Will stared at him for a moment, trying to gauge if the man was lying. Either Rick was the world’s best actor, or he didn’t have a clue who Josh was.
“Never mind,” Will said.
Rick shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, I guess. Keep your secrets, dead man.”
Will leaned back against the cold brick wall and took in the room around him again. The silhouetted store shelves to his left, the boxes of food and candy on the floor — some crushed, others spoiled, which explained the strange smell. The counter to his right, with the heavy cash register on top. Cigarettes in the back. Square-shaped paper (Money?) littering the floor around him. In front of him was Rick and M-something, and on the other side of them…
How many were out there right now?
Too many. Always too damn many.
Those sea of eyes staring back at him, as if they could bore into his soul, made him shiver slightly. He wanted to think it was because of the drop in temperature, but of course he knew better.
Weapons. I need weapons.
He didn’t have to look far for those. Rick, who was less than a meter away with his back turned invitingly to him, had an M4 in a sling. He couldn’t be sure what M-something was holding, but it looked like another carbine. He needed one of those in the worst way.
But then there were the ghouls outside. If they weren’t coming in now, would they act differently once he killed the two soldiers? Somehow, the creatures had interpreted the two men as allies (Dead, not stupid), so what would they do if he attacked them? Would they come in to help?
“The doors aren’t even locked.”
Or would they stay back because they were ordered to?
Ordered? By whom?
Oh, don’t be an idiot. You know damn well the answer to that question.
Of course, for any of this to work he’d have to kill Rick, take his rifle, then kill M-something with it. That was going to be difficult since he could barely move, and it wasn’t just because of the restraints. His body was sore and numb, and just moving his head was painful. How the hell was he going to take out Rick—
“Will.”
He might have stopped breathing at the sound of the voice.
He looked around him, expecting to see its owner in the darkness, but there was nothing, because the voice was coming from inside his head.
“Will,” it said again. Louder and clearer, as if it were right next to him.
He watched Rick and M-something just to be sure, but neither man had reacted.
Because they couldn’t hear the voice.
It was all in his head.
Was he imagining it? Was he going crazy—
“No, Will, you’re not.”
Kate.
“Yes.”
He looked quickly to the ghouls outside the gas station, but they hadn’t moved at all. The cluster of frail forms was still pressed against one another like good soldiers. Waiting for orders. Waiting…for her.
Kate.
“I’m coming, Will,” she said, her voice like a lovely melody inside his head. “I’ll be there soon…”
BOOK TWO
‡
THE GUNS OF SONG ISLAND
CHAPTER 12
LARA
As she moved through the Trident for the second time, Keo’s words from last night kept echoing inside her head:
“Regardless of how many times you push them back, delay them, or repel a full-on frontal assault. You can’t do it forever. Sooner or later, if they want this island bad enough, they’ll get it. And when that happens, a lot of people will die.”
She had resisted it at first, but she knew he was right. She had always known. Even when Will and Danny finally returned, how long could they possible keep Song Island afloat? Sooner or later, Kate was going to throw more men at them. Even if they fought back one wave, what about the next? Or the one after that?
Kate had soldiers. Maybe not authentic soldiers, but they were real enough when you gave them assault rifles and pointed them at a target. Anyone could squeeze a trigger. She knew that personally, as did everyone else on the island at the moment. Bonnie, Jo, Gwen, Carly…and her. It didn’t take a lot of skill to storm an island, especially one that didn’t (couldn’t) move. You just needed manpower. And that was something the enemy had an abundance of.
Which was why she had wanted the yacht when she first laid eyes on it last night. Her mind had swirled with possibilities then, and it still did now. Was this what it was like to be Will? Always trying to think of the next move before the bad guys did?
This would be easier if you were here with me, Will. So what the hell’s taking you so long?
She was inside the dining room on the main deck of the Trident when she heard a boat cruising by outside. She didn’t have to look out one of the windows to know who it was.
Keo. Leaving.
Dammit.
Her best-case scenario had been to keep him around, even after Will and Danny came back. With Danny in the Tower with the ACOG-mounted rifle and Will and Keo on the beach organizing the defense, they could have held out for a while.
But not forever. Never forever.
“Sooner or later, if they want this island bad enough, they’ll get it. And when that happens, a lot of people will die.”
He was right from day one. As much as she wanted him to be wrong, she knew he wasn’t.
The trick is to keep everyone alive. So how do I do that? Can I do that? Or am I staring down the barrel of inevitability?
Wow, that was almost poetic, Lara. You should write a poem.
The squawking radio snapped her out of her thoughts. Carly, watching from the Tower. “There he goes, boss lady. We should have thrown Bonnie at him. She would have totally been able to convince him to stay.”
Lara smiled and said into the radio, “You know Bonnie’s listening to this, right?”
“Oops.”
“No, no, I would have done it,” Bonnie said through the radio. “Take one for the team, as it were.”
“I wouldn’t have asked you to, Bonnie.”
“You wouldn’t have had to. But I don’t think he would have gone for it, anyway. It sounds like he’s loyal to the girlfriend.”
“Wow, a faithful boyfriend,” Carly said. “Wonder what that’s like.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Lara said. “Yours is coming home right now.”
“Speaking of which, when are they supposed to radio back? It’s past noon, and I keep looking at the radio and it refuses to make a sound. Stupid radio. Are you sure it’s not broken?”
“It’s fine. They’ll radio when they’re closer.”
“How are you so calm?”
Because I don’t have a choice. If I think about Will, I’ll just end up paralyzed with worry. Because I love him. Because I can’t imagine life without him. Because I’m afraid he’ll never come back to me and that possibility terrifies me, and right now, I can’t afford to be terrified.
“Relax,” she said. “They’ll be here. Until then, keep your eyes on the lake. You see someone in a uniform, you shoot him.”
“They’ll have to come pretty close,” Carly said. “I’m not exactly Annie Oakley up here.”