by Kyla Stone
“What the hell does that mean?” Horne huffed. “Speak clearly, man.”
Willow’s gut tightened. She felt sick. If a top-security base was compromised . . . he didn’t want to complete that thought. “The Hydra Virus.”
López nodded slowly, like his head was too heavy for his neck. “Something about a tainted medical instrument that came in with the research supplies from a nearby hospital. I don’t have any other details.”
“What about President Sloane?” Elise asked. “The continuity of government?”
“I don’t know.”
“What does that have to do with us?” Willow asked.
“In the same conversation, General Thorton stated that they’d lost over half of their military bases. Fort Bragg in North Carolina. MacDill, Fort Hood, West Point. I saw the list. Robins was on it, too.”
“That’s impossible.” Meredith sniffed. “You must be misinformed.”
López frowned. “I assure you—”
“Was Fort Benning on the list? It’s a hundred miles west of here.” Jericho swiped the GPS holo.
“Not that I am aware of.”
“Good,” Jericho said, his voice hard. “That’s our new destination. We can’t stay here arguing uselessly. We have less than three hours until darkness falls. Unless you fancy bedding down in the leaves for the night, we need to move.”
“There’s a town here, just off I-75.” Silas pointed at the holo map flickering over Jericho’s SmartFlex.
Jericho nodded. “Shelter first. Let’s go.”
Meredith’s unnaturally smooth skin wrinkled strangely as she scowled. “And why, pray tell, should we listen to you?”
“He’s the guy who knows how to use a gun,” Silas said. “So shut up and move your ass.”
Meredith’s mouth tightened. “Where are your manners, young man? If your father could hear you now—”
Silas spit on the ground and wiped his mouth. “Thank God for the apocalypse, then.”
López cleared his throat. “We appreciate your service back there, Jericho. We do. However, it seems like the definition of insanity to wander off to some god-forsaken place when we know that General Thorton will send reinforcements for us. How will they find us without communications? We need to stay right here.”
“No,” Jericho said. “It’s too dangerous.”
Meredith gazed at Jericho like he was some sort of cockroach, her lip curled. “You’re nothing but a glorified bodyguard. Who put you in charge?”
“I did,” Jericho said simply. “This is no democracy. Follow my lead or go. I protect my own, but I can’t protect idiots.”
Meredith’s face reddened. She raised herself to her full height. “Do you know who the hell you’re talking to?”
Jericho shrugged. “I don’t care. Your money and shiny titles don’t mean shit now.”
Silas chortled. Willow couldn’t help it; she grinned. It felt good to see these smug, pretentious elites put in their place. Jericho was a true badass.
Meredith shot López a baleful look. “This is entirely unacceptable.”
“I agree with Meredith,” López said. “We can’t risk missing our rescue. I’m sorry, but we’re going to have to part ways.”
“I don’t think we should separate,” Micah said. “We’re stronger together.”
“Speak for yourself.” Willow could do without them just fine. Amelia would stay with Jericho, which meant Micah would, too. It wasn’t even a question in her mind. She and Benjie were safer with Jericho over a bunch of stuffy, clueless elites any day of the week. This wasn’t a company board room or a fashion runway. This was the real world. And in the real world, you had to be strong. You had to know how to make the hard choices.
Meredith gestured at López. “Who else is with us?”
“Not me,” Willow said, not that anyone cared.
Six others, all adults—all elites, or former elites—crossed the clearing and went with Meredith. Celeste hesitated, her eyes flicking between Jericho and Meredith.
“Celeste!” Meredith said. “Are you mad? Come with us.”
Celeste shook her head, a few copper coils falling into her face. Her simpering, syrupy sweetness was gone. She was shaking, suddenly unsure of herself, the same hesitant expression on her face Willow remembered from the Grand Voyager, when they’d cowered beneath the bridge, soaking wet and terrified. “I—I can’t sleep out here. I’m going with them.”
Meredith sniffed and patted her glossy blonde hair. She turned to Amelia’s mom. “Elise? Surely, you have more sense than this.”
Elise shook her head. “Our family has trusted Jericho with our security for six years. I’m in no position to stop now.”
“What about you, Horne?” Senator López asked.
Horne’s gaze darted to Jericho’s stacked physique and the assortment of guns and knives he’d stashed on his person. “As much as I hate to say it, Jericho has the training, experience, and expertise to keep us alive. My odds are better with him.”
Meredith seemed to take the rejection as a slight. She jutted her chin imperiously. “Suit yourselves.”
Senator López turned to Elise and held out his hand. “Sorry, dear, but I’m going to need to take that gun off you.”
Elise stepped back, frowning. “What? Why?”
“It’s only fair that we split our resources,” Meredith said sweetly.
Silas’s face contorted. His hand rested on his holster. “If you think—”
“Just give it to them,” Micah said. “It’s not worth it.”
“What he said.” Meredith gave a cold smile. “There’s no need to make things difficult.”
“Two guns,” Jericho said. Even Meredith was smart enough to know when to push her luck—and when not to. Elise and Micah sighed and handed over their guns.
Meredith smiled triumphantly. “Good luck,” she said, though her tone implied the opposite. Then she strode into the trees, headed toward the road. Senator López and eight other people followed her.
“Stay off the highway!” Jericho called after them. Meredith lifted her middle finger.
“How quickly the cultured aristocrats lose their manners,” Finn murmured beside her.
Willow rolled her eyes. “Good riddance.”
Their group had shrunk to twelve—Willow, Benjie, Finn, Amelia, Silas, Micah, Jericho, Elise, Horne, Celeste, Nadira, and the prisoner, Gabriel. Willow wouldn’t have minded losing a few more. Celeste was a whiny, spoiled princess who complained all the time, and Horne was a smarmy, conceited idiot who might get them all killed.
This little adventure couldn’t be over soon enough—if they survived it.
5
Amelia
Amelia watched the discussion as if from a distance. Everything seemed so surreal.
Six weeks ago, she had been at home in Manhattan, training for Juilliard four hours a day. Five weeks ago, she had been a hostage on a burning cruise ship. Two week ago, she had been stuck in quarantine on a naval base in Florida. And today, she was lost in the woods somewhere in Georgia, hurled into a harsh new world she barely recognized.
As soon as Meredith and the others marched off toward the highway, Horne wheeled on Jericho. “What about him?” he snarled, his perfect features contorting as he gestured at Gabriel.
Amelia’s stomach curdled at the mention of Gabriel. He sat handcuffed against a tree. Her eyes met his, as dark and full of shadows as she remembered.
A memory struck her—his head bent over her, dark curls falling into his eyes as his lips brushed hers, butterflies exploding in her stomach. And then later, his strong calloused hands massaging her swollen fingers, his eyes filled with silent regret for how he’d hurt her. His eyes were filled with that same pained regret now.
She tore her gaze away.
“He’s my prisoner,” Jericho said tersely. “We take him with us.”
Horne planted his feet, fisting his hands on his hips. “So we’re gonna be responsible for feeding him? Shelter
ing him?”
“I’m not sleeping anywhere near that monster,” Celeste said. “He could kill us all in his sleep!”
“The girl is right,” Horne said. “We know he’s guilty. Just put a bullet in his head now and call it a day.”
“If you shoot him,” Jericho said, his face as placid as ever, “I will slap cuffs on you and turn you in for murder.”
Horne’s mouth contorted. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Jericho’s hand moved to the rifle slung over his shoulder. “Do I look like I’m joking?”
“He’s right,” Gabriel said. “Just shoot me.”
“Give me a gun,” Silas said with a smirk, “and I’d be happy to.”
“Killing a man who can’t fight back is murder,” Micah said.
Silas whirled on him. “So you are on his side. I guess it’s to be expected, seeing as you’re brothers. Are you a terrorist, just like him? Should we find another pair of handcuffs for you?”
Amelia listened to them argue with growing dread. She had as much reason to hate Gabriel as anyone. And yet, she couldn’t hate him completely. She’d seen his pain, his vulnerability. For a brief moment, she’d seen his truest, best self.
He’d betrayed her, but before that, he’d shown her a new way to think, a new way to be. When she thought of him, she felt anger, grief, loss, and over it all, a deep, wrenching pain. But she didn’t feel hate. Despite everything he’d done, a part of her didn’t want him to die.
When Jericho spoke, his voice was iron. “This man is a terrorist and an enemy of the state, responsible for the sinking of the Grand Voyager and the release of the Hydra Virus bioweapon. He will stand trial for his crimes, he will be convicted, and the American people will see justice done. Until then, anyone who lays a single finger upon him answers to me.”
Only Amelia, Silas, and their mother knew Gabriel didn’t commit the bioweapon attack. Still, he was guilty enough. But Jericho wouldn’t let the others kill him. He would live, for now.
Relief filled her, followed by a pang of shame. She should want him dead, like she’d wanted Kane dead. But she didn’t.
“Are we clear?” Jericho asked tersely.
For a long moment, no one spoke. “We’re clear,” Willow said. Horne just shook his head, alternatively glaring at Jericho and Gabriel.
“We’ve wasted too much time.” Jericho gestured through a copse of trees to the west. “Let’s go.”
“Sounds good to me,” Willow said.
A shifting, crackling sound came from the underbrush behind them.
“Something’s moving out there.” Nadira hugged herself as she peered into the shadows.
“I heard it, too,” Willow said.
Silas sneered. “You scared of the big bad woods, little girl? Afraid you’ll be attacked by a skunk? Terrified of the raccoons and squirrels?”
Willow tightened her grip on Benjie’s hand. “More like bears and wolves.”
“Silas—” Amelia said, a warning in her voice. She recognized the cruel flare in her brother’s eyes.
But he ignored her. “Now you’re just fear-mongering. That Quran-thumper did her prayer-rug thing and managed to not get eaten.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Amelia said to Nadira. “He doesn’t know how to act civilized.”
Silas clutched his chest. “You wound my delicate heart.”
“You have a heart?” Willow snapped.
“It’s okay.” Nadira touched her pale blue hijab.
“It’s not okay,” Willow said. “What exactly is your problem?”
Silas’s lip curled. “Where do you want to start?”
Willow stared at him coldly. “Why are you always such an asshole?”
“At least he’s an equal opportunity asshole,” Amelia said before her brother could respond. It was true. Her brother wasn’t so much racist or bigoted as a misanthrope. He simply hated everyone.
Silas’s eyes went hard. He’d keep insulting everyone until they all despised him, and he wouldn’t stop even then. Amelia needed to diffuse the tension. She grabbed his arm. “Walk with me. I’m feeling dizzy.”
“Are you okay?” Her mother pressed her hand to Amelia’s forehead. “Do you need—”
“I’m fine.”
“Amelia—” Her brows lowered in concern. Even in loose army fatigues and no make-up, her mother exuded grace and beauty, with her high cheekbones, perfectly arched brows, and dark curls tumbling over her slim shoulders.
“I said I’m fine.” She jerked out of her mother’s cloying reach. She didn’t want anyone knowing about the pills, or the pouch with her last auto injector that looked like an epi-pen but wasn’t. She kept her epilepsy a secret her entire life.
She didn’t plan on changing that now. She didn’t know what kind of world awaited them, but it was likely one that would brook even less weakness than the one she knew—the harsh, unforgiving world of her father.
Whatever happened next, she couldn’t be weak. Not anymore.
Jericho marched off into the woods. Horne and Celeste huffed and moaned, but they followed the rest of the group, Celeste grumbling something about ticks and mosquitoes.
Silas fell into step beside Amelia with a huff. She pushed through the underbrush, thorns snagging at the bare skin of her arms. Deeper beneath the forest canopy, the sunlight grew dim. Amelia straightened her shoulders, warding off a shiver.
Silas picked up a large stick and whacked it against the trunk of a gnarled oak. “Did that tree offend you, too?” Amelia snapped. “I’m fairly certain they don’t bite.”
He shrugged and flashed her an insolent smile. “I just like to hit things.”
“Could you please try to be a bit more kind?”
“Why?”
“Because we need to work together to survive, that’s why. And it’s what good people do.”
“Who says I want to be good?”
Amelia sighed. “Being a jerk isn’t something to be proud of.”
He smirked and whacked another tree. “It is if you do it well.”
“What would it take for you to be nice to people?”
“I dunno. A lobotomy, maybe.”
“Fine. I give up.” Her brother was sharp and prickly with everyone, always sarcastic, often cruel. She used to be exempt, but not anymore. They’d drifted apart for years, so much that she feared the breach stretched too far to cross.
But after the terrorist attack on the Grand Voyager, he proved he still loved her. She’d seen it in the desperation written across his face when he and Micah broke into the captain’s quarters during Kane’s attack—right after she stabbed him in the eyeball with a syringe.
She never dreamed about the part when she rescued herself, when Silas came for her. It was the nightmares that haunted her: the gut-wrenching fear, Kane looming over her, his viper eyes as he hurt her again and again.
She shook the dark thoughts from her head. The sun shone through the leaves, the birds were chirping. She couldn’t let the nightmares control her waking life the way they ruled her sleep.
“Please don’t say anything about this.” She gestured at her cargo pocket where Silas knew she kept her pouch and the bottle of remaining pills.
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll make sure to keep it to myself the next time epilepsy comes up in general conversation.”
“Be quiet, would you? I’m serious. Horne and the others would leave me behind in a heartbeat if they thought I was a liability, just like—” Just like Gabriel. But she couldn’t bring herself to say his name aloud.
Silas whacked another tree. “Who cares about any of them? Jericho won’t leave you. He’s all we need.”
“Maybe,” Amelia allowed. “But still.”
She didn’t tell him she only had two weeks left of her epilepsy medication, only fourteen of the illegal pills that kept her alive, that kept her brain from turning to mush—pills illegally created for her by Declan Black, her stepfather. After that, she had nothing but the last emergency
auto-injector.
After that, the next seizure she suffered could be the one that killed her.
Her mother came up on their other side, stepping nimbly over a fallen branch. She touched Amelia’s shoulder. “We need to talk.”
I’m pretty sure we don’t. But Amelia’s manners were bred deep. She couldn’t simply abandon her upbringing, no matter how angry her mother made her. “Can it wait, please?”
Her mother sighed. “I think you should cut off your hair.”
“What?” She looked sharply at her mother, eyes widening. She nearly walked right into a tree.
“We don’t know what—or who—waits ahead of us,” her mother said in a low voice. “We aren’t protected out here, Amelia, not like at home. Not like it used to be.”
She remembered the CDC doctor’s frantic face, her fingers digging into Amelia’s upper arm. And all those people, their hungry faces and desperate anger as they grabbed at her. She shuddered. “I get that.”
“No, you don’t. You’re a beautiful girl, Amelia. Your hair is—it catches the eye. You’re used to beauty as a gift. But out here, beauty is a liability. It’s dangerous.”
Amelia wasn’t stupid. For years, her father had used her beauty as a weapon in his arsenal to woo his political allies. Gabriel wanted her beauty. Then he betrayed her. Kane wanted to destroy her for it.
But her hair . . . it was part of her identity. So were her looks, her face. It wasn’t vain to simply want to be yourself. She’d spent years of her life checking mirrors to ensure she looked absolutely perfect, just the way her father wanted.
As usual, her mother was overreacting. She’d been cloying and overprotective for her entire life. But Amelia was an adult now. She wouldn’t be weak and stupid anymore. “I know, Mother. I’ll be careful.”
“It’s safer if you cut it off. Wear the loosest clothing you can—men’s clothes would be best. Dirty your face. And hide your SmartFlex.”
Amelia wanted to roll her eyes, but something in her mother’s voice stopped her. Still, how would she know anything about how to survive in a harsh world? Amelia knew little of her mother’s life before she married Declan Black when Amelia was a baby. Her parents raised her in wealth and luxury. Her mother always wore custom designer dresses and attended lavish balls and extravagant dinners. What made her think she knew anything more than Amelia did?
