“Bishop has been a brother to us. Reynoso and Perez. Dave and Annette. How could we abandon them?”
“If we stay, I cannot promise your safety. Or Milo’s or Charlotte’s.” He grimaced as if the words were bitter on his tongue, as if speaking them aloud was repugnant, antithetical to everything he stood for.
Her voice softened. “You never could.”
He looked tormented, his rugged face gray in the flickering light, his eyes hollowed. “I’m…I’m so sorry.”
She fought the urge to fall into his arms. To draw him close and ease his suffering. “These are our people.”
“I know.” His voice was gruff with restrained emotion—frustration, regret, fear. “Trust me, I know. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s foolish to stay. Tactically, our best chance of survival is to retreat. To flee.”
The temptation was almost too strong to resist. A promise of safety, of freedom. Of life.
A promise that didn’t truly exist.
No one could promise anyone’s safety, not even before the Collapse. People died in accidents and car crashes, of heart attacks and strokes. People stole and cheated and murdered.
It was worse, now. They survived on a knife's edge. No safety net. No room for error or self-delusion.
More safe and less safe. That was it.
And even if there was absolute safety—could she leave her community, her home, even to save her children?
Hannah felt torn in two. Conflicted to her core. Her children were her heart and soul. But so was Fall Creek. The people here, the community they’d built—she loved them, too.
Quinn was like a daughter to her; Molly, the grandmother she’d never had. Bishop meant more to her than words could say. Dave and Annette were dear friends.
She loved this place, these people, as much as she loved herself.
If she escaped with Liam and her children, she doomed her friends to certain death. Cursed to live with the insidious, inescapable guilt for the rest of her days.
If she stayed to fight, she placed her children in incredible danger. Liam might die anyway. They all might perish. Odds were, they would.
Damned if you do, Damned if you don’t.
Her ruined hand strayed beneath her coat for the American Ruger .45 holstered at her hip. She always wore her oversized western-style silver buckle so she could rack the slide one-handed.
The Ruger had been a gift from a kind, fierce woman named CiCi. A woman who’d taken in strangers, who had graciously fed and sheltered them in the face of grave danger.
A foolish decision, but also one of mercy, of extraordinary grace.
CiCi’s act of kindness had cost her her life. But it had saved Hannah’s.
She gazed down at the gun, felt the smooth, comforting heft of it. Her crooked fingers curled over the grip. Her misshapen hand—broken and re-broken in that dank prison basement. Once a source of shame and horror, but not anymore.
Her scars no longer a symbol of her weakness, but rather her strength.
Hannah looked up. “I won’t do it. I won’t leave.”
Liam said nothing, only watched her with those sharp, penetrating gray-blue eyes.
“Pike wasn't an anomaly of the universe,” she said. “There are others like him. Inhuman. Those who feed on fear, suffering, and destruction. Those are the wolves the EMP has unleashed. And they’re coming for us. They’re coming for everything good in this world.”
“I know.”
She’d sacrificed too much to get back to this place, to build a home for herself and her children. She wasn’t running now. She wouldn’t run.
She chose love. She chose community. She chose grace.
“These are our people. I won’t turn my back on them. I’ll do everything in my power to save everyone that I can, not just myself or my family.”
Liam gave a resigned sigh. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”
She holstered the pistol. “I’m sorry.”
“Never apologize for who you are,” he said, his voice husky.
She blushed. “It’s not enough to survive. I want more. We need more. I want justice. Peace. Freedom. Not just for me, but for others.”
“That’s all, huh?”
She gave him a tremulous smile. “I still want it. I still believe in it.”
“I know you do.”
She took a step closer. They were less than a foot apart. He smelled like clean sweat and wood and something musky and earthen. Her heart thrummed in her chest. Her belly knotted.
The words curdled in her throat. She was afraid to say them out loud, to make them real, but she needed to know. "Will you go?"
"Go where?"
"To your cabin." She swallowed. "Will you take the Brooks and L.J.?"
Liam tilted his head, a complicated expression crossing his features, his eyes dark and hooded, impenetrable. "No."
Relief flooded her, so intense her legs felt weak. “Are you certain? I don’t want you to make a decision because of me—”
“Hannah.” Liam placed his hand over her crippled one. His strong, calloused fingers enveloped hers. Once, she would have flinched away, but she didn't. He could have crushed her bones as easily as crushing an egg. He didn’t. She knew he never would.
Something softened in his gaze. That rugged face, those fierce eyes. She couldn’t look away.
Liam said, “If you stay, I stay.”
16
Liam
Day One Hundred and Six
Liam waited.
The seconds ticked by on his mechanical watch. Four hours remained on the General’s deadline.
And then what? that niggling voice whispered in the back of his mind. Then what?
Liam leaned back in the wooden booth of the bar at Fall Creek Inn. As usual, he sat in the furthest position against the wall, no exits at his back. His go-bag leaned against the booth along with his M4. The cleaned, polished Glock sat on the table out of Charlotte’s reach.
His gaze swept over the bar top, stools, and barren shelves, the rear exit, the front door, the empty booths in front of them.
The air smelled like stale beer and pretzels, though they’d consumed the last pretzel months ago. A portable propane heater provided warmth.