Collapse Series (Book 10): State of Hope

by Summer Lane

  “Yeah.” I shrug. “You should have. Then I wouldn’t be alive, and we wouldn’t be here. And you wouldn’t be stalling.”

  “I’m not stalling,” Veronica snaps. “I’m just enlightening you to-”

  “To what? How you’re going to kill me? Just do it already.”

  “Veronica,” Banner interrupts. “Just finish it. If she must die, make it quick. We have bigger matters to attend to.”

  Veronica lifts her head, her lip curling into an animalistic snarl.

  “I’ve been waiting for this for a long time,” she says.

  I take a deep breath, watching Banner from the corner of my eye. I can tell by the way he holds the gun, and the distance he keeps between our bodies, that he is not a fighter, and that he is not familiar enough with his weapon to think as quickly as I can.

  Veronica grips the gun with her free hand. My adrenaline spikes as I stare down the muzzle of her weapon. I flick my hand to the knife on my hip and move faster than I have ever moved before. I don’t look, I don’t think: I just feel.

  I feel my fingers close around the smooth handle of my lucky knife. I feel myself flipping the blade into my hand and throwing it forward, launching it through the air in a perfect arc. I never look at it – I just look at Veronica. I look into her eyes and I see the fragmented pieces of her demented soul, the evil that lurks there, responsible for the deaths of millions, the mother of western genocide.

  It all seems to happen slowly – but it is barely a second, barely a blink.

  The knife buries itself into the hollow of her neck, ripping through the soft flesh. She stumbles backward, and then she stands there, frozen. The color drains from her face, and I can see the utter, complete terror in her eyes.

  The gun falls from her hand, clattering to the ground. President Banner stands there in shock, horrified and unmoving. Veronica clutches her neck, and then she hits the floor on her knees. She makes a gasping, choking sound. Her throat is ruined, and she can’t breathe. Her face turns a shade of red and purple, and blood begins to drip from the sides of her mouth.

  “Long live the Freedom Fighters,” I say, never breaking her gaze.

  She shudders, and then she falls to the ground, the white of her dress soaked in her own blood.

  Dead at last. After all this time.

  Finally, Veronica Klaus is dead.

  I turn my eyes to Banner, who is staring at Veronica.

  I think, He’s stupid and slow. He’s already dead, too.

  And as I make a move to grab the second knife on my belt, anger lights his expression. He snaps out of it, and he moves faster than I could have imagined him capable.

  My first thought is I underestimated him, I’m going to pay for that. Before I can even get my hand on the second knife, he’s already raised his gun and squeezed the trigger. His aim isn’t good, but it’s good enough.

  I hear the gunshot as if in a dream, and I feel the explosion of pain as the bullet rips into the skin just above my right hip, hot and searing and destructive. I fall backward as if I’ve been punched in the gut, and the chaotic, burning sensation of being shot pumps through my body. For a moment, I lie there, my ears ringing piercingly loud, my heartbeat pounding out a rhythm of pain in my abdomen.

  And then I blink a few times, and I see Banner standing over me with the gun in his hand, and he is screaming at me. I can’t make out a single word – I gasp for breath and try to sit up, but the wound is excruciating, like a hot iron being shoved into my gut.

  “…AND NOW YOU’RE DEAD LIKE CHRIS YOUNG IS!” President Banner spits, and all at once his words are horribly loud, and he seems like some shadowy demon lurking in the room, growling at me. “If you would have just died in Cambria like HE DID you would have saved me a lot of trouble, and Klaus wouldn’t be DEAD!”

  He is enraged, and it is in this moment that I see him for who he truly is:

  A master of deceit, a man of broken promises, a power-worshipping Omega cult leader, a Manchurian Candidate, and a coward. He drops to his knees and holds Veronica’s face in his hands, and he shudders with sobs. I vaguely realize that while Abbi and Mary Banner were nothing more than chess pieces in a master’s game of deception, perhaps Veronica Klaus and Damien Ramses were working together not because they needed to, but because they were in love, and always had been…a political alliance built on the bare bones of a romantic affair…

  Banner – Damien – turns his back on me and I blink through the fiery pain and the panicked beating of my heart, hot blood spilling out of my body, soaking my shirt and running down my pant leg.

  I can feel the energy leaving my limbs. I tell myself to move, to reach out, to keep going. I came here for one reason, and I have to finish my mission. If I don’t, there will never be another chance.

  It takes everything left in me to lean forward and then sit up. I reach for Veronica’s gun on the floor, but as I do, President Banner seems to realize that he has done something stupid by having his back turned to me. He whirls around and launches himself at me, roaring with rage and fear. He slams me against the floor, and his face hovers just above mine. He jams his fingers into the gunshot above my hip, and I scream. All I see is white hot pain, and I struggle to kick him off, but he laughs manically, pushing his fingers deeper into my wound.

  I scream until my voice is hoarse and I think, This is it, I’m going to pass out, and he’ll kill me before I wake up. I can’t take this pain. Oh, God, I can’t take this…

  Banner moves his meaty hands to my throat, and as his fingers close around my esophagus, my body rebels at the oxygen deprivation. I’m fading, fading, and I know it. But Banner leers close to my face, smiling like a madman, saying, “You’re dead like your rebellion is dead, like Chris Young is dead, like your father is dead, like the world will be dead. You are Omega’s. We own you.”

  He’s so close. I lean forward and bite his cheek. I grind my teeth together, tasting blood and flesh. I bite hard – channeling all of my strength and frustration and pain into it. Banner screams so loud, I swear the glass in the room shatters into a thousand pieces. He jerks away and falls backward, cursing and yelling. His cheek is a bloody, torn mess. I roll over, telling myself to ignore the pain – this will all be over soon – and I grab Veronica’s gun.

  I pull myself to my feet and squeeze the trigger. I shoot Banner’s left leg, and he screams. I shoot his right leg, and he screams again. Sweat pours down his face, and he desperately drags himself away from me, pressed up against the wall, his legs as useless as broken twigs.

  “Hart,” he stutters. “I beg you…we can be allies…I can give you power – more power than you…could ever…imagine…”

  “I don’t want power,” I spit. “I want freedom.”

  I hold the gun level with his face, and he frantically begs me to spare his life through his sobs. Tears and snot roll down his cheeks.

  I shoot him.

  The shot hits him right in the center of his forehead, a ruby-red blossom taking the life from his body, spilling blood into his eyes. I stand there for a long moment with my arm outstretched, then shakily lower the weapon to my side. I clutch my wound, and I sink to the floor, overwhelmed with exhaustion. I hold the gun in my hand and I sit between the dead bodies of Chancellor Veronica Klaus and Chancellor Damien Ramses.

  I look at the dead face of the man who I once called the President of the United States. I look at the blood covering my body – both my own and his.

  I did it, I think. God, I didn’t think I could.

  Fatigue consumes me. I have no second thoughts, only sadness. I feel the weight of the war on my shoulders in this moment, and I know that – like it or not – I may not have the strength to carry on. This is my last power play in a battle that has been more grueling than anything I could have ever imagined when I first picked up a gun and took a shot at an Omega trooper in California.

  Lieutenant Hart…Commander Hart…General Hart…does it even matter?

  I feel profoundly lonel
y then, and I know that I’m played out.

  My mission has been successful, but I am rooted to the spot, glued here with pain and exhaustion and the finality of my actions.

  I, Cassidy Hart, have just killed the President of the United States.

  And the funny thing is…

  I have no regrets.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Everything comes together like pieces of a fragmented mosaic. I understand the deep conspiracy of the Omega takeover. I see that, from the beginning, President Banner and Omega planned the takeover from day one. They watched everything from the safety of Atlas One, hidden beneath our very noses. Whether or not the leadership at Camp Freedom was aware of President Banner’s presence here, I don’t know. I want to believe that they didn’t, because if they did…I would have to assume that they were traitors, also, and I don’t want to believe that, either.

  I understand now that Saul Banner has been trying to kill me since he arrived in Camp Cambria, where he tried to kill both Chris and I in camp. When he failed to kill me on a rescue operation to retrieve the first family, he sent assassins to do the job in Morro Bay. He had those same assassins terminated before General Beckham ever got a chance to interrogate them, which may have led them back to the president himself.

  All of this, planned since the beginning…and only now does it make perfect sense.

  Burrowed deep in the heart of Atlas One, I sit for a long while on the floor, too tired to move. Hours pass – or maybe minutes. I don’t know. At last, I force myself to stand, and I leave the dead bodies of the two chancellors behind. I stumble through the bunker, coming to a room equipped with medical supplies…no doubt meant to keep the residents of Atlas One alive and well.

  I barely hoist myself onto the table and tear into the cabinets above my head, finding an extensive stash of gauze, forceps, antiseptic wipes, and stitches. I rip my shirt off and force myself to look at the gunshot.

  It’s bad, but not horrible.

  The Kevlar body armor has saved me from death. The skin is broken from the impact of the shot, but the bullet has not entered my body. The Kevlar stopped it before it could – and for that, I am grateful. Dark blood is rushing from the wound. I pull the bullet from the body armor, amazed that it stopped the round at such close range. I try to touch the wound, but it hurts too much.

  I’ll have to do this a different way.

  I roll up a white towel and shove it in my mouth. I reach into the wound, screaming into the towel and biting the cloth.

  Oh, hell no.

  I lay back on the cot, crying for several minutes before I have the courage to move forward with my little self-surgery. I wipe the blood away and then burn the wound itself with antiseptic. When I am sure that I have cleaned the wound enough to survive, I grab the sutures and shove the towel back into my mouth. I slowly stitch the broken skin back together, but the pain is not as bad because the flesh is numb from the antiseptic. When I am done, I smear an antibacterial cream over the entire area, and then I wrap my waist in gauze and secure it with bandages.

  I will survive.

  Spent, I lay back on the cot again, trembling like a tree in a storm, struggling to regain strength. A few moments pass, and I look through the rest of Atlas One, dragging my sorry butt from room to room. I see nothing of interest, other than a few bedrooms and a kitchen. I drink from the tap, slaking my extreme thirst, and then I wipe my mouth on the sleeve of my jacket.

  Time to go.

  I holster my guns and return to the satellite room. I pull my lucky knife from Veronica’s throat, wiping the blood off with a cloth. I leave the room behind, returning to the entrance to the bunker. I open the doors, and I walk through the hall, trying to ignore my haggard and, frankly, horrifying appearance at the moment. I stumble into the elevator and ride it to the top level. When I step into headquarters at Camp Freedom, I move outside. The snow is still falling, and the camp is ablaze with fire. The smoke has settled, and there are dead bodies everywhere.

  My handiwork, and for the first time in a long while, I wish I wasn’t such a killer.

  But I am, and I must accept it, so I discard the wish and set to work. I manage to make it to the munitions building in the center of camp, and I push my way inside. I stuff dozens of explosives into my pack, and then I return to the pit of Atlas One.

  I set explosives everywhere, determined to eradicate every trace of this place, and the elaborate lie it inflicted on the militias and everyone who has fought for freedom in this struggle against Omega.

  I carry the bomb trigger in my hand as I leave the bunker behind, sealing the doors shut in my wake. I take the elevator up again, and I find the only remaining vehicle in the camp that is still intact. I slide behind the driver’s seat and gun the engine – a white pickup truck – and I pull out of Camp Freedom, leaving the familiar outline of my beloved safe haven behind.

  I squeeze the trigger and the explosives detonate beneath the ground.

  The bunker is so far beneath the earth and the walls are so thick that I can barely feel the rumble of destruction under me, but I know it’s there. I know that President Banner’s body is gone, and so is Veronica’s…no one will ever know why Banner really disappeared or how, and that is how it needs to be.

  I press my foot on the accelerator and I speed away from Camp Freedom, into the night, leaving the solace and memories of the mountains behind me.

  ***

  “Okay, big smile.” Mom rolls her eyes. “God, Cassie. Just smile, okay? For once?”

  I force a grin, wearing a navy-blue cap and gown, my high school diploma in my hands. We’re in the backyard of my home in Culver City, and it’s a hot day, the sky blue and cloudless. A few relatives are gathered around plastic tables and my mother has scattered baby photos of me on a table with a graduation cake.

  “Why are you always so difficult?” Mom demands, arranging her curly red hair.

  “Why are you always so difficult?” I retort.

  “Okay, can we not get into this today?” She forces a smile. “We have relatives over.”

  “Yeah, I noticed.”

  I take the cap off my head and walk away from Mom, annoyed and frustrated. After years of having no interest or involvement in my life, she had whisked back into the mix for the graduation party, insisting on inviting relatives whom I’ve never met and friends that I don’t have.

  My dad sits quiet and morose in the corner with someone named Uncle Ted – yet another relative I had no idea existed – watching Mom with a sad expression on his face. In reality, I can never understand why they married in the first place. They are so different – complete opposites, and quite honestly…Mom is a little off the deep end. But maybe, at one time, it had made sense.

  I just never saw that part of it.

  I sit down at a table, alone, watching Mom talk animatedly with the guests, pretending that she didn’t abandon me when I was a kid and that my family is whole and not ridiculously screwed up. I fiddle with my diploma, fielding obligatory questions from aunts and uncles.

  “Where are you going to college?” “What are your plans after graduation?”

  And the best one: “Do you have a boyfriend?”

  Really, I’m a little lost at how to answer, because I don’t know the answers to their questions. I have a rough idea of studying criminal justice in college, but I don’t have the money. I’ll have to find a job. No, I don’t have a boyfriend and I don’t care. Since when does that define me as a person, anyway? And yes, my plans after graduation include nothing exciting. You’re welcome.

  I don’t realize as I walk into the house to grab a Solo cup filled with punch that I will remember this day long after the world as I know it has ended. I will recall the manic idiosyncrasies of my mother with a little fondness, and the calm quiet of my father with a desperate ache. I’ll remember the smell of freshly mowed grass and the wonder of taking pictures on cell phones. I’ll miss Uncle Ted – whoever he is – and I’ll miss the possibility of be
ing able to make a life for myself in a civilized society free of the scourge of Omega.

  But I don’t know any of this, now.

  I just take a sip, grab a cookie, and hide from the party.

  I open a book and huddle in my room, avoiding the conversation and the drama and the overbearing dialogue of my estranged mother.

  Someday, I will wish I could return to this day.

  Someday I won’t be so foolish, and I will appreciate the world as it is, because it was good, it was better, and I was innocent and I was not a killer.

  Not yet.

  ***

  I’m not able to reach Monterey without stopping. I am spent, wounded, and drained. I pull the pickup into a parking lot behind an abandoned shopping center, wedging the vehicle behind a garbage dump. It’s early afternoon, and I am sweating buckets. I hydrate, lying across the seats, gritting through the throbbing pain in my abdomen.

  I check the wound to make sure it’s not infected, and I dress it again, keeping it cleaned out. I am still covered in blood, and I know I look terrible, but I don’t care. I force myself to close my eyes for a bit, resting my strained body. After a couple of hours, I get up and keep driving. I’m delirious, and the long, lonely drive across the valley prompts repeating loops of the deaths of Damien and Veronica in my head.

  I’ve wanted Veronica dead a lot longer than Saul Banner-Damien Ramses. Her death is almost more freeing than his, because Veronica has caused so much personal damage and loss…but because Banner is dead, too, I feel that Chris’s death has been somewhat avenged.

  Now all we have to do is hold up against the Athena Strike…

  President Banner is gone, General Beckham is gone. The nuclear weapons that we seized at Ohana Base are in the militias’ lap. Or, more accurately…they are in my lap. When I return, I’ll be commanding the entire western resistance, the coalition of nineteen states. The sobering responsibility is not lost on me, but I am ready for it…if I live that long.

  Hours pass, until late afternoon vanishes and evening comes. I am just leaving the coastal foothills, weaving my way through a grove of eucalyptus, when the reality of the battleground becomes clear once more. I park the pickup just outside the city, along the main highway that leads into Monterey.