From The Ashes (Life After War) (74 page)

She spun away before Adrian could ask when.

Kenn got a whiff of Cara as she moved away and couldn't stop the vague interest in her ass as she walked. Nice. Too bad.

Adrian picked out things the others missed. The females had baskets of dried and drying meat in the corners, telling Adrian they'd been allowed to operate down here for a while. He wondered what they'd used to barter with. They also had weapons, which meant the kids might, as well. Adrian narrowed in on the carpet-layered walls and wondered how many exits they had hidden.

Adrian stared at the clerks, picking up their resentment, but also their concern for his son. Conner had his own army here. Did he know it?

“
They won't fight. Not unless I agree to Cara's deal,” Conner stated lowly as they waited for the stone door to be opened. “She wants a marriage and to merge the kids into their group. Without telling the Major, of course.”

Conner led them into the darkness without any change of tone. “I've considered it, but they kill the males, so I had to tell her no.”

“
How long until we get to wherever we're going?” Kenn asked.

“
I'll handle that,” Adrian directed. “You give our newest friends a surprise.”

Kenn eagerly pulled the black box from his pocket. He powered it on and didn't hesitate to flip the switch.

Beep!

Kenn held up a hand. “Five... Four...”

He curled a finger down with each number he counted.

They all braced when his hand was a fist.

Silence...

“
They found it, maybe,” Kyle said.

Booooommmmm!

The explosion echoed for miles in the apocalyptic stillness, rattling the ground as it went.

Kenn laughed. “Boo-ya!”

The repercussion hit the tunnels an instant later.

“
Come on!” Conner shouted, picking up that fast pace again.

The team followed, hoping the dust would be the only thing to fall on them as the sewers groaned under the pressure.

7

“
What are those?” Kevin asked when Conner's pace allowed breathing. “They smell funny.”

The floors were clear of debris and the dead as Conner led them deeper, but gained a few inches of murky, reeking water that none of them wanted against their skin.

The boy had slowed back down when he was sure the tunnel wasn't coming down, but none of the team were exactly relaxed as they followed a mere teenager through the nasty gloom.

“
Those are Kudzu vines. The city used to spray to keep them from taking over. They grow super-fast anyway, but with all the water and no service crews to cut them, they’ve taken over most of these tunnels,” Conner stated.

The thick plants were twined throughout this part of the sewer tunnel, running along the walls like webs.

“
Not just underground, though, and not only here. A lot of cities were fighting Kudzu before the War,” Adrian informed them.

“
It’s mutating,” Angela guessed, peering closer as they came to another intersection, this one choked with the twining vines. “Don't they usually need sun?”

“
I think they have a new energy source,” Conner muttered.

He stepped high in a goofy way that had Eagles trying not to snicker. He had no idea how funny it looked.

“
We’ve found bones down here that aren’t people. It could be from the snakes, I guess, but I haven’t seen a single one in three months. I believe the vines are carnivorous now,” Conner stated matter-of-factly. “I won’t let the kids touch them.”

Adrian and Angela exchanged a horrified glance, and all of the Eagles immediately began to take those higher, funny steps over the vines.

“
Are there rats down here?”

“
Yes.” Conner walked faster. “Also, spiders–big ones.”

“
Are they mutated, too?”

“
Some, but most are on the eastern side, where the water built up and went stagnant. Some of those tunnels would require a canoe. The water’s over halfway to the ceiling.”

“
What keeps these tunnels from flooding?” Kyle asked.

“
They slope upward, towards the dam,” Adrian answered, moving to walk by Conner. It implied that he knew this city well.

When Adrian began asking questions, the rest of his group stayed close and quiet, searching the damp darkness around them.

“
Has anyone been up to the dam?”

Conner automatically adjusted his stride to match his father’s. “The adults talked about it at first, but I don’t think anyone actually went to check. I'm sure it's leaking. The place we swam through filled up after the War.”

“
How many ways into where your kids are?”

Clearly stoking Conner’s ego, Adrian listened with a trained ear to the son he was overjoyed to have found alive, and an instinctive ear to Angela as she searched the darkness around them.

“
A lot. These sewers run all under the city.”

“
Is there a cleared way out?”

Conner turned confidently at the next intersection. “Not that we know of. If there had been, I’m sure the adults would have sent us over it. At least then we would have had a purpose to them, provided a reason to be fed.”

Adrian continued with his details, employing a façade of indifference instead of the fury, the parent’s rage, that could easily obliterate this destroyed city with fire. “What about the enemy? Do they come down here?”

“
Not much, but when they do, it’s in big numbers. They say they're a new world militia, but we call them bounty hunters. Or assholes,” Conner muttered.

Adrian could feel Angela wanting to smile, and didn’t interrupt her mood. He knew how deadly bounty men could be. He would carry that heavy knowledge.

“
Is there something I should know?” Angela asked sharply.

Adrian’s lips curled. Apparently concrete didn’t put a damper on her gifts. “Where are they based?”

“
They took over Mansion Hill. Garret stays there, unless there’s a problem his crew can't handle alone.”

“
Does anyone fight them?”

“
Most of the parents fought and lost their lives. There was a rumor the Junction Bridge held, but it was a trap. The adults pushed us into the sewers when the bounty hunters came, hoping that at least a few of us might survive.”

Adrian’s throat stopped working, realizing now where the boy’s mother likely was. He had been hoping she'd survived, too. He hadn't been in love with Shannon, but he had cared enough to give her the son she'd been longing for.

“
What type of injuries do your people have?” Adrian asked, his manipulative words only a small part of it. He needed to reinforce Conner's leadership so the boy would get the others to come willingly.

“
If I tell you that, you might not take them.”

There was no answer to Conner’s hope, and the group behind him exchanged glances in the dark gloom.

Conner spun toward Adrian, stopping their convoy. “Say you’ll take them all! Even the three we think will die. Say it!”

“
We’ll take them all,” Adrian repeated tonelessly.

Conner’s shoulders sagged. “You’re probably lying. What do you need me to do?”

“
Ensure cooperation. Are they willing?”

Conner snorted, not looking up. He hadn't expected his father to have his own reader. He had to be careful. “They made me come out and save you from that trap. They can't wait to flee this underground hell.”

“
You don’t want to go?” Angela asked, surprised. “We offer safety.”

The teenager wore jeans and a long sleeve black shirt under a dark hoodie layered in months of crud. It was like looking at Adrian from a long time ago. Conner was roughly a third of his dad's weight and about even on Angela's height. Pale, filthy skin covered hard muscles, and a hood hid the hair they all knew would be like rippling wheat when clean.

Conner swiped at a wide cobweb and rubbed it down the side of his jeans. “There is no safe place or safe people. Most of the kids voted for me because I'm the oldest–they don't know who you are. We're keeping it that way.”

Conner propelled himself into the darkness with angry steps. “If you had come to her a month later, someone else would have won, and I'd be dead.”

Silence came as the team began to understand what that meant. Not all of them had realized who Conner was until now.

“
How much farther?” Kenn asked, distracting.

“
Twenty minutes,” Conner tossed back.

“
Wait. We’ve been underground for an hour?”

The males snickered, making Angela frown at herself as she pulled damp clothes away from irritated skin. She still had a long way to go when it came to being a soldier.

Not the goal
, Adrian thought, keeping a sharp ear on her thoughts for things her inexperienced gaze might miss.

“
When we get there, I’ll have to leave you alone for a few minutes, but I won’t be far,” Conner stated, slowing.

“
You’ll meet and tell them what you think?”

Conner finally looked at his father, feeling bitter, old. “I’ll tell them you’ve promised to take them all, no matter how sick or flawed.”

Adrian understood if he went back on that, Conner would convince his kids to run from them.

“
This is it.”

They came to a dead-end and helped Conner shove a large chunk of the wall to one side, exposing a narrow passage.

“
This was an escape route some convicts dug from the prison. Now, it’s our backdoor.”

As they went through, the Eagles verified that the crumbling bricks had indeed been gouged in millions of desperately taken swipes that appeared to have been made with forks, knives, sticks, and fingernails.

The passage was damp, making the floor into a slick trail of thick concrete-like mud that filled in their footprints almost as soon as they lifted their feet. Most of the letters on the door they came to were faded, gone, but there were enough left to warn them they’d better have their IDs ready.

“
When the guards found the bodies of the men who’d been snake-bit before they could dig through, they convinced the city council it would make a good stop on the Halloween tour.”

Conner pushed the door open to reveal a small, dingy holding cell that hadn’t been touched by a scrub or a prisoner for years. The toilet was red with rust, the bunk rotted through, and here, the floor was damp with a layer of that reeking sludge.

Conner swiped at the spider webs over the hall cell door before opening it, and they were all impressed as they realized the boy had brought them in a different way than he’d come out.

Another lesson he’d remembered
, Adrian thought.
Thank you for letting him live!

“
Wait here until I call. They're jumpy.”

The rusty door closed behind the boy, taking away some of their light.

Adrian and the team took up positions around the room, and Angela stayed close to the boss. Something didn't feel right.

“
You can come in now,” Conner called from the other side of the door.

Angela frowned, wishing she knew the boy better. As soon as he disappeared into the other room, her line into his mind had closed.

Adrian went first, using his hands to tell Kenn and Kevin to stay out here and alert.

Kenn watched the team file in through the door, trying to pick up any bits of conversation from the other occupants. Beside him, Kevin was doing the same.

Both men thought it odd to hear nothing from a room full of kids, but Kenn was instantly uneasy at Adrian being out of his sight.

“
Good job, son,” a deep voice praised in triumph. “He had no idea you were lying the whole time. Excellent.”

Thud!

“
Rookie lesson R!”

Adrian's roar meant trouble, and the two men followed their training–spinning off into the darkness to avoid capture.

Chapter Twenty Two

1

“
Shoot him.”

Conner hesitated to complete his betrayal, and Garret growled. “Finish it!”

Conner's thin shoulders slumped. He'd taken a risk, but hadn't seen a better choice. It was up to his dad now.