Waterproof (13 page)

THIRTEEN

Zach

“Did you say blood?” I asked Lew, his declaration sounding a bit too ridiculous.

“That’s impossible,” Trevor added. He’d moved closer to my side and lifted
Vee’s sword ever so slightly. I didn’t like that he touched it at all.

“How do you know this?” Sasha asked the most important question.

Lew’s shoulders slumped, recognizing the disbelief in our voices. “Wade had a friend of a cousin who hooked up with a mercenary…”

I laughed at the same time Jackson made some kind of noise. Mercenaries didn’t mix with deserters.
Ever. Sasha looked just as skeptical as she tilted her head to the side and stared at Lew.

Wade, one of the other two men in the group stepped in front of Lew.
He looked dirty and tired in the worn out set of camouflage, but his face filled with excitement. “It’s true. I swear it.” When we didn’t argue, he continued. “She said he told her about the sanguination room-”

“
Exsanguination
,” Lew corrected.

Wade glanced at him with shifty eyes before continuing. “Yeah,
what I said. The room where they take the blood. Although it’s not like a room…it’s like the size of a football stadium. And the bodies hang from the ceiling with all these,” he moved his arms around like a mime, “tubes and things that feed through one side and suck the blood out the other.” Wade eyes widened when he saw our expressions. “I’m tellin’ the truth!”

“Who
said this?” Jackson asked.

“My cousin, Sheila.
She spent some time with one of the mercenaries a few years back.”

“And where is Sheila now?” Trevor questioned with a wary tone.

Wade stopped moving back and forth. “I…I don’t know. They took her a year ago.”

Sasha walked toward the small group being careful not to make any sudden moves. “Look, Wade, I’m sorry about your cousin. But blood?
Really? Humans can’t survive on that. We need water, and blood is only-”

“
Fifty percent water,” Trevor interrupted. He looked at all of us with something dark in his eyes. “It would work. If there were enough of us…”

“Just wait,” I said. “I can’t wrap my brain around this.” I pointed to Wade. “So
you’re saying that your cousin slept with a government worker who told her they’re collecting deserters to use them to supply who? I thought the government handed out rations to those who served them, while the rest of us struggled. They would need thousands of humans to support that kind of set up.”

“And how many deserters come home?” Lew asked his question for the second time.

“I don’t buy it,” I said. Maybe because I couldn’t stomach what this meant.

“Have you ever seen a factory?” Trevor asked the group.

They all shook their heads, but Wade answered. “No. I only know what Sheila told me. The man claimed they had a whole city locked up inside.”

“A city?
With people? Who drink blood?” Sasha huffed.

“Not drink blood like a vampire or something. But getting their water though the blood harvested from those like us.” Lew’s voice shook with anxiety. His wife had been collected. She might be hooked up to tubes right now.

I shivered with that thought.

“The ones who report get to work in the factory. The ones they capture…well…” Wade’s words drifted into a place I didn’t want to go.

“No. I can’t believe it.” I turned to look in the direction the tracks were leading away into the forest. “We have to go get them.”

Vee, Hunter, Max.
I pictured a grotesque scene where they hung upside down like a cow in a slaughterhouse, being drained to keep a small percentage of the world’s population alive. Unrealistic, yet somehow becoming more believable in my mind.

Rachael groaned on the ground as she started to wake up. I’d almost forgotten about her until I flexed my knuckles and felt the
tell-tale sign I’d punched someone. She blinked her eyes several times trying to focus. Shifting to a sitting position, she tossed her head to the side and blew the hair out of her face.

“Oh great, more of you.”
She eyed Lew and his group as though sizing up her competition. Massively outnumbered and overly confident, her laugh grated on my last nerve. “You guys are pathetic.”

“Well, we can’t all drink the blood now can we?” Lew asked i
n a way that sounded more like an accusation.

Her reaction stopped my heart. The look on Rachael’s face immediately supported Wade’s claim. Lips pinched, brow creased, she was surprised at Lew’s comment and had been unable to hide her response. I watched her swallow slowly and did the best I could not to collapse in dread.

It was true.

“Tell us about it,” Sasha demanded, making the same observation as me.

Rachael shook her head, speechless for the first time. I almost missed her snarky comebacks, because at least then we knew we had a chance. Now I just knew we were right. Our friends would never leave alive.

“We have to do something,” Trevor said. He looked at Sasha. “They could keep someone alive in that state for months or maybe even years. We can’t let that happen.”

“It’s really possible then?” she asked him.
“To turn human blood into drinking water?”

He nodded. “Sure.
Once the water is separated from the plasma…yeah. It’s possible. You can’t get much purer than that anymore.”

“Okay, so what do we do?” Jackson asked
, eyeing up each one of us with determination sprawled across his face.

Rachael pushed up to her knees and used the tree to balance her weight so she could stand. No one stopped her. “Do you really think
it’s possible to get your scummy friends back? You’re suicidal if you think you can just waltz in there. They have security you can see and even more you can’t. Hidden all throughout the perimeter. Checkpoints at each entrance even for us…”

She let her words fade as soon as she realized her mistake. Our eyes met and for the first time in hours, I felt a twinge of hope.

“That’s how,” I said. Sasha’s eyes narrowed at me and I ignored the other stares. “We go in as mercenaries. Some of us will have to be the prisoners, but some of us could get on the inside and find a way out.”

I looked back to Rachael, whose smug attitude had suddenly disappeared.
Her silence encouraging me even more. “It’s simple really. We just have to act like asshole government swine and we’re in.”

“Well who’s going to be the prisoners,” Trevor asked, and I looked down to him with a smile.

“Nope. No way, Zach. I’m not doing that.”

“How are we going to pass for mercenaries?” Lew asked the most logical question.

This time I smiled at Rachael. Sasha saw me and stepped closer before I could answer.

“No, Zach. She’s too much of a risk. We won’t get within a mile before she gives us up. We can’t take her with us.”

Rachael made a satisfied scoffing sound but I returned it with a venomous grin. “We’re not taking her anywhere.” I passed my gaze from the mercenary to Sasha. Back and forth, back and forth. Yes, this might just work. “You’re about the same size.”

Sasha’s face beamed
when she finally understood. “Yes, I believe we are.”

The satisfaction of Rachael’s
ashen skin was enough to keep me going for the day.

“So what are the rest of us supposed to wear?” Lew asked, also comprehending my plan.

“We killed a few not far from here. Three guys.”

“Yes, I can show you,” Sasha said, remembering our narrow escape at the edge of the old camp.

I immediately thought about the cabin. And Vee. But now that we had some semblance of a plan, I felt better and more confident I would see her again soon. Or at least I’d die trying.

“So we’re going to trust them?” Jackson asked. He still held the crossbow tight in his hands, poised to take a quick shot. “We don’t even know them.” His eyes bored a hole through Lew, and I saw the older man cower.

“Jackson,” Sasha said, resting her hand on his shoulder. “They lost theirs too. We’re all in this together.”

“Tell that to Carrie!” The abrupt outburst was out of character for our normally level-headed protector. “These people,” he pointed the crossbow at Lew, “can’t be trusted any more than her kind.” His head swung around to meet Rachael’s glare but neither of them said anymore.

“We have to trust someone,” Sasha continued.

“No, we don’t. We’ve done fine without anyone else
. We don’t need them.”

Each of us knew that we hadn’t been fine. In just a few days, our group had been decimated. We needed numbers and at some point we needed to believe in the goodness of people again. Or at least we needed to believe they wanted their family back just as much as us.

“Do you have any weapons?” Trevor asked Lew.

“Just what you see.
Not much ammo left.”

“We’ll gather those too,” Sasha said, back in control of us all. “Zach, Trevor,
take care of the mercenary and get ready for us. Jackson will come with me.” She turned to the other group brushing the hair out of her eyes. If I hadn’t seen her breakdown not too long ago, I never would have believed it possible. “Lew, pick someone to come with us. The others will stay here and help gather whatever supplies we might need.”

Lew nodded and spoke quietly to Wade and the other two.

Trevor turned his back to them and shifted nervously before Sasha. “Um, how are we supposed to take care of her exactly?” His gaze drifted to Rachael who’d yet to make any type of comment. I suspected she guessed her end was near.

“Figure it out.”

“Okay, we’re ready.” Lew stepped around the vehicle and helped Sasha offload the few items we had.

“Let’s take the guns,” Sasha said then faced me. “We’ll be back within the hour.”

“You remember which tracks to follow?” I asked.

Sasha looked like an exasperated mother telling her child something for the hundredth time. “Yes, Zachary. I remember which way to go.”

Then, to my total shock and surprise, she reached up and kissed me on the cheek. Sasha
never showed affection.

“Let’s go,” she said curtly and jumped behind the wheel. Lew and Wade climbed in the back and the sharp sound of the roaring engine broke the silence like a train barreling through a library.

“I still don’t know what she wants us to do,” Trevor sighed.

“Undress her,” I said and laughed at his appalled expression. “What? I thought th
at be a dream come true for you.”

“I…I can’t.”

“I’ll do it,” the only woman here said. “My name’s Maryanne, but everyone calls me Annie.”

My heart panged again at the thought of her nickname. Vee claimed to hate hers, even if I suspected otherwise.
Annie’s dark skin and ebony hair showed little sign of our harsh environment. She wore a battered sweatshirt that had stretched enough to expose one shoulder, and a pair of dark jeans that hugged her long legs. I guessed she was in her early thirties by the knowledge hidden in her eyes, yet her genes kept her looking young.

“Okay,” I said. “I’m Zach and this is Trevor.”

She reached out a hand, calloused by years of being on the run. Perhaps she couldn’t hide her age so well after all. “This here’s Reynold. He doesn’t talk much but he’s a good shot.” Reynold’s shaggy brown hair hung in clumps around his face. It looked like he had every piece of clothing he owned somewhere on his body and he clung to his rifle like it was an extension of his arm.

Reynold
smiled and beamed at Annie with a look I knew well. Love.

“We’ll need her uniform,” I said, thankful for Annie’s offer to undress the mercenary girl. I didn’t want to see any more of her than I had to.

“Then what?” Trevor asked. “Are we going to kill her?”

Rachael twitched. “You can’t kill me.”

“Why not?” Annie asked. I hadn’t expected her capable of such a menacing tone.

“Because…because…” Her eyes flitted from one of us to another before something passed over them. “Oh, fuck it. Just kill me.”

“You don’t want to clear your conscience before you die?” I asked. “Like tell us how to get to the factory?”

She grimaced and I had my answer. “You’ll never succeed. And I can’t wait until they tear you up into pieces and drink you dry…”

A sharp crack reverberated off the tree as Annie swung a homemade club into Rachael’s head. The foot-long piece of wood had a bag tied around the end that I guessed were stones from the way they now clinked against each other when she dropped her hand. The blow didn’t kill Rachael, but I wasn’t sure if she’d be waking up anytime soon.

Trevor gasped and covered his mouth with his hands.
“What’d you do that for?”

“I can’t undress her when she
’s awake,” Annie said dryly. She bent forward and began her task.