Boom.
Every window in the lodge rattled, dust rained from a few sections of the ceiling, and the lights flickered in their gold-colored chandeliers. People screamed and ran helter-skelter in all directions, the ball room a blur of colorful clothing, as abject panic overrode any sense of discipline. Somewhere outside, the reserve’s tornado siren blared to life, its high, shrill wail adding to the chaos. Glasses shattered on the polished wooden floorboards, the radio continued to sing on, abandoned by the DJ, and everyone shoved their way to the doors like a herd of cattle at the slaughterhouse.
I slipped on a wine slick left by someone’s broken champagne flute, and cast around for either Jamie, or Chris. There were too many people, and my heart pounded with the dreadful knowledge that I was running out of time by a matter of seconds.
Where do I go? Those rockets could level this entire building. Is there anywhere safe?
Unable to pick out my friends from the horde, I simply let myself be swept away with them, and fumbled through the doors of the lobby, out to the cherry grove.
Under the darkening sky, shadows of people ran back and forth through the little streets of New Wilderness, some heading for the battlements in expectation of an attack, others fleeing for any building that they thought might give them cover. A huge cloud of black smoke roiled just beyond the perimeter wall, and more detonations erupted in the fields and pastureland like geysers of fire. My ears rang with the deafening explosions, and I tasted the acidic burned rocket fuel on the wind, heard tiny plink-plinks all around me as bits of debris and shrapnel rained down from the plumes.
“This way!” A worker girl darted past me, joining a swarm of others with buckets in their hands. “One of the cabins is on fire!”
I could see the flames leaping from where I stood, and agonized shrieks carried on the wind. My stomach twisted as I recognized the sound of people burning, screeching as their skin melted, trapped within the blaze.
A kid. There’s a kid in there.
Pumping my arms to run as fast as I could, I joined the throng, and wound my way into a line that stretched from the visitor’s center to the gray wooden cabins on the other side of the lodge. Various plastic, wood, and metal pails already made their way up and down the column, sloshing cold water from the spigot onto me as I hefted each one to the next person. More rockets whistled down from the sky overhead, and we ducked every time an explosion went off, unsure if the next would land right on top of us. The dirt shuddered under my new shoes, so much so that I almost fell over at times from the shockwave, and a few car alarms began to go off in some of the parked vehicles.
Minutes felt like hours, my arms ached, but I refused to slow, everyone in the bucket line throwing everything they had into the fight. The flames began to shrink, but the pitiful screams of the victims petered off in a way that told me our efforts were in vain. It hurt in my chest to think about it, and the line around me slowed as morale sank among the fire fighters.
“Hannah? Hannah Brun?”
I looked up from swinging another heavy water bucket to the girl beside me and found two men in ranger’s garb waiting with rifles in hand. “Yeah?”
At my confirmation, one of them reached over to take me by the arm, and they guided me away from the procession toward the opposite side of the parking lot.
“Sean sent for you.” One of the men explained, their faces hidden by black bandanas pulled over their noses and mouths. “We have to go into lockdown, and you’re supposed to come with us.”
Thank God.
Relieved that there might be somewhere safe to go after all, I tried to peer at their faces in hopes of receiving some kind of update on our situation. “Have you guys seen Jamie Lansen? Or Chris Dekker? They were both with me, but I can’t find them.”
“Our orders are to get you to Sean.” The other man barked, and they marched on with me toward the road leading to the mechanical garage. “The other two will be fine on their own.”
My brow furrowed, since I couldn’t see why I’d be more important to Sean than anyone else. Come to think of it, I didn’t remember ever seeing our guys wearing black bandanas in the fort, or on patrol. Was this some kind of uniform change I hadn’t been told about? Granted, I’d been gone for days, but it still struck me as odd.
In the distance, a tall figure ran with a group of men for the front gate, and I recognized the muscular, super-hero physique.
“There!” I pointed and started to sprint for the group. “I see Sean, he’s right—”
Wham.
A rifle butt collided with the back of my head, pain flashed through my skull, and I went down in a pile of dust and blue cloth.
My hands were jerked behind my back, cold metal clicked over my wrists, and a sticky strip of tape was plastered over my mouth. A white cotton pillowcase slid over my face, and a few wraps of tape wound around my bare ankles.
Panic-stricken, I tried to scream, to thrash, but they just picked me up by my arms like a suitcase and dragged me into the night.
A trap. This was a trap, and I fell for it. What on earth do they want me for?
Suspended in their rough hands, I bit at the sour tape in fear, and tried not to think about how helpless I was in this thin blue dress. I didn’t even have my knife, and one of my shoes slipped off my foot as we went, ensuring if somehow I did get away, I’d be running with one bare foot.
Crunching gravel gave way to a squeaking metal door, and a chorus of tense voices shouting to each other inside a confined space. I smelled machine oil through the pillowcase over my eyes, and my heart skipped a beat.
The mechanical garage. I was in Ranger headquarters. Why were rangers kidnapping me?
In another sharp jolt, the world swung upright, and cold flexible plastic planted itself against my calves. More rope cinched around my torso to keep me still, and someone added more tape to bind my legs to the chair. From the footsteps, chattering tones, and radio squelches, there seemed to only be around ten people in the building, far fewer than the entire ranger force. Had we been infiltrated by ELSAR? Was this some form of banditry from the outside? Or were these just a handful of people who had decided to make the most of a terrible situation by carrying off the first unsuspecting girl they could find?
Confused and frightened, I sat and listened to the jumble of voices barking to one another against the backdrop of exploding rockets outside.
“Exterior sectors reporting no ground advance, sir.”
“Tell all perimeter teams to maintain their positions until I give the stand-down. Colby, what’s the status on our interior sweep?”
“We have three teams still out, sir, but no sign of the item yet.”
“Keep looking and have them shoot anyone who tries to leave. If we don’t find it in the next fifteen minutes, I’ll initiate the Phoenix Protocol.”
The chair jolted under me, and I realized I was tied to a wheelchair, the unseen person rolling me to a quiet place where the soft click of a door cut off most of the ruckus behind me.
Off came the pillowcase, and I stared through bleary eyes at a cramped back office.
It was small, no bigger than most industrial storerooms, with a triangular folded flag in a glass case on a shelf beside a photo of a smiling young man in a desert-camo uniform. The furniture was sparse and bare, a desk with a few chairs and a metal wall-locker in the corner, everything just-so, with no hint of clutter anywhere. Seated behind the desk, a familiar figure in green camouflage fatigues with a gray ponytail watched me through suspicious eyes, and two other men flanked the door behind me, weapons at low ready.
“Her forehead’s bleeding.” Carter scowled and jabbed a finger at me. “I distinctly remember saying soft force only. She’s 130lbs soaking wet, you couldn’t bring her in without bashing her on the head?”
One of the guards shifted on his boots uncomfortably, even as another detonation shook dust from the suspended lamp overhead, the light bulb stuttering. “She tried to run, sir. It was my fault. It won’t happen again.”
“See that it doesn’t.” Carter hissed and rose to circle the desk to face me.
I gulped, tasted the glue from the tape over my lips, and fought the urge to vomit in anxiety. This was it; the counter-revolution. Carter had seized his moment, and now I was the first prisoner of our very own civil war. Would he shoot me? Would they torture me? What good would that do? I didn’t know anything important, I didn’t have anything of value . . .
Oh yes you do. Or rather, you did, before you handed the box off to the Ark River troopers. That’s what those ‘interior teams’ are searching for.
Carter leaned down, and his gray eyes examined me with critical analysis. “Listen to me and listen good. I’m going to take this tape off, and you’re going to act normal. We don’t have time for hysterics, understand?”
I nodded and tried not to sneeze as a wisp of dust curled into my nose, another bomb shaking the ground with titanic force.
He peeled the tape from my face with more care than I expected and dragged a metal folding chair over to sit down in front of me. “I want answers, short and simple. You play games, or tell me lies, and this becomes a whole lot harder than it has to be. So, tell me the truth; where is the beacon?”
“Adam and Eve have it.” I shivered from how cold the wheelchair felt against my bare legs, and tried to think of a survival strategy for my bizarre situation. “I gave it to them, you saw it at the meeting.”
His eyes searched my face, and Carter’s eyes narrowed. “And after? Just now? Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t know where it is.”
I don’t get it. Why doesn’t he just ask Adam? Why even involve me?
“I don’t know.” I forced myself to meet his gaze, the cuffs digging into my wrists. “I swear, I really don’t. I haven’t seen the box since the meeting.”
Silence. Nothing but the scattered boom-boom of rockets outside, which were becoming less and less frequent.
Carter rocked to his feet, and moved behind me, a flash of steel in his hand.
My blood ran cold, and I sucked in a deep breath, ready for pain, for some kind of horrible torture that would end in my disfigurement.
Snick.
The tape around my ankles loosed, the rope holding me to the chair fell away, and calloused hands unlocked the cuffs from my wrists.
“You two can go. Keep searching for the beacon. Let me know the minute it’s found.” Carter waved his men off, and the two guards gave each other perplexed looks, before leaving and shutting the office door behind them.
He slouched down in his seat, and Carter put away his knife with a nod at the way I rubbed at my wrists. “Sorry about that, sometimes the boys get overzealous. I’ve been training this little group in secret for the day New Wilderness faced existential crisis. They’re a good crew, drawn from every faction, ready to march the moment I give the word.”
Swallowing, I debated what to do, knowing that resistance would be futile with the guards just outside, and Carter had at least twenty pounds on me. “To take over before the elections.”
But to my surprise, Carter shook his head, and threw both hands up in the air with a frustrated growl. “For crying out loud! People still believe that bullshit line from the Worker party machine? Think about it kid; if I wanted to use force to regain control, would I have let 50 armed foreigners inside our walls? This is bigger than the crummy elections. It’s about winning the war, once and for all.”
“By taking the beacon?” I hugged both arms around myself to ward off the cool air inside the office, and tried to decide whether continuing to challenge him was a good idea or a bad one. “It needs a special code to activate, there’s no way we can—”
“It’s been stolen.” He cut me off flatly and gauged my reaction with a weary frown. “Just after the airstrike started. Someone inside our walls waited until those rockets started falling, and they cut the throats of whatever guards the forest people had on the item. It was the first place I ran to check, and as soon as I saw it was gone, I put us into lockdown.”
What?
I blinked at him, stunned, unwilling to believe it. “But . . . that’s not possible, how could someone do that? I mean, wouldn’t they be seen?”
“Not if they knew the rockets were coming.” Carter’s eyes gleamed at my renewed attention, and he leaned forward in a conspiratorial tone. “Think about it. Did you see where most of that ordinance landed? One cabin got hit, the rest fell outside. We lost some corn, a few cows, and one building, but nothing to justify all that ammo ELSAR just used. Sure, maybe the Breach screwed up their guidance system, but wouldn’t it be awful convenient if someone called in a phony airstrike to distract everyone?”
As terrifying as it was, that made sense. I’d seen what the mobile rocket artillery of ELSAR could do to an entire town, and yet only one of our little wooden cabins had been burned to cinders. If it had in fact been a guidance failure due to the electromagnetic stuff in the atmosphere, then why did all the other rockets land in perfect order outside the fort?
“So, what are you saying?” I shifted closer in my chair and found myself hanging on his every word.
“There’s a spy inside our walls.” Carter flicked his eyes at the door as the rockets outside fell silent, leaving behind only the wailing tornado siren, and shouts of distant crowds. “Someone who has been feeding information back to ELSAR. We captured some classified documents from one of their patrols a while back, with detailed files on various creatures bearing names that we had come up with. Now for that to happen once or twice, sure, maybe it’s a coincidence, but every time? Mark my words, they’ve got a mole within our ranks, and if they can pull this off, what else could they make happen?”
Gnawing on my lower lip, I tasted the waxy lipstick, and did my best to claw through the blur of thoughts in my head. Everything had been turned upside down. We weren’t as safe here as I’d thought, the elections were the least of our problems, and Carter was talking more like some jaded intelligence operative rather than a vicious dictator. In the movies, villains were easy to hate, easy to disagree with due to their cruelty and lust for total domination, but somehow this man had wormed his way inside my head, all by telling me the truth.
“But who could it be?” I refused to give in and attempted once more to poke holes in Carter’s paranoid accusations. “Everyone knows everyone here, and no rangers ever go out alone.”
“And yet some of them came to us alone.” Carter folded his hands in resolute patience and met my eye. “Look, you seem like a good kid, and if I’m being honest, I believe you when you say you’re innocent. But do you understand how rare that is here? No one can be trusted, Hannah, no one. ELSAR has deep enough pockets to buy anyone’s loyalty, in any faction, any position, from the highest, to the lowest.”
“None of the people I know would do that.” I crossed my arms in defiance, not so much because I thought I was right, but more to keep the nagging thought at bay that maybe, just maybe, Rodney Carter was.
He seemed to pick up on my failing confidence, and Carter shrugged with stoic indifference. “Oh really? There’s no one here that comes to mind? Think. Who do you know that arrived here out of the blue, on his own, with the perfect outlandish story to keep people from asking too many questions?”
It’s not possible.
My eyes widened, and I fought to breathe. “No. Chris isn’t a spy, there’s no way.”
“I get it, you like him.” Carter sighed, and his eyes slid past me to gaze far away in a ghost of something like fondness that decorated his weathered face for only a moment. “I was young, and in love once too. But love blinds you to duty, and Dekker is one of the few here who isn’t from Barron County. He’s military age, single, with no close relatives we can contact to verify his information. He’s got a suspicious amount of weapons proficiency for a civilian, plentiful mutant knowledge, and somehow managed to survive all those days out in the zone by himself? I don’t buy it. He’s lying, Hannah. I’d bet my bottom dollar that Christopher Dekker isn’t who he says he is.”
I hesitated, Chris’s handsome face before my mind’s eye, a ripple of doubt flooding through me. All the attention he’d paid to me, the generous gift I’d left with him on the deck of the lodge, the times his quick-thinking had saved me . . . could it have all been a clever ruse? A spy so handsome, so charismatic, so overt that he was covert, sliding right under my radar, and into my naïve little heart?
But he seemed so nice . . . then again, why wouldn’t a spy be?
Sensing my misgivings, Carter pressed the issue, his raspy voice in a low whisper. “I’ll bet they all told you I’m some evil dictator wannabe, huh? A fascist old coot who wants to rule the world. Funny how they left out the part where I donated half the weapons, ammo, and survival rations here from my militia’s stash. That gear took us years to collect, a fortune we’ll never get back. Or what about the fact that our militia boys took the most casualties the first days of the war, going house-to-house, pulling families out before the freaks could get to em? Those same families then turned around and voted against us the second they were safely behind the wall. I can guarantee that no one mentioned my three-strike policy, where I gave people multiple chances to behave before putting them on the firing line. No, they don’t want to say that, because God forbid people wake up and smell the coffee.”
He thrust himself to his feet, and Carter paced about the room, hands on his hips, brooding aloud as he faced the picture beside the folded flag on his shelf. “My boy got killed in Afghanistan, during a firefight in Kandahar. It was the worst day of my life when we got the news. But he understood the risks, just like I did in Desert Storm. We’re at war, this isn’t a game, and it’s not the time for political nonsense. O’Brian throws a fit every time my boys clean out a nest of mutants because she wants to gawk at them, but none of her pencil-pushers ever go on patrol. Sanderson knows more about engines than combat, and the only reason he’s in charge of anything is because he’s good at charming people with his simple blue-collar manners. Only Sean has a lick of sense, and even then, he still thinks he’s a cop on the beat, and not a guerilla fighting for his life. I didn’t lead because I wanted command; I led because I’m the only one fit for the job.”
I squirmed in my seat and dared to squeak out a final protest. “You . . . you were going to shoot Jamie.”
Carter’s face softened at that, and he looked down at his hands, as if he could see the blood on them, and had yet to find a way to wash it off. “Sacrifice is not giving up something you hate, but things that you cherish, all in the name of a greater good. She reminds me a lot of my granddaughter, strong, sensible, ambitious. The day Jamie Lansen refused to obey orders, I gave her a choice . . . and I’m giving you one right now.”
He marched around behind the desk to pull another folded black bandana from his drawer and offered it to me. “As head of your faction, I’m proud to say you did a damn fine job out there, by all accounts. You’re also the closest to Dekker. He’ll trust you. Join me, and when we catch our spy, I’ll give you Lansen’s old job, as a member of my interior guard. We can win this war together, Hannah, save so many lives, but you have to pick a side.”
I froze, my eyes locked on the cloth bandana, and wrestled with myself, heart ramming against my ribs. Could I refuse? Carter had made it clear that he made no qualms about shooting anyone who got in the way of the ‘greater good’. Now that he’d revealed his knowledge of a spy to me, could I really expect to just walk out of here unscathed? Yet, what would happen if I joined him? If he marched on the Assembly with his secret army, and I stood amongst them, I’d be betraying Jamie, Chris, and everyone who had been so kind to me ever since I’d arrived at New Wilderness. I didn’t want to arrest people or put them against a wall. But I didn’t want to die either.
I can’t shoot an innocent person. Then again, I already shot that one soldier. But that was different, he didn’t give me a choice . . .
“Well?” Carter eyed me, his face set in a grave stare, one handing holding out the bandana, the other resting on the holstered .45 automatic in his belt.
Clearing my throat, I sucked in a deep breath, and dug my thumbnail into my leg through the thin fabric of my dress. “I—”
Bang-bang-bang.
Gunshots rang out on the other side of the door, and voices shouted back and forth in the turmoil of a firefight. Bullets sliced through the walls of the office, chattered up the wall, and we both dove for the floor on instinct.
Someone wailed in pain, and bodies thudded on the concrete of the shop.
“Hannah!” A voice called out over the staccato. “Hannah, where are you?”
Chris.
My heart leapt, and I opened my mouth to scream, but Carter clamped his hand over it to yank me back behind the desk.
I struggled, my foot caught the wheelchair to send it crashing onto its side, and boots drummed on the cement toward the office door.
“Carter!” Chris bellowed from the other side of the door, his voice dripping with a visceral rage. “Let her go! You let her go, or I’ll take you apart!”
Shoving me down behind the cover of the wooden desk, Carter straightened up, and yanked his pistol out to point it at the door, his gray eyes wild. “I know it’s you Dekker! I know it! You’re going to get what’s coming to you!”
Whether Chris understood his words or not, I heard a furious heel connect with the office door, the cheap plywood bending inward from the force. One more blow would break it clean open, but Carter stood ready to send a bullet right through Chris the instant it did.
No. No more. I won’t be part of this.
Pulling my legs under myself, I waited until the door crumpled under a second kick and threw myself forward.
Bang. Bang-bang!
Carter’s pistol let out a burst of flame toward the ceiling, and a rifle to my left spat two rounds in rapid succession.
I tumbled to the floor, my fingers clawing at Carter’s fatigue jacket, and squeezed my eyes shut to await the searing pain of realizing I was hit.
Carter coughed, and I opened my eyes to find myself face to face with him. Hot red blood trickled down the front of my dress, but it was Carter’s wrinkled countenance that twisted in pain, a bullet having caught him just under the ribs.
His hand scabbled at his collar with failing strength, and Carter tugged free a black cord from around his neck.
“Take it.” He gurgled broken sentences, teeth bubbling over with frothy red blood as he began to choke on a punctured lung, and Carter pressed the object into my startled hand. “More important than beacon. Don’t . . . trust . . . anyone . . .”
His clammy fingers slid out of mine, and Rodney Carter slumped to the floor.
Oh Hannah, what have you done?
Someone fell to their knees beside me, and two strong arms scooped me off the cold concrete.
“Are you okay?” Chris held me by both shoulders to search for wounds, his blue eyes frantic in their flight over my disheveled frame. “Talk to me, are you in pain anywhere? Did he hurt you?”
All the adrenaline left me, and stars danced before my eyes as the gravity of what I’d just survived set in.
Relieved, I flung my arms around his neck and let Chris hold me tight. “No, I’m fine, I-I’m okay.”
More rangers, workers, and even a few researchers flooded into the mechanical garage in various state of arms, but I couldn’t focus on any of them. Instead, I wrapped myself around Chris like a lifeline, and buried my face in his shoulder, not wanting to meet his eye. He’d rescued me, just being in his embrace made me feel a million times safer, but I couldn’t shake the icy prickles of suspicion that wove their way through the folds of my mind. He’d gunned down half the conspirators, including Rodney Carter, all by himself. He’d somehow known where I was, knew to come find me, that Carter had me hostage. Chris had somehow known . . . and I hadn’t been able to find him after spotting the rockets.
In my hand, I gripped the secret Carter had entrusted to me, out of sight of everyone else, and braced myself against a river of horrid unease.
Who are you, Christopher Dekker?