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

by Ryan, Matt

  THE CAVE THEY WERE IN turned to the familiar house of Marcus. Joey knew where the upstairs balcony appeared and where the two soldiers last stood. He trained his guns on the two spots and waited for them to appear. He watched their shocked faces, fumbling to raise their guns. He shot them both in quick succession. Hearing shots behind him, he turned to see Harris taking out another guard, and Lucas and Poly’s victim falling with a bullet in his eye and a knife in his heart. It all happened in a few seconds. Then silence.

  His heart pounded in his chest as he moved in a circle with his gun out. What kind of monsters had they become? But if a single person moved in front of his sights, he knew he’d kill them as well. Emmett was right, and he hated the man even more for it. It was getting easier.

  “Clear,” Harris called out.

  “There’s a lab back here.” Joey led the charge to the staircase. A guard shot at him from the bottom of the stairs and it struck the wall next to his head, sending bits of plaster to the floor. Joey turned past the wall and fired a shot into the man’s chest. The man fired two shots into the stairs as he collapsed.

  They stomped down the stairs and stopped at the edge of the wall. Emmett could be on the other side, pointing his gun right at the stairs. And Emmett wouldn’t miss, he was sure of it. If he stuck his pinky past the wall he could count it lost. They were pinned. Joey slowed his breathing and glanced back up the stairs.

  “Don’t even think about it, Joey.” Poly narrowed her eyes. “We can take them.”

  He shook his head and glanced at the small section of the room he could see. The medical equipment blinked their green lights. He sighed, no matter how good any of his friends were, someone was about to get killed if they rushed into the room. Maybe everyone.

  “You can’t, Joey, you’ll die. Please don’t do this to me,” she begged him. He didn’t know how she could read his thoughts the way she did.

  Samantha rubbed his shoulder and with tears in her eyes said, “Let me run out and distract them. You guys can use the time to kill them all.”

  “No, Samantha. I can’t let you do that.”

  “I won’t lose you again.” Samantha said and touched the side of his face.

  “Just one more time, I can end this now,” he whispered.

  “We can do it together, without risking you,” Samantha said.

  Joey controlled his breathing and readied his weary body. He hated lying to Poly and Samantha, but it was the only way. “Okay, we’ll do it together, on three, two. . .” He felt the chill run down his neck. His mind jumped awake and his body felt a hundred percent. The sounds of the room lowered to a dull bass.

  He turned back to the edge of the wall and passed by it with his gun out. He stumbled back as he saw the force in the room. No fewer than thirty soldiers were stacked, all with guns trained on them. It would have been a slaughter and he knew right then, he made the right choice. Whatever this cost him, it was worth it.

  Joey raised his rail gun at them and his finger danced on the trigger. He tried to, wanted to kill them all, but his finger wouldn’t move. Unitas flashed in his head and what he did to her. No, he wouldn’t do that again. He had to be better than them.

  Julie lay on a table behind a cluster of soldiers. Joey ran to her and pushed over a few men. Emmett stood over her with a gun to her face. Joey bounded to Emmett’s arm and grabbed the end of the gun in his hand. Joey bent Emmett’s arm at the elbow and turned the gun until it was pointed under Emmett’s chin, pushing on his trigger finger. Let the man end himself.

  Time pulled much quicker this time than ever before. He struggled to stay on his feet and yelled out. His brain felt elastic inside his skull. He ignored the feeling and slid his arms under Julie, lifting her from the table. He turned with Julie in his arms and shoved past a few frozen guards and made his way to the staircase. The sounds crushed into him and he fell forward with Julie landing on the bottom of the stairs. A single gun fire sounded from behind him. Emmett’s own finger was the end of him. A woman screamed, he thought it might have been Gingy.

  “What the—” Julie said.

  The stairs in front of him swirled and then he felt a hand grabbing his bicep. He instinctively followed the hand pulling him up the stairs. The nausea wrenched his stomach and pulled at its contents. He held it in, but something felt very wrong with his hands, they shook and his head felt like he’d just been struck with a baseball bat.

  He stumbled past Harris as Harris fired down the stairs.

  “Emmett’s dead.” Joey said, at least it was what he told his mouth to say. He had no idea what actually came out. Hank dragged him along up the stairs.

  Harris back-stepped with him as they made their way to the stone. He typed into the stone and the room turned black.

  Joey slumped to his back on the forest floor, gazing at the sky above. He knew he did harm to himself and he wasn’t sure if he ever felt worse in his life, but he couldn’t stop from smiling.

  They made it, all of them.

  They were home.

  Time had given him another chance to right a wrong. Poly stood over him with tears in her eyes. Samantha moved next to her with a matching expression, reaching for his embrace. He grabbed for Poly and let her help him into a sitting position. She looked over his body as if inspecting him. He knew what he did was on the inside, but he found a way to smile for her.

  A tear fell from her eye and ran down her cheek before he caught it with his thumb. He knew all of his friends were watching, he knew Samantha was a few feet away, but in that moment, there was nothing but him and Poly. He didn’t want to spend one more moment in his life without her knowing how he really felt about her, how he’d always felt. He wasn’t going to waste another moment without her by his side, where she belonged.

  She clasped her hand over his as he held her face. He used the last of his strength to move closer. “I love you, Poly.” The words tumbled from his lips before he brought his mouth over hers in a gentle kiss.

  JOEY STRODE OUT OF THE front door of his house and stole a breath of morning air. No signs of Arracks, MM, or anything. It had been three weeks and it felt like freedom all over again each morning. His hands still shook from time to time, but he had a person there to hold them when the shaking became too bad.

  Poly had her car parked in the front of his house. She hadn’t let him out of her sight since they got back. He stepped down the steps, anxious to get to school and have another normal day. He flung the car door open and she greeted him with a big smile.

  He slid into the car, she leaned over and they kissed. Her soft lips touching his. The morning kiss was sweet and light, nothing like the night-time kisses they shared at the lake. He backed up and locked eyes with her. “You think I can drive to school today?”

  His leg shook and she placed a hand on it, slowing it down for him. “Maybe tomorrow?”

  He loved when she touched him and he placed his hand over hers, caressing her soft knuckles before clasping the tough insides of her palm.

  She peeled out of the driveway and kept the tires spinning all the way to the dirt road. He held on to the grab bar and braced himself. He didn’t like the excitement as much as her, but the look on her face when she lit the tires up was worth every uncomfortable moment.

  The car steadied and Poly guided them around the many divots lining the unkempt road. He couldn’t stop staring at her.

  “What?” she asked with a coy smile.

  “Nothing.”

  “Are we keeping secrets again, Mr. Foust?”

  He laughed. He’d never lie to her again. “You want to ditch school today?” He asked that every day.

  “We’d better keep up appearances.”

  MRS. NIRES GAVE THEM ALL sideways looks back in class. Much of the school looked at them different, or maybe everyone else just seemed different, but it didn’t matter to Joey. He had his friends. Well, most of them.

  Joey held hands with Poly and they walked to their lunch table.

  “Here
’s the lovely couple,” Hank said as they sat down. “You know, Poly, Joey tells me you scare the crap out of him every morning in that car of yours.”

  “Oh he does, does he?” Poly slapped his shoulder.

  Joey smiled and shook his head. He had to remember to never mention Poly’s driving to Hank again. “You are a bit terrifying.” He smirked at her fake surprise to his statement.

  Lucas and Julie walked up to the table, hand in hand. Taking a seat across from them, Joey smiled and gave them a small wave, his hand shaking.

  Poly gripped it tight. “You okay?”

  “Yeah, just a bit jittery today.” He hadn’t used his slow-mo since killing Emmett. He figured he’d pushed it far enough. It was hard to describe to anyone, but his mind felt thin, at the very edge of breaking. If he jumped time again, he knew it would kill him. So, he promised he’d never do it again. Besides . . . if he didn’t die doing it, Poly would kill him.

  Glancing up, he saw Samantha enter the cafeteria. Joey hoped this might be the day she sat down with them.

  Samantha walked toward them, her gaze landed on him and Poly. Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything as she quickened her pace and sat down at a corner table.

  “Give her a bit of time, she’ll come around,” Julie said.

  “I sure hope so,” Hank added.

  Joey couldn’t help but stare at Samantha. He wanted to rush over and hug her, tell her how much she still meant to him, how much she meant to all of them. He hated seeing her apart from them. It felt like they had lost a limb.

  Julie told him it would happen and he did everything he could to try and keep it from happening. At least he told himself that. In truth, he deserved the cold shoulder from Samantha. He just hoped it didn’t last another day, another minute. He glanced at her and caught her eyes. She looked away and then turned her back to them. It killed him to see that. He thought of the moment on his balcony when he stole a kiss from her or the weeks they spent in solitary in Marcus’s digital playground.

  Poly touched his hand and he turned back to his friends at the table. “You find him yet, Julie?” she asked. It had become their favorite topic.

  “I have a few leads.” Julie’s Panavice had given her total access to any server in the world. She scoured the servers and the news, searching for any major advances in technology or anything that looked like Marcus. Lucas constantly tried to get her to use it to transfer a few million into a bank account for him, but she refused to do anything nefarious.

  “I bet he’s just chilling on a beach somewhere,” Hank said.

  “He’s out there, probably building some small empire like he did on Vanar,” Poly said. She always kept her eyes away from Samantha. Joey knew it hurt her as much as him for the group to be split. He hoped it didn’t last long because if Marcus did emerge from his hiding, they’d need to be ready.

  Joey sighed and leaned back in his chair. It was their last loose string. Marcus Malliden.

  Harris had come to visit last week and told them about the massive work needing to be done on Vanar. Poly and Julie were even talking about helping out over Thanksgiving break. Joey would probably go, but only to make sure nothing happened to Poly. Harris even told them they were looking at electing a president. Harris was of course on the ballot, but Joey couldn’t stop from laughing when he heard Travis was running against him.

  Lucas’s blood vaccine had been distributed to the wrecked regions and it looked like they were trying to come to an agreement with the few Arracks left on the planet. But all at once, Harris said they were gone, leaving almost no trace. He suspected they had another planet they went to.

  When asked about the envelope he’d given them, Harris still denied knowing anything about it, saying someone must have swapped them out. Joey really didn’t care anymore, as long as he could keep his friends safe for as long as possible.

  Poly scooted close to him and wrapped her arm over his shoulder.

  He turned his head and kissed her forehead. “I want you,” he whispered into her ear.

  She turned her head up to him with a brilliant smile. “I know.”

  Joey refused to wait for anything anymore. Life was too short to keep feelings and thoughts inside. He might as well enjoy whatever time he had left.

  The story continues in Book 4, Break of the Six.

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