God, I hoped this worked.
We reached the platform without seeing anyone else, and when we got to the door to the outside world, I saw that it was Zach himself standing there. I gave him a nod, wondering for the fiftieth time which side he was going to take in this thing—whether he wanted to stay, or if he wanted out just as badly as the rest of us—and then walked past him. A quick glance around the park showed me that both groups of workers were about 500 yards away, all surrounding the rollercoaster formerly known as The Monster again, and I motioned in that direction.
“The inlet I need should be over there, against the fence, or even in embedded in the fence,” I said, making it up as I went. “Maybe even buried in the ground, with the wires running through the dirt. The blueprint didn’t tell me, but either way, that’s where I need to go.”
Jerry just grunted in response, essentially giving me free rein, and I started walking quickly in that direction, the gun in my boot feeling like it was going to burn me with every step. Would I be able to yank it out as quickly as I needed to when the shooting started? Would I be able to shoot the first guards I saw, no matter who they were?
What if it was Jerry? Was I going to be able to do this?
I’d never signed up to kill people, and I still wasn’t very comfortable with it. Hell, I didn’t even want to shoot them. It had been one thing to steal from them. The stealing had always involved people who had more than they needed, and I’d always done it from a remote position.
I’d never had to look in their eyes as I hurt them.
The memory of Simone’s eyes right before she died—and my uncle’s when I turned to him—suddenly flashed through my mind, and I gulped. God, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do this. I wasn’t sure about it at all.
Then I saw Annie wandering through the park, her hands on her hips as she pretended to look at the foundations of The Monster. She had a little girl down in that bunker, I knew. Many of the other women did, too.
None of them wanted their kids to grow up as slaves. All of them wanted to go back to their lives.
And that was who I was fighting for, right there. This guy behind me? No matter how nice he was, he was still keeping these people hostage. Still keeping them prisoner to a madman. And that was all I needed to know.
I nodded once to Annie. Then I looked over and caught Will’s eye, and he nodded at me.
Everyone was in place, then. Everything was ready. They were all just waiting on my signal.
Chapter 27
And this was where it was going to get dicey. Because getting everyone armed and then getting them out here, to the open air, where we would have a shot at getting the hell out of this literal carnival if we could manage to get free of our guards?
That was the extent of the planning we’d done. That was it. We’d figured… Well, I didn’t know what we’d figured about what would happen after that. We hadn’t talked about it. Maybe because we hadn’t thought we’d get this far—or maybe because we hadn’t wanted to think about all the things that could go wrong once we hit this part.
Because there were so many problems with this plan that I could hardly count them all, and they were suddenly rising up in front of my face and forcing me to look at them. Most of the people who had guns didn’t know how to use them. Hell, they’d probably never even shot one before. And though the people we’d gotten out of their rooms last night were armed, there were a whole lot of people out here who weren’t. The plan had been for the people we’d talked to to convince everyone else to join us so that we were a united front, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t going to be danger.
Because only ninety or so of us were actually armed. The rest were just sitting ducks.
And sure, yeah, we outnumbered the guards by rather a lot. But those guards also had access to everything below, in the bunker. And that stuff below us was a whole lot bigger and more impressive than the little handguns and knives we had on us.
Shit. What had we been thinking, with this plan? Why had we thought this was a good idea? Why had we thought we’d even survive it?
Because the alternative was no better, I remembered. Down there in the bunker, we didn’t know where the guards slept or if they had the exits under constant surveillance. We might have gotten people out of their rooms, but we had no way of knowing whether we’d be able to actually get them all out of the bunker before we got caught. And the repercussions for the rebellion…
I didn’t want to think about it. Better, I remembered, to be up here and in the fresh air, at least tasting freedom. And if we failed, better to be shot up here than to be stuck down there, awaiting Adam’s revenge for having dared to rebel against him.
Maybe.
But maybe it wouldn’t come to that. Maybe, if we moved first and caught them by surprise, we’d win the day. I didn’t know how many guards there actually were—maybe thirty of them, at the most—and they definitely weren’t all up here. Yeah, if they heard that there was shooting up here and one of their comrades called for help, the guys downstairs might come running, guns in hand. Hell, they might even show up in tanks and SUVs.
But they’d still be outnumbered.
And that right there was what we had to hope for. Or rather… well, we had to hope that our strength in numbers would save the day for us. We had to hope that they didn’t see us coming—and that when we started shooting, the twenty or so guards who were up here with us were so surprised that they didn’t respond.
“Catch them by surprise,” I whispered to myself. “Outnumber them. Get to the gates.” Those were our goals.
Easy as pie.
The moment we were under The Monster, I whirled around, jerked the gun out of my boot, aimed it right at Zit Boy—who was up here supervising the women again—and pulled the trigger.
The moment Zit Boy went down, chaos erupted under that rollercoaster. One of the other guards started shouting—well, several of the guards started shouting—and Jerry dove right at me. I whirled and ducked, avoiding him easily—in much the same way I’d once avoided Bruce—and then started running.
Bullets were flying through the air by this time, though I had no freaking clue who was shooting them or where they were supposed to be going, and the dirt was flying up in mini explosions around me. I darted and dodged through the chaos, seeing people on my side running as well, all of them looking for cover as they shot back over their shoulders.
I then realized that we had made a really, really big mistake.
We’d told people to protect themselves and shoot the guards. But we hadn’t given them any solid plan for how to do that. And without a solid plan—without some direction—they were going to get themselves freaking killed.
“To me!” I screamed. “Everyone to me!”
They turned as one, as if they’d just been waiting for that order, and suddenly we were running in an enormous group, all of us sprinting as quickly as we could with our hands covering our heads, our backs bent as if we could actually hide from the shots flying toward us.
I could hear the guards shouting behind us, giving each other something that sounded like orders, and I was betting that at least one of them had figured out that they were going to need to get down into that bunker and get the vehicles. They had to be looking at our group racing across the grounds and realizing that they couldn’t take all of us down.
They could take some of us, sure. They could pick off those at the back. But we had a full-scale rebellion going on—well, sort of—and as so often happened in these situations, the peasants outnumbered the aristocracy.
Just then, I saw the carnival row ahead of us—with shelter. Lots and lots of shelter. Each game had a little building, and even those that didn’t had tents. That was our goal, then. That shelter. Someplace to hide while we regrouped and figured out what we were going to do now that we were—for the moment—free of the guards.
“Get into the tents,” I instructed the person running right next to me. “Take shelter i
n the buildings and tents. Pass it on. Make sure everyone passes it on.”
I didn’t want to scream it out to the group. I didn’t want to risk the guards hearing it. Yeah, we were a very large group running like a bunch of scared lemmings and it was going to be awfully hard to miss us.
But they might. And if they didn’t see where we went, then I wasn’t going to announce it to them by shouting it out.
Moments later we were at the tents and dispersing quickly behind and into them, spreading out so that everyone had shelter from the sight of the guards. And once I could see that everyone was under cover, I turned and stared around the corner I was hiding behind, my eyes going back to the spot where the tunnel into the bunker opened up.
Because if those guys had been real military, they would have been coming after us. Sneaking, most likely, so they could try to get to us before we noticed them.
But they weren’t real military. So I was guessing that instead of doing anything brave like that, what they were actually doing was regrouping in the most protected place they could find, trying to figure out what they hell they were going to do about this little rebellion problem.
And to my… well, pleasure seems like a strong word, but definitely to my relief, it looked like I was right. The guards were milling around the opening of that tunnel, looking angry and more than a little bit confused, their guns trained on the space in front of them and jumping at every sound they heard.
They didn’t look like they were even a little bit prepared for this. They looked like they didn’t know what the hell to do. I could see Zach talking tensely into a walkie talkie, though, with Jerry standing right next to him.
And then they all turned and ran into the tunnel.
“What the hell is that about?” Will asked from right next to me.
I jumped, shocked as hell because I hadn’t realized anyone was there, and then spun around and threw my arms around him, too excited to see him alive after the last five minutes or so to think about how ridiculous I must look.
I mean, we’d barely started the plan, and I was already so worried about his chances at survival that I was that happy to see him?
Answer: Hell yeah, I was.
He grunted in discomfort, though—that damn shoulder was still seriously messed up—and I pulled back quickly. He gave me a quick smile, but then turned his eyes back to the opening of the tunnel.
“It doesn’t seem like a good thing that we can’t see them. What do you suppose they’re doing in there?” he said.
I turned to follow his gaze. “And even more importantly, should we run while we have a chance?”
We turned to each other at that thought, and I knew my face mirrored his almost exactly. Because it seemed like the absolutely perfect idea. The perfect opportunity. We could just run, and no one would get hurt. Regroup out there in the desert somewhere, figure out how to come back for everyone else.
I was just about to say all of that, too, when I heard a rumbling sound in the distance. I froze and saw Will’s eyes go wide as well. And then the ground started to shake under us.
Without a word, I turned in the direction of that sound. And I saw about fifteen tanks emerging out of another tunnel. One I hadn’t even known was there. They flew up out of the opening in the ground, though, moving quickly.
Right toward us.
“Shit,” I murmured. Then, loud enough for everyone else to hear, “Run!”
Chapter 28
We all dashed in the same way, which was some sort of miracle, and before long we were rushing through the amusement park again, dodging and weaving through the rollercoaster supports and various buildings of the park and following a path that I knew for a fact the tanks themselves couldn’t take.
Unfortunately, the men who were driving those tanks—or rather, not driving, probably, but at least riding on them—were also shooting.
And I was thinking at this point that whoever was in charge—Zach? Adam?—had called out all the stops, because there were more bullets flying than there had been. They must have marshalled all the troops, literally, and shoved them into those tanks to try to recapture us.
“Who knew a little thing like an escape could actually roll out the entire cavalry,” I huffed to Will, who was keeping pace beside me.
“Well, we probably should have guessed,” he answered wryly.
I took that and tucked it into my mental database, because he was right—and because I thought we might be able to use that little fact later. I hadn’t forgotten about the people underneath us, still in the bunker. And I hadn’t forgotten that I meant to come back and break them out of said bunker.
If a little thing like escape meant rolling out the cavalry, then it might be just the distraction I would need.
Of course, that was a problem for a whole other time. Right now, we were sprinting through the park with a bunch of amateurs in tanks behind us, shooting at us like they wanted to use us for target practice.
Luckily for us, they were horrible shots.
“Definitely never trained on how to use guns,” I said, thinking out loud as I tried to figure out what exactly we were going to do.
Because we couldn’t run forever. We needed to get away from them. And then out of the park entirely. Until we did that, we were too vulnerable.
“Definitely not,” Will replied. “But those bullets will still kill us if they hit us. What are we going to do about it?”
I tipped my chin down and darted around a rollercoaster support, trying to put more structures between us and the men behind us—who were, thank God, having to take the more traditional alleys and pathways between the coasters—and put my mind to work. I thought for a moment that I didn’t have any ideas. For once in my life, I didn’t have any way out of this. No clear path in front of me, no Plan B, not even the germ of an idea that might become something helpful if I let my intellect loose on it.
But I didn’t have one fucking clue what we were going to do to get through this alive.
Then, much to my surprise, we came busting out of the rollercoasters and into a wide-open area. Which was, you know, completely the opposite of cover—and meant we were in even more danger than we’d been in before.
But then I realized where we were. And that this might actually be the best place to be. Because right in front of me, the fence to the amusement park loomed large.
And on the other side of that, the solar panels reached out into the distance.
“Get the people back into the rollercoasters,” I told Will. “Get them to cover. I have something I have to do.”
To my shock, he grabbed my hand and yanked me right to a stop, spinning me around to face him.
“What?” he asked sharply. “Are you insane? What are you going to do?”
I glanced from him to the solar panels and back. Yes, it was an insane plan and I wasn’t even sure it would work. But I’d seen the blueprints from that field of solar panels, and I knew where all the energy was running to.
I knew how to get to it. And I had a very clear idea of what I wanted to do with it.
But I needed to make sure that Will and the others were safe when I did it.
“I’m going to give those guys in the tanks an electric experience,” I said, trying to make a joke of it. Knowing that it was dangerous enough that I might not survive the situation.
Knowing, though, that I had to joke about it now, to get Will to agree to get out of the way and to safety. Because I was willing to risk my life, but I wasn’t willing to risk his.
“Now go. I’ll be fine, but you guys have got to be hidden. You’ve got to be safe. As soon as I take care of the guys in the tanks, get the hell out of here.”
I was already turning, my eyes on that fence and looking intently for the electric box that I knew had to be embedded in it somewhere, when Will yanked me around again. And this time, he was glaring at me.
He jerked me toward him, kissed me hard on the mouth, and then pushed me back.
“If y
ou think I’m letting you do something that stupid without me, you’ve got another thing coming,” he said intensely. “Besides, you’re going to need someone to lure the tanks into this area if you want to do whatever it is you think you’re going to do. You need bait.”
He was gone before I could answer him or react, and I watched him rushing toward the area where our crew of escapees was milling around, waiting for us. He was shouting, I realized, and giving them instructions for what he wanted them to do.
He was going to use them as the bait. He was going to use himself as the bait. And though I hated that and wanted to run after him and tell him that I definitely, definitely didn’t approve, I knew that I couldn’t.
He had a job to do and he was getting it done, regardless of the risk. I had to do the same. With luck, we’d both get out of here alive. Which meant I could yell at him for being so reckless later, once we were out of this place.
It took me freaking ages to find the outlet box from the solar panels, but when I did, it was just what I’d expected: A seemingly innocuous box implanted into the steel of the fence itself, extending about two feet on either side. I could see a bunch of cables running up into the box from the ground outside the fence, too, which meant I’d been right about that much.
That fence was the connecting point. It was where the wires from the solar field came up and offered themselves to the amusement park itself. There was probably another box somewhere else, which connected right to the wiring for the bunker—which made me think that the solar panels were also the military’s doing—but this box right here was currently going unused.
And it was exactly what I needed.
I yanked it open, my ears listening to the shouts of the people behind me—who were running around, I suspected, trying to get the attention of the tanks and their drivers—and then grinned. I didn’t have much respect for Adam and his crew, but whoever had designed the solar panels and left these connecting points behind had been a freaking genius. They’d prepared for any possible eventuality.
Survival of The Fittest | Book 3 | Final Ride Page 14
