Sin: A Survival Romance Fiction (Her Story Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  “Where’s my family?” Summer whispered urgently, tugging on Bridger’s sleeve as he watched the movement of the two spotlights.

  He didn’t answer her, but grabbed her arm and pushed her in front of him.

  “Run.” He commanded and pointed to the corner of the fence.

  Summer took off across the thirty-foot distance from where they were to the fence. The headlight had just barely made its way onto the long side adjoining the corner and was slowly moving back around. She desperately looked for their method of escape, but for now, it looked like they were headed directly into the electric fence that would kill them. Bridger was racing behind her, and soon he ran alongside her. As they got closer, she saw it. The ground had been dug up underneath a small portion of the fence with just enough space for a body to slip underneath it without touching the wire. Summer slowed down as they approached it, but Bridger waved her forward.

  “You first.” He breathed, looking around them for any patrols.

  The ground outside of the fence was covered in rose bushes, and shrubbery planted when the factory had operated as a commercial, instead of a military station. The bushes gradually gave way to the covering of natural landscape as a forest of pines made the factory seem like an intruder in the otherwise organic environment. Summer went to the ground on all fours, but froze when she heard something rustle in the bushes.

  “Hurry!” The sound of her mother’s voice beckoned her from where she was hiding. Summer saw her family half emerge from the bushes, and she dove into the hole under the fence, trying to keep her body as flat as possible. Her fingernails gripped the dirt as she worked on pulling her body through the shallow dip in the ground. She was nearly through when the pant leg of her jumpsuit snagged on the metal bar at the bottom of the fence. She looked back at Bridger in a panic. He was still inside of the enclosure, but was powerless to help her since any touch of skin would start an electric shock. Summer tugged at the fabric with her hands, pulling from her thighs to avoid any chance of touching the fence’s wire. She tensely watched as the headlight rounded the corner of the long wall and started onto the third wall before it would reach them again. She frantically began kicking her leg into the ground.

  “Hey! It’s going to be alright. Just breathe.” Bridger reassured her though the stress in his voice told her they were in trouble.

  Meline came out of the bushes and started pulling Summer’s hands above her head, trying to tear her from her stuck position.

  “Pull harder.” Summer cried as her eyes followed the slithering of the spotlight.

  “Tíngchē!” A perimeter guard had been walking ahead of the spotlight almost invisible in the dark. He shouted again and pulled at the strap, holding the gun that was slung over his shoulder while he ran at the two escapees.

  Bridger met him and grabbed both his hands before throwing him into the fence next to them. A scream seared through the night as the guard’s body rippled with the violent pulse of electricity. Summer’s own scream was muffled as her leg was pulled loose right when she watched the electrocution in front of her. Meline dragged her into the bushes while Summer saw Bridger dive into the hole and scramble free of the fence.

  They ran furiously through the darkened trees, but Summer couldn’t get the image of the guard’s writhing body out of her mind. A siren sounded in the distance, which made them all continue to pound their feet against the mossy ground. Bridger led them to a hidden road and pushed large branches full of pine needles off of an abandoned rust-colored truck.

  “Get in.” He yanked the driver’s door open and pulled back the seat to reveal a black crossbow that he put next to the front seat. Summer opened the back door and herded her two siblings and mom into the car. She ran to the passenger side and jumped in as Bridger started the engine with the keys that had been on top of the front tire.

  As the car picked up speed, Summer looked backwards at the start of the road that vanished as they drove deeper into the forest. The road was completely hidden in the blackness of the night, and it felt like they were racing away from a mouth that was swallowing the rest of the world behind them.

  Chapter 2

  They had driven for miles, but there was still no sign of them being followed. Summer kept checking out the back window, but by morning all she saw was an empty dirt road and the sleeping faces of Tania and Micheal leaning on their mom’s shoulders in the back seat. Summer sat back in her chair and cast a side glance at the man sitting next to her, whom she barely knew.

  He was a large man and the khaki uniform that he had stolen fit him poorly. She guessed he was around six feet tall and his bicep muscles bulged as he gripped the steering wheel. His sandy blonde hair had been sheared like every other male prisoner’s head, but a dark beard had begun to grow around his hard jawline and covered his mouth, which always seemed to be slightly downturned. He had clearly planned this escape before he had been caught and she wondered why he had even bothered to break them out with him as well. The California woods eventually gave way to open road, and the asphalt made the drive smoother, making it feel slightly safe.

  “What’s the plan?” Summer piped up as she stared at Bridger openly.

  “Don’t know.” His voice sounded tired from the night drive. “Right now, we need to get as far away from here as possible. I’ve heard there’s a resistance somewhere. The Southern states had more guns than people in them and the people who own them would be the type to blow this whole country up before they surrender.”

  “So we’re going to join them?”

  “No, I escaped to survive, not to die for other men. Have you ever been to the Rocky Mountains?”

  “No.”

  “I have.” Bridger rubbed his eyes with his fist. “It’s hard to blow up mountains and even harder to find hideouts in them. Who knows if we’ll live long enough to make it, but I’d say that’s our best bet.”

  Summer nodded.

  “Why did you take us with you? You clearly could have done this on your own.”

  For the first time, Bridger turned and looked at her. His dark brown eyes had intensity in them.

  “I scouted you out.”

  That was not the answer Summer was expecting.

  “I knew from the first time I saw you that you would be my way out of there. The Chinese chained people’s ankles to the floor, but no one chained their minds. They did that themselves. You were the only prisoner who met my eyes when I looked at you, and that’s when I saw there was still life in them.”

  “Besides,” He added after a pause. “You’ll find that I need you more than you needed me.”

  Summer didn’t know what that meant and stayed silent rather than try to come up with a response. Without taking his eyes away from the road, Bridger took one hand off of the steering wheel and placed it on Summer’s knee. He started to rub the material of her pant leg with his thumb and index finger and Summer shifted in her seat uncomfortably, hoping he would catch the hint. However, her movement didn’t deter him and he continued to rub with sensual pressure, while inching his hand up the line of her leg. Summer’s body stiffened and she unconsciously held her breath, unsure of what to do, but hoping he would stop of his own accord. His hand slid to her upper thigh and finally in a nervous, abrupt movement she brushed his hand off of her leg.

  Her heart was pounding loudly and she felt a little weak as she looked at Bridger for some kind of explanation. He didn’t look back at her, but she noticed his hands were now tightly gripped around the steering wheel as if he was holding back. She remembered his words just minutes before and a question pricked her inner conscience.

  He needs me for what?

  The question was troubling and Summer pushed it away, refusing to think too much about it in the fear of making up stories in her head. It was probably nothing and she stared out the passenger window, focusing on her new-found freedom. She rolled down the window a li
ttle less than halfway, so that she could feel the wind blow through her hair and create that rushing sound in her ears. They continued to drive until every gas canister in the trunk had been emptied by the hundreds of miles they had traveled. After that, they abandoned the car and continued the journey on foot.

  Summer guessed that they were somewhere in the Nevada desert, which gave them two reasons to travel at night. The first was to remain unseen from possible patrols, but the second was to avoid the blazing heat that still lingered from the end of summer. They followed the highway, but avoided any big cities, instead, depending on the smaller towns to scavenge for food. One night, the dark silhouettes of a few empty buildings loomed in the distance. It was dusk when they approached the tiny town, and the fleeing light made the buildings look haunted. They waited until the next morning to approach any of them and found that the entire center of town was composed of a gas station, a post office, and an old hardware store.

  Most of the places they had passed were already looted, which was evident in the smashed windows and scattered garbage. Yet, this place had seemed to be untouched by the desperation spurred by The Invasion. The windows were dirty but still intact, and the doors were unlocked except for the gas station, as if its inhabitants had simply vanished without thoughts to protect their places of work if they returned. Summer’s family cautiously followed Bridger into the hardware store to see what they could find. The shelves were half empty, but compared with the rest of the world, it felt like a gold mine. Michael found two tents bundled into knapsacks, and there were more than half a dozen backpacks for each of them to choose from. There was a whole camping supplies aisle where they found tin pots and bowls that they put into their newly acquired backpacks, along with sleeping bags and other trinkets.

  Summer went down the next aisle and saw a pile of coats peeking out from the top shelf. She stretched to reach them and gripped the corner of the bottom coat trying to tug at the whole stack with it. However, it wasn’t coming down, and she went further up on her toes and pressed her body against the shelf, tilting her head to make room. Bridger was standing at the end of the aisle, watching her with a pleasurable smile on his face.

  “Can you help?” Summer asked when she caught him watching her struggle.

  He lumbered down the aisle to her and easily reached the coats, bringing them down in a neat pile. Summer reached for the clothes, but Bridger moved it away from her.

  “What will you give me for them?”

  He was standing uncomfortably close to her as he waited for her response.

  “You can keep them in your backpack if you really want. I just thought they’d be good to have when it gets colder.”

  She tried to sidestep him, but he moved in front of her.

  “That’s what I like about you. You’re forward-thinking.”

  “Thanks, except right now you’re stopping me from moving forward.”

  Summer ducked beneath his arm, and he let her pass with a chuckle. She went back to the camping aisle where her family was still collecting things while trying to dismiss the nervousness that the strange encounter with Bridger had brought on. Eventually, she moved on and went behind the front counter to the display behind the glass. There wasn’t much left in the display, but something had caught her eye from the moment they had entered the store.

  A holster had fallen to the bottom of the glass case, and Summer pulled it out to examine it. There were two curved axes with sleek, black handles that were about two feet long. She took one out of its place in the holster and ran her finger along the side of the ax, feeling the cool smoothness of the metal. Bridger had his crossbow, but now he was not the only one who could defend them. She had hardly ever touched an ax before this, but she strapped the holster around her hips without hesitation. Meline called to her near the front door as the rest of the group had exited the building, and Summer hurried to grab the remainder of her discoveries.

  They waited out the heat in the sticky interior of the post office until night had fallen. They traveled that way for a couple more weeks until the weather had cooled down and they found themselves in more hilly and less open terrain. The addition to their new supplies allowed them to set up tents at night and travel in the day now. They had taken a bigger tent for Summer and her siblings and mother. There had been a small, one-man tent at the hardware store, but Bridger had opted for something more substantial to claim as his own.

  The flint and steel they had taken made it possible to have fire now and with the hilly, more vegetated area, Bridger hunted small animals with his crossbow. One day, he had offered to bring Summer along for one of his hunting trips, but she declined, wanting to practice on her own to see if she could catch anything using her newly acquired axes. However, she came back to camp empty handed, since she realized how hard it was to throw the axes correctly. Bridger had not returned from his hunting venture yet and Summer’s mother had gone to a small stream to collect water. Summer had not been in the camp again for more than five minutes when a strange man walked nonchalantly into their camp.

  “Nice setup you got here.” He casually remarked as two more men came in from the trees around them.

  Summer pulled out her axes and tried to look menacing, but the men only laughed at her.

  “Put that away, girl. You might hurt yourself.” One of them chided.

  “Where did you come from?” Summer demanded, though her voice was frustratingly unsteady. “You’re not the only ones who can evade the scouts of the Invaders. We haven’t yet seen the inside of one of those prison camps and aren’t planning to.”

  The man who had originally entered the camp began to rummage through Tania’s backpack, which he had left near the fire. However, it turned out to be a disappointing search since all that was in there were their supply of pots and pans. By this time, Michael and Tania had emerged from where they had been trying to nap inside the tent and one of the men grabbed Tania and yanked her by the arm.

  “Where is your food?” He demanded sternly, dropping any pretense of friendliness.

  Tania had never been handled in such a way and she spit in the man’s face, causing him to throw back his hand to strike her.

  “Let her go!” Michael cried, rushing in between them and trying to pry his sister away from the man’s grasp.

  The stranger easily threw both of the young teenagers onto the ground and the two other men started ripping down Bridger’s tent, clearly unfazed by the scene in front of them as they only seemed to be focused on taking their supplies. Seeing this sudden aggression, Summer chucked one of her axes at the man who had assaulted her siblings. However, the rotation of the ax was off so it wasn’t the blade that hit his leg, but the wooden handle. The force of the wood still whacked his shin, which temporarily interrupted his manhandling of Tania and Michael since he fell back several steps in response to the painful contact of the ax.

  He swore angrily, but quickly picked up the ax that Summer had thrown at him as a new weapon for him to use. Fortunately, he never got the chance to use it, since once he was bringing the ax up from the ground, the twang of a shot sounded through the air and suddenly an arrow pierced his hand, running straight through the flesh of his palm. The man hollered in pain and grabbed his wrist with his other hand until another arrow shot into his thigh. Summer whipped her head around to see Bridger sending yet another arrow into the back of one of the men who had attempted to take down his tent. Now, there were two men screaming out in pain and before Bridger could get another chance to pull back his bow, the only uninjured man ran into the trees of the forest, leaving his companions to their fate.

  Bridger walked up to the man who had fallen near the tent, but his screaming had already quieted as Bridger’s arrow proved to be lethal. Summer ran to her younger siblings and pulled them away from the living man who was still moaning in agony over the two arrows embedded in his body. Bridger came towards him and pulled a knife o
ut from his boot, causing the man to howl even louder as he predicted what would come next. Summer covered Tania’s and Michael’s eyes and she shut her own while Bridger finished off the man who had tried to steal from them. When she reopened her eyes, Bridger was blocking the sight of the dead body and holding Summer’s ax out for her to take.

  “I was watching you from the distance.” He told her with a calmness that unsettled her, considering the deaths he had just caused. “They would have robbed and killed you if I wasn’t here.”

  “Thank you.” Summer replied, trying to take her ax with a steady hand.

  The scene that had just played out before them had scared her to the point where her whole body was shaking. Bridger had saved them in the nick of time, but the full display of what he was capable of whispered a fear that almost equaled the fear that the strangers that had attacked them had caused. He was a formidable opponent, but in that moment their able protector. Summer realized she should honestly be grateful more than anything. The confrontation had made it more than apparent how unprepared she really was to defend herself and it could have cost the lives of her siblings or mother. Though Bridger’s mechanical killings had scared her, still being unaccustomed to death, his skill set was exactly what they needed to stay alive. The men who had laughed at her unimposing figure had been silenced forever by the discharge of Bridger’s bow and that was not something she was soon to forget.

  That night, Summer made an effort to cook the meat that he had caught that day and give it to Bridger as soon as possible. She noticed he liked it when she served him like that, even though the way his eyes lingered on her person made her feel extremely self-conscious in his presence. He didn’t speak much, making it impossible to guess what he was thinking whenever he acted strangely around her. Yet, as Summer got ready for bed she could not help but think back to the events of the day and pray that her and her family would always stay on Bridger’s good side.