At the end of the long hallway, we reached a door with the number 14 etched into the golden-brown woodgrain, and Jamie raised her fist to knock.
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
A man’s voice rang out from the other side, and Jamie froze, the two of us exchanging glances, without saying a word.
“We’re not going to stoop to their level.” Another male voice, somewhat deeper, and more composed replied. “There are over 5,000 innocent people relying on those humanitarian convoys. We already screwed up big time with the whole Collingswood fiasco, and—”
“That wasn’t my fault!” The other man seemed irate, shouting louder and louder with a nasally voice that reminded me of my alcoholic uncle. “The plan was working, it would have worked, if the herd hadn’t turned the wrong way. For God’s sake, Sean, I can’t predict the future.”
“Using mutants was always unacceptable.” The man called Sean replied, his tone carrying an icy warning that I felt even on the other side of the door. “And so is attacking the only thing keeping Black Oak alive. It’s not an option, Rodney. Leave the aid trucks alone.”
A chair scraped, and angry feet shuffled toward the door.
“You’re going to get us all killed, playing clean while they fight dirty.” The first man hissed, with venom in his words. “Those mercs of theirs are out there right now, committing more war crimes than Assad, and you want me to just sit by while you—”
At this point, Jamie dared to rap her knuckles on the door three loud times, though I noted that she seemed paler than before.
If she’s that nervous, should I even be here?
The door swung open, to reveal a lanky man with a silver-colored ponytail and braided Viking-style beard, clothed in well-worn army fatigues scowling at us. Inside the room, another man sat behind a brown wooden desk crammed into one corner, wearing a black New Wilderness polo shirt. He had darker hair, his square jaw clean-shaven with a much more muscled physique, reminding me of a famous Superman actor that Carla drooled over. Both looked surprised to see us, though the one behind the desk seemed happier about it than the man by the door.
“Ah, Jamie, perfect timing.” The dark-haired man waved us in, with a thin smile on his weary face. “Rodney, you may go.”
The man by the door glared at him but stalked past us out the door without so much as a word.
Jamie stood in front of the desk and snapped a quick salute. “Evening, sir.”
Behind the desk, the man let out a weary sigh and rubbed the bridge of his perfect nose with one hand. “Jamie, I told you, you don’t have to do that for me. That was Randy’s thing.”
“Of course, sir.” Jamie lowered her arm but maintained her position of attention. “I just wanted to check the new recruit in with you before I set her up for the night.”
At that, he rose from behind the desk, and the man offered me a hand with a handsome smile. “Sean Hamond, Head of Operations.”
Don’t stare, don’t stare, don’t stare . . .
“H-Hannah Brun.” I sputtered, unsure if I should salute as well, and tried not to devour him with my eyes.
He motioned for us to sit in a few chairs positioned across from him. Mine was a soft low back armchair with green velvet lining, deliciously soft against my back. I focused on that, enjoying the comfort to keep my mind off my nerves, and social awkwardness.
“I take it Carter still thinks he made the right call?” Jamie glanced at the door, her eyes narrowing with disapproval. “You’d think after the emergency election he could have taken a hint.”
Sean pushed a few loose papers into a folder on his desk. “He regrets it more than he lets on. I think if Rodney Carter could regain command, he’d do anything to make up for the massacre . . . even if it meant doing worse to win the war.”
Stretching in her seat until the lower vertebrae of Jamie’s back clicked softly, she rolled both eyes. “Randy would have ripped him a new one for—”
“Randy’s gone.” Sean’s voice fell into a sad, hollow tone, and he held Jamie’s gaze with a grim sadness that I could almost feel in the air. “And so is Collingswood. It doesn’t matter now.”
At that, Jamie fell silent, her own face taking on a somewhat apologetic wince. I chewed the inside of my cheek, curious, but unwilling to speak. I felt like a fly on the wall, a stranger in someone else’s’ house who didn’t have the slightest clue what was going on.
“So, Miss Brun.” Sean’s warm smile returned, and he laced his fingers together to study me from his chair. “How’re you feeling? We were pretty worried when the patrol picked you up. Most people don’t survive run-ins with the local wildlife like that.”
“I’m okay.” I picked at my thumbnail and tried not to remember the way the moon-eyed people had grinned down at me.
“She killed a Brain-Shredder.” Jamie burst like a little kid who couldn’t keep a secret, her green eyes glittering.
Sean’s tired face stretched into an amused, disbelieving smile. “No kidding?”
I literally fell down and pushed a button.
My ears burned. I wasn’t used to so much praise, certainly not over something that I’d done by accident. “It was luck, really.”
“It always is.” Sean rubbed at a scar on his left arm that looked as if something had grazed him, perhaps a bullet, though I was no expert on such things. “You know, the first time I saw a freak was in that same area. The camping turnoff where your friends left their tents, actually. Thank God there was only one Echo Spider tonight, and not six.”
Echo Spider?
Curiosity in my brain begged for answers, but other two had been pulled back into their own silent thoughts once more, leaving me marooned in the uncomfortable present. Not wanting to poke my nose into things that didn’t concern me just yet, I settled back into the cushions of my chair in silence and thought about how I wished I’d pestered Dr. O’Brian for another cup of water.
Once again, Sean fixed me in place with a stoney expression that made me feel like I was back in the police station in Louisville. “I need you to be as truthful as possible with me on everything. I can’t have people on my force who I don’t trust, and I can’t trust you if you lie to me. Do you understand?”
I nodded, glad that the desk obscured how much my knees were trembling.
“Tell me everything, from the start. Where you came from, why you’re here, the works. Be as thorough as you can.” He reclined in his chair, and Jamie watched me from hers, both of them curious, and somewhat wary.
Here goes nothing.
Recounting every detail I could think of, from the day Matt and Carla found the old map in the library to the moment the Brain-Shredder attacked, I kept both eyes on my lap in humiliated anxiety. Everyone here praised me like some kind of hero for merely surviving, and I felt stupid explaining that I was just a nobody camera girl who’d been dumb enough to follow her friends into a place she didn’t belong. I did my best not to tear up at the mention of Matt and Carla’s betrayal and had to pause a few times when I thought about the moon-eyed people, my stomach turning sick at the memory.
“Here.”
I looked up from stuttering at the end of my tale to find Sean had placed a can of lemon-lime soda in front of me.
“Figure you’ve earned it. Puppets are no joke, especially in numbers.” He poured himself a different drink from a fancy, amber-colored bottle, and offered a similar little glass to Jamie, who took it without question.
Sipping the fizzy beverage, I let my guts settle down, and shrugged. “Thanks. In the end, I blacked out after they found me, and woke up in the clinic. The other two ran all the way back to Cincinnati, so . . . that’s about it.”
Sean threw a glance at Jamie, his chin cupped in one hand. “You were there, right? In your opinion, does all this check out?”
“100 percent.” Jamie downed her shot glass and stifled a cough. “Her ID seems legit, and her story makes sense. Besides, if ELSAR is getting desperate enough to send unarmed civvies in with nothing but a camera, then we’re doing way better than we thought.”
“ELSAR?” The word flew out of my mouth before I could stop myself, and I wanted to die of embarrassment at their combined looks my way.
Sean shook his head and made another reassuring smile. “It’s fine. I’m sure Jamie can fill you in on the details. For now, I’ll try and keep it short; did you see any soldiers in gray uniforms on your drive into Barron County?”
Tight-lipped I bobbed my head up and down, not wishing to open my mouth again and seem even more stupid than before.
“That was ELSAR.” His eyes hardened, and Sean leaned on his desktop with both elbows. “Mercenaries hired in by Sheriff Wurnauw to keep order around here. Trouble is, ‘keeping order’ means killing all of us, and taking over the park. We’ve been fighting them for months now.”
Mercenaries? In Ohio?
I frowned, my thoughts getting the better of me. “But, how come no one ever said anything? I mean, someone had to have known, or told the media, right? The government could intervene.”
Jamie snorted and picked a stray bur from her rifle sling. “I’d say they’re either in on it, or just don’t care. Wurnauw refuses to initiate an evacuation for the civilians, so there’s never enough people leaving to get attention. Besides, most of the world doesn’t even seem to know we exist.”
At that, my heart skipped a beat, Carla’s words from the car flashing through my mind.
Every time I type in ‘Barron County’ all that comes up is freaking Wisconsin.
For the first time ever, Matt and Carla had been right about a location, and yet this would be the one place they’d never get to show their followers . . . because unlike all the others, this one was the real deal.
“Anyway,” Sean tugged open a drawer, and paged through another folder, taking out a few blank forms. “The point is, Miss Brun, we probably won’t be able to get you out of here for quite a while. We can’t risk vehicles and rangers for one person, and ELSAR still has air superiority in the outer regions of the county. So, until such time as we can arrange your safe departure, you can stay here, and work alongside the rest of our crew.”
Jamie perked up a little and cleared her throat. “She can room with me.”
They exchanged a knowing look, and Sean made a slight shake of his head. “You can’t choose for her, Jamie.”
Fixing me with an insistent stare, Jamie gestured to me. “Do you want to scrub toilets and wash dishes?”
This feels like a dangerous trick question.
“Um . . .” I wracked my brain, unsure of how to answer.
“See?” Jamie cut me off with a happy chirp and met Sean’s unconvinced look with a pleading expression. “She’d be wasted in the kitchens. Come on, I’ll teach her everything I know, and besides, everywhere else is full.”
Sean seemed to contemplate Jamie’s words, and turned to face me, his tone deadly serious. “You’ve got three basic choices, Brun. You can work with our Researchers, Workers, or the Rangers. The first two are the safest. They stay inside the wall as much as possible, and never leave without an armed escort. The Rangers are the most dangerous. It’s the department with the highest casualty rate, and there’s a good chance that if you’re captured, ELSAR will torture and execute you.”
Torture?
Paralyzed, I chewed the inside of my lip, and fought a vicious war within myself. Everything about the rangers sounded terrifying, and all I wanted to do was find a quick way home to mom and dad. But Jamie had rescued me, and she’d treated me better than any other friend I’d ever had. I didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Hey.”
I looked up to find Sean staring into my eyes, with a look halfway between pleading, and sympathetic.
“We can find room for you elsewhere. No one would blame you for choosing a safe option.”
Come on Hannah, be decisive. You always let other people choose for you. Take a freaking chance for once.
“Rangers.” I made myself look Sean in the eye and drew a deep breath. “I’ll go with the Rangers.”
Jamie beamed, and Sean granted me a surprised half-smile.
“Okay.” He pushed a few papers my way, along with a ball-point pen. “If you’re sure, sign the dotted line. But only if you’re sure.”
Heart roaring in my ear, I scratched down my name.
Jamie rose to her feet, and I mirrored her, doing my best to imitate the salute she gave to Sean. “I’ll get her settled in, sir.”
Sean returned our salute with a quick, less rigid one. “You’re responsible for her, Jamie. From now on, she goes everywhere you go.”
“No problem.” Jamie headed in excitement for the door, and I followed.
“Hannah.”
I turned to find Sean holding something black and square out in his hand. My eyes aught the faint white stitching, the plastic collar buttons, and the words beneath a logo with a rhino head on it.
New Wilderness Wildlife Reserve.
“We’ve lost a lot of good people.” He handed me the uniform shirt, melancholy cloaking his tone in a way that made him seem older than the superman-handsome person I’d been passively ogling. “When you wear this, you’re making a promise that they didn’t die in vain. I expect nothing less than your best, every single day, understand?”
Taking the silky black shirt, I ran one thumb over the white nylon stitching. “I won’t let you down.”
With that, I darted out the door after Jamie, casting another glance back to placate the urge to take in Sean’s chiseled features one more time.
Instead, I watched him slump down behind his desk and pull a small newspaper clipping from the top drawer. I only had a moment, and from the angle I couldn’t see clearly what it was, but I thought I saw the silhouette of a slender red-haired girl in an office setting, smiling for a professional photo. The way Sean held the picture, as if it were a bird’s egg, a long sigh racking his broad shoulders, sent shivers through me as I recalled Jamie’s words.
When you lose three-quarters of your population, the world gets a whole lot darker.