“Look,” he said firmly.
I opened my eyes in time to catch the final slice; Phillip was all but unconscious, blood everywhere. Three women emerged from the crowd, and someone opened the gate to let them in. They carried a basket full of medical supplies. I looked around at the faces gathered there. Some looked sickened by the event, others seemed satisfied that justice had been served, and a few who had obviously enjoyed watching the torture sported a gleeful shine in their eyes. There was something depraved about getting enjoyment from deliberately causing another human being so much pain. I didn’t get any pleasure out of watching Phillip suffer, but I had been there the night Phillip had “watched over” the young boy, had seen the boy’s face upon their return to camp, so I didn’t feel much sympathy for Phillip either.
As the crowd began to break up, I caught sight of Naoki and Talon. They were with three other prisoners, all of them with their hands tied and guarded by several of Ryder’s men.
Taking a big risk, I shouted, “Naoki!” Fadi grabbed me roughly by the arm, but I resisted going with him.
Naoki’s head snapped up, and he scanned the crowd until he found me. He looked relieved. “Where have you been?” he called back and got cuffed in the head.
“Get moving,” Amos said with a shove.
They forced me through the crowd toward the small gate that allowed entry to the grounds of the big house. When we emerged from the crowd, I looked over my shoulder for Naoki and Talon, but they weren’t there.
I expected to be thrown back into the shed, so I was surprised when they led me to the back door of the big house. Just like the first time I entered the house, delicious aromas greeted me as I walked into the kitchen. The same three women were busy making what might be bread. Annie was helping, and I was glad to see her there in the warm home. I hoped she hadn’t been forced to watch the castration.
Fadi pushed me in the direction of Ryder’s office. He was seated at the table, writing in a hand-bound book. Amos took out his knife and severed the plastic tie binding my wrists, and as we stood at the door patiently waiting for Ryder to finish whatever he was doing, I silently wondered how many of those ties they produced in the space of a week.
“Jack, I want to thank you for bringing Phillip’s sins to my attention.” He waved a hand toward the empty chair. “I’d be pleased if you joined me for lunch.”
I hesitated, wondering if I was actually being asked to join him and if I could decline, but Fadi bumped me toward the chair with his shoulder. I sat down, and my two escorts were dismissed.
“How come they always untie me when I’m brought to your office?” I asked. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll hurt you? Kill you?”
Ryder’s gleaming white teeth made an appearance as he laughed at my question. “I’m not afraid of you, Jack. I’m twice your size. You’re not incapacitated for my protection—it’s for yours.”
“My protection?” I repeated in disbelief.
He leaned against the table and tented his fingers. “Some newcomers embrace us with open arms; others, like yourself, take some convincing before they accept that we’re here for their salvation. The only way we can appease the gods and put an end to their jealous war is for every person on earth to unite and worship all gods equally. Every. Single. Person.”
If I could see through the holes in his theology, why couldn’t everyone else? Or maybe they chose not to see the implausibility of his religion because they were too lured by the desire to be a part of a society. There was protection in numbers, as Sunny and I had found out during our time in the Pit.
“Wasn’t it the gods who poisoned us in the first place?” I asked.
“Ah,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “You listened to my talk.” I nodded. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Tell me your thoughts.”
That wasn’t a good idea. My thoughts were that this man had been made insane by the tragic events in his life, and if he was the future of mankind, then the earth was in serious trouble. But I had to come up with something to make him believe that I thought he had wisdom and convince him that he didn’t need to keep me locked up in a shed with my hands tied. It shouldn’t be too hard. After all, I played the presidential heir for almost a year back in the Dome. A few days with Ryder was nothing.
I arranged my features into the diplomatic expression I knew so well.
“I did listen,” I said. “You made a lot of sense. I mean, there are some people who are more evil than others, and I never knew why. But you say it’s because of the amount of poison running through our veins. Poison the gods infected us with?” Ryder nodded, a satisfied smile playing around his mouth. “Then doesn’t that make us victims of unjust gods?”
Ryder studied me for a moment before he answered. “You have a sharp mind, Jack. Yes, we are victims, but not of unjust gods. We are victims of ourselves. It was wrong of people to favor one god over the others. We started the War in the heavens by inciting jealousy among the gods.”
“I’m just trying to understand why they poisoned us with temptation.”
“You mean with destructive urges,” he said.
I nodded. Whatever.
“Because the gods turned their congregations into armies by infecting them with the urge to destroy their fellow deities’ worshippers.”
“I see,” I said. “And because we were poisoned, we almost annihilated humanity.”
Ryder nodded in an exaggerated fashion. “But the gods have paid the price by losing all of their followers. They have learned their lesson, and now it’s up to us to right the wrongs of the past and dilute the poison that still runs through our veins.”
I grinned. “I wholeheartedly agree with you there. We do need to right the wrongs of the past and get rid of the evil people of the world.”
A knock came at the door, and Ryder bid them enter. One of the pregnant women from the kitchen came in followed by and Annie. They each carried a tray of lunch. Annie set mine down on the table in front of me, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye as she did.
“Thank you, Annie,” I said quietly, and gave her a warm, encouraging smile.
She turned her gaze to the floor. The other woman set her tray in front of Ryder and then ushered Annie out.
“She’s a good little girl,” Ryder said after they’d left.
I nodded in agreement, silently wondering what kind of man could kidnap a little girl and force her to be a slave. Then I remembered our own history in the Dome, and that Sunny had been a slave at Annie’s age. I felt the heat of shame color my cheeks.
“And she’s yours,” he said.
Chapter Eighteen
Sunny
My guts twisted at the sight of blood oozing from Jin-Sook’s side. She was conscious but obviously in a lot of pain. Eli set her down on a piece of flat ground. All thoughts of going after Alex evaporated as I ran to Jin. Kneeling down in front of her, I lifted her tunic to examine her injury. It wasn’t the first time I had seen a bullet wound. The memory of digging a bullet out of Jack was still fresh in my mind. And I was happy to see that I wasn’t going to have to dig one out of Jin, since it had gone straight through the fleshy part of her side. It was nowhere near bone.
“I have to clean it,” I told her. Between my first aid training at the Academy and my experience with Jack’s bullet injury, I knew what I needed to do.
Jin managed a curt nod. I dug in my backpack for my first aid kit and flask. The water in my flask was already filtered, so I didn’t need to worry about infecting the wound. I started folding her tunic out of the way, but she caught the edge and pulled it back down, her eyes the size of saucers.
“I need it out of the way, Jin.” She looked around at the figures watching her and shook her head. Her modesty was obviously greater than her pain, which said something considering she was panting through gritted teeth and her forehead was slick with sweat. “We need some privacy,” I called out.
Eli left immediately, but it took the others some coaxin
g from Summer to stop gawking.
I rolled up Jin’s tunic to just below her breasts. Putting on a pair of sterilized gloves, I poured the water liberally on the wound, flushing it as best I could. Somewhere behind me I heard Reyes and Hayley having a short, heated exchange. Summer was beside me, looking on with concern. I took the disinfectant out of the kit.
“Hold her hand,” I said to Summer.
Jin-Sook grasped Summer’s hand as if it were a lifeline. She screamed when I poured the disinfectant onto her raw flesh. Blood flushed out of the wound with it, and my chest tightened in panic. I reached into the kit for a sterile pad and fumbled to open it, silently cursing Doc for not including a syringe full of nanobots in the kit.
Hayley came up behind me. “Pour more on,” she said. “Jesus, she’s a woman!”
It was a common mistake. The People went out of their way to look androgynous.
“She’s bleeding too fast,” I said.
“It’s flushing out the wound,” Hayley said.
I only took a split second to make the decision to pour more on. Jin dug her fingers into Summer’s hand and hissed loudly. More blood flowed out, but not as much. The wound looked clean. Using the sterile pad, I blotted it dry.
“It should be sutured,” Hayley said.
I checked my first aid kit but didn’t find a needle. “I don’t have anything.”
With a frustrated, fuming sigh, Hayley dropped her pack to the ground and roughly undid the zipper. She pulled out her own first aid kit and a headlamp. The twilight sky hadn’t really registered with me. So much had happened in the last fifteen minutes.
“I don’t know why I should bother,” Hayley said, yanking the light onto her head. “I have a dead soldier with an arrow sticking out of his chest. Anyone know who put it there?”
The accusation was clear, but before I could speak in Jin-Sook’s defense, she spoke for herself.
“He pulled his gun on my friends. We didn’t do anything to them. They came here looking to kill us.”
Putting on sterile gloves, Hayley threaded a needle. “When I’m done here, I intend to find out if that’s true.”
I didn’t argue when she motioned me out of the way, too grateful she was willing to help despite the angry set to her expression. She’d just given up going to look for Alex in the river to help a “heathen” who had killed one of her soldiers.
I glanced over at Reyes. He was halfway to the river, the raft set down in front of him. Two soldiers were walking toward him while the other two stayed with Wilcox, who was still lying on the ground.
I picked up my first aid kit, stopped to fill my water flask at the river, and then went to Wilcox. The two soldiers held their guns on Reyes, who didn’t even seem aware of their presence. As I approached, one of them jerked his rifle in my direction. I rolled my eyes at him. “Whatever,” I mumbled.
“What are you doing?” he asked warily.
“Relax,” I said, holding up the first aid kit. “I’m going to help your friend.”
I kept walking, half expecting one of them to shoot me, but they didn’t. Nice Soldier, the one who was always paying attention to Summer, was standing beside Wilcox. He gave me a small smile as I approached.
“Has he woken up yet?” I asked.
“He moaned a couple of times,” Nice Soldier said. He squatted down on the other side of Wilcox, and I glanced at his nametag: Price. “Can I help?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing.” Other than flush the cut on the side of his head, disinfect it, and slap on an antibiotic-filled bandage, I could do little about a head injury. Although I remembered that our doctor in the Pit had given ice to Jack to help ward off a concussion. The water in the river was close to freezing.
“Do you have a rag or a towel or something in your pack?” I asked Price.
“I have a blanket,” he said, opening his pack.
The temperature was already dropping with the setting sun. “I can’t soak that. You’ll need it tonight.”
I had two things in my pack that could be used as a compress: my blanket and Jack’s t-shirt. The blanket I wanted to save for Jin-Sook. It was going to be a cold night, and she’d need at least a few piled on her to keep her warm. That left Jack’s t-shirt. Biting my lower lip, I eyed Wilcox and considered using the shirt as a compress. The shirt barely held Jack’s scent anymore, although when I breathed it in deeply enough I caught the vague idea of him. Was saving Wilcox really worth obliterating those last vestiges of Jack?
No.
Wilcox was one of Alex’s men, which meant the only reason he was there was to make sure Jack didn’t make it home. And he certainly hadn’t hesitated to shoot me. Just stepped forward and pulled the trigger without a second thought. There was no doubt in my mind he would do the same to Jack when we found him. Only Jack wasn’t wearing a bulletproof suit.
“Guess we don’t have a compress,” I said. I assuaged the guilt niggling at me by cleaning and dressing his cut.
“We make camp here tonight,” Hayley announced in a loud voice. She pulled her gloves off as she looked around at all of us. Pointing to the two soldiers beside Reyes, she said, “We’ll need to bury Sims, or he’ll attract scavengers. Recover his personal items for his family first.” She looked at Price and the other soldier. “Build a fire and get the tents pitched.”
“A fire out in the open is a bad idea,” Eli said, as he walked toward where Jin was lying.
Hayley rubbed her hand along the back of her neck and didn’t even bother to look at Eli. “Your friend’s in shock,” she said in an irritated voice. “She needs warmth.”
Eli started to protest, but Hayley walked away. She was the commanding officer, and the soldiers did her bidding. Eli had no say.
She was looking at me when she said, “You and I have a conversation to finish.”
I wondered if I should bring up Alex and whether or not it was too late to go after him. Not that the dark was a problem for Reyes, Summer, and me, but given the temperature of the water and the length of time Alex had been gone, his only chance of survival was if he’d managed to get to dry land.
I took a deep breath, hoping to resolve this as quickly as possible, and walked toward her. “Hayley, I’m sorry about Alex. I thought he was Jack’s friend,” I said. “It made his attack on us that much harder for me to understand.”
With a look of contempt, she waved her hand at me in a sweeping motion. “You’re wearing some kind of bulletproof suit, riding around in a raft outfitted with technology I’ve never seen before, and you’re claiming innocence?” She put a hand on her hip. “You think I’m an idiot?”
I crossed my arms over my chest and shifted my weight to one leg. “So what was Alex doing on the beach, then? Mmm? He came to pay us a social visit maybe?”
Her contemptuous expression faltered for a second as doubt flitted across her features. “Well, I’m beginning to wonder what Jack Kenner was up to.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Did you two put together some kind of urchin-heathen army to finish off what you started? Kill all of us big, bad borks?”
I didn’t see any reason to keep it from her since Doc had said it was time to reveal our militia. It might even help end this conflict and send them on their way.
“Jack’s not involved. Neither are the People.” Her eyebrow rose in question. I leaned toward her and said conspiratorially, “I don’t call them heathens because they’re not.” I straightened up. “Yes, the Pit has put together a militia, but not because we want to finish what we started. You might find this hard to believe,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice, “but after years of abuse at the hands of the bourge, we don’t trust you. Can you really blame us for coming up with a defensive strategy?”
“Defensive?” she exclaimed. She reached out a hand and touched the fabric of my suit. “It crumples bullets, and I saw the force you used to take out Alex.” She looked me in the eye. “And please don’t tell me you’re just that strong.”
I slapped her hand away from my sleeve. “I stand by defensive and—”
The sound of splashing water and something like a cross between a moan and yelp interrupted us. I turned around to find Price standing over Wilcox with an uncapped flask in his hand. Wilcox was half sitting up, his head dripping with water.
“He woke up,” Price said with a smile.
Not exactly the ideal way to bring him back to consciousness, but effective.
“We do this my way,” Hayley said in a low, threatening tone and brushed past me.
Reyes was standing not far from us, and I was pretty sure he had been listening in. I made eye contact with him. “I haven’t forgotten about the raft.”
He ignored the comment. “You’re not planning on camping here for the night, are you?”
I cast a glance over at Jin-Sook. Summer was propping up her backpack behind Jin while Eli helped ease her back onto it. They put another blanket over her. I didn’t think her injury was fatal, but I knew it was going to hinder her ability to travel. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do yet.
“Not much choice,” I said.
He flicked his chin in Hayley’s direction and cocked an eyebrow at me. “You trust her?”
Trust was a complicated word. I didn’t distrust her, like the way I distrusted Alex. Hayley’s actions toward us were driven by anger; Alex’s actions were not. His motivation had been much more sinister.
“Not entirely, but I don’t think she’s a sneaky murderer either,” I said and headed in the direction of Hayley and Wilcox.
Wilcox was holding his head, moaning in pain. Hayley had a first aid kit open, a small package of pain medication in her hand.
“I promise. Right after you answer a few questions,” she was saying as I came up to them. He grumbled something unintelligible, and she ignored him. “What were you, Alex, and Sims doing here?”
“I already told you, sir,” he said without lifting his head from his hand. “They ambushed us.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Hayley said firmly. “Now, I want to know why you three ended up here at the river. Alex told me you were backtracking to try to pick up the recruiters’ trail after we lost it.”
New World Order Page 16
