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  Tracy dropped the other three demons, but she could hear more of them coming off in the distance. Alysia did a quick check on her father and sighed in relief when she saw his eyes blink and then focus to look up at her.

  “Baby girl,” he said, wincing, and she fought back the tears and touched his face.

  “I’m gonna need you to help me out here!” Tracy yelled back at them.

  “Yeah, we have to keep them off us,” James managed to say and then struggled to his stomach and brought the rifle up.

  A large number of demons burst through the trees but were dropped by the gunfire of Tracy and James. Alysia lifted Donald’s rifle and then whispered a prayer as she knelt near her father and readied herself for anything that would try to sneak up on them.

  “Where are the others?” Tracy asked between shots, and Alysia felt foolish for coming out alone.

  “The bunker’s on lockdown, so I had to sneak out,” she lied.

  “Even with us out here dying?” Tracy asked, not believing that the soldiers of the bunker would abandon them to the monsters of the surface. “I find it hard to believe that Jaime would let you come out here by yourself, Alysia. Are you sure?”

  Alysia grew quiet as she shot and caught a demon in the shoulder. She still didn’t have a handle on aiming and the recoil hurt her bicep due to the way she held it. After a while she spoke again, but she hoped that Tracy’s preoccupation with the rushing demons would allow the subject to drop.

  “I came out alone when I saw your text and signal, Tracy. I was worried and wasn’t thinking. Nobody knows I’m out here. They probably think I’m in my room.”

  Tracy didn’t answer her but she could feel the tension in the air from her disappointment. They all kept on shooting until fifteen demons were killed and the air was so thick with the sulfur that they couldn’t bear it.

  “A one woman rescue squad, huh? Okay Rambolinda, Audie Mary, or whatever your real name is. How do you propose we get back to the bunker with your father like that?” Tracy said to her as she closed the distance on them and got in her face.

  “Look, I screwed up. I’m sorry. I can call Jaime and Debdan to bring some help. We aren’t out of options,” Alysia said, desperately hoping that Tracy would believe her.

  “Jimmy, Jimmy, look at me,” Tracy yelled, and she knelt over the big man to shake him awake. “You can’t sleep out here, Jimmy. I know you’re tired and losing blood. Get up, we need to get you walking,” she said to him as she reached down and grasped his massive paw.

  Alysia wondered what had gotten into her to make such a foolish decision as to go after her father alone. She wished she had listened to her instinct when it urged her to get her friends. She reached down and grabbed the crude sword that was lying next to Donald and then untied its scabbard and wrapped it around her waist.

  Tracy made to walk with James towards the trees, away from where the shadow had fled, but he stopped her short and turned around to look at Donald’s body. “Nobody gets left behind, Trace. We can’t allow him to die out here like a dog.” He struggled a bit and held his ribs, but he dug deep and pushed down the pain in order to finish what he was saying. “He is a United States soldier, and a hero. We need to bring him, give him a proper burial, and … honor him.”

  Alysia and Tracy exchanged glances of helplessness at James’s request but they knew it wasn’t up for debate. Alysia used the sword to cut two long, wet branches into staves and then wrapped Donald’s cloak around them to make a hammock of sorts. She and Tracy laid his body on it and secured it as best they could so that he wouldn’t slide off. Tracy then helped James to walk into the woods and Alysia followed, struggling to pull Donald along with her.

  “This isn’t going to work!” She yelled at them as Tracy’s pace grew too much for her to keep up with.

  “What’s the matter, CeeCee? Think we may need some help to pull him? Like say, two young men that have actually gotten some sleep?”

  Alysia ignored the sarcasm and stood her ground as Tracy looked at her with cold blue eyes before sighing loudly and stopping. “Here, help your dad and—”

  “Stop the bickering. I can walk without help,” James said as he shook Tracy’s hand off his shoulder and hobbled forward, away from them. Tracy moved back and grabbed one of the sticks from Alysia as they took to dragging Donald’s corpse behind the wounded Navy Seal.

  It didn’t take very long for the shadow to appear in front of them and force James to stop and pull his rifle from his back. Tracy dropped the stick and moved up next to him with her rifle at eye level, ready to put it down.

  The shadow surrounded them in a matter of seconds and the chill took hold of them. Alysia was experiencing it for the first time so she exhaled a squeal quite loudly as it chilled her to her bones and forced her to drop her gun. Tracy again fought through it and began firing, and James followed her with his own shots, but the demon girl darted through them and came at Alysia with her fingers outstretched.

  Alysia reacted to the charge instinctively and spun with an elbow catching the demon in her nose. The blow stopped her short, but Alysia was already out of the shadowy, cold smoke with the sword free and ready.

  The demon came at her again, leaving the shadows to occupy Tracy and James, but Alysia didn’t wait for her to strike, dashing in so fast that the demon couldn’t react. It was years of Kendo classes, tournaments, and drilling by her father that had given her these reactions.

  The sword was merely an extension of her arm, an extension she was more than familiar with, and she brought the blade down on the demon’s arm, then up again and down on her head with a resounding, “KIYAH!”

  The demon had been wounded but it healed quickly and she slashed at Alysia, who stood with the sword outstretched, expecting that her coup de grace had done its job. She pulled away from the wild gestures of the creature and used the trees to put obstacles between them as she darted one way while swinging the blade and countering. New shots rang past her as James and Tracy fired at the demon with their pistols, and when one of the bullets hit her in the back, the demon decided once again to flee.

  “Whoa, Alysia! Where the hell did that come from?” Tracy said in the particularly boisterous way she did whenever she was excited.

  “I don’t know,” Alysia said, trying to catch her breath. “It just sort of popped up around us. Is that—is that what they turn us into?”

  “No, not where did the demon come from. Where did those crazy, ninja, samurai skills come from?” Tracy asked, ignoring everything Alysia had asked about the demon.

  “You’re standing next to him,” Alysia said as she examined the blade for blood or anything out of the ordinary. “I’m surprised that nasty thing didn’t have acid for blood or something similarly tricky to punish me for cutting her. This blade isn’t even sharp. Were it one of our swords, she’d be split in two pieces. Right, Dad?”

  James smiled at her proudly and nodded his head. “You sure did chop the hell out of her, CeeCee. She would be split for sure if that thing had a proper edge.” He motioned for them to continue walking and Alysia wiped the blood from the sword with the end of her dress and sheathed it. She and Tracy resumed their hauling of Donald’s body and James took point, never allowing his rifle to fall as he stumbled ahead in front of them.

  “I don’t think that’s really a sword,” Tracy said. “It looks like someone just took a flat piece of steel railing and put an edge on it.

  “Yeah, old Donald used to fly a chopper back when he was active,” James said. “Told me that when they shot him down and he was in the bush he took a part of it, gave it a handle and used it to survive. That blade may not have an edge on it, but it’s got history. Said he carried it with him ever since. It saved his life a few more times when he was trying to be a mountain man, and look at that … it saved my CeeCee too.”

  Alysia felt her heart grow heavy with respect for the sword’s history and regretted the words she had spoken into the air about its dull edge. “When we ge
t back I will give it a real edge,” she said, and focused her efforts on pulling the body in cadence with Tracy. She could feel the woman struggling with her side and knew it was exhaustion taking its toll on her, since Tracy was normally very strong.

  They broke out of the woods an hour later and James almost passed out before they could get him to the barracks. They placed Donald near a wall and wrapped him in the cloak while Alysia called Jaime and asked him to bring medical help. It was strangely quiet after that as they watched the sun make its rise and another day of hell slip in. Tracy sat with her father, who hadn’t said anything since they stopped, and Alysia noticed how comfortable she was leaning against him.

  Her father was dying but she didn’t know what to think about the way Tracy was with him. Her mother’s death was still fresh on her mind, and the idea of her father moving on so fast made her want to lash out and cut her. Maybe I’m just imagining it. She looked away from them towards the bunker, her hand on the handle of her makeshift sword, ready for anything that would come.

  3

  “CeeCee,” the voice said. It was so light that Alysia thought she might have imagined it. Her mind would do that to her periodically as she sat next to her father’s bed and like the other times she heard it, she felt the need to investigate.

  Her chair was on the side of her father’s bed, but he faced away from her so she got up and walked over to the other side. James Knight smiled when he saw her face, and it was an effort that seemed to be both pleasing to him and physically painful.

  “Oh, thank God you’re awake,” Alysia said, ignoring the injuries and bandages wrapped around his chest to hug him tightly and kiss his face. “I thought I’d lost you, Dad, but I knew you wouldn’t go out so easily.”

  “I wouldn’t do that to you,” he said with a whisper, and his words forced a painful lump in her throat that ended with tears painfully pushing their way to her eyes. Even with death looming he had fought. Not for himself or for fear of passing, but for his daughter, and it made her feel selfish for the way she had been acting. “I know that you haven’t had much time to grieve your mother. I know it’s not easy.”

  “I’m okay, Dad. It’s not as if you’ve had any time to grieve yourself.”

  “I’ve had plenty of time for reflection, CeeCee. You’ve been ducking and dodging death for many days now. The last thing you need is more grief.”

  “How are you feeling, Dad? Are you in pain?” she asked.

  “I’ll live. How long was I out?” he asked. He looked around the room, taking in the reality that he was lying in a bed inside of the tiny bunker clinic.

  “About a week,” Alysia said, getting up to greet whomever it was she heard outside the door. “I’ve been watching you whenever I can. Visiting to see if I could coax you to stick around in this world with the rest of us that love you.” He was touched by her words and averted his gaze to look up at the ceiling while she answered the door.

  Tracy, who had come up to the clinic to see him, dropped her bag when she saw that he was awake. She ran up to the bed, beaming. “Well if this don’t beat all! I knew that you were too stubborn to die.” And she took James’s hand in hers and held it. “How long has he been up, CeeCee?” she asked.

  “About fifteen minutes now, I think,” Alysia replied, observing the strange connection that Tracy seemed to have with her father.

  “So much love … from everybody,” James managed as weariness took over his body and forced him to close his eyes to will it away. He squeezed Tracy’s hand, grateful that she had come to see him.

  “Oh he’s talking!” she said, and brought his hand up to touch her face. “You deserve all the love in the world, big guy,” she said as Alysia continued to stare at her.

  When Tracy caught her gaze and saw that it wasn’t a look of happiness that was reflected there, she made a questioning gesture and Alysia motioned with her head for them to step outside.

  “I’ll be right back, Dad. I need to tell the doctor that you’re awake,” Alysia said, and then walked over to kiss him again before touching Tracy’s arm and leading her outside of the clinic.

  When she got outside, she placed her back to the door as if she meant to block it. “What’s going on with my Dad, Tracy?” she asked as soon as Tracy turned around to face her.

  “You mean his condition? You saw what happened out there with that demon. Before you came out there we—”

  “I don’t mean his condition; you guys gave me the details. I mean, what’s going on between the two of you?” she said, but then she wanted to look away as Tracy’s eyes hardened. Still, she held her ground despite the gaze and stared at the tall redhead, as if that would force her to come clean.

  Tracy sighed at the question. She couldn’t believe that after everything that had been going on with the monsters, Alysia—an adult herself—was acting like an overprotective child for her father. She didn’t think she had to explain herself to the girl, them being consenting adults after all.

  “There’s nothing going on,” she finally said, letting the hard edge of her voice cut through to Alysia’s senses. “You know, even if there was, I don’t appreciate the attitude. Your dad and I are friends, what? Do I need your permission for that?”

  Her tone and defensiveness made Alysia want to lash back out at her, but then self-doubt snuck in and she wondered if she was wrong for what she assumed was happening. She froze and looked away as she thought on it and then struggled with her words as Tracy looked at her, confused. It seemed like an hour passed before she spoke, but when she did her emotions got the better of her and it came out as a barely audible whisper.

  “I just—I just need you to understand,” she said, and then stopped to compose herself as Tracy watched her, allowing her to finish. “Look Tracy … you can’t date my dad.”

  “By date, I assume you mean ‘like’, right? Or do you mean, ‘love’? Wait,” she said and pretended to find it hysterical. “Do you mean something more primitive and crass, Alysia? You don’t want the dirty police lady to go anywhere near your daddy?”

  Alysia found herself getting upset at Tracy’s mocking tone, but she held it together to finish the thought that she struggled to find the words for. “You’ve done so much for me since the day we met, Tracy, and I mean no disrespect. I look up to you in more ways that you think, but with my dad … what I think I mean is that I’m not ready for him to forget my mother.”

  Tracy couldn’t believe what she was hearing. At first she thought it had something to do with her background, her manner, or something close to racial prejudice that made Alysia stand opposed to the idea of she and James being together. But now she saw that it was her mother’s death.

  It felt like a million years had passed since she’d run into the bedroom to console Alysia over her mother’s passing. That day, she had received the phone call from her father and collapsed into a screaming fit. In reality it had only been about a month, and Tracy felt terrible for the entire situation.

  “CeeCee, your father will never forget your mother, trust me. He talks about her all the time. Their love was the type that you read about in romance novels and you … you are his life. I understand your concern, and I don’t want to lose you as a friend. But know that I care about Jimmy; these last few weeks together has caused us to become close, but it is no different than the closeness we would have if I were a man. I don’t know what else to say.” And she touched Alysia’s shoulder and walked by her to check in on James.

  Alysia stood at the door, brooding, trying to digest what Tracy had told her. She saw a lot more than friendship in their exchange, and she wondered if she had really gotten through to Tracy or if she had merely told her what she wanted to hear.

  She put it out of her mind and walked over to the doctor’s bunker to let him know her father was awake. The door had a makeshift red cross on the door and when she went to knock, it swung open and she could see the big soldier sorting through his supplies and punching in information into the computer
.

  When she walked inside, the big, dark-haired man didn’t turn around. He had the standard buzz cut that one would expect a military man to have and he wore blue fatigues with a stethoscope. “You ladies finish having your lovers spat outside?” he said in a dry, sarcastic tone and Alysia slammed the door to force him to look at her.

  “I got your ladies, Carmichael,” she said, and then gave him the finger when he finally looked at her.

  “Figured I’d get the sexy ginger and not you, chocolate fury. You barely come visit me,” he said as he stood up to face her. “Still, you’ll do. I bet you clean up nice when you’re not trying to play at soldier.”

  She kept staring at him with a slight smile on her face and fierce eyes. She wanted to show him that his words were meaningless, but she knew that it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing could slow down the tongue of PFC. Tony Carmichael Jr., the combat medic turned bunker doctor.

  “Do you ever shut up, Tony? My dad’s awake. I wonder how he would take to his daughter being called ‘chocolate fury’ by a douchebag like you.”

  “You know you love the way I talk to you,” he said to her and his wink caused her to roll her eyes.

  “Keep on trying me, it will never happen,” she said as she gave him a long glance. She wanted it to confuse him, but she didn’t wait to see his reaction as she went back in to check on her father.

  Tracy was still there and they were holding hands. Alysia noticed that they were talking in hushed voices and it brought back the feelings of betrayal within her. She had always admired Tracy but now that she was involved with her father—which was obvious by the way they looked at one another—it felt too much like a violation for her to ignore. She was a bit disappointed in her father; he was hurt and in recovery but he could have sent her away. He was just as bad as his red-haired “friend.”