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Tina Carson was a tough woman. She had been through a lot in her life and thirty years of being a nurse had both exposed her to a massive amount of pain and suffering while simultaneously teaching her how to step back and isolate herself from it so that she could function on a daily basis. Applying those skills to her personal life wasn’t something she had ever anticipated doing… up until when she did.
“It was… I don’t even remember when it was.” Tina closed her eyes, trying to think back to the day of the event. “We were in the house when the lights went out. We figured out pretty quickly something bad was happening when the phone caught fire, though.”
“Is that what happened to the house?”
“Yeah. Well, sort of.” Tina shook her head. “It feels like a dream.”
“Is Dave… was he…”
Tina ignored the question. “We were outside on the porch trying to decide if we should call the power company or wait for them to fix whatever was wrong. We smelled smoke and realized it was coming through the door. Dave went inside and saw flames all up the wall in the living room, starting from where the phone was.” She shook her head. “Damned smoke detector never went off. Piece of crap.
“Anyway, it burned a good chunk of the living room before we got it under control. A pair of industrial-sized fire extinguishers took care of that. We sort of forgot about the source of the fire at that point as we just tried to get things cleaned up. We headed into town to get some supplies, realized that something terrible was going on and came back here to get our things together in case we needed to leave.”
“You went into town the day it all started?” Dianne’s jaw dropped. “We did too! We went to the grocery and had a run-in with a couple of the guys who Jason and I saw at your house the other day.”
Tina shook her head. “Unbelievable. So we must have just missed crossing paths.”
“I guess so. We went out to your house the day after to see if you were okay but everything was… well. Gone.”
“Yeah. That happened later the first day. When we left town and headed back home we were followed.”
Dianne felt her heart skip a beat and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. “Followed?”
“Yep.” Tina spoke matter-of-factly, trying to distance herself from the emotional impact of that fateful day. “We went into the barn to get our emergency supplies out to check them and everything. When we went out of the barn to go back into the house there was an SUV pulling up. The doors opened and a group of assholes stepped out all armed to the teeth. Dave pulled out his concealed carry and dropped one of them but the others…” Tina shook her head. “They threw me in the back of the SUV and torched the house with his body inside. They piled our supplies in with me and drove off to the gas station.”
“Tina. I’m… I’m so incredibly—”
“Sorry?” Tina sniffed, wiping a finger along the edge of her eye. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. Bad things happen every day. It’s their fault Dave’s gone. Not yours.”
“I know, but still.”
Tina forced a half-hearted chuckle and plucked at the shirt she was wearing. “You want to know the funny thing? I had on all my regular clothes when they dragged me there. But I grabbed my robe and slippers out of the things they stole and wore them all the time just to mess with those assholes. Just like how I told them there was a safe on the property. Between that and wearing the bathrobe in this weather they thought I was insane. I’m pretty sure one of them felt bad for me because he threw me a blanket to help keep me warm in the shed.” Tina laughed, this time with genuine humor. “From what they said every time they got back to their compound I had them crawling all over the barn and the house looking for that safe. Idiots. It was the least I could do to keep them busy and waste some of their time so they’d have less to spend on doing to others what they did to me.”
Dianne shook her head in amazement. “You are one stubborn son of a gun. You know that, right?” Dianne had forgotten about how refreshing Tina’s no-nonsense attitude and blunt way of speaking could be. She also realized that Tina was either not ready to talk about her husband’s death or had already, somehow, gotten past it and Dianne didn’t want to press the issue any further.
Tina snorted and her expression grew serious again. “How many of them did you and Jason kill? I know you shot one while you were pulling me out of that shed.”
“I don’t know. There was him, yes. I’m sure several died in the explosion. Jason might have shot some more of them but I don’t know.”
“There’s one, he always wore a red shirt. He’s their leader. He’s a sly one. I wanted to ditch the bathrobe and slippers bit days ago but it was all I could do to keep him on his toes. If he died during your rescue attempt—which was nicely done by the way—then their whole little wannabe-gang would go crashing down with him.”
“I don’t think he died, but I’m not sure. I know the guy you’re talking about. He and a guy in a blue shirt seemed like they were the ringleaders when we were scouting their compound.”
“Scouting the compound? Listen to you. A regular Army Ranger.”
Dianne rolled her eyes. “Yeah, sure. Look, we need to talk more about this gang later. Anything you learned about them would be good to know.”
“You want to know about them? Sure. I can tell you that.” Tina pantomimed writing out a checklist on the table with her finger and thumb. “They seem to be interested in two things. First: being the biggest assholes possible. Second: exerting as much control as their pitiful little operation can manage. They want to be ‘kings of the highway’ based on what they said, though since the highway is mostly filled with burned out cars I’m not sure they totally thought that through.”
“You think they’ll come after us?”
“After what you two did? Absolutely.” Tina grew serious again and leaned forward. “I, uh… haven’t really said ‘thank you’ to you yet. I’m honestly not sure how, given what you and Jason did. Especially with him in the condition he’s in. But… thank you.”
Dianne shrugged. “You’re welcome, but you would have done the same thing.” Dianne hesitated. “Dave would have too.”
Tina nodded. “Yeah.”
The pair sat in silence for a few seconds before Dianne cleared her throat. “We’ll talk with Sarah and Jason when he gets up later and figure out a plan of defense going forward. I talked to him earlier, by the way. Just for a second. He’s in pain but he’s still trying to rest, though that’s largely been unsuccessful from what he said and looks like.”
