After weeks – months? – of being constantly rundown, she’d finally seemed to turn the corner. And after seeing Janie and Jo, his concerns about radiation poisoning had dissipated – her symptoms weren’t anything like theirs, and they’d had much more exposure than she had. Maybe it’d just been a bad stomach bug, or mono, or… something. They’d probably never know. He was just grateful that it was gone.
That being said, he wasn’t done worrying about her just yet. His concerns over her physical wellbeing had quickly been replaced with other anxieties.
They exited the tent and found Alessa over by the fire pit, taking her turn cleaning up the cooking pots after breakfast. The rest of the squad was loitering around the camp nearby, but no one was speaking to her. Tension clotted in the air.
“Need any help?” Isaac offered, breaking the awkward silence and sitting down beside her on a log.
Josephine, seeming oblivious to the strain between the adults, skipped around to Alessa’s other side and reached for the next pan in the line-up. “I’ll do that one,” she volunteered.
Alessa handed them both scrub pads, seeming grateful for the assistance. But she stayed quiet.
It’d been a week since they’d set the Stuck loose on Paragon’s soldiers, and Alessa had barely spoken in the interim. Isaac knew she was upset about what had happened, but he didn’t know how much longer they could go on like this.
She was stalling, he knew. She was the rebels’ only link to the Stuck – they couldn’t communicate with them effectively without her. And she was refusing to speak to them.
Isaac and Josephine scrubbed alongside her in silence. He glanced sidelong at her every so often, wondering what was going on in her head.
“Have you seen Joe today?” Isaac asked quietly.
Joe had stopped by the camp on a few occasions and gone to Alessa, but each time something wordless had transpired between them, and then he’d left. Whatever she was thinking, he seemed to support. Or, at least, he knew better than to try to change her mind.
Carlos, on the other hand, did not.
Isaac could see him cleaning his gun at one of the picnic tables across the way, shooting daggers at Alessa’s back like the others.
They were all getting restless. They wanted to make their move on Paragon. And Alessa was standing in their way.
Alessa shook her head, answering his question about Joe.
Of course not.
Isaac resumed scouring his pot, taking out his frustration on the caked-on food.
He couldn’t talk to Carlos or Alicia or any of the crew, not without them berating him for Alessa’s stalemate, as if he had any control over it.
He couldn’t get Alessa to tell him what she was feeling, or what her plans were, besides keeping to herself for, what, ever?
He couldn’t find the words to tell Joe how sorry he was, to see if there was some way he could make it all up to him. And he couldn’t think of one thing they might try to help Joe, to get him back to normal.
He was just trapped, in the middle of everyone, with no course of action that felt like it had any chance of helping anything.
Isaac sat there, stewing in his own self-pity, trying and failing to think creatively about anything he might do to break the impasse.
And that was when Carlos pulled his gun.
40. CONFRONTATION
“Whoa. Whoa. Hang on, man. We’re all friends here!” Deion held up his hands palms-out in an effort to placate the brawny, deeply-tanned soldier that was currently pointing an excessively large weapon at his head.
The barrel of the gun still trained steadily on Deion’s face, the man replied, his voice cold, “No friends of mine carry Paragon-issued rifles.” He nodded toward the guns slung over Deion’s and Alex’s shoulders.
“These?” Deion asked, reaching innocently for the weapon before the click of more guns being cocked in his direction made him think better of it. He raised his hands higher instead. “We stole them! I promise!”
“You can have them,” Alex called out from behind Deion’s shoulder. “We don’t even know how to use them,” he mumbled, though Deion wasn’t sure if anyone else heard.
“Slowly,” the lead soldier commanded. “We will not hesitate to shoot you.”
“Yes, you’ve made that clear,” Alex muttered under his breath.
Ignoring Alex’s snark, Deion announced, “We understand,” nodding eagerly to emphasize the point.
Keeping his eyes locked on his adversary – his adversary that was supposed to be a friend, he silently cursed at Lizzie – Deion reached for his gun with extreme restraint, moving at a snail’s pace as he removed the weapon from his back and bent to place it on the ground in front of him. The clearing was so silent that he could hear the swipe of the strap across Alex’s back and the click of the metal buckles hitting the earth as his friend did the same.
They resumed their standing positions, arms still raised in surrender.
A tall, athletic-looking guy with light brown hair – also in fatigues, Deion noted – approached and casually grabbed the rifles off the ground. “Is this really necessary, Carlos?” he grumbled, glancing back at the first soldier disapprovingly.
“Stand down, Mason,” the commander, Carlos apparently, warned.
The brown-haired guy sighed and shook his head, dropping the weapons on a nearby picnic table. He leaned back against the table, drumming his fingers against the rough wooden surface, and surveyed the scene dispassionately. “They’re clearly no threat,” he argued.
Mildly insulted, Deion choked back the slight to his pride – humiliation was a less bitter pill to swallow than lead.
He was about to try to explain who sent them when movement in the woods behind Carlos caught his eye.
It took every ounce of self-control Deion possessed not to scream and run when a hideous, hulking creature like the one they’d seen on the drama set – one of the Stuck, Lizzie had called them – emerged from between the trees, growling.
Deion’s mouth dropped open to warn the soldiers of the danger, but words failed him. His eyes wide with terror, he motioned over Carlos’s shoulder.
“Behind you!” Alex practically screeched.
Carlos narrowed his eyes, but refused to drop them – or his gun – from Deion and Alex.
The monstrous bulk lurched forward, only steps now from the soldier’s back. Deion knew the beast could close the gap in a single leap, easy. Any moment now they were all about to be torn to pieces.
“W-why is no one shooting it?” he finally managed to spit, stammering with fear.
The soldier leaning on the picnic table groaned. “Can we all just let this go now?”
Just then a statuesque woman with bright green eyes stepped into the clearing, looking from Carlos and the other soldiers with their raised guns, to the monster with its bulging blue orbs, and finally settling on the guy who was still coolly perched against the table.
“Isaac, what’s going on here?” she questioned, her expression baffled.
The Isaac guy just shrugged in resignation. “Ask Carlos.”
The tall brunette swiveled on the commander. “Carlos, drop the gun, you’re upsetting Joe.”
Finally, the weapon was lowered, the muscles in his forearms rippling with the motion. He gave Deion a look of disdain, then turned an even more scornful eye on the woman. “Convenient,” he scoffed. “Now you talk to him.”
The emeralds of her eyes burned. “Yes, to avoid more unnecessary bloodshed,” she gritted through her teeth, challenging.
“Whatever,” Carlos sneered. “You deal with this, then.” He turned and stalked off, brushing right past the menacing creature leering behind him, who snapped a warning bite in the air in his direction. “Oh, shove it, Joe,” he muttered, waving a hand behind him and not even bothering to look up.
Deion did a double take. Were they calling that thing Joe?
Everyone relaxed after Carlos’s exit and returned to whatever it was they’d been do
ing before Deion and Alex had arrived. Deion turned to the woman. “Thank y–”
He was interrupted by Alex grabbing his shoulders and steering Deion’s body between him and the creature. “Really, no one’s going to shoot it?” he squeaked, frantically eyeballing everyone with a weapon.
Isaac pushed off the table and gave him a look of contempt. “That’s my brother, you ass.”
His brother?
“Your brother?” Alex had simultaneously vocalized Deion’s thoughts.
The creature huffed aggressively in Alex’s direction; Deion could have sworn it gave him a dirty look.
“His name is Joe,” the woman explained.
“So we’ve gathered…” Alex replied, puzzled. He released his vise grip on Deion’s back and straightened himself out, brushing the hair out of his face with less grace than Deion was accustomed to seeing in his behavior.
“Sorry about all that,” she motioned back over her shoulder in the direction that Carlos and the creature – Joe, Deion corrected himself – had been standing. “It’s me they’re all mad at. They’re just taking it out on you.” She shrugged apologetically, then stuck out her hand congenially. “I’m Alessa.”
Taking her outstretched fingers, Deion breathed a sigh of relief. They had found their destination.
“Nice to meet you, Alessa. I’m Deion.”
Alex shook her hand as well. “Likewise. Alex.”
“Believe it or not,” Deion added, “we have a message for you.”
“A message?” Alessa queried. “From who?”
“From Lizzie,” Alex replied, his voice cheerful, as if presenting an unexpected and delightful gift.
All trace of cordiality drained from Alessa’s face.
Behind Deion, Isaac sighed with exasperation.
Deion clenched his teeth. Perhaps their work here wasn’t done quite yet.
41. STRATEGY
So Lizzie was alive. And she knew their small band of rebels had survived. And she was looking for them.
This most likely did not bode well for what was left of the resistance.
After a tense moment, Alessa sighed. “Come on.” She motioned the newcomers over towards a large tent that was propped open. “Let’s go talk.”
She locked eyes with Isaac, who was still shaking his head in dismay, and mouthed, “Janie.” He nodded his understanding and left to grab her sister, who had promptly pulled Josephine and Alicia into another tent at the far end of camp at the first sign of trouble.
Ducking through the opening, Alessa flipped over the makeshift map they’d been sketching and cleared some space on the table. They’d dragged in one of the picnic tables in order to use this larger pavilion as a war room, back when Alessa was still inclined to consider war. The map hadn’t been touched in days.
She sat down on the bench, Alex and Deion shuffling in behind her and taking seats across the table.
Alessa took a moment to look at their faces – really look – and see what she could find there. This was one situation in which she wished her empath abilities would work on someone other than the Stuck, or the dead.
Deion, the taller of the two, looked at her earnestly. A glistening layer of sweat beaded on his ebony forehead, which he wiped into his close-cropped hair with the back of his hand. He seemed nervous, but not in a hiding-something way; Alessa was picking up more of a fear-of-being-rejected vibe.
Alex, on the other hand, looked ready to bolt. His almond-shaped eyes darted back and forth across the room, and his chiseled jawline was set in a line of discomfort. But his anxiety felt genuine to Alessa – she supposed Joe could do that to anyone.
She didn’t get the sense that either of them had come with less-than-noble intent. From the little she had witnessed, they seemed like decent guys.
Probably the latest victims of Lizzie’s manipulations, she scorned.
If they were doing anything malicious, Alessa realized, they probably didn’t even know it. She would have to be on her guard.
After what she was sure must have felt like an eternity to Deion and Alex, Alessa finally broke the silence. “So, tell me about Lizzie.”
Deion exhaled, seeming relieved. “You know her, right? You guys are friends?”
Alessa pursed her lips. At one time she would have said that was true, but now? “We… are familiar,” she wagered.
Alex shot Deion a look, but Deion didn’t seem to notice. “She’s in Paragon. She’s undercover with the Engineers.”
“Undercover,” Alessa reiterated, skeptical.
“Yeah,” Alex finally piped in. “She got a position working on the dramas, she’s using it to monitor the satellite film – that’s how she found you.”
Alessa thought she detected a hint of pride in his voice. She wondered what Alex’s relationship was to Lizzie, but then again, she wouldn’t be surprised if he was infatuated with her – like the rest of the male species.
“Satellite film?” Alessa questioned.
“Oh yeah, I guess you wouldn’t know –”
“The current drama series is incorporating real-world footage of the resistance,” Deion explained. “Lizzie thinks they’re using it as anti-rebel propaganda, seeding the populace against you – against us – for whenever we decide to attack.”
Us. We. Alessa wondered if they had any idea what they had gotten themselves into.
“If we decide to attack,” Alessa corrected. “Not so easy when most of the resistance is dead.”
Deion nodded sympathetically. “They showed the explosion on the drama. Lizzie said it was real.”
“What else did Lizzie say about it?” Alessa demanded. These two pawns may not know it, but Janie was still convinced Lizzie had something to do with the blast – and Alessa was inclined to trust her sister’s intuition.
“She doesn’t really know much about what happened.” Deion shrugged. “The Engineers told her it was a fluke, something wrong with your base. Lizzie doesn’t believe them.”
Neither did Alessa. But she didn’t really believe Lizzie, either.
“Is that all?”
Deion looked confused, like he wasn’t sure what she was after. “She doesn’t really remember much. She woke up immediately after and locked herself in a storage shed. She was delirious with hunger and dehydration by the time she reached Paragon.”
“And did she say what she was doing outside Raptor at the time of the detonation?”
It was a loaded question, and they seemed to know it. Alex shifted in his seat and looked at the floor. Deion hesitated, seeming to weigh his answer.
“She was… kidnapping the little girl, the one who’s immune.”
Alessa’s eyebrows shot to the sky. So she admitted it. She knew she shouldn’t trust Lizzie.
“But she was – what do you call it – stitched!” Alex jumped to Lizzie’s defense. “She didn’t realize what she was doing. Well, she kind of realized, but they’d made her forget all kinds of stuff…”
“She’s really sorry about it now,” Deion offered.
Janie chose that moment to finally make an appearance.
“Janie,” Alessa said in greeting. “Deion and Alex here were just telling me that Lizzie was stitched when she decided to abduct Josephine.”
Janie rolled her eyes and sat down. “Of course she was.”
Alessa wasn’t sure she was buying Lizzie’s story, either.
She looked back to the guys and was curious to notice Deion staring blatantly at Janie.
Janie noticed too and raised an eyebrow at him. “Do I know you from somewhere?” she exacted.
“I don’t think so…” Deion replied cautiously. “But I’m pretty sure I know you. Zeta Epsilon Pi?” His face broke out in a demure smile.
Janie rolled her eyes again, but Alessa couldn’t help but notice that she was blushing faintly and the corners of her mouth had twisted up ever so slightly. She thumbed her fist towards Alessa. “What about this one?”
Deion glanced curiously towards Alessa,
and then it hit him all at once. “Oh! You were all on that drama! I didn’t recognize you with the shorter hair.”
Alessa knew he was being polite. “Or the dirt,” she added with a self-deprecating smile, motioning at the build-up of grime on her arms. She’d barely been able to make a dent in it all these weeks with the ash from the explosion still littering the ground and clouding the streams.
“So Lizzie claims she was stitched,” Janie steered the conversation back to the subject at hand.
“What, you don’t think she’s telling the truth?” Deion surmised.
“She’s definitely telling the truth,” Alex defended.
Alessa could tell, again, that they really did believe her. But she just wasn’t sure if she could trust their judgment. Though, she supposed it didn’t really matter – if Lizzie knew where the rebels were, it meant they had no choice but to cooperate. If they tried to escape, she could probably track them. But if they worked with her – even if she tried to double-cross them – at least they had a chance at getting at the Engineers.
Alessa decided to press them anyway. “What makes you so sure?”
“She showed us the hotel,” Alex revealed.
“And what’s going on upstairs…” Deion elaborated, grimacing.
“They’d removed her memories of it,” explained Alex. “She said it all came back when she was in the editing room one day. They’ve just been using her to get to Regina, she said.”
Alessa shook her head. “Well, didn’t do them much good. Regina is gone now, along with the rest of them.”
“Maybe that was the point,” Deion speculated.
“Lizzie seems to think so,” Alex offered.
“I thought Lizzie said they wanted peace?” Janie interjected. “She’s been trying for months to get us to agree to a ceasefire – she’s been blackmailing us over it.”
Deion shrugged. “I don’t think she believes anything the Engineers say anymore.”
“But she did,” Alex reminded them. “She really did believe them, when she was stitched. She thought she was doing the right thing. She wants to fix it now.”
“And she needs your help. We need your help.” Deion gave Alessa an earnest look, his eyes pleading.
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