Forsaken World:Coming of Age (33 page)

Lilly and Jennifer watched Ian walk to the door, pulling out his key. They turned to each other then to Lance, who was still ready to fight. “Okay,” Jennifer said, raising her hand. “You win, but can we please talk inside?”

“I will still whoop your ass inside that cabin,” Lance said as he walked around the buggy and grabbed his stuff.

“Damn, he never did that before,” Jennifer said with a small grin.

“You’re smiling about that?”

“Yeah, he’s only done that to Ian,” she said, turning to Lilly, and the grin turned into a smile. “He sees me as part of the team and maybe you too.”

Shaking her head, Lilly said, “I doubt that because he was staring at you.”

“But he was willing to fight you as well,” Jennifer said, heading for the cabin.

“No, he was getting ready to kick my ass,” Lilly corrected.

“Yes, but that means they see us the same as they see each other,” Jennifer said with a bounce in her step. “I have to learn to fight better so I can go outside with them.”

Not so sure about that, Lilly pulled out her key. “Jennifer, one of them is stronger than both of us. Shit, you’ve seen the way they push weights. I don’t care if they are younger than you or I; they can kick our ass.”

“You’ll understand,” Jennifer said when Lilly opened the door. “When you fight a buddy, you’re not really trying to hurt them. I’ve seen them fight many times.”

Standing at the door, Lilly thought about that. “Shit, I would put them against grown fucking men in a fistfight,” she mumbled and turned to walk in. “Shit, is he so fucking hot,” she said under her breath.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Lance and Ian got up when the alarm went off. The night before, they had eaten and gone to bed. Nobody said much of anything else. “I can’t believe you threatened to whoop Jennifer’s ass,” Ian groaned as he stretched out.

“Brah, if you would’ve done that to me, I would’ve threatened to whoop your ass,” Lance said, pulling on clothes he had laid out at the end of his bed.

“I know,” Ian grinned, pulling on clothes. “And I would’ve deserved it if I had continued.”

Five minutes after the clock went off, the two were dressed, and Lance opened the door. He jumped back, seeing Lilly, Jennifer, and the ladybugs dressed for morning gun training. “How long have you been up?” Lance asked, looking at his watch.

“Oh, four twenty,” Jennifer said with a grin. They had laid out their clothes the night before for training, workout, shower, and workday in neat stacks. Sitting down, she and Lilly came up with a routine that seemed promising. For the first time, she and the ladybugs were ready before the boys.

“Cool.” Lance grinned, dropping his arm.

“Wait,” Lilly said, stepping up. “Before we start, can we please explain about yesterday?”

Nodding, Lance set his airsoft AR down. “Sure, but the same warning applies.”

“We saw the camera you put up,” Lilly said quickly. “Lance going to those bodies was a huge risk. Feral dogs pose a greater threat than those tigers. I’ve climbed trees and hid in cars to get away from them. George and Judy have both killed feral dogs that tried to attack me.”

“I know, Lilly, but I needed to see what was left behind,” Lance said, picking up his airsoft rifle, and Lilly gave a sigh. “It was worth the risk to go back,” he said, looking up at her then over to Jennifer. “They are looking for all the sites they have stuff stored at. It seems from notes on a map I found, Bones was the only one who knew, and the last time we went there, it was packed with stinkers.”

Jennifer nodded at that. “Okay, I can see that was worth some risk, but Lance, that pack was huge.”

Turning around, Lance handed his airsoft rifle to Ian. Ian took it and looked around Lance. “Just to be clear, I didn’t think that was a good idea, but I backed Lance up anyway.”

“Keep on, bitch,” Lance told him and turned to Jennifer. “It was my call, and like I said, it was worth it. Shit, I still haven’t seen what was on those memory cards. Even if I wouldn’t have found anything, it would’ve been worth it. Then I would know they don’t plan shit. Now, do I need to step outside?”

“Okay, Lance,” Jennifer said, stepping back. “I’ll go outside with you, but first, you’re going to tell me how you blew up four of them.”

“Huh?” Lance said, tilting his head.

“Before the hounds of Hell ran down the road, Knuckle called over the radio saying someone booby-trapped a lookout. He said four were dead and another two wounded. I wrote their names down, and I could only find a picture of one from Bones’ computer.”

Lance turned around with a grin. “It worked,” he said to Ian, and they fist-bumped.

“Lance, how?” Jennifer said calmly.

“Hand grenade,” Lance shrugged, and Jennifer’s face hardened. “It was my risk, so don’t start, or we step outside.”

“Fine, motherfucker!” she screamed, tossing her airsoft rifle to Lilly and starting to unbuckle her vest as she walked to the back door. “You don’t know shit about hand grenades, and video games don’t count!” she bellowed, dropping her vest on the floor and pushing the back door open.

“Go on, brah, she’s waiting,” Ian said, walking around him. “Don’t hurt her bad. She hasn’t wrestled with either of us in a long time,” Ian said, putting Lance’s rifle on the sectional.

Lance spun on his heel and strolled to the door, taking off his vest. “I’ll be back,” he said, pushing the door open. The others ran over to the monitors and watched the camera over the backyard.

When Lance stepped outside, Jennifer dove at him. Lance caught her in the air and flipped her over his hip. Jennifer landed hard, and the air left her body as the jarring impact registered with her brain, telling her this wasn’t a good idea.

Pushing that thought aside, Jennifer threw her feet up and flipped up. Lance nodded at that and crouched down as she turned around and charged him. She skidded to stop before she reached him and threw a punch at his face. “You could’ve got killed, dumbass!” she yelled.

Lance barely blocked the punch, thinking she was going for the tackle. “It was my choice to whittle down our opponents,” he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her toward him. Lance threw out his hip as he spun around, throwing her again.

“Oh shit,” Jennifer mumbled as she flipped over Lance’s hip. When she hit the ground, the air left her lungs, and stars filled her vision. Throwing her legs out, Jennifer twisted on the ground like a spinning top as she did a butterfly kick. Lance was closing to hold her down, and her spinning leg caught him in the knees, knocking him down.

Inside, Ian nodded. “She’s good,” he said with a grin. “That’s my girl.”

Finishing a full spin, Jennifer rolled to the right onto her knees as air slowly pulled back to her lungs. Blinking, she saw Lance getting up. “How did that happen?” she mumbled, getting up.

“Jennifer, I was willing to take the risk. I’ve read over the grenades, so I felt comfortable using them,” Lance said, crouching, determined not to underestimate her again.

Jennifer crouched down. “Lance, if we lose you or Ian, the rest of us will die. You two think of shit nobody else does. When we got here, Ian and you were terrified of moving around at night; then, you two started going out at night. You two went out knowing tigers were here. You two face your fear head on. I try, but I don’t want to see Allie and Carrie die because we couldn’t protect them. With Lilly here, our chances have improved, but without you two, our chances aren’t great.”

Standing up from his crouch, Lance nodded. “That I can understand,” he said. “I’m sorry, but you have to see it from my side. I don’t want anyone or anything near here that can hurt my group.”

Straightening, Jennifer smiled. “That I can understand,” she said then rubbed her back. “Shit, that hurt.”

“You need to learn to fall better,” Lance said, walking over and giving her a hug.

Jennifer looked up at him. “You mean there is a correct way to fall?”

“We’ll work on that this week,” Lance laughed, letting her go.

Jennifer rubbed her hip. “On the pads, please.”

Putting his arm over her shoulders, Lance led her to the back door. “We’ll put more down before we start.”

“Okay,” she said with a grin. “Lilly thinks you’re hot.”

Stopping in his tracks, Lance looked down at her. “She’s a woman,” he said. “She’s got to be ten years older than me.”

“Eleven actually,” Jennifer said, still rubbing her hip. “Just wanted you to know.”

“Women don’t have boyfriends a decade younger than them,” Lance said, continuing to the cabin.

“I didn’t say boyfriend. I said she thought you were hot.”

“Well, what does she think about Ian?”

Stopping beside him, Jennifer looked up with no trace of a smile. “She better think he’s a good friend, or I’ll kick her ass.”

Leaning over, Lance kissed her forehead. “Thank you for finally noticing. Ian thinks the sun rises only for you.”

“He needs to tell me stuff like that,” she huffed. “I’ve had a crush on him since he moved to the neighborhood.”

Pulling out his key, Lance shoved it in the door. “He did kiss you and not the frog.”

“Lance, if he would’ve kissed that frog instead of me, I would’ve shoved it down his throat.”

When they walked in, Ian ran over, grabbing Jennifer by the shoulders. “You need to fall better,” he said then hugged her. “That was a beautiful butterfly windmill you used to take Lance down.”

Not knowing what Ian was talking about, Jennifer just smiled and hugged him back. “Lance explained why y’all did that so you and I won’t have to go to the backyard later.”

Ian looked at Lance, confused. Lance held up his hands. “Ian, be glad you didn’t kiss the frog.”

Lilly gathered up Jennifer’s stuff and handed it over to her. She wanted to get Lance’s stuff, but Allie and Carrie looked at her with daggers in their eyes when she went to pick it up. When everyone was ready, they moved to the front yard, where a shooting course was set up. Lance opened a laptop and pressed play.

For two hours, the group copied what the men on the screen did. Their training had advanced to another level, learning to survive in this new, forsaken world.

Postscript

April 6

Johnathan lowered the binoculars. “That’s the Klamath River mouth,” he said, looking over at Bill. They had traveled up the coast of California the last two days looking for this river.

“We can head ashore tonight and hope we can find supplies,” Bill said, taking the binoculars. “Getting caught in that westward current cost us nine days and a lot of supplies we were counting on to get us further ashore.”

Sandy moved up to Johnathan, wrapping her arms around his waist. “You think the internet is still up?”

Johnathan looked down at her. “Baby, we can’t risk sending a message to Lance. You heard on the radio how hard the government is tracking broadcasts and tracking down anyone still using the internet. He and the others are fine. In fact, they are much better off than we are.”

Sandy came out carrying the last bottles of water and passed them around. “We need to drink before heading ashore.” When everyone had one, Sandy looked at the luxury trawler they had stolen to make it there from Hawaii. “Well, it got us here,” she said, taking a drink.

“Thought we were going to have to row there for a while,” Bill said, putting an arm around her.

“From all the reports we heard and read, we knew California was suffering an eighty percent infection rate before we left Hawaii, so I say we wait until dark to move to shore,” Johnathan said, looking at his watch. “Which is only four hours away.”

Sandy kissed Bill on the cheek and headed to the cabin. “Fine with me; I’m sick of boats and fish.”

“Both kept us alive, Sandy,” Bill said, following her.

Sandy looked Johnathan in the eyes. “Using the route you and Bill came up with, how long before we get to the cabin?”

Taking a deep breath, Johnathan looked away. “With no problems, we should get there in one hundred and seventy-nine days. But Sandy, I’m telling you, we will run into problems. We will deal with them the best we can and continue on. Lance and Ian are smarter than any ten people I know. Hell, look at all the shit they did, and we know they did it, but no one could prove it, and they never confessed. Some of that was pure genius. They are tough, smart, and strong. We need to remember that and keep our heads, or we could get hurt or killed and never reach them.”

Letting her arm fall from his waist, Sandy grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “I know, but I just want to hold him,” she said as tears ran down her cheeks.

“And you will,” Johnathan said, squeezing her hand. “We just have a long road ahead to get there.”

The End

Look for Book Three in 2017

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