Commodity (5 page)

The van keeps moving as I’m held against the rough floor in the back.  Hands are holding my wrists above my head as someone rubs at my thighs.

“You got my girls taken away from me, you bitch.  Now it’s your turn.”

“Please…please, no!  Don’t!”

“It’s okay.  It’s just me.  You’re safe.”  Eckhart’s hand rubs up and down my back.  “They’re gone.  They can’t touch you again.  Ever.”

I don’t know how long I’ve been crying.  The windows are dark now, and Eckhart has me wrapped up in his arms against the couch.  My cheek is pressed against the wet spot made by my tears on his shirt.

“Shit…I’m sorry,” I babble as I push away.

“It’s okay,” he replies.  He tilts his head to the side and looks at me.

As we stare at each other, the meaning of his words resonates in my brain.  I pull away, unlocking my hands from his neck and pushing myself along the floor until I’m a good foot away from him.

“How much do you know?” I ask quietly.

“Some of it,” he replies.  “I study up on anyone I’m protecting.  I have copies of the police reports and everything else I could get.  I don’t have any details, but I know the gist of it.  I also talked to Mark Harrison from the last team, and he told me about your having a bit of a meltdown when he touched you, and you weren’t expecting it.”

“So that’s how you knew.”  It made sense.  He’d been very careful about not touching me unless it was absolutely necessary.  Even then, he’d kept it as brief as possible.

“I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says with a shrug.  “I still don’t want you to be uncomfortable, but this situation is different.  I don’t know much about what’s happened here, but I do know this—something killed all those men, and something took the women and children.”

“Do you think whoever it was is still around?”

“I’m not going to take a chance with your safety,” he responds.  “They might still be out there.  If they are, I want you protected.  Like I said—you are in my care until I get you where you are supposed to go.  Until then, you’re under my watch.”

“All right.”  I take in a long breath and let it out slowly.  “What do we do now?”

“You get that all out of your system?”

“I think so.”  I sniff and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.

“Good.”  He turns toward me and places his hands on either side of my face.  “That’s the end of that now, you hear me?  I need you to focus.  I need you to think clearly.  I need you to be strong and do what I tell you to do, or I’m not going to be able to keep you alive.  Do you understand me?”

“I’ll try,” I say with another sniff.

“No, you fucking will not
try
!” He narrows his blazing eyes at me.  “You are going to do everything I say.  Got it?”

I stiffen, but it’s not from his touch this time.  He hasn’t spoken like this before, and I don’t know how to react.  He huffs out his nose and tosses his arm over the couch cushion.

“I’m not trying to scare you, ma’am,” Eckhart says.  His voice is calmer now.  “I don’t know what’s going on here either, but in order to figure it out, I have to be able to focus.  I can’t have you falling apart on me.  If you do, you’re going to be dead, and I told you I wasn’t going to let that happen.”

I take a deep breath.  Everything he says makes sense, but there’s a big difference between understanding the reason for doing something and actually being able to bring yourself to do it.

“All right,” I say.  “I’ll stay calm.”

“Thank you.”

I look to his eyes for a moment.

“Will you at least call me Hannah now?”

“Yeah, I suppose I could do that.”  He cracks a half smile.

“And I can call you Falk?”

“That would make sense.”  He pushes himself off the floor and heads toward the kitchen.  “Let’s get something to eat and then sleep.  We’ll go out tomorrow and see if we can find any other survivors.”

I stand up just long enough to sit on the couch.  I feel like I should offer to help him, but he seems pretty confident as he starts taking things out of the refrigerator to determine if they are still all right since the electricity has been out.

“At least the gas works,” he says, testing the stove.  “I’m not much of a cook, but there’s plenty to keep us going here for a while.”

“Falk?”

“Yeah?”

“What do we do if we find someone?” I ask.  “I mean, we can’t exactly bring people back here, can we?  You wouldn’t have enough supplies for a lot of people.”

Falk laughs.

“I have no fucking idea, Hannah.”

I wake disoriented.

It takes only a few moments of glancing around the sunlit bedroom to remember where I am—Falk Eckhart’s apartment and doomsday preparation center.  The brightness in the room tells me I’ve slept late into the morning.  After a pretty decent meal, Falk had insisted I sleep in the bed, and he had stayed on the couch.  I’d passed out almost immediately after crawling under the blankets.

I hear the water running in the bathroom and realize that Falk must be taking a shower.  I remember how it felt to have him hold me, and I’m more than a little embarrassed by my reaction to the circumstances I have found myself in.

Then again, I don’t suppose there is a handbook to follow when the city has been flattened and virtually everyone has been killed.

I shiver as I untangle myself from the blankets and drop my feet to the floor.  I’m wearing the underwear Falk bought in the hotel shop along with the thin, white T-shirt supplied by the airline.  I change into the Atlanta-themed sweatshirt and pull my skirt back on.

I’m going to need more clothes.

Staring out the window, I notice there are no bodies in the little green area behind Falk’s apartment, and I wonder if we should go door-to-door to see if there is anyone around.  The water shuts off in the bathroom, and I turn away from the view out the window.

I open the door from the bedroom into the living room just as Falk steps out of the bathroom, wrapped only in a towel.

My eyes probably bulge out of my head.  I knew he didn’t quite fit into that suit jacket, but seeing him like this—mostly naked with water still dripping from his hair, over his shoulders, and making a trail right past one of his nipples—I can see exactly why.  The guy is built.  Seriously, majorly built.  Not in an over-the-top-I-never-leave-the-gym kind of way, but with a chiseled and sculpted sort of look.

He’s absolute perfection from his surprised and intense eyes to the plain, white towel wrapped around his waist.

“Oh, shit!”  Falk takes a step back, tightening his grip on the towel.  “I thought you were still asleep.”

“Sorry,” I mumble, tearing my eyes away from his glistening chest and abs.  “I didn’t mean to…”

…to stare…to ogle...to practically drool on you.

“Sorry,” I say again as I make my way over to the couch and sit down with my hands over my face.  He ducks into the bedroom and closes the door quickly while I try to compose myself.

I can hear him rummaging around in the closet.  I don’t want to think about how he’s probably standing there, sans towel, as he picks out something to wear for the day.  I try not to wonder what the rest of him looks like as my heart beats quickly in my chest.

I must be losing my mind.

Since the day I was abducted, I haven’t had a single sexual thought.  I haven’t fantasized about my favorite actors, watched a romantic comedy, or read an erotic book.  I haven’t even masturbated.  Men have been the farthest thing from my mind.

It’s just the situation.

Everything around me is in chaos, and he’s here, trying to keep me calm and safe.  He let me break down, but he’s remained levelheaded.  He’s comforted me.  It’s natural to feel some kind of attraction.  It doesn’t mean anything.

Closing my eyes, I lean back on the couch and try to clear my mind.  Right now, I should be in front of a slew of government officials, giving my testimony for the fifteenth time.  I should be pointing to the documented data where I first found the discrepancies, how I traced those through the computer system and found a holding company with a name that wasn’t on the books.  I’d be explaining how I’d enlisted Daniel’s help in researching the holding company and describing the websites he’d found with pictures and video of underage girls.

“How do you know that Mr. Hudson was involved?”

“He was one of the men who assaulted me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive.”

“You never saw him though?”

“I heard his voice.”

“But you never actually
saw
Mr. Hudson, did you, Ms. Savinski?”

“No, sir, but it is his DNA they found on me.”

“Hannah?”

I flinch and open my eyes.  It takes me a moment to respond.

“Yes?”

“I think I have some clothes that will fit you if you want them.”

I head back into the bedroom slowly, limping.  Falk is dressed in blue jeans and a dull green T-shirt.  It’s a stark contrast to the suit he’s been wearing.  There’s one handgun in a holster at his hip and another in a holster around his shoulder.

“My sister left some of her laundry in my dryer the last time she visited,” he says as he holds up a pair of sweatpants and a long-sleeved T-shirt.  He points to a laundry bag on the bed.  “There are jeans and a couple other shirts in there as well.  They might be a little big on you, but they’re better than nothing.”

“Definitely better than nothing,” I say.  “Thank you.”

“I’m going to gather a few things up and load them into the car,” Falk says.  “I think the first thing we need to do is look for other survivors.  There has to be someone else around.  We can also go back to the airport to see if we can locate our luggage as well.”

“What are you going to put in the car?”

“Food and water,” he says.  He takes a packet of what appears to be some kind of ready-to-eat meal and stacks it with a few others on the floor.  “Also some ammo and a couple of the rifles.”

My skin tingles.

“Is that going to be necessary?”

“I don’t know,” he admits, “but I’m going to have it with me in case it is.”

“How did you know to do all this?”  I wave my hand in the direction of the footlockers lining Falk’s bedroom.  “I mean, why did you collect all of this?”

“In case of a zombie apocalypse.”  Falk gives me a wry smile, and I just stare at him, trying to figure out if he’s joking or not.  He stops. “I just like to be prepared for anything.  It could be a storm that takes out the electricity for days, the country getting attacked, or some natural disaster.  It’s good to have certain things on hand.  Honestly, I never expected to need any of it.”

“You have a big collection of guns.”

“It’s not a
collection
.”

I look to the lineup of rifles on the closet wall and raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah, it is.”

“It isn’t.  It’s just enough.”

“If I could get to the internet right now, I’d be looking up the definition of the word
collection
just to prove my point.”

He eyes me for a minute.

“Do you know how to use one?” he asks.

“No.”  I shake my head.  “I’ve never even held one.”

“I can teach you.”

I look at him sideways, trying to decide if he’s being serious or not.  There’s nothing in his expression to indicate that he’s joking.

“Do you think that’s necessary?”

“Don’t you?”

He is serious.  I can’t imagine myself holding a gun, let alone firing it.  The idea of aiming at some living thing and firing a gun is completely incomprehensible.

“I really don’t think I could do that.”

Falk takes one of the handguns out of its holster, holds it pointed toward the ceiling, and pulls the clip out of the handle.  He pulls back on the top of it, dropping a bullet into his palm, and then looks inside the chamber before holding the weapon out to me.

I take the heavy, metal object in my hand, holding it loosely.

“Don’t put your finger on the trigger,” Falk says.

“I thought you unloaded it.”

“I did,” he says, “but only put your finger on the trigger if you intend to fire it.”

He shows me how to place my finger along the body of the gun, right above the trigger.  I hold the weapon for a moment before handing it back.

“Not so bad, is it?” he says.

“It’s heavy,” I respond.  “I still don’t think I could use one.”

“What if you had been armed when those men came for you?” Falk asks quietly.  “What if you had been able to protect yourself?”

“I don’t know…”  My voice cracks.  I can’t think about this.  I won’t.  I do anyway.  “Maybe they would have killed me.”

“They were going to kill you when they were done regardless.  If you had been armed, maybe you would have gotten away sooner.”

My throat is burning.  I can barely get the words out.  He’s right about one thing—they were planning to kill me.  I don’t have any doubt about that.  Maybe if I had a gun with me, things could have been different.  Maybe if Daniel had one, he would still be alive.

“I don’t want to talk about this.”  I turn away from him and stare at one of the footlockers, wondering if it’s the one full of ammunition for all those guns.

“I’m going to teach you to use one.”

“Fine.”  I can’t argue with him about it.  Arguing means thinking and remembering, and I don’t want to think about it anymore.  “Are we still going to go to Washington?”

“Once I get a better idea of what’s happened around here, then yes.  I think that’s our best course of action.  D.C. has a lot of shelters in place.  There are bound to be more survivors there.”

“How will we get there?”

“By car,” he says simply.  “We’ll see what we can figure out locally, collect what we’ll need for a few days, get in my car, and I’ll drive you there.”

“What about gas?  The pumps aren’t going to work without electricity.”

“I can siphon gas from other cars,” he says.  “Newer models are a little tricky, but there are plenty of older ones around.  Don’t worry about things like that.  I got it.”

I nod, accepting what he says as truth.

“Shall I make breakfast?”

“Sure,” Falk says.  “The eggs in the fridge should be fine, and there’s bacon in the freezer that needs to be cooked and eaten, too.  Feel free to cook anything and everything that might go bad.”

“I’ll pack up some things for later, too.”

“Perfect.”

An hour later, I’ve cooked nearly everything from the refrigerator and half the things from the freezer and packed them into a cooler.  Falk didn’t have a lot of fresh food on hand, but it’s enough for a couple of days, and the idea of his freeze-dried meals isn’t all that appealing to me.  I’ve also brewed some iced tea and poured it into thermoses.

As we make the final trip to the parking lot and Falk’s Subaru Forrester, I wonder how long it will take to get to Washington.  It would be a long drive under normal circumstances, but if we have to find cars to siphon gas, it’s going to take a lot longer.  What if we run out of gas altogether?  Would we end up stuck somewhere?  Or would Falk want to walk to Washington?

Falk climbs in and turns the key, but there is only a churning sound from the engine.

“What the fuck,” he mutters as he tries again with the same result.  He gets out of the car, pops the hood, and pokes around.

“Is it the battery?” I ask as I open the door and peer around the hood.

“It sounds like it.”  His eyes are narrowed as he looks around the parking lot.  “I’ll have to try one of the others.”

Two hours later, I’m still sitting in the passenger seat while Falk tries to get yet another car started.  He’d already tried hotwiring a couple of them without success, and then he’d broken into his neighbor’s apartments looking for keys.  None of the cars had worked.

Falk climbs out of a Honda, slams his fist on the top of it, and then stalks back over to me.

“What do we do now?” I ask.

“No fucking idea.”  Falk takes a deep breath and stares off toward the road.  “Give me some time to think.”

He leans against the car and rubs his fingers into his eyes.  After a minute, he ducks into the car, reaches around me to the glove compartment, and pulls out a pack of cigarettes.  He goes back to leaning on the car as he lights up and takes a long drag.

He’s silent, and I don’t want to interrupt his thinking as he smokes.  I try to come up with ideas of my own, but the throbbing in my leg is distracting, and I really don’t have a clue what we should do.  The silence in the parking lot is unnerving.  There should be people walking around, kids playing at the pool, dogs barking.

“Falk?”

“Yeah?”

“Does your apartment complex allow pets?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, where are they?”

He glances around the area, cocks his head for a moment, and then looks back at me.

“I have no idea.”

I rub my hands up and down my arms as a chill runs through me.  No women, children, or dogs.  What about cats or other pets?  I could hear the faint chirping of birds in the trees and the constant buzzing of insects, so there were some animals around.  Why not dogs?

“There’s a shopping center less than a mile from here,” Falk says as he tosses the cigarette butt away.  “Let me check on your leg—do you think you can walk that far?  Then we can go stock up and see if we can find anyone.”