Collapse Series (Book 6): State of Vengeance

by Summer Lane

Of course, the whole idea of taking an insurgency camp down with just the few of us – and a dog – is insane. I know that it is impossible, and even with the four rifles that we took from Omega troopers, that’s not enough to take down an entire camp. Besides, if Sky City and the insurgency camp have radio communications on a regular basis, I’m betting that they already know we’re out here.

  So what do we have to do?

  Survive first. Get revenge second.

  Patience, after all, is a virtue.

  I scare myself a little, realizing how easily I shut off my emotions and focus on my tasks. My sole purpose right now is to keep my team alive, and I will do anything to make sure that we make it out of this situation without any more casualties.

  Anything.

  After hours of walking, the sun sets behind the peaks of the high peaks of Kings Canyon. It is freezing. The wind is cold, the snow is cold, the air is cold. I find a small rock formation in the forest as we bundle up beside it, using it as a windbreaker.

  Together, we build a trench in the snow, laying down branches to provide insulation. We huddle up together, absorbing each other’s body heat. Without that, we will all die. And, although it’s not the most ideal survival method, we eat snow to keep hydrated. The ice melts in my mouth. It is a relief to not be thirsty anymore.

  Bravo pushes his warm, furry body up against Elle. I envy their family unit. I wish Chris were here. I would wrap my arms around him and sleep soundly through the night.

  I sit with my knees drawn against my chest, shivering.

  Vera is curled into a tight ball, twigs in her hair, dirt on her face.

  Uriah sits down beside me. His dark hair is crusted with ice. His skin is tight with cold, his coal-colored eyes glittering in the darkness.

  “Do you remember when I tried to kiss you, and you basically punched me in the face and told me to back off?” he asks.

  Despite everything, I laugh.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “On the way into Los Angeles, when we were rescuing Chris.”

  “You were right to do that,” he goes on, watching the snowflakes fall. “When I first met you at Camp Freedom, your assertiveness is what drew me to you. You were stubborn and, sometimes, you were naïve. But you always had the best intentions, and that made you different.”

  He puts his arm around me, offering warmth.

  I don’t fight it. I press my cheek against his chest, thankful for his presence.

  “We’re friends now,” he continues, sadness in his voice. “And I’m glad for that. But after Connor interrogated you…I wanted to kill him, Cassidy. More than you know. I didn’t want to see you get hurt like that.”

  I say, “That’s war, Uriah. People get hurt.”

  “But not you.” He touches my hair. “I promised Chris I would keep you safe. I failed him.”

  “You failed no one.” I close my eyes. “We’re doing the best we can.”

  He leans his chin on my head, and I feel his heartbeat.

  “We’re going to make it,” he says. “All of us.”

  I don’t say what I am thinking.

  I will make Omega pay for everything they’ve done.

  And if I die in the process…then so be it.

  *

  I wake to the cold, steel muzzle of a gun on my cheek. I don’t dare move. I open my eyes, heart skyrocketing through my ribcage, fear surging through my veins. Uriah wakes, too, and his first instinct is the same as mine – fight or flight.

  But, also like me, he realizes that it is better to remain still.

  There are at least fifteen rifles aimed at our heads. One of them is still pressed against my cheek. I draw back, looking around us. It is early morning. Sunlight streams through the clumps of snow on the pines.

  We are surrounded by men in black masks.

  Omega insurgents, I think, panicked.

  They wear earth-colored combat fatigues, their faces covered in black ski masks. I can only see their eyes. They are silent. I realize, too, that the rest of my team is awake, sitting, frozen. Vera looks at me, but she doesn’t even twitch.

  These enemies are so quiet – so ghostly – that it seems like we’ve walked into some kind of twilight zone terror show. It’s dreamlike, unreal. I feel Uriah’s heart beating through his chest. Every muscle in his body is taut.

  “Who are you?” I ask at last, breaking the silence. “What do you want?”

  No answer.

  “Get up,” one of them says. He is taller than the rest. I can see only his dark eyes. He motions with the tip of his rifle and I get to my feet, stiff and freezing. Uriah stands with me. “Put your weapons on the ground.”

  I slide my rifle off my shoulder, cradle it in my arms, and lower it into the snow. Uriah does the same, and so do Vera and Manny. Arlene is nearly blue in the face from the cold, blanched.

  “Put your hands behind your heads,” the man says.

  His voice is deep, baritone.

  I slowly move my hands behind my head, linking my fingers together. In the cold, they’ve stiffened so much that I can barely move them. I lick my lips.

  We can’t die like this, I think. Not with Omega still out there.

  “WAIT!”

  Boots crunch through the snow. Bushes rattle. A masked soldier walks into the circle of silent enemies. There is a raw, dangerous energy in the air. It is the scent of bloodlust – I know it well.

  These men are here to kill. They want to kill.

  “You can’t kill these people,” the newcomer says. “I know them.”

  The man who ordered us to put our hands up turns to him.

  “What are you saying?” he asks.

  “This is Cassidy Hart,” the newcomer replies. “Her father is Frank.”

  The man – who is clearly in charge – lowers his rifle. He looks at me, then pulls off his ski mask. I gasp, because I recognize his face. Commander Jones – a militia commander who worked with my father and his militia, the Mountain Rangers. He is no longer big and burly – he is thin, worn. His face looks older than it did all that time ago, when I first arrived at Camp Freedom, before I joined the National Guard. Before everything got so much more complicated.

  “Commander?” Uriah raises his eyebrows.

  “Lieutenant True,” Commander Jones replies. His strong, powerful voice echoes off the trees. “Unbelievable. Vera Wright? And is that…Manny Costas?”

  “The one and only,” Manny replies, grinning crookedly. “Thought I was dead, did you?”

  “Not so much dead as gone.” Commander Jones seems amused at some inside joke, and I don’t ask. “What are you doing in the high mountains? What happened to the National Guard – to Rivera? Last we heard, Commander Young was missing in action and you had pushed back Omega at the Battle of the Grapevine.”

  “God, how long have you been out of the loop?” Vera exclaims. “So much has happened since then! What are you doing out here?”

  The man who identified us to Commander Jones pulls off his mask, and I recognize him, too. Desmond, the crazy field medic from Camp Freedom. This man once nursed me back to health after I’d been shot.

  “Desmond?” I say.

  I run forward and jump on him, wrapping him into a warm, desperate hug. He laughs heartily. His matted dreadlocks fall down his back. Beads and feathers are threaded through each dread. He looks tired, too. Like Commander Jones, his face has changed.

  “It’s good to see you, Cassidy,” he replies, placing his hands on my shoulders. “A familiar face is not something you come across often. Not in times like these.”

  “You’re still patching up the wounded?” Manny asks.

  “And doing a damn good job, flyboy,” Desmond replies.

  “And the negative commentary has begun,” Manny mutters.

  I smile. Just like old times.

  “What are you doing so high up in the hills?” I ask.

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” Desmond says. “What happened to ya’ll?”

 
“Sky City,” I reply. “That’s what happened.”

  “So it’s true.” Commander Jones shakes his head. “We’ve heard rumors about that place. Didn’t know it really existed. What was it like?”

  “Crawling with Omega minions,” Vera says. “It’s completely infiltrated.”

  “We came to get more recruits,” I explain, “but it was a trap. Omega has taken over Sky City. They’re taken over everything.”

  Commander Jones looks stricken.

  “I had no idea. Where’s Commander Young, Cassidy?” he asks. “We’re so out of touch – we have no more radios, no more—”

  “What are you talking about, Jones?” Manny interrupts. “Camp Freedom has always had all the toys. What’s going on?”

  “We’ve had complications,” Jones replies. “We’re on our own at the moment.” He gestures to the fifteen or so men surrounding us. “This is what remains of Frank Hart’s Mountain Rangers.”

  “We call ourselves the Rogue Rangers, now,” Desmond says, smiling.

  “What remains of the Mountain Rangers?” I say, alarmed.

  “Not long after Frank left Camp Freedom to represent the militias in Sacramento,” Jones tells us, “we were attacked by insurgents. Omega mercenaries, I guess. They were well trained. The camp was hit hard. A lot of good people died.” He pauses, and I can tell that there are many dark memories flashing through his mind. “We Rangers took it upon ourselves to track the insurgents back into the mountains, find out where their base was. We never found them. Instead, here we are. We’re about ready to return home.”

  “You left Camp Freedom unprotected?” I demand.

  “There’s some military there. But Omega won’t attack again.” Commander Jones shrugs. “There’s nothing left for them to take.”

  I run a hand through my hair, numb.

  “How long have you been looking for the insurgents?” I ask.

  “Two weeks – maybe three.” He looks at Desmond. “We’ve lost some good men. The weather has been unforgiving. The insurgents aren’t too nice, either.”

  I nod, understanding.

  “Commander Young and the National Guard are in Monterey,” I tell him. “We just pushed Omega off the West Coast – for now. We came to Sky City for recruits, but we now know that it was a lie.”

  “They were going to kill us,” Vera clarifies. “All of us.”

  “You’re lucky to be alive, then,” Desmond comments.

  “Colonel Rivera,” I go on, “is dead.”

  “Such is the way of war,” Commander Jones says gravely.

  “We have no food or supplies, Commander,” I continue. “We barely escaped Sky City with our lives. If you can help us, we’d appreciate it.”

  “You’re our allies,” Jones replies. “Of course we’ll help you.”

  I motion to Arlene.

  “She needs medical attention.” I look at Desmond. “Can you help her?”

  “Always a pleasure to serve a beautiful lady,” Desmond answers, mock-bowing. He claps Uriah on the shoulder. “Good to see you again, young man.”

  Uriah doesn’t seem deeply touched.

  “Have you thought about the others?” he whispers in my ear.

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “The civilians at Camp Freedom. Who survived. Who didn’t.” He bites his lip, pensive. “The Young family – if they’re still alive.”

  I exhale.

  I say, “We have to stay focused.”

  Desmond kneels down by Arlene, taking out his medical kit.

  “Well, look at you,” he murmurs. “You get cut open with a knife, and on top of that, you’re married to this old maniac.” He grins at Manny. “You never told me you were a married man, Manny.”

  “You wouldn’t have believed me,” Manny shoots back.

  “Of course not. I’m still wondering if this is some kind of psychedelic dream, man.” Desmond chuckles and goes on about his business, checking Arlene, making sure her bandages are clean.

  I face Commander Jones again.

  “Jones,” I say. “There’s a lot you don’t know. If you’ve been out of communication with the rest of the state, then you need to understand that Omega is very much here. They bombed Sacramento; my father – Frank – is missing in action.”

  Jones sits down on a fallen log.

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Hart,” he says. “Truly, I am. Your father was a good man.”

  “We don’t know that he’s dead,” I reply, almost too quickly. “He could have survived the bombing. I don’t know. I haven’t had any communication with Sacramento for a couple of weeks.”

  Jones says nothing.

  We both know what MIA really means.

  “Chris Young is alive and well,” I continue. “He’s currently in Monterey, defending the West Coast. California has joined the Pacific Northwest Alliance, joining a coalition of Canada, Washington, Oregon and Mexico.”

  Jones rests his elbows on his knees.

  He looks just as tired as me.

  “The game is changing,” he remarks. “So much is changing, so quickly. Little militias like us – we don’t stand a chance now. Omega is getting stronger. Even the grassroots communities – the ones with the will to survive – are being picked apart by the insurgents in these mountains.”

  “I know about the insurgents,” I say.

  “You don’t know enough,” Jones argues. “These men – they’ve been trained to sniff out survivors and refugees in the mountains. They find them, and they kill them. They’re like bloodhounds. They kill everyone, and they do it cruelly.”

  “Sounds like a party that needs to be shut down,” Uriah comments.

  “We’ve been searching for them for a long time,” Jones says. “We keep losing their trail, and then we end up going back to camp.”

  I look at Arlene, fragile and weak, leaning against the rock for support as Desmond checks her out.

  “That woman,” I say, keeping my voice low, “is Arlene Costas – Manny’s wife. She knows where the camp is.”

  Jones raises his eyebrows.

  “And how did she come by that information?”

  “She was working with Sky City – she’s got a lot of information like that.” I lean forward, whispering. “Commander, I want that insurgency camp gone. I’m talking wiped off the face of the earth.”

  He waits for me to continue.

  “My team will help you take it out,” I say. “First, because Omega needs to be destroyed, no matter where they are. And second, because I guarantee you their camp will have radios. We can use those to contact the Underground, and to warn Chris and the others in Monterey that Sky City is a trap.”

  Jones considers this.

  After a long, heavy silence, he smiles.

  “I like it,” he says. “When do we start?”

  I fold my hands together.

  “Right away,” I tell him. “Give me a rifle – a sniper rifle.”

  “Rumor has it there’s no one in the militias that’s a better shot then you,” Commander Jones answers, grinning.

  “That’s not true,” I reply. “Chris and Uriah run a close second.”

  I wink.

  When I look back at Desmond, he is saying something in a quiet voice to Manny. Manny looks slightly concerned, but then he smiles, touching Arlene’s cheek.

  “Whatever you’re scheming,” Manny says, meeting my gaze. “I’m with you until the end.”

  “Me too,” Elle adds. “And so is Bravo.”

  He wags his tail.

  “Obviously we’re all in,” Vera snaps. “But first, food and water, please? We’re all malnourished.”

  “Good point, Lieutenant,” I say. “Food first. War second.”

  “You know what they say,” Uriah tells me, deadpan. “Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

  “Who said anything about revenge?” I ask.

  “It’s written all over your face.”

  I think of my father. I think of Jeff Young. I thi
nk of Sophia Rodriguez. I think of Colonel Rivera, Nathaniel Mero and Angela Wright. All good people. All of them, dead. All of them, the fallen prey of Omega’s predatory infection.

  And I realize something.

  I no longer feel anything – not sadness, not loss, not anger.

  Just the powerful, fiery desire to destroy.

  Chapter Twelve

  We rest near the rock that sheltered us from the cold winds, supplied with jackets and food. The Rogue Rangers are mostly asleep, with just a few men on watch. Commander Jones, Desmond, Manny, Uriah, Vera and myself are gathered in a circle, eating stale jerky and crackers, courtesy of the Rangers. Arlene has a stick in her hand, and she is drawing a map in the snow.

  “This,” she says in her soft, injured voice, “is the insurgency camp. When Rivera and I were still working in Sky City, we were made to believe that it was located many miles away from us. This was a lie. One of the reasons that I suspected Unite and Sky City was infiltrated – and controlled – by Omega was because the information was full of holes.” She sighs. “It took weeks, but we finally compiled a clear picture of the camp.”

  She draws a perfect square.

  “It’s not far from where we are. Maybe fifteen or twenty miles.” She draws a circle around the square. “The camp is surrounded by a heavily guarded, electric fence. There are guard towers hidden in the trees. The camp itself is occupied by at least two or three hundred insurgents at all times. It’s a hive, so to speak. They send insurgents into the woods on missions. As Commander Jones pointed out earlier, they sniff out survivors and refugees. They kill any resistance – even children.”

  She pauses to catch her breath, taking a sip of water from a canteen. She sits down on the log beside Manny. “To destroy this camp, you will have to draw the attention of the insurgents to a concentrated area, which will leave another area of the camp unguarded. This will allow someone to sneak through the back door and tear them apart from the inside.”

  “Uriah,” I say. “You’re good at distracting people.”

  He rolls his eyes.

  “I can take a hint,” he replies, smirking.

  “Uriah can take some of your men on the east side of the camp,” I say, touching the corner of Arlene’s drawing with the toe of my boot. “He can distract them. I’ll take a team through the back door. Getting through the fence shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll need snipers covering our advance.” I look around. “You have snipers here, Jones?”