Find Me: Lost And Found Part 9

He was half-tempted to rouse Riley and point out the person, who apparently hadn't noticed them huddled under the grove of trees. But he was certain it was a man and he was quickly blending into the background, shrinking to just a dot in the distance. By the time she awoke enough to see clearly, the man would be gone.

More survivors, he thought. There are more of us.

That should have made him feel better but it didn't. He was traveling with two women in a world stripped of laws and protectors. Riley knew he'd lay his life down for her and even for Kris...but would he be enough to protect her if they came face to face with what she was searching for.

Mariah was dead. She had to be. Sacrificed by her selfish louse of a brother. The men that took her didn't want her for a trophy. The men that abducted Kris tried to break her and when that didn't work; they ripped her nearly to pieces. Too much time pa.s.sed for Riley to get the answers she sought, he was sure of it. But now his fears were coming true - others were out there.

There would be no sleeping for him tonight. Connor rolled onto his side to watch Riley as she slept. Only the stars lit the sky, so he could just make out the shape of her face. He didn't need light to see the curve of her lips or how her dark lashes looked as they rested against her sun-kissed cheekbones. Many nights when he was afraid to fall asleep and dream about the young son he knew to be dead, he would trace her features with his eyes, memorizing every inch of her beauty. It was the only thing that allowed him to smile in the mornings - waking up next to Riley.

Kris sighed in her sleep before turning onto her back. He listened as her breathing regulated and only then, when he knew them both to be safely and soundly asleep did he roll over to watch the street again. More men could be out there. And if they were, Connor would be the first to see them.

CHAPTER thirteen.

"Did you sleep at all last night?" I asked Connor as he scratched his fingers absentmindedly at the base of his neck beneath his wavy hair. In the morning suns.h.i.+ne, the russet coloring showed tints of red here and there, making his hair seem to glow at the right angle.

"I got enough. Do you remember your dreams from last night?"

"My dreams? No, why?"

"You tossed and turned a lot, like you were having bad dreams." He sipped on his small tin cup.

I didn't remember a nightmare. "Sorry, my mind is a blank,"

"Small favors." He winked and pa.s.sed me his cup. "Drink up; we have a long day ahead of us."

With a salute, I blew the steam off the top of the cup before taking a sip. The black coffee was unpleasantly strong. But it would wake me up and get me going - something that was becoming harder and harder to do at six in the morning after sleeping on the ground fitfully for half the night.

Kris was already dressed for the day and eagerly rubbing the horses down with her hands. She scratched under their manes, around their ears and down their sides until they were jittery with excitement. She had a way with them and the horses had bonded with her most of all. All she had to do was click her tongue and they would follow her around like excited puppies. The most I got with my tongue clicks was a snort or two, or an impatient swish of the tail.

After turning away from Kris and the horses, I caught Connor staring up the street near where we had camped out. The wind whipped at my loose hair as I approached him, sliding my hand inside his.

"What are you looking at?" I leaned into Connor's hip.

"Just...it's nothing. Just staring off into s.p.a.ce I guess."

"Really?" Pulling back, I peered up into his face. "You look far too serious for someone just s.p.a.cing out."

"Guess I'm anxious to get a move on. You girls almost ready?" he asked without looking down at me.

"Almost, Kris is just fawning over the horses for a bit. Give us a few minutes, okay?"

"Sure."

I moved away from him, letting his hand slowly fall from mine. When my arm dropped back down to my side, Connor said over his shoulder, "Riley?"

"Yeah?"

His eyes twinkled in the dawn like wet slate. "You look beautiful this morning, baby."

Sunny did not like the City. We stopped for lunch after only a few hours to give her a chance to decompress a bit. She was wound up and unable to relax, like something was bothering her. Foxy was her usual finicky self, however.

We were halfway to the coast and off the highway by the time the clouds rolled in. North of Escondido was packed b.u.mper to b.u.mper with civilian and military vehicles alike. There were more signs of fires and destruction along the way but it wasn't clear when the damage had been done. All we knew was that none of it was recent. It made sense to stay off the highway and the side roads weren't too bad, though it felt as if we were traveling through a town that had been deserted since the seventies. Gra.s.ses grew up through cracks in the concrete, turning into weeds many months before. Some reached straight up into the sky as tall as the horses and others spread out along the concrete into scraggly bushes. The horses would jump every time the wind would rattle through the dry weeds, causing the raspy foliage to drag across the ground. I personally found the sound comforting - it went together well with the clomping of the horse hooves.

Sometime before the end of that third day, Kris announced her iPod battery had died. I thought the silence might end up killing her but eventually she struck up a conversation with Connor. I listened to the two of them talk about his movies, his favorite characters and how much money he actually made. The figures he pulled in from his last blockbuster film astounded me. The other's found it funny that I didn't know who he was but it didn't surprise me. Sure, I had seen his face a time or two, but I wasn't a movie buff. Lifestyles of the rich and famous never interested me. But I was slightly embarra.s.sed to know so little about his past when everyone else was so familiar with it.

"You were rich enough to buy yourself a small island," I laughed nervously. Money meant nothing to us anymore of course, yet it still felt awkward discussing his success. It made our relations.h.i.+p feel more like a fairytale and less like it really happened. That someone like Connor would ever end up with someone like me just wasn't meant to be.

"Maybe. But remember, I'm from an island, why buy one?" he laughed back. "Hey, look over there...see what I see?"

Kris and I followed his nod to our right and spotted the trees instantly. We were trained to look for food, especially fresh food. Small yellow fruits weighed down the branches of a tree, not much taller than the property fence it hid behind. The pet.i.te and round fruits were cl.u.s.tered around the branches in such large numbers it was hard to imagine it had ever been picked clean at one time.

"I've seen those before but I don't remember what they're called. Funny looking fruits, if you ask me," Connor said as I dismounted Foxy.

"I love these things, they're called Loquats. My grandparents used to have a tree in their backyard," I said while standing on my toes and pulled the closest branch down to my face. "It must have bloomed early...don't usually see the fruits till after the New Year."

"Loquats?" Connor mumbled.

"Kris, throw me your bag...I'll fill us up," I said with a grin.

I grabbed on a cl.u.s.ter and pulled, dropping the loose fruits into the front pocket of Kris's bag. By the time I had finished filling the pocket, my hands were covered in a downy powder-like residue. As I wiped them clean onto the thighs of my jeans, a fat drop of water splatted onto the brim of my hat, making a tapping sound on the thick, woven material. When I looked up into the darkening sky, another raindrop landed on the center my cheek.

"Looks like we're going to get wet. We need to find somewhere to put the horses," I sighed over my shoulder, swinging the bag up to Kris. We moved quickly, letting the horses trot until we came across an apartment complex with covered parking spots.

Connor dismounted first, pulling Sunny into the small lot behind him. It was too dark outside with the rain clouds to see into the nearby apartments, so we tied the horses to the frame of the driveway awning and peered into the windows that flanked the front door of the unit closest to the parking lot. The room we looked into was a modest kitchen - clean and empty. The only thing out of sorts was that half the cupboards hung ajar, as if they'd been riffled through quickly and emptied. I still had my face up against the window when Connor jiggled the doork.n.o.b, opening the unlocked door with ease.

"Huh. It's open...should we go in, dry off a bit?" he asked.

It was a silly question, really. Kris and I stood on the front stoop, s.h.i.+vering and looking like a pair of drowned rats in cowboy hats. I shoved him inside and closed the door after Kris pa.s.sed over the threshold. The apartment smelled old, like dusty carpet but thankfully not like a dead person.

"No one died here," I said under my breath.

"How do you know?" Kris asked, glancing around the small kitchen and attached dinette nervously.

"We'd be able to smell them," I said with disgust. The decomposing flesh of a person was a sickening stench that all of us remembered well. It was a sweet, rotten smell that overwhelmed every sense of the body. One did not forget it easily.

"Right." She breathed out a long sigh of relief and collapsed onto the loveseat that sat below the wide front window. A small cloud of dust bloomed up around her before settling. "Ewww," she coughed, waving at her face.

"There are probably towels or sheets somewhere. I'll go look for them." I dropped our bedrolls onto the carpet and kicked them up against the wall. It felt good to be indoors, even if it was in a dusty apartment belonging to a stranger.

I found several sets of queen-sized sheets and four towels in a narrow hall closet. After draping one over the modest loveseat, stripping, and remaking the bed in the back of the apartment, I plopped down beside Kris, who was kneeling on the small couch nervously looking out the window. The horses were standing shoulder to shoulder, apparently sleeping.

"They'll be fine out there, don't worry," I said to her before dropping my head back onto the cus.h.i.+on. "d.a.m.n, I'm tired."

"And hungry, no doubt," Connor said from the kitchen. He went through the whole room and came up empty handed. Our food spread out on the round dining table didn't create any sort of appet.i.te either. I looked with resignation at the granola, cereal bars, two apples, a few oatmeal cookies, three bruised tomatoes and more loquats then we knew what to do with.

"Kris, why don't you take the apples out to the horses?"

She jumped off the couch and s.n.a.t.c.hed them from the table before Connor had a chance to object. "They need to eat something other than weeds, Connor...we'll find more tomorrow," I said.

"Tomorrow? So, are we staying here tonight?" He sat down beside me and dumped a handful of the fresh fruit onto my lap. I rubbed one against my s.h.i.+rt until it s.h.i.+ned.

"Why not? We need a break and we need shelter from the rain. I'd rather not spend the next twelve hours sitting in wet clothes."

Connor popped a loquat into his mouth and just as I began to warn him, he spit the partly chewed fruit out into his hand. "d.a.m.n, why didn't you tell me there's seeds the size of rocks in here!"

I laughed loudly while nibbling the sides off one of the yellow orbs. "I was just about to but you beat me to it. You didn't break a tooth, did you?"

Kris walked back inside, shaking water droplets off her arms. The cold followed her in before she had a chance to close the door. "The apples weren't enough. I thought Sunny was going to eat my s.h.i.+rt," she sighed.

"We'll find something more for them tomorrow," I promised.

"Are we almost there?" Connor asked, s.h.i.+fting to make room for Kris on the sofa.

"Less than two days, unless the weather sticks around for more than a few hours," I answered.

"Good, the sooner we get there - the sooner we can head back home. I want my own bed."

Taking one of the throw pillows from beneath my arm, I swung it hard into his face until I was satisfied by his grunts of protest.

We have this little piece of the park all to ourselves for the time being. Shannon lays on my right in her 'I love Music' t-s.h.i.+rt and cut off shorts with one hand above her head twirling a piece of my hair between her fingers. Dean squirms around on my left. His jeans are cuffed several times, exposing his pale feet and ankles. He wiggles a foot at me and I smile at the blade of gra.s.s that is lodged between his two smallest toes.

"Look at that one," Shannon sighs.

I turn my attention back to the task at hand, staring intently up at the cloudy sky. The shapes move slowly, merging and separating fluidly. The day is humid and overcast - the perfect kind of day for cloud watching.

"Hmm...I see...a snowman with a top hat on."

Shannon giggles and s.h.i.+fts on the picnic blanket. "A snowman? I see a giant mushroom," she laughs.

"Wearing a top hat?"

"Mushroom's don't wear hats, Mommy!" Dean exhales loudly and hooks a dirt-streaked foot over my knee.

"Well, what do you see?" I ask him.

"I see an ice cream cone!"

Shannon groans.

"One scoop or two?" I tickle his side with my finger.

"Two!"

"Dean! You always see ice cream!" Shannon laughs.

The clouds begin to roll above us, darkening until they look like iron balloons - t.i.tans of cold metal in the sky. I sit up quickly, scrambling to my feet to take in the vast show above us. When I reach down for the children - they aren't there.

"Shannon, Dean?" I spin in a circle, seeing nothing but rolling gra.s.s and trees.

A shrill scream echoes around the tree line and I squint into the dreary day shadows in an attempt to locate the source of the sound. "Where are you two?"

The sky answers by ripping itself into pieces, dumping torrents of icy water onto my head as it falls to the earth in colossal amounts. I'm drenched in a second, wet through my clothes and instantly chilled to the bone. As I sprint to the nearest tree, wiping my dripping hair from my eyes, I search for the kids. Where are they, where have they gone?

The jagged bark of the tree feels rough under my hand while I rest but I only slightly feel it beneath my frozen skin. In a panic, I scream their names into the storm. My voice barely a whisper over the sudden downpour. They're lost. My eyes flood with a mixture of tears and rain water as they dart from one still form to the next, seeing nothing but the disquieted forest around me. I have to find them.

A sound drifts between the heavy sprinkles, "Mommy..."

"Where are you?" I scream, lost in the darkness of the storm.

I push off the tree and take three steps before the sky above cracks like a whip. A jolt of electricity from behind throws me forward onto my hands and knees. The rain ceases as I look over my shoulder and I see that lightning has struck an oak, jaggedly slicing it down the middle. It stands open and gutted - the trunk aglow with bright red flames. While I scoot backwards in the mud a hand reaches out from the blaze, followed by a face I recognize.

"You set us free, Mommy...," she says in a sing-song voice.

"No..." I sob, "Shannon...no!"

Her hand stretches out toward me and hovers just inches from my face before her whole being bursts into orange embers - some floating up away on the breeze, others settling onto the wet earth at my feet. I blink at her ashy remains while the tree roars to life; the branches spewing flames into the air like fireworks.

I sat up so suddenly that I nearly rolled off the edge of the unfamiliar bed. Although it wouldn't help steady the rushed beating of my heart, I clutched at my chest with one hand and gripped the edge of the mattress with the other. The dream felt so real that I reached up to touch my hair - certain it would be dripping wet with rain water. When my trembling fingers came back dry, I released a choked breath of relief.

Beside me, Kris lay in the fetal position, wrapped up in her sleeping bag, obliviously lost in her own dream world. I blinked at her, for a moment forgetting why she was there and not Connor but then I remembered where we were.

I got up quietly, slipping my socked feet into my shoes before stepping out into the narrow hall. Connor's sleeping form lay draped across the loveseat. Safe. He was safe. With a sigh, I leaned over him to peer outside. The horses stood where we left them, underneath the covered car park.

Though it was dark outside, I could tell from the coloring of the sky that dawn was on its way. The dream was fresh and stacked up like a tower inside my brain - waiting to be climbed. But there was coffee to make and a day to plan. Nightmares weren't new, yet something kept nagging at me and by the time the coffee was percolating, I knew it was important not to forget. After fumbling around in the poorly lit kitchen, until I found a pen and a sc.r.a.p of paper, I scribbled the words down before shoving it into my back pocket.

You set us free.

CHAPTER fourteen.