Hidden Flames (27 page)

“Henley,” a man’s voice called out, “there’s something wrong with Mrs. Welsh!”

“Sit her down.” Prue recognized Kellen Truman as he took over and helped Mrs. Welsh sit on the closed toilet seat. The older woman hadn’t released Prue’s hand, so she kneeled along with them. “Mrs. Welsh, look at me. You’re fine. Henley is getting you some fresh oxygen and we’ll get you hooked up right away.”

Mrs. Welsh gave him a shaky smile and a small nod of her head. She squeezed Prue’s hand and tried to take a deep breath, eventually managing to do so. That’s when Prue realized that the situation wasn’t as bad as she’d originally thought.

“Did you think I was having a heart attack, dear?” Mrs. Welsh quipped, causing Truman to chuckle lightly at the situation. Prue gave him a sideways look to let him know she didn’t appreciate him laughing at her expense. “I’ve been having a little trouble breathing all day, but I didn’t want to worry anyone. It happens sometimes with this COPD.”

“I think almost giving
me
the heart attack would cause more trouble than you having issues with your breathing, Mrs. Welsh,” Prue said reassuringly and getting a small smile in reward for her humor. The string of curse words that really wanted to come out of her mouth wasn’t suitable for the elderly lady and Prue managed to suppress them, which wasn’t easy. “Here comes Henley with a new tank. Did you go for a run when no one was looking?”

“No, but she did run out of oxygen,” Truman said as he looked over the oxygen tank. “It looks like the gauge dial is faulty.”

“Here,” Henley interrupted a little breathlessly, holding on to a new portable cylinder. “Mrs. Welsh, I couldn’t find any of your nasal cannulas. You’ve been using that one since you’ve arrived here. Are they somewhere in your room?”

“No, dear,” Mrs. Welsh said with a shake of her head. She patted the two-pronged tube that was resting against her wrinkled cheek with an affectionate pat. “This is my last one, but I can make it last until we’re able to get back home.”

Prue shared a look with Truman, who happened to be at eye level with her. Mrs. Welsh apparently thought the ash was stopping sooner rather than a month or two from now. His eyes were so dark that they appeared almost as black as his hair, but she didn’t miss the compassion that briefly emerged. It was gone just as quick, but it made him more relatable to the people here in Prue’s opinion. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all.

“We’ll make a quick run into town tomorrow and obtain some nasal cannulas from the urgent care clinic.” Henley handed over the oxygen tank to Truman, who switched the canister out swiftly and efficiently. “Give me the old tank and I’ll see to it that it’s not used again until it’s fixed.”

It wasn’t long after Henley had departed, everyone else had gone back to their own business, and Mrs. Welsh was back in the great room on her favorite La-Z-Boy reclining chair with her knitting needles that Prue managed to steal some time to wash up. It was mentally hard to accept that this sanctuary Ernie Yates had created was their foreseeable future. The responsibility he took on when bringing these people here was astonishing and he didn’t think twice about it from her understanding. He had selflessly invested his entire life’s fortune here in this remote northeast corner of Washington State to save the people he cared most about. He was a good man, but Prue’s mind swirled with things that could go wrong. She dried her hands on the towel that was hanging from the small hoop on the wall before stepping back out into the hall.

“This isn’t the time or place, Kellen. What happened is in the past and now we’re dealing with a catastrophe like the world hasn’t seen in six hundred and forty thousand years. Drop the vendetta or else it’ll get our team kicked out of here.”

Prue could barely hear the muffled voices, but they appeared to be coming from Henley’s office. She froze for a moment as the words penetrated. This was the
personal issue
that Mav had mentioned earlier today, but Truman kept his voice so low that she couldn’t hear his response. She took a step closer to the closed door, but then all hell broke loose.

“I had nothing to do with what Trevor did and he already paid for his mistake in blood.” Stanley Ratliff had stood up from one of the chairs in the great room and pointed a finger at Jarrett Moore. The older gentleman was a World War II veteran from what Prue remembered, and a friend of Rat. She was surprised by the argument, but managed to quickly depart from where she’d been standing before Henley’s office door opened. She could see Truman leave the lodge in her peripheral vision. The other man she didn’t recognize, but it was clear from the debris on his clothes that he’d just come in from outside. “You were there. You heard what happened when I found out what my son had done.”

Henley must have heard the commotion all the way into the kitchen from where the men were arguing. She made her way toward them with a resigned look on her face letting Prue know this was an ongoing quarrel. She’d heard that Rat’s middle son had been the one to abduct Henley from the lodge in an attempt to bribe Ernie and Mav into giving up the bunker. Jarrett Moore had been one of the men that had stayed with Rat down near his camping ground, but he’d had a change of heart regarding his friendship with the man of late.

“You might not have known about it ahead of time, but you sure weren’t going to stop him, were you? You’re just a parasite taking advantage wherever you can. A goddamn leech!” Jarrett was relatively spry for a man in his eighties and he stood from his chair, swiping his spit can from the coffee table. “You would have allowed that messed-up boy of yours to hurt Henley. You aren’t the same man I used to know, Rat. It’s a damn shame and I want nothing to do with you anymore.”

Jarrett left the room, not waiting for a response or looking back at Rat. The room fell quiet as Henley followed the older man back into the game room where they’d been earlier, sharing a look with the man that had been mostly attached to Jarrett’s side since Prue had met them. She thought is name might be Randy, but she wasn’t sure. Rat muttered a few obscenities about what Jarrett could do with his spit can and stormed out of the room in the opposite direction, to where the dining room was if Prue remembered correctly.

“Jarrett, please wait,” Henley called, leaving the room to where anyone could hear a pin drop.

Prue hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath and slowly released the air through her parted lips. This place was a land mine and she needed to know where the location of the next explosion was before she became a casualty. She skimmed her gaze over the people that were still watching the doorway where Henley had gone after Jarrett, but Prue was focused on the fact that Reggie Thomas was following Rat to the back of the lodge.

“What was that about?” Owen said, startling Prue as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Past history of long, complicated relationships, of which I know nothing about,” Prue answered, tilting her head and looking back at him over her shoulder. The concern written on his features let her know that he was well aware of troubles that were festering. “There’s a lot going on in this camp that we don’t know enough about and it’s eventually going to implode and get someone seriously hurt. That’s the best-case scenario resulting from all of this tension between these different factions, Owen. I can’t imagine the worst.”

“T
hese damned things
have to be a century old,” Prue muttered, tossing a wrench so that it would land on a worktable. Owen wasn’t surprised that she was her typical self while being alone here in the machine shop. She hadn’t seen him walk in and he wasn’t even sure what she was working on, but he figured it would do them good to get out of the camp for a little while. Two days of her being cooped up in the bunker, with the exception of meals, wasn’t healthy. He could use a break himself from trying to figure out what Truman and his team were up to, let alone every now and then hearing updates and trying to interpret Rat’s odd behavior from Dylan’s spot reports. “Who the hell keeps hand-powered drills around?”

“Remember, nothing is useless during an apocalypse.” Owen was rewarded with another string of obscenities when she spun around too quickly and caught her hip on the corner of the butcher-block workbench top. “Come here and let me kiss it all better.”

“You can kiss my ass, Marine Boy,” Prue said with a scowl as she threw a rag his way in disgust. It smelled of grease and something else he couldn’t identity. He caught it and then set it beside the tool she’d just discarded. “You scared the shit out of me. What are you doing in here anyway? I thought you were making a run into town with Gage to pick up those tools I need.”

“I thought you’d want to take a break and go with me instead.” Owen closed the distance between them and backed her up against the wall, ignoring her laughing protests when he tried to kiss her neck. He’d been doing his best to keep the mood light when they were together, due to the various tensions of the townsfolk throughout the camp. She wasn’t used to being surrounded by this many people, preferring the quietness of the out-of-the-way garage back home. He couldn’t give her that, but he did have the ability to make her as happy as he could under the circumstances. “Maybe we can even raid the grocery store for some Dr. Pepper or whatever they’ve left laying around that we might want.”

“That’s called theft,” Prue said, catching her breath as she rested her head back against the old wooden wall of the machine shop building, causing her cap to tilt. He gently took it off of her and she laid her forearms on his shoulders. Prue had mentioned that it was a bit odd to see the construction of the old mine at first. He explained that it was the best way to define a workspace and regulate the temperature. Back in the day, they had used pot bellied stoves to heat the mine’s workshops, now replaced with Ernie’s surplus military electric heaters. “I could use some Dr. Pepper though. I miss it.”

“I’m sure we can get Pete Lockton to give us the key to his store,” Owen reassured her, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She’d braided it again, but this time for keeping it out of her way while she worked. “How are the oil bath filters for the trucks coming along?”

“Good, although I only had enough spare parts for two of them. I already installed one of them into Henley’s truck, so her engine didn’t get ruined from Mav taking it around the area once or twice a day on his routine patrols.” Prue shifted in her boots, which indicated her irritation at something. Owen didn’t have to wait long to know what that something was. “What is it that has you, Mav, and Tank so on edge? Is it Kellen Truman? Because I told you what was said and the fact that one of his teammates wants him to drop whatever personal business he has here in Lost Summit. I don’t think they want to lose the protection they have here.”

“It’s the holes in our defenses,” Owen replied, not wanting to keep anything from Prue and yet he had this urge to protect her. “There’s a small group of people forming up at Rat’s old shelter in that abandoned silver mine and they don’t appear to play nice. Ann saw them involved in a struggle with a lone male traveler who was equipped with a mask and a backpack full of supplies.”

“And?” Prue searched his face for the answer while he caressed her cheek with his thumb. She’d been in his life for over a year and only a little over two weeks of that forming something very special that he didn’t want to lose. She was on his mind with every decision he made and every suggestion he gave Tank or Mav regarding the security of the perimeter. “They killed him, didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Owen answered reluctantly, not wanting her touched by the dregs of society. “They did. Mav and I went scouting this morning and we counted eleven men and two women. It appears they enlist who they can and take from those that have what they need. It’s not going to be long before they discover we have virtually everything they could ever want right across the river from them. And as much as I hate it, we’ve had to ask Truman to keep watch over them across the river valley…at least until Berke, Mason, and Van arrive.”

“Tank was relieved to hear from the rest of the team last night.” Prue stroked the back of his neck, eventually turning it into an all out massage. Owen closed his eyes in appreciation, wishing they could just go back to their room and make love, wasting the afternoon away. Unfortunately, critical tasks had to be finished first. “Maybe Mason will arrive sometime today.”

“Maybe,” Owen replied, not too sure of that. Mason had relayed that he’d had a bit of trouble getting out of Nebraska but was finally on the way. Two weeks of trouble? Whatever the reason, he didn’t go into detail and the radio contact had been brief—as with the other calls from him according to Tank. “Come on. I saw you working on Henley’s truck earlier and managed to swipe the keys from Mav. We’ll head out, hit the garage to load up any other supplies you think you’ll need, stop by the clinic for the oxygen gadgets that she needs, and then work on our thieving skills for that Dr. Pepper you want.”

“Dr. Pepper?” Rosa asked, walking through the door with a cup of coffee in hand. She held it out for Prue with a smile. “I figured you’d need a cup since you didn’t stay long for breakfast. You always seem to be hard at work what with all that mumbling to yourself you were doing.”