Rowan Steele - The Dying Light

“They’ll try. But, I don’t want to put my future, my safety, in anyone else’s hands, not even theirs,” she said.

Jack appreciated the sentiment. He shared the same one. One thing he hated more than anything was being dependent, so he could appreciate her desire not to be.

“And where will I come in with that?” he asked.

“You will be able to teach me a few things, just-in-case stuff that’ll keep me for however long this is going on.”

“Cassandra, I don’t know what I can teach you,” he said.

“We can work that out. We’ll get to town and see what’s there, but I’m just asking for little bit more of your time. Can you give me that?” she asked.

“I can’t make any promises,” he said.

She looked momentarily disappointed but seem to shake it off and then nodded.

“Fair enough. But think about it okay?”

“I can give you that much,” he said.

She nodded again and then grabbed the bike.

“I cleaned some of the grime off the spokes, pumped up the back tires. Do you think we can make the rest of the trip today?” she asked.

“It’s about twenty-five miles, right?” he asked.

“Thereabouts.”

“Then we should be able to make it, depending on how the terrain is,” he said.

“Good,” she said.

Jack shared her relief.

The journey had gone far more smoothly than he had expected, but he was ready to be off the road. Their luck wouldn’t hold out, or at the very least he didn’t want to count on it doing so. Which meant they needed to get somewhere and get her settled so that he could be on his way.

“Give me five, and we’ll get going,” he said.

Cassandra nodded and then walked around the tree, the chirping of the morning birds and brightness of the sun giving the woods of serenity that he knew was complete facade.

As she began to pack up their camp, he took care of his morning activities, took a few sips of the water, and tried to rinse out his mouth as best he could.

He wasn’t a prima donna, not by a long shot, but he really wanted a shower. Maybe soon.

In the meantime, he would think about Cassandra’s question.

In a lot of ways, it was admirable. She recognized an area of weakness and was trying to correct it.

But on the other, her attempt to do so was putting him in a place where he would have to stay longer than he wanted to.

It was getting him more involved.

And Jack reminded himself that he was done being involved. He knew exactly how that would end.

Cassandra might not know how to do shit, and while Jack knew that he did and that knowledge had helped him out before, he was skeptical that it would help her.

But, on the other hand, he really couldn’t help but admire her desire to change that.

Most people wouldn’t even have the foresight to ask such a thing.

He could picture it now, people all across what he now suspected was America, maybe the world, waking up one day to total chaos.

How many would just give up and die?

In a lot of ways, he couldn’t blame them. The world was never for the weak, and that couldn’t be truer now.

Cassandra wasn’t waiting, or even hoping as far as he could tell, for someone to come and help her. She accepted and seemed to understand that wasn’t going to happen. So she was being proactive, asking for help in the way she knew how.

But, as much is Jack might have respected that, and he certainly did respect it, he wasn’t sure he could be person who did that.

He worked alone, always alone, and what Cassandra was asking wasn’t something he could teach in an afternoon.

“Do you hear that?” she asked.

They’d been on the road for about three hours now, and the sun was getting higher in the sky.

Jack hadn’t heard it, admonished himself for being so distracted, and then listened.

“Over here! Help!”

He heard the scream off in the distance and looked to Cassandra who was looking toward it.

“I hear you!” she said.

Then, without looking back at him she pedaled away, moving hard and fast toward the scream.

“Wait!” he yelled.

She didn’t look back, and instead of slowing down, she pedaled faster, the wheels of her bike kicking up dust behind her.

“Cassandra!” Jack called.

She didn’t slow and again started to pedal faster.

“Dammit!” he muttered.

Then he started pedaling after her.

That would be her first lesson he decided.

She was being foolhardy, and he hoped it wouldn’t get both of them killed.

Cassandra skidded to a stop and hopped off her bike. It fell to the ground, forgotten immediately as Cassandra walked farther down the path.

He couldn’t quite see her face, but as he got closer he saw what she was looking at. A person kneeling down on the ground, rocking back and forth.

And then, in an instant, that person wasn’t rocking.

He had stood, and from the height and shape of the figure, Jack was pretty confident it was a he.

But the one who stood wasn’t his concern.

Instead he focused on the person next to him, the one with the shotgun pointed directly at Cassandra.

“Don’t move,” Jack said.

Cassandra froze, though the order wasn’t directed at her.

Still, there was something in his voice that kept her from moving.

It appeared to have the same effect on the two men that stood across from her.

Later—if there was a later—Cassandra would kick her own ass for being so stupid. She was operating under the old rules, the ones that said when someone sounded hurt you went to them.

And now they were in this situation.

The flare gun and flashlight from the ranger’s office were in her pack, but they may as well be in the Grand Canyon. To get to them, they would have to go through the two men, and the shotgun that was currently trained on her made that seem unlikely.

“I would ask that you do the same,” one of the men said.

Though he spoke, Cassandra was certain he wasn’t the one in charge.

Rather, she looked at the other, the older of the two, though not by much. He was filthy—Cassandra would have called him slovenly—and his dark eyes had a sliminess that she couldn’t mistake, one that made her stomach drop.

“So, what now?” Jack asked.

If she hadn’t been busy trying to keep her knees from buckling, she would have looked at Jack, wondered at how he sounded so calm and composed when she was on the verge of breaking down.

But she didn’t dare look away.

The gun was still trained on her, and more importantly, she got the awful sense that it would do her no favors to take her eyes off the other man.

What she would do if it came to that, she wasn’t sure.

For now, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“I ask the questions here,” the older of the two said.

“Fair enough,” Jack responded.

He slowly lowered his hands, and though the younger man appeared to want to argue, he stayed quiet.

“You don’t look like locals,” he said.

“Just passing through,” Jack said.

“This is a toll road,” he said.

“Got nothing to trade,” Jack responded.

“I disagree,” the older man said.

The shiver that ran down Cassandra’s spine threatened to shake her entire body, but she fought the feeling back. She’d been in enough prisons to know how these dominance games worked, and she wouldn’t let these two cow her. It didn’t matter how she felt on the inside, how terrified and how stupid, what mattered was what they saw on the outside.

And all they would see from her was pure, unyielding calm.

Her eyes still on the younger man, the one with the gun, she lowered her hands, risking a quick glance out of the corner of her eye at Jack and adjusting her stance to match his.