by Jo Schneider
“Tie her up,” Pelton said. “Search her and take her to the bikes. Leave six guards on her.” He leveled his gaze at her. “Make sure she doesn’t get away.”
The men holding her shoved her to the ground face first. Wendy caught herself with her knees and managed to hit with her hips before her face.
A sharp pain shot through her hip. Like a rock in her pocket.
The grenade.
The craziest plan she’d ever had formed in her mind. The Skinnies holding her loosened their grip. Wendy waited until they were about to tie her up, then she used every trick she’d ever learned to twist away from them.
She only had a second. She turned onto her back and kicked one Skinny in the face. She used her legs to scissor one of the other’s legs, then rolled, taking him down to the ground kneecap first. She kept rolling, let the Skinny go and brought her foot around to the back of his neck.
Another crunch.
Pelton yelled. More Skinnies closed in. Guns cocked.
Wendy rolled to her knees, grabbed the grenade out of her pocket and held it aloof.
“Let them go or we all die.” She kept her eyes on Pelton. “You know I’ll do it.”
Everyone froze.
Pelton shifted his weight, but forced a grin. “What’s that?”
“Something that will blow this support, which will bring down a good chunk of the ceiling.” Wendy met his glare with a glare. She licked her lips once before she said. “Let them go, unharmed, and I’ll go with you. I’ve studied the map, I can tell you anything you want to know. Your Primate would like that, I’m sure.” She smiled. “But if you hurt even one of them, we all die.”
Chapter 22
Pelton kept his gaze leveled at her. He knew she wasn’t a liar, and right now she was serious as hell. She knew that her offer to go with him was something he couldn’t refuse. Of course, she had no idea how she was going to get out of this. Sure, he’d let the others loose, but he’d go after them the second he had her tied up and gagged. Probably drugged for good measure.
“You’re bluffing.” Pelton said.
“You wish.”
The Skinnies around them stood stone still. They watched, and waited. They would probably rush her if Pelton told them to. Which made Wendy wonder how the Primate gathered followers that were so blindly loyal.
“Okay.” Pelton held his hands out in front of him. “You come with me and I’ll let your friends go.”
Wendy grit her teeth. “You’ll cut those guys down and let them out. Once that is done, your slaves will escort these guys out.” Her eyes flickered to where her team was on the floor. “Then you give them an hour head start. Only then will I go with you.”
“That’s a long time to hold a grenade ready.”
“You know I can do it.”
The two of them stood on either side of an ice-cold wasteland of hate and anger.
Pelton kept his eyes on hers. They had a silent battle of wills. Wendy kept her face in a mask of determination and her hands still. Her fingers tightly held the ends of the egg-shaped explosive.
The air grew still. The moment drew on through eternity. For a second, Wendy wondered if Pelton would decide it wasn’t worth it. She could sweeten the pot, but then he would know just how desperate she was. He’d go back on the deal; she knew it.
He’d already killed too many people she loved; she wasn’t going to let him kill these people too.
Finally, after eternity had dragged on for what felt like another hour, Pelton stiffly nodded his head. “Fine. I’ll untie your friends and let them go. No weapons, and if any of them try anything stupid, I’ll have my men cut through the lot of them.”
“Did you guys hear that?” Wendy asked.
“We heard it,” Jeff said in a gruff tone.
“Do as he says.”
“Wendy, I—”
Wendy cut Jeff off. “Don’t argue with me. Just do it.” Why did he always have to argue?
A sly smile spread across Pelton’s face. “Looks like you have an admirer.”
“He’s just obsessed with getting everyone out alive. Something I’m sure you wouldn’t understand.”
Pelton’s face relaxed. “Oh, I understand loyalty, better than you might think.”
“How does it feel to be the Primate’s lapdog?” Wendy asked.
Once again, at the mention of the Primate, Pelton’s face darkened. He stepped toward her. He grabbed a gun from one of the Skinnies next to him and pointed it at her head.
“No!” someone, maybe Kev, shouted.
Wendy stood stationary.
Pelton slowly cocked the gun. His hand trembled just enough to notice. “You will learn to be respectful to and about the Primate. If you can’t learn that lesson, then I will kill you and all of your friends now.”
He was just as serious about this as she was about the grenade.
“Respect?” Wendy raised her eyebrows.
“I taught you to respect people. You’re good at it.” He jerked his head over his shoulder at Jeff and her team. “Or you used to be, until you fell in with this lot. What have they done to you?”
Sweat dripped from Wendy’s hairline down behind her ear. She repressed a shiver. “Nothing a true friend wouldn’t have done.”
This time he snorted. “Friends? Didn’t I also teach you that friends are liabilities? You were more than happy to listen to me after your mom died. Or should I say, after you killed her.”
Wendy’s monster growled. The muscles in her face would not obey her command to stay neutral. She grit her teeth and clenched the grenade harder. “You don’t know anything about that.”
But he did. She’d spilled her secret to him once, after a particularly hard day. She’d been young and afraid. Too afraid to tell her dad or her sister what had really happened. That she’d allowed her mother to take her own life, that she hadn’t done anything to stop it.
“I know everything about you,” Pelton said. “For instance, once I knew you were here, I engineered it so you were the last one caught. I knew that you’d sacrifice yourself for your friends. Even if they aren’t really friends. You’re the only person I know who is willing to risk their life for mere acquaintances. I’m still not sure where you got that from.”
Wendy had to stall for a little longer. The Skinnies were still lowering Riggs down. They had to be ready to run before she could do this.
Which meant she had to keep Pelton talking.
“I got it from you,” Wendy said. She dredged up a good memory, one now marred by Pelton’s betrayal. “How many people did you bring to the Den? Thirty? Fifty? You always brought them back smiling and assuring them that they would be safe in the Den. You did that for perfect strangers.”
The smile slid off of Pelton’s face. “I did it so I could recruit them.”
“For the Primate?” Wendy didn’t need him to answer. “Why?”
“Because, he is the Way.”
“The way to what?”
“The Way to a New World.”
“Why a new world?”
Riggs, Janice and Cal were down. The Skinnies were cutting them loose.
Wendy kept going. “What’s wrong with this one?”
Pelton laughed. “You’re so naive.”
“So tell me.” She waved the grenade back and forth. “It’s not like we’ve got anything else to do.”
Pelton finally lowered the gun. “I doubt I could make you understand.”
“You’ve taught me almost everything I know, surely you can figure it out.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve picked up a smart mouth with these people. I’m not sure I like it.”
“We’re not talking about my mouth.”
Pelton took a moment to compose his thoughts. “The Primate found me on my third scavenge for the Den. A pack of Skinnies had killed everyone else, but I survived. I ran and stumbled on one of his patrols. He was with them, like he used to be in the early days, and stopped his Skinnies from killing me. He nurs
ed me back to health and started telling me about his plans. About his New World.”
Wendy listened.
“I was weak and had a long trip ahead of me. The Primate fed me, gave me supplies and told me to come visit again next time I was out. He said he was interested in rebuilding society.”
Wendy held back a snort and a retort about how killing everyone in the Den didn’t seem like a productive way to rebuild anything.
Pelton continued. “So I did. He often had good information on where to find what we needed in the Den. He helped me, and I helped him train his Skinnies. After a few years, he started testing people.”
Riggs and company were filing out of the building.
“Testing?”
“He needs loyal followers. Those who will help him build the New World.”
“What kind of world?”
Pelton’s eyes once again bore into hers. “The kind where we no longer enable the weak, but reward the strong. Where we strengthen humanity, not drag it down because of a few.”
“And this test, did the Den fail?”
“Yes.” Religious fervor burned in Pelton’s eyes. “They failed. Your father had promise, but after your mother died he fell apart. The Den grew weak. The Primate had me test them, and they failed. All but you.”
A chill swept through Wendy. She had never thought of herself as that much different than anyone else in the Den. “I didn’t fail?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Riggs and the others got out the door. Pelton nodded at his Skinnies. They dragged Jeff and the others to their feet and drove them toward the door.
“Because, you do what it takes to survive. You always have and you always will.”
When they got close to the shield part, Wendy spoke to Pelton. “You might be more right about that than you know.” She flicked the grenade over at the X support and yelled.
“Run!”
Chapter 23
Wendy prayed that Dennis was right about the ten-second delay. She also hoped that he would grab the shield part and get it out. Dennis and Jeff would have to figure out how to do that; she had to get back up to her pack. If Riggs and the others could take care of themselves, they might get out of this and back to Shelter with what they needed.
The surprised look on Pelton’s face almost made her laugh. His eyes followed the grenade for a split second. They might have followed it all the way to the ground, but Wendy didn’t wait to find out. She turned and ran as fast as she could toward the outer edge of the platform that was about to come down on them.
As it often did in a moment of danger, or supreme stupidity, time slowed. Wendy’s body wouldn’t react as fast as she wanted it to, and the air turned to mud. She heard drawn out yelling behind her, but didn’t turn to see who or what it might be. Kev’s instructions for running from someone who was trying to shoot you came into her mind—strange but appropriate timing—and she jinked once. She had no idea if anyone was trying to shoot her, but if they were, they missed.
If it were her, she’d be getting out of the way.
Crates slid past as she ran. Machinery. Even a brittle corpse still dressed in a flight suit. Wendy’s feet floated over the floor, but would not let her speed up.
Her mind had started to count. She hit five and kept running.
Four. Around the crate.
Three. A glance up told her she wasn’t out of danger yet.
Two. Faster. She had to go faster.
One. A piece of machinery that was bolted to the floor loomed before her. She was close to the edge of the platform. There wasn’t any more time.
Zero.
Wendy dove beneath the machine. The sound of the explosion hit her first, shredding her eardrums. A wave of heat and projectiles hit next, helping her gain just the right position under the machine to tuck into a ball and stay there.
A heat wave went around her, searing her hair and heating up the soles of her boots. The crate she’d leaped over must have buffered the rest, because her butt wasn’t on fire.
Yet.
The ground shook. Metal shrieked. People screamed. Wendy covered her head and closed her eyes.
Wendy had heard wounded animals cry, and this was eerily similar. The support beams wailed a last lament as they were ripped apart by the grenade. The ceiling—platform—groaned a warning of its coming. The whole world lurched once. A pause, then Wendy’s entire world rocked.
Screeching and crying filled the air. A huge weight landed not far from Wendy, weighing so much that the floor under her lowered, and she fell an inch to catch up.
She opened her eyes and looked over her knees to the chaos beyond. A wave of dust rolled toward her.
Wendy sucked in a breath just before it got there and closed her eyes again.
Another wail of pain from the structure. Another crash onto the floor. This one so close that the machine she hid under moved. Wendy heard the bolts snap. A long screech, like nails on metal. No amount of pressing her hands to her ears helped.
It stopped.
Everything stopped.
Wendy opened her eyes again and found dust as thick as any fog she’d ever seen. She sat up and waved it away. An involuntary breath filled her lungs, and she coughed.
The cough sounded far away. Her ears were ringing. She crawled out from under the machine, and found darkness. Her fingers twitched to turn on her headlamp, but didn’t. The Skinnies would find her easier if she lit it up. They’d be after her for sure. So she took note of which direction she was facing and started back toward the corner she’d come from.
She carefully picked her way through the rubble, wondering just how close she’d come to getting squished. Muffled noises began to sound from behind her. She turned to look.
As the dust settled, light came back. Not much, just a little from the far door and some from above. It shone down like muted rays of the sun, catching the glittering dust in its wake.
Wendy blinked, trying to clear her eyes and saw four figures coming toward her. Her ears still weren’t working. She turned and kept going.
The obstacles seemed to have changed size and shape. For a moment she thought she’d gone the wrong way, then she went past the long, low crate she’d seen on her way in. The farther away she got from the collapsed ceiling, the faster she could move.
Voices drew her attention behind her again. Shadowy figures followed.
Faster. The light faded as she got father away. Wendy looked into the dark and willed the door to appear. It didn’t happen. She spotted a pipe on a table and picked it up. At least she had a weapon. She could hold a couple of Skinnies off with it.
But if she could get to the door before they got to her, then she wouldn’t have to fight. Just get back up the pole.
How they got in front of her Wendy didn’t understand. One second her way was clear, and the next three Skinnies barred her path. The first rushed her, swinging at her head with a club.
Wendy ducked and drove her pipe into his stomach, doubling him over. One shove threw him into a woman, and they both went down.
The third used her distracted state to get closer. Wendy didn’t get out of the way of the sword fast enough. Even in the dim light she could see the rust on the blade as it sliced into her upper arm. If she got out of this alive, Doc was going to have to save her again.
This Skinny knew what he was doing. He waited, smiling. “Where are you going?”
Wendy had used up all of her witty banter on Pelton. She drove forward, expecting him to be surprised, but he wasn’t. He held his ground and almost took her head off. Instead, she felt a thin slice through the side of her neck. Nothing serious, but enough to know that she would have to take time to beat this one. She backed off. One step, then two.
A set of arms reached out and grabbed her from behind.
The ringing in her ears had kept her from hearing the Skinny. His wiry arms wrapped around her like a clamp. She dropped her weight and started to struggle. The Skinny with the r
usted sword moved in.
“Pelton wants her alive,” the Skinny holding her said.
“Oh, I won’t kill her,” the Skinny with the sword said. “Just give her a little something to remember me by.”
Wendy kicked out, but he danced away. She opened her mouth to cry for help, but remembered that no one was there to come. Just Skinnies. And maybe Pelton. If he’d survived.
The man holding her knew what he was doing. Wendy couldn’t slip out. She dropped the pipe so she could use both hands, which were pinned by her sides.
One second he coiled around her like a rope, the next he dropped her. Wendy stumbled forward and almost impaled herself on the other guy’s sword.
Someone caught her and threw her to the side, where she ran into someone else. More hands went around her. Wendy twisted and went for the eyes.
“Whoa, Shrimp, it’s me,” Kev said, jerking his head away.
Wendy froze. “Kev?”
He gently pushed her back. “And Jeff.” He jerked his head.
Wendy turned and saw Jeff running a knife into the Skinny’s heart.
“What are you doing?” Wendy asked.
“Coming to help,” Kev said. “Jeff said your pack is still up there.”
Jeff pushed the Skinny away. “We need to keep moving, they’re after us.” He pointed. Wendy followed the gesture and saw more shadows coming their way.
Wendy reached down to retrieve her pipe and took a knife off of a Skinny, along with a pistol.
“Did Dennis get the shield part?” Wendy asked as she moved through the maze.
“He and Hound grabbed it. Not sure if they got out.” Kev said. Wendy had never heard his voice so serious.
“Hopefully they did,” she said.
“We need to worry about us,” Jeff said.
Wendy finally spotted the door “There.” She ran ahead and inside. A shout rose up behind them.
“They’re right behind us,” Jeff said.
“Just get inside,” Wendy waved them in. The boys squeezed through just as Wendy shut the door with a clang. “Hold it,” she said.
Both boys threw their weight on it just as the Skinnies hit it from the outside. They got thrown back, but immediately pushed the door shut again.
