The Lair (5 page)

“Of course not; I’m not saying you should. But if the Greens see me outside, going on food raids or helping with the solar panels, it’ll help them get over their fears.”

“Their fears are totally rational.” Too bad Lily didn’t have rational fears to balance out her sheer guts. “It’s dangerous out there.”

“So what? We should all just hide in the caves and starve?”

“Obviously not. But I’m not going to send a bunch of untrained Greens into danger just because they have cabin fever.”

“So train them!” Lily threw up her hands in exasperation.

“The Elites—”

“The Elites are overextended. Right now, the Elites do all the food raids, they do all the patrols. It’s not so noticeable now, because there aren’t enough warm days for you to send people out every day, but spring is here. And there are only forty-three of you. And nearly a hundred Greens. We Greens have to pull our weight.”

She was right about the Elites being overextended, but I didn’t want to admit it because I didn’t have any clue how to fix it. “Look, right now I need to focus on getting these solar panels installed. When I get back, I’ll try to think of some way to encourage the Greens to do more.”

I turned and walked to the other side of the Hummer, hoping that if I looked busy, she’d take the hint and head back inside. But she followed me to the driver’s side instead.

“That’s the beauty of my plan,” she said, her voice eager. “You don’t have to encourage anybody to do anything they don’t want. Just send me out on the next food raid—”

A bark of hysterical laughter burst out of me. Lily on a food raid? Fifty-plus miles from the safety of Base Camp? Wandering around an unknown city searching for supplies she could pillage? What a nightmare. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“It’s the perfect solution. You know I can handle myself out there. And if the other Greens see me doing these things, some of them will want to do them, too. I know they will.”

“No,” I said automatically. “Absolutely not.”

“You need us to go find food, damn it.”

“No, Lily. Right now, the only thing I need is for you to be safe. For you to get your ass back in to Base Camp.”

“Carter, I can’t—”

“Lily, you have the Tick gene. If you get exposed, it’s all over. And I can’t live with that.”

“Well,
I
can’t live by hiding in a cave.” She stepped closer to me, her eyes blazing. “I can’t stand by and do nothing. I have to have some purpose here. And I know I’m right about the Greens. There is no way Base Camp can continue to function like this.”

I stayed silent and prayed like hell that she would back down. Instead, she bumped up her chin again and said, “And
I
can’t spend the rest of my life hiding from danger. I have to be doing something. I have to be working toward
something
, otherwise I might as well have stayed on the Farm.”

I could almost see the logic of her point. Almost. But this was
Lily
, and logic had nothing to do with it.

Over by the bay doors, I could see Taylor walking toward us, moving with exaggerated slowness and trying so hard not to stare it was a miracle he didn’t fall on his ass.

“Look, Taylor and I need to get up the mountain and KP needs the parking lot to start lunch. You and I can talk later.” I didn’t wait for her to answer, but instead raised my hand to gesture to Taylor. “Yo, Techy, let’s go.”

He took the hint, jogging the rest of the way to the Hummer and sliding into the passenger seat. A moment later, I drove off, leaving Lily standing alone in the parking lot. I didn’t really focus on driving until I saw the Elite at the gate lock her in.

CHAPTER FOUR

Lily

Lily’s blood boiled as she watched Carter drive off.

Damn it! She was right about this. She knew she was, and he wasn’t even going to consider her opinions because of the risk.

The risk to her was no greater than it was to anyone else. Yes, if she was exposed, the consequences were greater, but the risk? The risk was the same. Almost everyone who caught the virus died. Less than two percent of the population would turn. And, yes, she was one of those.

She knew the consequences better than most. She’d been face-to-face with a Tick, close enough to smell the Tick’s fetid breath. She’d seen the dull stupidity in its eyes. The inhuman thirst for blood. It haunted her nightmares. Not the thought of dying, but of becoming . . . that.

Of course it terrified her. She had a monster buried in her genes waiting to come out. The knowledge of what she could become, of her horrible potential—it was forever just below the surface of her consciousness, like a layer of muck at the bottom of a crystal-clear pond. Every time she dipped below the surface, it sucked at her, threatening to pull her down.

But living on the Farm had terrified her, too. Of course, she’d feared for her life and for Mel’s. She’d feared the predators outside the fence as well as those within. But even more, she’d feared the dark places in her own heart. She’d been afraid of losing herself to the regimented class system of the Farm—a world where bullies became Collab leaders and where fertile girls got pregnant and bartered their babies’ lives for their own. Without an autistic sister to take care of, would she have had the strength to fight the system? To plan and make an escape? Or would she have just given up? She didn’t know.

She’d been lucky, though. She’d had Mel to focus on. Protecting Mel had brought her outside of herself. It had given her purpose and meaning. Something her life here at Base Camp lacked.

And she wasn’t the only one. Walking back through the main cave toward KP, she had to force herself to look at the gaunt faces, at the scared, shifting eyes. It wasn’t long before Shelby—a girl from a Farm in Oklahoma–slipped over to her. Shelby was small and light, with the build of a gymnast. She had arrived at Base Camp just before McKenna and Lily. Though she was naturally cautious, she didn’t yet have that trapped, glazy-eyed look that some of the Greens had. Shelby was the kind of girl everyone liked.

“How’s the weather out there?” Shelby asked.

Sometimes Shelby seemed so damn young. In reality, she was probably only a couple years younger than Lily. Everyone at the Farms was under eighteen because when they’d first created the Farm facilities, teenagers had been the most vulnerable. At eighteen, people aged out of the program. No one knew for sure what happened to those people. No one assumed it was good.

Carter had gotten them out right before their birthday, which made Lily one of the older girls at Base Camp. But it wasn’t age that made Lily feel older.

“It’s great,” she told Shelby. “Okay, not great, but sunny. You should go out.”

“Nah. I don’t have KP duty until later in the week.”

The Greens with KP duty were just beginning to gather up the cooking supplies. None of them had ventured out yet, so they were still hovering by the bay doors. Not far off, a group of Elites were strapping on gear, ready to head out on a food raid—the first in a couple of days.

“Well, I’m going to go check on McKenna. I’ll see you later, Shelby.”

“Wait, Lily. I actually—” Shelby sent an awkward glance over her shoulder toward a cluster of girls hovering and whispering by the KP station. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Okay . . . What’s up?”

Shelby sent her a strained smile. “We’re almost out of supplies.”

“Yeah. The shelves are pretty bare. That’s why Stu and those guys are going out on a food raid.”

“Not those kinds of supplies,” Shelby said with an exaggerated wince.

“Oh.” Lily had the urge to slap her own forehead. Of course. Not food. Not even basic hygiene stuff, like soap and toothpaste . . . because the Elites who went on food raids thought of all that. But there was one thing no group of seventeen– and eighteen-year-old guys was going to think about: feminine hygiene. “How bad is it?”

“We’re down to one box of panty liners and twenty Always pads.”

Great. That, and nearly fifty teenage girls. Perfect.

True, many of them were so damn thin that they’d stopped menstruating. You needed body fat for that. But there were still plenty of girls for whom this was a huge issue. It was bad enough living in these cramped quarters, without having to go through this crap in a tampon-less world.

“Okay, I’ll handle it. I’ll go talk to Stu.”

Shelby relaxed. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She didn’t dare complain when the Greens practically worshipped her. Still, she’d bet Joan of Arc never had to do this crap.

Stu was almost to the bay when she reached him.

She didn’t know him that well—certainly not well enough to discuss this with him without dying of humiliation—and she could feel her cheeks burning as she described the problem. It was almost gratifying to see his cocky smirk fade as soon as she started talking.

He gave an awkward shrug and sent a desperate look toward the bay through which the other Elites had already disappeared, like he was looking for rescue. “You can’t be out already. We just brought a bunch of that stuff back.”

Which she knew couldn’t be true, because she’d helped sort the supplies brought in from every food raid the Elites had done since she’d arrived. “When?”

“I don’t know.” He scratched his head, which didn’t make him look any smarter. “Back in December, maybe.”

“In December?” She shook her head. Boys. “That was like, five months ago.”

“So?”

“So. We need more. Do you need a biology lesson? There are nearly fifty of us.” And because his awkwardness was starting to annoy her, she spelled it out. “Always pads, Kotex, tampons, even freakin’ Depends—whatever you can find, bring it back for us.”

“Fine,” he grumbled, edging toward the door. “Make me a list. I’ll get it the next time we go out.”

“Next time won’t cut it. We need stuff now.”

“Okay. Fine.”

“I’m serious, Stu. We need—”

“What do you want to do, come with me to make sure I get the right kind?”

She broke off, eyeing the bay door that he was already edging his way toward. And, just like that, inspiration struck. “Sure. Sounds great.”

Stu stopped dead in his tracks. “What?”

She glanced down at her clothes. She was already dressed warmly, in case she’d been able to talk Carter into letting her go with him up the mountain. She had on her most comfortable sneakers and several layers of clothes in case it got warmer later in the day. The bow and quiver of arrows she’d been practicing with was in the armory, but that was right beside the door. She could walk out of here right now.

“I’ll just tag along on the food raid. It’s a great idea.”

Stu’s gaze shifted nervously. “I’m not sure about this.”

Which was fine, because the more she thought about it, the more sure
she
was. The girls at Base Camp needed supplies—things they couldn’t count on the Elites to get. And they needed them now. More to the point, that despera
te and squeamish group of girls needed a role model. They needed her to stand up to the Elites and go on a food raid. They needed to see that someone—a Green like them—could do it.

“It’s just a simple food raid down the mountain, right?”

“Um . . . yeah, I guess.”

“Come on, Stu. I’m sure you could use the extra help.” Elites pulled patrol duty, guard duty, and food raid duty. And they all did physical training to stay in shape. They barely had time to sleep.

“And Carter’s okay with this?” Stu asked.

Here was the tricky part. “We talked about it just this morning.” Which was technically true. “I’ve been out there,” she reminded him. “I’ve fought and killed Ticks. Besides, I’ve been doing PT with the Elites every morning since I got here. I’m in great shape.”

All of that was totally true.

“Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?” he grumbled, but in the end, he held open the door and gestured for her to head out with him.

She smiled and for the first time in months felt excited about something—about something
she
was doing. Not just about being Carter’s girlfriend. “Just let me get my bow and arrow.”

And she ran to get it, just to make sure they didn’t leave without her.

CHAPTER FIVE

Lily

Recon, sit rep, retrieval, extraction.

Lily chanted the words in her head over and over again as she approached the house.

That’s what Stu had drilled into her ever since he’d agreed to let her come along. You get into the building and do a quick reconnaissance to secure the location. You report in to the raid commander so the rest of the raid team knows what’s going down where. You locate any valuable supplies. You retreat to the extraction point.

It all seemed simple enough when they were driving down the mountain. Now, as Jacks, Stu, and Lily approached the empty house, it seemed much less cut-and-dry. Maybe it was the adrenaline pumping through her veins or the sweat pouring off her palms. Or maybe, she’d just gotten used to the relative comfort and safety of Base Camp. Maybe the six weeks in Utah had made her soft.

As she walked up to the house, Lily scanned the area. They were on the outskirts of a tiny town tucked right up against the mountain range in a neighborhood too rural to be suburban. The lots were big and hilly and a creek flowed behind the houses because there was a dense tree line that ran parallel to the street. There were only three houses on this block and no signs that anything living had been here recently. The other team had been dropped on a different street.

There was absolutely no sign that this town had seen any Tick activity. You could always tell when a town had been hit hard by Ticks. They destroyed everything they touched. The houses on this block looked abandoned but not ravaged. Hopefully Lily and the rest of the team could load up the truck on this one block alone and head back up the mountain.

So Lily gritted her teeth and swallowed her anxiety. She wasn’t really a newbie. She knew the threats, but she also knew how to fight them. She patted the bow slung over her shoulder. She’d been practicing with it every chance she got. She had this.