by E S Richards
“Here we go!”
Without allowing himself time for second thoughts, Marcus put his foot on the gas pedal and plowed the Jeep forward into the metal fencing. At the speed he was going, the barrier didn’t stand a chance and he tore straight through it, causing the metal to buckle and break apart. It did so with a loud crash, echoing through the car and reverberating in Marcus’s eardrums. Deciding in a split second that he needed to keep the momentum going, Marcus focused on the second roadblock and picked a point that looked weaker than the rest, knowing he needed to take his chances.
This time when the Jeep smashed into the wall of abandoned cars, he felt the pain of the crash kicking back at him. The front of the Jeep crumpled slightly, damaging the body of the car but thankfully leaving the engine intact and creating just enough of a gap in the poorly made barrier for him to drive through. He was clear. Marcus was on the other side in Texas. The only issue now was where were Mia and the others?
***
As a loud crash echoed through the building, everyone inside froze. Things had very quickly taken a turn for the worse at the border barrier, with one guard unconscious and another two lying dead on the ground in a puddle of blood. Jesse was also bleeding heavily, suffering from a bullet wound in his upper left arm. He, Mia, and Jadon were boxed off at the far end of the dormitory, protected by a shield of beds they had fashioned around them hurriedly, otherwise completely trapped and surrounded by members of the Authority.
Glancing out of the window, Mia saw a sight she would’ve never dreamed of in a thousand years. Their Jeep had crashed into the wall of cars that the Authority had set up, someone—who she hoped was Marcus—frantically trying to reverse it out of the smashed metal so there was a clear path to drive through and make an escape. She had no idea whether it was their friend or not, but with the situation as bleak as it was inside the dormitory, she made a quick decision with no better options in sight.
Firing the gun she had picked up from one of the dead guards, Mia shattered the glass of the nearest window to her and ran toward it, hoping Jesse and Jadon would know to follow her. Covering her face with her arms as she tumbled through the broken glass and fell to the ground below, Mia also held her breath to protect her lungs from the toxic air. She didn’t look back, hearing at least one body clatter through the window behind her, hoping that both boys would make it through okay.
Gritting her teeth against the pain in her body from the impact of the fall and the scratches the glass had left on her body, Mia winced and stumbled to her feet, forcing herself to keep moving in the direction of the Jeep. It would be mere seconds before the Authority was at the window trying to shoot them down. Mia knew that if they didn’t make it to the vehicle in time, their journey would almost certainly be over.
Chapter 5
“Help Jesse!”
Mia shrugged Marcus off when he came to her aid, grateful it was him in the car and not anyone else, but aware that Jesse needed his assistance more than she did. Marcus did as he was told immediately, leaving Mia to sprint to the Jeep and tug open the doors, fumbling around in the back of the car for a breathing mask and one of the pistols they had with them.
Pulling the mask over her face, Mia quickly checked the 9mm Glock pistol for ammunition. She’d dropped the Authority’s weapon as she flew out of the window, knowing there was no time to stop and look for it as the enemy chased after them. Now she armed herself quickly and efficiently, the lessons her father had given her in shooting from a young age flooding back to her and her mind snapping out of a panicked frenzy and into a militant state.
Aiming the Glock in the direction of the broken window, Mia quickly noticed that all three of her friends were almost back at the car with her, before squeezing the trigger and firing a rapid three rounds at the window. Whichever member of the Authority who stood there—Mia hoped it was Hargreaves—hadn’t been expecting the firearm at all, two bullets hitting him square in the chest and causing him to fall to the ground.
“Get in!” Mia shouted at the boys as they finally arrived, Jadon and Marcus on either side of Jesse as the boy grew weak from blood loss. “Marcus, I need you to drive! Put Jesse in the back!”
Without asking any questions, each of them did exactly as they were told, Mia’s instructions punctuated by a volley of bullets that showered the ground by the Jeep’s rear wheels, a few of them bouncing off of the bumper. They were fighting back now, although Mia knew the four of them were in the clear. So long as nothing happened to the car, they should make it out alive.
“Mia!” Marcus shouted from the driver’s seat, telling her that they were ready to leave. Without hesitation she jumped into the back alongside Jesse and Jadon, Marcus flooring it as soon as the door was closed and speeding away from the border crossing in an explosion of spinning wheels and dust. They were away from the Authority for now, but their fight was far from over.
“Find the first aid kit!” Mia instructed Jadon, the pair of them crammed into the back seats with Jesse laid out between them, groaning in pain. “Is the bullet still in his arm?”
“No,” Jadon replied, having already inspected the wound. “Clean shot. It went straight through.”
“Good,” Mia nodded, her face set in a firm line as she repositioned herself over Jesse. There wasn’t a lot of room in the car and with Marcus speeding as fast as he could away from the barrier, the car was throwing them around more than it usually would. “I’m going to need you to get in the front,” she prompted Jadon. “Then turn back and hold him steady.”
“No problem,” Jadon started to move, maneuvering carefully over his friend’s body and clambering into the front seat while also trying not to distract Marcus too much from driving. “You okay, dude?”
“Yeah,” Marcus replied quickly. “Don’t worry about me. I got this.”
Jadon quickly patted his friend on the shoulder before twisting in the seat so he could reach back and hold Jesse. It wasn’t a comfortable position in the slightest, but it was necessary so that Mia could clean the wound and bandage him up. Jesse had lost a lot of blood. Thankfully the flow was slowing down now, though that did mean the boy was starting to waver in and out of consciousness.
“Come on, Jesse,” Mia encouraged him. “Stay with me. This is going to sting.”
Dousing a bandage in antiseptic, Mia pressed it against the bullet hole in Jesse’s shoulder and started to clean the wound. A gut-wrenching howl escaped Jesse as Mia worked, the sting from the antiseptic causing him to writhe and struggle against Jadon. Because the bullet passed straight through, they didn’t need to worry about removing any metal fragments from the skin and, following her inspection, Mia didn’t think anything was still left inside him. They would find out in a matter of days if the area didn’t start to heal properly; for now, Mia knew they couldn’t do anything more than wrap up the injury and hope for the best.
“That’s good, Jesse,” Mia cooed, talking to the injured boy as she used to with Riley when she hurt herself. She had patched up many scraped knees and bruised elbows in her time as both an aunt and then as a parent, albeit nothing as serious as a bullet wound. Thankfully the worst thing that had ever happened to either Chase or Riley under her care was a dislocated shoulder that Chase had popped out playing lacrosse. Despite requiring quite a few pain meds following joint repositioning, he had been back playing the game no more than two weeks later. If Jesse could recover half as well, Mia would count that as a stroke of good luck—something she believed their group was well overdue for.
“I’m going to wrap it up now,” she explained to the boy, narrating her work as she did it to keep his mind focused and stop him from drifting off to sleep. Once she was finished, she was happy for Jesse to get some rest, already having administered a couple of the strongest painkillers from the first aid kit. Until then she wanted him lucid. “I need to make it tight, so tell me if it hurts too much.”
Jesse winced again as Mia wrapped the bandage around his bicep, the muscle trying to
tense against her touch despite how it had been lacerated. He wouldn’t be playing football for a long time, but in their current state that was probably the least of Jesse’s worries. He didn’t ask Mia to loosen the bandage though, gritting his teeth and bearing the pain until it was finally done.
“There we are,” Mia smiled. “All finished. You can relax now, Jesse.”
Sagging almost immediately at the words, Jesse’s head lolled back against the seat and Mia shifted her body so none of his weight rested on her anymore. Blood had seeped into the seats of the Jeep, staining them red and giving the whole car a metallic smell. Picking up a couple of wipes from the kit, Mia cleaned her skin as best she could, wiping a bit more of the bloody dribble from Jesse’s lower arms as well as the boy’s eyelids fluttered.
“You all right, Mia?” Jadon asked from the front, still twisted in his seat so he could assist where needed. “Is everything okay?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mia replied. “He can sleep for a while now. Probably best to allow his body to recover.”
“Are you all right though?” Jadon repeated, worried not only about Jesse, but Mia as well after everything she had done.
Mia smiled, grateful for his concern. “Yeah I’m okay,” she nodded. “All worked out in the end, didn’t it?” she half joked. “The perfect plan.”
Marcus laughed from the front, finally slowing the car a bit and shooting Mia a look in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, right. What even happened in there?”
“Oh, man,” Jadon shook his head. “Those people are crazy, dude. I’m telling you—if you hadn’t rammed this car through their barriers, I don’t think we would’ve made it out alive.”
“Seriously? How did it end up like that?”
Mia sighed, unsure how to begin to explain it. Thankfully Jadon saw the look on her face and how exhausted she was and picked it up for her, though he was equally staggered by what had happened. He had experienced hatred before in his life, but not on that level. It was like something out of a history book. Jadon only hoped that they would fail and that Yellowstone wasn’t the saving grace for them as they believed it was.
“Bunch of sick racists, if you ask me,” he muttered, Marcus turning his head slightly to listen to his friend beside him. “They locked us in a dormitory for the night and then when Jesse and I started asking questions, they got aggressive and threatened us.”
“No way? For real?”
“It was horrible, man,” Jadon continued. “I know there are people out there like that but jeez, this lot was extreme.”
“Do you think there are more of them? Like, you reckon that was only one small part of it?”
“They called themselves the Authority,” Mia interjected from the back, unable to completely switch off the conversation. Adrenaline was still pumping through her veins and she felt like she needed to do something rather than rest. If talking was all she could manage, then that would have to do. “And I definitely think there’s more.”
“How come?”
“Well, if you think about it, they were clearly sent by someone to set up at the border and they said they had orders not to let anyone in or out of Texas. If you ask me, that sounds like they’ve taken over the whole state. Or are trying to at least.”
“Whoa,” Marcus slowed the Jeep even more in response to Mia’s words, suddenly cautious of what they might find on the roads. It was the middle of the night and he had been driving recklessly into the darkness for over an hour now. There was probably enough distance between them and the border for him to slow down and look for a place they could spend the night. Especially if there was more of the Authority roaming around the place. “You really think they could do that?”
“I’m not sure,” Mia answered honestly. “I think they’re definitely trying to. We need to be careful who we run into out here. I don’t think we can trust anyone until we get to my parents’ farm.”
“I agree,” Jadon nodded. “How far is it from that border crossing?”
“A good few hours’ drive still,” Mia replied. “I’ve no idea where we are now, to be honest. Marcus, which direction are we heading in?”
“Uhh,” Marcus faltered, reluctant to admit that in the rush of the moment he had just hit the gas and followed the road, not even remembering which turn he’d taken at the intersection. “I’m not completely sure, actually.”
Mia nodded, knowing that she couldn’t feel disappointed in Marcus for that. Emotions had been high for all of them and she knew that looking at road signs hadn’t been anyone’s top priority. “No worries,” she shrugged. “I reckon we’ll find somewhere to stop for the night if possible, then get our bearings in the morning and make a beeline to Houston then. I highly doubt anyone from the border has tried to follow us, but if they did, we’ll hide the Jeep away anyway. Should be fine for one night.”
“All right, cool,” Marcus smiled in the rearview mirror. “We’ve passed a few places, shouldn’t take too long to find somewhere decent.”
“Awesome,” Mia replied. “Let’s all keep our eyes peeled.”
Sitting back in her seat a fraction, Mia turned her head so it was angled out of the window and stared into the darkness. After everything that had just happened, she’d barely had time to process the bigger picture. Whoever the Authority was, whoever they had been founded by and whoever they were linked to were trying to take control of what she imagined was not only Texas, but the entire country. It was typical of her luck that they’d started in her home state, although Mia’s main concern wasn’t for herself, just for her family waiting at the farmhouse.
She wondered how far the Authority’s reach had expanded. Had they focused on the larger cities first because of how populous they were, or had they started in the smaller suburbs? She tried to put herself in their position and figure out what they would do: easier, smaller targets, or larger, more challenging locations? It wasn’t a mindset Mia had ever tried to enter before and so she struggled to wrap her head around it. She knew millions of people around the world carried prejudices, but she thought that on this scale they had been wiped out. It made her feel sick and she dreaded to think how it was affecting other people throughout Texas.
Time couldn’t pass quick enough between her reuniting with her family now. This was the closest she had been to them in a long time and Mia could feel a warmth in her heart as a result. It was no longer weeks until she would see them again, but days—soon, just hours. That was a feeling more incredible than anything else she could imagine and as they drove into the darkness looking for a refuge for the night, it was the feeling Mia focused on. Not the injured boy sleeping next to her or the worried driver who was away from his unborn child. She ignored the negative emotions that had encapsulated her so heavily over the past few weeks and focused on hope. With hope, she knew there was nothing that could hold her back. Nothing that could stop her.
Chapter 6
Lying on his back, staring up at the ceiling in the corner of the room, Mike processed what he was going to do that day. Even though he had assured his father that he was up to the challenge the day before, Mike had naturally woken up with several doubts about returning to the pit. He was vulnerable at the hands of the Authority. No matter what Jackson said about having people on the inside, there was no guarantee that something bad wouldn’t happen to him.
When the Authority had first picked up Mike, it had been during their initial raid of the city. The street where he lived with his parents and younger brother was plunged into chaos quicker than anyone could’ve prepared for, the Authority using both the advantage of surprise combined with brute force and violence to overpower everyone and take the children away with them. Naturally Jackson had fought back, but after his wife—Mike’s mother—had been killed, the fight in him died like water extinguishing a flame.
After that, Mike and Rylan had both been carted away by the Authority, taken to a place they didn’t recognize and separated into cells as a result of something they didn’t understand. Mike ha
d been lucky enough the first time around to find friends like Leo, Joel, and Chase. Sadly, he had a feeling that this time, those relationships wouldn’t be possible. After his father and the rebel faction managed to overpower the Authority once, Mike knew their security levels would be much stricter and any chance of living a half-decent life inside the pit was unlikely.
But he had told his father he would do it—that he would be the mole on the inside and help to take the Authority down. Despite how much he didn’t want to, Mike knew he would do it because of one overwhelming reason: he wanted to make his father proud. It was never something he felt like he’d managed to achieve in the past and now that the opportunity to do so was right in front of him, Mike couldn’t turn it down.
“Are you all right, bro? You awake?”
Mike rolled over in his bed so he was on his side, looking out into the small room within the office facility where he had been sleeping alongside his brother and father since he and Rylan arrived. Rylan was looking at him now, a concerned expression on his face as he too worried about what would happen to Mike in the pit this time around.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“I need to,” Mike explained again to his younger brother, forcing himself to sit up in bed and prepare for the day. There wasn’t any getting out of it; he might as well start the day with a smile on his face while he still had the chance. “Dad specifically asked me; he needs my help. You know I couldn’t say no to that.”
