by D. Laine
“Here. This will help.” Marcus’s gruff voice came from behind me. I heard a clicking noise, then a bright light chased away the darkness.
He filed past me to take the lead with the flashlight. The others trailed after him, and I fell in behind Jake—sandwiched between him and David. Missing were Maria, Keith, and Kent.
“It’s not far,” Marcus offered from the front, “but you’ll need a flashlight to find it, otherwise you’re likely to get lost. Plenty of tunnels that lead to nowhere in here.”
“Where are we going?” Jake wondered.
“There’s an air shaft up ahead,” Marcus explained. “It opens to the surface right below the peak. The tags can’t climb the steep cliff there, so they can’t get to us. It offers the perfect spot to look down on the town and the interstate below. You can see it all from there.”
Marcus led us through a network of narrow tunnels. The walls closed in around me, and my breaths grew more labored with each step. My itch for freedom worsened the farther we walked. I sighed with relief once the group started ascending the air shaft. My reprieve didn’t last long.
The air shaft was pitch black in all directions, with only an occasional flash of light from above. I heard nothing but the labored breaths around me, and my own thunderous heartbeat. Cold, wet earth enveloped me as I steadily moved from one metallic ring to the next on my way to the surface. When Marcus swung open the squeaky gate at the top, a blanket of gray ash wafted down on me.
I pushed through the opening after Jake and gulped several calming breaths. Then I saw the devastating view in front of me, and the air rushed out of me.
Though the ash denied us a clear view of the town that lay at the base of the mountain, there was enough visibility to make out the buildings, fires, and tags that wandered the streets. Leading out of the town, the abandoned cars that littered the interstate were swallowed up by a cloud of gray nothingness.
“My God,” David muttered as he came to a stand beside me.
While his gaze swept over the destruction, mine fixed on the river of blood that ran through the streets. I couldn’t look anywhere without seeing a dead body.
David’s fingers slipped between mine and I squeezed his hand, simultaneously seeking his comfort while giving him what little strength I had left.
“We haven’t spotted a survivor in a week,” Marcus volunteered. “The town is completely gone.”
“Is it like this everywhere?” Dylan wondered.
Marcus shrugged. “Keith and Kent came from Salt Lake City. They said it looked like this. But the tags there moved on once everyone was dead. They didn’t hang around like this.”
I followed Marcus’s gaze toward the westernmost section of the town. There, hundreds of tags gathered. They barely moved, barely made a noise. Only the occasional goosebumps-inducing shriek rose from the group. A few came and went, but appeared to wander aimlessly through the streets.
According to what I had been told, they should have moved on to the next town. They should have been searching for more human prey. Instead, they resembled computerized robots with a sleeping master at the controls.
“It’s like this all along the interstate,” Marcus explained. “We tried to find a way around them, but they just keep coming in. More and more every day. They just stand around and do nothing. They don’t move unless someone stumbles into their path, then they go into a frenzy.”
“How far have you traveled to find a way around?” Jake questioned.
“We went as far as Osino before turning back. There were just too many of them. All it would take was for one to spot us, and there would have been hundreds after us.” Marcus shook his head. “We’re safe here, but we have to find a way through soon, before we run out of food.”
From the gloomy faces that surrounded me, I suspected no one knew how exactly we would do that. Or they were just as wary of what we might find on the other side as I was. We had no idea what awaited us in the desert.
Supposedly a base that would offer us protection lay out there somewhere. But what if it was gone? What if these six assassins were the last? Would we be met with the sanctuary they hoped to find, a dead end, or another mob of hungry tags?
AFTER WE RETURNED to the shelter, Dylan, Jake, and Marcus decided to gather what had been left behind in our cave. I thought it was foolish of them to go back there, but they reminded me that some of our food and water, and our sleeping bags were included on the list of abandoned supplies.
Something semi-soft to sleep on was a luxury not worth possible death, in my opinion, but the rations were needed. Maria reminded us all of that.
So they left.
One of the Ringer twins stood at the entrance to watch them go. He held the matches in his hand, ready to relight the fire if the tags decided to attack while they were gone.
“That’s not likely,” he assured me. “Enough time has passed that the tags who chased you have likely slipped back into their robotic states and joined the others in the town.”
I smiled up at him from my seat on the ground. “I think you’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“No, really. They don’t stay in a frenzy for long,” he returned. “Besides, you should know the guys are okay through your connection with Jake.”
“I don’t—” I blinked. “What?”
Taking a seat beside me, David asked him, “How is that possible?”
“We’re all born with a connection,” the other Ringer explained as he strolled up alongside his brother.
“I’m sorry.” I looked between the two of them. “I can’t tell the two of you apart.”
“I’m Keith,” the one manning the matches supplied. “The ugly one is Kent.”
“Screw you,” Kent grumbled before turning a lopsided smile on me. “He’s just jealous because I’m the smarter one.”
“By two I.Q. points,” Keith fired back.
“So you’re in agreement?”
“No, I’m not.”
“You just explained how much smarter I am than you,” Kent reasoned. “And for the record, we’re identical. Which means you’re just as ugly as I am and dumber.”
My head whipped back and forth as the twins bantered. I was so busy trying to keep up, I barely noticed Maria taking a seat beside me. Not until she leaned closer to speak in my ear.
“They may be geniuses, but they both have the maturity of a toddler,” she whispered. “Any shiny new toy will distract them.”
I scoffed lightly. “Are you implying that I’m the shiny new toy?”
She turned calculating eyes on me. “Aren’t you, though?”
“No. I’m—”
“I know who you are,” she cut me off. “I also know you have no idea what you have gotten yourself into. On one hand, I don’t like you in the same way I don’t like most people. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel sorry for you.”
“I don’t need your pity.” I started to stand before Maria’s firm hand on my shoulder stopped me.
“Just shut up and listen to me for a minute,” she ordered. She flicked her gaze over my shoulder to include David in on our conversation. “You want to know how it’s possible to know the others are okay?”
I glanced at David. Seeing his interest, I nodded.
“You have to open yourself up to Jake,” Maria said.
I waited for more of an explanation, but it didn’t come. “What does that mean?”
“Being separated from him for so long likely weakened the bond you were born with,” Maria explained hastily. “It’s still there, but you will have to work on strengthening it.”
“How?” David asked for me.
Maria shrugged. “It’s always been there for me and Marcus.”
“Can you . . . feel him . . . now?” David asked tentatively.
Maria nodded confidently. “Yeah. They’re fine. If anything, they’re probably having a little too much fun.”
I laughed softly, albeit reluctantly. “You know that?”
/> “I can’t read his mind,” Maria amended quickly. “God, I’d never want to, but I can sense his disposition. I know when he’s happy, or sad, or mad. I can feel that sort of stuff from miles away. If I’m in the same room as him, it’s stronger. With the added advantage of being able to see his face, sometimes I do know what he’s thinking. But that’s not the bond. That’s just knowing my brother. I suggest you get to know yours. It could save your life. Or his.”
Her last words gave me pause as they sunk in.
I didn’t know Jake—at all. When I first met him, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know him. From spending the past two and a half weeks with him, I had learned that he wasn’t a bad guy. He was actually a great guy. One who would do anything for someone he cared about.
The thought of getting to know him wasn’t as scary as it had once been. Sure, I still had my reservations, but it wasn’t because of him anymore. It was me. I feared what I might learn about myself by getting to know him. Considering the harsh environment we found ourselves in, that was no longer an acceptable reason to avoid him. Opening up to Jake could be valuable—for both of us.
“Do you have any ideas on how to strengthen the bond?” I asked Maria tentatively.
She narrowed her eyes on me. “Talking to him would be a good start.”
“You said to open myself to him,” I prompted her. “Is there more to it than just talking to him?”
“Stop shutting him out,” she suggested. “Be open to the flood of senses you get from him. Don’t be afraid of it.”
My mouth dropped open at her choice of words. Flood of senses. That had happened once—the moment we met. When I first laid eyes on him, a flood of memories and visions I thought I had forgotten rushed through me. I hadn’t been prepared for it, and it scared the hell out of me.
I hadn’t experienced anything like it since. Then again, I rarely got close enough to Jake to chance a repeat. I wondered if the connection was still there. Or if I had damaged it by avoiding Jake and putting up walls.
Was it weakened only one way? Both ways? Or could he still sense me?
4
DYLAN
“Release your breath slowly, then gently pull the trigger.”
The resulting boom echoed across the valley. I watched the targeted tag drop from a well-placed bullet to the head through a pair of binoculars.
“Hell yeah!” Keith called excitedly from his perch on the edge of the cliff. “That was a hit!”
Turning to David, I nodded. “Good shot. You’re getting better.”
“I got another one for you,” Marcus offered from his position on the other side of David. Both were sprawled out on their stomachs, with matching long-range rifles propped up on the rocks in front of them. “Between the gas station and the flower boutique. In the gray business suit.”
I spotted the target he described. “The one with the big splatter of blood on his fancy white shirt?”
“That would be the one,” Marcus confirmed. “He’s about to pass behind the building. Take him now, or I will.”
“I got him,” David grunted.
I glanced down to find him peering through his viewfinder. His finger hovered over the trigger as he took a breath to steady himself. Marcus glanced up at me with a smirk, and I shrugged as David took the shot.
“Got him!” Keith announced.
Turned out David was a hell of a precision shooter. Couldn’t shoot worth a damn on the run or in close quarters, but set him up with a long-range rifle and the ability to concentrate, and he got the job done. Too bad David’s sniper-shooting skills wouldn’t matter when we were forced to fight our way out of here.
“Congratulations,” Kent grumbled from his spot behind us. I turned to find he hadn’t gotten any farther with the mangled radio in his hands than he had the last time I checked. “You just need to pick off roughly four hundred more to give us a chance at fleeing undetected.”
Nothing like a heavy dose of reason to douse the high the rest of us were riding on. A quick glance toward the outer limits of the town confirmed that Kent had a good point.
Too many tags. Not nearly enough bullets.
“How are you coming along with that radio?” Keith taunted his brother.
“Do you have a better idea?” Kent fired back. “The agency is set in the middle of that basin out there.” He pointed a finger at the wide-open desert that lay beyond the town. “No mountains, no obstructions between us and them. All I need is a weak signal.”
“Still won’t work,” Marcus muttered. A moment later, he fired off a round. I didn’t bother to look. His smug grin told me that he had made the kill. “Agency won’t come get us. We’ll have to find a way to get to them.”
A month ago, I would have argued Marcus’s claim. Not anymore. Not since our commander, Agent Spence, left Jake and me in the middle of the kill zone mere hours before the volcano erupted. He had abandoned us—his number one team. For him to do that, I suspected the agency was in preservation mode. They wouldn’t risk losing more assassins to rescue the six of us.
“How do you suggest we get through the tags?” Keith questioned.
“I don’t know,” Marcus admitted as he lined up another shot. “But we need to figure it out soon, before we run out of food and water.”
“Three days,” Kent supplied. When we all turned toward him, he added, “We have three days’ worth of food left, counting everything you guys brought.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
“That’s consuming the minimum,” Kent confirmed. “Though I must say, the spoons are a nice perk. Really helps to get every last drop of mush out of those cans.”
Ignoring his attempt at humor, I pointed out, “It will take three or four days to get to the agency if we left right now. And that’s walking in a straight line south. From the sounds of it, we’ll have to walk an extra two days out of our way just to find a path around the tags.”
“We’re screwed,” Marcus grumbled.
“Maybe not,” Jake announced as he pulled himself through the air shaft grate to join us on the ledge. His chin tipped toward the town behind me. “We can get more food and water.”
No one uttered a sound for several stunned moments. Finally, Keith spoke up with the question we all wanted to ask. “You want to scavenge the town for food? With the tags?”
Jake shrugged as he drifted closer to the edge of the cliff. “There’s not that many in town. Most of them are over there.” He waved a hand in the general vicinity of the interstate. “If we go at night, we should be able to sneak around them.”
I nodded along with my partner. It was a risk, but one we needed to take. Otherwise, we would die of dehydration before we reached the agency.
“Anyone have night gear?” I threw out the necessary question.
“We do,” Keith responded.
“And what if we can’t get enough food and water for the extra miles we’ll need to travel to get around the tags?” Kent wondered.
“We won’t need to worry about that if we walk straight through,” Jake stated.
“We can’t do that,” Keith argued. “Not without invisibility cloaks, and I—”
“We can if we use the tunnel,” Jake supplied.
Marcus and I shared a glance, and he shrugged, also at a loss for what Jake was talking about.
“Don’t you remember, when we were fourteen or fifteen?” Jake questioned, looking each of us in the eyes one at a time.
“I remember seeing some big ass drills they were using,” Marcus offered.
“They never confirmed the existence of any tunnels,” I pointed out, “let alone told us where they’re located.”
“No, wait,” Kent exclaimed. “You’re right. Holy shit, how did I not think of that?” He tossed the radio to the side and jumped to his feet to swipe the binoculars from my hands. Peering down the interstate, he said, “The agency bought up that old rest stop at mile marker three-fifty-four that same year. Or was it three-fifty-seven?”
“How could you possibly know that?” I asked at the same time Jake asked, “What mile are we on?”
To me, Kent answered, “Because I’m a fucking genius with the memory of an elephant.”
“He also had a cloned copy of Spence’s keycard for a few months before the boss changed the code,” Keith deadpanned.
“I found some cool shit in those days,” Kent confirmed before answering Jake’s question. “The Elko exit is mile three-fifty-one.”
I grunted. “Assuming you’re right about this rest stop, we’re looking at a three mile walk—”
“Sprint,” Marcus corrected.
“—with five hundred tags chasing us down, to get to a tunnel that may or may not be there?”
“It’s there,” Kent stated. All five heads whipped in his direction, and he shrugged. “I can’t vouch for what kind of condition we’ll find it in, but there’s a tunnel there. I found the plans on one of my adventures in Spence’s office. They built a total of four tunnels. This one isn’t that far.”
Only three miles. But through a hungry army of tags? We would be lucky to make it halfway.
Jake nodded as he looked around the group. “Anyone else have a better idea?”
“It’s a quicker death than starvation,” I grumbled.
“We’re all conditioned,” Kent argued. “Trained, prepared, and armed. We can hug the ridge there”—he pointed toward the adjacent mountain—“at least a mile before we’re forced out into the open.”
“We can bypass this huge group,” Keith added, indicating the massive collection of tags assembled outside the town of Elko.
“We’ll need to save our ammo,” Jake concluded, nodding at Marcus and David.
“We’ll need to come up with a damn good plan.” Marcus pushed his gun to the side and glanced up at Jake. “How good of a shot is your sister?”
