Dead center, p.1
Dead Center, page 1
part #2 of Nemesis Series
Contents
COPYRIGHT
BOOKS BY G. MICHAEL HOPF
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
SEPTEMBER 13, 2016
SEPTEMBER 14, 2016
SEPTEMBER 15, 2016
SEPTEMBER 16, 2016
SEPTEMBER 17, 2016
SEPTEMBER 18, 2016
SEPTEMBER 19, 2016
SEPTEMBER 20, 2016
SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
JULY 28, 2030
JULY 29, 2030
JULY 30, 2030
AUGUST 1, 2030
AUGUST 3, 2030
EPILOGUE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NEMESIS
DEAD CENTER
BOOK TWO
NEMESIS TRILOGY
G. MICHAEL HOPF
Copyright © 2019 G. Michael Hopf
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either product's of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
For information contact:
geoff@gmichaelhopf.com
www.gmichaelhopf.com
All rights reserved.
BOOKS BY G. MICHAEL HOPF
THE NEW WORLD SERIES
THE END
THE LONG ROAD
SANCTUARY
THE LINE OF DEPARTURE
BLOOD, SWEAT, AND TEARS
THE RAZOR'S EDGE
THOSE WHO REMAIN
THE WANDERER SERIES
VENGEANCE ROAD
BLOOD GOLD
TORN ALLEGIANCE
SERIES BOX SET
NEMESIS TRILOGY
NEMESIS: INCEPTION
THE BOUNTY HUNTER SERIES
LAST RIDE
THE LOST ONES
PRAIRIE JUSTICE
SERIES BOX SET
OTHER BOOKS
HOPE with A. American
DETOUR
DRIVER 8
DAY OF RECKONING
THE DEATH TRILOGY with John W. Vance
THE LAWMAN
THE RETRIBUTION OF LEVI BASS
JUDGMENT DAY
RIGHTEOUS KILL
EXIT (THE NEW WORLD SERIES NOVELLA)
MISSIONS FROM THE EXTINCTION CYCLE 2
SEVEN DAYS
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DEDICATION
To Judy (Mom): your unwavering support, kindness, generosity and love have enabled me to reach levels of success I wouldn’t have been able to achieve. It must also be said that the unbounded love you shower on Tahnee and the girls is an example for all. Thank you.
PROLOGUE
When the world ended on December 5, 2014, Lexi was an unemployed human resources assistant. She’d known struggle from an early age. After her father died in a plane accident, she and her sister, Carey were tormented by their abusive mother who didn’t love them and allowed her to be assaulted by her new husband. This is where Lexi discovered her strength and desire to protect as she was the only one who stood in between their step-father and Carey.
When they were able, she and Carey left home, with Lexi working jobs and Carey going to college. During these years Lexi found solace in a bottle and in shallow relationships. Outside of Carey, no one really knew Lexi and for her, that was just fine. Then it happened, the power went out and the world turned on its head. Relying on her intuition and survival mindset, her and Carey persevered through the initial weeks following the collapse but their luck ran out on a highway in the California desert.
Held captive by Rahab, a lunatic cult leader and his followers, Lexi and Carey suffered immeasurably. It was here that Lexi couldn’t protect Carey and it was also here that Carey showed she wasn’t able to mentally deal with the new world. After a confrontation with a follower of Rahab’s, Carey was sentenced to death and executed in one of the most barbaric ways possible.
With the help of strangers, Lexi escaped her captors and soon went her own way. With the one person she truly loved and trusted gone, she made two pledges, one to find and kill Rahab and two, she commit her life to protecting innocents, like Carey. She would be their protector, their guardian angel of sorts. And to those who lusted or preyed after the innocent, they were now her target, they would know no quarter and she would deal justice by striking them down, she was their nemesis.
She did find Rahab and with the help of a new friend, Gordon Van Zandt, the sadistic cult leader met his fate. With that past her, she now put her focus on bringing justice wherever she found it lacking. Soon her reputation spread. Rumors of a vigilante roaming the highways gave survivors hope and struck fear in those who wished to prey upon the weak. Of course these rumors began to take on a life of their own with her accomplishing things greater or bigger than she’d actually done, but she relished in it so much she gave herself the name NEMESIS. She likened herself to a superhero of sorts.
Along her travels, she never imagined she’d find lasting friendship or love, but she found both. Friendship with the Van Zandt’s in the Republic of Cascadia and love from a man named Nicholas Knight, whom she’d met by happenstance. Her time with Nicholas was short lived but he gave her something she never asked for or ever thought she wanted, a child.
As her pregnancy progressed, she knew she needed to find a safe quiet place to have her baby, and eventually raise the child from the harshness of the new world.
However, this is Lexi we’re talking about and things never seem to come easy for her or end up like she would want.
SEPTEMBER 13, 2016
“You have come into a hard world. I know of only one easy place in it, and that is the grave.” —Henry Ward Beecher
OUTSKIRTS OF TRUCKEE, CALIFORNIA
“Look at me!” Gavin barked as he grabbed Lexi by the jaw and forced her head up. He stared into her defiant eyes and growled, “You’ll pay for what you did to my brother.”
Lexi raised her brow and snickered with a crooked smile. “Your brother got what was coming to him.”
Even though his knuckles were sore from the beating he’d already given Lexi, he recoiled his arm back and swung. This time the back of his hand struck Lexi on the side of her already bruised and bloody face. A varsity ring from his days as a baseball player doing the most damage.
She took the hit without wincing. She lifted her gaze and asked, “Is that all you got?”
Shocked by her strength and fearless demeanor, he stepped back and looked at the faces of his colleagues. “Who is this bitch?”
The three other men in the room shrugged their shoulders.
“Just fucking kill her and be done with it,” one man said. His name was Lee and he was Gavin’s cousin.
“I’m not going to just kill her; that’s too easy. I want her to suffer for what she did,” Gavin replied.
While the men talked, Lexi twisted her arms to test the bindings they had used to secure her arms behind her back. Her ankles were bound to the legs of the chairs but she could tell they were loose and felt if she pushed up, she could stand. The pressure from her pregnant belly made the position she was in very uncomfortable.
“Are you sure she killed Mike?” Lee asked.
Gavin shot Lee a harsh look and replied, “I saw her put this knife in his chest. She stood above him and plunged it in.”
“She’s pregnant, for Christ’s sake!” Lee howled in awe at the story Gavin told him about how Lexi had fought and killed Mike.
“I know she’s pregnant but I’m telling you what I saw,” Gavin shot back, spit flying from his mouth. Veins in his neck and temples flared with rage.
With the men distracted, Lexi continued to twist her arms and began to feel she could slip out of the bindings on her wrists if given time. She then began to assess the situation. Even if she got free, how would she be able to fight the three men? She was badly hurt and nine months pregnant.
“Why don’t you tell me why you killed my brother?” Gavin asked Lexi, his attention back on her.
“You really don’t know why?” Lexi replied.
“Was it because he was getting familiar with that woman?” Gavin asked as he paced back and forth. He rubbed his right hand and glanced down at his red swollen knuckles. Still shocked by Lexi’s ability to take a beating, he craned his head back and stared at her.
Lexi’s face was heavily bruised, and she had cuts on her cheek, lip and right eyebrow. Blood coursed down and was smeared with sweat. “What you call familiar, I call rape.”
“And so what? Why do you care? Who do you even think you are, anyway?” Gavin asked. The truth for him was he hadn’t killed her because he found something about her alluring and mysterious.
“Just kill her already,” Lee snapped. He pulled a pistol from a shoulder holster and pointed it at Lexi’s head.
The door behind them opened and in stepped a boy about ten years old. “Dad,” the boy said, but paused when he saw Lexi sitting strapped to the chair.
“Terry, get out of here,” Gavin barked, his finger pointed at the door.
Terry stood frozen, his gaze fixed on Lexi.
Lexi gave Terry a smile and said, “Best do what your father tells you, unless you want to see him beat a pregnant woman.”
“G
“Just what?” Lee replied the pistol still leveled at Lexi’s head.
“She’s pregnant. I don’t know if I can kill her and the baby,” Gavin confessed.
“You won’t be, I’ll do it,” Lee declared, his index finger on the trigger and applying pressure.
Gavin placed his hand on the Lee’s pistol and nudged it down. “No.”
“Consider it a late-term abortion, then,” Lee snarled.
“I don’t kill babies and I don’t let babies get murdered in my house. Now holster your pistol,” Gavin ordered, his tone showing he was in charge.
Shoving the pistol back in his holster, Lee sniffed loudly and said, “He was your brother not mine anyway.” He turned and exited the room.
“And how do you feel about it?” Gavin asked the third man. His name was Roger and he too was a cousin.
“I’m with you. We have a code here; we don’t murder babies,” Roger said, his chest puffed out.
“But you rape innocent women, that’s okay,” Lexi taunted. “You’re all such chivalrous gentlemen.”
Both men shot Lexi a look.
“You’re going to stand there, proclaim your righteousness, yet condone rape. What else do you condone? Oh, let me guess—”
Before she could utter the words, Gavin slapped her across the face. “Shut it.”
“That’s it, beating women, you’re fine with that one too,” Lexi sneered.
Gavin reared back to hit her again.
This time Lexi stuck out her chin and said, “Go ahead, hit me again, big man. You’re so tough, so manly. Show me, show your fat friend just how tough you are. How about untying me so we can make it a bit more fair, or are you too much of a pussy?”
Gavin’s eyes widened with rage. No one ever talked to him the way she was, leaving him feeling uncomfortable.
The door opened and in came Lee. “I heard what she just said. That bitch is calling you out. Let’s just stop this charade and end this.”
“Oh, you’re another tough one, fucking candy-ass,” Lexi spat. She enjoyed taunting them, but she didn’t know how long she could take the beatings. In her mind she was in conflict with her pain receptors raging and flashing for her to stop asking for it.
Lee’s temper flared. He ripped his pistol back out and aimed it at Lexi. “I should kill you like I killed your fucking mutts.”
Lexi finally showed her emotions upon hearing that Frenchie and Beau had been killed. Beau, a male pit bull, and Frenchie, a female French bulldog, had been her traveling companions for a long time and the only thing she could remotely call family.
“Oh, you didn’t know?” Lee mocked upon seeing her reaction. “Yeah, I found those mangy dogs and slit their throats. I’m going to feed them to the hogs we have as soon as I drag their flea-ridden bodies back here.”
Lexi surged with rage, her body tensed and she tried to break free from the bindings but couldn’t
Lee laughed loudly. “That got her.”
Gavin and Roger joined in, both men chuckling.
“C’mon, you pussies, cut me loose and let’s see if you’re as tough as you talk. You can’t be afraid of a nine-month-pregnant woman, can you? Huh? So you can beat tied-up women and kill innocent dogs, but when it comes to a straight-up fight, you’re too afraid.”
“Shut it,” Gavin barked.
She glared at Lee. “I bet you have one of those micropenises. I mean, look at how you conduct yourself. Only a man, and I use that word loosely, finds joy in tying up women and killing dogs.”
Lee stepped forward and put the muzzle of his Taurus TH9c against her forehead. “Shut your whore mouth.”
Lexi squinted her eyes and said in a seductive tone, “Does hurting women make your micropenis hard?”
Lee put more pressure on the trigger.
Seeing that Lee was about to shoot her, Gavin stepped forward and gently pushed the pistol away. “I don’t want her dead.”
“That’s all you got?” she taunted Lee.
Lee’s nostrils flared and his face was red with anger. “We’re wasting our fucking time with this bitch.”
“I agree, but we’ll take care of her properly after the baby is safe,” Gavin said. “Nancy’s been saying she wants another baby; well, it appears we have one coming.”
Those words added to Lexi’s anger. She figured she had one chance of getting out and that was if they took up her challenge of untying her. “Come on, boys, how about proving you’re men.”
Lee kept his finger on the trigger, his eyes locked on Lexi’s.
“Lee, stop it,” Gavin ordered.
“Do what Gavin says,” Roger said.
Lee released the pressure on the trigger and pulled the pistol away from Lexi’s forehead. He leaned down, got an inch from Lexi’s face, and snarled, “As soon as you have that bastard of a kid, you’re mine.”
Lexi puckered her lips and blew him a kiss. “Why wait, how about now?”
Frustrated, Lee holstered his pistol and stormed out of the room. On his way out, he slammed the door.
“You’re lucky, your brains were almost on that wall behind you,” Gavin said.
“Is that it? You’re not going to prove you’re manly men?” Lexi taunted.
Roger stepped up to Gavin, put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Let’s go. Leave her.”
“Did you send for August?” Gavin asked Roger, referring to his oldest brother.
“Yeah, I sent my boy, but I don’t expect them to come until morning,” Roger said.
Gavin gave Lexi one last hard glare. “You wait until you meet my brother Auggie. He don’t take kindly to people who hurt family, and he’s a bit more creative as it pertains to hurting people.” He turned away and left with Roger in tow.
When the door closed, Lexi sighed loudly. Her body was racked with pain and she could feel the baby was stressed by the way it was moving. “It’s okay, sweetie, momma will get you out of this, so please stop kicking me,” she said although she had no idea just how she’d keep her promise.
◆◆◆
The door opened and closed.
Awoken by the sound, Lexi lifted her head but found it hard to see due to her vision being blurred. She blinked repeatedly until she saw who was standing in front of her. It was Lee, and on his face was a devilish grin.
“Hey, bitch,” he snarled.
“Is that you, micropenis?” Lexi quipped.
Lee put his hand on the handle of his sheath knife and slowly pulled it out. The blade glimmered when the yellowish light of the single incandescent bulb hit it. He stepped forward, put the edge against her throat, and sneered. “I should cut your throat right here right now. Seeing you bleed out would be so fulfilling.”
“Go ahead, fucking do it; I’m dead anyway. I’d rather die now with my baby then later,” she said.
He lowered the blade and placed it against her belly. “Or I can cut you open and take that baby for myself.”
She laughed loudly.
He stepped back and cocked his head. “What’s funny?”
“You are, all of you. You’re pathetic. You’re still coming in here acting tough, but you’re just a bunch of pussies. I’m not afraid of you. I’m not afraid to die. This act you’re doing is supposed to strike terror in me. It doesn’t, it’s a joke, you’re a joke, your friends are jokes. You have no power over me. You can’t beat me.”
Lee backed up, his back to her.
“So unless you’re going to cut me loose and fight me like you have a pair, then go ahead and kill me. Go ahead and cut my throat, let me bleed out. I may die but we’ll both know you’re a small-dicked man who is a coward.”
He spun around and came at her. “You…you think you’re so…”
Lexi lifted her head. “Go ahead, prove to me you’re a coward.”
