The Ashes of Pompeii (Purge of Babylon, Book 5) (5 page)

The big man nodded, then exchanged a brief look with Keo, who shrugged back at him. “She was making a point,” Keo said.

Blaine didn’t look convinced, but he left anyway.

Her radio squawked, and she heard Maddie’s voice. “Guys? What’s happening? I heard a gunshot.”

“Everything’s fine,” Lara said into the radio. “Everyone stay where you are. We’re just…interrogating the survivor.”

“You sure?” Maddie asked.

“Yes. Keep an eye out for the eighth guy.”

“Will do.”

“Well, that was fun,” Keo said.

Lara stared at Gage, who peered back out at her from the corner of the room. When he saw her looking, he quickly glanced away. If he could have gotten up and run, he probably would have. But his days of running were over with that still-bleeding kneecap.

“He can be useful,” Keo was saying.

“How?” she asked.

She hadn’t thought about putting Gage to use. The very idea of the man’s continued existence offended her at an almost primal level.

“The yacht,” Keo said. “You’re going to need someone who knows his way around it.”

“You know boats.”

“I know boats, but I don’t know
that
,” he said, pointing at the long console behind them. “He does.”

“You also told me a boat this size needs a big crew to run it. All of his crew is dead, except for an eighth guy who may or may not exist. How is one man going to keep this thing afloat, even if he does know what all those buttons are for?”

“We’re talking about a twenty-first-century luxury yacht here, Lara. It might break down eventually, but it’s still in good enough shape right now that you could use it to get to wherever you needed to go. I think that’s worth keeping him alive for a little while longer, don’t you?”

Keo wasn’t wrong. She was already thinking about all the things she could do with a boat this size when she first saw it last night, and seeing it sitting on the lake under the morning sunlight had crystallized so many of those possibilities.

Keep the island if you can, but if you can’t…

Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst, right, Will?

Gage was still cowering in the corner, probably trying to figure out if he was going to live past the next few minutes. She could have reassured him, but Lara decided to let him keep wondering instead.

Her radio squawked, breaking the silence, and Carly’s voice came through. “Lara, come in.” Carly was back on the island in the Tower with Benny, and Lara thought she sounded slightly anxious. “You still there, ol’ fearless leader?”

“I’m here,” Lara said into the radio.

“I have your boyfriend on the other radio,” Carly said. “Should I tell him you already found someone else?”

*

“We’ll get home,”
Will said through the ham radio. “Whatever it takes. We’re not going to leave the island undefended for another day.”

He sounded noticeably tired. She could only imagine it was the culmination of what he had gone through the last few weeks, coming through in his voice even if he didn’t mean for it to. So much of Will’s life was about making the right choices for the right reasons and internalizing most of it, and she hadn’t realized how draining all of that was until the last few weeks.

How did you do it all these months, Will? How did you not break down?

She was glad she was by herself on the Tower’s second floor. It was easier to talk to Will when no one else was around. She could let her guard down and for just a brief moment strip away the façade of leadership that they had given her, that she wasn’t certain she was capable of living up to.

I feel like every choice I’m making is the wrong one. Why aren’t you back here with me now, Will? Why are you still out there?

“It’s not undefended,” she said into the microphone. “I know it’s hard to believe, but we’re actually not nearly as incompetent as we seem.”

He chuckled on the other end. “Yeah, but I have a couple of M240s that’ll come in real handy when they try to land on the beach next time.”

“What’s an M240?”

“It’s a machine gun. Spits out enough lead really fast to make things uncomfortable for an invading force. Put two on the beach and we’re all set. What do you think?”

Machine guns. On the beach. It was as if she were living in a World War II movie.

“Lara,” he said when she didn’t respond right away.

“I’m still here…”

“I love you. Have I said that lately? I’ve always meant to.”

He said it with such seriousness that it made her catch her breath slightly.

“I love you, too,” she said, barely getting the words out.

“You hesitated for a moment,” he said. Was that an attempt at humor? Will was bad at jokes. That was Danny’s department.

“I didn’t,” she said.

“Don’t tell me you’ve found someone else. You always did have eyes for Blaine.”

“He’s already taken, so you can relax. No one’s replacing you yet.”

“I hear a warning in there somewhere.”

“Good, because I was afraid I was being too subtle.”

“Loud and clear, babe.”

“Glad to hear it. Now, how much longer until you come home?”

“Soon,” he said. “We’ll be on the road soon, and then home.”

She recycled through their conversation from yesterday. The farmhouse. The soldiers on the roads. The town of Dunbar…

“What happened to the soldiers from last night?” she asked. “I thought you said they had you surrounded at the farmhouse?”

“They did. But they were gone when the sun came up.”

“How did you do that?”

“I didn’t do anything. They were just…gone. It doesn’t matter why.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“No.” He paused for a moment before adding, “What matters is that we should be back on the road in half an hour. If all goes well, we’ll be home by three or four today.”

“With Gaby and Danny…”

“That’s the plan.”

This time it was her turn to pause. After a while, she said, “What if it’s a trap, Will? The soldiers. What if they pulled back to ambush you further down the road?”

“Maybe. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.” Then, with more than a hint of approval in his voice, “You’re thinking like a soldier now. I like that.”

“I’ve been hanging around you and Danny for too long, picking up bad habits.”

“Danny will be happy to hear that. He likes spreading his bad habits around. Among other things. Smelly things.”

“I’m sure he does.”

“Lara…”

“Yes, Will.”

“I love you.”

Again, there was something in his voice, a surprising seriousness that made her wonder what was actually going on out there with him, Danny, and Gaby. He had told her what had happened last night at the farmhouse, how they had made it through, and that they were all “in one piece.” That should have comforted her, but Will’s idea of “one piece” was a little different than hers…and every other person in the world.

Despite all that, hearing him tell her that he loved her made her smile anyway. “I thought we already did this…”

“Do it again anyway.”

“I’m tired, Will.”

“You’re not that tired.”

“I slept inside the boat house on the beach last night. Did you know that? I think I clocked a few minutes total.”

“Ouch.”

“That’s what my back says.”

He chuckled again. “I’ll be home soon.”

“Promise?” she said. She realized how silly she sounded as soon as the word left her mouth, but she didn’t care, especially down here on the second floor alone with just Will on the other side of the radio.

“I promise,” he said. “Whatever it takes, whatever happens, you won’t have to face another night alone.”

“Because you’ll be here with me.”

“Yes…”

There was something about the way he said that.
“Yes.”
It should have put her mind at ease, because Will making a promise was as close to a sure thing as you could get these days. But the way he said it made her hesitate for some reason.

“Now,” he said before she could put her troubled thoughts into words, “what’s this Carly was saying about a new boat?”

“It’s a yacht.” Lara smiled. “And it’s big…”

WILL

Sunrise brought the
peace and tranquility that he always longed for, but also that nagging sense of incompleteness, because it was another day without Lara. How long had it been now? Weeks? It felt like months. Even his daily communications with her through the radio only left him needing more.

Feeling the morning’s warmth against his face after the brutal encounter of the previous night made him smile for the first time in hours. He should be grateful to have another day when so many people didn’t have that luxury. Lance was one of those poor souls, but Annie, his girlfriend, had made it through. So had the two girls that had come out of Dunbar with Gaby. Both Danny and Gaby had also made it, though, like him, they had seen better days.

So what else is new?

“Smells like a trap,” Danny said through the radio now.

Will picked up the two-way from the front passenger seat. “What does a trap smell like?”

“Warm and fuzzy, and not the nice kind of warm and fuzzy. Slightly odorous, with a hint of sewage.”

“Nice imagery.”

“I do my best.”

“We gotta find out one way or another, right? Can’t stay at the farmhouse another day, not after last night.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Last night was a hoot and a half. And you know how much I like my hooting and halfing.”

“How far are we from the interstate?” Gaby asked.

He didn’t have to look at the folded map on the seat next to him. He had been counting the distance ever since they left the farmhouse this morning. “Ten minutes, give or take.”

“Ten minutes to death,” Danny said.

“That’s the spirit.”

“Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud? My bad.”

Danny and Gaby were in the Nissan Titan behind him, carrying the two girls and Annie in the backseat. Their truck followed closely behind his, leaving just enough distance for both vehicles to stop on a dime and
(retreat)
maneuver around any obstacles, if necessary. Will drove the Toyota Tacoma by himself, the wind rushing in through the missing driver-side window. The Nissan was the bigger of the two vehicles, so it made sense for it to carry the others, including most of their supplies, while he used the smaller
(and disposable)
mid-size Tacoma.

“Is this really a good idea, Will?” Gaby asked through the radio. “Splitting up like this?”

“We’re not splitting up. We’re just making it harder for them to hit us with an ambush.”

“But if we know there’s an ambush up ahead…”

“Can’t be helped. We need to get home, and there’s only one way to do that. Straight ahead.”

“Right into the jaws of death,” Danny chimed in. “Oops. Did I say that out loud, too? Damn my charming mouth.”

Will understood Gaby’s apprehension. In fact, he shared it. But he had spent the entire night, while waiting for the second attack that never came, thinking about this, turning the options over in his head. There were always options, but some were more possible than others.

And time was against them. Time was always against them.

Time…and Kate.

“Like a certain little island that should have stayed quiet. This is what happens when you stick your head out and get my attention, Will. I grab a hammer.”

Kate was talking about Song Island. About the message Lara had broadcast out into the world.

How much of it was true? How much of it was just an excuse to attack? Kate wasn’t Kate anymore; this Kate, this
ghoul
Kate, wasn’t above a bald-faced lie.

But they had to get back home to Song Island. That was the only thing he knew with absolute certainty. Lara and the others had made it through yesterday thanks to a combination of guts and tough decisions, but what were the chances of that kind of favorable circumstances two straight nights?

Maybe, maybe not.

He couldn’t risk it, because the stakes were too high…and time was running out.

It was still a kilometer away from their position when Will took his foot off the gas, slowing the Tacoma from thirty-five miles per hour to thirty, then twenty-five, until he had stopped completely in the middle of the two-lane highway.

Route 13.

Not-so-lucky thirteen.

Then again, given how they’d managed to stay alive, maybe it wasn’t such a bad stretch of road after all.

He glanced at his left-side mirror. Danny, in the Titan behind him, had also parked and left a twenty-meter space between the two cars.

On cue, his radio squawked, and Danny’s voice came through. “Home sweet home.”

“Not quite,” Will said. “But we’re getting there.”

“You and what army?”

“You, me, the girls…”

“The bad guys don’t stand a chance…says the two idiots in the trucks about to drive right through an ambush.”

Will grinned. “Captain Optimism.”

“Hey, you know me, always bringing the funk. Just ignore the BO.”

“It’s getting harder by the day,” Gaby said.

“Ouch,” Danny said. “You really know how to hurt a guy’s feelings.”