I dived for the baby, this time Reece didn’t hold me back. I quickly scooped him up into my arms and tried to offer some comfort. He needed to stop crying or he would give us all away.
The bushes nearby rustled, making me jump backwards and run straight into Reece. A woman stepped out from behind, one that almost made me drop the baby.
Sunny.
I thought I’d never see her again. I wanted to run into her arms and be enveloped in her warm hugs like I used to when I was a child. I used to think there was nowhere safer than in her arms.
I was wrong, of course.
Now I knew better.
The baby had to be Twig, I remembered his missing hand on his right side. He had turned up in the village only the day before I left it. With a new baby arriving, I knew it was even more dangerous for me to be there and put the others at risk. He was one of the reasons I left, I had contributed to his safety.
“Sunny,” I started before getting cut off by Reece.
“Wren, we have to go.” His tone of voice left no doubt that he was telling the truth. He pushed me along as Sunny and two others came with us. They had emerged from other bushes, watching over the baby while hiding.
All of a sudden a trooper appeared out of nowhere. He stood in our path and snatched Twig from my hold. My arms stung sharply where he had pinched me in the process.
Reece stood in front of us, ushering us to hide behind him like he was a human shield. The trooper was in full white uniform, his helmet covering his face and making him look even more menacing.
If I could see his face, I knew he would be scowling at us with disgust and hatred.
“Let us go,” Reece said calmly. “You can pretend you never saw us.”
“I can’t do that,” the trooper replied.
I stepped to the side of Reece so I could address the man myself. “You have no use for the baby, you can’t freeze his organs and nobody will raise him. Please give him to us.”
The helmet moved my way and I refused to look away. The trooper knew I was right, it was the reason Sunny and the others had left the child in the open. They knew the troopers would run past him and not bother taking his tiny body. If they kept Twig with them, he would have given away their hiding spot with his cries and whimpers.
“You don’t want a baby to die,” I continued. There was nothing left to lose now. If we continued to remain there long enough more troopers would join us and then all options would be taken away.
Where there was one trooper, he was sure to have three of his buddies nearby.
“I have my orders,” the trooper barked out.
I couldn’t let him take Twig.
I couldn’t let him take all the others.
I had to do something.
“Take me instead.”
“Wren, no,” Reece cried, trying to get me to stand behind him again. I understood his need to protect me but I had a need to protect too. He would understand one day why I had broken my promise to him.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
“You’re not in a position to negotiate,” the trooper replied. “I will be taking you all into custody.”
“There is only one of you and six of us,” I pointed out. “Take me and I will be worth more than everyone else. Stone will kiss your feet and give you the biggest promotion in the city. You’ll be a hero.”
“I don’t need a promotion.”
“Then do it for the glory.” There was no point appealing to his humanity, his ego was a far more likely target. The trooper wasn’t looking at us and seeing living beings, he was seeing Defs and the lowest of the low.
The other Defective Clones remained hushed, everyone holding their breaths. Nobody dared to talk back to a trooper, they knew the consequences.
The trooper was silent and I kept hearing the heavy footsteps of more of them. It was just a trick of the wind carrying the sound but it didn’t stop me scrambling to find the source every time the noise reached my ears.
“Wren, you can’t do this,” Reece hissed. I ignored him because I knew if I looked at him my heart would break and I had to be strong right now. My gaze remained fixed on the white helmet.
Twig fussed in his arms as he held him awkwardly. The trooper obviously wasn’t used to holding a baby. Or perhaps it was a Def baby he was having trouble with. Either way, the child was uncomfortable and making it well known to everyone in hearing distance.
“Please, make the swap,” I begged.
“Wren—”
“Fine, I’ll do it,” the trooper said, cutting off Reece. He tried to protest more but I tuned him out. One life in exchange for five, it had to be a worthy trade.
I stepped forward, ready to make the swap. I wouldn’t be scared, I would make the sacrifice and I would take it with dignity. I would give the troopers no reason to harm me before they could deliver me back to Stone.
“Give the baby to Sunny,” I demanded. Sunny stepped forward to take Twig as he held him outstretched. The trooper’s hands were free now, ready to take me away to my certain death.
Just another step and he would be able to bind my hands together so I was powerless against him. This was what I had negotiated, I had to be satisfied with my decision. Twig would get a chance to grow up, he would have Sunny and Reece to look out for him. He would get a chance at a future, especially if the Resistance completed their vision.
I stepped onto my limp foot and it managed to hold my weight while I edged closer. The trooper stood still, but I knew he was just waiting for his moment. Troopers were deadly, they were lethal, one movement and he would have me.
He twirled his finger in the air, indicating that I should turn around so he could secure my hands behind my back. I started to turn around so he could, accepting my fate.
But I never got a chance to turn my back to him.
Chapter 15: Reece
There was no way in hell that trooper was taking Wren. While he was distracted giving her orders, I saw my opportunity and lunged for him.
My hand reached the target – his gun – and gripped around the cold steel barrel. I tugged it away from him, mentally praying his finger wasn’t anywhere near the trigger. In the Defectives’ village there was a shoot-to-kill order. Anyone interfering with trooper business was permitted to be shot immediately.
Apart from the Defective Clones themselves, of course. That would be against the Makers’ rights.
We had a tug of war with the gun, pulling it between us in an effort to get control of the weapon. I was completely unarmed and without any Kevlar protection, if he shot I would die. I needed to even up the odds and get these people to safety.
Especially Wren.
The gun finally yanked free as I pushed the guy’s shoulder. He stumbled back a few steps before he could regain his footing. “Wren, get the others to the bunker,” I ordered. Her beautiful face was frozen in shock. “Wren, hurry!”
She fought with herself to make a decision while I silently willed her to do as I said for once and go. She had no sense of self preservation and too much courage for her own good.
“Wren!”
My booming voice finally startled her into action as she rounded up the others and starting moving toward the bunker. She was going too slowly, though. If she was waiting for me, I was going to kill her myself later.
The trooper struggled, trying to snatch the gun back and regain the control he’d lost. What he didn’t realize was that I’d gone through the exact same training as him, I could anticipate his moves and be ready to counteract them at every pass.
When he couldn’t get the gun, he started using his fists. His knuckles collided with my temple, sending blackness to blur the edges of my vision. His fists managed to get a few more blows into my stomach before I clocked him with the barrel of the gun.
He lunged for me again, this time going for my throat. With him in full trooper uniform, it was impossible for me to hurt him through all the padding and protection. His fingers lodged themselves a
round my neck, squeezing tightly until I couldn’t breathe any longer.
I had only one choice.
I fired.
The crack of the trigger rang out louder than the fire.
Wren shrieked.
The shock of the bullet hitting the trooper’s chest at point blank range made him stumble backwards and finally release his grip from around my throat. I sucked in air, pulling it out of the sky and dragging it into my burning lungs as fast as I could.
There was no time to register what I’d done. If the trooper was wearing a standard-issue uniform, the bullet would be lodged firmly in his Kevlar vest. He would have a massive bruise later and maybe a few sore ribs, but that would be the extent of the damage.
We didn’t have the same such luck.
Wren didn’t know this, she was starting to hyperventilate when I grabbed her hand and tugged her along. “He’ll be okay,” I assured her. “We have to go.”
As horrified as she was at seeing someone being hit by a bullet, she was also a survivor. She knew when it was time to get the hell away from somewhere and when it was smart to stay.
Right now, we needed to run.
Our feet hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust to follow in our wake. The trooper wasn’t following, either still too shocked or my assumptions were wrong. Whatever it was, we were getting a head start and I wasn’t going to question it.
We rounded a corner, relieved to see no further troopers amongst the devastation of burning and ruined huts. There seemed to be no more traces of life anywhere, like the whole place had been abandoned to the ghosts.
All of a sudden Wren stopped, her arm jerking away from me in my forward movement. “We have to keep going and get through the door before they decide to close them for good,” I reminded her. We didn’t have time to linger, the trooper would eventually catch up with us.
Wren was lost in a world of her own as she stood in front of a mound of steel and mud. It would have been a hut before the troopers stormed in.
“This is where I lived with Rocky,” she said quietly.
“It’s all gone, we’ve got to keep going.”
She shook her head and kneeled down in front of the debris. How she could even distinguish it from the other piles of ruin was beyond me. Her hand outstretched to run her finger down a beam of wood as if she could remember everything about the piece of two-by-four.
If I had to pick her up and carry her kicking and screaming back to the bunker, I would. If she took much longer and still refused to come with me, it was definitely going to happen.
I would not let Wren get hurt, and being in the Defectives’ village right now was the most dangerous area of the city. We needed to get back to safety, even if we didn’t manage to save them all.
“Wren—”
She held up a hand to stop me and moved a piece of metal away with the other. She peered in, picking something up and holding it high so I could see. “This was Rocky’s.”
It was a rock.
Just a plain, brown rock.
Wren stood and pocketed her treasure. “We can go now.”
Thank God.
Just as we were about to take off, the trooper I had shot rounded the corner. He picked up speed as he saw us, determined to get some payback for the broken deal.
“Wren, run!”
She started running but something held me in place.
My feet were planted on the ground.
The trooper’s uniform was torn where the bullet had barreled through the fabric. He had also raised the visor on his helmet, revealing his face. We only ever did that when we were injured and needed to see something that the visor wouldn’t allow. It was against protocol to remove the helmet in full while on a mission.
Seeing the visor up wasn’t the biggest surprise at seeing him.
It was the fact that I recognized the trooper.
Dwyer.
My former roommate.
He came to a halt when he realized I wasn’t going to run from him. “I didn’t know it was you,” I said.
His eyes were angry but sad at the same time. I rarely understood what went on in my old roommate’s head and now was no different. He could have been reciting the alphabet for all I knew.
“You shot me,” he replied bluntly.
“You tried to strangle me first.”
I earned a slight twitch from the corners of his lips. “You were being a dick. What are you doing here?”
“The opposite of what you are,” I stated. There was no plan I was playing, no sense to my logic, all I knew was that I was having a conversation with one of my former friends. “You guys have made a mess of this place.”
“It was a mess to begin with. We’re only carrying out orders.”
“So they’re really being put on ice?”
“Their organs are.” Dwyer shrugged but there was something uneasy about his stance. He wasn’t happy with the mission, it was written in every plane of his body. I knew him too well for him to hide if from me. His boot kicked the ground. “So you’re… what? Hanging out with the Def now? Stone’s Def?”
“She’s more human than most people I know. I’d rather her be alive than Stone.” I watched him carefully for a reaction, purposefully baiting him to see what he would do.
Any other trooper would have taken my head off by now. Even being alive for a few extra seconds proved how conflicted he was. Dwyer wasn’t arguing with me. What he wasn’t saying spoke volumes.
“You shouldn’t talk like that,” he finally replied. “You’ll get yourself killed. I thought you already had been. Thought I was seeing a ghost back there when I first laid eyes on you.”
“Is that what they told you? That I was killed?” He nodded. “They tried to execute me but the President’s Personal Guard recruited me at the last moment.”
“The Guard?” He whistled.
“Yeah. I only lasted a few days before I saved Wren and we’ve been in hiding ever since.”
“Wren? That’s her name?”
“Yeah.”
“I hope she puts out, man. Because you’ve thrown your life away for her,” Dwyer said. “I hope she’s worth it.”
There was nothing about that statement that I welcomed, but now wasn’t a time for arguments. We had little time to talk and idle chatter was not something I wanted to discuss. There were more pressing issues at hand.
“It’s not just about Wren, it’s about taking down Stone and the government.” Again, I waited for a reaction and didn’t get an immediate negative one. “There’s a group, we’re going after them all and trying to make the city what it should be. You could join us, you don’t have to keep doing shit missions like this.”
“Is this because of what happened to your brother? Is that what this is all about?”
Thoughts of my brother being dragged away by his superiors before being put to death infiltrated my thoughts unwelcomingly. “Partly. But it’s also because it’s the right thing to do. You know that.”
“I know about the Resistance, I’ve heard enough rumors to know they’re recruiting.”
“Then join us, be a part of making Aria better instead of worse.”
“You know I can’t do that.” He shook his head and it was almost like an apology. “I’m a trooper, my father was a trooper, my grandfather was a trooper. I can’t turn my back on my life like you did.”
“Yes, you can. You’ll be fighting for something worthy, not just the whims of a madwoman.”
“I can’t, man. I just can’t.”
A group of four troopers marched around the corner and lifted their guns when they saw me. I was dressed as a civilian, in an area that was off limits, they had every legal right to shoot me on sight.
“Get out of here, Thompson,” Dwyer urged. He pushed me, holding his own gun up like he was ready to take aim. “Hurry! If I don’t shoot, they will. Go!”
I gave him one last pleading look for him to come with me but it was useless. There was no way Dwyer was going to sw
itch sides and leave the troopers behind. Even if he didn’t believe in the missions he was undertaking.
We all had to make our own decisions.
I couldn’t force him to switch sides.
I bolted for the bunker, not stopping when the sharp crack of the guns exploded behind me. Dirt was kicked up at both sides of my feet as the bullets barely missed.
The bunker came into sight like an oasis, beckoning me forward until my feet hit the ground harder just to get there quicker. It wouldn’t be too long before one of the bullets behind me hit their target.
The door didn’t open magically as I approached like I had hoped it would. I knew Joseph and his men would be able to see me on the monitor, but I guessed there was no communication between them and those standing by the door inside.
If they were still waiting by the door.
Suddenly I was filled with doubt. If I couldn’t get through the door to the bunker, I would have to keep running and dodging bullets until I lost all the troopers gaining speed behind me. We could run all around the city before that might happen.
At least Wren wasn’t anywhere in sight. Hopefully that meant she was safely in the bunker and nowhere near the troopers. I prayed that was the case, but she was so headstrong she could be up to anything. Following orders wasn’t her strong suit.
I reached the door and used both fists to bang on it incessantly. I didn’t wait to see whether it would open, I just kept banging until my fists hurt.
Bullets pinged on the metal, bouncing off the door and exploding all around me. I was a big target, they were going to get me any moment now.
My fists banged harder, yelling at the person inside to open the damn door and let me in. There were several curse words thrown in for good measure.
Something sharp stung my arm. It took a few moments to register the gunshot wound to my upper arm, just below my shoulder. Blood started pooling on my shirt before it ran down my arm and dripped onto the ground.
I still had one hand left to knock with and I used it with everything I had. Only a few seconds more and I would have to run like hell to put some distance between me and the troopers. And now my arm was stinging like a bitch, too.
Hundred Stolen Breaths Page 16
