Chapter Thirty-four

The pounding stopped and bullets zinged through the door before I could tell the girls to go to the room. With Noah in one arm, Jessa scooped a wailing Maggie and carried them both downstairs as Rosabel hurried behind. When they vanished into the darkness, Mom and I scooted the bed against the banister. I then closed the basement door, hoping to buy them a little time to get to safety.

The door to the outside flew open. Moonlight flooded into the living room and made it possible for me to see the fear on my father’s face. Four men wearing the green uniform I’d become accustomed to seeing during the televised slaughters stormed into the house. Night vision goggles wrapped around their eyes and made it easy for the soldiers to point their AK-47s at my parents and me.

“Drop your weapons,” the one in front of me said. I raised my hands slowly to show no weapon was in my possession.  “Where are the brats?”

“They aren’t here.” Indignance curled around every word. My children weren't typically brats.

“You’re lying.” He nodded, and the extra soldier brushed past me, heading for the bedrooms. I resisted the urge to smile at having bought them a few more minutes. “You just signed their kill order. Captain Vance will find them.”

My mom lifted her hands. “What are you doing?” She sounded confused.

How could she not know? They were here to arrest me. A few hours ago, she'd been very aware of that possibility.

I gulped, hoping that Jessa would be able to contain the girls, but relaxed when I looked over at Dad. His gun hadn’t dropped to the carpet, which meant there was at least a little bit of hope. I saw him tuck it behind his back, being cautious to avoid alerting the gunmen to what he was doing.

“Sergeant Hall, shut her up.” The soldier pointed his gun between Mom’s eyes and she fell silent. She  shook in her spot and he relaxed his stance. Whatever threat he thought existed from her seemed to have dissipated with her noise. The soldier in front of me asked, “Where’s the material you took from The Order?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You wanna watch your family die?” His words were cold enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“It still won’t change the fact that I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A gunshot went off, and I jumped. Fearing the worst, my eyes pinched closed. Three additional pops rang through the air. They were replaced by thuds, surely bodies hitting the floor.

I looked around the room. Mom still sat on the couch, Dad was bleeding from the leg right beside her, and the three soldiers lay on the floor. The bullets lodged in their heads suggested that they wouldn’t be a problem.

“Hurry! Grab their guns,” Dad said, as I stood dumbfounded and wondering what to do. “I’m out of ammo.”

I bent to retrieve the closest gun, but Captain Vance returned to the scene and fired a warning shot that jerked my hand away from his co-conspirator’s weapon. His head motioned to the left. “Sit on the couch.”

I stepped around the heap on the floor and sat by my father. Mom was sobbing and using her grip to act as a tourniquet, but the blood only spread further down his pant leg until it streamed down his shoes. His breathing was slow.

“Let go of him.” Vance’s lips twisted into a smile. Mom didn’t move. I nudged her away and applied pressure to the area she’d been holding. “You, too.”

“No.” I almost dared him to kill me, but was afraid he’d take aim at my parents. He trained the AK-47 on Mom as I was cursing myself under my breath. “If you harm either of them, the Order will never see Sigmund Dietrich’s journal.”

“That confirms you have it, then.” He shifted backwards, but kept the gun directed at Mom. “For the record, if I killed your father, it would be doing him a favor.”

My mother tensed at the suggestion. She put her arm around Dad and caressed his cheek as his breath grew shallow.

“She hasn’t told you, has she?” he taunted.

“Told me what? That you’re a traitor? I figured that out on my own.” I could play his game.

“That he has terminal cancer.”

I looked at my dad. The weight loss, his baldness—I’d attributed it to him aging. When he’d come into the house and surprised me, he had sounded sick and weak, but with the excitement of seeing him again, our reunion had turned to reconnecting and introducing him to the kids.

“I’ll bet,” he gestured at Mom, “ she didn’t tell you that she sold you out for morphine, either.” His smile was reminiscent of the canary-devouring cat.

The world crashed around me as I processed what he said. Finding out my father had cancer was bad enough, but to find out my mother had betrayed me was devastating. I tried to blink away the tears, but it was no use; the dam broke and so did I.

“I didn’t think it was really you,” she pleaded. “I thought you were dead.” This time, her voice was much louder.

“And when you called us a few hours ago to confirm you’d arrived?” Captain Vance smirked.

“There was no sign of them. I had lived up to my end of the deal and wanted his medicine. I didn’t know that th—she— was hiding.” She was shrill and crying, but I didn’t give her a glance.

“I don’t believe she’s worth saving, but I’ll make you an offer, Mrs. Goodwyn.” He almost sounded reasonable now that his taunting had stopped. “You can hand me the journal and turn yourself in, and no one in this house will be harmed any further. We’ll take your father to the hospital and your mother and anyone else who might be here to a reprogramming station.”

“And if I don’t like those terms?”

“Then I will pick your family off one by one and drag you to the Order.”

As long as the kids maintained their silence, he wasn’t going to find them. “But you still wouldn’t have the journal, and the Order would have exhausted all methods to ensure my cooperation.”

He cocked his head to the right. “What makes you think that Major Goodwyn isn’t at Headquarters talking to Colonel Bradley as we speak?”

“He’s not. He was too soft when it came to her. Couldn’t take the chance that he’d betray us so I shot him as he was leaving. The Order taught me well.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my mom flinch.

“You aren’t a good liar, Mrs. Goodwyn, especially when I was with the detail that apprehended him four days ago.”

I scoffed. “Then you got the wrong guy.”

“We followed him for a few days as he attempted to organize a resistance and killed those he met with. When President Sigmund issued the command, we arrested Major Goodwyn.” He paused to let me digest what he said. “Fingerprints confirm that this man is, in fact, your husband. Let’s stop playing these games.”

President Sigmund? I remembered that a president had been mentioned in one of Abi’s broadcasts, but I’d been so consumed by what was happening and listening for Luc’s name that so much had flown by me. Who was this President Sigmund and why was he taking special interest in my family?

“If you have Luc and he’s been organizing, why is he still alive? I remember a general being assassinated on TV for doing far less, and the American population? What about them? All they did was not belong to your freakin’ cult.” I applied more pressure to Dad’s leg. Nausea was setting in, and the warmth and wetness of his blood on my hand intensified my squeamishness.

“Your husband is alive because Colonel Bradley wants him to be. She thinks he can be reeducated. President Sigmund approved it because she’s his niece. When your grandfather is Sigmund Dietrich, nepotism is permitted.”

“And if Luc can’t be reeducated?” I couldn’t believe he’d work with them.

Captain Vance raised the gun to a few feet from Mom’s chest. “We have our means, but I’m tired of this conversation. Are you coming willingly with the books, or should I start shooting?”

This wasn’t going to end as easily as the captain believed. If the President and his bitch niece wanted the journal so badly, it was all the more important to keep it from them. But the man was going to fire at my parents.

Would I be able to live with myself? I closed my eyes, searching for the correct answer, the one where they all lived and I didn’t have to give anything to the Order. “N---.”

Gunfire erupted again. I’d hesitated a moment too long.

*                        *                        *                        *                        *                        *

“Miss Lily, are you okay?” the voice asked. I’d heard it before. Caleb.

I eased my eyes open. Captain Vance lay sprawled on the floor, as dead as the rest of his detail. Mom’s hand was beside mine, and doing much better at stanching the blood flow, but Dad was fading away quickly.

“Thank you so much, Caleb. He would have killed us. Can you help me carry my father to the bedroom? He’s dying.”

He lifted my father as though he were nothing more than a fragile bird. My mother crawled into bed and wrapped her arms around him.

“I am so sorry, Daddy.” I squeezed his hand and delivered a peck to his cheek. “Please forgive me. I love you. I need to check on the kids.”

“I love you, too, Lils,” he whispered.

Caleb trailed me out of the room. When he called my name, I looked back. He was quite possibly taller and even more filled out than when I’d seen him over Labor Day weekend.

“I don’t know why you’re here, but thank god.”

Caleb bit his lip, seeming to deliberate what he should tell me. “Luc asked Uncle Edgar and me to watch over you, so we did. When Jessa didn’t show up for huntin’ practice today, we got worried, ‘specially since we heard folks come into the area last night.”

“So Jessa’s been hunting with you.” I tried to keep my voice free of anger as we walked down the staircase.

“Did you like the turkey I caught for you?”

“It was delicious. Thank you.” We reached the bottom step. “Where is that uncle of yours?”

He gave a slight laugh. “You really don’t like him, do you? I don’t blame you. He killed a damn Greenie that was waitin’ outside in their car, and he’s sorta hangin’ out there to make sure no one else comes. Well, that, and he thinks you might shoot him if he comes inside.”

It was hard not to like Caleb and I could understand Jessa’s interest in him. Kindness and humility enveloped the boy. Edgar was doing something right, though I didn’t care for the man.

I slid open the door to the secret room. “Jessa, it’s just me. We’re all clear for the moment. How’re you guys doing?”

Jessa and Rosabel were crying, while Maggie had fallen asleep, undoubtedly tired from her antics after supper. Jessa laid Maggie onto the bed beside Noah, whose chest was rising and falling. He startled at the movement, but remained fast asleep.

I tilted the flashlight to illuminate Jessa. “We’re going to have a serious discussion in a few minutes.” I kept my voice soft. Nothing I was planning to say would elicit some of tantrums of a few weeks ago, but we needed to work out our trust issues. Finally, I looked at her.

A red splotch covered her coat, but she stood with ease. Confusion set in. Where did the blood come from? My breath caught and I rushed to the bed.

I pulled Maggie into my arms. She wasn’t breathing.

Pain.