Undaunted

by Kat Falls

  “Because of you too,” I replied.

  I shared his hope about what might happen next. When people in the West saw the manimals living their desperate lives, when they saw Aaron taking the antigen, and when they saw families reunited with their infected loved ones, everyone would have to agree that ending the quarantine was the right thing to do. Wouldn’t they?

  Bearly emerged from the cockpit and helped Everson and Mahari load the medical equipment. Rafe, however, hung back, pack in hand, eyeing the hovercopter and Bearly with active dislike. I joined him and knocked my shoulder into his. “Don’t worry. She’s a good pilot.”

  “She’s squirrelly,” he countered in a low tone. “And I don’t mean infected with squirrel.”

  She returned his glare, completely unfazed.

  I shrugged. “She doesn’t like you. None of the guards do.”

  “It’s more than that,” he muttered. “She’s hiding something.”

  I opened my mouth to protest but then shut it. From what I’d seen, Rafe’s crap detector was infallible. Unfortunately his doubts about her stirred up the panic I’d been pressing down for days. We had to get back to Moline — now. We had to warn my dad and Hagen that the line patrol was on the verge of invading the Feral Zone. My ankle, while improved, was still swollen and bruised. It would take days of painful hiking to get back there on foot. My best option was hitching a ride with Bearly, no matter the risk.

  “She helped the orphans,” I reminded Rafe. “She got them to Moline after Everson’s mother kicked them off the base. She went behind Chairman Prejean’s back to do it.”

  “She could’ve made that up to get you to trust her. Point is, that pilot is hiding something. Might have nothing to do with us, I don’t know. But we’re trusting her to take us upriver and I don’t want our trip to end in a jail cell. You’ve been around her. What’s your gut say — friend or foe?”

  The weight of that decision flattened me. “My gut says … friend. But that might be wishful thinking. I thought Chorda was —”

  “We’ll go with your gut,” Rafe said — no hesitation at all. “Besides, we don’t have a choice if we want to get to Moline this week.”

  Rafe was already carrying a rifle in a holster slung across his back, but now he checked his knife holsters — all four of them — and then produced a handgun and shoulder holster from his pack. I dug out the pistol Little One had given me, snapped in a cartridge, and threaded the holster through my belt. “When we land,” he said, “stick close.”

  Just then Neve appeared, shrugging out of the body armor jacket she’d peeled off the guard on the riverbank, which now seemed like ages ago. She offered the jacket to Rafe. “Take it,” she insisted, and pointed at me. “So you match.”

  The reasoning was pure Neve. But I had a feeling that she’d overheard us — from twenty yards away — and knew we were nervous about flying to Moline with Bearly.

  “Besides,” Neve went on as she pulled the strap of Rafe’s holster off his shoulder, “you need it more than me. I’m faster and stronger.”

  “True,” Rafe said, brows raised. To his credit, he didn’t let his gaze stray from her face.

  As she pulled off his old jacket, her golden eyes moved over his lean muscular form, and a warning siren sounded in my brain. Maybe he was still human enough for her to want as a pet.

  Just as a sick feeling began to pool in my gut, Rafe met my eyes over her shoulder and winked. And like that, the bad feeling evaporated. I even laughed when she forced his arm into the sleeve of the body armor like she was dressing a doll.

  “Easy there,” he protested as she moved to the other sleeve. “I’m infected with tiger, not snake.”

  I left them to it and headed over to put my pack in the hovercopter.

  “Any news on Dr. Solis’s progress on the vaccine?” Everson asked Bearly.

  “He’s testing it now, but he thinks it’ll work. The chairman’s counting on it. She’s scheduled a vaccination date for every base on the Mississippi, spacing them months apart. You know, in case there are side effects,” Bearly drawled. “Guess which base is up first … in three days.”

  Everson fell back a step, alarm evident in every line of his body. “Why isn’t Dr. Solis testing it on mammals first?”

  “Guards are mammals,” she deadpanned, though there was no missing the anger under her words.

  “She can’t make you take it,” I said, breaking into their conversation.

  “Most of the guards want to take it.” Bearly’s lips twisted with disgust. “They’re itching to cross the bridge and ‘clear out the zone.’ ”

  “Right.” Rafe sauntered over while zipping up his new patrol-issue armor. “Like the virus is the only thing over here that can hurt ’em.” He smoothed the jacket into place and grinned. “Matches my stripes.”

  The sun was just beginning to set when Moline came into view. My heart swelled in my chest. I couldn’t wait to see my dad. And the orphans. And maybe at some point get a bath. Rafe would probably want one too considering he seemed to be slick with sweat. He hadn’t so much as glanced outside since takeoff. His gaze was fixed on his hands, white knuckled and clamped on the seat’s edge.

  “Almost there,” I assured him, and got a curt nod in return.

  Bearly navigated the hovercopter between the crumbling buildings that were heaped with vines and punctured by trees and then slowed three blocks from the compound gate. She hovered over what must have been a small park twenty years ago. Now the overflowing vegetation had washed out the surrounding streets and drowned the nearby buildings.

  “Take us in closer,” Everson shouted above the whir of the blades.

  With a shake of her head, Bearly aimed the ’copter’s spotlight at a wide patch of unbroken asphalt at the edge of the park.

  Everson dismissed her suggestion with a jerk of his head. “You don’t have to land. Just get low enough that they —”

  Bearly set the hovercopter down with a teeth-jarring thump exactly where she’d indicated. She pulled off her headset. “They can walk from here,” she announced, and glanced over her shoulder at me. “Right?”

  I nodded, despite my unease.

  “A hack would’ve taken us door to door,” Rafe said, throwing off his seat belt. “And made sure we got past the gate. But we can take it from here.” He scrambled through the hovercopter’s open side, only to stumble on shaky legs. He popped back up with a glare that dared us to laugh.

  No one did.

  Bearly wasn’t even looking at him. She swung her gaze from the overgrown park to the nearest buildings and back again before turning off the engine. Probably wondering, like I was, if mongrels were watching us from the ravaged storefronts and rusted vehicles that lined what was left of the street.

  I climbed out of the ’copter in silence. Beyond this island of asphalt, the road vanished, broken apart by waist-high grasses and other scrub. The compound was only a small part of what had once been Moline, sectioned off with a wall of crushed cars, stacked five high. Since my last visit, the gate had been fortified with patchwork sheets of corrugated metal and sliding doors from freight cars. “Rando grups” wouldn’t be ramming their way into the compound now.

  “Ev,” Bearly said, sounding agitated as Everson threw open the cockpit door and jumped down. “My orders are to take you back to base.”

  He unholstered his rifle. “I’m going to walk them to the gate.”

  We waded into the prairie grass, but after a few yards, Rafe backpedaled several steps. “Smells wrong.”

  “Wrong how?” Everson asked, scanning the area.

  “Like boot polish. Like the base …” He hauled me around, shoving me back toward the hovercopter, hissing, “Run.”

  And I did, my ankle screaming with every pounding step.

  Our sudden dash triggered something behind us. Suddenly Everson barked out a curse and then yelled, “Stop there!”

  Us?

  I glanced back as Rafe steered me under the hovercopt
er’s tail. Everson stood tall in the grass, his back to us, his rifle trained off to the left. One block down, the buildings were crawling with line guards — rounding corners and clambering through shopwindows — nearly invisible with blackened faces and gray body armor.

  “Lane,” Rafe growled.

  I tore my eyes from the ruined ambush and caught up, putting the hovercopter between me and the oncoming guards. Rafe motioned toward a side street and then took off in a hunkered jog with me on his heels. We plowed through milkweed and brambles and stumbled over hidden chunks of concrete. Somehow my pistol was in my hand, though I didn’t remember taking it from its holster. I flipped off the safety.

  Everson shouted from beyond the hovercopter and I braced for a gunshot, but it never came. Of course he wouldn’t fire on fellow guards, but his threatening stance had bought us some time.

  “Fan out,” another voice yelled. “Find them.”

  Rafe ducked around an overturned dumpster. Ignoring the pain shooting up my shin, I pivoted after him into what was once an alley, now blocked off by rusting cars and mountains of rubble. Without pausing, Rafe plunged through the crack in a partially collapsed wall, trusting that I’d follow. And I did, in body anyway. In mind, I wanted no part of this.

  Nothing about the ancient department store seemed safe — not the buckling ceiling, not the dim interior that looked like a war zone complete with scattered bodies of fallen mannequins. The farther in we went, the darker the gloom. I paused by a shattered counter.

  Without glancing back or breaking stride, Rafe beckoned me to follow. Glass crunched under his boots as he disappeared down a dusty aisle. Still I hesitated. Shadows pulsed in my peripheral vision, only to melt into the surrounding darkness when I turned my head. How did I want to die? Cave-in, mongrel attack, or bullet?

  Rafe didn’t give me time to mull it over. “Lane,” he urged from somewhere off to my right. And yet, it was the shouted order from the street outside that got me moving again. The guards were closing in.

  I hurried through the maze of pillars and empty clothing racks, overwhelmed by the dirt and the silence. Looters had picked the place clean. Not surprising since the store was just blocks from the compound. I found Rafe in what was once the shoe department. Thin beams of sunlight filtered in through a bank of windows, now open to the elements and curtained in dead ivy. Rafe peered through the vines, backed off, and held up two fingers. So, two guards. Right outside.

  I followed him through drifts of dead leaves and high-stepped over fallen shoe racks like a recruit navigating a ropes course. When we plunged deeper into the store, where the shadows shifted with liquid grace like shades in Hades, I had to ask it: “Do you have a plan?”

  He shot back a “Please” with a lift of an eyebrow.

  I slowed in silent protest. I trusted him but hated being left in the dark — figuratively and literally. Especially literally. He might be able to see down these dark aisles with his night vision, but I had to rely on my imagination to fill in the details. And I did not like what my brain was conjuring.

  “Drain tunnel,” he said under his breath, though not low enough to hide his exasperation. “A block from here. It’s a back door into the compound.”

  I nodded my thanks and exhaled a little tension. A plan made this situation bearable. A plan kept any faint clicking sounds from seeming ominous … at least until Rafe stopped short.

  “Don’t talk. Don’t move,” he hissed while doing both. He backpedaled into me, forcing me into reverse. “It’s a nest.”

  Nest? Broken glass and lumps of moldering fabric coated the floor. Nothing looked like a … A hunched figure sidled in and out of the shadows beyond us. My guts sloshed and my fingers spasmed across Rafe’s body armor but couldn’t catch hold.

  “What …” The word hissed out as faint as air from a bike tire.

  “Adders,” he whispered back.

  As in snakes?

  Since when did snakes come hip high? I made a slow-motion pivot, poised to sprint back the way we’d come, but another dark shape crossed behind us — slinking and glistening like freshly poured tar … on legs. I stifled a scream by huffing hard through my nose.

  Then the clicking came from all around us — closer, louder. Claws on tile. The sound crawled into my ears, down my throat, and into my heart. I remembered I had a pistol, went to raise it, and saw that I already held it in front of me. I tried to take aim but caught only glimpses of the creatures — a glint of eyes on the right, the blur of a thick sinewy body on the left — then nothing.

  “They’re herding us.” This time Rafe didn’t bother to keep his voice low.

  “Snakes don’t herd people,” I protested without taking my eyes from the weaving shadows.

  “They do when they’re mostly wolf.” Rafe swiveled in place, his pupils wide and shining with reflected light, as he peered into the darkness.

  I followed the trajectory of his stare to a wolf-sized creature slinking along the top of a high display cabinet. Only it wasn’t a wolf. It was a nightmare. Shiny reptilian skin — gray with black markings — and a flat triangular head. I clapped a second hand to my pistol to keep it from shaking right out of my grip.

  “Don’t shoot,” Rafe ordered, thrusting my gun down. “The noise’ll bring the guards.”

  “But —”

  The mongrel above us made a sound more hiss than growl that ended with a hacking bark. The noise excited the others, and phlegmy barking broke out around us as the circle of glinting green eyes tightened. Rafe flipped his rifle around to use as a club just as the closest mongrel reared up on its hind legs and swayed, its black serpent fangs glistening in dead white gums. Before Rafe could bash in its head, I squeezed my gun’s trigger. Three bullets tore into the mongrel’s scaled chest, knocking it backward into the writhing mass of its brethren.

  Rafe glanced back, lips pursed like I’d just spoiled his fun.

  “I’d rather deal with guards,” I said in a tone that dared him to argue.

  With a sigh and a “Fine,” he flipped his rifle back around and let loose an arc of bullets. The rest of the nest scattered, yipping as they darted down aisles and leapt over displays, tails lashing like snakes. The explosion of noise left my ears ringing.

  “Let’s get out of here.” Rafe hooked my elbow and sprinted toward the frozen escalator, its steps piled with debris.

  I hauled back. “You’re heading deeper into the store.”

  His brows hiked. “You know this place?”

  “That’s the escalator,” I explained — which meant exactly nothing to him. “They’re in the center — Never mind.” I turned him around. “Just put your back to it and go. Any direction. We’ll hit an exit.”

  On a nod, he took off, angling away from the way we’d come. We fled past spinning chairs and toppled cosmetic displays, toward what had been double glass doors but was now a gaping exit fringed with dead vines. Freedom. One last counter to go, when — beams of light blinded us. Helmet beams. Show over.

  Three guards blocked our exit, assault rifles raised. “Drop your weapons,” ordered the woman in front.

  I looked past their faceplates and saw who was on point. Bearly. My anger surged — anger at myself. Why had I trusted her?

  She locked hard eyes on me and repeated, “Weapons down.”

  I drew a few breaths against the tightness in my chest and let my fury smother my fear. “You set us up?”

  She didn’t even have the grace to look guilty. “Now.”

  There was nothing to do. At this close range, their bullets would rip through our body armor. We set our guns on the mud-smeared floor.

  “I say we waste him right here,” sneered the pimple-faced guy on Bearly’s right. “Who’s going to know?”

  “I will, for one,” Rafe deadpanned.

  Bearly shot the guard a lethal dose of side eye. “We have our orders.”

  The third guard held her stance, making it clear that she had no dog in this fight.

  �
�Grup’s breaking for the river,” the guy said with mock alarm. He hiked up his rifle, shifting from a gut shot to Rafe’s head. “Gotta secure the line.”

  I went cold. Instantly. Mind and body. “We’re nowhere near the river.”

  “Do it,” Bearly bit out, “and I’ll drag your broken body to the brig myself. Got me?”

  The guy glared at Rafe for a long moment before giving Bearly the barest nod.

  They picked up our weapons then and, at gunpoint, escorted us back out into the purple haze of twilight, through the prairie grass to the broken asphalt. Everson knelt near the hovercopter with his hands zip-tied behind his back.

  “Are you okay?” I called.

  He nodded. “You?”

  I was a long way from okay but sent back a sturdy “Yeah.” Then I noticed that the guards standing next to him were nursing injuries — a bloody nose and a split lip — which brightened my mood. I smirked at them just for kicks. I was already swaying on a tightrope of trouble; a potshot of smug couldn’t make our situation much worse.

  Bearly and her cohorts herded us to a spot near Everson. Then Bearly headed back toward the hovercopter, and the other two joined the rest of the guards on the far side of the road, facing us. An unbroken line of gray riot gear.

  I leaned into Rafe. “Titan hovercopters are armored.” I couldn’t hear my own words over my thundering heart, but he caught them and nodded.

  “Run for it,” he added in a rasp. “First chance we get.”

  I edged back a step, clearing the path to the hovercopter’s open side. He needed to take the lead because my lower leg now throbbed with a pain so intense, I felt crippled —mentally and physically. But then the grind of an engine wiped all thought from my brain. After spending over a week in the zone where motors didn’t exist, this one sounded so out of place it came off eerie. And then, when the vehicle rounded the parked hovercopter, eerie morphed into outright alarming. A white RV jounced along the broken street toward us. Chairman Ilsa Prejean’s RV.

  Not possible. No way she’d come here, into the zone, risking germs and infection … unless … unless she’d been vaccinated against Ferae. Which meant that Bearly had been lying about that too. She was probably vaccinated herself, along with all the guards in this strike team.