The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9) (24 page)

She didn’t worry about Blaine or wonder if he had taken care of his target. She trusted that he had
(Don’t let me down, Blaine!)
and didn’t waste the second or two it would have taken to check. If she was wrong she would be dead in the next few seconds anyway, and when those seconds went by and she was still on her feet, she took it as a very good sign.

The female collaborator was also still alive and staring at Gaby as she neared. Their eyes locked—the woman had light blue eyes and an impish nose—and Gaby expected her to reach for her holstered sidearm, but she didn’t. Instead, she kept one hand pressed against her right shoulder, a few inches higher and slightly to the right of where Gaby had aimed for.

Gaby felt a pang of annoyance at having missed her shot. It wasn’t really a miss, but it wasn’t a killing shot either, and if the woman had been able to summon the wherewithal to draw her pistol and open up, maybe she or Blaine, or both, might be bleeding on the ground right about now. She wanted to blame it on the adrenaline, or the fact that she was moving and shooting at the same time, but neither explanation did anything to temper the irritation.

She grabbed the Glock from the woman’s holster and threw it across the parking lot. Another time and place and she might have saved the weapon, but she was already carrying too much to add another two pounds.

The woman continued to stare up at her, eyes blinking rapidly as if she was having difficulty focusing.
Ashley
was written on her name tag. Gaby ignored the confused stare and finally checked on Blaine.

The big man had rounded the gas pumps and was standing over the truck’s driver, who had managed to unsling his AK-47 but never got the chance to use it. Blaine looked up from the crumpled body and nodded at her.

Gaby turned her focus back on the GMC and peered into the truck bed. Cory lay awkwardly on his side, blood pumping out of the hole in his chest—right where she had aimed for.

One out of two ain’t bad.

She returned to Ashley, who was still staring at her as if afraid to look away for fear something might happen if she ever lost sight of Gaby even for a second. Blood trickled out between Ashley’s fingers; her face had paled noticeably, the energy sapping from her with every passing second and labored breath.

“I guess Cory was right after all,” Ashley said, her lips curling into something that almost resembled a wry smile.

“I guess so,” Gaby said.

She stood over the woman, who looked to be in her late twenties. The ponytail was pulled much too tightly and it stretched her forehead, giving her a severe look that wasn’t entirely attractive.

“You shot me,” the woman said.

“Yes, I did.”

“Cory?”

“He’s dead.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Gaby said.

Blaine finally appeared next to them and took in the woman. “How many more of you are out there?”

“A lot more,” Ashley said.

“Where are they?” Gaby asked.

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” the other woman said, and again, that barely credible attempt at a defiant smile.

Gaby crouched and unslung her pack and opened it. She pulled out a white box and set it down on the concrete parking lot between them. It was a first-aid kit Zoe had put together before they left the
Trident
, and Ashley’s eyes zeroed in on it.

“It’s not a life-threatening wound,” Gaby said. “But it will be without proper treatment. I don’t think anyone’s coming here to rescue you, do you? At least, not in time.”

Ashley sighed. “What do you want?”

“You know what we want. Information.”

“I can’t give you that.”

“Of course you can.”

“How you figure?”

“You’re a survivor,” Gaby said, staring back at Ashley. “I know the type. I’ve run across more than a few of you. You don’t care about them. You’re just wearing that uniform because it keeps you alive.”

Ashley didn’t say anything, but she also didn’t look away from Gaby, either. Blaine, meanwhile, was staying very quiet next to them.

“It’s a pretty easy trade,” Gaby said. “Information, in exchange for tending to your wound. What you do after that is your business.”

“They’ll want to know what happened to Cory and Drake,” Ashley said.

“So tell them the truth.
After
we part company.”

“Just like that, huh?”

“Where we’re going, it’s not going to matter who or what you tell about us.”

Ashley narrowed her eyes, maybe wondering how much she could trust Gaby. Finally, she said, “What are you, sixteen?”

“I’m the one with the first-aid kit.”

“That’s a fair point,” Ashley said. Then, nodding, “All right.”

Gaby opened the box and spread out the contents on the floor. “You said there were more of you out here. How many more between us and Houston?”

“Everyone,” Ashley said.

“What do you mean, everyone?” Blaine said.

“I mean everyone who can get there by tonight, who isn’t already locked down in the towns.”

Gaby exchanged a look with Blaine before turning back to Ashley. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Ashley said. “I just do what I’m told. We were headed to the city and were taking a break on the side of the road when Cory heard your car.”

She pried Ashley’s hand away from her shoulder and pressed down with a sterile bandage, then took out a small pair of scissors and began cutting away enough of the shirt uniform to get at the wound underneath. Ashley grunted but didn’t put up any fight.

“No peeking,” the collaborator said instead to Blaine.

“Don’t worry; you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before,” Blaine said.

Gaby might have put more pressure than necessary against Ashley’s wound, and maybe the woman thought the same thing because she glared at her. Gaby ignored the hard look and went to work.

The wound wasn’t nearly as bad as it looked, and the bullet hadn’t hit anything vital. In fact, it was almost at the same spot where she had been shot not all that long ago. Just remembering that made Gaby’s own left shoulder throb slightly, and she made a mental note to take another one of Zoe’s painkillers
(maybe two)
before the day was over.

“How many are we talking about?” Gaby asked.

“Hard to answer, since I don’t know everyone,” Ashley said.

“That you know of.”

“A couple thousand.”

“A couple
thousand?
” Blaine said, not even trying to hide his surprise.

“I told you, it’s everyone who isn’t already locked down keeping the towns safe,” Ashley said. “They’re ordering every patrol across the state to converge on the city.” She shrugged her good shoulder. “Something big is happening, but I guess I’ll never find out now.”

“You’ll live,” Gaby said.

“Why?” Ashely asked.

“Why what?”

“Why are you saving me?”

“Because we had a deal.”

Ashley nodded, but by the look on her face, she didn’t entirely believe Gaby. “You’re going there, aren’t you? Into Houston?”

Gaby didn’t answer her and neither did Blaine.

“Damn,” Ashley said. “The party of the century and I’m gonna miss it.”

* * *

“
Y
ou believe her
?” Lara asked through the radio.

“I don’t think she’s lying,” Gaby said. “She has no reason to.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She thought about Mason, about Josh…

“Every collaborator I’ve ever come into contact with other than Josh weren’t true believers,” Gaby said. “They were opportunists. Ashley is one of them. She does what she’s ordered so she can keep surviving. No more, no less.”

Lara didn’t reply right away, and Gaby took the moment to glance out the office window at Ashley outside. The collaborator sat in the back of the GMC, parked inside the garage of an auto body shop two blocks from the gas station. There was enough natural light coming through the windows that they weren’t sitting in complete darkness. Ashley’s head was tilted against her chest, the effects of the sedative Gaby had given her—not because she wanted to spare the woman any pain, but because a sedated hostage was easier to handle than a fully alert one. Ashley’s hands and legs were bound with duct tape and she was sitting in the same spot where Cory had fallen (and bled) after being shot, but if that made her uncomfortable when they put her back there, Ashley hadn’t said a peep.

There were scuffling noises as Blaine’s boots moved around on the roof above her. He was waiting for signs that Ashley had lied, that there were other collaborators out there who would come looking for them. Gaby didn’t think she was lying, though, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

They had transferred everything from the Ford over to the GMC Sierra, including Will. Gaby wondered what Ashley’s reaction would be if she knew just how close she was sitting right now to a blue-eyed ghoul. Someone like Ashley wasn’t “chosen,” the way Josh or Mason had been, so she would never have come into close contact with the creatures. Gaby knew intimately how unnerving that introduction could be.

“Unnerving?” That’s one way to put it.

More like “horrifying.”

“As long as you’re sure,” Lara was saying through the radio.

“I am,” Gaby said. “What about what she said? Does it change anything?”

“Maybe,” Lara said. “We were already prepared to clash with the 200 or so Will had seen patrolling the city even before we found out about Mercer. But a couple of thousand… It makes getting Mercer’s people onboard even more important. I’ll talk to Danny and Keo, see what they think. God knows they have a lot more experience in battlefield tactics than I do. Whatever happens, we’ll do what we always do. We’ll adapt.”

Gaby smiled to herself. “Adapt or perish.”

“Exactly. And speaking of adapting, are you in any immediate danger out there?”

“I don’t think so. The group we stumbled across was on its own. According to Ashley, no one’s looking for them. They’re calling all the collaborators to the city, and I don’t think they’re going to waste time sending out search parties for a truck that didn’t make it. Even if they did, we’re in a good place here. They’d have to literally run into us to find us.”

“How is everyone? Bonnie and Blaine?”

Bonnie…

She must have been quiet for too long, because Lara said, “Gaby, what happened?”

“Bonnie’s dead,” Gaby said.

“What happened? When?”

“Last night. Two of them found us where we were hiding. I guess it wasn’t nearly as abandoned as Will thought. But it would have been worse if he hadn’t been there and led the rest of them away.”

This time it was Lara’s turn to be silent. As she waited, Gaby was glad there was an office—as small and cramped and crowded with junk as it was—for some privacy. She didn’t like the idea of saying all of this out there where Ashley could overhear, even in her sedative-laden condition. Not because she was afraid Ashley would escape and snitch on them, but because it was none of her damn business.

“What about you and Blaine?” Lara finally said. “How are you guys
really
doing out there?”

“We’re fine. I wasn’t lying about that part.”

“And Will?”

“He’s fine, too. Don’t worry about us, Lara.”

“I can’t help it. It’s my job to worry about you. About everyone.”

Gaby could hear the stress in Lara’s voice even over the radio. The kind of pressure her friend was under all these months and to this very day was something Gaby couldn’t possibly imagine, or ever want to.

“How are things progressing on your end?” Gaby asked.

“It’s…coming along,” Lara said. “I won’t know anything until later tonight. And maybe not even then.”

“Where are the winds blowing?”

“The winds are very hard to read right now, but I think there’s a chance. It’ll depend on how much the last few days have taken out of them. Not just fighting Mercer’s war, but the aftermath of his death. A lot has gone on since. With us, with them…”

“But there
is
a chance.”

“There’s a chance, yes, or I would have told you to come home right now, especially after what happened to Bonnie.”

“What are you going to tell Jo?”

“The truth. That Bonnie died a hero, that she sacrificed herself to ensure the mission’s success.”

Gaby nodded to the empty, silent room and remembered Bonnie’s last words:

“Don’t turn back, Gaby. You and Blaine have to keep going. We have to stop them now, or we never will. Finish Will’s mission. You understand?
Finish the mission.”

We’ll finish it
,
Bonnie, don’t you worry,
she thought.
We’ll goddamn finish it or die trying.

“
Y
ou’re
handsomer every time I see you, Keo. What’s your secret?”

“A good personality. People skills. All that good stuff.”

“Maybe you should go easy on that good stuff because you’re running out of places to put bandages.”

“Always more below the neck, Doc.”

“Let’s not go there.”

“That’s what she said.”

Zoe smirked. “What’s the gossip around the island water cooler? Did Lara’s speech go over well?”

“From what I’m hearing from my well-placed sources, it’s about fifty-fifty,” Keo said.

“Is that good?”

“It’s not bad.”

Zoe deftly placed a new bandage over his temple and taped it into place. “I thought the island had their own doctors.”

“They’re a little busy right now.”

“Right. The shooting this morning.”

More like “the attempted coup d'état this morning.”

“Uh huh,” he said.

“Was it as bad as I’ve heard?”

“Most of the injuries are from the docks. Burns and shrapnel.”

“What about all that shooting?”

“Dead people don’t need doctors, Doc.”

“Oh.” Zoe moved to his forehead to check on the stitches, then went about cleaning and covering them with a new bandage. “So there’s a fifty percent chance Black Tide might decide to pitch in?”

“I wouldn’t bet on the whole island, but maybe just enough to give Frank’s plan a boost.”

“You mean Will.”

“Uh huh.”

She finished up, then snapped off the surgical gloves before putting her instruments away. “How many were willing to meet with Lara?”

“When I was there, a few hundred had shown up.”

“Soldiers?”

“And some civilians.”

“Why do we need civilians for this?”

“You win wars with fighters, but they can’t do their job without support from everyone else, Doc. Mercer understood that when he set up the FOBs. I’ll say this for him: He was a maniac, but he knew what he was doing.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have killed him.”

“He started it.”

“Yes, he did.”

Zoe pushed her cart back to the corner where she kept all the other medical equipment. She looked over at him and he thought she wanted to say something—or ask something—but didn’t. Instead, she began putting the roll of gauze away.

Keo slipped his jacket back on and zipped it up. He had forgotten how cold it could get on the
Trident
. The island by comparison felt warmer despite not having a whole lot of nature to block the winds. Then again, maybe it was all that tropical scenery.

“What’s on your mind, Doc?” Keo asked.

Zoe stopped what she was doing and turned around. She leaned against the counter and didn’t say anything right away.

“I won’t bite,” Keo said.

“What do you think?” she finally asked.

“About what?”

“Plan G. Lara and the islanders. Can it all work? You’ve been out there. More than any of us. You’ve seen more.”

“You were at the camps.”

“I was, but it’s not the same. I was sheltered, and mostly around other people.”

Keo sat back down on a stool. “To be honest with you, I don’t know. But that’s the thing…”

“What is?”

“I know what I don’t know.” When she gave him a quizzical look, he continued: “I’ve never been a leader. It was never my thing. I’ve always taken orders, did what was necessary. I guess when you’ve been doing that for as long as I have, you start developing the ability to tell when someone is full of bullshit. Like a sixth sense. You have to, because they’re sending you to what could potentially be your death.”

“So what is your sense telling you about all this? Are we just setting ourselves up for failure? For more dead friends?”

“I think…” He stopped himself. He was sure he had the answer, but suddenly realized now that he didn’t and maybe he never had.

Zoe watched him patiently from across the room.

“I don’t know,” Keo said. “But Frank believes in the plan, and I haven’t seen or heard anything about the guy that leads me to think he’s talking out of his ass. You know what he is now, right?”

She nodded.

“He believes it can save Lara,” Keo continued. “And that guy—or thing, or it, or whatever you want to call him now—is alive almost purely because of that driving need to protect her.”

“He loves her. He’ll always love her.”

“That seems like the safest bet in history.” Keo stood up. “So what I’m saying is, I guess, yeah, I think it could all work, but it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of doing, but I’ve seen Frank in action. That guy, he can do things.”

Zoe nodded, and he saw the relief on her face.

“A year ago, all of this would have been beyond my pay grade,” Keo said. “But I’ve seen things that can’t be explained; hell, that defy logic, even. You can’t help but start entertaining wild possibilities after that.”

“But it’s so risky.”

“Life is risky, Doc. Especially these days. At least there’s a big ass pot of gold at the end of this rainbow.”

She nodded again and seemed to be talking mostly to herself when she said, “And we could use a win. God, can we use a win. We’ve already lost so much already. Carrie, and now Bonnie…”

Keo stared at her. “What about Carrie and Bonnie?”

“What?”

“You said, ‘Carrie, and now Bonnie.’ What did you mean by that?”

Zoe’s face paled. “You don’t know…”

“Know what?”

“Oh God, no one’s told you…”

“Told me
what
, Doc?”

* * *

H
e vividly remembered Carrie
, back on Song Island, trying to convince him to stay. They were preparing for an attack at the time, and he wanted no part of it—especially one on behalf of a bunch of strangers.

“It’s not about the island,”
she had said.
“It’s about the people on it. It’s always been about the people. Stay with us, Keo. There might not be anything for you out there, but there’s something here, now.”

She hadn’t come out and said it, but he’d known what she meant. She was talking about herself, asking him to stay with her. In the months after she had followed up with hints, but he had always been too focused on getting to Gillian to take her up on her offer. He had regretted it ever since.

Then there was Bonnie…

But it was always about Gillian…until it wasn’t anymore.

Keo gritted his teeth and thumbed a bullet out of the magazine and flicked it into the air, then watched it drop all the way down to the water three decks below. He had a great view of Black Tide nearby as well as the surrounding Gulf of Mexico from the rear of the
Trident
. The cool wind and solitude, along with the slowly creeping orange glow of evening, made the place ideal to be alone with his thoughts.

Another 9mm round shot into the air before gravity pulled it back down, turning end over end as it vanished out of view and, a second later, the soft and barely audible
ploomp
as it landed in the water below.

“Those things cost money, you know,” Lara said as she appeared next to him. She leaned against the railing and looked down at the same patch of blue water.

“I’m replacing them with silver ammo,” he said.

“Smart, but that still doesn’t mean you can literally just throw bullets away. Every bullet counts.”

“My bad.”

“My bad?” she smiled.

“Don’t people say that anymore?”

“I don’t think people ever said that, Keo. At least not anyone over ten.”

“You learn something new every day.” He nodded at the beach in front of them. “What’s going on over there?”

People were milling along the sand. Most of them were civilians, but there were a few soldiers among them. He saw handshakes, talking, and laughing. A few might have even been embracing.

“Riley’s people,” Lara said. “I asked them to go back, to put in a good word for us.”

“Looks like they’re getting along. Like that little uprising on the
Ocean Star
never happened.”

Ploomp!
as another round dropped into the water below.

“I guess they realized it wasn’t about them after all; it was always about Mercer,” Lara said. “About his war. In a lot of ways, Riley did them all a favor by opening their eyes.”

“That’s what I keep hearing.”

“Funny how things work out. Not all that long ago, one of them almost killed Riley for it. Now he’s helping Rhett organize the meetings on the island, trying to convince them to do it all over again. It feels wrong somehow.”

“Soldiers fight, Lara. Even if they weren’t soldiers before this, they are now. The ones who don’t have the stomach for it will stay home. The ones that do will come with us. Yours, Mercer’s, or Frank’s war. It doesn’t matter, really.”

“Maybe you’re right. I still have a hard time thinking about this from a military perspective.”

“You’ll come around,” Keo said. “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be over there right now?”

“What do you think I’ve been doing since noon? I’m exhausted, Keo. I think I might have met and talked with every single person on that island.”

“I told Doc we’re looking at a fifty-fifty chance we’ll get enough volunteers to give Frank’s plan the best shot at success.”

“You were being generous.”

“Was I?”

“I’d kill for fifty-fifty. It’s more like forty-sixty. Maybe thirty-seventy.”

“Still good odds. I’ve done with worse.”

“For you, maybe. For us mere mortals, it’s not nearly enough. But we should get a better idea by the end of tonight. I wish I could give them more time, but we’re running out of it. Will’s going to be in position soon, and we need to be there for him.”

“How many do you need?”

“All or most of the pilots. Some of the tankers. And a lot of the support people.”

“I think you’ll get it. Or most of it.”

“You think so?”

He thumbed loose another 9mm bullet. “Your speech over the intercom was pretty convincing. I got goose bumps.”

“I didn’t know you had goose bumps to get, Keo.”

“It’s either that or I’m coming down with the flu. Considering my run of luck these days, who knows.”

She gave him an amused glance. “What are you talking about? You’re still alive, aren’t you? When I last saw you on the
Ocean Star
,
I thought that was the last time we’d ever talk.”

“Oh, ye of little faith.”

“I should have known better. Next time, I will.”

Keo flicked another round into the ocean. “So, lowballing it at thirty-seventy, huh?”

“Around there. I just hope they can get over the fact that I’m a twenty-something medical school dropout trying to convince them to fight another war after everything they’ve been through.”

“In your defense, you’re only a dropout because the world ended.”

She laughed, and Keo smiled.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard her laugh—if ever.
Had
she ever laughed before while he was around, before he left to find Gillian? Not that she ever had a whole lot to be happy about. Will had been missing all that time, and there was all the work involved with training everyone and keeping the
Trident
afloat. Even now, he had no idea how she was doing it, shouldering all the responsibility on so little sleep and rest.

She looked as tired today as she did back then. The number on her birth certificate might have said twenty-six years, but he was looking at a much older woman. It wasn’t in the worry lines or the bags under her eyes, but in the way she leaned against the railing, as if she needed the extra support.

“That’s what people keep reminding me,” she said. “College dropout by way of the apocalypse, getting ready for a war.”

“It’s true.”

“Still, Mom would be so disappointed.”

“That you’re a dropout, or that you’re about to launch another war?”

“Both.”

She looked across the water at the beach and the civilians still gathered there. It really did look like one big happy reunion, and he found himself watching along with her in silence for a while.

Finally, she said, “What are you going to do after this, Keo?”

You mean if I’m still alive?
he thought, but said, “I have no idea. I haven’t thought that far ahead.”

“No plans?”

“Not a one.”

“That makes two of us.”

“What about Frank?”

“What about him?”

“If this works out the way he says it will…”

“I don’t know if it’ll be possible to go back to the way it was. Everything’s so…”

“Fucked up?”

She smiled. “Different. Everything’s so different.”

“That would have been my second guess.” Keo slipped the empty magazine back into the MP5SD and slung the weapon. “I’m just sorry I wasn’t around when you asked for volunteers to go out there with Frank. Or around when everything else happened onboard the boat.”

Lara sighed. “Zoe told me. I’m sorry, Keo. I was looking for the right time to tell you myself, but with everything happening at the island… I’m sorry you had to learn about Carrie and Bonnie this way.”

“Don’t sweat it. You had a lot on your plate.”

“I know you were close to both of them. I don’t know what else to say except I’m sorry.”