you’re knocking on death’s door.”

“You’re not going to die,” Adam said. “You’re going to—”

“Adam, I can’t do this to myself,” Jack interrupted, looking over at Adam. “Don’t make me kill myself with a pair of pliers. I can think of a dozen ways for you to get it done but I can’t rip out my own throat with them.”

“Damn it, Jack, I’m not going to kill you!”

“Yes, you are,” Jack replied bluntly. “I don’t know what drugs they’re bringing, but I know it’s going to change us from the men we are right now. It’s better one of us dies and the other lives to avoid that for now. Be smart, get away when you can, and you hit them hard for me. Now come on, I can see you want to do it.”

Adam tore his eyes away from Jack and glanced down, surprised to see the pliers gripped in his hand. He didn’t even remembered picking them up. He sat there, staring at them as though he wanted to drop them like a hot iron.

But Adam couldn’t let them go.

“Please, Jack,” Adam said. “I…I can’t do this.”

“You have to,” Jack replied, standing to walk over to Adam before kneeling down in front of him. “I just ask…please make it quick and take care of my family.”

“Jack, I can’t….”

“You have to.”

“I won’t—”

“Do it!”

Adam roared as he raised the pliers overhead, watching his reflection in Jack’s wide, teary eyes. In that brief moment the world slowed to a crawl as his mind began to race.

He thought back to the moment he had first killed in order to survive assassination attempts in Chicago. He had then killed again in Montana to avoid capture and again while surviving the first battle in a war that ravaged the remains of America. Since then, Adam had killed to endure the road, but something shifted in Memphis. Adam murdered a stranger simply to cross a bridge. He had become just like those men he had killed in the past, taking a life for selfish desires. Now, Adam was on the verge of murdering a friend, a man who had once saved his life. In that brief moment of hesitation, as Adam held a simple tool overhead that was on the verge of becoming a weapon, he realized only he could decide when it stopped.

Only he could prevent the beast inside from bursting forth and consuming all the good that remained within him.

Adam bellowed as he chucked the pliers across the room. They crashed against the concrete wall loudly, falling to the ground with a clatter. “If America has to be rebuilt on an ocean of innocent blood then I want no part of it! I
won’t
have a part in it! We can beat whatever’s coming, Jack. We can—”

The latch on the door slid back and the two men instinctively crouched like dogs awaiting a beating. Derrick Neal walked in, glaring at them both with a frown.

“I was really hoping to avoid this,” Derrick said as he shook his head. He then ducked back out into the hallway. “Room Eight when the five of you finish up!”

“You’re not going to win,” Adam said, his lips nearly curling back into a snarl. “We’re not going to kill each other.”

“Is that so?” Derrick replied as he entered the room. “You know, you two are one of the last pairs down here. Still, there are a few others who refused until the end.”

“We’re different,” Adam said. “We can—”

“Did you know one of the last couples to give in were husband and wife?” Derrick replied coldly. “They stood with each other strong for nine days. But an hour ago we gave them the injection. You wouldn’t believe how fast they turned on one another. It took five seconds of unimaginable pain before they started wrestling over their weapon. Granted, I gave them a hammer so it was a little easier in the end. Still, the tool didn’t faze the husband one bit, especially when I threatened to put him back under if he didn’t finish the job. Now, you got this one last chance to do what needs to be done before things get really bad for the both of you.”

Adam looked over at Jack before they both shifted their gaze to the pliers across the room. The tool seemed to pulsate with temptation, tugging at Adam like a steak attracts a man who’s dying of hunger. He had no idea what was coming, but every fiber of his being wanted to avoid whatever would cause a man to kill his wife.

Adam rose as two men walked in, though he didn’t glance over at them. He simply rose, mustering as much dignity as he could as he spat in Derrick’s face. “Go to hell.”

“Actually, that’s your job now,” Derrick replied as he leaned in close. “I gave you a chance. I want you to remember that as you—”

Adam jumped as the tip of a silver cylinder jammed into Derrick’s neck. Derrick’s eyes went wide and his mouth flew opened to shout just as a gloved hand wrapped around his jaw, cutting off his scream. Adam glanced over at the man with the cylinder and nearly collapsed from the wave of emotions that hit him.

“Marc!” Adam said, though Marc’s eyes never left Derrick. Marc tossed the cylinder behind him and Alan caught it, hushing both Adam and Jack as he approached Derrick with the cylinder in hand.