"Now…I was ready to off her a couple minutes ago…before that gimpy old dude almost cut Charlie's head off…but now? No way, Sean—Pedro's right, we gotta take her back to the Boss."
"What for?" demanded the third assailant.
The leader—Sean—stepped close to Jo and shined the light into her face, which made her turn away and close her eyes. "Because he's gonna want to handle this himself. He's gonna take his time with her…make what he did to Alejandro look like a walk in the park, man."
The others laughed like a pack of hyenas ready to kill a wounded animal.
Reese watched as the men gathered up the gear looted from their car, tied Jo's hands together with a piece of rope, and forced her to walk in the middle of their little group. The flashlights swung to and fro as they walked. The movement exuded a sense of bravado that indicated they knew their place in the world and they owned everything they saw.
Reese waited until they were perhaps a dozen cars away, then slipped free of his hiding place and followed. As he approached the body of Charlie, the man whose throat he’d slashed, Reese knelt and cleaned his blade. He sheathed the knife back in the sling and quickly rifled through the thug’s pockets while he watched the kidnappers retreat.
He found a small rusted pocketknife, a few matches, and a crumpled cigarette. Charlie had nothing else of value on his body other than his clothes. Reese took the knife and matches, shoved them in a pocket, then hurried forward to catch up with the kidnappers.
He wasn't about to let them get out of sight and he certainly wasn't about to let them get away with Jo. He knew he’d have to take a break from his journey home, and it killed him to think of Cami and Amber alone in a world where men like the carjackers ran wild…
But Reese had a rescue mission to complete first.
Chapter 9
Lavelle Homestead
Northwest of Charleston, South Carolina
Marty lifted the wide brim of his straw hat and smiled. "Not bad, son, not bad at all. Try again." He accepted a glass of iced tea from Amber and leaned back in the wicker chair in Cami’s screened in porch. He took a sip of iced tea, smiled in satisfaction, and turned to her. "He's got a good eye, I’ll give ‘im that. Scrawny though—that boy needs some meat on his bones."
Cami laughed. "There's a lot of people you could say that about," she said as she sat in her chair next to Marty. "I've seen several people in the neighborhood over the past few days—most of them are looking lean and hungry…”
Marty shook his head as another crossbow bolt thumped into the makeshift target on the other side of the garden. "Gonna be a lot more in the coming days and weeks. I think it's gonna get bad. If the government can't figure out how to get the power back on…”
“How bad’s it getting? We haven't heard anything new over the regular radio for several days now. Lots of stations are just going off air."
Marty nodded and examined the glass of iced tea in his hands as it beaded. "Battery backups and generators are starting to run out of fuel. Not surprising at all. The airwaves are going to get awful quiet in the next few weeks." He looked up and glanced at Cami. "Hams are talking just fine though. A lot of us got solar setups. Long as the sun’s shining, we’ll be on the nets. But the power’s going down all across the country. I didn't want to say anything in front of the kids," he said with a nod toward Amber and Mitch, who excitedly reloaded the crossbow for another shot. "But things are looking grim."
"Cami?" a voice called around the corner of the house.
"Excuse me," Cami said to Marty as she stood. She stepped out onto the deck, and shielded her eyes from the sun, one hand on the pistol at her side. She relaxed as soon as she saw who had spoken to her. "Mia? What are you doing here? Is everything all right?"
Mia walked over and hugged her, which took Cami by surprise. “I-I didn't know what else to do—or who to turn to."
"What's happened?" Cami asked, as she stepped back from Mia and held onto her arms. "Are the kids okay? Is it…is it Jimmy?
Mia shook her head. She wiped at a tear on her cheek and sniffed. "No, everyone's okay. I mean—I still haven't heard from Jimmy…but…the kids are fine." She shrugged. "I don't feel safe walking around the neighborhood with them, so I left them at Stacy's parent’s house next door. At least until I get back."
Cami looked around. "Mia, its broad daylight. Why would you be scared to walk around the neighborhood with your children? I've seen lots of couples out walking—”
“Last night some men broke into the house two doors down from us,” Mia said quickly. “Larry and Janelle Sterling—they were on vacation…when, you know, everything happened. Anyway," Mia said as Cami led her to the screened in porch. "They broke in last night. No one stopped them! Just rolled up in this beat-up car, got out, and kicked in the front door. There were a bunch of dogs barking and everything…”
“So that's what that was," Cami muttered as she showed Mia to a seat.
"Yeah…but that didn't scare them off or anything. Everyone was too afraid to go out and confront them, so they spent all night ransacking the house. I-I may have gone over there this morning just to see what they left."
"That was not smart, young lady,” Marty snapped.
