The Gates of Byzantium (Purge of Babylon, Book 2) (21 page)

“I guess we’ll find out, because we’re going there,” Lara said. “The two of you are welcome to join us.”

“God, yes,” Gaby said quickly. “Right, Josh?”

“Count us in,” Josh said without hesitation.

Josh would run through a wall for her.

Ah, teenage love. Or possibly lust.

Close enough.

*

Lara and Carly
got Josh and Gaby settled into the courthouse, even though they fully expected Will and Danny to tell them they were moving. That was usually how it happened. After that disastrous night at a bank outside the city of Cleveland, Texas, that had nearly cost them their lives, Will was determined to not let it happen again. The ghouls had proved too intelligent and too creative for him to risk being hunkered down inside a building that could be breached. The best way to avoid them, Lara had learned, was to actually
avoid
them.

Dead, not stupid.

That meant hiding. She wasn’t ashamed of it. In fact, she preferred it. Hiding was always a better option than fighting, especially when your enemy had an endless number of (
undead
) bodies to throw at you.

Lara found Blaine outside the courthouse, under the hood of a beat-up white Toyota truck with the letters “TRD” on the side. It was covered in dust and looked like it had been abandoned some time back, but must still be working because it hadn’t been in the parking lot the last time she was out here. Lara saw a key in the ignition.

Blaine pulled his head out from behind the hood of the truck. “Hey.”

“Going somewhere?”

“After Sandra.”

“Did you talk to Will?”

“He understands.”

“So you’re going by yourself?”

“It’s my thing,” he said. She thought he was going to elaborate, explain his “thing” to her, but he didn’t.

“I can’t talk you out of it?”

“Why would you want to?”

She thought about it and realized he was right. “I wouldn’t.”

He slammed the hood back down and wiped blackened hands on a rag, then walked around the truck and leaned into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The truck jumped to life.

“Sounds good,” she said.

“It’ll do,” Blaine nodded. He turned the engine off and sat behind the steering wheel for a moment. Then he seemed to make up his mind about something and looked at her. “I don’t have any right to ask, but can you spare any food and supplies? I already talked to Will about weapons, and he’s going to let me have one of the AR-15s to replace the shotgun.”

“I’ll put a care package together for you. When are you leaving?”

“Whenever you’re done.”

“Give me ten minutes,” she said.

*

“Should we try
to talk him out of it?” Carly asked. “I feel like we should.”

Lara was putting Blaine’s care package together using one of the smaller crates. She packed blankets, bedrolls, pillows, canned food, and toiletries, utilizing the space to its maximum, a trick she had picked up over the months. She packed the box with the intention of it being used by two people. Maybe it was a fantasy, but she thought Blaine would want that, and the optimist in her wanted that happy ending for him.

“Will didn’t,” Lara said.

“That’s Will and Danny. I mean we, as in us.”

“I don’t think I can. I tried, but I just didn’t have my heart in it. Wouldn’t you want Danny to come after you, if that was you out there?”

“Of course I would. But only if I knew Danny wasn’t limping around with three bullet holes in him. How long do you think he’s going to last out there? He can barely walk, Lara.”

“Danny wouldn’t care.”

“Danny can be an idiot, too,” she said.

Lara smiled. “Love makes you do crazy things.”

“I guess so. God knows I love that guy. Bad jokes and all.” She looked back at Gaby, playing clapping hand games with Elise and Vera, while Josh watched with a big grin on his face. “She looks like you.”

“Who?”

“The girl. Gaby. A younger version of you. Did you look like that ten years ago?”

“God, ten years ago,” Lara said, looking over at Gaby. She did see a slight resemblance. Had it really been that long since she was an eighteen-year-old teenager? It felt like another incarnation. “Maybe,” she said.

“You guys could pass for sisters.”

“I already have a sister.”

“Really? You never told me that. What’s her name?”

Lara gave her a look and rolled her eyes.

Carly laughed. “God, I’m so dense.” She smiled at Lara before suddenly grabbing her in a big bear hug. “It’s nice to be the little sister for a change. I’m tired of always being the big sister. It’s too…much…
work.
”

Lara laughed. “Okay, okay. Only if you promise to do what I say and clean your room so I don’t have to.”

“No promises.”

The radio clipped to Lara’s hip squawked, and she heard Danny’s voice: “Ladies, when was the last time you went to church and repented your sins to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?”

“Stupid Danny, always ruining a great moment,” Carly said, wiping away tears.

That almost made Lara cry, too, but she somehow managed to fight through it, if just barely.

*

Lara went outside
with the crate and put it into the back seat of the Toyota. She opened the lid and took out a small white bag.

Blaine was slipping on a gun belt. A Remington 870 and an AR-15 rifle lay across the hood of the truck next to him.

“You sure you won’t change your mind?” she asked. “Song Island isn’t going anywhere. We’ll go back with you to find Sandra tomorrow.”

“I can’t wait that long. She’s out there now, Lara. She went back for me. I need to find her.” He tossed the weapons into the front seats. “Thanks for the care package.”

“Oh, and this.” She handed him the white bag. It was leather and at one point someone had used it to carry makeup.

“I don’t need makeup, Lara,” Blaine said, grinning at her.

She smiled back at him. “It’s an impromptu aid kit.” She unzipped the bag and pulled out a plain white bottle. “I restocked your painkillers, for when the pain kicks in. And trust me, it will, sooner or later.”

“More Vicodin?”

“Tramadol. Not quite as strong as Vicodin or Percocet. At this point, I’m supposed to tell you not to take more than three a day, but I doubt you’ll listen anyway.” She put the bottle back into the bag and pulled out a roll of gray duct tape. “This is for your wounds, if and when they open again. Let’s hope they don’t, but if they do, this will do in a pinch. Clean the wound as thoroughly as you can, then use this to keep it closed so it can heal up. It’ll hurt, but it’ll also keep you from bleeding out.”

He took the duct tape hesitantly. “Isn’t this something MacGyver would do?”

“I don’t know who that is.”

“He’s a guy on TV. He did crazy things with household items.” Blaine shook his head. “Never mind. Does this actually work?”

“I would have given you superglue, but we don’t have any.”

He gave her another doubtful look, probably wondering if she was just messing with him now.

“Superglue works wonders to close up a wound,” she said. “But since I don’t have any on hand, duct tape will have to do. Just make sure to clean the wound first.” She reached into the bag and took out a small bottle of rubbing alcohol. “This will do the trick. Then squeeze the wound together and apply as much duct tape as you need to cover it up. That’ll give it time to heal and keep it from opening again.”

“Why don’t I just do that now?”

“Because I spent a lot of time stitching you back together and properly dressing the wounds. This is worst-case scenario. If you ever need to reach for this white bag, you’re already in trouble.”

“You’re the doctor, doctor.” He took the bag from her and put it on the seat next to the AR-15.

“Third-year medical student, actually.”

“I sold car parts for a living and did part-time work in my uncle’s garage in Dallas. Trust me, third-year medical student is a better doctor than I could have afforded even before the world went to shit.”

He climbed into the truck and looked back out at Lara, and for a moment she thought he was going to announce he had changed his mind, that he was going to stay with them after all.

Instead, he said, “Thank you. Not just for the supplies. But for everything. For saving my life. You didn’t have to do it, especially now with everything the way it is, but you did, and that means a lot to me. One of these days, I’m going to pay both you and Will back. I just don’t know how I’m going to do it yet.”

“You’ll have to stay alive to do that.”

He grinned at her again. “That’s the plan. But I have to find Sandra first. She means everything to me. If she’s not here beside me, I might as well just lie down and let those monsters drain me dry.”

He closed the door and turned on the engine.

“Blaine,” she said, leaning closer to the door so he could hear her over the engine. “We may still be here in a day, or a week, or we might be gone by tomorrow morning. It all depends on what’s out there and how safe we can be by remaining here. But if you can’t find us, remember Song Island across the border.”

“We’ll find you again, Sandra and me. You can count on it.”

She was convinced that he believed every word. She nodded and stepped back. “Be safe.”

He put the truck in gear and pulled out of the parking lot.

She watched him drive off, going up Chance Street in the direction they had come, speeding up with urgency a second later and then, just like that, he was gone, the sound of his truck engine fading with him.

Good luck.
God knows we all need some these days.

WILL

The First Assembly
of the Lord building was a big, squat structure on the right of South Main Street, about four kilometers from the courthouse. Lancing had a surprisingly large number of houses of worship, most of them more elaborate and bigger than the First Assembly of the Lord. Will was sure they all had basements, but the others were too large and in the busier parts of town. That would draw attention, something they didn’t need at the moment.

Right now, he was purely in SERE mode—Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape. The grunt in him wanted to stop and fight, to take the ghouls head-on and see what would happen. If it were just him and Danny, he might have done just that. But it wasn’t just them. There was Lara, Carly, and the girls to think about.

Sometimes it still amazed him what he had gotten himself into. Taking care of civilians was one thing, but Lara…she complicated matters. She made him think differently. Act differently. Take fewer risks. She was a game changer, and for the first time in his life, Will cared about living to be an old man.

So he knew exactly what Blaine was thinking when the big man had told them he was leaving. Danny knew, too, because Danny had Carly. Before they left the courthouse, they gave Blaine everything he would need to find a car and get it running. They also gave him as much ammo as he could carry. Will figured Blaine would probably end up needing it sooner or later, especially if he had the bad luck to get caught up in the wave of ghouls hunting them. Considering Blaine’s run of luck lately, that was highly likely.