He shrugged. “I’ll do what I can.”
“Life, Connor, and time. I need them in abundance. Pretend they’re currency, and get me enough of each to purchase the fattest diamond on the planet.”
He holstered her Sigma and said, “You’ve never struck me as the type to be interested in diamonds.”
Liberty grinned. “I’m not, but Ash is.” She slid her pack from her shoulders and walked toward the house to stash it.
Jeff removed all of his weapons. He stepped forward and offered them to Connor. Connor declined each except a small dagger that he sheathed around his ankle.
“I need to travel light,” he explained. “You should put the rest in the house. We’ll come back for them on the way out.”
“Right.” Jeff nodded. He watched the house and lowered his voice. “You can cut the crap with me. We both know we’re going to die in there.”
Connor cocked his head to the side. “If you really believe that, why are you coming?”
Still watching the house, Jeff replied, “Because she’s the only person alive who would do the same for me. Besides, who knows? My dad might spare them if I slip back on his chain.” With that, Jeff marched toward the house with his weapons in hand.
Moments later Liberty reappeared and scurried toward Connor.
“I should get going,” Connor said when she drew near.
Chewing on her lip, she nodded.
He grabbed her hand and pulled her into a hug. “I have plans for you when this is over,” he said.
Liberty raised an eyebrow. “Now that sounds terrifying.”
He squeezed her tighter and kissed the top of her head. “And you’re gonna like it.”
She giggled. “Oh really? Is this after you bust into the major’s camp like my own personal knight in shining camo?”
“You betcha.”
“How could I not throw myself at you after a stunt like that?”
“Oh, throw yourself, eh? I didn’t go that far, but if you insist…”
She shoved him, but her smile told him she wasn’t angry. “You’re being a cocky jerk again.”
He shrugged. “Sorry. Habit.”
She took a step back, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her to him. “One last kiss?” he asked.
“No.” Liberty silenced his lips with her finger. “Don’t talk like that. There will be many more kisses.”
She slowly lowered her finger, but her gaze didn’t leave his. He looked into her eyes and saw persistent endurance steeped in courage and faith. He stroked the side of her face, marveling at her. She didn’t pull away, so he leaned down until his lips were almost touching hers.
“One of many, then,” he whispered.
Liberty threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. She tasted of fear and desperation, and he wished he could pick her up and whisk her off to safety, as if such a thing existed anymore.
All too soon, Liberty pulled away and gave him a sad smile. Her eyes were moist, but she didn’t look away.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know. I love you too, and I’ll see you on the other side.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Liberty
JEFF AND I stood on the corner of West Galina Street and Portage Avenue. I pointed up Portage Avenue and Jeff nodded. Yep. We were going the right way.
“You okay?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah. I just need a minute.” I bent over to tie my shoe. Since it was already tied I pulled the string loose, and then tied it again.
Just breathe. You can do this. You have to.
“All better,” I lied. Nothing was better. We were about to do something really stupid and it had all been my idea.
Jeff waited for me to summon my courage and stand up. “You okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Never better.”
Because he was a good friend, he didn’t call me out for being a liar. Instead, he waited for me to join him, and then we walked side by side up the center of Portage Avenue. Strolling down the center of the street, we made a lot of noise, trying to make sure all eyes were on us while Connor did his thing. It worked in our favor, really, since the more nervous I got, the more I talked and the goofier I got. I felt like an adrenaline junkie about to jump off a cliff.
We walked past a thrashed house with a “For Sale” sign sticking out of the roof. I pointed at the home and asked Jeff what he thought of it.
“Too small. I’m looking for something that will hold the twenty or so kids I want to have.”
“Twenty or so? Your poor wife.”
He laughed, and I loved that about him. Terrified out of our minds, on the way to see his sick and demented father, and still we laughed about real estate and kids.
“There are great schools in this district, though. Are you sure you won’t reconsider?”
He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps, but let’s see what else we can find.”
Taking our own sweet time, we continued on. At the end of the street, we found a ransacked fast food restaurant on one side and a partially burnt down teriyaki joint on the other.
“So… about lunch. What do you say? Teriyaki or burgers?” I asked.
“Both,” he replied. “I’m famished.”
“Ohh, good answer!” I rubbed my stomach. “I want fries. Steak fries, waffle fries, sweet potato fries, pretty much all the fries ever made. I want them all.”
We turned left on 96th Street and passed a coffee hut.
“With a salted caramel latte,” Jeff added.
“And that’s why we’re friends. You’d get me one too, right?”
He nodded, way too vigorously.
We passed a few more stores, one of which had a table and benches in front of it.
“Shall we sit for a moment?” I asked, gesturing toward the table.
“We shall.”
The glass front doors were shattered, and debris was strewn throughout the entrance. Jeff and I made a big show of walking over and plopping down on the table. Then we stared into the shop and discussed the menu, arguing about what we’d order. I opted for roast beef, while Jeff crooned on about pastrami. While we chatted it up like old friends who’d happened across each other, I caught movement out the corner of my eye. Jeff waggled his eyebrows, and I knew he’d seen it too. We had an escort, which was great, because that was the plan.
That’s the plan, stomach, stop twisting in knots!
My discomfort must have shown on my face, because Jeff leaned forward and whispered, “It’s not too late to back out of this.”
We were so far past backing out that we could no longer see the entrance sign, but I smiled at him anyway. “Think I’m afraid of a couple of kids? Please.”
“Shall we be on our way then?” he asked.
“We shall!”
I stood on wobbly legs. The stupidity of what we were about to do was finally catching up to me, assaulting my nerves. Mumbling under my breath about fire and sparrows, I pushed on. We turned right on Jordan Road, and I heard feet scampering behind us.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” I asked Jeff.
The scenery changed. It felt like we’d stepped out of the town and into the forest. The surprisingly wooded area held only a few houses, with no hint of a school anywhere.
Jeff nodded. “This is what the map said.”
“Hmm.” I scratched my head. “It must be the school where Sleeping Beauty attends. Any moment now the twelve dwarfs will jump out and take us captive.”
Jeff gave me a courtesy laugh.
We turned left on Burn Road. There was a middle-class housing community on the right hand side, with small homes and tiny fenced yards. Broken windows and graffiti took the area from cheerful and quaint to creepy and defiled. The forest lined the left side of the road, complete with lush bushes and tall trees. Elephants could have been hiding behind those trees and we wouldn’t have known. While my mind counted the number of possible Progression guns that could be aimed at us, my feet stumbled on a pocket of air. Jeff
grabbed my hand and narrowly kept me from falling on my face. After that, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other.
We passed a red brick elementary school on the right side of the road. A long parking lot stretched through the rest of the block, making me feel exposed and vulnerable. To the left, the forest was broken up by a small parking lot that led to a brick church with a tall white steeple. I stopped and stared at the building for a moment, thankful for the hope it symbolized. Nobody had defaced the church. That was encouraging.
“Uh, Libby,” Jeff said, tugging on my sleeve and pulling me back to reality. “Look at the road.”
Lewd and suggestive graffiti covered the blacktop. I read a few creative ideas about what people could do with themselves before I saw what Jeff was talking about. My name was scrawled across the street in giant red letters, with an arrow pointing toward the main entrance of the high school.
Goosebumps rose across my flesh as we crept closer to the paint. I could smell it, it was so fresh. Curious, I reached down and swiped my finger across the surface.
“Still wet,” I said, holding up my paint-stained finger for Jeff to see.
He paled, reflecting my thoughts on the matter.
His fear made me even more nervous, so naturally, I opened my big mouth. “I always wanted to be the popular girl in high school. Be careful what you ask for, I guess.”
I turned toward the school, wishing I could run the opposite direction. But, somewhere in that building, Ashley waited for us.
Jeff rested a hand on my shoulder. “You ready?”
I sighed. “Nope. Where do you suppose the welcoming committee is?”
“They don’t need to come to us. They know we’re coming to them.”
“Good point. Well, I’d hate to keep them waiting.”
We stepped over my name and turned into the high school driveway. As Connor had said, the school had a unique, modern design, different from any other public school I’d seen. Pillars sprung up in the front, leaning outward and supporting the roof, which also appeared to be leaning forward. Large windows covered the front of the second story as well as the front entrance, and wrapped around to the sides.
The glass panels of the front door were broken. Little shards still clung to the sides, looking jagged and dangerous. Strangely, the door handle was locked, so Jeff reached in through one of the panels and opened the door.
Out of habit, I reached for my Sigma, pausing as I remembered that Connor had it. “Leaving the weapons behind might not have been the wisest idea,” I told Jeff.
He shrugged. “They never would have let us get this far if we were armed.”
“How would they know?” I asked.
“Trust me, they’d know.”
Before I had the chance to question him further, glass crunched beneath our feet. We eased past the entryway and into a wide hallway to get a look around. A large glass window on the right side of the hall had web-like cracks running through it. Beyond the window, chairs surrounded an office counter. A decomposing body occupied the high-backed chair behind the counter. I glanced at the corpse long enough to verify that it wasn’t someone I knew before continuing on.
The first classroom we came to was on the left, and we paused to peek in. Chairs had been turned over on their sides, and the teacher’s desk was flipped upside down with the drawers gone.
“Looks like the kids had a party, but where did they go afterward?” I asked.
Jeff shrugged. “Guess we better keep looking.”
The building was quiet, but not silent. We could hear faint sounds of conversation, but couldn’t tell which direction they came from. The whole place smelled musty, with a hint of decay and paint. Sniffing, I followed the paint smells to the right, until I ran into another note for me. This one, just like the last, was tagged in red. ‘This way,’ it read, with an arrow pointing to the right.
“Aww, sweet. They left us directions.”
Jeff grunted and wiped his eyes. He was sweating. A lot. There was a glistening sheen across his forehead. Even terrified of what his father would do to him, the lovable idiot had followed me into the school. I was pretty certain that Jeff and Boom were cut from the same cloth.
The front of the building was bright with natural light from the large windows. As we ventured inward, however, the rooms grew progressively darker. I didn’t want to go into the dark like some stupid girl in a bad horror flick, but the note they’d left me pointed us further in. I looked to Jeff, and he nodded. Yes, he thought we should do what the message said and venture into the dim, sinister hallway.
Awesome.
We stepped in. Our footfalls echoed. We stopped, but the echos did not. Jeff and I froze, leaning against the wall more out of habit than any sort of delusional belief that they didn’t know exactly where we were.
Jeff held up one finger, signifying that only one solder approached. Wondering why they were only sending one, I peeled my petrified self off the wall and waited in the middle of the hallway. Kylee marched forward, coming to a stop directly in front of me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Connor
WITH A HEAVY heart, Connor left the house and slipped into the thick trees surrounding Granite Falls. They provided cover as he drifted to the west and skirted the town. Traveling at a steady jog, he crossed Ray Gray Road and stayed west of Gardner Lake. Then he sprinted across Crooked Mile Road and paused when he reached the trees, catching his breath while waiting to see if he’d been spotted. No alarms sounded and no enemies confronted him, so he turned north.
Crossing Highway 92 proved a bit more problematic. He peeked out of the trees. The wide highway would leave him open and exposed the moment he stepped onto it. Searching for an alternative place to cross, he scanned both directions. The town lay to the east, and west led to a four-way intersection with an island in the middle. Deciding the intersection was his best option, he slipped back into the trees and went to investigate.
Three empty flagpoles jutted up from the island, stretching into the sky. The poles were surrounded by bushes and a spattering of six-foot-tall evergreens. Prime location with plenty of coverage for a lookout. Watching the island, Connor picked up a small rock and tossed it into the street. The rock hit the pavement, and then bounced a few times before coming to a stop on the solid yellow line.
On the island, bushes shook and a young man wearing fatigues crouched and aimed an assault rifle at the highway. Connor ducked behind a tree as the soldier scanned the area with his weapon.
“Come on, check it out,” Connor whispered.
He heard no movement, though, and when he peeked out from behind the tree, the soldier was nowhere in sight. Connor picked up a second rock and tossed it into the street. It rolled and came to a stop beside the first one.
This time the soldier on the island grumbled as he stood. With his gun drawn, he crept out from behind the brush and headed toward the road, scanning the trees as he went.
Still trying for stealth, Connor unsheathed Jeff’s dagger and waited as the soldier walked to the center of the road and glanced down at the rocks. Then he shook his head and leveled his gun in Connor’s general direction.
“Anybody there?” he asked. “If you’re there, come out with your hands up, and I won’t shoot you.”
Yeah right.
Sweat glistened across the boy’s forehead. He wiped it away with a shaky hand, and then swung the weapon from side to side, searching.
Connor lowered his M4 to the ground, sheathed Jeff’s knife, and put his hands in the air. “Okay, I’m unarmed and coming out.” He stepped from behind the tree in time to see the soldier jump.
“I’m just passing through town. Don’t mean anybody any harm.” At Liberty’s insistence, Connor had shed his fatigues in favor of jeans and a t-shirt. He was beginning to see the wisdom in her suggestion.
“That’s close enough,” the soldier said. “Where are you coming from?”
“Sultan.”
“Where you
headin’?”
“Arlington. I have family up there that I need to check on.”
The soldier eyed him for a moment before saying, “You’re gonna have to come with me first.”
“Why?” Connor stepped forward. “Is there a problem?”
“Everyone has to meet the major. Now, keep your hands in the air and don’t make any sudden movements. I’m going to come over and make sure you don’t have any weapons on you.”
Connor stood still as the soldier approached him. Before the soldier made it to the side of the road, Connor lunged forward and grasped the barrel of the gun from underneath, knocking it upward. With the gun now aimed at the sky, he kicked the soldier’s left kneecap. Bone cracked as the soldier cried out in pain and fell over. Connor yanked the gun free and spun it around, aiming it at the soldier writhing in pain at his feet.
“You’re no civilian,” the soldier said. He glared up at Connor.
“Never said I was.”
“You’re the guy the camp is talking about, aren’t you?”
“Maybe. What are they saying?”
“You’re with the Army,” he spat.
Connor saw the cap of a small container in the soldier’s shaky hand. He swooped down and plucked it out of the kid’s grasp.
“You say ‘Army’ like it’s a bad word,” Connor said, studying the vial.
“Traitors. Liars. Murderers. You guys created us, but when we stopped being your puppets, you pretended to be friends only to kill our brothers and sisters.”
Connor chuckled. “That’s a pretty speech, but guess what? You’re still a puppet.” He held up the vial and let the sunlight shine through the glass.
The soldier’s brows pinched together, but he did not respond.
“I could have killed you a dozen times by now, starting with when you first peeked your head over that bush. The Progression values you so much they gave you crap training and sent you out here to face threats alone.”
“I’m not a—” he clamped his mouth shut.
“I’d imagine there are several one to two man patrols walking around—also a careless waste of soldiers. The major’s not trying to stop me. He’s throwing away your lives to lead me to him. And, just in case I don’t kill you, he gives you a little something to do it yourselves.” Connor frowned. “What does he tell you to make you do it?”
Liberty's Hope (Perseverance Book 2) Page 18
