A Whisper in the Flame (The Ragers Series Book 1) Read online

  He starts to get out from under the covers, still exhausted from little sleep. When he stands up wearing nothing but boxers, we both quickly divert our eyes, embarrassed by our lack of clothes.

  "I'll grab my things and go back to my room," he mumbles.

  “Uh huh. Yep.” Is all I can manage. I cannot help but watch his muscles contour with him as he leans over the bed reaching for the jeans and shirt he has neatly folded in the corner. He catches me staring at him as he stands back up and I immediately turn beet red.

  I turn my back to him in utter humiliation, hoping he will hurry up and get out. When he does leave, I can feel my body temperature drop back down a few degrees.

  In the kitchen there is a shriek of laughter from Kye and Jamie. I hear Jake respond with a "Shut up!" before hearing a door down at the other end of the hallway slam closed.

  Uh! Great. I lay back on the bed and throw my hands out. I can't believe that within a day of meeting these people I nearly bared it all to the brother of the girl who saved me, and have already managed to completely embarrass myself.

  By the time I am dressed and have my hair brushed out, Jamie has breakfast ready in the kitchen and calls down the hall for me. She flashes a gentle smile at me when I walk into the kitchen and hands me a bowl. Behind her smile, I can see the laughter sneaking through.

  "Here, sit and eat, we have a lot of items to finish sorting and get out to the bunker."

  "Thank you.".

  "Jake, come on, let's eat," she calls down the opposite hall to him.

  "I'm coming." When he emerges from the hallway this time, he is fully dressed. There must be another restroom because his hair is wet and brushed over. We make eye contact for a brief second before looking away, an interaction to which Kye notices and snorts loudly with laughter. Jake and Jamie both shoot daggers at him at the same time though, and he immediately quiets, eating his oatmeal with a sly smile playing on his lips.

  "Jamie, I do have a second pair of clothes in my backpack, do you mind if I add that to whatever else needs to be washed?"

  "Yeah, no problem. Honestly, I can't believe you had the mind to bring an extra pair with you," she replies.

  "I probably wouldn't have. It was all my mom. Much better planner than I am."

  She nods her head and adds, "We can do laundry after putting supplies away."

  After breakfast we load some of the supplies into the little wagon I saw yesterday that was holding water. Most of the supplies have already been divided and organized. Our first round is ammo for guns, matches, gas, arrowheads, wires and cables, tough ropes, nails, and a few other items you would find at a hardware store.

  Jamie leads the way to the bunker while Kye pulls the heavy wagon and Jake carries big containers of gasoline. I try to stay near Jamie as we walk through the clearing towards a field of overgrown grass, avoiding eye contact and continued conversation with Jake.

  We are now about 20 feet from the house, about 5 feet from the tree line of the forest, when Jamie stops in her tracks and bends down to the ground. I nearly trip over her but Kye catches my arm stopping me.

  "You sure are a clumsy one, aren't you?" he asks, with the same maddening smirk that seems to be a common place mark on his face.

  "What gave it away?" I reply acerbically. Kye laughs in return. "What are you doing?" I ask Jamie.

  Without a word, she stands back up and smiles at me. Confused, I look down to see part of the earth is moved. Their bunker is concealed by a grass covered door. The door is slid to the side of the entrance, similar to how you would open a sewage hole.

  "Whoa, this thing is truly hidden," I say, amazed as Jamie starts to walk down the steep stairs into the bunker. I follow her down reaching the bottom step as she turns on a light that floods the space.

  “Wow.” I gasp, once in the open space of the bunker. The stone walls store more than what I was expecting. I knew I could expect the walls full of storage that wrap around the back half of the room. It’s filled with guns, ammo, food, some clothing, and blankets. Two lounge chairs sit across from a two-seater sofa.

  What I did not expect, was the small kitchen directly in front of me. A small table hangs in the corner from the wall with two seats in front of it. A fridge is on the table’s other side and then a small counter space and sink function as a divider between the kitchen and the couch.

  On the opposite wall is a door, and beyond that is a curtain sectioning off part of the room. "We try to keep it pretty well stocked, but since we have already raided a lot of the closest towns it has been harder and harder to find supplies." Jamie says, pulling me out of my amazed stare.

  Jake starts coming down the stairs carrying both huge containers of gasoline, and Jamie and I rush to grab one from him, so he does not slip down the stairs. We carry it to the corner with another smaller container of gas that feels like it is more than half empty. Kye is bringing down bags of his supplies and restocking the shelf with ammo.

  "Who uses the crossbow?" I ask.

  "Jamie," Kye responds proudly. "Babe's got an awesome shot."

  Jamie smiles and winks at me. "We never use it. I have it for just in case circumstances. I think last time I did use it was when Jake and Kye were teaching Anna and I fighting tactics. If it comes down to it and I no longer have a gun, though, I could easily save these guy's asses with this baby," she says, smirking as she pats the bow.

  We continue our work, making our way back and forth from the house to the bunker. Unloading food and other supplies and re-loading some of the food that has been in the bunker for a while to bring back into the trailer. It takes us a nearly half the day before we are finished.

  After lunch, Jamie and I do laundry, clean up in the house a bit, and then we begin pulling in more pails of water from the well. Kye tells me that water has to be brought up and sanitized on almost a daily basis to make sure they have enough to drink, cook with and shower with. By the time we finish, nearly forty minutes later, my arms are weak from the effort it takes and the weight of the water.

  "Emma, seriously. You've got to work on your strength," Jamie teases. "We typically only bring in those who can actually help us become stronger as a unit, not those who make us weaker."

  "Ouch... I'm sorry I don't have any upper body strength," I say, a little stung, but realizing that even now I’m struggling to pull the wagon filled with buckets of water.

  "Yeah, I can see that." She rolls her eyes at me before shoving me out of the way and pulling the wagon up towards the house.

  Ignoring her teasing, I walk in stride with her while looking around for the guys. Jake and Kye are currently refilling the gasoline in the generator. "How often do you have to refill the generator?" I ask, pausing, watching Jake tip the heavy container of gas while Kye fills a hole in the earth.

  "Typically, we have to refill on a bi-weekly basis. Then we have to have gas for the vehicles as well. And the guys want to get the four-wheeler working again, so we’ll need gas for it as well. With what we have stored up right now... we probably will need to go on another run in about a month. Kye and Jake will do some hunting so that will help keep us good on food.

  "Where would we go? Haven't you searched everything close by?"

  "We would have to drive a bit, which of course will take even more gas. We've got time though. I'm not sure I'm up for another trip any time soon." Jamie's eyes have suddenly gone dark. Her light blue eyes show a sadness behind them and I know where it's coming from.

  "Jamie? If you'd like, I can finish taking the water inside and boiling it that way you can go lie down."

  "Are you sure?" her voice cracks.

  "Please, you've done so much for me in such a short amount of time. I can't thank you enough. Maybe giving you some peace and time for yourself could be a start. I've got this, go rest."

  "Thank you, I'm going to go talk to the guys really quick and then I'll go inside."

  I nod my head to her before she walks towards Jake and Kye, happy that I could give her a mome
nt to process everything. I have no idea how I would be so cordial to me if I was in her shoes. She lost her friend, in an effort to save me, but she isn't placing the blame on me. She's trying her best to keep going. I admire that so much. But I also know, she needs time.

  I lift the first pail out of the wagon and carry it up the short staircase and into the old mobile home. Placing it on the counter, I begin searching the cabinets for a pot I can place on the stove to boil the water in.

  Jake and Jamie come back inside as I find two large black pots in a bottom cabinet and pop back up above the countertop.

  "Thank you, Emma for doing this," Jamie says sincerely to me. "I appreciate it." This part she almost growls at Jake. She turns her back on me and walks down the hall to her room, closing the door loudly after giving me a look that I can't quite read.

  I pull the pail across the counter, closer to me and lift it to the first pot, pouring the contents from one container to the next. Jake's eyes are on me, trying to read me or judge me so I do my best not to squirm.

  "What are you doing?" his voice is intense, untrusting.

  "I'm boiling water. What does it look like?"

  "It looks like you’re trying to have time by yourself to search for something or spy on us."

  "Are you kidding me?" I turn facing him. A searing heat rises inside as I glare at him. "Your sister lost a friend yesterday."

  "Yeah, I know--"

  "Well then are you blind? She needs time to grieve. To be by herself and feel her emotions. I apologize for trying to be a good, thankful human being towards the people who literally saved my life and took me in."

  "Look, I'm sorry. But I don't know you, therefore, I don't trust you. You can try to say that you were trying to be a good person, but from what I've seen, there aren't many left. Just so you know, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my family; so watch yourself."

  "You don't have to worry about me. I'll help out while I'm here, but I'll be out of your hair before you know it." I turn away from him and adjust the burner to high heat, feeling my own heat rise all the way to my face.

  I hear the door click closed as Jake goes outside and my frustration spills over. I drop my arms to the counter placing my head in my hands. I shouldn't have come here. I should have told Jamie "Thanks, but no thanks" and went off on my own.

  You know what? No. Forget him! He can't make me feel like the enemy. I'm not it. The government is the only enemy right now; and while I don't know how yet, I'm going to bring them down.

  Right now, though, I do need Jamie and her family. I need food and a safe place to live. I need time to dig into Jake and Kye's military experience and to learn as much as I can about their time on base.

  I grit my teeth, rising off the counter and standing tall. Jake can doubt me and not trust me all he wants. I'm going to prove him wrong in the end.

  By the time the sun is setting, all of the water has been boiled and brought to their designated place. I put half in the fridge and half in the tank Kye shows me for the shower water.

  When I walk inside from the tank, Jamie is up in the kitchen preparing dinner. I slug forward to the living room, feeling completely exhausted. My muscles twitch trying to keep propelling me forward even once I've plopped onto the old, ragged couch. My hands feel swollen and puffy and my back aches from lifting so much. My head is heavy and tired and the only thing I want to do other than eat, is sleep. For two days straight.

  "Emma?" My eyes snap open to Jake looking down at me. "Did I wake you?"

  "What? No. Nope-- No, I was resting... what can I do for you?"

  "Can we talk? In private?"

  "He wants to interrogate you again, Emma," Jamie glowers from the kitchen. "He wants to see if he can make heads or tails of you to see if you can actually be trusted."

  "Babe, you know we can't invite random people in," Kye stands near her, leaning back against the countertop. "What if she leads them to us?"

  "It's fine." I rise up from the couch, almost knocking heads with Jake. "Lead the way."

  "Come on," he walks me down the hall into his bedroom, holding the door open for me before closing it behind us. His room is slightly bigger than Jamie's with his bed in the middle, half blocking both of the two windows in his room. The windows are covered with dark blackout curtains, nailed above the frame so no light can trickle in.

  His closet door is open, and I can see a camouflage Army uniform hanging neatly in the corner. Other t-shirts and clothing, including a pair of hunting pants with a reflector strip at the bottom hang among his items.

  One corner of his room features a desk and a chair, which he motions me to sit at. The desk has a small spiral notebook with a list written on the open page and a map with big black X's over certain town names.

  Jake reaches over me, folding and closing the map and notebook. He slides them in the drawer of his old oak desk while I look on, pursing my lips as he does so.

  When he's finishes, he moves around to the edge of his bed, sitting to face me. I turn in my chair to look him in the face, giving him a stern expression.

  "Let's start with before--"

  "Before the vaccination was released. I was in middle school." Sarcasm oozes out of my mouth.

  He cocks his head to one side, soaking in my sarcasm and returning a blank look to me instead. "Yeah, I meant before you left."

  "I was a senior in high school, turned 18 a couple of months ago. My parents worked at the lab, but my brother and dad were drafted into the Army last summer."

  "So, you do have a tie to the military," he states matter-of-factly.

  "Yes. As do you. But it's not what you think. We didn't hear from them for six months until a few days before I got out of town. We received a letter saying my brother tried to escape, killed someone in the process and was executed. So, yeah, my relationship with the military isn't exactly a great one.

  "Was that letter the reason you left?"

  "Part of it. Mom was convinced they would come for us next. She thought Dad would have reached out to us if he was alive. We went to a safe room in my best friend's house to hide. Sirens started going off, so we turned on the news once we got inside.

  “The news anchor was saying that that there was an outbreak downtown. All military personnel were moved there to help contain it and everyone was told to get home or to a safe place to wait for further news.

  “You know," I drop forward, placing my elbows on my knees and furrowing my eyebrows in thought, "It was strange. They stopped her. Like mid newscast, mid-sentence; when she was talking about how the virus is spreading and changing."

  "How did they stop her?" Jake's voice is strong in his questioning as he watches me intently with a raised brow.

  "Someone yelled in her ear and then two men picked her up, kicking and screaming and carried her away. The screen cut out and went to the news channel's logo."

  "Wow," is all he can muster, as he mulls over everything, I tell him.

  "The news came back on the air a few minutes later but it was the same newscast on repeat. At least up until the part where they told us to stay put. They had it on loop."

  "It sounds like they were trying to keep you all from running away. They didn't want everyone getting scared and scattering. What happened next?"

  "My best friend, Lauren and her mom, came to the house and called the hospital to check on her dad. He was taking Proprevilation. But he was doing well, they kept him in quarantine to be safe. The person on the other end of the phone said that the hospital was being evacuated and they would come and get Lauren and Mrs. Wells, but they would have to stay in quarantine with her dad. They agreed to it.

  "Mom didn't trust it. She tried to convince them not to go. We stayed locked in the cellar while Lauren and her mom went up to leave..." I stop talking, looking down into my hands.

  Breathe. My emotions are starting to overflow and grief and regret wash over me.

  Jake is patient. More so than I expected. He gives me time to pull myself t
ogether again and find my voice.

  "There was a whole group of them. We heard them searching the house. They argued with Lauren's mom and knocked her out. They took Lauren. When we came up into the kitchen, Mrs. Wells was laying on the floor unconscious. We realized that they had shot her in the neck with the virus. And I don't mean the medication, I mean straight mutated virus. She started changing the moment she woke up, probably before that.

  "And it wasn't just her. They did it to my entire neighborhood. When my mom and I went to the lab, her boss was the only one who wasn't turned. He was collaborating with them, turning the employees and shoving them away in a locked room to kill each other."

  "And for what?" Jake's voice is cold and his eyes narrow as he thinks, "It was probably a lie. They most likely promised him immunity and told him they'd come back for him, when instead they probably left him there to die."

  "He got her with the virus. But before that, we learned that Dad was sending us messages all along and that he was still alive. He sent messages through his work emails but left them as drafts. That's how I found out about the cure."

  "I'm sorry you had to go through all of that. Losing so much so fast." His steel eyes find mine. The untrusting look that they held before has changed into understanding and sympathy.

  "I stayed downtown in some apartment for a month before needing to venture out for food. That's where I met Jamie and Anna. That's it, Jake. That's where my Before ends." I didn't anticipate how much was going to be taken out of me by retelling my story. I had a million questions I wanted to ask but now I'm as emotionally exhausted as I am physically. My brain feels like it can no longer string together a cohesive thought,

  Jake leans forward, placing his hand over mine and squeezing it gently before releasing, "You look like you could use some food and a good night's rest. Let's go back out there and eat."

  "Thank you. And I meant what I said before, I won't stay long. I just need a little time to come up with a plan. I have to get onto the base. I need to get back to my dad."