Three (Article 5) (7 page)

I opened my mouth to call his name, but no sound came out. One breath, two, and I heaved myself up. Something whizzed by, implanting in the dirt right in front of me, and I staggered back. I looked down, but all I could see was a small gray pebble.

I hit the ground hard, Chase’s body sheltering mine.

“Get back,” he growled in my ear.

A male cry, and from under Chase’s arm I saw a body fall. Jack. In his surprise, he released the gun, which went skidding across the ground in my direction. He landed on his side. A knife was lodged in his leg, and he grimaced at it for one full second before baring his teeth and pulling it free with a grunt and the sickening sound of tearing skin.

The light was fading, aiding the ambush. The hollow clacking of reeds came from the water and was met by the crash of breaking branches behind us in the woods.

Two, then three shadowed bodies sprung from the bushes and leaped on Jack, taking him by surprise. Our attackers were shrouded in dark clothes, their faces caked with mud so that they blended with the night. One kicked him hard in the chin and he fell back, out cold.

We were surrounded.

Chase leaped up and ran toward the water, where a limp figure was being dragged through the brush at the shoreline. I thought I caught a glimpse of the blue printed T-shirt Sean had been wearing earlier. A moment later there was a splash, and Sean was crawling weakly toward dry ground.

Rebecca’s name ripped from my throat, but was met with no response.

Grabbing Jack’s arm, I tried to pull him backward into the trees, but he was too heavy. Desperately, I crawled forward, fingers digging through the sand for his gun. It had to be close—I’d seen it fly this way. Someone jumped over me. A second later Billy cried out in pain.

My hands closed around something thin and metallic. Not the gun—my fork.

And then I froze. A cold, blunt barrel pressed against the back of my head. Legs straddled me, boots near my hips.

“Get up.”

I gripped the fork tightly. My gut turned to ice.

A fist wound into the back of my shirt, and heaved me up like I weighed no more than a child, the man’s thick forearm wedged under my chin, momentarily cutting off my air supply. A bright white frame outlined my vision. I gasped.

“Hold!” he called into the dark. Something muffled his words; did he wear a mask? I could feel the stoop in his posture—he had to be a foot taller than me. He smelled rank—of mud and sewage.

I turned the fork in my grasp. Points down.

Gradually the fighting stalled. My captor must have been their leader.

“Why are you following us?” he asked.

I bucked against him and tried to tuck my chin beneath his arm. “Get your hands off—”

His grip tightened.

“Survivors,” I gasped. “We’re looking … for survivors … from the bombs…”

“Let her go.”

I could see only Chase’s shadow, but knew the sound of a slide chambering a round.

My captor twitched. “Come closer,” he said.

“Shoot him,” rasped Jack. “Shoot him now!” He huffed as someone hit him in the gut.

Chase took a step forward, the roll of his boots over crackling leaves deafening to my ears.

“Let her go.”

I couldn’t see his face, so I knew he couldn’t see mine. My only hope was that he would be ready.

I lifted my arm, and with all my strength slammed the fork down into the man’s hip. With a grunt of pain he released me and fell back, and in that second Chase charged and took him to the ground.

They scrapped, rolled, a black mass of shadows in a night gone quiet. With a sharp intake of breath, Chase was thrown to the dirt beside me. For a moment I thought he’d been injured—he didn’t rise. He didn’t
move
. He leaned back on his elbows, eyes wide with shock.

The man rose before us, taller than Chase, gripping his hip with a wince. His clothing and skin were painted with mud; his eyes were glowing black beads. In his hand was a screwdriver, not a gun. The blunt end protruded from his fist.

Hot blood spiked through my veins. I crouched low, ready to pounce, eyeing the fork still lodged in the side of his thigh as it bobbed with each tiny movement of his leg. He removed it with a hiss and dropped it on the ground.

With the back of his hand the man yanked down the filthy bandana that now hung crookedly off of one ear. A clean patch of skin was exposed, gleaming with sweat.

My mouth gaped open.

A twisting snake tattoo stretched from the right side of his collar to just below his jaw, and though it had been years since I’d seen his face, it was one I would never forget.

“Did you stab me with a fork?” asked Chase’s uncle.

CHAPTER

5

“CHASE
can stay with us. He doesn’t even know you!”

My mother’s grip tightened around my shoulders. She breathed out my name, almost a warning but too soft.

“He knows me, don’t you, nephew?” Chase’s uncle leaned against our living room wall as if to hold it up. He probably could, too. He was big enough. “I came to your birthday party.”

Chase stood in front of the couch, where he’d been for the last fifteen minutes, since Jesse had arrived. He was still wearing the green T-shirt he’d had on when the cops had told him his parents and sister had been in an accident, two days ago. It was wrinkled now; the collar was all scrunched up.

“I was five,” he mumbled, staring at the feet that had grown two sizes since summer. “That was nine years ago.”

“Well. Time flies when you’re having fun.” Jesse flicked back his long, loose hair, and beneath it appeared the black ink tattoo of a snake, twisting up his neck.

I stared at it. “Chase’s mom said you went to jail.”

“Ember.” My mother tried to pull me back, but I jerked away and attached myself to Chase’s lanky arm. He looked down at me with a small smile, but the arm I was holding tightened against his body as I squeezed.

Jesse grinned. Grinned like I was funny or something. It made my stomach hurt. I didn’t like him at all.

My mother cleared her throat. “We’re both attached to Chase, Mr. Waite. We’d be happy to work something out so he can finish school with his friends.”

Jesse snorted. “No offense, lady, but he’s better off with family.”

*   *   *

CHASE
and Jesse stared at each other, just as shocked at finding each other as I was.

“What are you doing here?” I finally blurted.

This seemed to snap Jesse out of his trance, and he gave a quick order to his team to withdraw.

His dark eyes found mine. They were similar to Chase’s in shape, but hard and cold. His hair was still long, and matted with mud and twigs, as if he’d lived out in the wilderness for years.

“I know you,” he said. “You’re the neighbor girl.”

The neighbor girl.
I wished I still had the fork.

He shook his head as if to clear his thoughts and offered Chase a hand. After a moment’s hesitation, Chase took it, and found himself smashed in Jesse’s embrace. His arms hung loosely at his side, then surrounded his uncle’s back, not quite touching him.

“My nephew!” Jesse called into the now silent night. I stood by awkwardly as Jesse pulled Chase back and laughed. “You came. You remembered.”

“Remembered?” I asked.

“I told him about this place—well, the safe house. You remember, nephew? I saw you in Chicago. I told you to come here if you got in trouble.” Jesse laughed.

I’d forgotten that was how Chase had originally learned of the safe house. He’d run into Jesse during his FBR training in Chicago. Later, Chase would try to convince me my mother was there waiting. If we’d made it there then, we might be dead now.

Chase’s front half was now covered with mud from Jesse’s clothes. Though his mouth cracked open, he had yet to say anything. For a brief moment, he met my gaze, and I was reminded of that same, weak smile he’d offered all those years ago, before Jesse had taken him away.

As if suddenly remembering, Chase fished something out of his pocket. I caught a glint of metal from the small silver ring a second before he stuffed it back inside.

“Who
are
you?” asked Billy, approaching from behind me.

Jesse sobered. “We were at the safe house.” He held his arms out wide. “We’re all that’s left.”

Immediately the night erupted with questions. More people came from the bushes. Men, women, even a few children. More than twenty of them.

“We were looking for you,” Chase croaked. “We followed your tracks.”

“Thought you were soldiers come to finish the job,” said Jesse. “Hence the warm welcome. Can’t see anything in this swamp.” When he grinned his teeth stood out in sharp contrast from his dirty skin.

“I told you guys,” said Billy.

“Ma?” called Jack, blood dripping down his leg as he hoisted himself to a stand. “Anyone know Sherri Sandoval?”

Billy began shoving through the crowd. “Wallace?”

While the others reunited, a man whose face was still half covered in mud approached me. The radio, or what was left of it, was cradled in his arms. He handed it to me in four separate pieces.

“Sorry,” he said. “I think some of it’s still back there in the grass.”

I looked at the shambles—the cord was severed, the microphone cover ripped off and the wires within sticking out in all directions. The transceiver box caved in at the middle, as though someone had stepped on it. I’d give it to Billy to see what he could do, but I already knew it wasn’t going to be fixed.

“Do you have a radio?” I asked the man.

He shook his head. “Everything went down with the safe house.”

The first resistance post our team was meeting was empty, Truck was missing, and Tucker was on his own. Why was it so impossible for more than one thing to go right at the same time?

I left Chase and Jesse to their reunion and turned toward the walkway. The moon reflected off the water and provided enough light to show the two figures out in the middle of the swamp. A girl with blond hair, wrapped in the arms of the boy who loved her.

Sean had finally found Rebecca.

*   *   *

WE
built a fire that night in a large meadow west of the marsh where we’d made camp. The survivors had food—not a lot, but more than the three cans of peaches we had left. Accustomed to life in the Red Zone, they’d killed a boar in the woods during the storm. An old man with matted gray hair cleaned and cooked it.

In the dark and covered with mud it had been impossible to gauge who was present, but once the fire had been lit and the grime had been wiped clean, we were able to size each other up.

Twenty-three had survived the safe house’s demolition. Twenty-three out of nearly three hundred. Chase’s uncle was the only family member present, but two women matched the descriptions given to us by their brothers, back with the injured at the mini-mart.

The mood was somber now. Others shared what news they had, but Billy sat by himself away from the fire, using the excuse of fixing the CB radio as a reason to be alone. In a way I was glad I didn’t have to look for my mother. My hopes of meeting family on the coast had been laid to rest long ago.

“How’d it happen?” I heard Chase ask Jesse.

Jesse shook his head, his snake tattoo seeming to slither in the flames. I sat cross-legged on the ground a cautious distance away. Behind me, Rebecca laid across the grass, her head on Sean’s thigh. He combed her hair behind her ear, oblivious to all else.

“Don’t really know,” said Jesse. “I was out hunting when I heard it—a whistle, like those firecrackers we used to set off in the summer when I was a kid. And then it was like the War all over again. The shaking and the screaming…” He trailed off. “And then the quiet. You remember.”

I shuddered, remembering the collapsing tunnels when the resistance had been bombed in Chicago. The way the earth had nearly swallowed us.

“I remember,” said Chase.

“Found the others in the wreckage,” Jesse said. “A couple on the beach. A couple hiding out in the woods. That guy over there.” Jesse pointed to a man sitting alone, staring blankly into the flames. “He carried his dead wife around for half the day. Thought she was just knocked out.”

“Please,” hissed a woman, rocking a child. “Please, can’t you talk about something else?”

I’d had enough, too. I rose and wandered to the other side of the circle, passing a girl who sat with her back to the fire. She was draped in enormous clothes, her bare feet stretched out before her. I was so surprised by her pregnant belly that I nearly stumbled.

“Sarah?”

“Oh!” She shimmied up to her knees and grabbed my hands. “You made it!”

The last time I’d seen her in Knoxville her face had been bruised and swollen, and we’d been loading her into the back of the carrier’s truck to send her to safety. I tried to remember when that had been. It felt like months, but it had just been a couple of weeks. After finding what remained of the safe house, I’d been sure she was gone.

I smiled. The marks to her face had faded, leaving pretty dimples. Seeing her gave me hope.

“How did you…”

She motioned with her chin over her shoulder. “Jesse. I was out for a walk when it happened. He found me on the beach and brought me with him. He saved us.”

I looked back to Chase and his uncle, thinking I might have been too quick to judge him. It had been a long time ago that I’d met him, and this world had a way of changing people.

Billy stalked by on his way toward the food, but when he saw us talking he slowed. I motioned him over. To my surprise, he joined us.

“Nobody’s got a radio,” he said. “I thought I might be able to salvage parts and rig something strong enough to connect to the interior, but…” He shrugged.

Maybe it was better Tucker’s team couldn’t reach us. Since only twenty-three people had survived, it wasn’t like we had a lot of good news to share.

When I looked over at Sarah, she was straightening her sweater. Billy glanced up, then shoved aside his greasy hair.