The Unforgiven (The Propagation Project Book 1)

by Callie Bishop

  I know I have him convinced; I pull the crystal cluster out of pocket and slash it across his face. I toss my lucky crystal in my hand and smirk.

  Thank you, Ruby May.

  He screams, clutching his eye, as the blood trickles over his hands.

  “You bitch!” he screams.

  I deal him a swift kick in the gut, and he goes tumbling backward onto the bed. Behind me, I hear the opening of the front door and thudding footsteps of someone running.

  “Hazel! Are you in here?” Luka calls.

  Two seconds later, I see him at the threshold of the door, his eyes widened in fear. “What happened?”

  Luka tosses me my bag and from it I grab my gun. I don’t bother to explain, the adrenaline still pumping through every vein in my body. The bleeding, moaning, lump on the bed tries to get up, but flops back down with a guttural cry. I flip him over, and he removes his hands from his face, revealing a very deep and bloody gash trailing from his jawline to his forehead.

  I jump up on the bed and straddle the dirty old Pigeon, planting my butt right on his gut. Pointing my gun to his forehead, his eyes go cross-eyed following my movement.

  “Hazel, explain,” Luka yells from behind me.

  I ignore him, instead focusing my attention on the Pigeon.

  “What happened to the people in this house?”

  The Pigeon looks over to Luka, and the glint of recognition flashes over his eyes. “I know who you people are. You’re the ones who murdered that girl and her baby!”

  I jam the gun deeper into his forehead. “That’s not what I asked you!”

  He flinches, the sweat beading down his face. “I don’t know! I was sent here to watch the house after they were taken in case anyone showed up!”

  I get up from the bed and wedge my gun back into my waist. “This isn’t Rhea’s father. I found him in here trying to pass as him, except every family picture in this house says otherwise…idiot.”

  A few seconds pass, and the house shudders with another explosion.

  Books cascade off the shelf, and pieces of the ceiling flutter to the ground.

  “What is going on out there?” I ask Luka.

  He looks to the moaning Pigeon on the bed. “We gotta get out of here. They’re blowing everything up.”

  “No! Not until I find what we came here for!”

  Luka hesitates. “What are we going to do with him?”

  I hear more thumping down the hall, and soon Shane appears in the hallway.

  “No time to explain,” I say. “Get this Pigeon out of here, and I’ll look around and see if I can find anything.” I want to ask about the rest of the group, but I’m afraid any bad news will distract me from what needs to be done.

  Shane and Luka scoop the bleeding Pigeon off the bed and drag him out of the room. I don’t know where they’ll take him, but I’m sure he doesn’t have long to live. After what he knows, there is no way we can let him. He was sent here for the sole purpose of reporting us to the Officials if we happened to show up. They might already be on their way.

  “Bed, blue…bed, blue,” I repeat to myself over and over. “Okay, well here’s the bed.”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  I turn around, and my heart practically flutters out of my chest. I run over to her and wrap my arms around her neck.

  “Whoa,” she says, bracing herself against my suffocating embrace. She pats my back softly.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” I say, finally releasing her from my grip.

  “It’s bad out there.” She looks around the room.

  I move to the far side of the bed and remove all the covers and pillows. All I’m left with is a naked, old, ugly mattress.

  “Help me out for a minute,” I say, pointing to the other side of the bed. “Lift it on three.” The one place I know I’ve hidden things before to keep them away from Netty’s prying eyes is under the mattress.

  “One, two, three.” With one swoop, we heave the mattress in the air, which is surprisingly heavy for being so small. I look down at the box spring and find it empty.

  “Dammit!” I say, getting ready to fling the mattress back down. A gunshot cracks through the air, and I know Shane and Riley have taken care of the Pigeon.

  “Wait!” Sarah says as I start to lower the mattress back down. “Hold your side up again.”

  I do as I’m told, and she leans over the box spring and reaches out her hand toward the middle of the mattress. I hear the pull of Velcro as she peels a small hard cover book from under the mattress.

  She shakes it in the air with her hand. I smile wide and we both drop the mattress, not bothering to make sure it’s back in place.

  “What is it?” I ask, running to her side of the bed.

  Sarah opens the notebook, the pages sectioned off in different colors—pink, yellow, white, and blue.

  “It looks like a diary,” she says.

  Shane comes running into the room. “Let’s go now. Rusers coming from everywhere. Some kind of riot act against the ICCs.”

  He shuffles us out of the room as I stuff the diary in my bag.

  Outside, the sun has risen, revealing the full extent of all the damage. Strong gusts pick up debris and toss it down. The smoke is like a dark, wispy blanket coming to smother us. An Official truck is parked across the middle of the street, blocking both lanes. The back of the truck is being licked with large orange flames, both the driver and passenger doors are ajar, and through the windshield I can see two bodies slumped over.

  People are gathered around the burning vehicle, watching the carnage unfold. There is nothing to do, no one to call, as Rusers rip through the back doors of the truck and rummage through the contents.

  “What are they doing?” Sarah asks as we all take a second to look.

  “It’s the ICC truck.” Riley stands with his fists on his hips and half of his face covered in soot. “They’re driving them around the Wards to install the chips.” He wipes his face with his shirt.

  Far to the left, a blaring sound echoes off houses and trees. Another large truck comes barreling down the road. More Pigeons.

  They’re booming some muffled announcement through a loudspeaker, but from this far away I can’t make out any of the words.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Shane says.

  My feet are frozen to the asphalt underneath my boots. The smoke envelopes us, and it burns down my nose and throat as I inhale it.

  “Now!”

  Someone tugs on my arm and knocks me out of my trance. I throw my backpack over my shoulders and follow the rest of the group into the overgrown brush out of the neighborhood.

  I stop and turn at the edge of the road, a blood curdling scream filling the air. My breath catches in my throat as I see the Rusers attack the oncoming truck and the Pigeons shooting everything in the way. Another Pigeon jumps out of the bed of the truck and throws a small metal object into the crowd. It starts to smoke, and people run, covering their eyes and mouths with their shirts. A mother scoops up her kids, who look Caleb’s age, and runs back toward her house. I watch as she struggles to carry both boys. She just makes it to the front door when she falls to the ground, clutching the back of her leg. I’m so terrified at what I’m seeing that I don’t even notice the sharp sting cutting through the side of my stomach.

  Stuck, like an arrow on a dartboard, is a small metal needle. It cuts right through my shirt that is now puckered in blood. I pry it out of my skin, letting out a painful scream, and throw it on the ground. Lifting my shirt, I bring my fingers to the site where the skin is punctured, watching my fingers glisten with ruby red liquid.

  Chapter 41

  Running. Running. Running.

  Running until my lungs burn and my legs vibrate with exhaustion. Branches, bare and brittle, scratch at my face and arms as I push through them. In the background, I can still hear gunshots cracking like thunder through the valley of the mountainside.

  Don’t look back. Don’t look back
. Keep running. The smoke is so thick I wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway.

  Leaves crunching, twigs cracking, heavy breathing. These are the sounds that fill the thick woods. I don’t know where we are going, but I see someone up ahead, probably Shane, and keep following his lead. My backpack jostles on my back, and I hope that I remembered to zip it. I lag behind Sarah and Riley, and Luka is to my right. The pain sears in my side, and tears prick my eyes as the smoke obscures my vision.

  Up ahead, I see Shane stop and bend over, his hands resting on his knees, his chest heaving. We all stop, our bodies imitating the same form.

  “What...do…we…do…now?” Sarah says, breathless.

  No one says anything, too out of breath to speak, or maybe because nobody has an answer.

  “I need to sit down.” Riley peels his bag off his back and plops it on a bed of rusty colored leaves.

  We all find a tree to lean against and do the same.

  “You’re bleeding!” Shane shouts.

  Before I can answer, another terrifying sound fills the air.

  A ravenous bark sounds off in the distance.

  “Oh shit!” Riley says. “They’re letting the dogs loose.”

  We all scramble to our feet. I stumble back a few inches, caught off-guard by my injury.

  “Where do we go?” Sarah says.

  Where do we go? We’re in the middle of the woods, the thick smoke making it hard to tell which way is up, and who knows how far away from the road we are.

  “Just follow me,” Shane says. “The road has to come up around here somewhere.”

  “How do you know?” Sarah says.

  “Trust me,” he says. “I’ve done my share of running away.”

  The sound of the jackals is getting closer.

  Luka runs over to me, his face pale with worry. “Hazel, what happened?” He lifts my bloodied shirt, but I pull it back down.

  “I’m fine…it’s nothing.” The words are slurred and my vision doubles.

  Shane starts off in a sprint, and we all follow. The few minutes of rest did little to ease the pain in my lungs and legs. I fight back the urge to collapse on the ground and let the jackals eat me alive. I feel the whoosh of someone pass by me. He looks over, the fear widening his eyes, and for a minute I think I’m hallucinating. My pace is slowing down, and the distance between me and the rest of the group is getting bigger.

  The fallen logs make it even harder to keep up, and soon my legs are so tired I can barely lift them. I trip and pummel to the ground. My body feels numb, and I can’t get myself to move. The sound of rustling leaves becomes louder and louder, and I’m convinced it’s the jackals sniffing me out.

  Great. Maybe I’ll finally be able to get some rest.

  Hovering over me is an unrecognizable face. I’m seeing everything in twos, and when the stranger talks, it comes out slow and deep. I shake my head listlessly from side to side. I feel a tug on my leg, and I try to kick him away.

  Doesn’t he know I don’t want to run anymore?

  But it’s no use. The stranger pulls and pulls until I feel my body being lifted and hurled over. My vision fades as my side throbs heavy with pain and heat. It feels so good to let myself fall into the peaceful blackness of my closed eyelids. So I do… and soon I feel no more.

  Chapter 42

  My skin is burning…or maybe it’s freezing. I can’t tell. All I see is black, and all I hear is the faint ringing in my ears. I wait for Netty to tell me to pick a letter.

  “Pick a letter,” she used to say.

  “R.”

  “R,” she’d repeat, tapping her chin with her finger.

  It wouldn’t take her long to think of someone we knew, usually a boy, whose name began with whatever letter I chose.

  “It means they’re talking about you,” she’d say teasingly.

  I’d laugh it off, telling her how silly she was.

  I perk my ears, straining to hear something familiar, a voice, a song, even a recognizable scream. But silence beats back at me.

  Everything about me feels empty, my heart, my head, and especially my stomach. It rumbles loudly, twisting and turning in my gut, reminding me it’s been too long since my last meal.

  I hear a crackle and then a pop. Something nips at my arm, igniting a searing sting through my skin.

  My eyelids feel heavy. I don’t want to open them, afraid of where I might find myself. Maybe I’m dead. But then I think that would be too easy.

  Another nip on my arm and I force my eyes open. I blink a few times to clear the film of sleep and smoke away. It’s night, and the only thing illuminating the face in front of me is a small fire. I sit up quickly, my boots scraping rocks and gravel from the ground. A blanket falls from my lap, revealing the bloody patch tainting my white shirt. Then it hits me. The pain from my side sears into my muscles like a hot coal.

  “Take it easy,” the person in front of me says. “You’ll start bleeding again.”

  I lift my shirt to check on my wound and find my midsection wrapped with a light-colored cloth. I peer up, confusion settling in. “Who are you?” I ask. “Where am I? What happened?”

  He smirks and prods the fire. “Which one do you want me to answer first?”

  I stare at him, unsure if I’m actually supposed to answer.

  “You collapsed,” he says. “After you got hit with a sleep stick.”

  I pat the makeshift bandage, trying not to think about this stranger lifting my shirt and touching me, my blood probably rubbing off on his fingers. “Thanks. For bandaging me up.” I’m overcome with a yawn. “What’s a sleep stick?”

  “It’s something the Officials give the Pigeons to disperse crowds of Rusers. It’s like a mild tranquilizer to put everyone to sleep.”

  As he says it, I yawn again. “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine,” he says. “It should wear off soon.”

  The flames of the fire flicker high. Looking up, the bluish black sky is dotted with a million stars. The wind whips by, lifting the goose bumps from my skin.

  “What happened to the others I was with?” I sway my head, trying to clear my scattered memories. I remember running in the woods, trying to escape from the Pigeons in the thick smoke. I remember getting hit by the sleep stick and watching as it happened to the mother carrying her two babies. How I got here, I have no idea. What’s worse is that I have no idea what happened to everyone else and where they are now.

  “I don’t know,” he replies. “I saw you unconscious on the ground. I thought about leaving you to the jackals, but against my better judgment I scooped you up and brought you back here.”

  All I see is wilderness. Just a fire and us.

  “Do you live here?” I look down and am relieved to see my backpack is still with me.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t live anywhere.” He gets up and walks over to his own bag plopped on the ground. “Hungry?”

  I nod and he throws over something to eat. I grab some water out of my bag and remember the diary.

  “What were you running away from in the woods?” I ask, biting into a stale piece of bread. It doesn’t taste like anything and feels like cardboard in my mouth.

  “Same as you I suppose.”

  “I’m not a Ruser,” I say.

  “I know.”

  “How?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  We get caught in a staring contest, and I’m the first one to break the silence.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” I say.

  “Jack.”

  I offer him a half-smile; he returns the favor. Jack doesn’t look any older than Shane or Luka, and his dark brown eyes match his complexion. His hair falls curly around his face. His arms and legs have faint scratch marks, probably from running in the woods.

  “You must have been running from something.”

  He laughs and adds a few more twigs to the fire. “Aren’t we all?” When he’s satisfied with the height of the flames, he leans back, propping his knees up
. “Nice tattoo.”

  I look down at it and run my hand over the ink.

  “Do you have a name?” he says.

  I hesitate, not sure what to tell him, knowing my name has been all over the news.

  “Maria,” I say, feeling a little guilty for lying.

  “That was a close one today, huh?”

  “Things are really getting crazy around here.”

  “And they’re only going to get worse.”

  “How so?” I remember the Pigeon imposter mentioning something about the Rusers blowing everything up outside, saying they’re not just any old Rusers.

  Jack peers up from under his eyelids, the orange and yellow flickering in his irises.

  “There’s a new group rising,” he says.

  I draw my knees into my chest for comfort, ignoring the pain in my side.

  “A new group?” I ask. “To do what?”

  “To start a restoration…their words, not mine.”

  “But isn’t that the point of the Rusers now?”

  Jack shakes his head in frustration. “No, the Rusers out there now are a joke. All they want to do is blow shit up.

  “So, who’s in charge of this new group…you?”

  “Me?” he snorts. “No, I just help out every once in a while. The Officials think they can keep us pinned down, like a bird with clipped wings.”

  “How?” I ask.

  Jack sits up, wrapping his arms around both knees. “Ever hear of Carrier Pigeons?”

  I nod, remembering Uncle Will telling me about the supposed elite group of Pigeons the Officials use to conduct secret business outside the Wards. Their existence was just a rumor, but Uncle Will always knew it was true.

  “Don’t tell me you’re a Carrier Pigeon,” I say. “I thought they didn’t exist.”

  “They don’t.” His lips twist into a devilish grin.

  “You’re serious?”

  “My dad was one, too, and his brother and their dad. I guess you could say it runs in the family.”

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “I’m not exactly on good terms with the officials right now,” he says. “They executed my father as a traitor.”