by TJ Klune
“Tick tock, Mr. Cartwright,” Randy called. “Twenty seconds.”
Nate pressed his forehead against Alex’s back. “Will they hurt her?”
“Yes.”
“And they’ll kill us anyway.”
“Maybe. Either we die here, or we never see daylight again.”
“He’s not alone, is he.”
Alex snorted. “You’re smarter than you look.”
“Asshole. Can you get us out of here?”
“I don’t know. But I’m going to do everything I can.”
“Five seconds, Mr. Cartwright.”
He glanced into the truck. Art was watching him, head resting on her hands against the bench seat. He didn’t know what was happening. He didn’t know who she was or what she was supposed to be. But he couldn’t stand the way the man down the road had said she wasn’t a person. That she was an it.
So he said the only thing he could. “I’m with you. Both of you.”
She smiled.
“Mr. Cartwright. You’re out of time. Do you have an answer?”
“Yeah,” Nate said, raising his voice. “In fact I do. Here it is. Fuck off.”
The smile faded on Randy’s face. “That’s not a good decision, Mr. Cartwright.”
“Real heartbroken over it. I don’t know how I’ll go on.”
“That’s enough,” Alex hissed at him even as Art giggled, covering her mouth.
“Remember,” Randy said, voice cold, “that I gave you a chance.”
He spun on his heel, dust kicking up around him, and began walking into the trees.
“Where the hell is he going?” Nate asked.
“Get in the truck,” Alex said. “Now. We have to—”
In the distance came a faint thumpthumpthump.
“Shit,” Alex breathed. “Now. We have to move now.”
“Not again,” Art muttered. “Didn’t they learn after what happened last time?”
“What is that?” Nate asked as Alex turned and shoved him toward the truck. “What’s that noise? It sounds like—” He grunted as he went sprawling inside the cab of the truck. He felt Alex shoving his flailing legs farther. Art scrambled up and over his back as Nate pulled himself in. He sat upright against the passenger door, turning to glare at Alex. “I can get in myself, thank you very—”
The thumpthumpthump grew louder. He turned slowly and looked out the back window. Art was on her knees, chin resting on the back of the bench seat.
In the distance, above the trees, were two black smudges against the bright blue sky.
“Are those…”
“Helicopters,” Art said ominously as Alex climbed into the truck and slammed the door behind him. “Black Hawks.”
“Oh,” Nate managed to say. “That’s… not good.”
“Nope. They’re really big. And fast.”
“You’re not making me feel any better.”
“Hold on to something,” Alex growled.
The truck roared to life and lurched almost immediately as Alex threw it into reverse. Gravel kicked up around the truck as the wheels spun briefly before catching solid ground. The truck groaned as it shot back. Alex expertly twisted the wheel, the truck spinning around until it faced the dirt road leading down to the highway. He shifted it into drive, and as soon as they’d stopped reversing, they were moving forward.
“Careful,” Nate snapped as Art squawked, falling against him. He turned her around, holding her tightly at his side. “This thing doesn’t exactly have a roll bar.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Alex said, hands tight on the steering wheel.
“He says that even when he doesn’t mean it,” Art said. “It’s supposed to make us feel better about our chances of survival. Do you feel better? You don’t look like you feel better. Your face is a little green.”
“This has been a very weird day,” Nate muttered, the trees flying by them out the window.
“There’s going to be a roadblock,” Alex said.
Art looked up at him. “I know.”
“No matter what direction we go.”
“I know, Alex.”
“Which way?”
She hesitated.
“Art.” Alex sounded frustrated. “I made you study those maps for a reason. We planned for this. I need you to tell me which way.”
“East. I think… I think we’re supposed to go east.”
“Are you sure?”
“No.”
“Fuck,” he groaned.
“I don’t like it when you curse.”
“Now’s not the time, Artemis.”
“He says a lot of bad words when he’s anxious,” Art told Nate.
Nate’s hands were shaking. “I don’t blame him in the slightest.”
They hit the tree line, the canopy thick above them. Even from inside the cab, he could still hear the thumping sound of blades spinning from somewhere overhead. Alex leaned forward, face almost against the steering wheel, peering upward. “This cover won’t last long.”
“Do you have a plan?” Nate asked.
Alex glanced at him. “Sort of.”
“Sort of? What the hell is that supposed to—holy shit, look out!”
Ahead of them on the dirt road stood a row of men in full fatigues, rifles pointed in their direction.
Alex didn’t slow. If anything, he pressed the gas pedal down farther.
The cab rattled around them.
“What are you doing!” Nate shouted at him. “They’ve got guns, Jesus Christ, they’ve got—”
He saw the exact moment the soldiers in front of them realized they weren’t going to stop. Everything slowed down around them as a large man on the end raised his arm in the air and then brought it down in a slashing motion. There were bursts of fire from the tips of the rifles.
They weren’t going to make it.
From the corner of his eye, he saw Art move forward, hand raised toward the windshield, fingers extended.
The air was sucked from the cab.
He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. He saw the licks of fire from the ends of the automatic rifles. The windshield should have shattered. The truck should have been riddled with bullets. They should be dead.
Instead, there were sharp sounds from the front of the truck, and he saw sparks right outside the windshield, as if the bullets were ricocheting off some invisible wall. He cringed at the sounds, sure that what he was seeing wasn’t real, that any moment the windshield would shatter around them, the bullets entering their heads, splattering the back window with bits of skull and brain.
It didn’t happen.
The men in front of them began to shout, lowering their rifles.
Alex pressed the gas pedal down harder.
The soldiers began to move, shoving one another to the side.
The last few managed to jump out of the way right before the truck plowed into them.
Alex kept a tight grip on the steering wheel as they took a soft curve at speeds that could have caused the truck to flip.
Art sighed and sat back down in the seat, lowering her hand.
Nate said, “What— I don’t— What is— I can’t.”
“You okay?” Alex asked.
“I don’t know,” Nate said, voice high-pitched and frantic.
“I wasn’t talking to you. Art?”
“I’m fine,” she said, shaking her head. “That won’t be all of them.”
“Oh,” Alex said, “I’m counting on it.”
Nate stared at both of them.
Art patted his knee. “So later, after we escape the bad men with the guns and the helicopters, we probably should tell you that I’m pretty much not from around here. And by around here, I mean this planet.” She paused, considering. “Or even this galaxy, if we’re being specific.”
“Art,” Alex snarled.
She winced. “Oops. That didn’t come out like I meant it to
. My bad. I really need to work on my timing.”
“Space princess,” Nate breathed.
She grinned at him. “You remembered! How fun.”
He managed to roll down the window before vomiting.
They didn’t talk much until they neared the highway. The sounds of the helicopters never left, though it seemed as if they were keeping their distance.
“Turning left will take us into town,” Art said, glancing at Nate warily as if she thought he was going to throw up again. She hadn’t seemed too fond of that if the look on her face had meant anything. “We could probably avoid it and go around.”
“And right?” Alex asked.
“Will take us farther into the mountains. North. But we’ll eventually be able to go east. There’s not much that way.”
“Fewer people.”
She hummed. “Fewer bystanders.”
“They’re going to be waiting for us.”
“I know.”
“Can you handle it?”
“I’ve been resting. I’ll be okay.”
“The flowers.”
She sighed. “I didn’t mean to. I just wanted to see Nate smile.”
They both glanced at him.
He was as far away from them as he could be and still be inside the truck. He was plastered against the passenger door, eyes wide. His mouth tasted disgusting, and he was pretty sure there was a drying string of bile on his chin. But that was the least of his worries. Everything else had faded into the background. His sole focus was on the two people in the truck with him.
“You okay?” Art asked him.
He nodded once.
“You don’t look okay.”
That was probably an understatement.
“I think I broke him,” she said with a frown.
“You did that on purpose,” Alex said through gritted teeth.
“I just stopped the car from filling up with bullets. I had to tell him something.”
“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered. “Look, we’re—”
The trees fell away beside them.
They were almost to the highway.
“Right?” Alex asked.
“Right,” Art said.
They hit the road at the same speed they’d been traveling. Nate tried to make a sound—anything to remind them that the highway wasn’t that wide and the other side had a metal barrier thing before it dropped into nothing—but the only thing that came out was a thin rush of air. Alex spun the steering wheel hand over hand, and the truck felt like it was leaning to the left. Nate was sure that for a moment, they weren’t on all four tires. Somehow Alex managed to maintain control of the truck and straighten it out, the back end fishtailing slightly before he crossed the yellow line back to the right side of the road.
Nate knew there wasn’t much farther up into the mountains. A few towns, though they had to be an hour or so away. He thought one of them was called Green Creek, really nothing more than a village. He’d been there once when his mother and father had gotten the itch to explore farther into the mountains. The road leading up was winding, with pullouts every few miles for tourists.
And currently, it was empty.
No blockades. At least none that he could see.
As if she could read his mind, Art said, “Oh they’ll be there. You can count on that, partner. We’re the frontier settlers trying to save our land from the big, bad gang of bandits trying to take it over, I reckon.”
He gaped at her.
She winked at him.
“Not helping,” Alex said.
“I’m trying to keep him calm—”
A loud roar rattled the cab as two Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead, so low that Nate thought they could have scraped the top of the truck. He shouted at the sight of them, head hitting the window as he jerked away. A bright flash of pain shot through his skull, eyes narrowed as he watched the helicopters fly ahead of them.
He thought Alex would slow. Would stop. Would turn the fucking truck around and drive in the opposite direction of the helicopters that rounded the corner ahead.
He didn’t.
If anything, he went faster.
“You’re both fucking insane,” he managed to say.
“It’s a good thing you’re not a doctor, because insanity isn’t a medical diagnosis,” Art said. “You should stick with what you know.”
They rounded the corner.
Down the road, maybe a quarter of a mile, was the blockade.
The highway wasn’t anything big. One lane in either direction. Most of the time in the winter, the roads were closed to everyone but residents. They were plowed when the county could get to it. Sometimes the towns in the higher elevations were cut off for a couple of weeks at a time before the roads became passable again. But the people were used to it. They knew the risks of living so far into the Cascades.
Both sides of the road were blocked off. Four Humvees—two on each side of the road—faced them, headlights on. More soldiers stood in front of them, rifles raised. The left side gave way to nothing, a drop-off of at least five hundred feet to the forest below. The right was a sharp rock face. There was no way they’d be able to get up and through.
The helicopters had made a wide arc, circling back and hovering a dozen yards above the Humvees. Stunted bushes on the rock whipped back and forth from the force of the spinning rotor blades.
There was no way through.
“We’re going to die,” Nate said. “We’re definitely going to die.”
“We’re not going to die,” Alex snapped at him.
He didn’t slow.
He sped up.
Nate glanced over in shock to see the odometer climbing above forty.
“Art,” Alex said. “We only get one shot at this.”
“I know,” she said, voice dreamy and soft. She climbed to her knees, leaning forward, hands flat against the dashboard.
“Hold on.” Alex glanced at Nate, a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.
“To what?” Nate demanded. “What are you—”
The truck began to vibrate.
Nate could feel it down to his bones. It felt like his skin was crawling.
There was a pulse of something that emanated from the little girl sitting next to him. He thought he saw the air ripple in front of the truck, hurtling toward the blockade. They were so close that he could see the whites of the soldiers’ eyes, and he tried to look away, tried to steel himself for the impact and—
The rippling air struck the soldiers in front of the Humvees. They were knocked off their feet, spinning into the air, rifles falling from their hands. It looked as if they were floating when the rippling something struck two of the Humvees behind them. The hoods crumpled in a shriek of metal they could hear from inside the cab of the truck. The windshields cracked, then shattered, chunks of glass spiraling off, glittering in the sunlight.
They were so fucking close and—
The two Humvees shot up into the air, striking the bottoms of the helicopters, causing them to list alarmingly close to each other. The rotor blades began to brush together, sparks shooting out and raining down.
They hit the blockade a split second later.
Nate looked out his window.
It was a storm of steel and fire. The passenger-side mirror snapped off when it struck one of the remaining Humvees. There was the screech of metal against metal. Nate jerked his head away from the door, sure the passenger window would break.
It didn’t.
One moment they were in the middle of the blockade surrounded by fire and men spinning off through the air, and the next they were through.
He turned to look out the back window in time to see the Humvees that had crashed into the helicopters fall back onto the ground and explode with a dull fwump, shrapnel flying, black smoke curling. The helicopters were spinning out of control, looking as if they were about to collide at any moment.
And then the truck rounded another corner and the destruction behind them disappeared.
Nate turned back around slowly.
Art rolled her shoulders slightly as she pushed back from the dashboard.
Alex said something to her, and she responded, but for the life of him, Nate couldn’t make out a single word they said.
His focus was on the two small, perfect handprints embedded into the dashboard.
They drove on.
chapter ten
It was dusk before he found his voice again.
They’d been driving for hours, mostly in silence. They’d passed by Green Creek without stopping. There was a turnoff for another town called Abby, but it was thirty miles off to the east. They hadn’t seen another car in a long while.
At one point—and Nate couldn’t be sure when because time had lost all meaning for him—Alex had demanded Nate hand over his cell phone. He didn’t argue. He didn’t even think to argue. Once Alex had it, he rolled down his window and tossed the phone outside.
Nate thought about arguing with him, demanding to know why the hell he’d done that. Because Nate needed his phone, right? How else would Ruth know he was alive? How else would Big Eddie call him after hearing of the mess up on the mountain?
But he couldn’t even find the strength to do that, because it hit him then that those were the only two people in the world that would even know he was gone. No one else would care. That… didn’t hurt as much as it should have. He figured it was because he was numb.
It probably didn’t help that Art sat between them, staring at him and barely blinking.
Sometimes he stared right back, trying to see something, anything that would show him how full of shit she was. How full of shit both of them were. But he couldn’t find a thing. Not that he knew what he was looking for, anyway.
Other times he ignored her outright, knuckles white as he held on to his own knees, knowing there’d probably be bruises later but not caring in the slightest. He had to hold on to something to keep from flying apart.
He tried to form thoughts. Some sense of order. But everything came in fragments, shards of a whole he couldn’t quite put together. He knew the way the world worked. He’d seen its teeth, its sharp edges, but there was an order to it. There was a reason. Maybe he wouldn’t always know said reason, but he was at least comfortable in the knowledge that it was there. All he had to do was dig for it. Ask the questions that needed to be asked. Push the people that needed to be pushed.
