Sanctuary's Aggression | Book 5 | The Rescue Read online

  The Rescue: Sanctuary’s Aggression 5

  A Post-apocalyptic Thriller Series

  Maira Dawn

  Skylan Publishing House

  Contents

  Prologue

  1. Taken

  2. Lost

  3. Horde

  4. The Containment Center

  5. The Standoff

  6. Outrage

  7. Answers

  8. A Bullet in the Brain

  9. Pure Optimism

  10. Life Lessons

  11. Chocolate Chip Cookies

  12. A Mean Streak

  13. Whatever

  14. Confessions

  15. Pieces

  16. Seaside

  17. Make It Through

  18. The Long Night

  19. Fighters

  20. The Meeting

  21. The Story of My Life

  22. Day One

  23. Something More

  24. The Dark Room

  25. You’ll Love It

  26. The Plan

  27. The Way Out

  28. The Chase

  29. Her Trouble

  30. The Question

  31. Choices

  32. Worlds Collide

  33. Alarm Bells

  34. The Table

  35. A Slim Chance

  36. So Close

  37. The Reveal

  38. Impossible

  39. Back with You

  40. The Love of His Life

  41. Introductions

  42. Atlantis

  43. The Sea

  44. Quite the Adventure

  45. The Best Thing

  46. Free

  47. Grand Plans

  48. Scars

  49. To Battle

  50. Into the Fray

  51. Onward

  52. Almost

  53. Nothing

  54. Falling

  55. Walk Away

  56. Rest

  57. Cabin on the Mountian

  58. A Better World

  Afterword

  Also by Maira Dawn

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2020 Maira Dawn

  All rights reserved.

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and a resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  Prologue

  One glimpse at the sleepy seaside town, and there was no mistaking the devastation that had rolled over it. It took a second, third, or even a fourth look to see that what it left was truly evil.

  The hurricane had hit it hard, and even as the violent storm blasted its way through the town, another calamity was underway.

  The AgFlu tore through the population.

  Infants to the elderly fell victim to one or the other.

  The very strong held on for a while, clinging and crying during the worst of the screaming winds—limp and defeated when they were over—shivering in fear of contracting the dreadful disease.

  Even some of these, with time, the AgFlu overtook.

  The wounded souls roamed the town’s dusty ruins in their sickened condition for weeks, hoping each day would bring their release from the disgusting illness. Until they couldn’t hope at all, were just some shell of a person with little sanity, forever roving from one street to another, a danger to anyone left.

  Even through all this, some fortunate lived, though most doubted the word applied. Their homes destroyed—the world’s fate reflected in their once lovely town—they saw only ruined houses open to the elements and streets filled with debris.

  Somehow, they had survived the gale-force winds, disease, and attacks of the Sick and Infected, only to be lost at how to continue with the gift they had somehow held on to, the gift of life.

  All eyes turned to the only intact building left, a concrete dome once used for enjoyment and education—a safe place.

  One by one, the healthy turned up at its doors, and were welcomed into the building.

  Once invited in, the healthy newcomers never left.

  Newcomers first noted its cleanliness, then as they were led deeper into the center of the building, the pristine white countertops lined with test tubes, beakers, and Petri dishes.

  Men and women in white coats, pens in hand, and glasses firmly planted on their faces breathed through masks as they investigated their findings. Their gloved fingers quickly scribbled into notebooks as they checked and doubled checked all their numbers.

  The White Coats were convinced that everything they did, good or evil, had to be done, needed to be done, to save everyone, or maybe just to save someone.

  As newcomers entered the specimen room, they heard the small animals chattering. Mice, hamsters, and rats skittered to the back of their cages in fear. Screeching primates screamed their distress.

  The sure feeling of safety cocooning the newcomers since they had arrived fled at what they saw next.

  Men, women, and even children occupied the cages. They moaned and cried as they tried to console one another.

  “It’s for the good of all humankind,” the White Coats told the newcomers as they pushed them into the barred enclosures.

  Fear and pain ruled their lives now.

  Pain came from the scientists.

  Fear from what the cages across them held.

  The large human-like beings raged against their imprisonment, wrenching at their thicker bars. With little room to move, they roared their distress until someone came to calm them—either with a needle or a cattle prod.

  Everyone trembled when someone new walked into the room, accompanied by two assistants. The attractive, dark-haired man in a suit and a lab coat looked like someone who would set everything right. But they had already learned nothing here was as it seemed.

  The man waved toward their cages. “We’re going to need more of them. These won’t last long.”

  The assistants cringed.

  “There are not many left out there,” one brave assistant said.

  The dark-haired leader glared at her.

  The assistant licked her lips and was quick to say, “Jack’s out there. He’s been going further afield to find good specimens. He’s due back. Perhaps he’ll have something.

  The leader nodded and pointed to the caged men, women, and children. “Let these go in the usual place.”

  Then he pointed to the beings across the room. “And do what we usually do with these abominations. Get more as quick as possible—we needed them yesterday. We can’t have this holding us up.”

  The men, women, and children cried in happiness over their release as they looked across the way and thanked God they weren’t those beings.

  This was the new normal in the small town of Seaside.

  Dread was the companion of every resident. Fear was their ruler.

  1

  Taken

  Skye glanced down the hill one last time, praying Jesse would get away. Let him make it home—for his own sake, at least—and hopefully for her and Kelsey, too.


  Someone gave her back a light push-just a reminder of what she’d promised.

  To stay with Kelsey--and be taken wherever it was Jack that took his victims.

  Heaven help them both.

  Skye slid into the back seat of the car, a cold quaking in the pit of her stomach. She tested the rope Mark had tied around her wrists. It was not as tight as it could have been, and he’d tied them in front of her.

  That may come in handy.

  Skye reached for Kelsey, lifting her arms over the girl’s head, laying them around her shoulders, and pulling her close.

  The girl trembled.

  Skye tightened her arms, hoping the embrace would offer some comfort. Since the world had turned upside-down, this poor child had gone through so much—no doubt she imagined the worse.

  Skye would be the same except for Dylan’s instructions.

  Stay alert during turbulent situations. Forget what could happen. Focus on what was happening. A way out could come, most likely with a small window of opportunity.

  She needed to stay sharp.

  Outside the car, two of Jack’s men said something to Reed and Spencer and bashed them again with the wooden ends of their rifles.

  Spencer dropped to the pavement and stayed there.

  Reed held a hand to his bloody scalp as he crouched above him and stared at Skye.

  “We will find you,” he mouthed to her.

  Despite her resolve, tears filled Skye’s eyes and threatened to fall.

  She nodded.

  Maybe a proper leader would tell them not to follow—to keep themselves safe—but right now, she was too frightened to be a good leader.

  Skye wanted out of this situation, and if Reed felt he had any semblance of a plan, she wouldn’t say no.

  The front car doors opened and closed. Skye stared at the leader, Jack, and one of his goons from beneath her lashes as they jumped into the front seat.

  Jack sat on the passenger side, dragging his seat belt down his middle, a big grin on his face.

  “Safety first!” he said as he threw a glance back at Skye and Kelsey. “Make sure you buckle up. You’re precious cargo.”

  Kelsey glanced at Skye with a question in her eyes.

  Skye nodded at her and put her own seatbelt on. As much as she wanted to ignore everything the man said, this wasn’t the time to make a stand. The last few moments had just proven that.

  Jack’s vicious attack on their group showed how far he would go to get what he wanted.

  Skye looked back as they drove away. Spencer raised his head and frowned as if trying to get his bearings.

  Some tension left her once she saw him up and moving.

  For a long while, the car was deathly quiet. For that, Skye was grateful. Her nerves were stretched too thin to listen to Jack’s prattle.

  She and Kelsey studied every turn the driver took, sharing a look and a nod over directions to memorize. It was critical they remember the way home.

  After a while, Jack glanced at Skye and asked, “Have you been out and about lately?”

  She compressed her lips into a firm line. There was no way she would chit-chat with the man who was putting mile after mile between her and Dylan.

  “Come on,” Jack said, eyeing her. “Can’t you be civil? It’s a simple question.”

  One eyebrow arched, Skye turned and looked out the window beside her.

  Jack cleared his throat. “You know, I’ve been real nice to you so far. You’re just sitting there, pretty as you please, on a seat. I should have hogtied and thrown you in the trunk. But I’ve been neighborly.”

  Anger lit in Skye’s belly. “Neighborly? You call kidnapping neighborly?”

  “I thought we already went over that. Do we need to again?”

  “No!” She didn’t want to hear his asinine reasoning—that she and Kelsey had “volunteered” to go with him.

  “Fine then,” Jack said. “Back to my original question, have you been out and about much?”

  Skye hadn’t realized it until now, but other than her unsuccessful jaunt to retrieve her parents, she hadn’t been further than the superstore since she’d started living on Cole’s Mountain. “No, I haven’t been.”

  “Umm. It’s gotten rough out here. If you think I’m bad . . . well, let’s just say, most often, I’m the good guy.”

  “That’s hard to believe.”

  Jack barked out a laugh. “Kinda mouthy, aren’t you? It’s okay,” he reassured Skye. “I like people with a little spark in ‘em. Too many people walk around here like they’re already dead, and I’m not talking about the Infected and Sick.”

  Questions sat on the tip of Skye’s tongue. If Jack insisted on a conversation, she would at least get some answers.

  “Are there a lot of Infected and Sick now the virus has made its way through the population?”

  “Roaming around? Some, but it seems better.”

  “So, you don’t see many new ones? They said some Infected would take months to show symptoms.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe some Infected have taken to hiding before they totally lose their senses. We used to see their nasty, rotting corpses all over the place. Now, most of those are bones.”

  Jack turned to the driver and said, “You agree, Mark?”

  “Yep, I’d agree with that,” Mark said and nodded.

  Jack resumed his conversation with Skye. “Of course, they still have quite a population in the Containment Centers.”

  Containment Centers. Skye shivered. Early news reports had shown footage of these places. Not a good place then—she couldn’t imagine them now.

  Her cousin Tom knew more about them than she did. From time to time—having no other recourse—he would take an Infected or Sick to the remnant of Army personnel who operated the Centers.

  Once, when she’d asked him about the place, he’d only shaken his head, refusing to answer. She had never asked again.

  “Have you seen one?” Jack asked her.

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re going to see one today.”

  Kelsey’s trembling began again. The girl had a morbid fear of the Centers. While living in the city of Fenton, she’d often hid from the military who swept the area looking for the Sick.

  More than once, Kelsey had seen healthy people pushed into overcrowded trucks, then savagely attacked by the grotesque mob on it.

  The sights and sounds continued to haunt her dreams.

  “We would rather not see the place,” Skye replied to Jack.

  “Me either. It gives me the creeps—to say the least. But it’s unavoidable. We’re meeting some people there—the ones we’re handing you over to.”

  Skye’s stomach lurched. She had assumed Jack was taking her and Kelsey directly to these White Coats.

  “What people?” she barked.

  “I wish I could tell you I knew them well, but they aren’t all that neighborly. It’s pretty much a business arrangement. I hand over the merchandise, and they give me my payment.”

  “Not merchandise. People. You hand over people.”

  “I prefer to think of it as merchandise. Makes the transfer easier for me that way.”

  “Not it. Me. Kelsey and Skye. It is two women you are handing over to unknown people. Do you even know what they will do with us?”

  “I don’t ask. But when they recruited me, they said it was for a cure. Don’t worry. I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Jack said, a sick look coming over his face before turning toward the front of the car.

  Skye clasped her shaking hands. “Tell me what you know about these go-between people.”

  “I said you’d be fine.”

  “Is that what you would tell your wife? Your daughters?”

  He ran a hand through his hair. “I can’t think of that.”

  “It seems, Jack, that there is a lot you can’t think about. Maybe that is something you should consider.”

  When Jack didn’t answer, Skye continued, “You can either be the problem or the solut
ion. We have a society to rebuild, a new way of living. Things can go well, or they can go the way you’d like it to go. People can help one another, or they can hurt each other.”

  Skye gripped the edge of her seat. Was she making any impression at all?

  “Take us back,” she begged. “Be the kind of person who helps others.”

  Mark shot a look at Jack.

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “Shut up.”

  But Skye would not give up. She seemed to have struck a nerve.

  “Do you have a little girl, Jack? What would you do if someone were carrying her away to unknown places for unknown reasons? Kelsey is trembling so hard her teeth chatter. Do you hear them, Jack? Do you hear her trembling?”

  “Shut up! I said, shut up!” Jack’s face reddened, and his hands clenched.

  Skye scooted forward on her seat and pressed him harder. This may be the only chance she’d get.

  “She needs your help, Jack. Yours and Mark’s. Please help her.”

  Jack’s fist flew.

  Pain exploded across Skye’s jaw and cheekbone. Blood ran from her bottom lip. She fell back into her seat, head down and gasping.

  Kelsey screamed.

  “I said, shut up! Only I talk now!” Jack twisted in his seat to face Skye. “Do you understand?”