Eva was beside me immediately, putting an arm around my shoulders and holding me tight. “He might still be alive, Maddie,” she whispered.
I prayed that was true. I hoped for nothing less.
I watched lifelessly as Janice ripped open Gavin’s shirt, revealing a knife wound near his ribs. She applied pressure on the cut, using only her hands. Gavin groaned loudly, flinching with pain.
“Bastards cut him when he tried going after Ryder. He’s lost a lot of blood,” Brody explained.
His voice faded as Cash approached me. His gaze burned into mine, flat and distant. His scruffy jaw flexed, reminding me of someone forced to say something he really didn’t want to say. For a split second, the wall he kept around himself vanished, revealing sadness and a weariness that came from seeing too much, knowing too much.
I let go of Eva to face him, needing someone to tell me the truth. Cash was that person. He wouldn’t sugarcoat anything.
“Is he dead, Cash?” I asked, barely able to force the words past my lips.
Taking off his cowboy hat, he smacked it against his thigh. Dust swirled around him, adding to the dirt already caking his clothes.
“He was shot in the chest, Maddie.”
I saw the truth behind his words. He didn’t believe Ryder was still alive.
The roaring in my ears increased. I felt faint, my head lighter somehow. The edges of my vision dimmed, making everything appear fuzzy. I closed my eyes, just wanting to disappear.
My body slid into oblivion.
The last thought I had was of Ryder.
~~~~
Nothing.
That is what I was.
Ryder was gone. My world shattered like a piece of delicate glass dropped on a marble floor. Tiny slivers of the life I once had lingered, but they were broken. Useless. Just fragments of what they once were. I had no hope. No prayers. No desire to go on.
I laid in bed for days. I refused to move and barely ate. Janice grew upset. Gavin grew irritated. No one was happy. We had lost one of our own.
I had lost him.
“I love you, Maddie. Remember to be strong. For me.”
They were some of the last words he had said to me. They had been haunting me for hours. I never wanted to forget them. I needed to hear the words like I needed air to breathe. As I laid in his bed, his words bounced around my head, refusing to let me forget.
I touched a fingertip to my lips, remembering our last kiss. I wanted that minute back. Just one more second with him.
His scent wafted up from the cotton sheets tucked around me. It caused the ache in my chest to grow, paralyzing me until I thought I would never feel the same again. Tears soaked the pillow beneath my head, just a few of the thousands I had shed already.
Sunlight filtered in through the window, brightening the room, but only darkness surrounded me. The light in me was gone. Like a candle without its flame, I sat alone and without purpose.
I heard voices from somewhere in the house. They’re leaving. Last night, I had overheard Gavin and Cash talking. They were going after Ryder today. It would be one of many attempts they would make to find him.
“Be strong. For me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as the words forced themselves into my brain again. I didn’t want to be strong. I wanted to crawl beneath the covers and never emerge. I wanted to dissolve into the floor and disappear.
Like a leaf falling into a fast moving river, I wanted to float away. But there was one thing keeping me from sinking deeper under the dark waters.
My unborn child.
Chapter One
There are certain days that I will never forget. Days that changed my life forever. When my mom died. Meeting Ryder for the first time. The night I gave him my virginity. The moment when the EMP hit, taking electricity from the United States. The day my dad died. Finding out I was pregnant. Standing under the stars as Ryder asked me to marry him. So many important days - some happy, some sad. But the day that changed my life forever was the day Ryder didn’t return. That day, my world crumpled. Now all I had left were memories.
“Maddie Jackson, get out of that tree!”
Grasping the limb beneath me, I leaned over so I could glance down at Ryder. He stood with his feet apart, his arms crossed over his chest. He looked mad enough to climb up the tree and get me down himself. I wanted to roll my eyes. Ever since he turned thirteen, he just wasn’t fun anymore.
“What’s wrong, Ryder, afraid I’ll fall?” I laughed, swinging my legs playfully in midair.
“Hell yeah, I’m afraid you’ll fall! Get down before you break your neck!” he yelled, squinting up at me from beneath his ball cap.
I giggled at the scowl on his face and swung my legs again, this time sending my feet higher into the air.
“Maaaddie,” he warned, drawing out my name.
I ignored him. He was harmless and wouldn’t dare touch a hair on my head.
With a smirk, I glanced up, wondering how much further I could climb. The green leaves beckoned, teasing me to reach for them. I wanted to be at the top, able to look down and see everything.
The sun filtered through the branches, blinding me. I closed my eyes and felt the heat on my face. The wind shifted, cooling my cheeks. Opening my eyes, I let go of the branch beneath me and grabbed another.
“Don’t you dare!” Ryder yelled, adding a cuss word I’d never heard before. His bad language didn’t bother me. My daddy said not to repeat anything Ryder said and I never did, but sometimes I thought all his cussing sounded silly.
“I’m gonna try to get to the other branch. Maybe I can see my house from up here,” I said, balancing myself as I rose to my feet. I didn’t dare look down when Ryder started pacing back and forth beneath the tree, muttering something I couldn’t hear.
“I swear, Maddie, I’m going to kick your butt when you get down!” he yelled, stopping right below me.
“You’ll have to catch me first!” I shouted, chewing on my lower lip as I concentrated on pulling myself onto a higher limb. Bouncing up and down, I tested the strength of the branch. Leaves danced frantically at the end of their little sticks, producing a rustling noise. I loved the sound. It always reminded me of summer.
“Oh, I’ll catch you, Maddie,” Ryder said, shading his eyes against the sun so he could see me, “and when I do, you’ll be sorry for scaring me.”
“Thought nothing scared you. You a sissy?” I teased, knowing my name calling only made him mad.
He made a funny noise deep in his throat, reminding me of the stray dog that growled at me last year. I wondered how Ryder made that noise. I needed to ask him. Maybe he could teach me. Might come in handy when I was frustrated with Eva.
A wave of dizziness hit me when I glanced down at him. He seemed so far away that for just a fraction of a second I grew afraid. Then I shook off the feeling and grinned at him. I wasn’t going to turn into a wuss. I could do this.
Pulling myself to a higher branch, I held my breath as it protested under my weight. Holding on tightly, I waited for the limb to break. Nothing. I was safe.
“Hey, look Ryder! I made it!” I shouted, smiling triumphantly down at him.
“Good for you. Now get back down here.”
Ignoring him, I squinted against the sun and tried to peer through the leaves for the top of my house. I just knew I could see it from here. Suddenly, the sun glinted off of something shiny in the distance.
“I see the barn roof!” I cried out, feeling excitement.
“Great. Now get down,” Ryder snapped, impatient.
“Hold on a sec.”
I looked up. There was a nice, thick branch above me. If I could reach it, maybe I could see my horse, Buttercup, grazing in the pasture.
I lifted my foot and reached for the branch.
“Maddie! NO!”
A strong gust of wind hit me, pushing against my small frame. I tried to hold onto the tree but the rough bark slipped through my small fingers. With a shriek of alarm, I lo
st my balance and fell backwards. Frantically, I tried to grasp the nearest branch but I couldn’t stop my fall.
It happened in a split second. One minute I was in the tree, the next there was nothing but air around me. My back hit a tree limb as I fell. My head smacked against a thick branch, sending a shot of pain through me. My hair snagged on small sticks, leaving behind strands as I toppled down. I think I screamed but I don’t know.
I felt myself fall smack into Ryder. The force knocked us both to the ground.
“Oh, shit! Oh, shit!” he said frantically, scrambling out from under me.
I cried out as my arm was jarred against the hard ground. Pain like I had never felt before exploded from every muscle in my body.
Ryder kneeled down and touched my wrist. Pain shot up my arm. I screamed, feeling like someone was pulling my arm apart.
“Oh, Jesus!” Ryder exclaimed as tears rolled down my face. “I think your arm’s broken.”
“It hurts, Ryder,” I sobbed, my arm lying uselessly at my side. I tried moving it but the pain was too much. I cried out again, a combination of a scream and a cry of agony. Through my tears, I saw the panic on Ryder’s face. I swore then never to call him a sissy again.
“I gotta get you back to the house,” he said under his breath, talking more to himself than to me.
This was my fault. I had begged him to go with me today. We used to spend all our time exploring the fields around our daddies’ farms but since he became interested in girls, we didn’t do those things anymore. I missed him. But I was glad he was with me right now.
Clutching my shoulder, I tried to sit up, but it hurt too much.
“Don’t move. I’ll carry you home,” Ryder said. He scooped me up, one hand under my knees and the other behind my back. As if I weighed nothing, he started walking across the field with me in his arms.
Tears streamed down my face as he rushed across the bumpy, uneven ground. He glanced down at me a few times and I think he tried to talk to me but the pain in my arm was too terrible to pay attention.
I cried all the way home but when I saw my dad everything seemed better.
“Daddy!” I wailed as Ryder carried me through the yard.
My dad looked up from the old lawn mower he was fixing. Rays of bright sunlight gleamed off of his brown hair and made him squint to see me clearly.
“Maddie?” he asked, looking stunned to see me in Ryder’s arms.
“She broke her arm, Mr. Jackson!” Ryder shouted.
My dad dropped the screwdriver in his hand and jogged across the yard, meeting Ryder halfway.
“What happened?” he asked, helping me out of Ryder’s arms.
“She fell out of a tree.”
“A tree? Maddie, how many times have I told you not to climb so high?” my dad asked, irritated.
More tears raced down my cheeks. My dad never got mad at me!
“It was my fault, Mr. Jackson. I dared her to go that high,” Ryder lied, facing my dad with no fear. I wondered why he was protecting me but sometimes Ryder just did things like that.
My dad sighed heavily and gave Ryder a frustrated look. “I’ve warned you two before…” He shook his head with resignation. “Never mind. I’m taking her to the hospital. You go on home, Ryder.”
“No, I want to go too,” Ryder insisted, surprising me again by standing up to my dad. I think only Ryder could get away with doing that.
My dad led me over to his truck, digging in his pocket for the keys while keeping an arm around me. “Go home,” he said over his shoulder to Ryder.
“No, sir, I won’t. I have to make sure she’s okay. I’m not leaving her.”
My dad stopped. Turning to face Ryder, he looked at him with calmness despite his earlier anger. “I’ve got her, son. You don’t have to worry about her.”
Ryder swallowed hard and glanced at me before looking back at my dad.
“All due respect, Mr. Jackson, but I’ll always worry about her and I’ll never leave her. She’s my best friend.”
~~~~
Now here I stood, yards from the same tree. Feet away from where he caught me. Miles away from my best friend.
And I was the one worrying about him.
“Dead tree. Two o’clock,” Gavin whispered near my ear, bringing me back to the present.
Without moving a muscle or turning my head, I glanced to the right. Beneath the hood of my jacket, I could see a branch moving high in a tree a few feet from me. It was bouncing more than swaying, the movement caused not by the wind but by a small animal.
Ever so slowly, I raised my gun, careful not to make a sound.
“Easy,” Cash warned.
I could see him out of the corner of my eye, standing directly behind me. I resisted the urge to grind my teeth. These men thought I was weak. They had a lot to learn.
I propped the gun on my shoulder. It was heavy, making my arms shake. Looking down the barrel, I kept one eye opened as I peered down the scope. A squirrel sat on the branch, eating a nut of some kind. I didn’t believe in killing animals. I loathed the idea of taking another life, but I was hungry. We all were.
My index finger slowly rested on the trigger, waiting for the right moment to squeeze it.
“Now,” Gavin commanded, practically in my ear.
Without thinking twice, my finger pulled back. In a split second the shot left the barrel, making the gun jump in my hands. A boom echoed through the woods, loud and deafening.
Lowering the gun, I watched as dead leaves fell from the tree along with a few pieces of bark.
“Hell, I think you hit the bastard,” Gavin muttered, slinging his shotgun on his shoulder and taking long strides to the tree.
I watched as his heavy hiking boots crushed the dried leaves and dead grass beneath his feet. Cash stayed next to me, always the guardian, as Gavin bent down and picked something up from under the tree. He dangled a medium-sized squirrel by the end of its furry tail.
“You hit it dead center. Killed it instantly,” he scoffed, surprised.
“You didn’t think I could?” I asked, arching an eyebrow, finding no humor in killing the animal.
“Not really,” he answered, stuffing the squirrel in an old burlap bag he carried. “Guess my brother did a good job teaching you how to shoot. Glad he at least left you with that.”
I felt the hurt, the pain that squeezed my heart at the mention of Ryder. It had the power to bring me to my knees, make my body tremble, and leave me with nothing but heartache. What Gavin didn’t know was that Ryder had left me with so much more. He left me with his baby.
I fought back tears and watched as Gavin stalked toward me. I still hadn’t told anyone I was pregnant. I couldn’t. The words always stuck in my throat, refusing to leave. For some reason, telling Janice or Eva before I told Ryder felt final, as if I knew he wasn’t coming back. I just wasn’t ready to face that. Someone might call me a fool for not facing reality, but if reality didn’t include Ryder, I didn’t want any part of it.
Refusing to let one tear fall, I focused on Gavin. His well-worn jeans and flannel shirt were faded and dirty, but without a washing machine, clean clothes had become a luxury, a thing of the past. We tried to keep everything washed using creek water, but as the temperature dropped, we had no way to dry our laundry. We were living like my ancestors lived, washing clothes by hand and struggling to survive in a harsh, hard world.
I tried not to think of what I’d left sitting in my apartment, miles away. A closet full of expensive clothes that I’d spent hard-earned money on. Perfectly cut jeans. Pretty dresses. High-heeled shoes. Designer bags. Now all I had left were a few pieces of clothing that Eva and I were forced to share. I tried not to dwell on the fact that I was wearing dirty clothes that I’d slept in and worn day after day.
There were so many things in my past life that I thought made me who I was. Clothes. My phone. My car. My iPad. Things I thought defined me. Now they were gone, taken from me in a blink of an eye, nothing but a memory. None
of it mattered anymore. All that mattered was surviving.
Without Ryder.
It had been one month since the men returned without him. Pain constantly tore at my chest. It never went away. I carried the heartache with me at all times; it became a part of me, like my own arm or leg. Most days I felt as if a giant building had collapsed on top of me, leaving me trapped and desperate for air. I waited for someone to rescue me and dig me out from under the weight of constant pain, but no one came. Every day I tried crawling my way out of the rumble, cutting my hands and leaving a trail of despair behind. But I never could see daylight, only darkness.
No one knew how much I was hurting. I hid it well. I cried at night but struggled to carry on during the day. Each moment without Ryder chipped away at me. But there was still a small part of me that was stubborn. Carry on, it whispered. So I listened.
Stepping over a dead log, Gavin brushed against me, bringing me back to harsh reality.
I glared at his back as he walked away, my sorrow forgotten for a second. Opening my mouth, I was going to give him a piece of my mind but thought better of it. He was hurting, just like the rest of us. Maybe more so since it was his brother that was missing.
Letting out a sigh, I studied him as he stalked away. Gavin hadn’t been the same since returning home. None of us were. He was no longer Ryder’s easygoing, good-natured older brother. Now he was almost impossible to get along with. He was hard and angry, short-tempered and full of self-loathing. More like Ryder every day. Watching his own brother shot and dragged away had changed Gavin. Hardened him.
I seemed to take the brunt of his anger. I wasn’t sure why and I didn’t ask. I just dealt with it. We all had our own ways of dealing with the grief. If taking it out on me helped him, so be it. I just didn’t care anymore.
“You did good, Maddie,” Cash said, grabbing my attention.
Under the shadows of the trees, I peered over at him. His stance was relaxed despite the pistol stuck in his belt, the knife strapped to his thigh, and the shotgun held loosely in his hands. The man was an arsenal. A lone soldier.
“Well, not everyone thinks I did good,” I muttered over my shoulder as I started walking along the same trail Gavin had disappeared down.