The Goliath Code (The Alpha Omega Trilogy)

by Suzanne Leonhard

  I felt numb. My legs tried to buckle. The sound of people shouting broke through the hum in my ears, and I pulled my eyes open. When did I close them?

  The Jaguar was gone.

  The four of us rushed forward to where Mr. Chaney lay splayed on his stomach.

  He had hold of Charlie Eagle’s belt.

  Charlie had hold of a pair of legs in jeans and black cowboy boots.

  Grandpa.

  My heart lunged as I looked down. My grandfather hung halfway through the hole in the bridge, saved only by Charlie Eagle’s quick thinking and iron grip.

  Tim and Jim scrambled in, carefully taking hold of Grandpa. They slowly pulled him up from the hole…and Micah appeared. I almost laughed with joy. Grandpa Donner had his hands locked into the front of Micah’s jacket.

  Milly broke into wild applause.

  Viv whistled and clapped her hands. “Nice job, gentlemen!”

  Tim slapped David on the back. “Your grandpa’s a superhero.”

  David nodded quietly. I knew he felt relieved that our grandpa was safe, but I was equally sure he felt annoyed that Steve and Micah hadn’t done a header into the ravine with the Jaguar.

  We created a barrier of cars in front of the bridge to prevent anyone else from driving into the hole, then backtracked to Exit 52. From there, we drove the wrong way on the eastbound side of the freeway. With Steve’s Jaguar gone, he and Micah rode with Deputy Hester. Micah seemed unfazed by his brush with death, but Steve was badly shaken. Pale and sweating, Steve kept muttering something under his breath, but nobody could quite make out the words.

  We proceeded at a crawl toward Seattle, on high alert for gaps in the pavement. It took constant weaving in and out of cars, trees, and occasional rockslides, but every mile forward was progress.

  Several hours later, we reached the outskirts of Preston and saw a green interstate sign tipped sideways on the shoulder.

  SEATTLE

  22

  Milly and I fist-bumped each other. Twenty-two miles. I almost cried from relief. The Issaquah Valley lay just ahead of us.

  And then David said three words. “Where’s the glow?”

  Grandpa squinted through the windshield. “Good question.”

  Milly focused her eyes into the inky black distance ahead of us. “Whaddya mean?”

  Grandpa pointed into the darkness beyond his headlights. “We should see the glow from the city on the horizon there.”

  Tim leaned forward from the back seat to get a better look. “Are we close enough?”

  “Maybe the ash in the air is too thick,” I suggested, but uncertainty was growing in the pit of my stomach.

  “Maybe,” David muttered.

  We sat quietly in our seats, eyes peeled out the windows, each of us anxious to get that first glimpse of city lights. Just a little closer, I told myself. It’ll be just around the next bend.

  Five minutes later we came to the end of the road. The Lake Creek Road overpass had collapsed onto both sides of the freeway. Three semitrucks lay sideways across the rubble, wrapped around each other like metal pretzels.

  The convoy stopped and Grandpa got out of the SUV to meet up with the other drivers. We watched their headlamps bob as they walked around the scene, surveying the situation.

  “There’s no way around this mess,” David announced.

  “Are we close enough to walk?” Milly asked.

  I nodded, hoping. “Maybe.” We’d come too far to turn back now.

  The adults gathered together. There were a lot of heads shaking and my heart sank deeper into my stomach. Finally, Grandpa came back and opened the driver’s side door.

  “Please don’t say we’re giving up,” Milly whispered.

  He shook his head—“Nope”—and climbed back into the cab. “But we’ve gone as far as we can on the freeway.”

  He threw the SUV into gear, wrenched the wheel to the left, and drove around several cars until he was rolling slowly along the shoulder of the freeway. He took the exit and followed an access road for about a mile before pulling into a gravel parking lot. The other drivers rolled up beside us, their headlights reflecting off a wall of trees that hid a deep forest beyond.

  “Get your packs,” Grandpa told us. “We hike from here.”

  I scrambled from the truck, grabbed my stuff, and congregated with the others on one of the railroad ties bordering the parking lot. My nose tickled and I fought off a sneeze. There wasn’t much ash on the ground here, but it was enough to bother me.

  I clicked on my headlamp and stole a peek at Micah. He looked relaxed and focused, definitely not like somebody who’d almost died a horrible death a few hours ago. Steve, on the other hand, still looked dazed—and he was still muttering. I moved closer to my grandfather, hoping to avoid them both.

  Charlie shined his flashlight toward the tree line, searching. “There.” He lit up the face of a National Parks sign.

  TIGER MOUNTAIN TRAILHEAD

  ELEVATION 3005 FEET

  SUMMIT 9.3 MILES

  We all turned to look. The beams of our headlamps bounced off trees and dense underbrush before converging on the park sign and, beyond that, a well-marked trail through the woods that disappeared beyond our lights.

  Grandpa moved forward. “All right, everybody, stay together.”

  We followed him into the forest.

  The darkened trail picked its way along the mountain ridge, pausing occasionally at signs for places like Carl’s Hollow and Betty’s Cove. It wound around moss-covered boulders and cut through prickly blackberry thickets, leading us higher and higher into the Northern Cascades. The adults gravitated to the front of the group, leaving the four of us to straggle along at the back, with Micah and mumbling Steve bringing up the distant rear.

  Milly moved up beside me. “What happened between you and Micah?”

  I gritted my teeth, but tried to be polite this time. “Nothing important.”

  She cast me a skeptical glance. “But somethin’ did happen?”

  “Why is this such a big deal to you?”

  She blinked at me. “Because we’re friends. And friends are supposed to tell each other stuff.”

  We were friends now, weren’t we? Come to think of it, Alyson would have been mad at me, too, if I’d kept something like this from her.

  “Hey, you guys?” Tim called. He and David moved up beside us. “Skaggs is seriously givin’ me the heebie-jeebies.”

  David snorted. “The world would be a better place if he’d fallen into that hole.”

  Milly gasped. “David Donner, what a terrible thing to say.”

  David’s shoulders drooped. Besides my parents, I’d never met a soul in the world who could prick my brother’s conscience, but Milly Odette had just done it with one gasp.

  “I know Steve isn’t the nicest person in the world,” Milly continued, “but that doesn’t give anybody the right to wish him harm.”

  “Speakin’ of harm,” Tim remarked, “what’s up with Abrams? He hasn’t called Double D ‘Little Stinker’ once this entire trip.”

  “Maybe he’s changed,” Milly offered. “What do you think, Sera?”

  Milly and Tim looked at me expectantly—they were driving me crazy. “How should I know?” I retorted.

  David grunted. “People don’t change. They just get better at faking it.”

  “Bridge here,” Grandpa called out. “Watch your step.”

  We came to a narrow wooden bridge across a wide mountain creek. Tim crossed first. I followed, but the sound of distant, roaring water stopped me in the middle. I moved my head around, shining my light into the woods, trying to get a better look at what I was hearing.

  Milly and David scooted past me. The bridge creaked under their weight.

  In the shadowy, yellow light I could just make out the shape of a cove fed by a high waterfall that tumbled over rocks and bushy ferns. The bridge, obviously a lookout, offered what must have been a spectacular view in full daylight.

  Taki
ng advantage of the moment, I closed my eyes and listened to the tranquilizing sound of the rushing water. I let myself forget where I was. No eruption. No earthquake. The sun was bright. Mom and dad were behind me on the trail—

  The bridge shifted. I opened my eyes. Micah stood beside me at the railing and my deceitful heart stuttered.

  “Enjoying the view?” he joked.

  I snorted. “Breathtaking.” I looked up the trail and saw the bobbing lights of the others walking on ahead of us. If I ever wanted my brother to speak to me again, he’d better not see me standing alone with Micah.

  “Listen, I’m sorry if I got you in trouble yesterday,” he offered. “I know your brother doesn’t like me very much.”

  “Understatement of all time,” I replied under my breath.

  Steve Skaggs scooted past us, still muttering to himself.

  I waited until Steve had crossed the bridge and then turned to Micah. “What, exactly, is wrong with him?”

  “Who, Steve? He’s surrendering.”

  “Surrendering? To what?”

  Micah arched his dark brows enticingly. “Truth.”

  I laughed. “What truth?”

  Micah’s eyes crinkled. “What truth?” He had a cool confidence that I found seriously distracting. “There’s only one, Seraphina. But most people don’t like to hear that—people like Steve. And then one day it hits them right in the face. Bam!” He slammed his hands together and I jumped. “Suddenly everything comes down to just one, quick choice.” He leaned closer and for one horrifyingly thrilling second, I thought he might kiss me. “When your moment comes,” he whispered, “choose wisely.”

  This was the Micah I remembered from grade school: charming, hypnotizing, irresistible. We stood there looking at each other, the lights from our headlamps blending into one magical glow around us, and I suddenly felt the urge to tell him about my mother.

  “Micah—”

  I heard my Grandpa shout my name. “Sera? Keep up!”

  David’s mocking voice drifted back to me. “She’s hanging out with her boyfriend.”

  And, just like that, the magic was gone.

  I stepped away from Micah, shocked by what I’d been about to reveal to a boy who, up until a few weeks ago, had spent his free time using my brother as a piñata.

  “What were you about to say?” he asked.

  “Nothing.” I turned to leave, but he grabbed my pack and yanked me backwards against him. He startled me so badly I almost fell off the bridge. “What are you doing?!”

  “Listen to me,” he rasped in my ear. His urgent tone was frightening. “Stay close to me at the top. Promise.”

  Maybe Micah hadn’t changed after all.

  I wrenched myself away from him. “I’m not promising you anything. And don’t you ever grab me like that again.”

  “Seraphina, you—”

  “Ever again.”

  I hurried across the bridge and up the path toward the bobbing line of lights—away from Micah, past the other kids—until I was walking safely beside my grandfather. One tearful hug in the dark hadn’t earned Micah the right to put his hands on me or to tell me what to do.

  Grandpa glanced over at me. “What was the holdup back there?”

  Charlie Eagle grunted. “They were trying to decide which one of us to eat first after we get them good and lost.”

  “No contest,” Deputy Hester called out. “Eat Chaney.”

  The vice principal hitched up his pants. “That’s right, pick on the fat man. I’ll have you know this here is one hundred percent pure muscle.”

  “Chaney’s not fat,” Steve Skaggs quipped. It surprised me to see him walking casually beside the vice principal as if he hadn’t been muttering incoherently to himself for hours. “He’s just short for his weight.”

  The adults laughed at his joke. I guess he’s finished surrendering to truth, I thought with a grunt.

  “Some women like a little meat on a man,” Viv responded. I liked Vivica Davis. As head of the city council, she’d led the effort to build a trampoline park for the local kids instead of another golf course for tourists.

  The deputy chuckled. “I think ol’ Don passed little quite some time ago.”

  “Don’t pay any attention to that skinny fella, Don,” Viv retorted. “He’s just jealous because he’s so hard to see in the dark.”

  We crested the peak of the trail and broke through the tree line. The path spilled out onto a vast, pitch-black meadow, stretching forever into the darkness.

  I took a step forward. Out of nowhere, a powerful, frigid wind kicked up and hit me full in the face. It stole my breath, knocking me back a few steps.

  Steve Skaggs rushed past me, like a sprinter heading for the finish line. He was muttering again, but this time I caught a portion of what he was saying. “…will of the father,” he whispered.

  A few yards out, he turned to face us all. “I’m at the top!” he shouted. He walked backwards with his hands in the air, like he’d just won a race. He laughed and pointed at Micah. “I’m still here—”

  The world became a snapshot. I remember the wind rushing in my ears. The tangy smell of sulfur in my nose. The mushy feel of ash beneath my feet. Steve Skaggs uttered a sharp, short cry. And then nothing. He vanished—as if the ground had swallowed him whole.

  We all stood there, boggling, trying to understand what had happened.

  Grandpa took charge. “You kids stay here.”

  He edged forward, followed closely by Deputy Hester, the vice principal, Vivica, and Charlie Eagle. Without thinking, I tried to take a step forward, but Micah had hold of my backpack again and wouldn’t let me move.

  “Wait,” he whispered to me.

  My first thought was to defy him, since he obviously hadn’t learned his lesson from the first time he’d grabbed me. But then I realized—if not for that blast of frigid wind—I would have been the one walking out first into that dark meadow. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to wait just a few more seconds.

  I saw my grandfather stop short. He stood still for a moment, then slowly sank to his knees.

  The others lined up next to him.

  Deputy Hester’s shoulders slumped. “What the…”

  Vivica started crying. Charlie Eagle put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her.

  Don Chaney was shaking his head. “How?”

  “What’s happening?” Milly whispered beside me.

  “What is it?” Tim called to them.

  David moved forward first, followed by Tim, and then Milly. They all stopped in a neat row, beside the adults. Nobody said a word.

  I finally shook Micah off. He let me go and I hurried forward.

  When I reached the spot where Grandpa Donner was kneeling, his arm shot out in front of me. “Stop!” he ordered.

  I froze. And then realized I couldn’t take another step even if I’d wanted to. There was no other step. I stared out over nothingness, over an abyss, with thousands of bouncing red lights spread out in the distance. Micah stepped up beside me, slipping his arm through mine to steady me.

  “Is that the valley?” I asked. Why is it moving?

  “No,” Grandpa rasped.

  The sound of rushing water floated up to my ears. We all looked down. Our headlamps bounced off dirt, rock, roots, until finally illuminating a churning, angry surf. We were standing on the edge of a jagged cliff with angry waves crashing a hundred feet below.

  “It’s the Pacific Ocean,” David answered.

  Confused, I raised my eyes and looked out at the red lights. For a moment I thought we’d gone off course, that we’d missed a turn somewhere and walked all the way to the shore. But then I realized I wasn’t looking at lights. They were fires, bobbing on an ocean choked with debris.

  And, in the distance, illuminated by the flames, waves cascading over its proud, gold dome, was the top of the Seattle Space Needle.

  Chapter Seven

  I stood in the center of the churning crowd at city hall, watching th
e play of light on the rotunda walls. Dozens of crank lanterns lit the large room, giving the illusion of a bright, white day. Heavy plastic still sealed the doors and windows against blowing ash, but someone had scattered comfortable furniture around the room in an attempt to make everything look normal. But everything wasn’t.

  Seattle lay at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean and the citizens of Roslyn were having a hard time dealing with that fact. The entire town had packed into the rotunda, all demanding answers.

  Grandpa stood on the second step of the staircase, trying to calm the crowd. Mayor Skaggs was understandably absent. He’d just been told about his son’s death, not six months after he’d lost his wife to cancer. We probably wouldn’t be seeing the mayor anytime soon.

  So far I’d managed to hold it together, but Milly was a blubbering mess. She was standing directly beside me and I knew I would burst into tears if I even looked at her. Tim was doing his best to console her, but if she didn’t quiet down soon, I would have to find another place to stand.

  David hadn’t said a word since Tiger Mountain. Like me, he was wrecked by the loss of our father. But Dad’s death meant more than the loss of another parent to him, it also meant the loss of the cure for his condition. This disaster had not only taken our dad, it had taken my brother’s hope of being made normal. In David’s mind, he’d just been given a life sentence of inadequacy.

  Micah, who had come in with Cody and Luke, stood at the back of the rotunda. My mind kept going back to that moment on the bridge, when he’d told me to stay close to him at the summit. It almost seemed as if he’d known what we would find when we got there. If not for that wind….

  The crowd was amping up.

  “Just tell us what’s goin’ on!” John Voss shouted. He was a bank teller from Cle Elum, but he now wore a gun on his hip.

  “Based on what we saw,” Grandpa answered, “we believe the Cascadia fault slipped during the eruption and subsequent quake. It looks like Seattle and its surrounding communities are a total loss.”

  The room exploded in gasps and shouts. I got jostled to the side and accidentally stepped on Milly’s foot. “Sorry, Milly,” I muttered. She was so lost in grief, I wasn’t sure she’d even felt it.