Until We End Read Free Page A

to.”
    I froze in a fight-or-flight nightmare. My muscles screamed
run, run, run!
But a loud voice inside of me demanded that I take the guy down. And maybe keep him there for a while...
    I found my voice. “What do you want?”
    He cocked his head and scanned me head to toe. “I want you to get those jugs out of your pickup, fill them, and then take me for a drive.”
    Anger burned in my chest as I looked at him. He was tall, muscular, handsome, the type of guy who always got his way. I would’ve been scared stiff to look at him, much less talk to him, pre-TEOTWAWKI. And now he was standing between me and my brother? Hell no.
    I stood to my full height and sized him up. He was bigger than me, but topping 5’9 and not exactly being a twig, I could put up a pretty good fight. I’d heard stories about mothers who’d found the strength to lift two thousand pound cars off their babies. This guy stood between me and getting water to my little brother; that was pretty much the same thing in my book.
    I scanned the woods around me for an escape route and saw several half-overgrown footpaths that would lead back to my truck. I’d have to walk right by him to get there.
    Good.
    I walked toward him, my steps slow and calculated, at just the right angle to take me within arm’s reach. I knew what to do — grab his wrist and twist it behind him. Ram my knee into his groin. He’d gasp, fall to the ground in a fetal position, and I’d sprint to the truck. A clean getaway.
    Almost shoulder-to-shoulder with him, I looked up at his face. It was all sharp lines and ridges. His nose had been broken more than once and a scar crossed the top of his upper lip in a jagged line, one shade paler than his bronze skin. Dark stubble dusted his jaw, a stark contrast with his white-blond hair. A few strands of that hair fell over his eyes, and his mouth — wide, full, and
not what I should be looking at
— curved into a cocky smirk.
    Arrogant jackass,
I thought, reinfusing myself with anger.
    Then I realized I’d stopped walking.
    I cursed and made a clumsy grab for his arm. He tried to pivot out of my way but, clumsy or not, I’d moved in time to get a steel-grip on his bicep. I twisted on my heel and drove my elbow into his stomach. Air exploded from his mouth in a gust that blew against my cheek. I balled my fist and brought it down, punching him in the groin, and he collapsed to the ground, wheezing.
    I didn’t pause. I rocketed into the woods, feet pounding the gravel, arms swinging at my sides. The truck came into view like a finish line, and I pushed myself faster, only twenty feet away — ten —
    Pain exploded in my back, hurtling me to the ground. Next thing I knew, I was lying on my stomach with my nose in the dirt, head twisted to the side, and the guy was kneeling on my back, his face close to mine.
    â€œI don’t want to hurt you, sweetheart,” he said, mouth an inch from my ear. “Don’t make me.”
    â€œLet. Me. Go.”
    The weight of him pressed my ribs against my lungs, stealing my breath. I could hear the smile in his voice. “No, I don’t think I will,” he said. “Go to the truck and load up that water. I want you to take me to your base. How’d you get the fuel, hmm? You must have quite the little stockpile.”
    Over my dead body was I taking this guy home, and I told him so.
    He flipped me over onto my back and pinned me by the arms, his fingers digging into bone. “You don’t really want to die, do you?” he asked.
    He loosened his hold, raised my gun, and stood. Staring down the barrel of my own pistol, I went still. “Go get the jugs,” he said.
    I brought my feet under me and stood. I wanted to tell him to go to hell. Eat shit and die. I wanted to tell him
exactly
where he could put my pistol. But it was hard to muster that much courage with a gun in my face.
    I went to the truck, got