Graham's Resolution - Book 6 - The Wild West

"As I stand here, staring out at the vast open plains, I can't help but feel a sense of dread. It's ten years since the enemy swept through the world, leaving death and destruction in its wake. We survived, somehow, but our respite is over.

This time we're not fighting for our own survival, but for that of the next generation.

We've joined forces with a local Native American tribe, who have proved to be invaluable allies.

Together, we're managing to fend off the enemy for a while, but they just won't quit. They keep coming back, stronger and more determined than ever.

I take a deep breath, trying to steady my nerves. There's a battle coming, and I need to be ready." 

Though her voice was as raw as her hands, she’d used it to say, “My name is Paige Asher...please help me.”

Life was a precarious thing. Snuff out one breath too long and your days were ruined forevermore. Her goal was to keep breathing.

Get up! 

Paige knew this. Had seen that breath held too long. With her own eyes, she’d witnessed the silent pause happen too often. You went all stiff after that. 

They’re coming!

Her mother was the first, but she’d left her before the collapse. That’s when her brother, Lincoln had taken her over. Or at least he’d tried to. She fought him every step of the way, though he gave it his best effort. And every single thought of him over the years broke her heart all over again, so she tried not to think about him. Not only did she miss him like hell…she hated him too, for leaving her all alone in this mess, just like all the others. Not that it was his fault. She knew he didn’t want to go. He’d had nothing to do with the cause of the pandemic. His job was to preserve and protect, after all. Her last glimpse of her brother Lincoln, she remembered picking up the abandoned child and walking away from him as he lay in the police cruiser dying of the virus. She’d set her lips thin and tight and with a cut of her eyes, she’d walked away with the orphan into the darkness with resentment in her heart. 

He’d made her leave and he’d even sent Enzo with her, though she’d turned Enzo back to him at the last moment. She didn’t want to leave Lincoln all alone. She knew too clearly how that felt. Her lasting regret was the dark edge in her eye. That was something she could never take back and now, after all she’d gone through, she was alone again. 

Get up, now!

Well, she wasn’t totally alone. There were always her captors. They were nothing but resilient that way. And they were coming for her now. She could hear them. Their tires screeching, their pounding footsteps slamming against the pavement. Fuckers. She didn’t have to open her eyes…she knew. They were always chasing her, no matter how many times she’d escaped.

She did her damnedest to keep that fate from Cheryl, but she’d failed there as well and here she was now, lying in the middle of a smoke-filled forest road, with raging fires coming from either side. And those jackasses are still on my ass? It was a rhetorical question she couldn’t help but ask herself. She was so tired of running.

Paige rolled to her side then and realized the palms of her hands were not only raw, but skinned and scorched, her knees bloodied, damaged just like the rest of her, and she was pretty sure her arm was broken again, but that was nothing new. She’d sustained multiple fractures, lacerations and other injuries over the past couple years. Mostly at the hands of guys wearing dresses.

But there was something about the cold sear of burns that was the worst kind of pain. That stinging came from within. It was the one kind of pain she couldn’t help but scream out from mid-center of her chest no matter how hard she tried to remain silent. 

Fire…made her scream. She didn’t know that about herself before. She’d learned. It made her arms tremble like now. She opened her eyelids because those inner warnings were not going to stop and although she heard someone approaching, she couldn’t help but see the involuntary flutter of her hands before her. She marveled at how, without intent, her open palms vibrated like butterfly wings in front of her face…only a large part of the skin of one palm hung down low from her wrist. She wasn’t sure where the skin from her other hand got off to.

They’re here.

Her line of sight traveled past that horrid wonder because there was something curious about the man standing over her—something she hadn’t seen in a long time.

He was wearing pants.