River Arrow (New Guardsmen Book 2) (4 page)

“The past few hours have been the most you’ve ever spoken to me, you know.” Mari crossed her arms and gave him a death glare. “You don’t know me well enough to tell me to kill anyone.”

“You already have.” He felt a kick of guilt when a shadow crossed in front of her eyes.

“That was in the heat of battle. And they’d just cut me. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

“This is still a battle.” He pitched his voice low to contain the frustration and urgency. “I’d do it, but my rifle went over the side when the boat nearly tipped over on us—that was a mistake on my part, not tying it down because the day was calm. My men took their weapons with them.”

“How about we just ask them to leave?” Mari mused.

“They aren’t leaving and you know it.” Jared ran a hand over his chin. His stubble made a loud scratching sound in the small cabin. Mari stared at his hand before he dropped it. Then she stared at his lips, a more dangerous proposition than standing on the wall and shooting drifters through the heart with her arrows.

“Injure them.” He sighed. He didn’t point out what they both knew, that it was a mercy to be shot dead instead of injured and left to the mercy of the desolate land or the rages of the Mississippi. “I’ll collect them all, put them on a raft, and send them on their way.”

“Except the woman.”

“Except the woman. You’ll have to lock her in a room somewhere. For how long, Mari?”

She shrugged.

He made the choice for both of them. Unfailingly optimistic and protective even of her enemy, she was too soft for this world and couldn’t see the harsh truth. Injuring them and stranding them on a raft was a death sentence. After, if the elders resisted moving, he’d tell them he’d no longer trade with them in they didn’t. It was too dangerous for them to stay on their own.

“Injure them. Put them out of commission and then decide what to do with them.” It felt like a lie. It sent a flicker of guilt through him. Part of being a good trader was being honest. Being true to his word was his problem. This mess, these drifters, they weren’t his problem. Jared didn’t get involved with the communities on the river. He didn’t take passengers. He didn’t stay overnight. Well, not true. He didn’t unless it was an emergency. A clear emergency. This was. “Dammit, Mari. I’m just a trader. I come here, we bargain, and I leave. You should’ve taken the time to get help.”

“I don’t need help.” She made a disgusted sound and grabbed a handful of arrows. “I didn’t ask you to stay and do whatever. I don’t know what’s going through your thick head. You followed me. Now, you can help put these men down or not. I don’t care.”

“Fuck.”

A strange helplessness unsettled him. Leavenworth had barely survived the downfall of civilization. Chicago hadn’t. When most of the food crops failed, that destruction had spread so far and fast, there was no stopping it. He remembered the hunger no matter how hard he tried to forget it. Mari was a little younger. Probably around the age of his younger brother and wouldn’t remember. She hadn’t learned what he had.

You can’t save everybody.

His dad had whispered that truth in Jared’s ear as he was dying. Jared had wheezed as he held the man he couldn’t save. His dad died and Jared had an asthma attack. The stark, naked reality couldn’t have been more apparent if he’d had it tattooed on his forehead. He couldn’t keep his dad from dying. He couldn’t save himself from lung disease any more than he could take that same disease out of his little brother’s lungs. He’d nearly lost is godfather, Derek, when that man had done everything in his power to save his little brother from asthma. In time, with the help of Derek’s wife, Doctor Lidia, they’d gotten better and found a safe place. The last true city in the country, maybe the world, Leavenworth.

He’d do his duty, but he’d be careful. Unlike his dad, who’d let fear and emotion guide him into an unwinnable fight with drifters. That wouldn’t happen to Jared.

Mari hadn’t moved or said anything. Her eyebrows lifted when he finally nodded. Patient, his Mari.

“Shoot them in the leg. Easier target.” He gave her the order she didn’t want, but he needed to give it.

“What about their guns?”

“We have to stay out of sight.” Nothing they could do about the guns. Not even steal them. He didn’t use unfamiliar firearms. Couldn’t count on them not to blow up in your face.

She nodded. Then she tensed and put a finger over her lush mouth. Then he heard it. Laughing in the distance. The careless invaders didn’t need to be quiet because who’d come to do anything about them?

A door slammed nearby.

“They’re scavenging through the cabins.” Mari scowled.

“If it were me, I’d repair the gate first.” He shook his head. How did people like this last for twenty years after the fall? If the gate stayed down, the wild dogs could get in. Another gang could attack. Even letting the deer inside was a problem with the garden at risk.

The garden
. The only decent cover outside of the cabins.

“Let’s go.”

Easing the door open, Jared peered out. The sounds came from a few houses down. The gang would stick together if only because they didn’t trust each other to share their loot.

Sliding outside, he edged around the cabin and waited. Mari ran into him with a rattle. He gave her a frown and an up and down look. She’d grabbed the sheet from her bed, filled it with her arrows, and thrown the bundle over her shoulder.

With a meaningful glare at the cause of the racket and a finger to his lips to warn her, he jerked his head in the direction they were headed. Keeping to the outer wall, they circled the community. It was bigger than he’d remembered. It took them a good hour to move cover to cover, quiet and careful, until they made it to the stalks of corn planted in rows near a small piped in water canal.

“Should be okay here for a little.”

Mari nodded and fell to the ground with a grunt.

His head fell back and he stared at the clear blue sky. He’d forgotten about the gash in her thigh. She needed to rest that injury instead of hobbling about on it, but he needed her for the moment. Not to risk opening that slice in her thigh, but her memory. He sat on the ground next to her, but not too near. Her scent was distracting. And how did a woman smell of sunshine? What was it, some soap or something?

He shook his head and pulled a leaf off a nearby corn stalk and rolled it. Once it was in a nice long tube, he sketched a circle on the ground. Mari drew closer, bringing that alluring sunshine with her. He didn’t need to explain what he was doing after he drew a few lines to indicate where the gate into the compound would be. She pointed and put a dot in the soil.

“We’re here,” she whispered.

Nodding, he gave her the drawing implement. In no time, she’d made squares and stick figures. Scattered bush-looking dots over the map where trees would be. Rows tightly drawn together represented the garden where they hid. Lastly, she made a large rectangle in the center to represent the gathering house. “Anybody still alive is here.”

“It has a front door.” His legs were fully extended as he stretched on his side and leaned on his elbow. “I know that, but what I don’t know is if there’s a back door, can we go in through the windows?”

They were close, leaning over the map on the ground. She shook her head. “Most of the windows don’t open. Too many screens to keep in good shape, what with the mosquitoes. This one and this one open. And there’s a back door, here.”

She drew little checkmarks to show the points of entry.

“They’d have left at least one guard behind. I’m assuming they didn’t have much trouble with anybody but you.” He paused and continued at her nod. “Since you’re gone, they’ll assume the others will be controllable.”

“If they left a guard, think that means there’s more than the five of them?”

“Maybe.” He studied the layout of the huts. “Too much we don’t know.”

“We have to get everyone out.”

“If we rush it, we’ll just get ourselves caught or dead. Like my father did. We can’t help them, then.” He nearly bit his tongue, wishing the reference to his father back. Blinking, he focused on their map. The path to the gathering house would put them out in the open. “Besides, getting them out won’t do much good unless we round up all the riffraff.”

“They could be starving in there. Or injured.” She gave him an intense look but didn’t say anything in response to his slip about his father.

“We don’t even know how many are left,” he answered darkly. She needed the reminder that the villagers were in there, but some could already be dead. “We’ll scope it out.”

“That’s where they are. Even that woman, Nancy, said they wanted everyone to work for them. Of course they’re in there.”

“They are, but we don’t know if they’ll walk out of there again. Or, how many can.”

She went quiet in a way that pushed on his skin. His eyes squeezed shut. The map disappeared. He couldn’t regret saying it. She needed to be prepared for the worst, but maybe that good luck of hers would keep running. If anybody brought good things to her, it was Mari.

With a sigh he glanced up at her. Her gorgeous brown eyes were unfocused and glittered with unshed tears. He cleared his throat and glared at her. “Pay attention.”

Her face hardened into a pissed off expression he could deal with.

“Here. We’ll come around the side where they’ve already been and get as close as we can to the building. Then we crawl beneath and pick off the drifters as they come into view. They’ll all show up at one point or another.”

It was the best he could do. This was the only building on risers. One of the elders had explained it was to protect the food from flooding and rodents. Hell, it was the only plan that could get this over with and his ass headed to Memphis City by tomorrow.

Mari nodded and got to her feet. She grabbed her makeshift arrow bag from the ground and reached to shove the nearest corn stalks out of the way. Jared lunged from the ground and grabbed her free arm.

“Wait,” he ordered.

She jerked her arm away and stomped into the rows of corn. “I’m just moving back a little.”

“Dammit, I said wait,” he growled and reached for her again—registering her words a little too late to realize she didn’t mean to jump out into the open and try to take them on all by herself.

She whirled about and frowned at him.

Unable to stop his forward motion as he dove after her, he did the only thing he could do. He ran right into her, arms up and around her back in reflex, and covered her mouth with his.

She moaned and went limp in his arms. The kiss was hot and urgent before their lips were fully open. His tongue slipped inside and her taste made him so hungry, so hard, and so aching. God, he’d never known an ache like this. As if he couldn’t breathe and couldn’t stop and couldn’t be anywhere but here, right here, where he would explode if he didn’t get inside her.

Now wasn’t the time. Never was the time. His duty was to make these runs, protect everyone on it by being a trustworthy, dependable trader. It wasn’t his place to get involved with a woman who took on the responsibility of protecting everyone she saw, even those who’d done her wrong. His only responsibility was to his trading route and it had to stay that way to keep everyone in villages like this alive. But her skin was so soft, so captivating.

Groaning, he slid his grip to her shoulders and shoved her away. Little shocks of lust pulled at his groin. Never had he been so tempted to get his cock inside a woman. It wasn’t something he could do in a haphazard way, and despite the general need to get off on occasion, he never lost sight of reality. Pregnancy was risk. It was bigger than every single previous urge to get his cock wet. He’d never been this tempted before. His fingers dug into her as he fought the impulse to pull her into him again. It shouldn’t be so hard to let her go.

Mouth swollen, eyes blurry, she blinked and licked her lips.

His knees went weak.

“Fuck,” he muttered and managed to unclench his hands and let them drop to his sides. Focus. Resolve. There was never a time to lose sight of staying alive. “I don’t have a weapon. If I could use a bow, I wouldn’t ask you to injure the guards. But you have to do it. I’ll go after the pregnant woman.”

“I have no problem shooting these assholes.” She shook her head and wiped the back of her hand over her mouth.

He didn’t like it. Not one bit. None of it. That she’d be the one shooting while he skulked about. That they’d be able to pinpoint her position when he could run while she was trapped. That she’d wiped his kiss off.

Brushing past her, the corn leaves scratched his skin and sent an explosion of a fresh grass-like scent into the air. He froze and let his boot down carefully. He’d gotten hot under the collar and forgotten to keep it quiet. Forcing his lungs into a normal pattern, he let his shoulders loosen and wiggled his fingers. Then, he slid between the rows. The tassles on the corn never moved. Mari was good. No sign of her followed him but by the way the hair on his arms tingled, he knew she was right behind him.

They made their way through the rows and he crouched at the edge of the crop. The nearest cabin stood only a few feet away. Mari’s hand gripped him. Keeping his body still and quiet, he turned his head. She gestured to the right. A man sauntered between rows of cabins, shoving doors open and leading with a rifle as he searched.

These men would shoot to kill. They’d left a dead villager to rot as proof of that. Jared went cold, absolutely cold even as sweat trickled between his shoulder blades. He couldn’t get lost to the anger when he had Mari behind him.

Jared and Mari eased back into the corn. Shade filtered over him, momentarily blotting the light. The sun was always hot. Most of the time he was used to it. Ignored it. But today every shift of wind fit his mood. His emotions hadn’t churned this much since he was a kid.

Mari’s hand rested at his belt and his world narrowed to that point. The hell of it all was that he didn’t know what he was even doing here. Fate played tricks on him. If he’d poled the boat past this bend in the river just one hour before or one hour after, Mari would be dead. Mari would be gone instead of keeping herself upright and in position by using his back as a touchstone.

Crouching, they stared across a small yard to the large building. He focused beyond him, not on the woman beside him, and tried to make out what was going on in the community house. Movement passed behind a hazy window.

“That’s Nathan,” Mari whispered. Her words blew across his arm where he brushed against her.

Her hand gripped his forearm and her nails dug into his skin. Her stare was hard and focused in an intensity that showed how well she used that lethal bow strapped over her back. The violence never ended. It never would. Mari could be one more victim but unlike Jared’s father, she wouldn’t leave behind a kid to bleed daily in the missing of her.

“We wait until dark.” Damn if he could add more to that torn open scar in his heart.

She never answered his order.

A scream ripped through the compound. In front of the community house, a young blond woman stumbled and caught her heel in her yellow wrap dress. It gaped for a few seconds but thankfully fell back together when she righted herself. Hands bound by a rope, she cried out and begged. “No, please. Let me go back.”

“Cassie,” Mari whispered. Jared slung a hand out and gripped her arm. She jerked against him but stayed put.

A roar of angry voices came from the community house. A rifle shot boomed in the air and a loud slam silenced the uproar.

The drifter with Cassie yanked on the rope and led her toward a cabin. “Quit your fussin’. Ain’t gonna hurt you none. Not if you’re nice.”

Cassie fought and screamed. Her feet dug into the ground and she leaned away, tugging, but the grimacing invader steadily pulled her toward a nearby cabin. The woman’s terror was suffocating. Jared clenched his fists and swallowed the vile taste in his mouth. The waste-of-human-flesh dragged the poor woman into the cabin.

The door slammed. The others in his gang laughed but didn’t follow. After a moment, before Jared could catch his breath around the anger, it grew quiet. He’d barely processed what happened when the square was deserted again. The other drifters had gone off to do their own damage somewhere else.

“I gotta get her out of there.” Mari brushed past him, running at a crouch, her arrow notched and ready.

Jared lurched to his feet and chased after her. Once again, she’d jumped to action before taking it in, discussing their options, but maybe this time, it’d turn out okay. ‘Cause every moment Cassie remained alone with that man, the worse it could be. Mari’s luck would hold out. It had to.

The door wasn’t locked. Mari disappeared inside and Jared knew a moment of sheer panic. Only a few steps behind her, those few seconds she was out of sight were the most desperate Jared had felt since he was an asthmatic kid and couldn’t take a breath. He barreled through the entry and in a flash of clarity, quietly shut the door behind him.

Cassie was off in the back of the room, huddled with her tied hands held to her chest. Mari stood over the prone kidnapper who whined and clutched at his thigh where an arrow pierced him. Blood coated his pants leg.

“Shut up,” Mari snarled at the subdued drifter.

She’d worked fast. It was over before Jared darkened the door. The cottage was like Mari’s but more lived in. Clothes overflowed a crate. Some knick-knacks and hunting tools were on shelves. There was even an old picture from before the riots. Looked like a family snapshot.

“Gag him.” Jared ordered, grabbed netting neatly folded by the door, and quickly tied the sniffling man.

Mari stuffed a bit of rag into the man’s mouth and tied another around his head to hold it there. He sputtered but didn’t yell. Then, she went to Cassie and freed her. While the two women whispered and hugged, Jared tore a sheet into strips and wrapped the injured man’s leg. Much as this man may deserve whatever he got, he couldn’t let the man bleed out in front of Cassie. Standing, hands on hips, he checked on the women. Cassie gave him a bashful glance then shuddered against Mari.

“Keep an eye on your prisoner and stay quiet as you can.” Mari stroked her friend’s tangled hair and gave her a hug. “You can do this. I’ll be back to get you out of here soon.”

“Save them, Mari. They’re starving us. It’s only been a little over a day but the kids are already feeling it.”

Mari gave a firm nod then pushed to her feet. When she passed the subdued drifter, she kicked him in the injured thigh. The man made a muffled yelp and Mari nodded as if satisfied. “He’ll be quiet or you take that hunting knife up there and gut him, won’t you, Cassie?”

“I will.” Cassie’s reply was shaky and doubtful, but it’d have to do.

Head high and gaze steady, unaffected by shooting her enemy, Mari drew close to Jared. “We can’t wait ‘til dark, now. They’ll figure this guy’s missing sooner or later.”

“They will.” He ground his teeth and glanced through the clean window at his back. “Still quiet out there. We’ll ease around the side of the community house and get them as they show their faces.”