Chapter Twenty
The Charter
Leon and I spin full circle, with my senses heightening as we search for the returning marauders. Boomer persistently barks and dances, innocently hanging his tongue out—but I wish he’d piss off!
Zeke runs over, gripping his head. “Shit, shit, shit!”
Leon’s face transforms with his furrowed brow. “We’re outta here. Get the bikes ready, now!” He grabs my arm, pulling me into the cabin, where a pair of hands appear from the vacant floorboards, with bags being launched from a hidden storage space where the rug once lay.
“That fucking dog… Have you seen them yet?” Atlas says, bundling weapons from the floor as Leon loads them. He leaps out, wearing a leather gun holster with two Colts ready.
“Leon, let me help!” I say while standing idly.
Leon pauses for a second before grabbing another holster and two more Colts. He seems to think about giving them to me, but hesitates. “Forget it. I’ll get these to Zeke. You help Atlas load up the bags.”
Preparing to leave in a hurry is something I have done my whole life.
I grab the empty saddlebags from the pegs, pull the guys’ jackets off, and throw them through the front door so we won’t forget them.
Atlas loads ammo into the bags as I pull out my T-shirt, using it as a pouch while gathering other essentials: water, food, and medical supplies.
Atlas races outside to load the bags onto the bikes.
My skin crackles, coated with the charge of static electricity as I endeavour to convince myself that I’m calm while whipping around the cabin, grabbing any of the guys’ loose items and shoving them into the last bag.
I pull all the shutters and windows closed before coming to the doorway.
The dog barks again as he sees me running to the bikes with the last bag and their jackets. Then he whimpers and cowers.
“They’re close! The dog’s running away!” I say. “Leon, the phone! Do you have the phone?!”
His face drops as he runs back into the cabin.
Atlas points to me. “Everlee, on with Zeke! Go now!”
I hop on the bike, sliding behind Zeke as the cabin door slams, but it echoes loudly—and I realize the noise was a gunshot.
Leon appears around the corner, ribbons of blood trailing through his grip on his upper arm, and despite the pain on his face, he signals to Zeke.
With more gunfire, Zeke speeds off, and the men are visible as they dart between the trees.
Hutch must have returned to his community, and brought an angry mob back to seek revenge.
I hold Zeke’s waist while looking back, but Atlas and Leon are still not following, while gunshot after gunshot continues to echo in the growing distance.
I smack Zeke’s back. “They’re not following us!” I try to shout over the bike’s engine. I assume he doesn’t hear; he doesn’t respond. “ZEKE!”
Zeke only comes to a stop when we reach the wide earthen road at the edge of the wood, balancing the bike with his lowered foot as he looks back.
“Something’s wrong!” I say, but he shakes his head.
“No,” he says confidently, “we had to get you out of there. They’ll be here.”
I sit there feeling cheated. “We could have stayed! Now there are two of us out here, doing nothing!”
“No, Everlee. No. I have to protect you. That was always the plan.” He looks forward, but I can’t help but fume at him. I push myself off his shoulders and stand to get off the bike.
“Hey, don’t even think about it!” As I land on the road, he grabs my wrist. “Please, Everlee. Please stay here.”
“Leon’s hurt! I saw at least eight men—there could be more. They’re outnumbered, Zeke!”
With gunshots still echoing, he finally falters as he glances down the trail, and he must doubt their safety too, as he flicks off the engine.
He hops off, taps the kickstand into place, and rests his helmet on the handle.
From beneath his jacket, he pulls the handguns from his black leather shoulder holster.
“Answer me this, Everlee Clade: you know how to use one of these?” And he offers me a gun with a smirk.
The cold metal fits nicely into my palm as I flick the safety off. “Yes… Yes, I do.”
Zeke takes the lead as we sprint down the track, ducking with the hastening gunshots. Just before the clearing, crouched behind the brambles, is a group of marauders. I count four, five, six men taking turns firing.
Our jogging slows and we slip into the woodland behind them, using the high bramble as cover. I squat beside Zeke, and he whispers, “How good a shot are you?”
“From here, I … I can do it,” I say, trying to convince myself as much as him.
“One each. We’ll fire at the same time.” He looks around. “Work from the outside in, but keep watch. There must be more out there.”
“We’ll stay together … yeah?”
“Yeah, I’ve got your back. You got mine?” He smirks, causing a smile to escape me.
“Absolutely.”
I follow suit as Zeke raises his gun, saying, “Ready?”
The men crouch before me, completely unaware of their doom. I remember the first time I ever fired a gun, and my vision falters between the past and the present. Cans are lined up along the timber fence as I stand with the firearm in my hand and Roscoe in my ear.
His Southern tone hangs. “Breathe in…”
“Three…” Zeke says.
My brain replaces the men before me with the tins on the fence.
“Breathe out,” Roscoe says.
I exhale through pursed lips.
“Two…”
I line up my aim with a can.
“That’s it, baby girl. When you’re ready.”
My aim is as steady as Roscoe’s voice as I hold my breath.
“… One.”
With a squeeze of the trigger, the can falls from the fence, and I trace my sights across to the next one, squeezing again, watching it fall.
The shots echo, and the recoil shoots up my arms. I focus on the final can, but my mind fails as the memory fades away, leaving a distant set of eyes staring back at me.
I hesitate to shoot as Zeke takes his third shot.
The man before me glares in return, both of us frozen in a stalemate, but he falls into the undergrowth with Zeke’s fourth shot.
He pulls my shoulders around and gives me a shake. “Hey, hey, Everlee. You still with me?”
My shock dissipates with the jolt of his blue eyes. “Always. I’m here. I’m ready.”
More shots fire, and we move in closer, back towards the cabin.
Across the clearing, I see Atlas snaking from the shed’s doorway, no longer pinned by the row of men we dispatched, allowing him to fire freely into the trees.
The returning shots slow as he stands out in the open, aiming and shooting with one raised arm, marching towards the trees, and firing a final shot before holstering his gun.
The silence seems to punctuate the standoff, while Atlas stares into the woodland, checking for further threats.
My panting is the only sound above my pounding feet as we sprint across the clearing to join them, hurdling over bodies, over Leon’s baseball cap.
I race past Atlas towards my target in the shed.
I grab the door-frame, sliding across the grassy entrance, and my momentum pulls me around the corner.
It’s his boots I see first. His head hangs low as he sits propped up in the corner.
“Leon!” I skid to my knees, and he lifts his face, throwing his head back, groaning as it bangs into the wall.
“He was wrestling one of them. They knocked him on the back of the head—out cold,” Atlas says, hanging in the doorway. “You awake, buddy? Thanks for joining us.”
He snickers with Zeke as Leon rouses, and I laugh nervously, wiping the sweat from my forehead and releasing a heavy relief-laden exhale.
Zeke loots the bodies while I soak and clean the blood from Leon’s arm.
The bullet only passed across the flesh, like it’s been burnt with a metal rod, so it’s easy to repair with a needle and thread, like a tear in a shirt.
It’s the first time I’ve really gotten a chance to appreciate the tattoos on his arm.
A bowed black raven feather fills his otherwise bare forearm, while on the opposite arm is the same feather upside down, mirroring each other to make a loose circle shape.
Blood stains the left sleeve of his shirt, but he refuses to change clothes.
He seems to regain colour in the fresh air as he perches on the seat of his bike, picking through a handful of seeds.
“What’s the plan, bud?” Atlas asks while reloading his weapons from the saddlebag.
“We need to call our employer,” he croaks, coughing to clear his throat. “This location is compromised. Our best bet is to get on the road to our closest charter.”
Atlas offers to reload his weapons, saying, “Suppose it depends on where we’re heading.”
Leon pulls the phone from his pocket. It’s chunky, similar to a walkie-talkie, with a solid antenna poking from its top, shaped like a bullet.
The screen is small and narrow, like that of a calculator, displaying the numbers after he presses each individual button.
Before he presses the green call button, he tips the last of the seeds into his mouth.
I can’t help but say, “Can I listen in?”
He looks at me, confused. “Well, yeah. I can put it on speaker. Still don’t trust me?”
“No, it’s not that. It’s just, if I recognise their voice…?”
He looks at Atlas, who responds with a shrug. “Yeah, sure. I suppose that would benefit all of us. But no speaking, okay? You’re supposed to be in the dark.”
With the press of a button, a dial tone projects from the device’s speaker before it stops, breaking the white noise with a definitive wordless answer.
Leon says, “Foxtrot, Alpha, Uniform, Lima, Kilo, November, Echo, Romeo.”
He pauses for a response, listening to the crackles of sound. A break of silence falls before a voice speaks. “Position, situation, and welfare of the assignment.” The voice is stern, with nothing recognisable about it.
“Wisconsin. Safe house compromised, moving to a new location. Assignment secure and undamaged. Please confirm the final destination.”