The Goliath Code (The Alpha Omega Trilogy)

by Suzanne Leonhard

He wrapped a finger around a lock of Milly’s hair. She cringed and pulled away. “Good lord,” she grimaced, “you could make an onion cry.”

  Hogstadt bared his teeth and took a fistful of Milly’s blonde hair. She cried out in pain.

  “Hey!” I shouted.

  I went to lunge at the ugly soldier, but Genc jammed his rifle into my stomach, knocking the wind out of me.

  Ash came hurtling out of nowhere. He’d always had a fondness for Milly, as Private Ugly was about to find out the hard way.

  In a blur of snarls and white fur, Ash leapt at the soldier, taking him by the throat and dragging him to the ground. It was fast and it was brutal.

  The enormous Genc pointed his weapon at Ash. I sprang forward, shoving the rifle barrel into the air. CRACK! It fired, but the shot went wide.

  “Run, Ash!” I ordered.

  I grabbed hold of Genc’s weapon, wrestling for control. He was strong and he wasn’t letting go, but neither was I. He tossed me around like an empty sack.

  Milly jumped on his back. He flung her to the ground.

  I glanced over and saw Ash dancing backwards toward the tree line, his muzzle dripping with Private Ugly’s blood. His worried eyes were on me and I knew he was tempted to rush to my defense. I heard shouts and truck engines.

  Reinforcements were coming.

  “Get outta here!” I bellowed at him.

  He turned and bolted for the woods.

  The big soldier finally got the better of me; he threw me onto my back. He pointed his rifle at my face and pulled back the bolt. The ugly soldier lay on the ground beside me, gurgling in his own blood. I closed my eyes and prepared to join him.

  The sound of the shot seized every muscle in my body. I waited for a searing pain that, strangely, never came. I opened my eyes to see Genc collapse to the ground. Milly stood behind him, holding Private Ugly’s smoking AK-12.

  It was her first kill.

  She stared at her victim, her face turning a little green. She was dazed and breathing hard. I thought for sure she was going to throw up.

  I scrambled to my feet and took the weapon from her hands.

  I knew exactly how she felt. I could still remember what Grandpa said to me the night I’d killed Lem Richmond and I repeated it to her. “You were given a choice. You made the right one.”

  She smiled at me through a mist of tears.

  A group of soldiers charged around the transport truck toward us. They looked down at the two dead soldiers on the ground, then scowled at me, the only one holding a weapon. One of them yanked the rifle from my hands, then clipped me across the jaw with it. Pain shot through my face and I fell to my knees. He hauled back the weapon to hit me again.

  “No!” Milly shouted.

  “Private Gunnar!” a man barked out. “Do not damage ze goods!”

  Private Gunnar stepped back. The pain in my face left me dizzy. My jaw had gone numb.

  A short, thin, weaselly man reached out a gloved hand to help me to my feet. He wore the gold bars of a centurion. I steadied my spinning head, and stood up on my own next to Milly.

  “Red hair. Green eyes. Foul disposition,” the centurion commented distastefully. “Mizz Donner, I presume?”

  I stared at the man, but didn’t respond.

  He squinted at me, then threw back his head and bellowed. “Gunnar?”

  The soldier who’d clipped me with the rifle stepped forward. “Yes, Centurion Dirvis?” In contrast to his shaved head and abundance of tattoos, Gunnar’s French accent added a cultured quality to his words.

  “Put zem in ze truck with ze others. Guard zem well, Mister Gunnar.” He gestured at me. “Zis vun is precious to ze praetor.”

  They took our hidden weapons and then led us to a transport truck, stripped of its canvas. It was parked at the back of a long line of vehicles, all pointed south on the road. Private Gunnar forced us to climb into the back of the truck. That’s where we found Ben and Jude.

  Jude was laid out on the cold metal floor, pale and moaning in pain. He’d been shot in the side. Ben was using his own coat to stop the bleeding. My heart seized. No, I thought. Not Jude. Please, not Jude.

  Milly hurried to his side. She lifted away Ben’s coat to get a better look, revealing an angry, oozing hole just beneath his ribs. “It’s not spurting,” she said breathlessly. “That’s good.”

  Ben’s face was drawn and almost as pale as his brother’s. “He’s lost a lot of blood, though.”

  Milly unwrapped the scarf from her neck, folded it into a tight square, and gave it to Ben. “Use this. Press hard.”

  The truck bounced as Private Harris from the cabin climbed over the tailgate. He gave us a sullen stare, then sat down on the bench across from Private Gunnar. He had a nasty bruise on his forehead, but, thanks to Milly, he was still alive. Maybe we could get him to return the favor.

  “Harris.” Pain shot through my bruised jaw. I winced and continued more carefully, “Our friend’s been shot. He needs a doctor.”

  Gunnar snorted. “Friends of yours, Private Harris?”

  Harris scowled at me, then looked away.

  Milly was having none of that. “Are you deaf and stupid? We need a doctor, now!”

  Gunnar grinned and pulled back the bolt on his rifle. “You screech at us one more time, mon chéri, and you will be the one needing the doctor.”

  Milly pulled back her shoulders, preparing to give Gunnar a piece of her mind, but I shook my head. They weren’t going to help Jude. Pushing them would only get more of us hurt.

  Engines revved and the convoy started out on a slow, bumpy course down the winding road. Jude moaned in pain with every bounce and jostle. Milly did her best to comfort him, but there wasn’t much she could do without medical supplies. We could only keep pressure on his wound and hope that, wherever we were headed, we got there soon.

  “Hey, traitor,” I called to Harris.

  He glared at me.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Ellensburg,” he responded. “Where they’ll put you and your friends in front of a firing squad.”

  So, they were taking us to Central Command. The praetor obviously wanted the pleasure of killing us himself. I wondered if he’d already executed David. Although I tried not to care, my eyes burned with tears at the thought of losing my brother. David had made his choice, though. He’d given himself up and made us all pay for it.

  It grew warmer as we traveled further and further down the mountain. I paid close attention to our location. Escape was our only option. There were rebels hiding all over in the mountains, and our home would have to be with them now.

  The snow became patchy until it finally disappeared altogether, replaced by a thick mix of mud and volcanic ash. Jude was getting worse with each passing minute. Milly kept talking to him and kissing his face, but he wasn’t responding. We hit a bump. He moaned.

  Gunnar glowered at him. “I did not join the guard to be a babysitter.”

  “No, you prefer shooting women and children,” I mocked.

  “I hear the praetor has particular taste when it comes to comfort girls,” he jeered. “He likes the redheads.”

  I looked away and he laughed at me. I took a break from plotting our escape to imagine shooting both of our guards in the head.

  We hit another bump and Jude moaned again. It broke my heart to hear him in so much pain.

  “Oh, oh, oh,” Gunnar mocked. “Shut him up already!”

  No, a bullet to the head was too good for Gunnar. Maybe I’d feed him to Ash instead.

  As if on cue, a flash of white appeared in the woods to my right. Ash was staying close. I longed to leap from the moving vehicle and join him, but it would be nearly impossible to get Jude out of the truck, let alone run with him through the woods. We would have to commandeer the vehicle.

  Private Harris saw Ash, too. “What was that?” He peered off into the woods.

  Gunnar rolled a cigarette. “What was what?”

  “I saw something
.”

  “Probably her dog,” Gunnar dismissed.

  “She has a dog?”

  Gunnar shrugged. “A wolf.”

  Harris gaped. “There’s a big difference between a dog and a wolf.”

  “I know. Hers tore the throat out of my best friend.” Gunnar bared his gray teeth at me.

  Gunnar and Private Ugly were besties? That explained the pain in my jaw.

  Suddenly the woods around us came alive with sound, transforming from a dead, ash-choked forest into a jungle in the Amazon. I heard birds in the trees, elk crashing through the underbrush, crickets screaming like sirens. But there hadn’t been anything like that in the woods for almost two years.

  Gunnar and Harris raised their weapons. Gunnar pounded on the outside of the truck bed, signaling for the driver to stop. We came to a grinding, lurching halt. Jude moaned in response.

  CAW CAW-CAW! The loud call echoed toward us.

  “Did you hear that?” Harris asked Gunnar.

  “Sounded like a parrot.”

  Harris shook his head. “Not in Washington.”

  The convoy in front of us rolled to a stop about a hundred yards away. I could hear Centurion Dirvis screaming orders all the way from the front. “Vhy did you stop?” He ran past the other vehicles and stomped up to our driver’s lowered window. “Vhy?” he screeched.

  “Private Gunnar signaled me to stop, sir.”

  The centurion looked up at Gunnar and Harris, still peering into the woods, their weapons ready.

  The sounds had stopped.

  “Vhat are you doing?” Dirvis screamed.

  “Shh,” Gunnar replied. “We heard something.”

  The centurion scrambled to get his own weapon into his hands, then peered into the woods himself. “Who is zere? Come out!”

  I exchanged a look with Ben. With the vehicle stopped, this could be our only chance for escape. The sun was hanging low over the tops of the trees, casting long, deep shadows over the road. If we could get beyond the edge of the woods, we stood a good chance of hiding in the gloom of a thicket.

  I blinked and narrowed my eyes, focusing on the tree line. Was it a trick of the light or were there people standing just inside the forest, staring at us?

  A loud crash came from the woods to our right. Startled, I jumped and banged my elbow on the side panel. Harris and Gunnar began shooting. The smell of gunpowder filled the air. I covered my ears. Milly and Ben threw themselves over Jude. Bullets were tearing through the woods, but nobody was shooting back.

  “Stoppp!” Dirvis shouted. “Vhat are you shooting at?”

  Gunnar and Harris stopped firing. When the air finally cleared, several trees had been mortally wounded and thousands of bushes had been brutally massacred.

  “Idiots!” The centurion stamped his foot. “Get your truck moving! Now!”

  Dirvis marched back to the front of the convoy. It was now or never.

  I cleared my throat and looked at Milly. “How’s he doing?” She glanced up at me; I raised my brows at her so she’d know what I was thinking.

  “He’s really weak, Sera.” Meaning, she didn’t think he could survive an escape.

  My heart sank. Our truck lurched into motion again and Jude winced in pain. We’d lost our chance. If we didn’t think of something soon, none of us were going to survive.

  A few minutes later the convoy came to a fork in the road and rolled to a stop once again.

  Harris looked at Gunnar. “Why are we stopping now?”

  “Meh. The great Centurion Dirvis is probably lost again. He drove us around the mountain for hours yesterday. The man has the navigation skills of a retarded rhinoceros.”

  The temptation to leap from the truck was strong. I could run for help, maybe save us all—if Gunnar didn’t shoot me in the back first.

  The convoy ahead of us started up again—I was running out of time. Our truck lurched into gear. I looked down at the muddy road, working up the courage. And then I heard the whirring sound of spinning tires. We rocked, lunged, but didn’t move forward. I smiled to myself. We were stuck in the sludgy ash.

  I looked up and watched the convoy take the left fork in the road toward Winton—they hadn’t noticed our truck’s predicament. And if Dirvis hoped to make it down the mountain and out of rebel territory before morning, he was in for a big surprise. He was going the wrong way.

  It was almost dark now and, considering all the strange sounds they’d heard earlier, Harris and Gunnar weren’t comfortable being separated from their convoy. They both started pounding on the sides of the truck, demanding the driver get moving. But every time the driver stepped on the gas, he dug the tires in deeper. Finally, both soldiers climbed out to see what they could do.

  This was the moment. We were taking the truck.

  I nodded to Milly and Ben, signaling for them to be ready. I would go for Harris first; he was the smallest and the closest to me. I sensed Ash nearby and I knew he would take care of Gunnar. The driver would have to get out of the cab, so we’d have time to deal with him.

  I took a few deep breaths to get my adrenaline pumping and lurched to my feet.

  A gruff voice called out from the woods, stopping me in my tracks. “I want all weapons on the ground or I send every one of you straight to hell!”

  Gunnar and Harris froze.

  I heard the loud clanging sound of bolts pulling back on a hundred weapons and I knew we were surrounded.

  A clunk sounded by the driver’s door. I looked over to see that a weapon had been tossed out the window.

  Gunnar and Harris didn’t even offer up an argument. They threw their weapons on the ground, too, then raised their hands in surrender.

  Ben stood up slowly. We both eyed the tree line. The dim twilight was working in the man’s favor—I couldn’t see a thing past the edge of the road. We put our hands in the air while Milly stayed in a crouched position, applying pressure to Jude’s wound.

  “You three soldiers,” the voice continued. “Two in the back, driver in the cab. Start running.”

  “And how do we know you will not shoot us in the back?” Gunnar demanded.

  “You don’t! Move!”

  Gunnar and Harris took off, joined by the driver as they sprinted down the road. I watched them take the left fork, in the same direction as the misguided convoy, before disappearing into the darkness. That left just us and what had sounded like a hundred invisible gunmen.

  Ben looked at me cautiously from the corner of his eye. “Friend or foe?” he whispered.

  “The enemy of our enemy…” I hoped I was right.

  Suddenly the distant, echoing sound of heavy gunfire erupted in the woods ahead of us. We heard men shouting and muffled explosions. Only one faction besides Europa had that much firepower; the rebels were ambushing the convoy.

  I stepped toward the tailgate, my hands still in the air. “We’re guerrilla fighters,” I called out. “One of us is injured.”

  A lone, tall figure emerged from the woods, dressed in dark clothes with a black bandana covering the lower half of his face. He moved with steady confidence, casually carrying his weapon in one hand. “Who’s injured?” he said.

  “My brother,” Ben replied. “Jude Turner.”

  The man came toward us and stopped just behind the truck. The glow of the taillights illuminated a pair of large, dark eyes and a jolt of terror shot through me. I swallowed hard. It couldn’t be.

  He tugged the bandana down from his nose, revealing the strong angles of a face that had haunted me for more than a year. I took a step backwards, his name escaping my lips on a shaky breath.

  “Micah.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Micah was alive.

  Head spinning, I blinked to clear my eyes. This couldn’t be real. If not for the stunned look on Ben’s face, I would have thought I was losing my mind.

  “You-you’re—“ Ben stammered. “But you’re…”

  “Dead?” Micah supplied.

  We’d watc
hed them drag him off to be executed. We’d heard the countdown, felt the gunshots in our bones. But Micah Abrams had just walked out of the woods—alive and in one piece. I wasn’t sure whether to be thrilled or terrified.

  “How?” I yelled. With everything churning through my head, that was all I could manage to get out.

  “I think the word you’re looking for is miracle.”

  I stared at him, part of me afraid he might be telling the truth. “There’s no such thing.”

  He grunted. “What good are your eyes if you never believe them?”

  Then it all came together for me. “You made a deal with the praetor,” I accused. “You…you’ve been working with him all along!” And why not? He’d already been a Skagg and a Spathi, why not a spy for Europa?

  He gave me a frustrated look. “I just chased off three soldiers and saved you—again—and now you’re gonna accuse me of working with the praetor?”

  “You are a traitor!” I sounded hysterical, even to my own ears. But Micah was alive, and there wasn’t anything more crazy than that.

  “Could we possibly have this reunion another time?” Milly barked. “Jude is dyin’ over here!”

  Micah jumped up into the back of the truck. I immediately leapt over the side to the ground and snatched up one of the discarded AK-12s. I moved around to the lowered tailgate and pointed the weapon at Micah’s back.

  Ben stared at him and poked his arm with one finger.

  “I’m as real as you are,” Micah told him. He crouched down, placed his hands on Jude’s stomach, and closed his eyes.

  Milly gave him an odd look. “He needs a doctor.”

  After a moment, Micah sat back on his heels and sighed. “Yeah. He does.”

  “Do you know where we can find one?” Ben asked with a hint of hope.

  “Leavenworth,” Micah responded. “It’s about three miles down the mountain.”

  Even with Jude lying injured in the back of the truck, I couldn’t take my eyes off Micah. His hair was longer and he had a day’s growth of beard. He looked leaner and more muscular, his thick shoulders and broad back stretching the limits of his jacket. He looked good.

  He stood up, turning to Ben. “Help me get him out of the truck.”