Bella followed the girls into the barn, her tail slapping everyone in her path.

  Bella tired of frisbee before the girls did. The new friends sprawled on bales of hay while Bella took turns getting pet by each girl.

  “So what do you think of that boy, Benny?” Missy asked.

  Jaden let out a breath. “He got shot! I can’t believe someone just shot him.”

  “Well, it was an accident,” Erin said. “They were aiming for the guy.”

  “It doesn’t matter who they were aiming at,” Missy said. “That’s just stupid. And it looks like it hurts.”

  “I wouldn’t want to get shot,” her sister said. “I think this whole thing is stupid. I’d rather be sitting in my living room eating microwave popcorn and watching a movie than sitting around watching everyone walk around with a gun.”

  “Oh!” Jaden said. “Microwave popcorn! I want some.”

  “Extra butter please,” Erin said with a grin. She looked at Jaden and her grin faded, replaced by a glare.

  Bella jumped up and stared at the open arena door. Jaden’s father slid around the corner and into the arena. Bella stared. Her tail dropped and slid between her legs. Her ears laid back. She looked at Jaden and wiggled her tail.

  “Jaden, girls! Come on, let’s get in the tack room. You have to hide.”

  “Why, Daddy?” Jaden stood and turned toward the stable.

  “Don said there are some bad looking guys coming. Hurry. In the tack room.”

  Jaden called Bella and led the girls to the tack room. As they entered, the door on the other end of the stable opened and the twins’ mother hurried in with the baby followed by Erin’s mother and brother. They rushed to the tack room.

  “Wait!” Jaden hurried back into the stable.

  “Jaden!” called her father.

  “I need a Luci light, Dad. It’s pitch black in there with the door closed.”

  “Get back in there. I’ll get you a Luci.” He limped toward the bunkhouse door, returning a few seconds later with two Lucis.

  “Stay inside here until I come get you. No matter what you hear, you stay.” He pulled his pistol out of his holster and moved against the wall, positioning himself just inside the arena door.

  Jaden looked at Missy. “Now I really want a bag of microwave popcorn.” She giggled and made motions like she was stuffing popcorn into her mouth.

  “How can you joke when people are running around with guns?” Erin narrowed her eyes.

  “What exactly should we do when people are running around with guns?” Jaden shrugged.

  “Listen,” she continued. “We are doing the only thing we can do. We don’t have guns. People out there do. We are where we have to be right now. We can joke or we can cry. Which would you rather do?”

  Erin stared at her. “I would rather not be locked in a room with a crazy girl who wants to tell jokes when someone might start shooting.”

  “I wonder where that Benny went,” Missy said.

  Erin spun to look at her. She shook her head. “And you,” she said pointing at Missy. “All you want to do is talk about boys. The world has gone mad!”

  “Erin Grant!” Her mother put her hands on her hips. “That’s enough! You need to learn to accept what’s happening and stop arguing with people.”

  Erin rolled her eyes and moved to a big plastic tote where she sat down hard and sighed.

  Several gunshots caused both women in the room to jump. Erin burst into tears and the twins reached out to hold each other’s hands.

  “Is everyone okay?” Jaden asked.

  “No!” Erin said. “I’m not okay. I want this to be over. I want to go home. I want my life back. I hate it here.”

  Jaden looked up at her mother who closed her eyes and shook her head.

  Jaden’s mouth opened as if to say something, but then closed. She stepped forward and put her hand on Erin’s shoulder.

  “I understand,” she said. “I know what it’s like to have your whole life ripped away from you. It’s hard. I’m sorry. We will get through this and it will get easier.”

  “How?” snapped Erin. “Have you got electricity you are hiding somewhere?”

  “Actually, I do,” said Jaden.

  All eyes in the room turned to her.

  “Allison has solar panels and we are working on getting electricity. We got a little already.”

  The door opened and Bill Gordon leaned in. “It’s clear, everyone. You can come out. Go to the bunkhouse and stay there until the men have it cleaned up outside.”

  “Did anyone die?” Erin sobbed.

  “Nobody we know,” Bill said.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Jaden led the group through the stable to the bunkhouse.

  Three men were carrying a woman in to the room they called the infirmary. Her dirty hair hung in tangled clumps. She wore no shoes and her feet were filthy.

  The new guys followed them into the infirmary.

  Mary and Allison hurried through the door after them. Allison spotted Jaden and called, “Honey, will you go in the storeroom and get the box of herbs off the third shelf in the back?”

  Jaden dashed across the bunkhouse to the storeroom. The third shelf held a box neatly marked “Herbs.” She lifted it from the shelf and carried it to the bench next to the sink.

  Opening the box, she lifted out jar after jar and set them in a row on the bench. Allison still had not come out of the infirmary by the time she had emptied the box so she stayed busy by arranging the jars in alphabetical order. Each jar was labeled with the name of the herb and a date.

  She finished alphabetizing them just as Allison stepped out of the infirmary.

  Allison looked around the bunkhouse. “Steve,” she called. “Could you grab a couple of men and go to the house? Get that overstuffed recliner from the living room and put it in the corner room down here.” She pointed to the back corner.

  “Jaden, would you run to the house and grab two or three pillows from the hall closet? The pillow cases are on the second shelf from the top.” She walked to where Jaden stood at the bench. Seeing the jars arranged, she smiled. “Nice job! I’m going to set a pan of water on the stove to boil. When you get back, we’ll make a compress for Denise.”

  Jaden returned with the pillows and slid them into pillow cases. After placing them on the bed, she joined Allison.

  “I’m ready.” She grabbed her notebook and pen.

  “I have some painkillers to give Denise for the next couple of days, that will help her get a head start on healing. So, we are just going to make a couple of herbal compresses that will help with some of her bruising. She has some broken ribs and will be in quite a bit of pain for a couple months. These compresses will help.”

  “Who is this woman? Who are those other people who ate with us?”

  “The people who joined us for supper are some people from Rockford. Well, the two men and boy are from Rockford. The lady is from Kasbeer. The men were here to pick up the boy and got stranded when the solar flare hit. The boy was at the woman’s house.”

  Jaden raised her eyebrows. “That woman wasn’t here at supper. Who was shooting? Did they leave? Did she come with them?”

  Allison sighed.

  “The woman in the infirmary is the mother of the boy who was shot. The boy’s father kidnapped the boy and when the two guys from Rockford got him back, he kidnapped the boy’s mother. They used to be married.”

  “So what happened to the kidnapper?”

  Allison shook her head. “He’s dead.”

  Jaden nodded. “I thought so. That means we are safe from him.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not safe from others like him.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Will we ever be?”

  Allison set the jar she was holding on the counter. She faced Jaden. “Honey, to be honest, we were never really safe from people like him. But now that things have turned upside down, people like him are going to realize that they might get away with doing bad things so there will be more people like him out there. And, it won’t take long for people to realize that they aren’t going to be able to get food from stores. They are going to be hungry. They are going to be desperate. They are going to be violent. By working together as a group, we will feed everyone and provide security from those who might be like that man who was here.”

  “I understand,” Jaden said quietly. She pointed at the stove. “Your water is boiling.”

  “All right. Making a compress is easy. We just make an infusion and soak a cloth in it. To make an infusion that we would drink, we would use two to four tablespoons of dried herb in a quart of water. But since we are going to use this externally, I will add a little more herb. I’m going to use six tablespoons.”

  She measured chamomile into a quart mason jar and added the boiling water to it. “I’m using chamomile because chamomile will help with the bruising and will also help with sore muscles and stress. Now, I want to let this infusion get strong but I also want to put a compress on Denise as soon as possible so I’m going to soak a couple cloths in the jar while it is infusing. We’ll soak them in the jar for a few minutes and then leave the jar alone to make a stronger infusion.”

  Allison pulled the box closer and starting setting jars inside. “After those cloths have soaked for a bit, we want to put them in a bowl in the fridge. We don’t ever want to put heat on a fresh bruise. We use a cold compress. That will help constrict broken blood vessels. Hopefully we will have room in the fridge to store our infusion so we can keep putting cold cloths on her bruises.”

  “So, you don’t use hot compresses ever?”

  “Not on a bruise in the first two or three days. Heat could cause broken blood vessels to bleed more.”

  “I’m not sure I’ll ever remember all this,” Jaden commented.

  “You will. I promise.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Early the next morning, Jaden was awakened by rustling in her father’s section of their room. She saw the glow from the Luci light through the curtain.

  “Are you up, Dad?” she called.

  “Yes, honey. Give me a minute. I’m getting dressed.”

  “Okay. I’m going to get dressed too.”

  Mary was already at the stove when Jaden bounced down the stairs.

  “What can I do?”

  “Well, I’ve got a couple of tomatoes left. Do you want to chop them up and we’ll put them in the scrambled eggs?”

  Jaden pulled the cutting board from the shelf and a knife out of the silverware container under the counter. She was carrying them to the table when the door to the room in the back corner opened and the boy, Benny, stepped out.

  He stood for a moment looking around before moving toward the side door, eyes down. He came back a few minutes later. He stood inside the door and then approached Jaden.

  “Uhm. Where am I supposed to wash my hands?”

  “Come on,” Jaden said as she jumped up. “I’ll show you.”

  She led him to the tack room and pointed to the container of water with the spigot. “The soap is right there,” she said as she pointed. “And the towel is here.”

  “Thanks.”

  When he returned to the bunkhouse a few minutes later, Jaden and Mary were still the only ones in the room. Mary stood at the bench chopping an onion and Jaden sat at a table slicing a tomato.

  Benny stood in the middle of the room. His eyes moved from the stove near Mary, across the room, then up to the rooms above.

  “How is your mom?” Jaden asked.

  “My Aunt Sherrie gave her a pill a little while ago. She’s sleeping now. I don’t want to wake her.” He shrugged.

  “Want to come sit with me? When I’m done here, I can go to my room and get a couple of books.”

  Benny shrugged again, but moved to the table and sat across from Jaden.

  “Have you seen my uncle?” he asked.

  “I don’t know which one is your uncle, but I haven’t seen either of them since we ate last night. I’m sure they are around somewhere. I think most the men are planning on cutting dead trees and getting firewood so we can use the stove this winter.”

  “Is that your mom?” He asked nodding toward Mary.

  “Huh uh. That’s Mary. She’s really nice. My dad said he was going out to get saws and stuff cleaned up so they could get started right after breakfast.”

  “Where is your mom?”

  “She’s not here,” Jaden said. “She was killed by a drunk driver.”

  “Well, that sucks.”

  “I know.”

  Jaden moved the slices of tomato to the side and scooped the seedy gunk into a bowl. Mary didn’t like to throw anything away so Jaden simply saved anything she didn’t know what to do with. When she had set aside the seedy part, she started chopping the tomato slices into chunks.

  “How many people live here?” Benny asked.

  “I don’t know. I heard Mary say that there was room for almost fifty here. There are still empty rooms so I know we don’t have fifty yet.”

  “Who are they all?”

  “I don’t know. I think most of them lived in Princeton and came out to help build the bunkhouse and set up to start growing food. I know a couple of the kids that moved in yesterday.”

  She stopped chopping and bit her bottom lip. “Well, I don’t know them, but I’ve seen them in Princeton. Everyone is going to work so that everyone can eat and have a warm bed over the winter.”

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  “Why do you keep asking me? I don’t know.” She looked up to see his face turn red. He dropped his gaze to the table.

  “Hey, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. All I do is walk in and say I want something to do.”

  “But you know these people. I don’t know them. I feel stupid asking if I can help when I don’t know how to do anything.”

  “Hey, Mary,” Jaden called. “Benny wants to know how he can help.”

  “Well, he could set plates and silverware on the tables.”

  “See,” Jaden said. “It’s pretty easy.”

  “Easy for you,” he grumbled. “You know where everything is. I don’t. So once again, I feel stupid.”

  “Well, lucky for you nobody here cares that you don’t know how to do things. They are happy to show you. I’m done here. Let me give these to Mary and I’ll show you where everything is and help set the tables.”

  The two men that Jaden didn’t know entered through the side door. Benny had said that one was his uncle.

  The man with long hair reached up and secured his hair with a rubber band. “Allison said for us to grab some breakfast before we went on security detail,” he said.

  “Coming up,” called Mary. She cracked four eggs into a pan. The bacon was sizzling on the back of the stove. She used tongs to pull four slices and plop them on a couple plates.

  “Jaden, would you please get a couple cups down for their coffee?”

  After breakfast, Jaden helped clear the tables.

  “How come Allison and James didn’t come to breakfast?” she asked Mary.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they had something to take care of. The security guys must have talked to her. She’ll show up.”

  No sooner had she finished her sentence when the side door opened and Bella bounded into the bunkhouse. She flew across the room, sliding to a stop in front of Jaden.

  “Hey, Bella!” Jaden dropped to her knees and scratched Bella’s head. The dog raised her paw, set it on Jaden’s hand and pulled it down, guiding it to her belly.

  “Can I take her to the arena to play?” Jaden looked at Allison.

  “She would love that!” Allison said.

  “Come on,” Jaden said, motioning to Benny. She didn’t bother to wait to see if he followed. She opened the door to the stable. Bella dashed past her and skidded to a stop.

  Erin stood in the stable. She looked at Jaden before turning and walking back toward the tack room.

  “Are you looking for something, Erin?” Jaden asked.

  “Nope,” Erin replied. “Just staying out of your way.” She entered the tack room and closed the door.

  Jaden turned and looked at Benny.