The Mindless Man's Paradise

Chapter seventy-five

  “Cyrus!” I shrieked, panicking for the first time in a long time.

  “Cyrus!” I shouted, more wildly then the first time.”

 After moments of painstaking silence, I heard him.

  “Aspen!” he called. “I’m over here!”

  I followed his voice and found him standing before where the door would have been. In his hands was the “Welcome Home” mat, except now it was charred.

  “Where is everyone?” I asked, hoping for an answer I would not get.

  Cyrus looked up from the mat and I saw tears falling down his face, snot running from his nose, and his eyes red and puffy. 

  “I don’t know.” he said, not wanting to believe it either.

  “I don’t know.” he reiterated.

  I lost it then, I began to sob. “Oh, Cyrus.”

  Then, as I listened closer, I heard something else.

  I thought I was hearing things at first, but then I shushed Cyrus, and he heard it too.

  An engine. The sounds of a car engine, revving up, getting ready to jolt to life.

  “No way.” Cyrus said, making the connection.

  “No. How could they?-” I began, but then began sobbing again.

  “We escaped. They can’t do this. They can’t take us again.”

  I fell to my knees with grief, sorrow, and fear, wrapped into one.

  “But they can, Cyrus.” I said, accepting our defeat.

  HQ had found us.

  HQ was coming for us.

  We were going to die.

  If we were lucky.

  Thinking of Dream Land, I screamed at the top of my lungs, unable to think of doing that ever again.

  All was quiet, as we listened to the sounds of more engines coming to life, and the shouts of soldiers, and the roaring of the flames.

  “Aspen, we can beat them. We can fight.” Cyrus said, tugging at my arm.

  “No we can’t.”

  “I’ll go commando on them, and you can shoot, Aspen. You’re a better shot than I am. We still have a chance.”

  The idea sounded pretty good at first, as much as I hated the idea of seeing Cyrus in a murderous rage again, it would work. I usually could get a headshot within 100 feet, and a fatal shot within more than that.

  But then I remembered that we had left our bags, along with guns and ammo, back almost a mile away.

  “We have no guns or ammo.”

  Cyrus smiled, creating a bittersweet effect on his tear-stained face. “Think again.”

  He whipped out a pistol and a few extra rounds of ammo. Pistols weren’t my first choice, but it was better than nothing.

  “Okay.” I said, trying to be hopeful. “Let’s do it.”

  I took the gun from him, and pocketed the extra ammo. I found that I also had a knife sheathed at my waist, which comforted me to know as well.

  Once I was situated, I looked to Cyrus who had two knives of his own. At this point, the sound of engines was deafening, and the headlights of several HQ vehicles were blinding us. The cars lined the whole half of the clearing that we stood at, so luckily, we wouldn’t be surrounded completely.

  We could use the fire to our advantage, if we stayed close to it. That way nobody could sneak up behind us, and we could throw people in if we needed to.

  I felt like Cyrus as I thought such thoughts, but had no time to analyze it because men began to pour out of the trucks. This was the platoon of soldiers we had fought in the woods upon escaping times ten. The odds weren’t in our favor, even if they were inexperienced.

  “Shoot to kill.” Cyrus said, as we inched our way closer to the burning cottage and pressed against each other; back to back.

  “For Aurora.” I said, accepting her death.

  “And Kian.” Cyrus said.

  “And Jensen.” I added.

  “And Jensen.” Cyrus repeated.

  Then I fired the first shot at a woman wielding a bow and arrow. She dropped to the floor, dead.

  I felt nothing.

  Then I shot a man with a sword.

  Oh god, I thought to myself What am I becoming?