Fear the Fallout Read online

  That was the thing about getting shot or knifed for the first time; you never knew how someone—even yourself—would react.

  He hadn’t given her a second thought back in the theater, with her pretty perkiness and relentless positivity. He’d assumed she was just another gum-chewing airhead. He was beginning to realize how wrong he was.

  “What do we need?” he asked her.

  “If only we could order Amazon Prime…a suture kit delivered by drone…in an hour,” Shay mumbled. She was trying to stay upbeat, even though she was the one who’d missed a bullet to the brain by a few millimeters.

  “Save your breath for the important stuff,” Dakota warned. “Needle and thread will work in a pinch, won’t it?”

  “Guess this qualifies as a pinch.”

  “It’ll leave an ugly scar.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you need?” Logan interrupted. “We can get supplies from the Walgreens next door.”

  Shay closed her eyes briefly, took a deep breath. “Bottles of water to irrigate the wound. Gauze. Topical antibiotic. Medical tape. A needle and dental floss—but not mint—that we can sterilize.”

  “What else?” Logan asked.

  “And…scissors and a razor. You’re gonna have to shave my scalp. And then suture it.”

  “Fantastic.” Dakota gestured at Julio. “You go back to the pharmacy and get everything she just said. Logan, you stay and help me.”

  Julio set the flashlight on its side facing them. He turned, still swaying slightly, and jogged for the front doors.

  “Bring as much booze as you can carry,” Logan called after him.

  “Focus, Logan,” Dakota said. “Will you soak up the blood so I can see what I’m doing?”

  Logan suppressed a grim smile. He didn’t mind a girl ordering him around when she knew what she was doing. Dakota had proved herself plenty capable.

  He grabbed a fresh shirt, balled it up, and pressed it gently to Shay’s scalp. Was the blood flow slowing? He couldn’t tell through the girl’s matted coils.

  “You had the shot,” Dakota said in a low voice.

  He jerked his head up. “What?”

  She stared at him accusingly, her eyes dark and glistening in the ghostly flashlight beam. “You had a kill shot and you didn’t take it.”

  He kept underestimating this girl. He tried to hide his surprise—and his guilt. “It was dark and people were moving—”

  “Bull!”

  “Maybe I just wasn’t good enough.”

  “I call B.S.”

  Her gaze traveled from the tattoos sleeving the gangbanger’s arms and neck to his own. She took in the crosses, the snake and skull, the barbed wire, and the smudged, rougher markings on his hands—the five points below his thumb.

  When her eyes met his again, they narrowed with suspicion. “Just what kind of soldier are you?”

  He knew the time would come, sooner or later. He never should’ve let her believe the lie in the first place. At the time, it seemed convenient.

  Now, it made him feel like a grade-A asshole.

  “I’m not,” he forced out.

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I never said I was. You made that assumption yourself.”

  “You didn’t bother to correct me, now, did you?”

  He had no answer for that one.

  “Those five tattooed points on your hand. You were in prison.”

  He stiffened. “That’s none of your business.”

  She flashed him a scathing look. “The hell it is. You just put us all in danger. Who are you, really?”

  He spoke the truth. “I’m no one.”

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  He shrugged carelessly, though every nerve was strung taut. “I don’t really care what you believe.”

  Dakota radiated palpable animosity. She pressed the shirt to Shay’s head so hard her knuckles whitened. “Oh, that’s right. You’re the too-cool cowboy who doesn’t care about anyone or anything. You’re just in it for the payout.”

  Shay groaned. “I feel like my head’s gonna explode. Can you both please shut up?”

  “Sorry.” Dakota eased up on the pressure. She glared at Logan, her expression seething. “We’re not done here.”

  He stared back at her, eyes steady and hard. He couldn’t let her see his guilt. He didn’t owe her a thing, certainly not an explanation.

  Still, every word she’d spoken struck him straight to the core.

  His past was his own. His demons were his own. The darkness that haunted his nightmares must remain in his nightmares. He had to keep it locked down deep. It was the only way he knew how to survive.

  He pretended he didn’t give a damn what she thought, that the disgust in her gaze didn’t fill him with shame and loathing.

  Julio raced back into the store, carrying two plastic bags of supplies.

  “The gang already cleared out all the good drugs. All they had left was Aspirin,” he said apologetically. “I did grab a bottle of Jack Daniel’s, though.”

  Relief thrummed through his whole body. He could already taste the liquor sliding down the back of his throat. It took great effort to resist grabbing the bottle and knocking it back right then and there.

  “It’s still gonna hurt like hell,” Dakota warned Shay.

  Shay’s features went rigid. Her eyes glittered with pain—and brave determination. “Just get it done.”

  4

  Dakota

  After she’d downed a good third of the whiskey, Shay gave Dakota clear instructions.

  They sterilized their hands, the scissors, razor, and needle and dental floss with rubbing alcohol.

  “Ready?” Dakota asked.

  Shay gave a slight dip of her chin.

  Ready enough.

  Still kneeling over her, Dakota cut a large hunk of Shay’s blood-matted coils close to her scalp. She carefully shaved as much as she could, until she could see the ragged edges of the wound clearly.

  Shay bit down on a pair of new socks Logan had ripped from their packaging. Julio overcame his fear of blood enough to sit beside her and hold her hand.

  While Dakota worked, Logan simultaneously daubed the fresh blood from the wound and held the ragged flaps of flesh close together so Dakota could suture them more easily.

  “Keep an eye on the exits,” Logan told Julio. “Tell me the second you see or hear anything.”

  Julio nodded as he mumbled some kind of Catholic prayer over and over, his eyes wide in the flickering shadows.

  Shay moaned into the sock several times. She managed to remain remarkably calm considering the pain Dakota was about to inflict on her.

  “Take deep, slow, steady breaths,” Dakota instructed. “Go somewhere inside yourself, somewhere deep that the pain can’t reach. The fear and anticipation are worse than the pain itself. Enduring is just as much mental as physical, okay?”

  Sister Rosemarie had taught her that at the compound, when she’d helped Eden care for Dakota after the visits to the mercy room.

  One, two, three. Breathe.

  It seemed like nonsense, but when it was only you and the agonizing pain that wouldn’t stop, pain throbbing through every cell in your body—you did what you had to do.

  You endured.

  When she glanced up, Logan was watching her intently, a line between his thick dark brows. She didn’t have time to wonder what he was thinking—or care.

  She’d deal with him later.

  Dakota took her own slow, steady breaths as she pierced the needle down through the sub-dermal layer of skin to the left of the wound—deep enough to keep from tearing the skin but not any deeper than necessary—and made an initial holding knot.

  Shay flinched and hissed in pain, but she did her best to remain still.

  “One, two, three. Breathe.”

  Shay breathed. She squeezed Julio’s hand so hard the tendons stood out on her forearm. A vein pulsed in her throat.

&
nbsp; Dakota leveled the needle and carefully wove the thread tightly between the gaping flesh to the adjacent flaps of the wound in a diagonal pattern, then angled the needle to the skin’s surface and repeated the zigzag.

  Her hands were steady. She’d learned to focus, to push out all distractions to get the job done.

  She didn’t know a lot about medical stuff, but after Eden had nearly bled out, Ezra had insisted on teaching Dakota how to stitch up a wound herself.

  She needed to know how to take care of herself, he used to say constantly. You couldn’t always depend on access to ambulances and hospitals.

  The world didn’t owe anyone anything—not a good life, not healthcare, not even safety.

  Whatever you wanted, you needed to be ready and willing to take care of it on your own.

  He’d gotten the opportunity to teach her when she’d slipped on peat on a black-bellied whistler duck hunt and landed hard on a submerged log.

  A thick, broken branch sliced a three-inch gash on the side of her calf just above her rubber field boots.

  He’d made her sew herself up for practice. Of course, she’d had an actual suture kit Ezra had ordered off some survivalist website, with nylon thread and a curved needle.

  A sewing needle and dental floss served as a poor substitute. The straight, slim needle was a pain in the ass to work with, but she had no way to curve the needle herself without pliers and intense heat.

  But the stitches only needed to hold for a couple of days until they got Shay to a functioning hospital.

  Dakota pierced Shay’s skin with the needle and pulled the floss through carefully, sucking in her breath as her fingers nearly slipped in the slick blood.

  Logan did his best to dab the blood away even as he applied pressure with the crumpled shirt in his other hand.

  Tension tightened in her chest with every passing second. It was difficult, painstaking work, made even harder by the leaking blood and wavering flashlight. She needed to be quick without doing more damage.

  No one spoke as she worked. The only sounds were Shay’s ragged breathing and her own heartbeat thumping against her ribs.

  She repeated the suture, timing her breaths with each jab of the needle, until the laceration was finally closed. She finished with a closing knot and snipped the floss with the craft scissors Julio had brought.

  Dakota sat back and examined her handiwork. The bleeding had nearly stopped. The stitches were a bit ragged, but tight. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  She gave a satisfied grin. “It’s ugly as hell, but at least your brains won’t fall out.”

  5

  Dakota

  Dakota covered the wound with sterile gauze while Logan wrapped a band of medical tape around Shay’s head to keep it in place.

  Their fingers touched a few times, and she resisted the urge to jerk her hands back. She was too angry to even look at him.

  Shay tentatively touched her half-shaved scalp above the makeshift dressing. Her mouth contorted, dismayed tears springing to her eyes.

  “Breathe,” Dakota said. “One, two—”

  “Three.” Shay took several deep, steadying breaths. “My hair will grow back. I know that. I’m sure it looks fine.”

  “You sure about that?” Logan smirked. “You want a mirror?”

  She managed a weak smile, but it was genuine. “You know what? I think I’ll pass.”

  Dakota found herself grudgingly impressed. For a beautiful, put-together girl who looked like she’d never suffered anything worse than a bad hair day, Shay was handling this crisis remarkably well.

  She was stronger than Dakota expected. Dakota couldn’t help but respect the girl’s toughness—and like her for it.

  Shay grabbed Dakota’s hand. “Thank you so much. I know that wasn’t easy.”

  Dakota’s first instinct was to pull away, but she forced herself to remain still. She hadn’t been touched in kindness—other than by Eden during supervised visits—for over two years.

  She wasn’t used to it.

  Shay’s hand trembled slightly, her palm clammy but warm. Her fingers squeezed Dakota’s, still slick with blood, then let go.

  Dakota gave an uncomfortable shrug. “It was nothing. Really. Let’s get you up.”

  She helped Shay to her feet. The girl swayed a bit unsteadily but stood on her own. She was a few inches taller than Dakota, her wild halo of coils making her appear even taller.

  Gingerly, she touched the makeshift bandage wrapped around her head. “Can you watch me for signs of traumatic brain injury and shock? Symptoms like fainting, speech problems, enlarged pupils, cold and clammy skin, and vomiting.”

  “Of course.” Guilt wormed through her. Shay would be fine if she’d stayed back at the theater. Dakota was the reason they were out here in the first place.

  But she couldn’t focus on that now. Shay was on her feet, wounded but stable.

  It was time to go.

  Eden was still out there, almost two-and-a-half miles northwest. The radiation was one percent of what it was two days ago, but it was still a deadly threat looming over them, an invisible poison invading their flesh.

  Dakota glanced at her watch. 1:49 p.m. So much could happen in so little time. It only took a few seconds to change everything. Like the bomb, dividing their lives forever into before and after.

  “We’ve already lost well over an hour,” she said. “We’ve got to move.”

  “Should we split up?” Julio asked. “You and Logan go after your sister, while I get Shay out of the hot zone to look for a hospital?”

  “That’s a bad idea,” Dakota said. “We only have one working gun between us. What if you run into another thug? Or a whole group of them?”

  As much as she wanted to travel faster without them, the thought of leaving Julio and Shay alone without protection went against her instincts.

  Dakota couldn’t leave Shay behind now; the girl needed her help.

  She’d brought them out here; at the least, she could ensure they got to an emergency shelter or medical center.

  Logan remained silent, his expression indifferent. Likely, he didn’t care what happened to any of them. Or maybe he was simply too drunk to pay attention.

  “I’d rather not split up,” Shay said. “I feel okay right now.”

  “As soon as we get my sister, we’ll get out of the hot zone and find you a working hospital, okay?” Dakota promised, and meant it.

  Shay nodded and flashed her a grateful smile.

  “What should we do with him?” Julio pointed back at the unconscious gangbanger.

  “He’s not going anywhere,” Shay said. “The bullet likely broke his scapula and punctured his brachial nerve. He’s bleeding out.”

  Julio’s pallor lost even more color. He touched his gold cross. “We’re murderers.”

  “Logan’s the murderer, not you.” Dakota wiped her bloody hands on a clean shirt and disinfected them with a wash of rubbing alcohol. “And a piss-poor one at that.”

  Julio wrung his hands, looking down at the body with a mix of guilt, pity, and relief. “But the police…we can’t just leave a dying man. We should do something, contact someone…”

  “Who?” Logan said. “Any cops nearby will be busy with rescue efforts or quelling gang uprisings like this one.”

  “Don’t you get it yet?” Dakota said too harshly. She couldn’t help it. They needed to understand. “Everything’s changed. The regular rules don’t apply anymore.”

  “She’s right.” Logan raked his hands through his unruly dark hair. His eyes were black in the beam of the flashlight. “We’re on our own.”

  6

  Dakota

  Dakota studied Julio as he shook his head, still fingering his cross. He didn’t get it fully yet, even now. It was hard for normal people to make the adjustment from a world of rules to one where anything goes.

  Maybe she was wrong. Maybe as soon as they exited the hot zone, they’d be greeted by volunteers bearing hot soup and hugs, escorted
by armed police officers ready to restore order.

  Maybe everyone would come together in a time of crisis, putting aside their own selfish needs for the good of the victims, the shattered cities, the nation.

  She wasn’t going to hold her breath.

  Logan retrieved the bottle of Jack Daniels and poured what remained into his silver flask. He took a long swallow, capped it, and shoved it back into his pocket.

  She gritted her teeth and resisted the urge to slap it right out of his hands. She still burned with anger at what he’d done.

  What use was a hired gun if he was a drunk?

  “Isn’t it morally wrong to just walk away?” Julio argued. “To just let him die?”

  “He would’ve wasted you without a second thought,” Logan said in a gruff voice. “And done worse to Shay.”

  “He spent the last forty-eight hours exposed to massive levels of radiation,” Shay said gently, resting her hand on Julio’s shoulder. “I know how you feel. But look at him. His hair’s already starting to fall out. He was experiencing vomiting, dizziness, and disorientation. The aggression could’ve been from cognitive impairment.”

  Logan grunted. “Or maybe he was just an asshole.”

  Julio didn’t look convinced. He crossed himself, muttering something under his breath, but finally he nodded in surrender.

  Dakota squatted in front of the gangbanger and dug in the pocket of his saggy shorts. She pulled out Julio’s gold band and handed it to him.

  Julio slipped it on his thick finger and pressed his palm to his chest. He closed his eyes and breathed an unsteady sigh of relief. “Thanks. Yoselyn—my wife—she’d never have forgiven me.”

  “Of course, she would’ve.” Shay clenched her jaw against the pain. “It’s you she wants. Safe and alive.”

  “You don’t know her temper,” Julio said, but he managed a tight grin.

  Dakota reached for the fallen M4 and slung it over her neck and shoulder, positioning the single-point sling so the weapon hung freely but within easy grabbing distance.