“Thank you so much, Sam,” Rhonda says.
Sam cuts the ropes binding their hands and feet next.
“Seriously man, great timing,” Job says.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “And why were they going to kill you?”
Rhonda stands slowly, stretching. “Mom and Dad left, and then you and Sam left too. Port Gibson was in an uproar.”
“The Marked attacked a second time, right after you left,” Job says. “The pressure’s on for a cure. Dad had some motorcycles stashed in case of emergency. Rhonda knew where they were kept. We thought we’d pass you on our way down. It’s pretty easy to make good time with motorcycles. Easier to avoid potholes. I guess we passed you without knowing it?”
“How did we miss you?” Rhonda asks.
Sam sighs. “Ruby didn’t convince me to leave until we caught what must have been the north end of the second Marked attack. A whole bunch of them had guns on us. We started out north and headed down a roundabout way.”
Rhonda nods.
“So, what happened?” I ask. “How’d you get—”
“Caught?” Job asks. “We couldn’t figure it out at first either, but WPN must lay trip wires on the roads in from Marked territory so they know when someone crosses. It’s the only thing that makes sense. They set a trap and we fell right into it.”
I meet Sam’s glance and know he’s thinking the same thing as me. How’d we make it through?
“Where were they?” Sam asks.
“A few miles from here,” Job says.
Our bad luck might not have been so bad after all. Our truck must’ve run out of gas before the wires.
“When did they catch you?” I ask.
“Early this morning,” Rhonda says. “How’d you guys find us, anyway?”
“Pure coincidence,” I say. “We heard the van. Why’d it stop here?”
“To refuel,” Job says. “They’re using this place to store supplies for the . . . did you hear them? What they’re planning?” He rubs his wrists where the ropes were. They look raw.
I glance at Sam, but he shakes his head.
“Hear what?” I ask.
Rhonda says, “World Peace Now plans to exterminate all the Marked in less than a month. They’re calling it the Cleansing. We knew the hormonal suppressants were failing, but what we see as a tragedy, WPN views as a threat. Apparently the Marked asked them to perform marriages for the ones who are pregnant after suppressant failure. Many want to get married before the babies are born.”
“Babies?” My stomach turns. “Wait, is that how you got Marked? From kids who came for a wedding?”
“Huh?” Rhonda asks. “No, I haven’t seen any.”
“Then how—”
Job smacks his forehead. “Duh. They wouldn’t know.”
“Wouldn’t know what?” Sam raises one eyebrow.
Job holds his hands out to me. His fingers are red. I glance up at his head. Where he smacked it, his rash looks strange, blurry.
“But why?” Then I understand. Sam and I left our gloves off and let our hair down. They took the same idea one step further. I reach over and rub Rhonda’s forehead myself, and Sam doesn’t stop me this time. My fingertips come away reddish brown.
“Of course,” Sam mutters.
I feel such an overwhelming sense of relief that, although I don’t find the situation very funny, I laugh. Grief, fear, and exhaustion do funny things to me.
“Sorry, I forgot all about that,” Rhonda says. “I’m so glad we found you. We were hoping to catch you before you reached the island.”
“You found us?” Sam raises one eyebrow.
Rhonda rolls her eyes. “Details.”
“I can’t believe you let those idiots get the drop on you.” Sam shakes his head. “Pitiful.”
“Now we’ll have two sets of eyes watching out for stuff,” Rhonda says. “It won’t happen again.”
“No,” I say. “You two have to head back.”
“What?” Job asks. “Why?”
“Because,” I say. “When I saw you, gagged and tied, about to be shot, and then again when I thought you were Marked.” I inhale deeply because I finally understand Aunt Anne’s position. “I can’t do this with you guys along. I need to know someone’s safe back home, not risking their life to find this cure.”
“It’s a tactical op,” Rhonda says. “You can’t run a tactical op without someone to provide cover. You need me.”
I’m resolved. “No, there’s me and Sam. It’s enough. If he can’t get me in, an extra person won’t make a difference.”
“That’s not true,” Rhonda says. “Sam knows it isn’t. I’m excellent at CQC. You’ll need that.”
At my blank stare, she sighs.
“Close quarters combat, and I got top marks on Advanced Combat Marksmanship too. I’ve done several operations, and I remain level headed under stress. We partnered on several ops together and we were like peanut butter and jelly. Sam’s better with me along, right?”
Why’s she asking him? I’m the one going for the cure, and I’m the one who can get into my dad’s safe. I turn toward Sam, my jaw set, my eyes flashing. “We don’t need them with us, right?”
“We shouldn’t make this decision here,” Sam says. “Maybe before we make travel plans, we should all eat dinner. It’s easier to think rationally with something in your belly.”
I want to smack Sam. Except, I know from past experience it would only hurt my hand. “Are you saying I’m irrational?”
Sam sighs. “We all are. Let’s get out of here before someone sends in back-up to check on these two.”
I didn’t realize I was such a burden to everyone around me. I fume.
“I’m starving,” Job says. “I’d love to eat, most anything really.”
My head hurts and my hands shake. All I’ve eaten today is a granola bar and walking ten miles didn’t help. I glance at the two dead bodies, and the rows and rows of shelves full of weapons and ammunition. It looks like an armory, not a grocery store.
Sam crosses the room and walks down an aisle. He picks up guns and then ammo, his face like a kid in a candy store. He’s got a lollipop in both hands, only his lollipops kill people.
“Really Sam?” I ask. “You don’t have enough already?”
“I didn’t pick what we brought,” Sam says. “I got stuck with whatever was in the truck cache, plus my own normal handguns. This is a miracle sent to prepare us to retrieve the cure. We’d be stupid to ignore it.”
I roll my eyes. “I thought we were in a rush?” I gesture at the dead guys.
“Yes, we’ll be quick.” Rhonda grabs two weapons herself, and tucks them into a holster, already concealed under her shirt. She selects a third for Job.
“What about me?” I ask.
Sam frowns. “You’ve got one. That’s plenty.”
I try not to pout when we walk outside to the van. A single key protrudes from the ignition. Job twists it and the engine starts, but the gas gauge points to empty.
“Did they say where the gas was stored?” I ask. “We could take this the rest of the way.”
Job shakes his head. “We can’t take the van. It’s not safe.”
“We didn’t see their trip wire, even on a motorcycle,” Rhonda says.
“Sloppy,” Sam says. “But even if we avoid wires, they could have video feeds, trackers in the van, or sweeping patrols. And if we avoid those, the van still ties us directly to these two.”
Hello WPN, we killed two of your men. Can we pop inside for a moment to steal a cure from your island? We’d like to heal the thousands of people you’re planning to massacre.
“We’re only thirty miles from the island.” Rhonda reaches into the van and rummages around. “Grab anything we can use and we look for a place to sleep. We’ll reach the island late tomorrow night if we leave at first light.”
Sam’s lack of input tells me he wants Job and Rhonda to come.
“Ruby?” Job asks.
> “I don’t want you two along,” I say. “But I thought we agreed to eat first.”
“Yes,” Job says. “We did.”
“But while you’re thinking about it, consider your boyfriend,” Rhonda says.
I gulp. I think Sam wants them to come, but how can she know that?
Rhonda puts an arm around my shoulders. “I know you’re worried about us getting Marked, or killed, or whatever, but if our help gets the cure, Wesley can come home.”
Right. When she said my boyfriend she meant Wesley not Sam. Of course she did, because Sam and I aren’t anything. We haven’t even kissed.
I think about when Wesley kissed me, and my fingers fly to my lips. I’d sort of shut down that whole line of thinking when I realized I wasn’t Marked, but what if we actually find a cure? I don’t want to risk Job and Rhonda, but I do want Wesley back, and my aunt. Rhonda hasn’t mentioned her mom, which means she probably doesn’t know. I should tell her, but if she’s this determined to go without knowing . . . I don’t want to make it worse until I’ve decided whether to bring them.
“I’ll go get our stuff so we can leave.” I turn toward the floor store. I need to think without anyone badgering me, without anyone telling me what to do. It’s my dad’s cure, and my dad’s lab.
I’m almost to the vine covered doors when I notice it. I don’t hear anything, but I feel something, or more accurately, someone. “Sam?” I spin around and see him, standing like a statue in the moonlight, as gorgeous as any carving I’ve ever seen.
“I can grab our stuff. You didn’t need to come.” Except that’s completely false, I realize. I can’t even lift his bag.
He shakes his head.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Are you mad I came after you? I’m sorry I did, but I thought maybe you were hurt.”
“I knew you would eventually. It’s just hard for me. I have to keep you—” He stops.
“Keep me what?” I ask.
“I promised to keep you safe.” He looks at the ground and digs at a weed with the toe of his boot.
I can barely make out his face, but I think he looks torn. Upset, even.
I walk toward him. “There’s something else going on in there.” I tap his forehead. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Is it Rhonda? Is that why you’re being strange all of a sudden?” Anger bubbles up in my chest at the thought. One minute he’s leaning toward me in the dark, hands around my waist. The next he’s barely talking to me. The only difference is Rhonda and her insistence she be the peanut butter to his jelly. I love Rhonda, but I want her safe at home, not here with me. And Sam.
Is her safety my real reason for wanting her to go home?
“Why do you keep asking about her?” he asks. “Does it make you feel better?”
“What?”
“About him?” he asks.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Him? Him who?”
He turns away.
“Welcome back, monosyllabic Sam. For the record, I didn’t miss you.”
Sam grunts, and I think about what he said. Does it make me feel better about ‘him’? The only person he might mean is Wesley.
“Are you mad I want to save Wesley? Because that’s freaking ridiculous. He’s dying, and I haven’t seen him since . . .” I was going to say since he kissed me, but I snap my mouth closed instead.
“Since what?”
“You did mean Wesley?”
“No, of course not.” He paces. “I haven’t given him a second thought. He’s nothing to me.” He paces more. “But your aunt’s Marked and Rhonda and Job don’t know. You don’t want them to come, but they have a personal interest in that cure.”
“I don’t want them to get Marked, too!”
“Until Rhonda tells you it’s more likely that we can save Wesley. Then you change your mind.”
“It’s not like that.” Except it kind of is. “If I tell them about their mom, wild horses won’t be able to drag them home.”
I look up at him, the sharp lines of his face so pristine and perfectly symmetrical in the moonlight that I almost can’t stand it. His mouth hovers mere inches from mine. How did I find Wesley good looking? No one compares to Sam. He mumbles something I can’t hear.
“What?”
“If Rhonda might keep you safe, I want her along.”
“You do want them to come?”
He frowns. “Not for Wesley.”
Is Sam jealous? I grin. “You don’t like him.”
“No,” he says. “I don’t dislike him. I don’t care about him at all. I like someone else.”
His hair falls around his face in soft waves. One arm moves behind me and pulls me close. The other cups my cheek as his lips move closer, slowly bending toward mine. My lip trembles, but I don’t even consider biting it. It should feel wrong, wanting Sam this way, when Wesley’s in mortal peril. But how can an anchor for my world be wrong? Sam’s arms surround me, and his face hovers above mine. For the first time since my dad died, in this moment, my world feels exactly right.
“Ruby? Sam?”
Except that.
Job’s voice slides like an ice cube down my back in July. Sam almost shoves me over in his haste to put space between us.
“Her eye,” Sam says.
“What?” Rhonda, a step behind Job, looks totally lost.
Sam clears his throat. “Ruby got something in her eye. I was checking it out, but it’s hard to see out here. At night.”
Lame. No way they’ll believe that. It’s seriously dark, for one thing, so he couldn’t possibly have thought he’d see anything in my eye.
Worst excuse ever.
Except they buy it. I’m a little offended no one suspects that Sam meant to kiss me. This time I’m positive he did. No seatbelts, no darkness filled with giant cockroaches, and no WPN vans.
“Are you okay?” Rhonda asks.
I blink a few times in case they see better than me. “Sam got the dust out.”
“Good.” Rhonda pats my arm as they walk past like nothing’s out of the ordinary.
Job asks, “So do we stay the night here?”
“Bad idea,” Rhonda says. “It’s too close. If someone comes looking for those two, they’ll find them and start searching from there. They can’t check everything, but we need to be further than this.”
Sam and I grab our bags without delay, and we hike along the road in the dark looking for someplace close, but not too close. It gives me time to think, and I realize I need to tell them. Nothing good comes from deceit.
“There’s something you need to know, guys.”
Job stops walking. “What?”
“Your parents left right after the attack for a reason,” I say.
“Dad’s Marked, isn’t he?” Job asks.
Sometimes I forget how smart he is. “No, but your mom is.”
“We figured,” Rhonda says. “They left without warning in the middle of the night? Why such urgency, after ten years?”
Job sighs. “A huge Marked attack, both of them on the front lines, and an early morning departure without even a check in?”
Tears glisten in Rhonda’s eyes. Suspecting and knowing aren’t the same. I can’t send them home now, knowing exactly how they feel. They know the risk, and they want to come anyway.
“Fine,” I say. “You can come.”
Rhonda hugs me. “We’ll make it through this and out the other end. Then you can marry Wesley in a big, puffy white dress, and run Port Gibson together like you always wanted.”
I roll my eyes and squeeze Rhonda’s hand. A second later there’s a loud crash up ahead. I’m pretty sure Sam broke a window.
“What’re you doing?” Rhonda asks.
Sam growls. “If people are looking for us, I want them to have some places to search.”
“You could’ve warned us,” Rhonda says. “That scared me half to death.”
“Sorry.”
He doesn
’t sound sorry. If I had to guess at his expression underneath the garish shadows from his flashlight, I’d say Sam looks pissed.
Which makes me smile.
17
We walk one way for half an hour or so, smashing windows periodically, and then we turn around and walk another direction before backtracking and smashing more windows. We do this three times before we walk along a road without touching anything. By this point my blister’s smarting again. I resist the urge to kick every tuft of grass and throw every rock I stumble across.
Eventually, Rhonda and Sam both agree to stop at a church across the big road Sam and I travelled along initially. Christus Lutheran something or other. Rhonda walks up to the front doors.
“It’s kind of a shame.” She shines her flashlight on the front doors. “Smashing up all this beautiful glass.”
“Don’t smash the front,” Sam says. “Let’s use a side door or window. They’ll be less likely to search if the building appears untouched.”
We follow Sam’s lead. He wanders around a labyrinth of back doors and windows before choosing one. He wraps his hand in his jacket and knocks the glass out of the window. Then he shakes out his coat and lays it down over the jagged edges before climbing over. I scramble through after him, grabbing the arm he extends to lift me through and set me down. After I make it over, he picks up his coat and shakes it off.
“There’s still glass.” Job points at the sharp edges.
“Use your coat.” Sam grins and walks off into the depths of the church.
It’s black as pitch inside. I shuffle along until I slam my shins on something hard. I shine my flashlight down belatedly. Pews. Of course.
Sam reaches my side instantly. His glove-free hand slides over mine, interlacing our fingers. “Stay close.”
Butterflies fill my stomach. He didn’t take off his glove to blend in tonight, not inside a cold, dark, church.
I let him tug me along, happy to be near him.
He releases my hand when Job and Rhonda approach and shines his flashlight around the room. “This is as good as anywhere. Sleeping up on the pews will be warmer than on the ground.”
Sins of Our Ancestors Boxed Set Page 15
