Flame

by Jim Heskett

  FLAME

  The Slave Games Book 2

  Jim Heskett

  Contents

  Travel

  Offer

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  An excerpt from A brief history of the decline of the United States of America

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  An excerpt from “A brief history of the decline of the United States of America”

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  An excerpt from “A brief history of the decline of the United States of America”

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  An excerpt from “A brief history of the decline of the United States of America”

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  An excerpt from “A brief history of the decline of the United States of America”

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  An excerpt from “A brief history of the decline of the United States of America”

  Get the Sequel

  Afterword

  Sample of FIRE

  Books by Jim Heskett

  About the Author

  Offer

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  Chapter One

  Yorick still carried his rifle even though he’d expended all his ammunition yesterday. He carried the rifle for a few reasons, and chief among them was the familiarity of it. After a decade of training as one of Lord Wybert's guerreros1, Yorick felt more comfortable with a weapon than without.

  His three companions were also either low or out of ammunition. Rosia had none left. Tenney and Malina had a small amount in their rifle magazines, but Yorick and Rosia had spent the bulk of theirs the day before. No one had been killed, but they'd spit quite a few warning shots to keep away the attackers in the brown open-backed vehicle.

  Growing up on the plantación2, there had been recurring sets of rumors of roving gangs outside the walls. Mostly, these rumors came in stories told by the older guerreros to the younger ones, to scare them. You better not venture out of your dorm at night, or the gangs are going to get you.

  The largest and most ruthless gang in the area went by the name of White Flames, and their members dressed in yellow and brown clothing, sometimes with bright yellow bandannas. Lots of tattoos, especially up around their necks. Yorick had always assumed their power was more mythological than practical. But now, having seen them in action, he knew how dangerous they could be.

  They weren’t as prevalent as the rumors had said, though. But, they definitely were real. Outside of the plantación, there had been a few areas of small villages or settlements ransacked and abandoned. The White Flames left behind a calling card, usually a bandanna somewhere near the village entrance.

  Those White Flames scavengers that the former plantación residents had stumbled upon the day before were a grave crew. They'd been the first outsiders Yorick and his trio had encountered in their few days since leaving the plantación.

  The real world was not an inviting place. That was the impression Yorick had developed so far.

  After they'd first realized they were low on ammunition, there'd been some talk of returning to the plantación. But, Yorick wouldn't consider it. The plantación was the old world; the world they were leaving behind. Besides, some of the guards had remained, and there was no telling how they would treat any serfs who either stayed or returned. Wybert was dead, but his philosophies might not have disappeared with him.

  So they’d trudged this stretch of highway for about a week now. Yorick, Rosia, Tenney, and Malina. The other survivors of the plantación revolt had either stayed or gone their own separate ways.

  After spending his days and nights over the last several years constantly surrounded by people in a finite area, being in a small group in the great wide open felt odd and uncomfortable. Yorick was used to Rosia leaning on him as much as possible. He was supposed to be steady and level-headed. Supposed to keep her grounded.

  After what he’d seen the day they’d warred for their freedom, though, he didn’t know if he could be steady anymore.

  The highway, the gray substance Rosia had explained as asphalt, stretched on for what appeared to be thousands of kilometers. Yorick had only seen a small strip of it before, out the window of the dorm in the plantación. The same strip, every day for years.

  And now, he traveled it, setting out to hike five hundred kilometers south to some town named Harmony, to find his parents.

  “Should we stop for lunch?” Rosia asked, panting as she adjusted the straps of her backpack.

  He turned and walked backward for a few steps, checking on the beefy former field-worker Tenney and his light-skinned girlfriend, Malina. While Tenney would never allow his own expression to show it, Yorick could see the weariness on Malina’s face.

  “Sure. Let’s pick a spot under a tree if we can. I’m ready for shade.”

  Rosia put a hand on Yorick’s shoulder as she squinted at his ear. He’d been nicked by a bullet inside Wybert’s mansion in the last battle. “It’s looking better,” she said. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not at all. Feeling good.”

  Open fields of grass blanketed either side of the highway. Craggy mountain peaks on all edges of those fields. In the heat of late summer, the grass was brown and unkempt, the mountains devoid of snow.

  Wybert and his spokespeople had described the land as desolate and barren. While this part of Wyoming couldn’t be described as “lush,” Yorick didn’t think of it as that bad. There were trees and rivers and wildlife.

  The White Flames they’d encountered the day before weren’t wearing gas masks, as rumors of outsiders had claimed. They’d been dressed in normal yellow or brown shirts and jeans or pants, dirty and worn. Their hairstyles were weird… spiky like the manes of roosters, or otherwise dyed in bright colors to match the yellow bandannas. With all Yorick had learned about battle strategy, he knew this to be an intimidation tactic. Wild hair to communicate a sense of unpredictability and danger.

  “I don’t see any trees,” Rosia said. “We can push on a little.” She eyed Yorick, her lips pursed. “Do you want me to call you Franco?”

  The name he’d been born with, before Wybert had changed it when he’d arrived at the plantación. He shook his head. “It feels weird. Might as well keep calling me Yorick. That’s the only name I know.”

  She nodded. “I understand.”

  “Look,” Tenney said, lifting a meaty hand toward the curve of a hill, coming into view. “It’s an avión. Airplane.” There, a large craft had crashed into the side of the mountain. Green, with unknown markings on the sides. The thing had spread out in a dozen pieces along the rocky side of the mountain.

  “Looks military,” Tenney said. “Maybe ammo or other supplies inside.”

  Yorick nodded. “Works for me. Plus, plenty of shade.”

 
; The four of them pushed forward, and the wreck of the plane grew larger and larger. Yorick couldn’t read the writing on the side of the plane, but he recognized it as the same language as they’d seen in the computer room underneath Wybert’s mansion. French. A relic of the war.

  Yorick realized he knew almost nothing of the war. Or, at least, nothing he could count on as true. He had to assume most everything he’d learned of history growing up had been a lie. Twisted by Wybert to achieve his own propaganda goals.

  Since they’d set foot outside of the plantación a few days before, everything had been new.

  Rosia must have picked up on the sense of overwhelm flowing through Yorick because she slung her rifle over her shoulder and fell in step with him. She placed a warm hand on his back, rubbing up and down.

  He met her eyes, and they shared a smile. Always, she mouthed, and he echoed the word back to her. If she was as nervous as he was about the future, he couldn’t see it in her eyes. Yorick pulled her close, and they embraced. His hands wrapped around her waist and squeezed, and she pressed herself to him. Neither cared that they had days worth of road stink accumulated on their bodies. The embrace was all that mattered for those few seconds.

  Before they began the ascent, they all paused to cinch their pack straps and stow their rifles. From somewhere, a creature made a sound like a howl. Wolf, or coyote, maybe. They had encountered a few of those so far, but nothing too dangerous. If they found packs, that might be another story.

  “You hear that?” Yorick asked.

  “Sure did,” Tenney said. “Sounds like dinner.”

  Rosia raised an eyebrow. “You would eat a wolf? That’s gross.”

  Tenney shrugged. “I haven’t had meat in days. I’m a growing boy.”

  “Full truth?” Yorick said. “I would definitely eat a wolf if it came to it.”

  Rosia looked at Malina for an ally. Malina put her hands on her hips as if to say she had no opinion on the matter. “You guys are disgusting,” Rosia said.

  “That’s fine,” Yorick said. “When me and Tenney have our delicious roasted wolf feast, you can’t have any.”

  Rosia rolled her eyes and set off up the slope. They all four hiked up the hillside toward the wreck of the plane, and Yorick observed as it all gradually came into view. The middle of the plane—the cylindrical part, Yorick didn't know what it was called—had broken into three main hunks. The wings were crumpled and torn and spread over hundreds of meters around the wreck. Bits of grass had grown over some of the pieces, meaning it had been here for quite a while.

  Tenney pointed. "Doesn't look stable on the ends."

  Yorick squinted as they hiked, taking in the parts of the cylindrical base of the plane that teetered on the edges of boulders. "Good idea. We should stick to the middle."

  Rosia opened her mouth to add a comment, but she stopped short. She whipped around. They all heard it too. From down the highway, back from where they'd come, the rumble of the car engine arose. The highway blurred like smoke as the brown vehicle sped along the road.

  The same road bandits from before. White Flames.

  "Into the avión,” Yorick said. “Let’s move.”

  Gripping the rifles, they hustled up the rocky side of the mountain along the last two hundred meters to the plane. Yorick pointed his feet at the middle section, seemingly the most stable piece of the broken structure.

  As he approached it, he realized it didn't look anything like the interior of airplanes he had seen in the books. There weren't cloth covered seats with armrests and screens for watching entertainment. The inside of this vast machine was sparse, with seats lining the outer edges, and cloth webbing around the interior of the cylinder. But, Tenney had said it looked like a military plane, so this must be the style. Like so many other experiences, this was all new to Yorick.

  "Hurry," Rosia said, helping Tenney push Malina inside. Once they were all four aboard, the whole thing creaked, like a giant metal bird squawking.

  "Down," Yorick said, urging his three companions toward the wall. He could no longer see the road, which hopefully meant the White Flames could no longer see them. If they hadn't seen them already.

  Tenney looked all around as the metal creaked and cried. "Is this thing going to fall down the mountain? Maybe this was a giant mistake.”

  No one answered him. Yorick held up his hand to ask for silence. He then shuffled toward the edge of the broken end of the plane, peering down to the road. A little at a time, trying not to stick his head out too far.

  The car had stopped on the highway. Only a few hundred meters away.

  The back of the car was open, like the trucks that used to arrive at the plantación. There were four White Flames members in the car, and only one of them had hair that wasn’t either spiky or a fluorescent color. Three males and one female. That one had deep auburn hair, down to her shoulders. She was in the backseat, standing up. She lifted a pair of binoculars to her eyes and pointed them up toward the plane.

  Yorick whipped back, out of sight. Were these White Flames looking for them specifically?

  "What is it?" Rosia asked.

  Yorick shook his head. "They're just looking. Surveying the mountain.”

  He waited for ten seconds, and then the curiosity burned at him, so he had to take a look. He crept forward until he could barely see around the edge of the wreckage. And when he looked down at the highway, the car had gone.

  “It’s all clear now.” He turned around and studied his companions, to let them see the relief on his face and hope they would feel it too.

  But, Rosia didn't appear hopeful. She winced. “For how long?"

  1 Guerrero: warrior

  2 Plantación: plantation

  Chapter Two

  Yorick knelt in the airplane, pried open the box with his knife, and squinted at the contents. Small cards, like a kind of thick paper. They were old and yellowing, stamped with text in a language Yorick couldn't read. "Is this French?" he said to no one in particular. His three companions were exploring other parts of the plane’s broken middle.

  A moment later, Rosia appeared over his shoulder, looking down. She nodded. "I think so."

  “Can you make out any of it?”

  She shrugged, so Yorick dropped the aging paper back into the box.

  "You guys find anything useful?" Tenney asked.

  No one answered, but they all shared a look. And although no one said it, each of them knew it was time to move on, before those White Flames scavengers decided to come back and explore the plane wreckage on their own. Staying on the move seemed to be the best method to remain among the living.

  One thing they all knew for sure was that no one had found any ammunition for the rifles. The lack of ammo was becoming a serious problem. Any skirmish would likely end in their death.

  Yorick watched pale and timid Malina, standing at the edge of the broken plane, with her hands on her hips. Sunlight colored her face as she stared down the mountain to the road below. Arms angled like broken toothpicks. "I have an idea," she said.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing to gawk at her. She hadn't spoken much at all in the last few days. Never one to speak often or loudly before that. Since she had killed the scientist in the basement of Lord Wybert’s mansion, Malina had uttered no more than ten or fifteen words to the group. Privately, to her man Tenney? Possibly. But not in group conversation.

  She turned around to face everyone and heaved a big breath, playing with a locket on a chain around her neck. "Maybe sticking to the road is a bad idea. If we can find a path through the mountains, then that keeps us out of danger."

  Yorick considered this. She had a point. "But, that also means it's more likely we'll get lost."

  "We’re not going to get lost," Rosia said. "We’re going to find Harmony, eventually. There's a map."

  Yorick shook his head. “We have a map of highways, not a map of the mountains. As soon as we get somewhere we can’t see the road any longer, then it would be to
o easy to veer off course.”

  “Malina’s right,” Tenney said. “We can’t afford another confrontation with those pinche1 White Flames. Not until we’re better armed or have faster transportation and can escape in a hurry if we need to. It’s worth the risk.”

  Yorick sighed and wandered toward the open end of the plane wreckage. The metal under his feet and above his head creaked and groaned as his boots thunked on the floor. He stared out the edge, along the angled and rocky slope. Some little mountain creature, a plump thing with a bushy tail, hopped from rock to rock. It sat back on its hind legs and studied Yorick, nose and mouth twitching. Then, it scurried away.

  Differences of opinion like this hadn’t ended well so far. Was Yorick the leader? Were they all equal in this quest? They were out to find his parents, after all. Rosia would go with him anywhere, but Tenney and Malina had no reason to follow his lead. After a lifetime of living under Wybert’s thumb, maybe they had nothing better to do. Maybe they needed to attach themselves to a goal and a sense of purpose.

  Tenney and Malina so far had not provided a good answer for why they were willing to come along. But, whatever the individual or collective reasons for pushing south toward the Colorado border, Yorick knew he couldn’t order anyone around and expect they would work as a unit. This wasn’t the battlefield at Wybert’s plantación. The rules were different out here, and they would need to make decisions together to survive.