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  Merrick blurred to us and puffed an aggravated breath. "Sorry. They didn't believe us. They think we're trying to trick them into showing us where they're staying. I don't know what we're going to do with them."

  Billings leaned over Marissa and yelled, "Hog tie 'em"!

  Merrick and Marissa shared a look before she said, "For once, I'd go with what this one says. Let's just secure them and leave them."

  "I take offense to that, but I'll help anyway," Billings spouted indignantly and got out.

  "She fell asleep, huh?" Merrick asked, looking at Lily.

  "Yep. Girl can sleep through a freight train."

  "Good," he said wryly. "She needs to learn to sleep with fifty other people in the room with her."

  "Me, too," I grumbled. I looked out to see them tying the guys, back to back. "What was up with them?"

  He huffed and leaned his big tan arms on the window. "They thought we were part of the Enforcers. They think you guys were prisoners and we took all of your stuff. They were about to pull a Robin Hood act and steal it for themselves and the other misfortunates."

  "Others?"

  "They claim to have a big pile of people somewhere. Whether it's true or not, we can't risk trying to join forces. We just need to get where we're going and settle in first."

  "Yeah." I shook my head. "Wow."

  "Let me make sure everything's situated and then we'll go."

  I nodded and stroked Lily's hair. When it was a common, mundane event to have to tie up strangers and leave them on the side of the road, you knew things had gotten bad.

  We pulled up in front of a seriously busted up wooden warehouse looking… thing. Merrick was right. Danny had destroyed the place. Jeff and Pastor went first to make sure that no one had found the basement and all the resistance goodies they'd been collecting.

  I hugged Lily's sleeping body to mine. I wondered how all of this was going to work. As I stepped out of the van with Merrick's help, I looked toward the town to see billows of black and gray smoke hugging the sky. Cain and the rest of them followed my line of sight and we all gawked at the sight.

  Then I gasped when a Marker came into view in the distance. Then another. Merrick grunted and strained to see better. Was this real? Markers flying right over the town, not even trying to hide?

  I looked up at Merrick for answers, but I could tell by his face that he had none. I felt my arms tighten on my precious cargo out of instinct. Things really were going to hell.

  Jeff and Pastor gave the all clear and we all eased out of the vehicles and climbed a ladder to the roof. Merrick took Lily from me and jetted the ladder with ease. It was impressive to say the least.

  We got a better look at the city now that we were higher and it didn't make it look any better. The smoke and haze covered it completely and it was wide and encompassing. "We'll talk about it," Merrick said and urged me to his side as he woke Lily to get us into the tunnel. "Let's do one thing at a time and get all this stuff inside first."

  I nodded and made myself look away from the destruction of Effingham. All those people. Something bad was happening. No wonder those people tried to rob us. Things were way worse off than we thought.

  We followed them over to the elevator and took turns going down. The stairs were a sore subject it seemed and Danny's face turned red and angry when I asked if we could just take them instead. So I didn’t bring it up again.

  It was quite a trip and once we arrived, I wasn't really impressed, as bad as that sounds. I thought there would be some semblance of rooms or separation, but there literally was none. It was one big room with a couple of doors that I assumed were closets or storage sheds. Merrick immediately went to the stairs and began to put stuff in front of it to block it. He laid a chair sideways and then threw a broom and box on top of that. He turned to look at everyone. "No one goes on the stairs under any circumstances."

  "Duh," Rylee spouted and then yelled at someone for messing with her 'things'.

  "Now, Rylee," her father admonished. "Just because we lived here first doesn't mean you can claim everything as yours." She huffed and pulled the chair away from Ellie anyway. She plopped herself down and crossed her arms violently. "Ok, home sweet home," he announced and sighed as we all looked around. "We better just be happy to have a roof over our heads, yeah?"

  "Even if it could collapse at. Any. Moment," Rylee said looking at the roof with disdain. We all glanced up. It looked sound and safe to me. I got it. She was speaking figuratively. Ah…

  "All right," Jeff said and swiped his face with a hand, "it's been a long day. Let's get settled in, guys."

  Merrick was walking all around the crates in the middle of the room. They were marked "Canned Goods" and "Explosives". There were lots of them. "Where did you get all this stuff from?" he asked Pastor.

  "Well," he drawled and smiled, "the Lord provideth."

  "So you're not going to tell me," he remarked and scowled.

  "Oh, I'll tell you, but I don't think you'll believe me." He laughed. "We were walking down the road toward this place. Well not toward it, just walking. They were more of us then," he said sadly and then went on. "We had just about used every resource we had. No food was left and we were basically looking for a place to die peacefully. And then there they were. They were sitting smack dab in the middle of the road."

  Merrick frowned, a deep groove in his forehead that meant he was really thinking about something. Everybody else had stopped to listen. "In the middle of the road? Weren't you suspicious that it was too easy?"

  "Sure we were. But you know what they say about a gift horse."

  Rylee butted in, "That you don't leave it in the middle of the freaking road."

  Pastor went on. "We cracked them open and it was exactly what it looked like." He smiled and lifted his dirty hands. "Manna from Heaven."

  "Can we cut all the religious mumble?" Billings said and crossed his arms. "Let's get back to what's in the crates."

  Pastor took his hand and ran it under the word "Canned Goods" on one crate. "Canned goods," he said sarcastically. I wanted to laugh.

  "Ha. Ha. What about the rest of them? You mean to say that you found crates in the middle of the road that really had guns and explosives in them?"

  "That's what I'm saying."

  "Well then!" he yelled and laughed. "Let's go door to door to the enforcement facilities and give them a little 'Hey, how you doing'."

  "We can't do that. There are innocent people in there!" I said and found my chest heaving a little with anger. I knew what he was saying, I understood, but I had been one of those people just days ago.

  He sighed and twisted his lips. "Sorry. You're right. I'm just shooting in the dark to find a solution here."

  "I know," I answered back and waved off Merrick's look of concern. "I know."

  "Sherry's right, of course," Pastor continued. "We can't do that. The reason I kept it was because I knew there would be a right time. That one day, there would be a moment of weakness or bloated egos on their part and we would be able to take advantage of it."

  "You got a TV in here?" Cain asked. "We need to see if our little blip at the hospital and then the store and all made the news. Hadn't thought about that until now." He looked at Jeff and Marissa. "I bet they've got all kinds of people looking for us."

  "Sure," Pastor said. "It's small, but it works." He went to a small cabinet on the wall and opened the doors. The nine inch TV sat there, dusty and beautiful. He flipped it on and we watched as the non-stop news played us a story about Malachi's recent 'good work' - even though he was dead as dead could be - at the new enforcement facility near there. They'd taken over someone's house to use as headquarters since we'd demolished the jail there.

  And then a man came to the podium at some sort of press conference, and he looked pretty irritated. He coughed dramatically and then explained that they were now upping the ante on the rewards.

  "Due to the circumstances that have risen in the past few days, we have decided t
o increase the reward for anyone who catches and brings a rebel to us or gives us information regarding their whereabouts. The reward is now twenty thousand dollars for the capture…"

  The rest of his words were lost on us. I sat in disbelief. Well it explained why the town was in disarray. Everyone was looking for rebels. Miguel bolted and turned off the offensive TV. Billings started laughing hysterically. "Twenty thousand! Twenty thousand! For twenty thousand I'll turn my own self in!"

  "Billings," Cain warned, but he was on a roll.

  "We don't stand a chance now. It was bad before, but now we've lost the store, we've lost our privacy, we're losing people left and right, ambushed every time we turn around, we've got no way to gain the upper hand now, and on top of all that? We're being hunted by money hungry desperate people." He laughed once more, bitterly and angrily. "We're gonna die."

  I took a deep breath and looked over at Lily, who had woken in my arms. She was looking at Billings like he was some sort of alien.

  "You have to bewieve in it, Mister Biwwings," she spouted.

  He looked at her. He sighed, his chest deflating with sadness. "I'm sorry, Lily. I shouldn't have said that, ok?"

  "Why you so sad?"

  He smiled. "Cause I feel like everyday it's raining on us."

  Calvin busted through Ryan and his mom and started belting out, "If you walk away, everyday it'll rain, rain, raaaai-a-a-ain! Ooooooh!"

  We all stared a little before laughing at him. It was obvious what he was trying to do, so when Franklin joined him and they continued singing as Lily squealed and ran to dance with them, I was pretty proud of the kid.

  "Don't you say goodbye! I'll pick up these broken pieces 'til I'm bleeding if that'll make it right! 'Cause they'll be no sun light, if I lose you, baby! And they'll be no clear skies, if I lose you, baby!"

  Calvin held Lily's hands and danced with her as they sang. She didn’t know the words, but twisted her legs and hips to his tune. Cain grabbed Lillian and started dancing with her, too. It reminded me so, so, so much of the bunker.

  And it made me realize that home is where you make it. Yes, the bunker was a good spot and convenient and we'd been there so long it just seemed wrong to leave. But my home was my family. And we were all right here together. And dancing to Bruno Mars without a bed to our names or a shower to bathe in, but we were smiling and alive.

  To me, that was everything these days.

  Everything.

  Blade of Fire

  Chapter 10

  Merrick

  I didn't dream often. I have no idea why, but it just never happened or I never remembered them. So to have my first nightmare was brutal. And to wake up sweating and panting, having Sherry fuss over me, was worse.

  "Are you ok?"

  "Fine," I answered gruffly.

  "Merrick, don't placate me!" she hissed and I turned to look at her in the dark. "I know you had a bad dream, I heard you. Now what happened?"

  I sighed long and loud to show her I absolutely didn't want to tell her. But I did anyway. "I had a dream about leaving you."

  She stiffened all the way to her bones. "What?" she squeaked.

  "No, not leave you that way." I eased her to my lap and wrapped my needy arms around her. "Leave you like…death." She gasped. "When I…died," I said, because that was exactly what I had done, "I saw this light. Cheesy, I know, but it was all encompassing and it was just for me. Though I knew it was meant for me to go through," I pressed my lips to her temple, "I just couldn't leave you."

  I thought she would cry, get sappy, make me console her, but no.

  She laughed.

  I felt my eyebrow reach my hairline and leaned back to see her face in the shadows of the big room we were all camped out together in. Lily slept on a sleeping bag on my other side and the room was quiet and oddly peaceful.

  "And what's so funny?"

  She giggled once more and then wrapped her arms around my neck. She let her legs straddle me before whispering in my ear. "I think I'm a little slap happy. I can't sleep and you telling me that you defied death and refused to leave me was just suddenly funny." She leaned back. "I'm sorry," she said, but she didn't look sorry. She looked like she was about to have another giggle fit.

  I found myself chuckling a little, too. "Honey," I whispered, "I don't know what I'd do without you. I'd be a very lonely and disgruntled Keeper without you here to keep me laughing and happy."

  "Good," she said in return and pushed me down. She lay down on my chest and sighed deeply. I rubbed her back and loved feeling her heartbeat through our shirts as our chests pressed together. Within a minute she was asleep, breathing deeply. I chuckled again, the movement shaking her a little. She was something else.

  I let sleep claim me as well and this time, I dreamed of our unreachable future, not the horrible past. I didn't know which one was worse.

  In the morning, we all woke and decided that some arrangements needed to be made. Everyone piled randomly on the floor at night wasn't going to work for me or anyone. So Sherry, Lillian and a few others started putting up clothesline rooms; little nooks along the walls that were separated by sheets on clothesline wire. And the rest of us got to moving the crates and going through it all. Making some order to the chaos.

  It took us pretty much all day to get everything 'livable'. There was no running water for showers. The ladies pitched a fit about that one. So we rigged a closed off space for taking 'bowl baths' Miguel called it. None of us really understood how good we had it before, I guessed.

  There was a toilet. As in one toilet in a small toilet closet with no sink. I shook my head as I looked at it. Could be worse. There could be no toilet.

  "Where is the food?" Sherry asked. I turned to find her eager, red face behind me.

  "Haven't you done enough today?"

  "Nah," she said and wiped her cheek with the back of her hand. "I need to see how we're doing on food so I can have a little piece of mind."

  I grimaced. "Well…"

  She stopped and ticked her head to the side. "What?"

  "There was a crate of canned food," I hedged.

  "Yes," she dragged out.

  "But it was a whole crate of green beans."

  "What!" she shrieked.

  Miguel passed us and laughed. "I told you not to tell her."

  "Beat it, Aussie." I put my hands on the tops of her small arms. "Baby, it'll be fine."

  "How? Explain how the only food we have plenty of now is basically just water and won't help to keep us full or alive."

  "We'll just have to do food runs again. No way around it."

  She groaned. "Oh, my gosh. We can not get a break!"

  "Sherry," I whispered and put my arms around her, lifting her to my level. She sulked and refused to meet my gaze. "Sherry," I sang, taunting her.

  "What?" she muttered.

  "Look at me." She did immediately. "We’ll be ok. I didn't defy death just to die of hunger, ok?"

  She sighed dramatically. "Fine."

  "Fine?"

  "Fine!" she laughed. "Fine."

  "Good." I kissed her forehead and then let mine rest there as I set her feet to the concrete. Her tingling touch was my constant reminder of everything I would've missed if I wasn't on this earth any longer.

  "Oi!" Miguel shouted. "You hear that?"

  We all stopped and listened. Katie shushed Sky who continued to cry, but we could still hear it. Trucks. Big ones. Did it mean something?

  "We need to go scout," I told him and he nodded. "I'll be back," I told Sherry. She nodded and hugged Lily to her as she gripped her leg. Calvin and Franklin followed behind me with stakes in hands. I turned and gave them a look.

  Calvin said, "We're with you. Let's go scout."

  I glanced at Ryan who was on our tail and he nodded as he passed us. "Let's go!" he called over his shoulder.

  "Sweet!" Calvin chimed and went past me, too. I sighed and looked at Laura and Eli. They watched as Franklin followed Calvin. "I'll keep an eye on
him. We're just going to get a look."

  He nodded as any parent would in that situation. Reluctantly.

  Daniel started to come, but I waved him off. "You can't sense them, but we don't know if they can sense you. Just stay here, ok?"

  I ran to catch up and we rode the elevator up to the roof. Jeff and Miguel had come with us, and Billings, too, apparently. I could hear him cursing about the soot from the roof on his boot.

  "Get down!" I told Calvin and pushed both of their heads down. There was a long line of big trucks roaming around the highway. They were going back and forth. Not necessarily looking at the warehouse, just the road in general. I felt a little better about it.

  But then I heard the familiar screech of a Marker and peeked to see one coming the opposite direction. "Search is in full swing it would seem. Good thing we left the store when we did," I told Miguel. "They would have caught us coming down the highway."

  "Bloody right," he muttered and ducked lower. He caressed his leg over his pant leg, the Marker's scratch. "You think they're looking for us or just searching for rebels?"

  "Anyone's guess." I looked around. "But they aren't moving along. Let's get back inside. We need to talk about making a food run in the morning. Everybody's getting pretty thin these days. We don’t have much left and hardly any protein at all."

  "Good," he said and motioned for us to follow him down.

  But we all stopped dead when we heard the bark of a dog.

  A dog…

  I leaned over the side in shock to see a dog barking and putting his paws up on the building side as if asking for permission to come inside. I gawked. A freaking dog.

  Dogs were extinct as was every other animal. So how the heck was a dog sitting in front of us?

  Franklin couldn't handle it. He yelled and leaned over the side. I heard the wings beat just before the Marker grabbed his shirt back. I wasn't fast enough before he had him fully over the edge. If I had grabbed him then, he would have fallen to the ground below.