“No. It was my idea to head to the wall today. Everything after that was your plan.”
“Fine. But before we go I need your word.”
“My word about what?”
“Your word that if we run into trouble you’ll put yourself first. Don’t worry about me.”
“Kayla would love that.” She went heavy on the sarcasm.
“Kayla would agree with me.” She’d want me to take care of Addison.
“Fine. But then you do the same thing.”
“No way.”
“Why?” She put a hand on her hip.
“Because I can’t. That’s why. Because I know how bad it would be if you were captured.”
“You gave me the capsule for a reason. I’ll be fine.”
“I really don’t want you to use it.” I’d never forgive myself. I was only giving it to her because she deserved to make her own choices. She’d always had men making decisions for her. I couldn’t continue that.
The early rays of light hit me as soon as I pushed open the rusty door.
“We waited too long,” Addison hissed.
“Nothing we can do about that now.” I slipped outside before she could move ahead. “You weren’t kidding about it being quiet.”
“No, I wasn’t.” As expected she stepped around me.
“This is weird. Too weird.” If it was a trap they should have sprung it already.
“Agreed.”
“There is no way everyone just left. It has to be a trap.” She fell back behind me.
“Or something even bigger.”
I didn’t want to think about worst case scenarios, but there were several that could lead to disastrous consequences.
We continued forward, waiting for our enemies to descend. They had to be close.
We didn’t talk. It wasn’t as if we could avoid being seen, but there was nothing to say. All we could do was wait.
“Do you see that?” I broke the silence as I noticed out of the corner of my eye the telltale grey uniform of the Central forces. It was worn by a man lying on the ground.
We moved in that direction. The hairs on the back of my neck stuck up as I waited. This was it. The trap. Addison’s hand moved toward the small right pocket of her slacks. The pocket where she’d slipped the capsule.
I knelt down and grabbed his wrist. His skin was cold, but just in case I checked his pulse. Nothing. “He’s definitely dead.”
“How?” Addison knelt beside me as I turned the body around. “There’s no bullet hole. No blood. No sign of struggle. No foam or anything from a capsule.” Her voice fell slightly when she mentioned the capsule, as if the weight of what she had in her pocket weighed her down.
“Maybe it’s something else Central made.” I definitely wouldn’t put it past them. They had technology people hadn’t dreamed of a few decades earlier.
“You think Central is killing their own men now?” She stood up.
“I don’t know what to think.” I examined the body again before standing up.
“Neither do I.”
“But now we know why it’s been so quiet.” I gestured her to follow me as I continued down the street. Soon another few of the grey uniforms came into view.
Like the first, these men were all dead. No evidence of how they died.
She looked up at the sky. “This is unreal.”
“Oh, it’s very real.” I looked at the bodies. It was as if they’d suspected nothing and had merely fallen where they stood.
“That it is.”
I spun around at the sound of a voice, my gun trained at the voice’s owner.
“Hey, put the gun down. I’m not looking to hurt you.” A man—or more or less a boy—held up his hands in front of him in defense.
“You touch her, and you die.” Young or not, he could be dangerous.
“I’m not going to touch her. Chances are we are on the same side here.” He let his hands fall to his sides. “Now put the gun down.”
I looked into his face. He was young. If it weren’t for the start of a beard I would have seen his youth right off. “Why should I believe you?”
“What other choice do you have?” He took a seat on the top of a canister. “What other choice do any of us have?”
“What are you doing here?” Addison had her gun trained on him too. “Is this your doing?”
“This?” he gestured to the bodies. “I wish.”
“What do you have against them?” Addison kept her gun aimed. “Aren’t you hoping for a cure?”
He laughed. “Cure? You mean to elite aging?”
“Wait? You know that?” If he knew that, then he wasn’t just a low-level Central worker.
“Yes.” He sighed. “Pathetic isn’t it?”
“Well, you still didn’t answer my question.” Addison shifted her weight from foot to foot.
“Oh? About what I have against them? Does my reason matter? I hate them. Same as you.”
I answered before she could. “Yes. Because I don’t believe we’re on the same side.”
“I have two sisters. At least I hope I still have them. It’s been years now…” the boy trailed off.
“Two?” Addison caught my eye.
“Yes.” The boy crossed his legs at his ankles. “I know you think that’s a lie, but it’s not. I spent my entire childhood trying to hide their existence, but I don’t care.”
“What’s your name?” I started to connect the dots. Run the odds.
“Does my name matter?”
“It does. It really does.”
“What’s your name?” he countered.
“Mason. See? It’s not so hard to answer a question.”
“It is when you seem really interested.” He looked into my eyes. “Why are you so interested? Maybe we aren’t on the same side. Maybe you’re hunting.”
It was time to lay some of my cards out. “I’ve only heard of one family with three kids. Especially with the dynamic of two girls and a boy.”
My explanation must have been satisfactory because he answered. “My name is Thomas.”
Addison let out a gasp. “Nope. You can’t be. He can’t be Kayla’s brother, can he?”
“Kayla?” Thomas leapt off the canister. “You know Kayla?”
“What’s your other sister’s name? I’m not saying anything until you tell me.” I knew it had to be him, but I needed more proof.
“Quinn. My other sister is Quinn.” His body shook. “Where are they? Are they okay?”
“They are safe.” I searched his face again, noticing how similar his nose was to those of his sisters. “For now.”
He sat back down. “There is no safe.”
“No. But they are safer.” At least that’s what I was telling myself because there was nothing I could do.
He looked at me, his eyes gliding over my face. “Who are you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I threw his words back on him.
“Like hell it doesn’t. You just questioned me.” His calm demeanor was gone. Discovering we knew his sisters had thrown him off.
“I love your sister, Kayla. I’d do anything for her, which is why we need to get through that wall.”
He put his hands on his knees. “I need to see them.”
“You know as well as I do we can’t keep them safe until that wall comes down.” I nodded my head behind me where the giant wall extended as far as the eye could see toward the sky.
“How do we know what will happen then? What if a whole new danger comes into play?”
“I thought we wanted the same thing.” Addison let her gun fall to her side.
I looked around us, my gun was no longer trained on Thomas, but that didn’t mean I’d let my guard down.
“If you love my sister, why are you here with this girl?” Thomas pointed to Addison.
“This girl has a name. Addison.” Addison pointed a thumb to her chest. “And I’m here because I’m done sitting back. Not that Kayla wanted to ever sit back. But it’s
different because she had Bailey to think about.”
“How is she?” Thomas straightened up. “Bailey, I mean.”
“We don’t have time for this right now.” I understood his questions but sitting around in enemy territory was a terrible idea.
“I’m not asking for pages worth. I’m only asking for a few words. Is she okay? What happened to her?” His expression was completely serious, and I knew I was going to have to give him something before he’d agree to help.
“We don’t know for sure. She is fearful but okay. But that’s why Kayla couldn’t leave even though she wanted to. And she really wanted to,” I added.
“Yes, that’s Kayla.” A faint hint of a smile hung on his lips.
“Okay. That’s enough. We need to go.” Addison cocked her gun.
“You really think you can breach the wall?” Thomas stood.
“No.” I shook my head. “But we can.”
Thomas nodded. “Especially if we get my associates involved.”
“Associates?” Addison and I said in unison.
“Yes. There are others like us.”
“Where?” I was almost afraid to ask. Had we been so focused on the mission we’d missed the presence of others?
“Right here.” Thomas let out a low whistle, and a dozen teenagers and men started down the deserted street toward us.
Kayla
I didn’t want to run again. I didn’t want to hide or cower in fear. I’d been through so much already; I didn’t want to deal with more. Despite my yearning to do something rather than sit around, I didn’t want to put Faith in danger. Leaving on my own was no longer possible. Not when I couldn’t guarantee her safety. No matter how I felt, leaving together was now the only option. But I was going face this new reality on my own terms.
“We have to move,” Bolton spoke as if I planned to sit around and wait. He knew me far better than that.
“No kidding.” We waited in the lower level beneath the boathouse for everyone else to arrive. Everyone else who was leaving with us that is. The time passed slowly. Agonizingly slowly, yet the door above us never opened. We never even heard footsteps, and I knew this secret space couldn’t be that well soundproofed.
“Is it really safe to take these tunnels under the lake?” Quinn asked.
She sounded like the old Quinn again. Careful but willing to face the truth.
“As safe as anything can be now,” Bolton explained. “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared down the narrow hallway.
“We won’t be under there forever. They will fight these intruders off.” Maverick stared up above the stairs to the trap door.
“We’re not coming back.” There was no reason to pretend. “We all know that, so there is no reason to lie.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” Maverick tore his eyes from the ceiling. “Nothing is for sure.”
“You can say what you want, but you know the truth.” And I knew that once we left the compound, there was little chance Mason would find me again. I knew leaving was our only option, but that didn’t make it an easy one.
“Believe what you want. I’d rather leave all options open.”
“We’ve never had options.” I was being negative again. I couldn’t help it.
“We’ll see how hard these tunnels are to navigate,” Bolton reappeared with a bulging bag on his shoulder.
“We need to go.” Quinn stopped Bailey as she started to climb the stairs. “Waiting here is a big mistake.”
“Agreed.” I adjusted Faith in my arms. She was squirming, wanting to be down on the ground with her cousin, but that couldn’t happen yet.
“I wish I knew what was happening,” Quinn asked quietly. “How far do you think the fire has spread?”
I thought of the flames. They had only been in the distance when we’d grabbed the girls, but the smoke was heavy by the time we slipped into the boathouse.
“That depends.” Maverick held out his hands as if offering to take Faith.
I shook my head. I was fine holding her.
“Depends on what?” Quinn asked.
“The wind. How many places they started it.” Maverick didn’t need to explain who he meant by they. They meant Ramona and the others. This was all part of the plan. Leave nothing for Central to take. I understood it, but it was beyond depressing. It meant giving up. And it proved my point. We were never coming back.
“Do you think burning everything helps?” Quinn scooped up Bailey.
“Not really. Nothing at the camp is valuable to them, aside from the women and children,” Bolton moved his bag to his other shoulder.
“Nothing valuable,” I muttered. “The orchards. The fields. There is so much value.”
“Not to them.” Bolton’s eyes were dark. “Central only has one goal.”
“Immortality.” That revelation was still a hard one to wrap my mind around. It made sense, but it was so unbelievably selfish—it underscored just how corrupt the government had become.
“Exactly. Accepting that is our only chance of outsmarting them.” Bolton eyed the stairs. “And we need to get moving. No one else is coming.”
“How do we know? Should we send someone else to check? What if it was a false alarm and we’re leaving for nothing? What if they stopped the fire?” Quinn rattled off question after question.
“Someone meaning me?” Bolton eyed her skeptically. “Trying to get rid of me, Quinn?”
“This is no time to joke.” Quinn set Bailey down but held her arm.
“Did I say I was joking?” Bolton put a hand to his chest.
“What about Ramona?” I worried about all those we were leaving behind, but it seemed especially wrong to leave without the leader. She wasn’t particularly mobile.
“She’d rather go down with the camp than leave,” Bolton said resolutely. “She will be the last to leave.”
“We can’t leave an old woman here to die,” Maverick appeared torn.
Bolton shot him an annoyed look. “Who says she is going to die? Ramona is more resourceful than you give her credit for. There are other entrances to these tunnels.”
“Why don’t you want to go back?” Quinn inclined her head to the side.
“Because I’d rather the four of you not get caught. I risked a lot saving Kayla and getting her to you.”
“He’s right,” Maverick pointed out. “We’ve all sacrificed a lot. You all the most. We need to stick to the plan.”
“The plan.” I brushed my braid off my shoulder. “The plan to run and hide.” The plan with nearly no details. “I know we need to do this, but it goes against everything.”
“Except that little girl in your arms.” He pointed to Faith.
“Even Quinn feels strange about this.” I suppose I shouldn’t have used the word even. It wasn’t fair. But if Quinn was questioning our decision, it wasn’t nearly as clear-cut as they wanted us to believe.
“Even me?” Quinn raised an eyebrow. “I won’t read into what that is implying.”
“You know what I mean.”
She smiled. “Yes, I do.”
“So where does that leave us now?” Bolton tightened his grip on the strap of his bag. “Are you ready to move? Sitting here isn’t safe.”
“We need weapons.” No weapons we had would help us if we ran into actual Central militia, but that didn’t mean we had to go in defenseless. “There have to be some reserve weapons down here.”
“What do you think I have in here?” Bolton lifted the strap.
I eyed the large bag. “Hand it out.”
“You are holding enough already.”
He was right. Holding weapons while holding Faith was a bad idea. “Fine. Let’s go.”
“Even if we don’t know where we are going…” Quinn trailed off.
“Exactly. Because we don’t.”
Faith
I knew all the stories by heart. My mother and aunt had told them to us so many times. I even knew the proper times to add inflection to my voi
ce. By the time I was eight I was so sick of hearing them I’d daydream instead of listen, but I knew better than to interrupt or voice my boredom. Some things would never be forgiven.
Yet ten years later I would have given anything to hear my mother tell the stories again. To hear her voice. To see her face even for an instant. But to do so would be to give up something else, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Bailey gave me a sidelong glance when I walked into her room. The room was an exact replica of my own. Small and square. Just like the dozens of other small square rooms that made up our wing of the dormitory. I’d never been inside the other wings filled with the younger girls, but I was quite certain they would look the same. The same gray carpet and stark white walls. The same deep blue bedspread with white sheets and a thin, feather-filled pillow.
“What’s wrong with it?” I looked down at my modest navy dress. “You act as though I’m wearing dirty clothes.” In fact, I’d showered, brushed out my oftentimes unruly dark hair, and even brushed on lip gloss.
“But that shade of blue?” She held up the hem of her soft pink dress as she swayed in front of the full-length mirror. “This is supposed to be a happy occasion. Not a sad one.”
“And wearing a navy dress means I’m sad?” I knew she was only making excuses to get me to wear something frilly, but I wasn’t going to make it easy on her.
“If you want to wear blue, I have a few dresses that would work better. I keep telling you to enjoy the fact that we’re the same size.”
“I don’t want to borrow a dress. I want to wear this one.” I tried to keep the anger out of my voice, but I was losing patience.
“Do you get some sort of obscene pleasure out of being difficult?” She took a seat at the edge of her neatly made bed.
“Obscene pleasure? No. A small amount of pleasure. Sure. But I’m not being difficult. I love this dress.” I ran my fingers over the simple embroidery of one of the straps.
“Oh.” All color drained from her face. “Right. Your mom made that for you.”
“She did. And you know she isn’t one to make dresses.” In fact, this was one of the only ones she made. She gave it to me before I entered the dormitory. Her eyes had been pooling with tears, but she’d worn a twisted smile. Her making the dress was part inside-joke. An inside joke I’d never shared with my cousin.
The Corded Saga Page 35
