The Last Uprising (Defectors Trilogy) (3 page)

I took a deep breath, trying to ease the fear that the whole place might crash in on me at any moment.

No. These people were not my friends. They were pretenders. They had taken me away just when things were starting to improve.

“Haven, there’s something else,” said Amory, reaching out to touch my leg, but I jerked it away, pulling my knees up to my chin and glaring at him.

“Do you really think now is a good time?” Greyson muttered under his breath.

“She deserves to know.”

“Know
what
?” I growled.

Amory took a deep breath. “We’re at war.”

My eyes flitted between Amory and Greyson. “Who?”

“The rebels have crossed the border to fight World Corp and the PMC. We’re trying to draw attention to what’s going on so the people here will turn against them. If we can get the documented people involved, it will be an easy win. If we can’t —”

“You’re not going to win,” I said automatically.

Amory stopped talking. He was looking at me as though he’d misheard.

The three of them exchanged an anxious look.

“What?” asked Greyson.

“If you try to fight World Corp International, you will die.” I took a deep breath. “You’re on the wrong side.”

It doesn’t matter what side you’re on. Being a prisoner anywhere is pretty much the same.

With the rebels, the treatment was slightly better, but it didn’t feel humane. I stayed tied to the bed in that dark room, shaking and sweating. Amory told me I was going through withdrawal, and I believed him. Nothing would stay down, and I felt dizzy, nauseated, and disoriented for three days.
 

Greyson and Amory took turns guarding me, and I glared at them through the haze.

After the effects of the little clear pill had worn off, they explained that I had been held at the facility against my will. I didn’t know if I believed them. I couldn’t shake the horrible feeling that the three people who told me they were my friends were just as bad as the man whose face rippled above the water as I was drowning in my nightmares.

The food they brought me wasn’t anemic and tasteless like the food at the facility, but I told myself they were feeding me well in an effort to lower my defenses and coax me over to their side.
 

There were days it felt as though it was working. I ate as though I was starving, and the way they looked at me, maybe I had been. After a few days, I felt stronger and more alert.
 

One day, I overheard Amory and Logan arguing in the hallway, and I thought for a while that they were debating whether or not to kill me.
 

In the end, Amory seemed to win, but he still wasn’t happy. He left for a while, and when he returned, Greyson blindfolded me and tied my hands.
 

He packed up our scant possessions from the room, and they put me in a van. We drove for a few hours, maybe longer. I lost track of time.
 

When the van finally stopped and Amory slid the door open to let me out, I could smell pine trees. The cold, fresh air filled my lungs and revitalized me, and I allowed myself to enjoy the warmth of Amory’s gentle hand on my back as he guided me through the woods. I counted my steps from the van so I would know how far I was from the road, but I was disoriented, and I had no idea what direction I was walking.

I could hear someone splitting wood and the sounds of dozens of people moving around, so I knew they had brought me to a rebel camp. Since it would have been nearly impossible to cross the border with a hostage in the backseat, I surmised that we were still in the New Northern Territory.

Amory’s hands touched my shoulders to steady me and reached behind my head to untie the blindfold. When he pulled the fabric away, the camp came into view: a rough circle of about forty tents clustered in pockets of trees. There was an enormous bonfire burning in the middle of the clearing, and rebels in black milled around fetching water, preparing food, and carrying firewood. No one paid us any attention.

He led me to a tent tucked farther back in the woods than the others, with a crude sign staked in front of it that read “Auxiliary Supplies.”

Amory cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Roman thinks it might be best to keep you away from the others until . . . until you recover.”

A sharp pang of irritation hit me, souring my words. “Recover from
what
?”
 

“I didn’t mean . . .” He scratched his head, looking lost for words. “Just until . . . you’re back on our side.”

I scoffed. “Then you may be holding me hostage for a long time.”

“Is that what you think?” Amory sounded genuinely hurt. I wasn’t tempted to feel any remorse until he drew back the tent flap and I saw he had pushed all the supplies to one side of the tent and made me a pallet on the other.

I glared at him.

Anger flashed in his gray eyes, and he pushed me inside. “Sit down.”

I sank cautiously down onto the tarp with my hands bound in front of me, resting against an enormous bag of flour.

Amory’s hands gripped my ankles and yanked them toward him. I felt a flash of alarm and tried to pull away, but he just grabbed a length of rope from the floor and bound my feet together.
 

By the time he was finished, my humiliation was burning a hole through the tent flap.
 

Amory looked red around the ears, too, though I couldn’t think why he would be embarrassed.
What had he expected? Wasn’t this how you treated a prisoner?

He backed away from me crouched on his heels, his eyes dancing with a challenge. He expected me to break — to say I was on their side and could be trusted. I knew it would be smarter to act as though I had succumbed to Stockholm syndrome or something and was back on their side, but I couldn’t do it. I had been confused and powerless for too long. Now that I finally had a clear head, I wouldn’t let people control me anymore.

I raised an eyebrow at Amory. He could tie me up all he wanted — starve me if he liked. I didn’t care. I didn’t trust them, and I wouldn’t feign trust. I would escape on my own, though I had no idea how or where I would go.
 

With a grunt of irritation, Amory got up. He grabbed the sleeping bag from the pallet on the floor. With a loud unzipping sound, it came apart as a blanket, and he threw it over me unceremoniously. When I pulled my chin up over the sharp zippered edge, I was alone in the supply tent.

Within three days, I had memorized the rhythm of the camp. Chores started before sunrise, and the crack of splitting firewood echoed through the trees. I could hear people huffing toward the mess tent with buckets of water and the groggy murmurs of people milling around in their tents.

When the sun came up, a bell tolled across camp, and the woods went quiet as they all gathered for a meeting. Then the camp was bustling again as everyone went off to do their daily chores. Some hunted, and others stayed behind to wash clothes, cure meat, and clean weapons. The bell tolled again at noon and a third time for supper.
 

At sundown, I heard the murmur of Amory and the other guards outside preparing to fan out around the perimeter to watch for approaching PMC. Sometimes I just listened to the guards pacing in the snow.
 

It wasn’t much, but the routine kept me from going insane.
 

I barely had any visitors, apart from Roman, who brought me my meals in silence and took me out to the woods to use the bathroom. I wasn’t sure why he was tasked with taking care of me, but perhaps the others thought him less likely to let his guard down around me. They didn’t want me to escape.
 

I hadn’t seen Greyson or Logan since we’d left the motel. Amory was the only one who visited me, not out of necessity, but because he wanted to.
 

Every day at noon without fail, he would appear with two plates of food and sit with me while we both ate our lunch. It was only half an hour, sometimes less if there was a lot of work to be done, but at least it was human contact.

Part of me was inclined to feel grateful since I knew it was the only time Amory really had that was his own. From the dark purplish shadows under his eyes and his raw, wind-stung cheeks, I knew he was kept busy on lookout duty from sundown to sunrise.
 

The other part of me felt distrustful. If he was really my friend, why wouldn’t he untie me? I did think of trying to escape, but as I turned the idea over in my mind, I realized it would mean certain death. I had nowhere else to go.

During those first few days, Amory tried to maintain a strained, one-sided conversation. He told me stories from the farm, and I knew he was hoping to jog my memory. But the things he brought up were mostly foreign to me. I could only see snapshots of memories, and even those might have been figments of my imagination.

I couldn’t remember much about Amory and Logan and Roman. Other than their names and a vague familiarity, I didn’t know them at all.
 

The memories of my life before the Collapse were there — accessible if someone referenced an event or a person from my past — but they were oddly dulled and fuzzy if I just tried to think back.
 

Amory asked me questions about my childhood — about Greyson — but I was silent, obstinately refusing his attempts to connect. When he talked, I just sat there, trying to mask my fear and confusion.

At first, he acted as though it didn’t bother him, though I knew it did. For a while, he could keep his voice bright and optimistic.

But as the days went by, I could tell my silence was beginning to wear on him. Amory was slipping away.
 

He talked less, ate quickly, and left. He seemed to grow older and deflate a little each day I ignored him.
 

Whether I was breaking him or he was breaking me, I couldn’t tell, and it didn’t matter. It was equally horrible for both of us.

After ten days, I had grown restless and impatient. Amory, Roman, and the others showed no signs of letting me go, and it was clear they didn’t plan to kill me. They would probably keep me there forever if I let them.
 

I realized the only way they would untie me and let me roam around free was if they truly believed I had begun to remember them. That meant I had to earn their trust.
 

Amory seemed the most likely candidate to believe I’d changed. He was desperate for me to come over to their side — an easy mark.
And, as much as I hated to admit it, I was curious about Amory and why he was the only one who seemed so invested in me returning to my former self. There was something odd about the way his eyes settled on me when he thought I wasn’t looking — a certain tenderness in his gaze and a deep pain I did not understand.

By the time the noon bell rang out across the camp, my decision was made. I would be amicable and receptive when he tried to talk to me. I would open up a little, act as though I cared, maybe even smile. It was sick, but my escape depended on it.

I sat waiting against the sack of flour that had become my backrest, running through all the things I could possibly say to make him trust me. I had to be careful not to come on too strong too soon, because no matter how much Amory wanted me to remember, he was too smart and too distrustful to be fooled that easily.

Plus, after my long silent treatment, I wasn’t even sure I remembered how to maintain a normal conversation.

As I ran through all the possible details I could conjure up from my broken memories, something strange happened. I found myself smiling — actually smiling.

It wasn’t the crazy smile of satisfaction that my plan could work; I was smiling at the snapshots of memories I could recall with Logan and a dark-haired boy with devilish blue eyes cooking over a stove.

I swallowed, confused about why these snippets of memories made me feel . . . happy. These people weren’t my friends
.
I knew I shouldn’t trust them, yet these memories were
good
ones.

I waited.

Amory didn’t come.

Thinking he may have gotten held up hunting with the others, I slumped back and listened to the sounds of guards pacing out in the woods.
 

I waited for nearly an hour, but he never showed.

Despite my best efforts at indifference, the hurt and anger that spilled into my stomach took me by surprise. I had started to look forward to Amory’s visits, even if they were a little painful. He was the only person who seemed to care about me, and now that he had abandoned me, too, I was truly alone.

After the rest of the rebels had eaten and scattered to go about their afternoon routine, a surly Roman appeared with a hot bowl of soup, two rolls, and a jug of water.
 

I wanted to ask him where Amory was, but I would not give him the satisfaction. I purposely avoided his gaze so my expression wouldn’t betray my hopelessness, and he left without a word.

I watched the steam rising off the bowl of soup and knew I should start sucking it down before it got cold. The rolls looked inviting, too, but I did not reach for them.

If they insisted on treating me like the enemy — depriving me of my freedom and nearly all human contact — I would force them to make a choice: Either I was their friend, or I was their prisoner. I could not and
would
not let them imagine I could be both.

I allowed myself a drink of water from the jug to bolster my willpower. Then I watched the soup grow cold and averted my gaze from the perfect, golden rolls.
 

Roman didn’t show up in the afternoon to take me outside, which was strange. I began to wonder if something had happened that had kept Amory from visiting me at lunch. Surely he had bigger things to worry about than drawing me out of my shell. Maybe the rebels were launching an attack against the PMC. Maybe he’d left on a supply run.
 

Maybe he’d been injured or captured. The thought gave me pause, and it infuriated me that I was
worried
about him.