Chapter 8

8

We’re silent as we drive back to the cabin. I’m not sure what Mack is thinking, but I’m internally processing the conversation we just had.

Maybe he is too.

As I think back, I wonder if this is the first time I’ve ever heard or seen Mack act even slightly insecure around another man. I honestly can’t remember it happening before—not in all the time I’ve known him.

Ever since Impact, former sources of power like money, fame, social status, and political influence have been made irrelevant. Now the only power that matters is numbers or physical strength and skill.

And Mack has always been on the top of that hierarchy. He’s bigger than almost anyone else we know. He’s bigger than Jackson. Bigger than Grant. Bigger even than Cal. And in a physical altercation with anyone else, it would take a lot of luck on the other side to beat Mack.

All this time, the only thing stopping him from imposing his will on everyone else is the goodness of his heart.

Logan isn’t a physically intimidating man, but he possesses a different sort of power—one more akin to what was common in the old world. It’s startling. Daunting.

No wonder Mack reacted the way he did.

But surely he doesn’t believe I’m so weak and clingy that I’d immediately attach myself to the man with the most power around me.

Maybe that’s what he thinks I did with him.

It’s an upsetting thought. So upsetting my throat tightens and tears burn in my eyes. I try to keep my body relaxed and natural, but after a couple of minutes, Mack glances back at me over his shoulder, like he senses something and wants to know what’s wrong.

I might have told him, but I don’t get the chance.

It’s impossible to drive very fast in this forest, even on the trail, and Mack has to slow down even further as we reach a part of the trail that goes up one of the steepest hills and winds around in a deep switchback. As we come around the curve, we’re suddenly confronted by someone taking the trail in the opposite direction.

There are two of them. Both on motorcycles, which is rare enough in The Wild this long after Impact that I get tingles of alarm in my fingertips and the back of my neck. Men. Both relatively normal-looking. They’ve slowed down the way we have. The one behind has lifted a shotgun in the same way I’ve pulled out my pistol.

He doesn’t fire though. We pass each other with wary vigilance, and neither side makes an aggressive move. It’s not until our quad is side by side with the first motorcycle that I realize behind the driver is someone else.

A little girl. A dark-haired girl with huge blue eyes and a doll secured to her middle with a long scarf of some kind.

It takes every ounce of my control to not react. I nod politely at the second driver, whose posture is stiff and guarded.

Then we’re past. As soon as we complete the curve, we’re out of sight.

“Mack.”

“I know. I saw.”

“That poor little girl. She looked so scared.”

“I know.”

“We have to do something.”

“I know .” He pulls to a stop on the trail and pivots on the seat so he can see me. “We’re not going to be able to catch up with them on this thing. Those bikes can really move.”

“Maybe we can follow them and scope out the situation. Logan said that we only need to get a message to him. I’m sure he’s capable of making the move once he knows where they are.”

“Yeah.” Mack clears his throat. “Yeah, okay. We’ll need to stay pretty far back, or they’ll figure out we’re following.”

“Okay. The dirt is soft enough that those motorcycles made groves in it. We can follow their tracks without getting too close.”

Nodding, Mack makes a five-point turn to redirect our vehicle on the trail. But before he starts driving again, he says in a gruff mutter, “We’ll do this, but we’re playing it safe. We’re not running headlong into danger. We’ll get info and report back. Nothing else. Okay?”

“Okay.” I know perfectly well he’s still traumatized from physical violence. Our helping out Maria and the others even briefly a few weeks ago was incredibly difficult for him, and I’m not going to make it worse by thrusting him right back into conflict when he’s still trying to heal.

Besides, I don’t want to risk either his life or my own if there’s any other choice.

“All right then. We’ll have to stay quiet.”

He drives even more slowly than he was before as we once again traverse the switchback in the trail. Neither one of us speaks, but we don’t need to. The two grooves in the trail from the pair of motorcycles are starkly evident. Following them will be no trouble at all.

It’s not. We continue following without incident or confusion. Unfortunately their path continues all afternoon.

I’ve never been this deep into The Wild before. On the eastern fringe where Chloe’s grandpa’s cabin and the market are, inhabitants are scarce but present. But not here.

We don’t see a living soul for hours as we go. At one point, I’m worried enough to murmur, “Are we going to be okay on gas?”

“We still got three-fourths of a tank. If we get down to half, we’ll have to turn back.”

“Agreed.”

And that’s the extent of our conversation for the afternoon.

It gets dark early in The Wild—particularly in late autumn as we are. And eventually the filtered sunlight through the thick trees starts to fade. I shift on the seat, my thighs and ass sore from riding for so long. “What should we do?”

“We can’t travel like this at night no matter what. I’m not gonna do it.”

“Surely they’re going to stop soon too. Even bad guys don’t keep going in the dark.”

“Yeah. Hopefully so. Either way, we’ve got to find a place to camp until morning.”

“All right. Maybe we can find some sort of shelter that’s not too far off the trail.”

We keep an eye out for the next half hour and eventually come upon a grouping of large rocks on the side of a hill that provides a degree of protection from both the elements and any aggressors. Mack parks the ATV out of sight of the trail, and then we clear out some dead foliage to make a place for us to settle in a shallow alcove.

We’ve got plenty of food because of the provisions Mack traded for this morning. I make us ham and cheese sandwiches—dry and slightly messy because all I have to work with is my small hunting knife—while Mack collects some branches to block the view of our shelter.

We’ve still got water in our canteens, so we should be okay on that through tomorrow. When Mack is done, he lowers his big body to the ground, leaning against the largest rock. I sit beside him—very close by necessity and because I need the comfort—as we eat our sandwiches in silence.

We’ve camped together numerous times. After Fort Knox fell, we traveled together for weeks. Occasionally we could find abandoned houses to stay in, but quite often we couldn’t. We had no choice but to spend the nights outside.

“Remember that night next to the waterfall,” I say after we’ve finished eating and are just sitting together.

He wraps an arm around me and pulls me closer. “Of course I remember.”

We’d heard some coyotes howling in the dark, and I was scared. I huddled against him as he sang songs to distract me. That was the first night we ever kissed. When I was feeling better, I tilted my head up to smile and thank him for comforting me. He told me he liked making me feel better. And I was so touched I stretched up and planted a soft kiss right on his mouth.

Before that, there had been nothing romantic between us. Nothing but friendly comradery and caretaking (on his side). But he responded to the kiss that night. His lips had been briefly hesitant—like he was taken by surprise—but then he got into it. We kept going for a couple of minutes until he smiled against my mouth.

“That’s what I call a damn good kiss,” he drawled.

It made me giggle and took all the nerves and uncertainty out of the change in our relationship. Two nights later, in an empty farmhouse we stumbled across, we had sex the first time.

It’s only been six years, but it feels like eons ago.

“That was a different guy,” Mack says softly. “The guy who kissed you back then.”

He might have been reading my mind.

“Yeah. It feels like I was a different girl too. But it hasn’t really been that long.”

“A lot’s happened since then.” He’s still got his arm wrapped around me. He adjusts it to pull me closer.

I lean my cheek against the side of his chest. “I know.”

Mack’s got his gun out and ready near his right hand, but it feels like we’re relatively safe for the moment. There aren’t any sounds around us except the chirping of night bugs and an occasional hoot of an owl. There’s only one direction in which anyone can reach us, and we’re not going to be taken by surprise.

“Did you expect me to kiss you back then?” I ask after a minute.

He doesn’t answer immediately. “No. Not really. I knew you liked me, but I thought it was more a… a utilitarian-type thing. You needed someone to help, and I was there.”

“Surely you knew it was more than me using you.”

“Eh, it’s a fuzzy situation. When someone is relying on you for protection. Easy to take advantage. I didn’t want to do that. So I didn’t know what you were really thinking until you kissed me.”

“And then?”

“Then it was pretty clear you were into me.” There’s a faint, almost nostalgic smile in his voice.

“I was,” I admit with a giggle. “I’ve never stopped being into you.”

His arm tightens, but he doesn’t kiss me or make any sexual moves. It’s not a good idea outside at night as we are—any sort of distraction could put us in danger—so I hope that’s the only reason he’s holding back.

He’s silent so long that it unnerves me. So I ask, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking…” He trails off for so long that I’m not sure he’s going to complete the thought. “I’m thinking that the strongest I’ve ever felt in my life—the most confident and secure in who I really am—were all those days I spent protecting you. ”

My heart clenches with emotion. How can it not? But it also starts sinking with a heaviness that’s new but expected both.

Because there’s a finality in Mack’s words. He’s referring to the past not the present.

He felt like himself protecting me back then when I was needy and helpless. It gave him a purpose and a channel for all his courage and care.

But I’m not that needy girl anymore. He can’t be himself with me the way he used to.

Things have changed and with it our relationship.

We might have hot sex now. I might finally feel like I’m getting what I want and need from him. I might at last be able to see a future with a man that doesn’t fill me with fear.

But he doesn’t feel the same way.

He told me last month that anything we can have at this point is temporary, but I realize now I’ve started hoping for more. I was starting to dream that maybe now—finally, at long last—we might be together for real. For good.

But life doesn’t work that way. Our timing might always be wrong. He wants it to be like it was in the beginning—when I wasn’t the person I really want to be.

He needs me to need him.

As long as he doesn’t really need me.

We spend the night slouched together in the alcove of the rocks. I doze on and off, but I don’t think Mack sleeps at all.

As the first light of dawn starts to peek through the trees, we get up by mutual agreement, go to the bathroom, and eat a quick breakfast before getting back on the quad.

My body is even sorer this morning than it was yesterday. Not only from the long, uncomfortable ride but also from a night on the ground. I spent months traveling with Maria when I slept outside every single night, but it’s been a couple of years now.

I must have gotten soft. Spoiled. I’d much rather spend my nights in a bed.

I suspect Mack must feel something similar. He was swallowing back a groan when he first stood up and stretched out his legs and back.

Neither of us complain. A little girl is in danger. She’s scared and at the mercy of heartless strangers. And we’re the only ones in a position to help.

The grooves in the trail from the two motorcycles are still clearly evident this morning. We follow them easily for almost an hour. Then suddenly Mack applies the brakes.

I see why when I lean over to look around his body. The grooves veer off the trail and into the trees.

Surely they wouldn’t leave the trail to try to ride through the trees for any distance. This must be where they camped for the night .

It’s still very early in the morning. Only an hour or so after dawn. It’s possible they’re still stopped wherever they spent the night.

We don’t need to discuss the next steps. Mack parks, and we both get off, drawing our weapons.

Silently we walk through the woods following the direction of the tire marks. My heartbeat has sped up, and my adrenaline is pumping the way it always does before a fight or potential danger.

If we can catch them at their camp, we might actually be able to get the girl away from them. There are two of us and only two of them.

We’ve walked for a couple of minutes when a sound catches my attention. A muted grunt.

Mack meets my eyes and shifts course toward the sound. He’s got his gun held steady in front of him.

We move past a few large trees and suddenly reach the man who made the grunt.

It’s definitely one of the guys on the motorcycle with the girl. I recognize him immediately. He’s crouched down near the ground with his pants down around his ankle. He’s taking his morning shit.

He’s every bit as surprised as we are. We stare at each for a long, tense moment until the man reaches down for the shotgun beside him and opens his mouth to call out for help.

I react even before Mack does. I’m honestly not sure how I manage it. It must be instinct drilled into me from years of Maria’s training. I grab for the knife at my belt and throw it toward him. Maybe it’s luck as much as skill, but it gets him right in his throat, killing and silencing him in a matter of seconds.

I stand motionless, staring at the man’s dead body.

“Nice,” Mack breathes out, leaning over to grab my knife and then putting his hand on my back to guide me away from the dead man.

Maybe he’s simply trying to get me to move, or maybe he’s offering silent comfort. Either way, it serves its purpose. Able to breathe again, I walk with him, returning to the gouges in the soft dirt that indicate the direction of the motorcycles.

We pick them up easily and follow them another minute until we hear a male voice talking. Complaining. “Would you shut your fucking mouth? It’s been all night with your whining and crying. I can’t wait to get you to Colt so I can finally get some fucking peace. I don’t care about how big the payout is. I’m never taking a job like this again.” The voice gets louder when he calls out, “Vince! Would you get your fat ass back here so we can get a move on?”

Mack and I look at each other again. Then he nods and we walk toward the man’s bad-tempered voice.

They found a small clearing in the trees to make camp in. There’s the smoldering remains of a campfire. The little girl huddled on the ground near it. And a man pacing impatiently .

By mutual accord, Mack and I both raise our guns and fire at exactly the same time.

The man drops dead, hit by both our bullets.

Then I hurry over to the girl, talking as sweetly as I can when I tell her she’s safe now and we’re going to take her back to her dad.

She believes us. She stares slightly warily at Mack, who’s looking particularly gruff and intimidating at the moment with his messy beard and dirty clothes. But she relaxes when he smiles at her. I give her a brief explanation of how we found her, and then she comes with us willingly as we hurry back to the ATV.

And it’s as simple as that. Far easier than it should have been. For once, timing worked in our favor, and we caught the bad guys unaware.

It takes until early afternoon to get back. Once the girl relaxes, she’s a talkative little thing. Her name is Elizabeth. She doesn’t appear to mind that she’s squeezed between my body and Mack’s on the quad bike. She tells us about what happened to her—how she was visiting her grandmother and playing outside when the two men came out of nowhere to grab her after killing the man her dad had assigned to guard her—and she asks all about who we are and where we’re from.

I really like her, and I think Mack does too, although he doesn’t say much.

Mack tells me that he doesn’t know exactly where to find Logan, but he knows the general vicinity. When we get close, he asks at a house where he’s met the family who lives there, and they direct us the rest of the way.

Guards stop us as soon as we turn onto the trail that leads to Logan’s place, but they let us pass easily once they see that Elizabeth is with us. One of them escorts us.

The building we reach was a former commercial property that has been fortified like a military bunker. Logan strides out the front door before we even reach it.

As soon as Mack stops, I help Elizabeth get off the seat, and then the girl runs toward her father.

He scoops her up into a tight, desperate hug. No matter who he is, no matter what kind of power he uses to claim this kind of authority in a rough, uncivilized territory, there’s no doubt he loves his daughter.

I’m touched by the feeling coming off both of them. I reach over and take and squeeze Mack’s hand when he comes around to stand beside me.

When Logan finally releases the girl, he has a short conversation with her. Then he takes her hand and leads her over to where we’re standing.

He’s not smiling when he reaches us. He scans me with a scarily astute inspection and then does the same with Mack. “Elizabeth tells me you rescued her from two men. Do you know who they were?”

I hesitate only briefly to see if Mack wants to be the one to answer. He doesn’t, and since Logan is meeting my eyes, it makes sense that I give the response. “We don’t know their names. But we heard one of them talking about Colt. They were taking her to someone named Colt.”

This means something to him. I see it registering on his face with a flash of cold anger. I can only assume Colt is a known presence in The Wild—a rival or enemy of Logan’s. What other reason could he have to kidnap the man’s daughter? But Logan only murmurs, “I see.”

“We were trying to follow so we could let you know where they were keeping her, but then we got the opportunity to get her back instead.”

“The two men are dead?”

“Yes. They’re both dead.”

Logan nods again, his eyes shifting down briefly to his daughter. “Thank you both. For bringing her back to me.”

I wait to see if he’ll offer us some sort of payment. We’d never accept it, but he might be the kind of man to offer it.

He’s not. “I owe you a favor now. I won’t forget it.”

“Thank you,” I say since Mack still isn’t talking. It seems clear that a favor from this man is a very big deal, so I don’t want to sound like I’m dismissing it. “We appreciate that, but mostly we’re glad to get her back safely.”

Logan hasn’t smiled at us. It doesn’t feel like he’s going to invite us to any sort of cozy meal or chat, and I know Mack wants to return to the cabin anyway.

So I look down at the girl and say, “It was really nice to meet you, Elizabeth. I’m glad you’re back home now.”

“Me too!” she says, brimming over with smiles. “ Thank you, Anna! And you too, Mack! I’m real hungry, Daddy. Can I go ask Pope for a snack?”

“Of course. I’ll come with you.” Logan gives us one more look and another nod, clearly dismissing us.

I’m relieved that the meeting with this strange, unnerving man is over, and I’m happy to have accomplished a good thing.

But now I really want to get back to somewhere safe and familiar. I want to let down my guard. Get cleaned up. Climb into bed and fall asleep in Mack’s arms.

He’s still standing, staring blankly. So I squeeze his upper arm and try to turn him back around toward the ATV. “Come on, Mack. Let’s go home.”