White Wasteland by Jeff Kirkham (read aloud books .txt) 📗

center in his type. From the first moment he woke up from his first surgery, he’d been a basket case for this incredible woman.

But she made a good point: his standing with the Homestead was, indeed, tenuous. They could throw him out any time. Gabriel was shocked they had let him stay as long as they had. He’d born arms against the Homestead as part of his brother’s gangbanger army. Of the fifteen hundred gangbangers that’d marched against the Homestead, Gabriel was the only man to receive medical treatment. Luckily, Jeff Kirkham—the military boss—had been in a coma while Gabe got his guts re-sorted. By the time Mister Jeff came around, Gabriel was recovering beside him in the infirmary. After a few days and some long conversations, Mister Jeff didn’t throw Gabe out of the Homestead. They’d almost become buddies. Nobody discussed it, but Gabe knew that his welcome teetered somewhere between a passing friendship and a clerical error.

Emily started teaching him firearm handling as soon as he could stand up. She was trying to make her little science experiment into an asset instead of persistent risk.

The part of him that’d fallen for this girl would do anything to stay. The other part of him worried incessantly about his mother and sister. His gangbanger overlord brother, Francisco, could go to hell for all he cared.

Gabriel despised his brother for what he’d done to these people—the men and women of the Homestead. In his fervor to take back Utah and give it to the Mexicans, Francisco caused the deaths of hundreds of Latino immigrants and dozens of Homestead people, and it’d all been for nothing—all for his brother’s malignant, racist ego.

His mother and sister were probably okay. Most likely they’d returned to their home in Rose Park, still under the protection of Los Latigos gang. Gabriel yearned to check on them, but the five miles between the Homestead and Rose Park might as well have been a million. They would never allow him to walk away from the Homestead now. He knew too much. And if he did sneak away, they would certainly never let him back. He’d never see Emily again.

Gabe slogged through the preparatory steps for the Crazy Indian drill. He loaded a single round, popped a full magazine into his back pocket, loaded his AR-15 with the empty mag, checked the chamber, adjusted his sling and shouted, “Shooter ready!”

“I’ll be dropping a hot shell down the back of your shirt for every mistake, cholo. And if you miss a target, I’m going to punch you in the junk later during jiu jitsu.”

Gabriel’s head swam a bit at the prospect of grappling with her, no matter how badly she hurt him.

Emily knew there was an emotional danger zone between doctor and patient, but the warnings were vague and the consequences, perhaps, shouldn’t apply in the apocalypse. There hadn’t been no class on patient/client entanglements during the apocalypse at Johns Hopkins University.

She’d discovered on her own that spending hours inside another person’s body, sifting through intestines and organs, made that person feel a little like personal property, and maybe more than a little like a responsibility. She felt a trust for Gabriel that her rational brain told her hadn’t been earned. She believed him when he said he’d never been part of the gang. She’d been wrong about boys before, but Gabriel felt like family. Again, that might be the surgeon in her mistaking familiarity with his guts for familiarity with his mind.

Regardless, during a break in hand-to-hand training, she told him about the babies at the orphanage.

Gabriel appeared shocked. “You keep these babies even though your father wouldn’t approve?”

She cocked her head. “Why wouldn’t I?”

“Because he’s your father,” Gabriel answered as though there shouldn’t be anything else to it. “He’s the head of your family.”

“Maybe, but I have my own opinions too.”

He tilted his head. His thick, dark hair covered an eye. “If you defy him, won’t that hurt your family? Won’t others be caught up in the disagreement? How can you put everyone in that position? I don’t understand.”

“I can’t let children die,” she answered, as though that much was obvious.

He rubbed his ear and pushed his hair back. “You Americans…I don’t understand how you think about loyalty. Or, maybe, I don’t understand how you don’t think about loyalty.”

Emily didn’t like what he was implying. “Well, yeah. We don’t follow our criminal brothers into murder just to steal from people, either.”

A chain of conflicting emotions passed across his face like a puppy who can’t understand commands. His eyes drooped at the corners and he looked down at her shoes.

Emily doubled down. “I’m not giving up on my babies. I just don’t have it in me, even if it damages my dad’s standing.”

“I’m not suggesting you give up on the babies. I’m asking you if there’s another way.”

Emily hadn’t really thought about it like that. She hadn’t worried about avoiding conflict. She hadn’t fully considered the reasons behind the Homestead’s rules. Instead, she’d plowed ahead, involved other women and taken in more children. The way back from her choices had been complicated by events. Considering other options felt like staring back down a dark hallway full of snakes and scorpions. Going back seemed more perilous than moving forward.

She had landed herself here before—marooned on a raft that her brashness had set adrift. For the first time, she felt the weight of those who might get hurt, and time was not on her side. Eventually, her little orphanage would come to light and the hangman would get his due. She tried to imagine the face of everyone who might be effected and she kept losing track of the count: the women helping her…their children…their husbands…the people who had vouched for them…the people who relied upon them every day…the people who loved them. Even then, her calculation assumed she knew the breadth and width of the risk. It assumed that a few broken rules were the maximum extent of