The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) (34 page)

“I’ll be fine.”

I looked to the others, who had stopped. Ahead, I saw a figure moving toward us in the shadows and froze. My eyes flitted to Greyson, and I knew he understood my meaning: Should we run back toward danger or stay and fight?

The figure approached closer, and we stood our ground. I saw Logan adjust her stance, readying for a fight. To my surprise, Greyson and Max followed suit. Greyson, the pacifist, the champion of human rights, was hunkering down and closing his fists.
What had happened to him in that prison?

I wasn’t prepared for a real fight. Amory stiffened his posture with a slight wince, but we both knew he wouldn’t stand a chance with his injuries. One good kick to the side would incapacitate him. I gripped his arm, preparing to drag him away.
 

I squinted and was surprised to see a familiar lilt in the stride of the person coming into view. I recognized his uneven gait and that bushy black beard.
Godfrey.

He clearly recognized us, but he didn’t make a move to raise the rifle in his hands.
 

“You all should get out of here while you can,” he said in a low voice. “
You
can stay and fight, if you like,” he amended, addressing Greyson. “We could sure use your help.”

“I’m staying with my friends,” Greyson said with a firm nod.

“Is there another way out of the city?” I asked.

“You didn’t hear it from me.” Godfrey’s eyes gleamed mischievously. “Follow the signs for the old George Washington Bridge. It hasn’t been used much since they built the S-X Expressway, but it’s still standing. Bound to be plenty of PMC around, so don’t do anything stupid.”

“They confiscated all our weapons,” Amory said through clenched teeth.

“Well, it’s going to be a long night for us. You’d be wise to lay low until this all dies down.”

“Will you go with us?” I asked. I felt a strange affinity for Godfrey. I’d underestimated the good in him, and I didn’t want him to be killed by the PMC.

He shook his head. “I’m no deserter. But you kids have no business in this. Get out while you still can. You might have a chance, even if this goes badly for us.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

He turned to Amory. “I’m sorry about what they did to you. Miles was out of line. I don’t care who your father is.” He shook his head again. “I’ve done a lot of awful things for freedom, but beating up on kids is not something I stand for.”

His gaze held Amory’s for a second longer than it should have, and then he cast another look around at the rest of us and took off down the street. He moved slowly with his limp, and I had the horrible feeling he wouldn’t make it through the fight against the PMC.

“We should get out of here,” said Greyson. “Find somewhere to hide out.” It seemed as though he’d gotten a taste of what the rebels were willing to do, and their cause had lost some of its appeal for him.

Nobody protested, and I was anxious to examine Amory’s head wound, so we took off down the street in the direction of the bridge. We stayed in the shadows as much as possible, but I still jumped every time I heard the rustle of a piece of trash in the breeze. The streets seemed to get dirtier and more derelict the farther we got from the main PMC buildings.

As we walked, I looked around for an abandoned pharmacy in the hope that I could find some materials to treat Amory’s wounds. He looked worse than he had earlier, but perhaps it was just the orangish light from the glow of the streetlamps.

We walked for what felt like miles, and I was worried Amory would not hold out much longer. As if answering my prayers, I saw a faded sign that read “Schulz Family Drug Store.” Greyson turned when I paused on the sidewalk, and he motioned for the others to stop.
 

“You guys stay here,” he said. “I’ll keep going a bit and see if I can find something to eat.”

I hesitated, unwilling to let him out of my sight. The look in my eyes must have given me away, because he sighed.
 

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “But we need to find food and water.”

I couldn’t argue with that, nor could anyone else. The fear and action had subdued my hunger pains, but now that we were out of immediate danger, I had to admit I was ravenously hungry. We hadn’t eaten for almost a whole day, and the running and excitement had left me parched with an empty stomach.

Max stepped protectively in front of Logan to peer through the front window into the abandoned store. I doubted if he could see anything between the darkness and the thick film of dust collected on the smeared windows, and Logan certainly didn’t need to be protected, but I couldn’t help smiling inwardly at this gesture.
 

He pulled on the door, but it was locked.
 

“Hang on,” he breathed, looking around for something blunt and heavy to force entry. He paced down the sidewalk a few yards and then stooped to remove the decorative landscaping grate from a small tree that was growing in front of the store. Half of the grate slid loose into his hands, and he swung it forcibly into the glass door.

I winced, expecting an alarm to sound, but nothing happened. It was possible we had triggered a silent alarm, but it was a near certainty that whatever private security company monitored the system was long gone.

Max reached through the jagged hole in the glass to unlock the door, and he swung it open gallantly — clearly pleased with himself. Logan passed through first, and I saw Amory throw Max an enormous eye roll.
 

Still gripping Amory’s arm, I felt myself relax physically as we entered the drug store. It was cold inside, but it sheltered us from the wind and wandering PMC officers. Not only were we sure to find antiseptic and bandages to properly tend to Amory’s wounds, but the unbroken lock also meant that the store hadn’t been home to any carrier activity.

Despite the feeling of safety that dropped over me, I could see Logan moving methodically down one aisle after another checking for intruders — clearly a protocol she retained from her PMC training. Everything about Logan screamed soldier, and I wondered how I had not noticed it before.

I tugged Amory over to the register and helped him settle onto the ground behind the counter. Logan’s wariness had made me nervous about the lack of protection the glass windows offered from stray bullets, and the counter was at least an added layer of security. If nothing else, he was hidden. Amory didn’t protest; he just let his head fall back to rest against the wall.

“Jackpot!” said Max, so close he made me jump. He was standing on the other side of the counter, waving a candy bar. “There are tons of them!”

My stomach growled, and I took two chocolate bars from him, handing one down to Amory. A store located in Sector X clearly had access to better shipments than stores in the Midwest.
 

I shoved half the candy bar in my mouth and inhaled it within seconds. I was starving, and the familiar sweetness was something I hadn’t realized I’d missed until the chocolate melted against the inside of my mouth.

To avoid scarfing down more candy and giving myself a stomachache, I began looking for the things I needed to treat Amory. Within minutes, I found antiseptic, antibacterial ointment, Tylenol, gauze, and bandages in the meticulous, orderly aisles.
 

Depositing my haul on the counter, I also grabbed a handful of water bottles from the cooler by the register. The electricity had been shut off for ages, but it was ice cold from the ambient room temperature. We were lucky it wasn’t frozen solid.

While Logan and Max gorged themselves on candy, I sat down on the floor across from Amory and handed him a bottle of water and two Tylenol for pain. He drank lethargically, and I felt a jilt of panic in my chest. How badly was he hurt?

Taking one injury at a time, I looked at his head first, even though that was the area I was most nervous to treat. By now the blood was crusted dry, plastering his hair to his head. I doused my own hands in a splash of antiseptic, uncapped one of the untouched bottles of water, and poured the contents slowly over the wound.
 

He winced, but I couldn’t think of another way to approach it. He sucked in air through his teeth as I dabbed the wound with a piece of gauze. The flow of blood had definitely slowed, but there was a lot dried in his hair, down the back of his neck, and on his shirt.
 

I cleaned the wound with quick dabs of antiseptic, but that didn’t seem to make it any less painful for Amory. His eyes were squeezed shut, but he didn’t make another sound. I wound gauze around his head, securing the end with a little metal clip from the package.

He grinned deliriously up at me. “That must look ridiculous.”

“Give me some credit,” I said through a smile. “I think it just makes you look more badass.”

Amory’s face fell a little. “I think I have a concussion,” he confessed.
 

My smile faded as quickly as it had come. We couldn’t go to a hospital. We couldn’t even stop to rest for the whole night.
 

“What should I do?” I asked.

“There’s not a lot
to
do. How do my pupils look?”

I studied him. “I don’t know. Normal, I think.”

He nodded. “That’s good.”

I took my time adjusting his head wrap, partially because I didn’t want to look at the bruises around his ribs, and partially because — ridiculous as it was — I was embarrassed to take his shirt off. The way he made me feel, it would be like taking advantage of the opportunity to get his clothes off, but it needed to be done.

Carefully avoiding eye contact, I found the hem of his shirt and gently pulled it up. He figured out what I was trying to do and lifted his arms to help, but he winced at the sudden movement and slumped back down.

I could feel the heat of embarrassment radiating from his skin, which made my own nerves disappear. With some difficulty — and while trying to preserve his dignity — I managed to get the shirt off one arm at a time. It wasn’t sexy or romantic or any scenario I might have imagined, but I still felt a little breathless as his bare chest and shoulders were revealed.

My mood changed completely as I took in the gray, blue, and yellow bruises forming up and down his right side — the side that wasn’t already injured from the carrier attack. I let out a slight hiss and brushed the bruises lightly with my fingertips.
 

“Breathe in,” I said. He did, and I watched his chest rise and fall. It looked slightly uneven.

“Does it hurt?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’ve broken a rib on your right side.”
 

He nodded. “It should heal on its own . . . not like we have much of a choice.”

I emptied some water onto a clean piece of gauze and used it to wash the lingering blood from his chest and neck. His skin burned under my fingers, and I felt my face heat up.

“I wish we had ice,” I said to distract him from my blushing. “That would help with the swelling. Maybe I could bag some snow.”

He shook his head. “Let me do you.”

I stopped short. “What?”

“Let me do your wounds.”

“Oh.” As worried as I’d been about Amory’s head, I’d almost completely forgotten about my own injuries. My head throbbed dully, and I had some minor bruises and scrapes from thrashing around on the floor during my hallucination. “I’m fine,” I said.

“Give me your arm.”

Puzzled, I scooted closer so he wouldn’t have to reach far. Taking my arm in his hand, he pulled back my sleeve to reveal the three plastic rectangles still stuck to my skin. I was startled to see that they looked reddish again — not from the poison, but from my own chemically burned skin.

Ever so gently, Amory peeled back the plastic. I winced as some of my skin came off with it, and he spread some ointment on the angry red burn marks: three perfect rectangles. My skin felt hot where his fingers brushed it in a way that was completely unrelated to my injuries.

“Three,” he murmured. “I’ve never heard of anyone taking more than two of those before passing out. Especially the first time.”

He touched my chin and gently moved my head to the side. Those piercing gray eyes darkened as they raked over the mark on the side of my neck from where Miles had grabbed me. He lightly brushed the hair that had fallen out of my ponytail behind my ears and caressed the tender skin with the pad of his thumb.

A crash on the other side of the store made me jump, but Logan’s and Max’s laughter told me someone had just knocked over a display.

I examined Amory’s face out of the corner of my eye. His expression was caring, intense, and he was undeniably handsome.
 

I turned my head so I was looking right at him. He stopped what he was doing but kept his hand on my neck.

Looking in those eyes I had grown to like so well — the eyes I trusted implicitly but could make my stomach writhe with pleasure — I felt a twinge of sadness that there was nothing in the future to suggest we might ever be a normal couple.

“If we don’t make it out alive —”

He shook his head once. “We will.”

I continued, more quickly this time. “If we don’t —”

“
Especially
if we don’t,” he finished, pulling me into him. My lips met his — this time unsurprised. This time, I wanted it desperately. His mouth was warm and fierce on mine and moved more urgently than ever.
 

I kissed him as though I thought there was a possibility of us — a possibility that could be snuffed out any moment. My hands found his chest and roamed freely over the taut muscles there.
 

I felt something stir inside me that I didn’t know was there before, and I ached for more of him.

I pulled away, remembering where we were, and felt a smile playing on my lips that mirrored the huge grin on Amory’s face.

“If we get out of here,” he said. “I’m going to do that
every
day.”

My stomach flipped with pleasure, and I fell down next to him against the wall.
 

Hearing a clatter at the front door, I jumped to my feet, already on high alert for an intruder. My heart slowed when I saw Greyson balancing two big brown sacks in his arms. He was trying to get the door open.