The Dragons of Men (The Sons of Liberty Book 2) (37 page)

“Do what?” Judah asked.

“Convince that bombshell sitting back there at the campfire that you’re the man of her dreams.”

“What are—”

“Don’t play dumb,” Trey cut in as he looked back. “You’re only making yourself look like an idiot. We can all see it. Hell, even she can see it every time your eyes linger on her. I must say, I find my own eyes shifting her direction and looking her up and down every now and then.” Trey breathed in heavily before exhaling slowly. “What I’d give to have met her when I was fifteen years younger. Oh the things I would have—”

Judah shoved Trey hard in the back, causing him to trip and stumble forward.

“You shut your damn mouth!” Judah growled. “Don’t you say another word about her!”

Trey looked back, his eyes narrowing as he stared at Judah, before letting a smile slowly split his face. He nodded his head and rose, brushing the dirt off his pants.

“So it’s love then, huh?” Trey held up his hands in protest. “A classic knight fighting for the damsel in distress. Just like that skit your sisters were putting on back there. Well, I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, but it never turns out like the fairy tales. Those are stories and this…this is real life, my friend.”

“You don’t know a thing about her,” Judah said.

“Hey, I’m not here to try and come between you two love birds. It’s okay; she’s all yours, big guy. That is, if she even wants you. But I didn’t mean to offend. Sometimes my mouth and tongue get moving before my mind knows what’s up. I mean, at least I don’t shove a friend in the back when he’s joking around. That would be really harsh.”

“You and I,” Judah began, “we’re not friends. We might be one day, after you give me a real apology and tell me the truth about what you meant about fighting for my family before we met you. Right now, you’re just a prick who’s been around us long enough to think he’s one of the crew.”

“Then why’d you come?” Trey asked. “Why tag along with a prick, as you say?”

Judah paused, glancing back toward the camp and thinking of Alexandra and the flower in his pocket.

“Maybe it’s easier to follow a jerk like you than it is to sit quietly as I try and fail to figure out just what in the world I’m going to say to a girl like Alexandra.”

Trey smiled and shook his head again before turning back to the road as they neared the tower. “Judah Reinhart,” Trey began, “welcome to the lovely and maddening world of women.”

Alexandra smiled as Sarah sang the sad and final ballad to the night’s performance, swaying like a reed in the wind with the melody in the air. She passed her gaze over the three adults and two children that surrounded the dim fire. They had welcomed her into their company when she had no one and for that, Alexandra was grateful.

She glanced back in the direction that Judah had walked, her face expressionless as she thought about the boy that filled her thoughts more often than not. She thought about how he wasn’t much of a boy anymore. After all, he was only a few months older than her and with everything she had gone through, she had a hard time considering herself a girl. They were tried and tested young adults, living in the bodies of teenagers.

The log shifted underneath her as though someone had sat down on it, and she quickly tore her eyes away from the path behind them. She glanced over to see Sarah lowering herself with a smile. Sarah smiled before shifting uncomfortably. She unbuckled the gun belt Eric had given her and set it beside the log, glancing back at Alexandra with a probing stare. Alexandra’s face turned red and she was thankful for the night to conceal the cheeks that gave her away. After a pause, Sarah looked back at the path.

“I can’t help but worry about him either,” Sarah said.

“I never said I—”

“Oh yes, you did,” Sarah replied as she looked back over at Alexandra. “Maybe not verbally, but I seem to remember hearing once that actions speak louder than words.”

Alexandra paused before letting the tiniest of grins find its way to her face. That grin grew into a light chuckle.

“A couple of months on the road together and already you’re reading me better than my own mother ever could.”

“Well, you don’t need to be my daughter for me to recognize the signs that you might be fond of my boy,” Sarah said.

“And you don’t need to be my mother for me to see that you’re not the greatest at hiding your feelings either,” Alexandra replied, glancing over at Eric across the clearing.

Sarah smiled big before looking over at Eric. He was whistling quietly as he walked back to the fire with an arm full of twigs he had scavenged for. He set the twigs down and began to lower himself as he glanced over at them. He paused, half lowered to the log as a look of curiosity and confusion filled his eyes. After a moment, he nodded his head and smiled before lowering himself the rest of the way. Alexandra and Sarah both grinned as they nodded back. Sarah finally looked back at Alexandra, moving in close to whisper in her ear.

“I’ll make you a deal,” Sarah said. “Your secret is safe with me so long as mine is safe with you.”

Alexandra grinned as she nodded her head in approval. She looked back over at Eric as he positioned the branches in the fire. He risked the occasional glance up at them, finally shaking his head and smiling as they watched him. Alexandra smiled and leaned in close to Sarah.

“I will say, he is rather cute.”

Sarah smiled back, though her eyes failed to smile with her before she glanced down at her hands in her lap. Alexandra followed Sarah’s eyes and watched as she turned a golden wedding band on her finger. Alexandra’s smile disappeared.

“I’m sorry,” Alexandra whispered.

“It’s okay,” Sarah said, looking her way. “Adam was a good man and I’ll never stop loving him. But he’s gone now and we’re still here. My life can’t stop just because death succeeded on some level. And as far as Eric…well, my husband would have approved of a man like him.” Sarah paused, smiling as she watched him for a moment. She then looked over at Alexandra and smiled, leaning in close. “You are right. He is quite dashing.”

Alexandra chuckled with Sarah, glancing over at Eric. He shook his head and stood up, brushing his hands off on his cargo pants. She leaned in close to Sarah and spoke.

“What did he mean when he said it’s not ours to reason why, but to do and die?”

“It’s a soldier’s most basic creed,” Eric said, glancing up from across the fire.

“You can hear us?” Sarah asked.

“I might have had my fair share of gunfire and explosions go off too close for comfort,” he began, “but I consider myself one of the fortunate ones who’s managed to retain a heightened sense of hearing.”

Alexandra glanced over at Sarah who now blushed a fiery red that was visible even in the dim light.

“The quote was originally from a poem,” Eric said. “It means a soldier isn’t supposed to question his orders or the reason things are the way they are. He’s supposed to simply be a soldier and charge forward no matter how unreasonable reality becomes.”

“And you think that’s fine?” Sarah asked. “You think we should just obey orders without questioning them?”

“For starters, I don’t think the saying only applies to soldiers,” Eric replied. “I think events sometime occur that are simply beyond our control. When they do, we can attempt to change the unchangeable and rationalize the irrational all we want. In my opinion, all we can do in times like that is charge forward into the chaotic confusion without trying to reason out the madness.”

Alexandra stared back at Eric blankly before shifting her gaze, glancing over at Sarah who revealed as little emotion as she could. Alexandra held tightly to his words, realizing that her family’s death had been out of her control. She knew she could dwell on it or she could accept it and move on with what really mattered to her now.

She never thought these strangers who had become like kin would have ever tried so hard to take her to the last remaining family member that might be alive. Alexandra doubted that Naomi was still alive and living at Harding University; that was a miracle she was afraid to even pray for. Still, she couldn’t help but now wonder how strange the change inside of her had been. At first, she wanted nothing more than to find her sister and cry over the father and brother she had lost.

Now, Alexandra almost hoped they wouldn’t find Naomi at all.

Alexandra knew she had put up a front—trying and likely succeeding in convincing Judah she wanted little to do with him. The ironic reality was that she had become much better than him at stealing glances. Where he would let his eyes linger until he was caught, she would snap quick mental photos when she looked back at him, focusing on those images as she thought about the young man that had seized her attention. Judah was very handsome and courageous, though he continued to try to prove his brevity to her by becoming increasingly reckless. She just hoped he wouldn’t do something stupid to get himself hurt before she worked up enough courage to tell him that maybe she wouldn’t mind sticking around for a while, even if they did find her sister.

“Alright then,” Eric said, looking off to his left, “I’m going to—”

Eric grunted and his eyes closed tightly as two distinct clicks filled the clearing from behind him. He fell forward into the small fire, striking his head on a log as a cloud of sparks rose up around him like a horde of dancing fireflies.

Alexandra jumped from the log and began to shout for him, only to have something strike her in the chest, causing her body to seize up as electricity pulsed through her body. She fell to the ground, and after what felt like an eternity of convulsions, the shock ceased just as a firm hand gripped her mouth from behind and cut her shout short.

Her eyes went wide with panic as she immediately reached up and grasped a thick, hairy arm. She was vaguely aware of the shapes of men bursting into the clearing—Eva’s scream cutting off mid-breath while Elizabeth shook as the Taser shocked her awake from her slumber.

She tried to force a man’s fingers from her mouth, but she might as well have been attempting to pry up tree roots with her bare hands. As panic began to overwhelm her, she breathed in through her nose as deeply as she could before biting down hard on the man’s fingers.

The man let loose a cry and let go. She fell to the ground with a plop—surprised as she hadn’t even realized he had picked her up from the ground—and the wind left her lungs in a rush. She tried to scream, but couldn’t. As she gasped for air, the metallic taste of his blood on her tongue, she looked up at him and elbowed him between the legs as hard as she could, causing him to fall to the ground with a cry.

Alexandra scrambled across the ground—her breath slowly returning as she kicked up leaves around her with her hands, searching for the belt Sarah had set down nearby. She found it, ripping it free from next to the log, and quickly drew the gun, raising it just in time to watch a man raise a silenced pistol to Sarah’s head.

“Drop it, girl, or I drop her,” the man growled.

“Let us go or
I’ll
shoot!” Alexandra shouted with as much courage as she could muster.

The man laughed, shaking his head as Sarah’s eyes went wide.

“You think that’s wise?” the voice of a man from behind her said. She glanced behind her, her eyes quickly finding the shape of a grown man no younger than forty materialize from the darkness. “You think you could drop all eight of us before we killed you?”

“I could kill him,” she said.

“No, you can’t,” the man said, bending down next to Eric’s body that still shook with electricity. Low flames rose from his sleeve and back. The man bent down, taking out a cigar and lighting it on the fire that licked Eric’s thick jacket. “Not without your friend here.” The man stood up and smiled as he fired his suppressed pistol twice into Eric’s back.

Alexandra opened her mouth to scream. Instead, she grunted as something struck the back of her head, causing her to fall forward with a gasp. Her face burrowed into a tiny pile of dry leaves that had survived the cold months—the scents of autumn, winter, and blood filling her nostrils. She was vaguely aware of boots approaching and Sarah’s muffled shouts. Hands grabbed her by the arm and rolled her over onto her back, her head swimming in a sea of fog and pain as she reached up to touch her temple. The man who had shot Eric lowered himself to her, his smile wickedly pleased as he glanced at her upside down.

“Now fellas, let’s not mar the merchandise,” he said with a grin that would please the devil. “Ladies, my name is Hank and I am going to need you to keep quiet while we gag you. I’d hate for you to wake the dead before we even get on the road. And I have to say that you don’t want to know what happens to those who scream.” He holstered his suppressed side arm and whistled as he bent down and picked up the gun Alexandra had held, turning it over to survey it in the dim light before looking down at Alexandra. “My, my. Ain’t this quite the prize? Forty-five, non-Chambers, full magazine. Quite the rare find. I must say it’s both beautiful and deadly, just like you, my little darling.”

Sarah wept as the man behind Sarah reached down and grabbed a red cloth from his belt, tying off her gag. Alexandra glanced over across the ground at Eva and Grace who also sobbed as they were gagged and bound. Elizabeth had stopped convulsing, the Taser being pulled away from her skin. A man reached down and gagged her too.