Sundown Series | Book 5 | Vengeance Read online

  Lame Leg pulled up a handgun then and pointed it at Max. She didn’t think twice before throwing her tomahawk directly at the soldier. The blade embedded into his chest and his face registered shock as he looked down. Soldier Number One bellowed something, but Max wasn’t listening. She ran straight at Lame Leg and as the man fell back, she gripped the handle of her tomahawk and yanked it free. Blood spurted at the release of the blade and the liquid splashed across Max’s chest.

  She spun and dodged as Soldier Number One ran at her, as if to tackle her again. This time he grabbed her wrist and threw a punch at her face. Max moved just in time for the blow to graze off her shoulder, the same arm that was already bleeding from the bullet graze. She hadn’t intended the sound to come out, but she cried out in pain. A light of triumph showed in the soldier’s face, and Max knew he was counting his luck before the end. That was the best way to lose, and Max was going to use it to her advantage.

  As the soldier increased the pressure on Max’s wrist, she dropped her tomahawk as if the pain was too much to bear. Truly, she could have held it and beat him with her other fist, but he was a large man and she needed to use his weaknesses when she could. He pressed her down, grabbing her other hand and pulling them behind her. Then he did what Max was waiting for. He leaned down to mouth off at her. Just as he was in position, Max threw back her head, slamming her skull into the bridge of his nose. She then slammed one booted foot back, connecting with his shin. His hands released her wrists to fly up to his broken nose, and Max pivoted to face him.

  The soldier had more sense about him than she had expected when he reached down to pull his handgun. Max was well faster as she pulled her own 9mm and shot him in the chest twice. The large man stumbled back and flew off his feet. His head bounced off the ground with a sickening thud. Max ran to the body and kept her gun trained on his face. He didn’t move, so she reached down and pressed her fingers to his throat, searching for a pulse. When she felt nothing but a dead man, she slowly walked backward. Her eyes flew around the trees, waiting for another attack, but nothing came.

  A gurgling sound from the edge of the trees had her running back to the soldier that she had thrown her tomahawk at. The man was trying to breathe, as blood spurted between his lips. She rolled him to the side so the blood wouldn’t choke him. When she laid him back, she realized he was barely hanging on. Again, she knew there was nothing she could do, not that she wanted to.

  “Where in San Francisco is Callahan going?” Max asked. The man looked confused. Max decided she needed to bring him back to the surface. She grabbed his leg, right where it was tied off, pressing hard against the gunshot wound. The man’s body went rigid from the pain, but he didn’t make a sound. His lips clamped together and his face was pale.

  “I know he’s going to San Francisco. Where? Where is the bunker?” Max asked again.

  “Underground,” Lame Leg whispered.

  “Yeah, that I got. Where is it?”

  “Old military… now marine research….” The man said.

  What he was saying didn’t make any sense to Max, and she pressed down on his leg again. This time the man didn’t react and when she looked at his face, she realized he was dead. She let go of his leg immediately and started wiping the blood on her pant leg. Torture hadn’t been her thing, but if he had lived longer, she wasn’t sure there was going to be much to stop her from getting the information she really wanted. She felt slightly sick for her actions, but she pushed those thoughts far away.

  Max gasped, air in and out. Her arm was sore, she was going to have a massive headache, but in the end she was in one piece. She pointed her gun at the trees as she backed to pick up her tomahawk and then the rifle. She reloaded both guns and then went in search of Griffin. When she found the place he had been fighting with the soldier, she tried to read the tracks in the dirt. Mitch had taught her to track animals for hunting. She figured this was quite similar.

  As she tried to trace footprints and figure out what they meant, Max felt frustration rise in her. The dirt was dry and none of the prints were clear enough to give solid direction. She ran toward the trees, trying to keep her ears focused on any sound that could give away Griffin’s location. She didn’t see blood anywhere, and she hoped that was a good sign. As she moved into the trees, she couldn’t find any signs of a fight. The area was so trampled from all the running in and out, there was no way for her to know.

  She tried to pull her thoughts together, thinking of the last thing she had seen. The soldier had come at Griffin and they were in a hand to hand fight when she turned to the soldier coming at her. She hadn’t seen them go back into the trees. She hadn’t heard anything from Griffin, but in her defense she was focused on her own survival at the time and she wasn’t sure she would have heard him call for her if he had. Now she stood silently, waiting to see if he was anywhere near.

  “GRIFFIN!” Max finally screamed.

  She was confident the soldiers were dead or gone. She needed to find her man. Yelling his name, Max wandered through the trees for what seemed like an hour. No answer came to her calls, and no signs of Griffin’s fight were clear. She circled her way back to the open area. As she stood at the dirt clearing, her eyes widened as she looked at the edge of the cliff. Her heart began to slam behind her ribs and her breath seemed to be completely gone. She rushed to the edge. Looking at the dirt, she could now see where something or someone had slipped over the edge.

  “GRIFFIN!” Max screamed into the open air.

  When she looked down, she couldn’t focus, her vision blurring. She sat back on her heels for a second to try to clear her eyes and she realized it was tears forming, keeping her from seeing clearly. Tears? Really? Max thought to herself. This wasn’t the time to lose her mind and she knew it. Griffin was somewhere, and he needed her help.

  After a number of deep breaths, Max looked back over the edge and tried to make sense of things. The cliff was bordered by large trees. And as she stared at the trees, she started to notice broken branches on one pine tree. She shuffled until she was right next to the tree on the outcrop. When she looked straight down, her stomach decided to climb up her throat and she almost threw up at what she saw.

  At the bottom of the tree she could see Griffin’s pack and a set of unmoving legs.

  Chapter Six

  Max couldn’t think straight. From her perch on the outcrop, there was no way of knowing who the legs belonged to. She screamed for Griffin a few more times, hoping to see movement. When she saw nothing, she sat back hard in the dirt. She knew she was almost hyperventilating. How could she go home and tell their daughter that even though she just got her father in her life, he died because of Max’s stupid decisions?

  “No, no, no. He’s not dead,” Max said to no one in particular.

  She climbed to her feet. Taking a number of cleansing breaths, Max readied herself for the hike down to the bottom of the cliff. Griffin wasn’t dead, she just knew it, knew she would feel it if he was actually gone. But he had fallen and she needed to get down there and help him. She searched the last two soldiers for supplies, taking the ammo each of them had in their pockets. She left their bodies where they fell, not concerned with animals or the infected finding them. They weren’t her concern, Griffin’s lifeless form at the bottom of the cliff was all she could picture.

  After tightening the straps on her pack, Max walked the ridge until she found a place to start her descent. It was steep in some places, proving difficult, as she slid and fell to her behind. The rocks were rough as she slid a few more feet before she planted her boots against a boulder. She was breathing hard as she regained her footing and tried to pick her steps carefully. She stepped on a rock, and it immediately fell from under her, and she barely caught herself from tumbling headfirst down the rest of the rocky path.

  “Damn it,” she grumbled.

  Struggling to hike wasn’t something Max was used to. Her emotions were warring with the part of her that knew she needed to be more caref
ul with the loose rock path. Normally it wasn’t a path she would choose, but it was the first way she could find down. She knew she probably should have secured herself with rope before descending, but she was in too much of a hurry.

  “If you die trying to get to him, you’re no good to him,” Max said to herself.

  Keeping that thought in mind, Max worked hard to slow herself, to be more safe. Griffin needed her, and she wasn’t going to abandon him. That caused flashes of memories in her mind. She knew that it wasn’t Griffin’s fault that he wasn’t there for her and Jack. He never knew he had a daughter. However, Max still raised Jack on her own while Griffin was in the military, never knowing how he had left them. She had to swallow down the anger that rose in her, mostly toward her father, who had taken it upon himself to keep them apart. But some of it was at herself too. She could have found Griffin. She could have told him about Jack. She was too stubborn to go running back to a man that had left her.

  Now that she had him back it was hard for her to imagine losing him. The first time felt like it would kill her. Thinking back, Max thought about how Jack had been a fussy baby. At least that was what Alex told her. Max didn’t know anything about babies until she had Jack. She hadn’t been sure she would have kids, let alone end up being a single mother. Max would call Alex constantly, and her older sister had always been comforting, offering to come home and help. Max always declined, feeling like she couldn’t allow her sister to witness her failure.

  After moving to South Carolina and being truly alone with Jack, Max found herself doubting her abilities even further. One particular night would always stand out in Max’s memory of that time. Jack had a fever and Max was on the verge of panicking. The doctor had told her everything was fine, that her baby was just a little sick and would be better in a few days. But Jack cried and cried and cried. Max was exhausted after trying to soothe her all night. At one point, Max had laid Jack in the safety of her crib, letting her scream, while Max hid in the bathroom. On her tiny bathroom floor, Max leaned against the side of the tub and sobbed her eyes out. She cried for sleep. She cried for her baby, who seemed so miserable. She cried for her loneliness. And she had cried for Griffin. Though her thoughts were murderous and unforgiving, her heart was broken into a million pieces.

  She had pulled herself up off the ground that night. When she picked up Jack again, her little face was red and stained with tears. The little one-year-old had stood at the side of the crib and just screamed until Max showed again. As soon as she saw her mother’s face, her sobs slowed and she hiccupped. Max felt guilty for letting the girl cry for so long. For the rest of the day, Max wrapped both of them in the softest blanket they owned and sat on the couch with cartoons playing. While Little Mermaid sung about her prince, Max reminded herself of who she was. She knew she didn’t need a man, she didn’t need Griffin. Part of her still wanted him, she guessed that would fade with time, but she didn’t need him to raise their daughter.

  For years Max thrived on the anger she felt toward Griffin. She didn’t cry or feel lost if she was angry. When she looked at Jack, she tried hard not to remember that Jack’s eyes were the same as her father’s. She held onto the anger when Jack started school and questions were broached about where her father was. Their mother daughter relationship was so strong that Jack never questioned the basic reasoning Max gave her. That anger was a second skin for Max.

  Finding out that Griffin wasn’t at fault for leaving her and that he had tried for over a year to reach her, hit her like a physical blow. That second skin she had held onto for so long began to shed and float away. His letters were a testament to his love for her, even at a young age. She kept them with her now, packed away in one of her duffel bags. She wanted to be able to reread the words of love and devotion whenever she wanted to. It was a turn of events Max didn’t see coming when she went to find Griffin after the apocalypse started.

  Now they were a true family. Jack loved Griffin and they were creating a bond that Jack always wanted. Griffin was always in awe of his daughter, and Max could see it in his face when he thought no one was looking. Max loved what they had. She would do whatever she had to, to make sure Jack didn’t lose the family she was so happy with. Fear crept into her mind again as she selected her steps near the bottom of the trail. A part of her was sure she would be finding Griffin’s body, broken for the long fall from the outcrop above. Panic shook her back from her memories and she refocused on where she was and how far she needed to go to find Griffin. The sun was high in the sky and she knew it would dip behind the mountains faster than she anticipated. She needed to find Griffin and get them out of the woods.

  Now that she was on flat ground, Max picked up speed. She ran toward the trees that marked the place that she knew Griffin had fallen. When she came upon the legs she could see from above, she realized the color of pants was all wrong. The trees had blocked the identifying information from her eyes and now that she was closer, she knew the legs didn’t belong to Griffin. It was the soldier he had been fighting with. When she approached the body, she pulled her gun just to be sure. She moved slowly and pointed the gun at the body on the ground. When she finally could see the entire man, she knew there was no risk. His neck was bent at an abnormal angle, a large pool of blood soaking into the rocks, and his eyes were open, staring sightlessly at the blue sky.

  Max looked up and guessed he had fallen straight down, away from the trees, and landed headfirst. But something had hit the trees. Branches were broken in places, giving Max a clear trajectory for Griffin’s body. However, when she looked under the trees, she found nothing but busted branches and pine needles. As she stood there, she realized that wasn’t exactly true. Her eyes focused and she tried to think about the clues, instead of the implications of not finding Griffin’s body. If he wasn’t exactly where she thought he had fallen, that meant he was alive long enough to move.

  “GRIFFIN!” She called out.

  No response came. She looked down at the ground again. She crouched, looking closer, and found specks of blood. As she followed them she found where they smeared as Griffin moved. He was injured, but hopefully the lack of a large quantity of blood meant it wasn’t badly. She continued to follow the sliding trail to a large boulder that seemed to be against the rock wall. When Max got closer, she realized there was space between the wall and the boulder. An arm laid on the ground and Max ran the last few feet. There in the small space was Griffin, eyes closed, covered in dirt and blood. One arm was across his chest, his shoulder clearly out of place. The other arm was lifeless and she grabbed at his fingers. She was sure he was dead, he was so still and pale. She couldn’t see the rise and fall of his chest and she felt her stomach flip over.

  “Oh god, baby….” Max murmured.

  On hands and knees, she crawled toward his head. She immediately put her fingers to his neck and a breath she had been holding since the moment she knew he had fallen, burst from her lungs. The tiny pulse under her touch was enough to make her feel weak and lightheaded. She patted his cheek, hoping he would open his eyes, but it wasn’t going to be that easy. She ran her hands over his scalp and her fingers came back sticky with blood. She threw her pack to the ground and dug through it to pull out her first aid kit. She cleaned the wound with water and then antibacterial spray, before pressing gauze and tape to the wound to keep it protected. The wound was swelling and all the worst-case scenarios flew through her mind. She used her small camp pillow to lay his head down softly.

  To distract herself, Max pulled out an emergency blanket. Though it wasn’t cold, Griffin’s body was in the shadow of the large boulder and she knew he could be in shock. She wrapped the material around his shoulders and as she got down to his legs, she realized one of them didn’t look completely right. Using her knife, she cut up the leg of his pants and found a bulge on his shin. She probed it carefully and knew it was broken. Painstakingly slow, Max unlaced his boot and slipped it from his foot. After removing his sock, she checked for his tibial
pulse near his ankle. The beat released some of her tension. She knew it was encouraging and that his break wasn’t as bad as it could be. She stood and looked around. She wanted to splint his leg while he was still sleeping. The process would hurt, and she didn’t want to see Griffin suffer.

  Armed with two branches she had stripped of all smaller limbs, she sat heavily next to Griffin’s legs. She checked his vitals again, reassuring herself that even though his eyes weren’t opening, his heart was still beating.

  “If you don’t wake up, I’m not sure how I’m going to get us out of here,” Max whispered.

  She couldn’t leave him alone. It would take too long for her to get back to their vehicle and then go get Charlie. The doctor would be able to treat his wounds, while Max was only good for basic triage. She pulled a shirt from her pack and cut strips from the material. Her panic was palpable and she fought to keep it in check. She knew how to manage in an emergency, but this felt different from anything else she had experienced.

  “You’re going to want to sleep through this. You’d probably think I enjoy hurting you. It’s one thing to play around. This I don’t like doing,” she said to Griffin’s passed out body.

  Carefully, she placed the branches on either side of Griffin’s calf. Using the strips of shirt, she tied them to his leg tightly. She carefully bound the lump on his shin, hoping to keep the bone from shifting too much. Griffin groaned and Max froze, watching him. She wondered if the pain would be what brought him out of whatever darkness he was in. When he settled again into his sleep, Max finished off the splint and moved his leg away from the rocks. She didn’t want him to wake flailing and slam his injury into something. She was sweating by the time she finished the process. Retrieving his pack from where he had fallen, she put that between his leg and the stone.