The Green Rising

Chapter Thirty-four

The pounding stopped and bullets zinged through the door before I could tell the girls to go to the room. With Noah in one arm, Jessa scooped a wailing Maggie and carried them both downstairs as Rosabel hurried behind. When they vanished into the darkness, Mom and I scooted the bed against the banister. I then closed the basement door, hoping to buy them a little time to get to safety.

The door to the outside flew open. Moonlight flooded into the living room and made it possible for me to see the fear on my father’s face. Four men wearing the green uniform I’d become accustomed to seeing during the televised slaughters stormed into the house. Night vision goggles wrapped around their eyes and made it easy for the soldiers to point their AK-47s at my parents and me.

“Drop your weapons,” the one in front of me said. I raised my hands slowly to show no weapon was in my possession.  “Where are the brats?”

“They aren’t here.” Indignance curled around every word. My children weren't typically brats.

“You’re lying.” He nodded, and the extra soldier brushed past me, heading for the bedrooms. I resisted the urge to smile at having bought them a few more minutes. “You just signed their kill order. Captain Vance will find them.”

My mom lifted her hands. “What are you doing?” She sounded confused. 

How could she not know? They were here to arrest me. A few hours ago, she'd been very aware of that possibility.

I gulped, hoping that Jessa would be able to contain the girls, but relaxed when I looked over at Dad. His gun hadn’t dropped to the carpet, which meant there was at least a little bit of hope. I saw him tuck it behind his back, being cautious to avoid alerting the gunmen to what he was doing.

“Sergeant Hall, shut her up.” The soldier pointed his gun between Mom’s eyes and she fell silent. She  shook in her spot and he relaxed his stance. Whatever threat he thought existed from her seemed to have dissipated with her noise. The soldier in front of me asked, “Where’s the material you took from The Order?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You wanna watch your family die?” His words were cold enough to send a shiver down my spine.

“It still won’t change the fact that I don’t know what you’re talking about.” A gunshot went off, and I jumped. Fearing the worst, my eyes pinched closed. Three additional pops rang through the air. They were replaced by thuds, surely bodies hitting the floor.

I looked around the room. Mom still sat on the couch, Dad was bleeding from the leg right beside her, and the three soldiers lay on the floor. The bullets lodged in their heads suggested that they wouldn’t be a problem.

“Hurry! Grab their guns,” Dad said, as I stood dumbfounded and wondering what to do. “I’m out of ammo.”

I bent to retrieve the closest gun, but Captain Vance returned to the scene and fired a warning shot that jerked my hand away from his co-conspirator’s weapon. His head motioned to the left. “Sit on the couch.”

I stepped around the heap on the floor and sat by my father. Mom was sobbing and using her grip to act as a tourniquet, but the blood only spread further down his pant leg until it streamed down his shoes. His breathing was slow.

“Let go of him.” Vance’s lips twisted into a smile. Mom didn’t move. I nudged her away and applied pressure to the area she’d been holding. “You, too.”

“No.” I almost dared him to kill me, but was afraid he’d take aim at my parents. He trained the AK-47 on Mom as I was cursing myself under my breath. “If you harm either of them, the Order will never see Sigmund Dietrich’s journal.”