Final Awakening (Book 1): Dawn Read online

  DAWN

  FINAL AWAKENING BOOK ONE

  J. THORN

  ZACH BOHANNON

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Free Book

  Coming Soon

  Review

  About J. Thorn

  About Zach Bohannon

  Copyright © 2017 by Molten Universe Media

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Edited by Jennifer Collins

  Edited by Hannah Yancey

  Proofread by Laurie Love

  Cover by Yocla Designs

  jthorn.net

  zachbohannon.com

  moltenuniversemedia.com

  1

  Smoke billowed over the French Quarter while darkness flooded the entire city of New Orleans. The rancid smell of burning plastic filled the air. Days had passed without the presence of a single supply truck, National Guard unit or police cruiser. Gangs and common thieves emerged to fill the void.

  Dax Harper stood in front of the convenience store listening to the chaos inside. He had heard people talking, saying that someone had broken into a basement storage area and was selling boxes of cereal and bottled water. Dax thought it was worth checking out.

  Muffled explosions rattled the building while shrill screams mixed with angry shouts. People ran past him, rushing through the broken glass front of the building and knocking him back into the aluminum trim now dangling from the window frame.

  This store and all the others in New Orleans’ French Quarter District had been raided over a week ago. Much like when Katrina had torn apart the city over a decade earlier, looters had taken the expensive items first. Televisions, computers, iPads—anything with street value had disappeared from the shelves. But it wasn’t long before people realized that those luxuries didn’t matter without food, fresh water, and weapons. You couldn’t feed your family an iPad.

  Torrential downpours had drenched the city since the grid went down, and under normal circumstances, the drainage pumps would keep New Orleans from flooding. But the rainwater was now filling the bathtub that was Lake Pontchartrain and it would begin spilling over the sides at any moment.

  Even though Dax knew the people inside the store would be lucky to find a half-eaten bag of peanuts, he wondered if he should scope it out, too. Maybe he’d get lucky and find an unopened can of yams. Dax had been searching for his sister, Gabby, but he’d never be able to do that and protect himself from the mobs if he was starving to death.

  He had already lost some weight. Dax could tell when he looked at his tattoos and flexed his biceps. He had worn a flat top when he’d been a teenager, like most African-American kids at his high school, but now he kept his hair closely cropped. Dax’s chiseled jaw and deep-set eyes had made him popular with the girls in his younger days and still did. Over the years, he had seen slight wrinkles form on his face, and a little gray peppered his goatee.

  He stumbled forward as someone rammed into him from behind. Dax threw his hands out to break the fall, slid on the asphalt and then rolled over. A young man in his mid-twenties looked back at him.

  “Get the fuck out of my way, pig.”

  He stepped to the side and let the kid pass, thinking it was best to avoid conflict when possible.

  Dax stood up and made sure the badge was still pinned to his chest while gunshots punctured the darkness. When the sun went down now, firefights on Canal Street became as common as mosquito bites.

  A woman in her sixties walked out of the store clutching a can of black beans to her bosom. Dax stood motionless as a man came up behind her and swiped the can, knocking the elderly woman down.

  The man stared at Dax, daring him to intervene with his eyes. He smiled and then ran away as Dax watched him go.

  Dax felt a slap on his arm, and he turned to see the woman’s face in his, her eyes red and wet. She opened her mouth as if to smile but her rotten teeth turned it into a snarl.

  “What’s your problem? You think because this city’s gone to hell that you don’t have to do your damn job?”

  Dax looked down at the badge. He couldn’t remember where he’d lost his policeman’s cap. Not that it mattered all that much. He had stolen the police uniform from a dry cleaner when the world went to shit two weeks ago, hoping the disguise would buy him some respect from the looters and bandits. It had at first, but not anymore. Now he wondered if the ruse would become a liability on the lawless streets.

  “Go to hell,” the elderly woman said as she walked away.

  He turned back to the store, watching flashlight beams dance across the walls as someone fired a gun inside. People walked out of the front of the building, carrying a can or two of dry goods and rotten fruit. They glanced at Dax as they exited before heading in different directions.

  He heard more shouts, including the word “pig.” Dax watched as the random flow of thieves disappeared while small groups of young men clumped together. They wore the same colored bandanas and were all looking at him.

  Dax turned and walked down the sidewalk, glancing over his shoulder at the gang members still coming out of the store. They had begun slapping around a woman who wouldn’t give up her purse and were no longer interested in what he was doing.

  Others passed him on the sidewalk going in both directions. None had stopped to ask him for help. Nobody had even looked his way.

  Dammit, Gabby. I wish I knew if you and your kids were okay.

  Dax reached down and put a hand on his hip, his fingers caressing the Glock.45 in the holster.

  He ducked into an alley and headed into the darkness. The glow of fires from burning stores illuminated the mouth of the alley but couldn’t penetrate the full length of it. He stepped over a homeless man and around a motionless body—probably dead. Dax stared at a steel door without a handle, with Crescent City Bakers stenciled in black paint on the front. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard and listening to gunshots, screams, laughter and barking dog
s.

  Dax rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes. Embedded within the terrors of the dying city, he noticed new cries and screams, coming from somewhere nearby. Dax pushed off the wall and looked deep into the dark alley. He stood still, listening. A woman shrieked, and it sent a shiver down his spine. He drew the Mag-Lite from his side. The powerful beam swept the ground as he walked deeper into the darkness and toward the woman’s voice. He passed a dumpster and saw a man with a long gray beard slumped between it and the wall, his neck slit from ear to ear. He could smell blood and the overwhelming stench of rotting fish. Dax jerked the light away, directing it forward again.

  He approached a set of large double doors. The woman cried out again from the other side. But it wasn’t just one voice. He heard more female sobs and the low, bass tones of men.

  Dax turned off the flashlight and approached the door. When he reached out for the handle, the door swung open and knocked him backward. He fell down, tumbling into the space between the dumpster and the opposite wall.

  He sat still as several men came through the open door, walking down the alley toward the street.

  They didn’t see me.

  Dax stood up, most of his body on the outside of the door, and peered inside the building with one eye. Several dozen women and children sat on the floor, their faces wet and red, bleeding from facial cuts and swollen noses. A few men wearing gang colors and holding guns stood near the door.

  A blonde woman, with long hair and make-up that had been smeared across her fine skin and high cheekbones, pleaded with one of the captors to let her go. The man smiled from beneath a black stocking cap pulled down over his eyes. He struck her with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling onto the floor. Then he drew a handgun and pointed it at the woman.

  “Anyone else makes so much as a goddamn peep, I’ll blow her fucking brains out.”

  The other prisoners quivered and groaned, but none spoke another word.

  The man with the gun drawn approached the door and was about to close it when he made eye contact with Dax.

  Shit.

  A short, stout guy flashed a light onto Dax’s face.

  “Yo, this motherfuckin’ cop saw you, Darnell.”

  Run, Dax.

  “Kill that cop!” Darnell shouted down the alley.

  The four or five men who had left earlier were patrolling the edge of the sidewalk. When they heard Darnell shout, they looked back and started running down the alley toward the doors—right at Dax.

  He took off in the opposite direction, going deeper into the alley.

  Lights flashed behind him.

  “Get that motherfucker!”

  The end of the alley dumped Dax onto a side avenue that was dimly lit by the copper streetlights. He spotted two people being chased by a German Shepherd. Dax sprinted in the other direction.

  He bolted to his right on the narrow sidewalk, barely missing someone coming the other way.

  “Look out, asshole.”

  Dax grabbed the man by the shoulders and tossed him into one of the guys who’d been chasing him. The two men grunted as they collided, but Dax had already turned and continued running.

  He came to another alley. A chain-link fence bordered the back end of the property where the gang members had been keeping the women and children hostage. He looked through the fence and stopped as he saw several women running out of a door and toward him.

  “Officer, help! Please, help us!”

  Dax turned around to see four or five thugs coming down the street and running at him.

  Too many. I can’t handle all of them.

  He gripped the 7-foot fence topped with barbed-wire as the women did the same on the other side. Five feet to his right was a gate, secured with a chain and padlock. Dax considered shooting the padlock, but he had to save his bullets for the men running at him. He could come back later and shoot off the lock.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. Dax let go of the fence and turned to run.

  “Jackson!”

  Dax froze. Nobody had called him by his birth name in years.

  He furrowed his brow and turned back to look through the fence. His eyes went wide as he saw a face from his past.

  2

  Dax hadn’t seen Chloe Hayward in over twenty years, but he’d never forgotten her face or her voice. She sat against a wall on the other side of the fence with a blanket covering her legs. Other women pulled on the chain link, pleading with Dax to let them out. Then a woman to his left called out.

  “Watch out, officer!”

  He turned as the first thug lunged at him. Dax grabbed the man’s arms and then turned with him, using the attacker’s own momentum to throw him to the ground. He took a step back as another man came at him. The guy slashed at the air between them with a knife before rushing at Dax. He took the man by the wrist and twisted his arm. The thug grimaced, dropping his weapon. Dax threw the guy head first against the brick wall, knocking him out cold.

  The first man Dax had thrown to the ground made it back to his feet and rammed Dax into the brick wall. The man reared back to punch Dax, but he ducked. The thug’s blow missed, and instead of driving his fist into Dax’s nose, his knuckles cracked against the wall. The guy screamed, and Dax elbowed him in the face, sending him to the ground in a spray of blood and tears.

  The guy who had slapped the blonde woman earlier—Darnell—came at Dax last. He held the handgun he’d threatened her with in his right hand and raised it, aiming the barrel at Dax’s chest.

  He shook his head and flashed a mouthful of gold teeth. “Well shit, I’ve always wanted to blast a cop.”

  Dax watched the guy’s shoulders, waiting for him to make his move.

  “No last words, bitch?”

  Instead of responding, Dax rolled to his left and dove to the ground. Darnell fired two shots, the blasts nearly deafening at such close range.

  Dax came out of his roll and already had the Glock off of his hip, burying a single round into the thug’s chest. Darnell clutched the wound, his eyes wide and now looking down at Dax. He toppled over, dropping the handgun.

  Dax stood up and looked at the men lying on the asphalt. One squirmed on the ground, but Darnell was dead before he reached it.

  He didn’t give me no choice. It was him or me.

  “Help us, please,” a woman said from inside the fence.

  Dax turned to the two dozen women gathered at the fence. They looked toward the building and then back at Dax. More came to the fence, some dragging children by their arms. Dax looked at the padlock that secured a chain around the fence’s gate and then back down at the men lying on the ground.

  How long before the rest of these assholes show up?

  “Stand back. I gotta shoot it off.”

  He aimed his gun at the lock. The women and children who had been clamoring for his attention now scattered behind the fence and toward the interior of the yard. Dax averted his eyes and fired. He heard a loud clank, and when he looked down, the lock was gone. He pulled the chain free of the fence and pushed it open. A woman put her arms around his neck and gave him a brisk hug.

  “Oh my God, thank you, officer.”

  Women and children rushed past him, some smiling or thanking him while others could barely talk through their joyful tears. Dax pushed through the women and toward the back wall of the pen. He knelt down next to Chloe.

  “Jackson. Jackson Harper. My God, it’s really you...”

  A head of wiry, curly hair framed her familiar face. But it was her eyes—he’d never forgotten her big, brown, bright eyes. Dax couldn’t remember how many nights he had been lost in them. Chloe had been the most popular girl in school. With her mother being from Haiti and her father a third-generation New Yorker, she had light skin and dark hair, her mixed ethnicity offering an exotic and tantalizing allure for most teenage boys.

  Dax would never forget how beautiful she was. But now, she looked tired and defeated.

  “How did you know it was me? You haven�
�t seen me in almost twenty-five years.”

  She smiled. “I don’t forget faces. You haven’t changed that much.”

  Dax swallowed, knowing a lot had happened in the near quarter-century since they’d last seen each other. “Are you hurt? Can you move?”

  “No, but I—”

  Dax pulled the blanket off of her, and his eyes widened. She wore dirty blue jeans, but her right pant leg was pinned up mid-thigh, her leg missing from the knee down. He looked down for a puddle of blood, and she drew his chin up with her hand.

  He looked into her eyes. “How did this—”

  “Not now. I’ll explain later. We have to get out of here. Right now.”

  “Do you have a cane or something?”

  “No. They took my prosthetic from me. You’re gonna have to help me out of here.”

  He slipped the Glock back into its holster. “All right. Let’s go.”

  Dax grabbed Chloe under the arms and lifted her up. She put her arm around his neck, and Dax put his arm around her waist, offering her extra support.

  “There are others inside. We can’t leave them.”

  “No choice. I’m sorry.”

  “No, we can’t leave—”

  “Do you want to get out of here or not?” Dax narrowed his eyes. “We have to go now before more of those guys come and see that you all got out. Do you understand?”

  Chloe lowered her eyes and nodded.

  “We’ll try and come back for them. But we have to leave right now.”

  He turned and saw that the yard stood nearly empty; all of the prisoners had fled except for one woman with long, curly red hair that dangled in front of bright green eyes. Her mascara had run down the sides of her face, but even in such a state of disarray, Dax found her captivating.

  “I’ll help you with her,” the woman said.

  Chloe smiled at her. “Thank you, Mindy.”

  “All right,” Dax said. “Now let’s move.”

  3

  They stepped out of the caged yard and into the night. Five people had gathered around the men Dax had left on the ground, digging through their pockets. A woman took the pistol from the dead man’s hand and checked the clip for bullets. Dax went to her, his hand reaching out for the gun, but she took a step back and shook her head.