The Defiant (20 page)

“Pretty crazy, huh,” she says.

I nod, standing up and picking rubble off me.

I stare ahead. I see a large circular concrete building, half destroyed and turned into ruins, staring back.

“You sure this place is safe?” I ask.

“Yep. There's food and water inside. I've already checked it out. I got here earlier in the afternoon.”

I follow her across the blighted landscape toward the building. It's large and ominous, but with Gadya at my side I do not feel afraid.

“I've got more oil for the lantern in there,” Gadya says. “But we have to be careful about using it, in case anyone's looking for us here.”

We keep walking until we reach the edge of the ruins. Gadya steps up onto the rocks. I follow her as she slips into a dark opening in the building.

Soon we are standing inside together. Gadya hangs the lantern on a hook on the concrete wall. The place is filthy. I gaze around at it. I see rat droppings in one corner, and spiderwebs and dust everywhere I look.

“I think I liked my bed back at the farmhouse more than this,” I joke.

Gadya smiles. “We won't be here too long.”

I nod. “Tomorrow we find Liam. We're still in the Hellgrounds, right?”

She nods. “This region is gigantic. We could walk for days and still be in it.”

“I wish we could go find Liam right now,” I tell her.

“Me too. But they lock the boys up at night. That's what I've heard.”

“Are you still in contact with David?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “Only occasionally. It's too risky for him to broadcast a signal this far.”

“What about Liam?” I ask. “You think he's okay?” I try to suppress my worry about him.

Gadya nods. “I hope so.”

Then she turns and rummages around on the floor behind us. “Check this out,” she says.

She starts pulling up a brick from the floor with a grunt, and then another. I don't know what she's doing until I realize that the bricks are concealing a dark space within.

“What's in the hiding spot?” I ask, moving over to help her. I start pulling bricks up with her.

Gadya glances at me and smiles. “Something that we need for tomorrow.”

I lean in to take a closer look. I help her get a few more bricks out of the way before I can see what she's searching for. Then, in the hiding spot, I see the gleam of metal and I realize what's hidden inside here.

“Guns,” I say, both slightly afraid and also relieved.

“Just two of them. And some bullets as well. I wish we had more. They were stowed here by rebels a year ago in case anyone ever needed them.”

She takes one out of the hiding place and gives it to me. It's an automatic assault rifle. I feel its weight in my hands.

“These will definitely help,” I say, sliding the safety back just to check it. I know that two girls and two guns aren't much compared to the army of soldiers that we'll face when we go after Liam at the work farm, but it's better than knives.

Gadya takes the other gun out. “They won't expect us to have these. Not after we fled the farms.”

I nod. “How many bullets?”

“Six large boxes. Probably no more than five hundred total. We're going to have to be careful with our shots, and save our ammunition if we can.”

“Easier said than done,” I point out. “When I got snatched at the rebel cell, and then taken to the local minister, there were hundreds of armed soldiers.”

“We better hope they're not guarding Liam as well—and that they don't know that we're coming. I don't plan on getting shot. I need to live so I can see the UNA get taken down. We've made it so far. We have to see it through to the end.”

I nod, hoisting the gun up to my shoulder. I practice taking aim at a large black spider crawling down one of the walls. “I feel the exact same way. We're going to rescue Liam and then continue our mission,” I say.

For once, I feel almost confident that things will work out. But I know that it's very dangerous to think like that. The UNA is like the wheel. Just when you expect things to go a certain way, they can take a dangerous turn.

I take the weapon down from my shoulder. “I can't wait for tomorrow,” I tell her.

She grins. “Me neither. Feels like old times.”

That night, we take turns keeping watch. Gadya goes first, sitting up to stare out into the darkness with her rifle, while I curl up on the rocks and dirt, and try to get some sleep. It's almost impossible. I'm too worried about Liam.

Halfway through the night, Gadya wakes me and we switch positions. I sit on a broken slab of concrete, watching and listening as I drink some water from a flask. Gadya goes over to the dirt and lies down. Within a minute, I hear her snoring.

I stare out in the darkness with the gun across my lap, searching for any signs of light. But I see nothing. It feels like we're the only people alive out here. I fight the urge to fall asleep myself. Both Gadya and I are exhausted, but our journey hasn't even really begun yet.

When the sky finally starts to lighten, as the sun prepares to rise, I go over and wake Gadya up. “It's time,” I say, touching her shoulder gently. She nods groggily and sits up, wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“You ready?” she asks.

“Absolutely.” I grin at her. “I was born ready,” I joke.

She laughs.

I help her up. We gather the flasks and the guns. Our siege on the boys' farm, and our rescue of Liam, is about to begin.

I
T
'
S ANOTHER LONG JOURNEY
on foot through the forest to find the farm where Liam is being held captive. It takes us about two hours.

The whole time I'm worried that we will be sighted. But this land is completely desolate, and the tall grasses and trees provide adequate shelter. Our guns are slung over our shoulders and we both carry flasks of water at our waists, next to our knives.

Gadya and I have been trained on Island Alpha to survive, so we maximize our ability to blend in with our surroundings. Occasionally, I think I hear the sound of people in the distance, or the rumbling of helicopters in the sky. Each time we stop and hide ourselves in the underbrush. But the noises never get close to us. If there are soldiers out there, they seem to have no clue about where we are headed.

Finally, Gadya pauses. “We're almost there.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. David told me.”

“You better be right.”

“I am.”

We keep moving slowly.

Finally, we reach our destination.

I can see a huge farm in a massive field, just sitting there in the middle of the thick forest. We creep up to the edge of the grass on our hands and knees, and stare out at the buildings.

This farm is much larger than the one I was on. In fact, it doesn't really look like a farm. It looks more like some kind of strange high-tech laboratory, slapped down in the fields. Many of the buildings are made of glass and steel. It looks out of place here, incongruous among the farmlands.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” I ask Gadya.

“Yes,” she tells me. “And if it's not, then we get the hell out of here and back into the forest.”

“Good idea.”

But in my heart I know that Liam is somewhere nearby. I can just feel it. I also trust that David has led us to the right place.

We lie there in the tall grass, peering out at the landscape sprawling in front of us.

There is no sign of Liam. At least not yet.

The main building is huge and cylindrical, surrounded by metal and chrome walkways. Large steel chimneys pump out white smoke. It reminds me of the specimen archive back on Island Alpha, except that this place is not deserted. I see men and women in lab coats moving around the property on concrete pathways.

“This place looks really weird,” Gadya mutters into my ear.

“Yeah, I was thinking that too. It doesn't really look like a farm.”

We both keep watching, trying to figure out exactly what we're staring at.

“Over there,” I say suddenly, pointing as movement catches my
eye. A girl is being dragged across the grass by two soldiers. She's wearing a white smock that looks like a medical gown.

“Where did she come from?” Gadya asks.

“Out of that opening,” I say, pointing. There is a large circular hatch in the side of a small square building, connected by metal stairs to the main one. This building doesn't have any windows. A guard stands watch at the entryway, an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

“I thought this was where the boys were being held?” I ask Gadya. “Maybe we really are at the wrong place?”

“I don't understand either. This is where David told me to take us.”

We keep watching the girl.

The soldiers continue dragging her forward. Her hair has been cut short and ragged, as though someone has chopped it off or tried to shave it and failed at the task. Her face is badly sunburned and peeling.

She doesn't struggle, but even from here, I can see the defiance in her posture and in the way she refuses to bow her head to look at the ground.

The guards continue pulling her forward.

She tilts her head upright to look at the sun. I see the pain and frustration in her eyes.

And that's when I recognize this girl.

My stomach lurches.

“
Rika!
” I say in shock.

“No way,” Gadya breathes, looking closer. “Where?”

I point at the girl with the ragged hair and sunburned face. “That's her!”

Gadya squints. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” I feel a sinking sensation in my stomach. I can see beyond her hair and poor physical condition to recognize the face of my close friend. “It's definitely her.”

“You're right,” Gadya says, after scrutinizing the girl for a moment more. She sounds shocked too. “Why is she even in the UNA? There's no way she passed the test to come here! No way!”

“Agreed.”

Rika was one of our best friends in the village on Island Alpha. She was the cook for our entire camp, and is one of the sweetest and kindest girls I ever met. But I'm also thinking about how Rika secretly joined us on the trip into the gray zone those months ago. How Veidman asked her to be a spy for him. There's clearly more to her than appears on the surface—just as there is to almost everyone that I encountered on the wheel.

“There must be a reason,” I say. “But it doesn't matter now. She's been caught. We have to help her.”

I watch numbly as Rika is dragged toward a metal box sitting out in the sun. It has a row of small airholes in it but nothing more.

I realize that the guards are going to put her in there. I can feel Gadya shifting next to me. I know that both of us are wishing that we could use our guns right now. Just two bullets would take care of these soldiers. But of course that would give our position away.

Rika is led to the box.

One of the soldiers pauses and flings the lid open.

For a second I'm startled. There's another girl already in the box. Her face is smeared with blood and dirt. She raises an arm, crying out for someone to help her. But instead of helping, the second soldier just shoves Rika into the box with her, the two bodies tumbling together.

Rika tries to struggle against the soldiers but she's easily overpowered. The first soldier slams the lid of the box and locks it. Even from our distance I can hear Rika and the other girl hammering on the metal sides to get out.

“We have to do something,” I murmur. I feel sick watching a friend get treated this badly. I know it must be well above a hundred and twenty degrees in the box, and the day is only going to get hotter.

“They're punishing her for something,” Gadya says. “Good. At least that means there's some fight left in her. They haven't broken her spirit.”

I can't believe that we came here to find Liam and found Rika instead. “Do you think David knows she's here?”

“Probably. He seems to know everything, although I don't know how.”

“Maybe that's why he sent us here first. To rescue her.”

Gadya nods.

David once risked his own life to save Rika's, on the icy lake back in the gray zone on Island Alpha. I doubt he'd let her remain captive in a place like this. We were probably always meant to rescue her.

“Do you think Liam's here?” I ask Gadya. “I mean, inside somewhere.”

“I hope so,” she says, musing. “We could get Rika on the way out, after we get Liam. It'd be easier then because there'd be three of us.”

I'm scouting the fortresslike buildings. “Getting Liam is going to be harder than it sounds. This place is swarming with soldiers. Look.”

She follows my gaze. I see a group of about fifteen men with guns standing in formation at the edge of the main building, doing
basic drills. They're jumping up and down in the heat as their captain barks at them.

“I don't understand what this place even is,” I say. “I wish David had told us more.”

“Same here. But that's David for you, isn't it?”

Abrupt movement catches my eye again. “Check it out,” I say.

Gadya and I both watch as another formation of soldiers appears on the other side of the building. They are walking across the fields toward a large glass tunnel that leads into a laboratory.

It takes me a moment to realize that there is a person inside the formation. Someone that the soldiers are guarding with guns. My heart leaps.
Maybe it's Liam!
But then I realize that it's not. It's a larger, twisted figure.

“What the hell is that?” Gadya whispers into my ear as she watches, sounding both startled and horrified.

I keep watching too. As the soldiers grow closer, their captive becomes more visible. It's a boy, but one about seven feet tall, and horribly disfigured, with raw, red skin. “It's a mutant,” I say. “Like the one I saw in Minister Hiram's building.”