“You’re telling me!” A raw edge in his voice. A hint of genuine fear.
It brought her up short.
“Flynn, did something happen?”
Flynn snorted into the radio.
“Flynn, please. Tell me.”
Silence but for his ragged breathing.
She wanted to throw up her hands, say good riddance, and renounce the whole thing. Another part of her—the stubborn, unrelenting part that didn’t know how to quit, the part that had kept her on her feet and moving through two hundred miles of wilderness, that had survived five years trapped in a basement—that part insisted she try again.
“We’re not your enemy, Flynn. We’re on your side. Now, what happened?”
Finally, he relented. “Last night, we received a dozen refugees fleeing north along US-12 from South Bend. Two were gravely injured from gunshot wounds, and the third died before we could get her to our doctor.”
Hannah’s stomach plummeted. “What?”
“They overran the entire city. A force of thousands, they claimed. They came rolling in with military trucks and military weapons, dressed like soldiers. They killed mostly men. Took the women and kids. Just took ‘em.”
She stared at the house across the street until her eyes blurred. Her crooked fingers tightened around the radio, acid in the back of her throat.
South Bend was a city with a population of about one hundred thousand. Its sister city, Mishawaka, boasted a population of fifty thousand. They were both around thirty miles from Fall Creek, just across the Indiana/Michigan border.
With vehicles, Poe’s army could arrive at their front door in a matter of minutes, not hours or days.
“They shot one guy in the shoulder when he tried to fight back. Forced him to his knees and made him watch while they took his two teenage daughters, tied ‘em up, tossed ‘em in their truck and drove away. Even injured, he still fought. They shot him in the leg and left him to die like an animal.”
Despite the sunny day, an icy chill zipped down her spine. She imagined the scene in her mind’s eye—a father desperate to save his children. The terror and panic, the horror of it.
A beat of silence. “You know anything?” Flynn asked.
“I do. And I’m willing to share that information with you. Quid pro quo. That’s how this should work.”
Flynn mumbled something unintelligible.
“What was that?”
He sounded like it was pulling teeth to respond, but he did. “I—I would appreciate the information.”
She took a deep breath. “It’s the Syndicate.”
“Who?”
“An army of criminals from Chicago. They’re led by Alexander Poe, the kingpin of a Chicago mob who set his sights on controlling Illinois. Apparently, he wants the entire Midwest, too.”
Flynn unleashed a stream of colorful curses. When he’d regained his composure, he said, “How do you know that?”
“Liam had a run-in with them outside of Champaign, Illinois. They’re taking over farms and FEMA camps and forcing people to work as slave labor. They take women and children and sell them. Be very careful.”
Flynn said nothing as he absorbed the information.
“There’s no reason to think they’re going to stop with Indiana.”
“I’m quite aware of that fact.”
“Look, Liam has sent out forward observers to scout our surrounding perimeter. I think it’s a good idea if you do the same.”
“We can take care of ourselves,” he said, but he sounded rattled.
“We can’t. You can’t. That’s the point. You need our help, and we need yours. There’s another threat. A man who calls himself the General—”
A hiss of static. Then, nothing.
“Flynn? Come in.”
Still nothing.
She switched channels and tried Hamilton. He didn’t come in, either. Neither did Liam.
She looked down at the radio. Turned it on and off. Replaced it with a new solar-charged battery. It didn’t help.
The radio was dead.
A growing unease slithered through her. The handheld radios were critical to communication. Without phones, with travel so risky, time-consuming, and costly—radios were everything.
Hannah turned back to the house to gather her children.
She needed to find Liam.
24
Hannah
Day One Hundred and Nine
Hannah biked to the southern blockade.
It felt like it took forever. After Charlotte awoke, she was hungry, so Hannah needed to nurse and burp her, then change her cloth diaper, redress her, and finally strap the baby into the carrier.