The Preston Six Collection: (Book 1, 2 and 3)

by Ryan, Matt

  Once they boarded and lifted off, Poly stared out the window. The flattened, melted city below looked worse from the air. In the distance she saw greenery. It followed a finite line outside the city walls. Did grinners get past that wall?

  Harris sat on the seat across from them and listened as Lucas told their story. She thought he played down some of the parts, totally unlike him to be modest. Julie hung on his every word and they laughed and held hands at some points.

  “Incredible. What about you guys?” Harris eyed Joey, Samantha, and Poly.

  Poly turned her head down.

  “They just stuffed us into a scene generator for a while,” Joey said.

  She watched him glance at Samantha as he said that. Oh God, why did she have to fall for him? He had eyes for Samantha. Joey glanced at her with a smile. If only she had been in the truck with him instead of Julie. She hadn’t felt like she even had a chance to talk to Joey since the incident. Instead, she had to share a truck with a group of men that made bikers look like girl scouts, and had body odor that rivaled a junior high locker room.

  “They saved us,” Samantha said.

  “It’s what we do,” Lucas said, and kissed Prudence. He was obviously talking about him and his bow. Julie scowled at him, but he never took notice. They had become the cutest couple. Poly shook her head, she needed to get away from it.

  She remembered a small kitchen in a similar aircraft her and Lucas shared. Getting up, she found the tiny kitchenette and opened the drawers. The contents of the third drawer down, clanked with metal on metal. Kitchen knives. She sighed and placed some in her hip sheaths. What she wouldn’t do for some nice throwing knives and a solid dagger.

  “You okay?” Joey asked coming up behind her.

  She spun to face him. “Yeah, just stocking up on some blades.”

  “You see any spare guns rolling around in there?”

  “Nope, sorry. Fresh out of pistols.” She gave him a polite grin and headed back to her seat.

  “So what’s next? We hunt down Emmett, flush out Marcus?” Lucas asked.

  “For you guys, it’s over. I don’t think Emmett cares about you and I doubt we’ll be seeing anything of Marcus for a long time.”

  Even hearing the words come out of Harris’s mouth, they sounded like a lie. Every turn and everything that ever happened was for what? So a mad man could escape, only to be replaced by another? No, she wouldn’t be cast aside. They were part of the madness now. With the Preston Six together, what could stop them?

  “What if we don’t want it to be over?” she asked.

  “Yeah,” Lucas agreed.

  “I won’t lie, I could use people like you. I need people like you.” He glanced at Julie. “But you need to get back to your world, your families.”

  “As long as Marcus breathes, I’ll hunt him down.” Poly held a kitchen knife in her hand.

  Harris sighed. “The truth is, he’s smarter, faster, and going to be a step ahead at every point. It’s over for you guys, I want it to be over.”

  “There’s seven of us . . .” Lucas started.

  Jack cleared his throat. “Eight.”

  “And look at who’s not with us,” Harris said.

  Poly scowled at Harris, there wasn’t a day that went by she didn’t think of Compry, lying on the roof, dead. The woman taught her so much and she never got to repay a cent of the debt she owed her. She owed it to Compry to see an end to it. Poly wanted to avenge her dad, avenge all the parents lost. The great people that considered her a member on Mutant isle. They all stood behind her, waiting for the chance of peace. “There will never be peace until he’s dead.”

  “I agree, at some point he’s going to come looking for us again. He still wants something from us,” Julie said.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if our paths cross again, but it’s up to us to clean the mess Marcus left behind on Vanar, and we need to stop Emmett from taking over.”

  “The suffering has only begun,” Jack added. “Everything and everyone was dependent on the network.”

  Poly rolled her eyes.

  Julie’s brow furrowed as she stared at her. “They are dependent on this network. Their cars, trains, distribution centers, orange factories, cargo ships, and everything you can think of is hooked into the system Marcus disconnected. It’s going to be worse than any war, any plague. If they don’t get things back quickly, Ryjack will look like a vacation planet.”

  Poly hadn’t realized how dependent their world was to this network. People were going to miss their shipment of food and orange. She knew all too well what happened to a city under an embargo. They would raid the city, like in Sanct, but this time they would have no rescue, no shipments of orange on standby.

  Her bed felt distant. The idea of Vanar falling bothered her more than she thought it would. She needed to help in some way. She owed them that.

  HE WAS FINALLY HOME. JOEY gazed at the surrounding burnt trees of Watchers Woods, once known for its thick canopy. Now, the sun beat on the charred ground with brilliant force.

  He took a breath through his nose. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell, more like a campfire. Kneeling on the ground, he grabbed a handful of dirt, his Earth. At so many points, he fantasized about coming home and in not one of those fantasies did he have the arrogance to think all his friends would be standing next him, alive and well.

  He felt a hand rub his back, he glanced back at Samantha’s face. He smiled and stood.

  “The kids are back.” Opal ran up to them, holding a knife in each hand. She eyed Joey and then Samantha, her eyes went wide and she covered her mouth. Joey saw the tears filling her eyes as she ran to them and hugged them both at the same time. “Oh thank you, thank goodness you’re back. Gretchen’s gonna. . .” Opal wiped a tear from her face and ran to Poly.

  “Let’s get you to your mom,” Joey said.

  “Thank you.”

  Joey led the pack through the forest. Opal told them there hadn’t been any Arracks for several days and they had gone down to one person scouting missions.

  All of the forest hadn’t been charred and when the blackness ended, green undergrowth claimed the forest. The thick brush was slower to go through but didn’t kick up bits of ash as they walked through it. He passed the edge of the forest and beheld his house beyond the grass field.

  “Tell me this is real.” Samantha squeezed his hand before jogging toward his house.

  He jogged down his path and saw dog prints mixed in with the human ones on the worn path. It looked like it had heavy use. The path was wider and the dirt churned up to a softer pattern. He saw a large man on the front porch run into the house and then quickly reappear. Trip ran toward them and Hank moved to the front of the pack to greet his dad in the largest man hug Earth had ever seen.

  Parents flooded out of the front door of the house. He spotted his mom and dad. He didn’t think he was going to get emotional, but his body told him something different when the look on his mom’s face became clear. Her joy and shock, mixed with the energy spent on running to him. His dad looked shocked as well and let Karen take the run to him while he staggered his way behind her.

  Joey felt the emotions running over him as he passed the broken down truck and reached his mom’s open arms.

  “Oh my god, I can’t believe it.” She pushed back from him and touched his arm as if testing to make sure he was real. Lucas and the rest of the Preston Six each embraced their parent. They were home, he didn’t truly feel like it was real until the moment they were all together.

  “I can’t believe it.” Minter hugged him hard. The air wheezed from his body, but he didn’t care and hugged his dad back. “This is the greatest moment . . .” Minter lost the words and hugged him again. A dog barked and rubbed its paws against his pant leg.

  “Bull!” Joey knelt down and embraced his dog. Bull’s body shook in excitement. Joey felt the tears build in his eyes and he fought them back. He didn’t want to cry in front of his dad.

  Gretc
hen screamed and spun around with Samantha in her arms. It wasn’t a sight he would ever forget in his entire life. They were back together, they were whole. Opal laughed at the kitchen knives Poly showed her. Hank and Trip wrestle-hugged. Lucas pointed at Prudence and showed his dad the tiny arrows that came with it. Julie showed her mom her Panavice. He felt home again.

  “Let’s go inside and celebrate this great day,” Minter’s voice boomed out the command.

  At the end of the party, late into the night, after all the stories had been told, all the hugs and tears had been given, Joey sat on the edge of his bed, alone.

  The open bedroom window let the soft, cool breeze flow into his room. He stared at that window, making out the tops of the trees in the moonlight. He lay on his back on top of his blankets, folded his arms behind his head, and let his shoes rest off the end of the bed.

  A tack sound rattled along his floor. He sat up on the edge his bed. Another pebble bounced across his wood floor. He darted to the window and below, in the dark, stood Poly. She waved for him to come down.

  He snuck down the stairs and gently closed the front door. The familiar night air felt cool and refreshing and carried a scent of the forest. The bugs were out in force, chirping and squeaking away. Poly sauntered over wearing a black summer dress that reached her knees and swung low in the front. She was all smiles as she swayed her arms.

  Joey took a tepid step toward her. She wrapped him in a hug and he hugged her back. Why was he nervous? “Hey, Poly.”

  “Good evening. I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come over and see how you were doing.”

  Joey frowned. His gut reaction was to tell her he was doing okay, but as he glanced up at his bedroom window, he told her the truth. “I was just staring at my ceiling. I can’t get my mind to slow down.”

  “You want to go for a drive?” Poly pointed to her car parked at the end of the driveway.

  “Was wondering how you got here. Yeah, sure, let’s go.”

  Joey followed Poly as she skipped to the car. Wow, she was in such a good mood. He fed off her positive energy and felt lighter. He got into the passenger seat and watched Poly get into the car.

  “My mom leaves the keys in the car.” She stared at him as she turned the key. The engine roared to life. “Woo hoo!”

  He chuckled at her enthusiasm of starting a car. “Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t know.” She frowned at first and then her face lit up. “Oh, how about the lake?”

  “Uh, sure.” The lake. The place where every teenager in Preston at some point took their girlfriend. Julie’s words pounded in his head for the whole drive there, calling him selfish and telling him he needed to end it for the sake of everyone. Preston Six would break if he didn’t.

  “How long you think until Harris comes to get us?”

  “I don’t know.” He hoped it would be longer than shorter. Every moment spent in Preston made the awful memories of Vanar and Ryjack seem like a dream. They weren’t all bad though, there were moments of friendship. He even had a few kisses to store in his memory bank.

  He squirmed in his seat as Poly pulled close to the water and turned off the car. The moonlight danced on the surface of the water. He knew the lake well after spending so much time looking for Samantha’s earrings.

  Poly gazed at him with her big, pretty eyes. “It’s nice, just the two of us for once.”

  “Yeah.” He fidgeted in his seat and felt his heart beating fast. He took a deep breath and looked out the front windshield. Some of the window started to fog, distorting the view of the moonlit lake. “You want to sit on the hood?”

  “Okay. But if you dent it, you’ll have to answer to my mom.”

  He opened the door at the same time as her. Sliding up onto the hood, he grabbed Poly’s hand as she struggled to get on it. The hood creaked under their weight. He pushed back and used the windshield as a backrest. Poly nestled in next to him.

  “This is nice.” She let out a long breath and rested her head on his shoulder. He wanted to kiss her hand, wrap her up and keep her warm in the cooling air. But he held back and gritted his teeth. He needed to push out his selfish desires and think of all of them.

  “There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” Poly said.

  “What’s that?”

  “I . . .” she turned on her side and propped herself up on her elbow. “It sounds dumb saying it.”

  Joey turned to face her and saw the struggle in her eyes. “You can tell me anything. We’re best friends.”

  “I know, and that is sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.” She took in a deep breath. “I’ve . . . we’ve been through a lot together. . .” She rolled on her back. “Ugh, why is this so hard?”

  Joey wanted to hug her and tell her how he felt about her, but Julie was right. If he chose Poly, it would hurt Samantha and tear the group apart. “Maybe I should talk first.”

  “Please do.”

  He wanted to tell her so many things—how much she meant to him. But he swallowed those words. He had to do the right thing for the group, to say things he didn’t want to. His dad told him once that usually the harder path was the right path. He definitely felt like he was about to take the harder path. In the end, he hoped he could keep the Six together.

  “You remember the day Samantha lost her earrings out there?”

  “Yeah, she was crying the whole way home. I felt terrible for her.”

  “Well, I searched the rest of the summer for them . . . and I actually found them.”

  Poly sat up. “How’s that possible? They were at the bottom of the lake!”

  “I bought an underwater metal detector and formed a search grid around the area and spent two months searching for them. I found them a week before our birthday.”

  She paused with her mouth open. “Wow. I mean, wow.” She didn’t say anything else for a while. Joey gave her the time she needed to process what he told her. “You loved her . . . you love her. Nothing else would drive a person to do that.”

  Joey sighed. What could he tell Poly? “I do care for Samantha—”

  “God, I’m a fool,” Poly interrupted and slid her legs over the edge of the car.

  He grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She glared at him with hurt in her eyes. It sent his heart falling to see her upset. He was breaking a promise he made to Julie. He wanted to wrap her up in his arms and kiss her, telling her he loved her.

  The hard path.

  “You’re important to me, Poly. If it wasn’t for you, I would have cracked out there. You saved my life. I owe you everything I can give.”

  “I don’t want you to owe me. I want you to want me.” She yanked her arm away and scowled at him. It quickly turned to tears as she hopped off the hood. Getting into the car, she slammed the front door and started the motor.

  Joey moved to the front door, but the wheels of the car spun backward, spitting bits of dirt on him. They kept spinning as she backed up and flung the front end of the car around. She peeled all the way down the dirt road and out of sight.

  “I do want you,” Joey whispered. He slumped and shook his head. He didn’t want to hurt her, he loved her. He deserved every horrible thought Poly was thinking at that moment. But it was done. Now all he had to do was turn away Samantha. Once enough time passed, they would forget him and the Six would remain whole.

  He shook his head, doubting he could ever truly let Poly go. He breathed in the remaining dust as it settled around him. Wiping his eyes, he started to walk. Taking his time, he thought about Poly’s hurt face. He would have to make it up to her somehow. He kicked a rock down the dirt road and watched it pop in and out of visibility. He kicked another one and it skipped along until a black boot stomped on it.

  Joey froze and reactively went for guns that weren’t there.

  “Out for a night walk?” Emmett asked.

  EMMETT STRUTTED TOWARD JOEY. HIS face became visible as he stepped from the shadow of the oak tree and into the
moonlight. Joey positioned himself in a defensive stance and waited for his attack. Five feet away, Emmett stopped and crossed his arms. “I’m not here for a fight.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I thought it would have been impossible for you guys to get out of Ryjack alive, but Marcus told me to never underestimate you—look at what you’ve done to some of our best already—so I thought I’d just see for myself if you made it back here.”

  “Great, now get the hell off our planet.”

  “I was really hoping you’d make it, Joey. I couldn’t understand why Marcus was so into keeping you kids alive. So I did some research and found some fascinating things. Especially in you, Joey. We almost have it figured out and I have an offer.”

  Joey opened his clutched fists and waited.

  “I don’t know if you know, but Harris died trying to save Capital. And Marcus is . . . somewhere.” He shrugged.

  He thought Harris was dead? Joey restrained his face from giving any tells. He contorted his expression into what he hoped came across as anger while he smiled on the inside. He didn’t want to give Emmett any information.

  “I take it you didn’t know. I’m sorry for your loss. But the reason I’m here is you.” Emmett pointed to Joey’s wrists.

  Joey rubbed the steel cuffs.

  “I can get those things off and I think I can help you master your ability.”

  “I’m not doing anything for you.”

  “I’m trying to help. You think Marcus is gone? You think for one second he’ll forget his immortality ticket is sitting here, waiting for him to claim?”

  Anger built as he stared into Emmett’s blank face. He was right though, Marcus was out there still and he would be back. Could they fight on so many fronts? Poly and Lucas wanted to bring the fight to them, but Joey wanted to have peace, if possible. Why fight another world’s war?

  He felt the metal wrist bands. Harris never offered to remove them. If he could get them off and master the ability like Emmett promised, he could protect everyone. It wouldn’t matter how good Marcus was, he couldn’t stop what he couldn’t see. Just thinking about being able to slow time down again gave Joey goose bumps down his arms. If he had full control of it, nobody around him would die.