All Is Silence - Deserted Lands #1

Chapter 34 - Part I

TRAVIS SMILED AT LIZZIE. His smile chilled her to her core. Carter was dead by Travis’ gun.

Travis was yelling. She barely registered the words. Something about him being in control now.

He tossed his rifle to the Independent he had been guarding. The man caught it and spun on the circle of Independents. He shot the one with the handlebar moustache. The body flew backwards; the head tilting at a crazy angle as more blood spewed into the snow.

Carter’s eyes focused on her face. “Guess I get to see my daughter now.” He chuckled and blood spit from his lips. “Hold onto your dad. He’s lucky. So are you.”

“Carter. You bastard.” She pressed hard against the oozing hole in his side. She couldn’t believe he was picking now to reveal he was a human being.

His left arm grabbed her hand and squeezed. Then his grip went limp.

The rest of the world returned. Travis screamed at someone to drop his gun and choose a side. Lizzie slid her hand onto Carter’s rifle. Her breath froze; not daring to move, she twisted her head. Travis pointed his rifle at a kid, probably 15, one of his former partners in the Collectors. The remaining Independents stared, waiting. Jim and the Independents he’d come forward with were now all re-armed.

Lizzie realized she was watching a coup. Travis and the Independents had taken out their own leaders. Now they needed to control the rest or kill them.

The kid wasn’t backing down. Neither he nor Travis. Too much testosterone. The young kid’s gun bucked. Travis’s fired. The kid went down; his rifle fired as he fell.

Lizzie aimed Carter’s gun and shot at Travis. Lizzie heard more shots. People dove for cover. Snow flew in her face, exploding up from the ground.

She fired again. Something struck her in the arm. Travis spun. I’m shot. Slippery warmth oozed from her upper arm under her jacket. But it didn’t hurt. Travis dove for the dirt. Lizzie propped the gun one-handed on Carter’s body and squinted through the sight. She took another shot. Dirt spewed up from the snow like lava from a volcano. Another miss.

She wiped the sweat from her eyes, and searched for a target. Her right hand was numb. Blood flowed free from a wound on her arm where her oldest scars had once bled.

A cold piece of metal poked at her neck. “Toss the rifle away from you.”

Lizzie froze.Cold metal pressed into her exposed skin. It felt like the size of a cannon, must be a shotgun barrel. The bathroom at home and the blood splattered over the white walls flashed in her head.

“Everybody else drop your weapons,” Travis threatened behind her, “unless you want to see this little girl’s brains blown out in the snow.”

She tossed her gun out of reach. A hand grasped her and flipped her onto her back. A grim-faced man held the shotgun pointed straight at her torso, his sweaty hair plastered against his forehead. His face looked nervous, but his hands were rock steady. Travis stepped into her field of vision and his goon moved aside. Travis had blood soaking a through a rip in his shirt on the outside of his left arm. “You tried to kill me.”

Had she hit him? She shrugged, playing it cool. “Well, you tried to kill me.” She was glad she’d hit him. If it was even her shot that got him.

He shoved his pistol in a side holster and offered her his hand. “Looks like somebody got you.”

Lizzie glanced down. Blood seeped from a small wound in her arm. She twisted it, wincing as pain shot to her elbow up her arm to her heart. There was an exit hole on the other side. But there was more blood on her shirt. Had she gotten shot twice? She looked away as her body threatened to spin. Carter’s body lay next to her. She saw the edge of something hard and black tucked under his belt. They had been so focused on taking weapons from the living, they had forgotten about the dead. Carter’s jacket obscured it from their view, but it was within her reach. The only question was: Could she get it fast enough?

“I am in control now, things are gonna go my way.” Travis bent closer. “Take my hand.”

She took his hand with her injured left arm, pain screamed along the ravaged muscle fibers and her mind sharpened to a razor focus. As he yanked her upward, she screamed in pain. She swung her good hand down and whipped the snub-nosed revolver from Carter’s body.

In an instant of cold clarity, she stood with Carter’s handgun in Travis’ face.

His eyes darted from hers to the gun and back.

“Travis, don’t even fucking think about it. People are dead from not taking me seriously. You wanna be next?” Stars sparkled at the edge of her vision. “Put your hands up.”

He did.

Lizzie kept the gun pointed at the middle of his face. She regretted shooting CJ. But she had learned a valuable lesson. She knew the truth. If I need to, I will pull the trigger. She wouldn’t miss, not at this range.

Travis knew it, too; his Adam’s apple bobbed as he shook.