Dirge (Devastation Trilogy 1) Page 4

  Now, Susa wants to move to see the sunset. “Turn me around,” she asks me. “Please? So I can see it?”

  I do. I’ve kept her tucked against me because she’s so weak, and so I can feel her if she moves.

  Make sure she doesn’t try to drink sea water.

  But she’s so weak she can barely hold her head up, much less crawl down to the water’s edge.

  It’s also a comfort for me, having her at my side.

  We’re sitting there talking, me with my face buried in her hair and desperately trying to stay calm and convince her she’s not dying.

  I mean, someone dying wouldn’t be able to channel Monty Python lines so effortlessly. Right?

  After another back and forth, she sounds really irritated and impatient. “If I’m so alive, Dom Smart-ass, why am I seeing them?” She waves her hand in what I realize is her attempt to point.

  Finally, I lift my head and look.

  On the horizon, I’m not believing what I’m seeing.

  A set of lights on what looks like a large ship.

  I didn’t even realize I was screaming, at first. Without thinking, I jump up and dive for the life raft, scaring the crap out of Connie and Collin, who are dozing inside it under a couple of the emergency blankets.

  I’m still screaming as I finally lay my hands on the kit holding the flare gun, and I fumble a round into it.

  Allen stumbles to his feet as I emerge from the raft and shoot the first flare, desperation taking over as I wordlessly scream and pray while the phosphorous round streaks up into the darkening sky.

  This is likely our only chance.

  Connie and Collin are on their feet now, holding on to each other and swaying unsteadily as they start screaming with me. Allen joins our screams as he realizes what’s going on, slowly waving his arms in the air.

  Poor Susa’s lying on the ground, and I hope she didn’t get hurt when I dropped her in my rush to grab the flares. I’m shaking as I load the second round into the flare gun and hold it up, waiting for a breath before firing it.

  I dump that empty shell and return to Susa’s side. I load the third round and get her sitting up again, my arm around her. I’m crying…laughing… And I fire the third round.

  Then I do something I’m sure Ellen and Susa’s men will forgive me for—I kiss her cheek before I start screaming again.

  This time the tears blurring my vision are happiness, because the ship’s lights change course, aiming toward us.

  I drop the flare gun and wrap both arms around Susa, rocking her. “Hang on, girl,” I tell her, my chin rubbing in her hair. “You fucking better hang on, girl. Don’t you dare die on me now.”

  “I’ll do my best, Sir.”

  I’m laugh-crying, still rocking her in my arms. She’s so weak she just goes with it, one hand curled around my bicep as I keep saying it over and over again.

  Hang on.

  Hang on.

  Please, hang on.

  We wouldn’t have survived this long if not for Susa. She was on watch the night we found the island. She grabbed extra bottles of water from the plane as she escaped with Connie, and she coordinated our water collection efforts even in the life raft.

  Let’s back up—she saved Connie’s life. She got Connie’s emergency oxygen mask on her, got her out of the plane, and put her in a life vest. That’s pretty damn heroic, right there.

  Susa’s the one who heard the waves breaking on this little island and alerted the rest of us. She was the first to spot the crabs that also inhabited this tiny spit. She suggested the water collector once we were here.

  We are literally alive because of Susa.

  And now she’s the one who spotted the ship’s lights.

  Like hell will I let her give up with our rescue so damn close.

  If there are such things as ghosts, I know Ellen would haunt me to hell and back if I let Susa give up now after she saved the rest of us.

  And for the rest of my life, I will owe Susa a debt I’ll never be able to repay. She and her men will forever have my friendship and loyalty, that’s for damn sure.

  Once I consider someone “mine,” be it as family or friend, I consider them mine forever.

  I’m not a man who casually discards people.

  And there’s not many lengths I won’t go to protect them once they’re mine.

  Chapter Five

  Now

  Not even two hours into our “cram session,” as Case has dubbed it, and I’m already beginning to drag. It’s difficult for me to keep my mask in place for so long this late in the week while in such close proximity to strangers.

  Mostly because I don’t sleep well, and haven’t since my return. As in, I’m lucky if I get maybe an hour or two of sleep at a time, much less total for a night. Any night I manage four hours of sleep total is damned rare.

  Weekends, while I do have to “work” by reading through materials, answering emails, and other tasks, is usually my recovery time. Case schedules the bare minimum appearances for me on weekends, usually charity stuff I can get into and out of in under an hour. Grip-and-grins I can quickly escape from.

  She always drives me, or rides with me in the car, if troopers are driving me.

  After, I always spend the return ride slumped in my seat, exhausted, drained.

  Spent.

  Even my kids try not to bother me on the weekends. Hell, Aussie’s going to school here in Nashville and I still don’t see her very often, between her time spent studying and with her friends. She’s living in a dorm, an experience I’m glad she’s able to have. She asked if I wanted her to change her arrangements and live at home, and I told her no. She’s really been looking forward to dorm life.

  It wouldn’t do either of us any good.

  Plus, living alone means less time I’m forced to hold my mask in place.

  You’d think after two years of this that I’d be better at it than I am, but it doesn’t get any easier. It never does, no matter what grief specialists may tell you.

  Ellen was the center of my universe. Yes, I’m a father, but my kids are adults now. Aussie’s always been older than her years, very mature, an old soul, as Ellen said.

  Without Ellen, I’m still as adrift as I was in the damn life raft.

  Worse?

  I have to pretend that I’m not.

  I think I’m running for re-election more because Case has assumed that’s what I’m doing, and I honestly don’t have the strength to fight her. She’s absolutely right about Ellen, though. If she was here, she’d be chastising me for wanting to give in and give up.

  Except if she was here, I wouldn’t feel like giving in and giving up.

  My state needs me. I’ve done a lot of good, silenced a lot of potential liberal critics who assumed, despite my voting record, that I would try to institute roll-backs of what few progressive social policies have been enacted in our state.

  It only took me the better part of a year to convince them we were on the same side. Yes, I’m fiscally conservative, but taking care of people in my state and protecting them is my first priority. Getting environmental protection laws passed so even if the feds try to weaken their regs, I can still protect our lands and our air and our water for our residents.

  I helped get Medicaid expanded, which made for some GOP howling. Until the numbers started coming in, showing I was right, that it would save us money in the long run by taking the burden off hospitals and taxpayers to fund uncovered medical expenses. That people who have preventative treatment and affordable options don’t get as sick and therefore take less money to keep well.

  Once my fellow GOP lawmakers realized how popular these initiatives were with voters, they finally jumped on board and tried to claim it was their idea the whole time.

  Fuck them.

  No, seriously, fuck those guys.

  But can I say that?

  No. Because I’m the damn governor, and I’m supposed to be respectable.

  The bottom line is the only thing
that matters—after my time in office, our residents are better off than they were before. We’ve also managed to attract more business to our state with tax breaks, helping to improve the lives of people by creating jobs and drawing more income to areas in desperate need of services. By getting some manufacturers to agree to help underwrite infrastructure improvements in exchange for tax breaks, they get a write-off that doesn’t negatively get shouldered by the common person, and local governments get assistance they might not have been able to afford before.

  Win-win.

  See? We’re not all greedy old perverts.

  Although I will admit that once I’m out of office I probably will be changing my party affiliation. Not sure yet if I want to become an Independent or a Democrat. Either way, people will come after me for it and accuse me of being a RINO for my own purposes.

  Well fucking duh.

  That’s the reason nearly all people get into politics in the first place—for their own purposes. Whether it’s because they’re a narcissist, or power-hungry, or genuinely want to improve things, there’s never a completely altruistic reason. There just isn’t.

  I’m in politics because I wanted to make my state better for my kids, and any kids they have. Because Ellen’s first teaching job was in an underserved school outside of Nashville. She taught kids, most of them living below the poverty level, whose parents mostly didn’t have insurance, or high-income jobs.

  I’ll never forget the first time she had me come meet her at school one day, and she introduced me to her students. Then, she had a small class of about twenty kids, mixed ages and grades, from first grade all the way to third, and from a diverse ethnic background.

  We didn’t have children yet, but these kids weren’t some free-loading vermin of illegal immigrants, the way some GOP legislators tried to paint them and wanted people to believe. They weren’t miniature terrorists in training, either.

  These were kids. Adorable, vulnerable children who deserved a chance to get a quality education in a safe environment and have basic health services.

  I think that day hard-shifted me and my thinking in many ways. It opened my eyes. To be honest, despite losing our dad, my brothers and I had a fairly privileged upbringing, in an upper-income area. Including schools that weren’t the most diverse. I had maybe two black acquaintances, and was friendly with a guy whose parents were from India, although he was born in Memphis.

  I wasn’t a deliberate racist, and neither were my parents, but I wasn’t “woke” back then.

  Not by any stretch of the imagination. I had no idea what white privilege was, or that I was a beneficiary of it.

  I mean, I considered myself liberal, despite being a Republican. I was for equal rights for everyone, regardless of race, gender, or orientation. Despite being an atheist, I believed you had a right to your religion, as long as you didn’t try to weaponize it, or use it as an excuse to justify discrimination against anyone else.

  Theoretically, I had an idea about how other people lived.

  Yeah, after that day at Ellen’s school, I realized I didn’t.

  I learned, though.

  It made me a better lawyer, in the long run. Instead of wondering why or how someone got into a situation, I learned to probe deeper and listen.

  A lot of listening.

  Am I perfect? No, not by a long-shot. But I stay open to opinions from a diverse range of people.

  Right now, I watch Case as she studies me for a moment. “Let’s take fifteen, guys.” She turns to Declan. “Coffee for the governor and me, please. Bring it to his office.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He immediately heads out of the conference room.

  I guess I should amend my earlier thought—Casey isn’t the only living person who can make coffee perfectly for me. She’s taught Declan how, too.

  Ironically, the guy’s an attorney, and she has him fetching coffee. He’s young, late twenties. I don’t even think he’s thirty yet. If I didn’t know Case as well as I do, I’d think maybe there was something going on between her and him.

  She’s mentored him ever since he was in college. Had him working part-time in our office doing filing and other work like that to earn money, helped him get into law school. Hired him herself right after he passed the bar. I never really got the full scoop on how she knows him, because Case is pretty private about some things, even with me.

  The important thing is that she trusts him. I trust Case, so that means I trust Declan.

  So far, he’s proven himself, both as an attorney and as my deputy chief of staff. He worked on my last two Senate campaigns, too, his first one right out of high school, helping Casey as a gopher, the second while basically functioning as my body man and assistant.

  Case tips her head toward the door and I drag myself to my feet to follow her. We retreat to my office, leaving the door open for Declan so he doesn’t have to knock or juggle cups when he brings us our coffee. Once we have our coffee he leaves, closing the door behind him without either of us even having to ask him to.

  It feels weird sitting behind my desk now, but I do. I take my glasses off and set them on the desk so I can rub my eyes. My vision wasn’t bad before the plane crash. Thanks to the three weeks of unrelenting sun and the other trauma my body went through I need glasses, mostly for reading and computer work. The ones I have now are line-free bifocals, because it’s a pain to keep taking them off and putting them back on. I can sit and watch TV without them but the screen is a little fuzzy. Driving’s easy, too, as long as I know where I’m going so I’m not squinting at street signs.

  When I’m allowed to drive, which is rarely. The only reason the EPU doesn’t put their foot down about the times Casey or Declan drive me anywhere is because they both took several specialty driving classes, like what they put law enforcement officers through, and they both passed them with flying colors. Also, when either of them drive me, at least one security team shadows us.

  When I close my eyes and tip my head back, I can’t help but think about the last time I was in here with Ellen, when she knelt between my thighs and smiled up at me before she—

  “Case,” I hoarsely say, opening my eyes to hopefully stave away the tears threatening to hit me. “Are you sure I can do this?”

  She doesn’t sit. Instead, she rounds the desk and leans against it, staring down at me, my friend in the house instead of my chief of staff.

  “I won’t let you quit, George. You’d hate yourself for it as soon as you got your feet under you again. You know you would.”

  Damn her, she’s right.

  Yet again.

  “I’m sorry we had to make this so early this morning,” she adds, “but they’re on a plane tomorrow morning to California for three weeks. I didn’t want to waste any time or delay this meeting with them.”

  I wearily nod and sip my coffee.

  Perfect.

  I motion with my cup. “You trained him well, Case,” I joke.

  She smirks and raises her own cup to take a sip. “I know.”

  “Please tell me there’s nothing tomorrow.”

  “Nothing tomorrow. I already emailed the kids and warned them Dad’s wiped out.”

  I feel like a shitty father, but I nod and take another sip of coffee. “Thanks.”

  Something about her quiets me. She’s not Ellen, but she knows me almost as well as Ellen did. Not in all ways.

  Then again, Case knows me in ways Ellen didn’t, because of work and politics. She gets to see the brutal guy who can’t back down and who has to win a case, who has to negotiate like a cut-throat mafia consigliere to get shit done for the greater good.

  Ellen got to have the personally darker side of me, which I can never admit to in polite company—or anywhere else, now that Ellen’s gone.

  Case gets the professionally darker side I was too ashamed to let Ellen see.

  But Case gets it, because she’s in the same place I am. I’ve seen her at her most darkly vicious, a side of her Ellen never got to see, e
ither. We have to maneuver ourselves through the good ol’ boys’ network. Hands wash hands in politics.

  As a politician, I’ve had to make backroom deals I wasn’t happy with to get myself votes for the big-picture items. I have to wear a chameleon skin of a white Christian conservative dude when the truth is, much of what I deal with makes me sick. I focus on the endgame and do what I have to do to make positive changes for my state that will stick long-term and outlast the dinosaurs in office.

  It’s all fine and well to scream, “Change the system, then.”

  That only works as long as there are people within the system willing to change.

  On that front, Case and I are working toward helping groom younger Republican candidates for office who are more moderate and liberal-leaning in their views. Who are willing to break from the aging old white guys who’ve had a stranglehold on our state’s politics for decades while mostly helping to fill each other’s pockets at the expense of everyone else.

  Casey-Marie Blaine has saved my life every bit as much as Susannah Evans did. Because now that my children are on their own, politics is all I have left.

  I take a deep breath and sigh. “Thank you, Case. In case I haven’t said it lately.”

  Her smirk fades as she watches me. “Just keep breathing, George. I wish you’d let me find you someone to talk to.”

  I shake my head. “We can’t risk it. I can see those headlines now. Crazy Governor Sees Shrink.”

  “How about Governor Prioritizes Destigmatizing Mental Health Issues? That would play far better. You have the sympathy factor.”

  “Yeah, and an insanely unsustainable eighty-two-percent approval rating. Which will sink faster than that airplane did if people think I’m going crazy two years out. The bounce has a limited hang time, and it’ll start its descent any day now.”

  “I think you’re underestimating the sympathy of people in this state.”

  I arch an eyebrow at her. “Seriously, Case? Maybe in the beginning, sure, no one looked too closely at what I was doing. But once I became Governor Forrester and started taking political heat, I lost that extra cachet. The widower card can only be played so many times before it gets weaponized against me. They’ll start seeing me as weak instead of stoic. If I was a woman, sure, I could still squeeze juice out of that.”