Rise (New Haven Book 3)

by Sara Jo Cluff

  “You forced her hand.” Dean folded his massive arms and stared at me. “You didn’t give her an option.”

  “Like hell, I didn’t!” I fumed. How could he defend her? “She had a choice! She should’ve stayed and supported us!”

  Amber ran her fingers through my hair. I wanted to back away, but I forced myself to stay still. “You killed her lover, babe. What did you expect?”

  I’d expected her to be mad, maybe a little sad, but I didn’t think she’d start a war in River Springs. I had other things more important to think about. Like capturing Emmie and destroying New Haven. “I didn’t think she cared about him this much.”

  Dean laughed. “They’d been together for twenty years, Austin. You really thought she wouldn’t have hurt feelings over you killing Whit?”

  I needed to change the subject before I did something rash. I walked over to the window and looked out. My security detail was placed around the precinct, keeping every resident in line. They were ordered to immediately kill anyone who crossed that line. “Where do we go from here? We need to stop this war Janice started so we can move on. It needs to be quick.”

  Amber propped herself up on my desk and crossed her ankles together, swinging her legs. “They have a lot of weapons and ammo. It will be hard to get in.”

  “We need to attack from all sides,” Dean said.

  I nodded. “I like that idea. If we could somehow get our security to surround the perimeter, that would be beneficial.” When I leaned against the table, Amber linked her arm through mine. “We need to attack in the middle of the night. We need to use as little ammo as we can, so we have enough to fight the other cities.”

  Dean shook his head and looked at me. He eyed Amber’s arm linked with mine for just a moment, then turned his eyes back to me. He didn’t like the two of us together, but I couldn't care less what he thought of our relationship. “We’ll need a lot of ammo if we plan on winning. There are too many of them.”

  “If we could just get to Janice and kill her and her top supporters,” I said. “Then we might be able to get everyone else to surrender. When your life is suddenly on the line, you’ll do anything to stay alive.”

  “I’m not sure about that,” Dean said. “I think a lot of them won’t go down without a fight.” He was probably thinking of Whit’s wife, Amy, who Dean had been sleeping with for years. It was another reason I didn’t trust him staying here. I needed to keep a close eye on him.

  Amber gave a bored sigh. “Can’t we just throw a lot of bombs over there or something?”

  I looked at her. “I need those bombs for my other plans.”

  “Fine. What about grenades or the rocket launchers?” Amber asked, rubbing my arm.

  I clenched my jaw as I thought about our ex-military leader, Mack, and how he’d somehow managed to get his hands on two of our rocket launchers. We only had five to begin with. “We only have three left and the rockets themselves are in limited supply. The area Janice is in is too big for the grenades to do any real damage. We need to find out where she’s hiding.”

  “How do you expect to do that?” Dean asked.

  “Let’s send in a spy.” I stood up straight and approached the window, just so I could get away from Amber. “Fine someone willing to go over there and find out her location. Give them a communication device and have them report back to us everything they find out.”

  Dean rubbed his hand over his bald head. “We’ve already tried that, and it didn’t work. They check everyone who comes in for any communication device.”

  I closed my eyes, trying to keep my temper in check. “Send someone in, have them find out, and then have them escape and come back over here.”

  “We’ve tried that, too.” Dean didn’t hide his annoyance. “They killed the person before they could get back over here. Janice isn’t too trusting. She knows what you’ll try to do.”

  Opening my eyes, I slammed my fist against the window. “Then find another way! How hard can it be to find one person?”

  Amber came up and wrapped her arms around me, rubbing her hands on my chest. Dean cleared his throat, so I took her hands and pushed them off me. Amber huffed, but I didn’t care. We were talking about war. It wasn’t the right time for her to grope me.

  “It’s more complicated than you think, Austin,” Dean said. “Remember how close she was to Whit. He let her follow him around like a puppy. She sat in every meeting and heard every single word that came out of his mouth. She knows what to do. She’s smart and capable of stopping anyone from invading her part of the city.”

  “Just send someone in and report back to me,” I said.

  Dean nodded and left the room.

  “You don’t have to worry about me touching you when my dad’s around,” Amber said from behind me. “I’m old enough to make my own decisions.”

  I turned around to look at her. “It’s not about that, Amber. It wasn’t the appropriate moment for it.”

  “I was just trying to console you.” She placed her hands on my chest. “You’ve been so wound up.”

  She was right about that. Everything had been stressing me out. She annoyed me most of the time, but she was good for letting out some of that stress. I picked her up by her waist and set her on my desk. She bit her lip and wrapped her legs around me, pulling me close. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the fact that it was her I kissed. She wasn’t half bad at it.

  Right before I’d killed Whit, I had everything lined up perfectly. He was the last piece I needed to destroy and then it was on to victory.

  But stupid Janice Woodard had blindsided me. I hadn’t seen her attack coming. If I would have known, I would have killed her too. I was just so mad at myself for making such a foolish mistake. I needed to repair the problem.

  Before Janice’s daughter, Emmie, started the revolution in River Springs, we had a stable seventeen thousand residents. Then she left and over time she managed to convince about three hundred to join her. It wasn’t much, so I didn’t worry about it. We still outnumbered them.

  But Janice flipped out when she heard Whit was dead. She managed to talk someone in security into letting her do a broadcast that could be heard everywhere. Her voice rang out over the city, letting everyone know I killed Whit. She said that anyone that supported me should move to the River or Ocean Precinct. Anyone who stood against me and wanted to support her and the revolution Emmie started, she told them to join her over in the Lake and Mountain Precincts. She divided River Springs into two sections. She broke into our weapon supply and headed out, stopping anyone that tried to get in her way.

  I didn’t think anyone would support her or Emmie, seeing as Emmie had convinced less than three hundred to join her. To my surprise and dismay, several thousand did support them, leaving me with only nine thousand residents. Every day that number got smaller as people tried to escape and flee to the other side of the city. Some made it over there safely and some lost their lives along the way. It was such a waste, losing all those people, but they brought it upon themselves.

  We tried to send spies over to get information, but they kept tight security around the perimeter of their territory. They put up barricades all the way around so no one could just walk in. They searched and questioned everyone that came through. We kept a close eye on the entrance to see who went in and out of their territory.

  In the beginning, Janice was heavily involved. We saw her constantly near the entrance, talking to everyone that tried to enter. But as time went on, and the number of residents grew, she stopped showing up at the entrance. She was playing it safe. She probably saw it as being careful and wise, but I saw it as being a coward.

  There were a few key players that we consistently saw at the entrance. They must have been her closest advisors and the people she trusted the most. I needed to find a way to get my hands on one of them. If we tortured them enough, they would crack. Everyone had a breaking point.

  I needed to wipe out Janice’s side of the city soon
so we could move on to bigger and better things. We were losing valuable time and it had to come to an end.

  President Mendes sat at the head of the table with her hands clasped together, her makeup making her hazel eyes pop. Her green blouse was too big for her. She’d lost weight over the past year. We had been working so hard to build up New Haven, so everyone worked long hours. She was also still adjusting to the loss of her husband Oscar, New Haven’s previous Vice President, and the loss of her son Javier.

  We were sitting in the conference room at the wood table and chairs, planning out our strategy for the upcoming weeks.

  “Dante, what’s the latest news?” President Mendes asked. Her orange blossom perfume wafted across the table.

  Dante leaned back in his chair, his eyes filled with anger and sorrow. “They’ve captured them. We need to get there as soon as possible.”

  Ever since Dante left Kingsland, he’d been keeping in touch with an ally over there named Marcus. Things were fine up until about a month ago. Marcus and his supporters had been able to keep their involvement with the revolution a secret. But somehow the president of Kingsland found out their identities and started killing anyone who supported the revolution unless they all turned themselves in. They had barricaded themselves in a corner of the city since there were so many of them. But it wasn’t long until they ran out of supplies and President Coleman was able to infiltrate their area.

  “Where are they hiding them?” Vice President Jennings asked. He sat opposite the president, his petite frame not taking much room in his chair.

  “That’s the main problem.” Dante rested his long arm on the back of the chair. “I have no idea. Marcus was only able to contact me for a few seconds to let me know they’d been found and then the communication went dead.”

  I twisted the ring Eric gave me around my finger. He’d asked me to marry him after he returned from being held captive in River Springs. He said he’d do it right one day but just wanted the assurance at the time. I more than happily said yes. Made of dark brown twine, the ring had started to fray from me turning it so much and the fact that I never took it off. “Do you know of any possible locations of where they would be?”

  Terrance shook his head and sat forward, the muscles twitching under his tight military tee. “There were so many of them. Probably close to four thousand that supported Marcus. I’m sure President Coleman spread them all around the city so in the chance that we came to rescue them they’d be hard to find.”

  “How many still support the president?” Santiago asked. He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. His shaggy hair had grown so long, he’d started to tie it back with a hairband. He always kept an extra band on his wrist.

  Anytime Vivica looked at Santiago, he would wink at her and move his eyebrows up and down. I had no idea how she put up with him.

  Dante looked up at the ceiling, calculating it all out. He and I had become close friends since first coming to New Haven, so we could both read each other well. “My guess would be around ten thousand.”

  Santiago whistled. “Is it even possible to go rescue them?”

  Dante gave Santiago a sharp look. “We have to. President Coleman will torture them for information and then kill them.”

  “How do you know he hasn’t killed them already?” Gideon asked. His eyes looked tired, yet full of joy. He probably didn’t get any sleep last night since he and Marie had just welcomed their first child into the world.

  Dante swore under his breath. We all knew it was highly likely that had already happened.

  Gently squeezing Dante’s arm, I sat forward. “It doesn’t matter. Those people are part of our revolution. If there is any chance to save at least one of them, we need to take it.”

  “Let’s not forget about the fact that the same disease Lou and Dee had last year has been spreading around Kingsland,” Vice President Jennings said. As always, his white polo shirt was perfectly pressed. “We have the cure and those people need to be saved.”

  He’d almost lost his daughter Dee from the disease. It was probably hard for him to stomach other parents having to go through the same thing.

  I nodded. “It makes this mission that much more important.”

  “We’ll be going in blind,” Hiro said. Hiro was a previous Juniper City resident and now a military officer for New Haven. He was short yet stocky. “We have no idea what we’ll walk into.”

  Tina looked at Dante, tightening the band holding back her red hair. “Do you even know who the four thousand are? If we walked into your city, anyone could pretend to be a part of the revolution and then kill us when our backs are turned.”

  “She’s right,” President Mendes said. “There’s no way of knowing who we can and can’t trust.”

  “That leaves only one solution,” Maya said. We all turned to her. She twirled her charm bracelets around her wrist. “We need to find and capture President Coleman.”

  Santiago smiled. “Hold him hostage. I like it.” He held up his hand to Maya for a high five, but she ignored him. When Santiago glared at her and swore, Dante reached over and high fived him for her.

  “We can set up an exchange,” Terrance said. “They can have President Coleman back alive if they release the prisoners.”

  Vivica looked over at Terrance. She had her shoulder-length black hair slicked back. “Do you think they would trade the president for four thousand people? I don’t think he’s worth that much.”

  “What if we just asked for woman and children first and then think of another plan?” Tina asked.

  Gideon shook his head. “It has to be all or nothing.”

  “Let’s take over Headquarters.” For the first time that day, Dante had a spark of hope in his eyes. He grabbed a pen and paper from the middle of the table. He talked as he drew. “Let’s make it a small ops mission. Just everyone in this room besides the president and vice president.” He looked at me and Tina. “Eric and Luke can come too.”

  When we first came to New Haven, we agreed to not have the four revolutionaries go on missions together in case something bad happened. We were all so new to everything. Now we were more stable and knew our strengths and weaknesses. We’d had a lot more training and after the battle with Juniper, we realized the four of us worked best together, not separate.

  “Bruce won’t let you leave without taking him,” Maya said. Her short black hair was in her typical fashion, spiked around her head.

  I smiled at Dante. “Neither will Joshua nor Will.”

  Dante shook his head as he continued to draw. “Fine. What’s that? Fourteen people?”

  “Might as well make it fifteen,” Terrance said. “We can have five groups of three surrounding the building.”

  “Who would number fifteen be?” Vivica asked.

  The corner of my mouth turned up into a slight smile. I knew the perfect person. “Thunder Thighs.” I immediately clasped my hand over my mouth. I had never spoken out loud the nickname I gave her back in Recruitment to anyone but Eric, Luke, Tina, and Dee.

  Tina sat across from me laughing and clapping her hands together.

  Vivica raised her skinny eyebrows and looked at me. “Who’s Thunder Thighs?”

  Tina laughed so hard, tears formed in her green eyes. I picked up a pen and threw it at her, smacking her in the cheek. “It’s not that funny.”

  She nodded and let out a snort. “Yes, it is!”

  Everyone in the room looked back and forth between me and Tina. I rolled my eyes and then tucked my hair behind my ear. “Her real name is Rachel.”

  “That girl from your old city who always looks ticked off?” Dante asked.

  I nodded. “Yes, that would be her.”

  “You call her Thunder Thighs?” Maya asked with a sly smile.

  My face reddened a little as I noticed all eyes on me, most of them questioning. I slowly nodded. “I gave her that nickname back in Recruitment when I didn’t know her real name. She’s very thick and muscular. It
seemed appropriate at the time.”

  Santiago had a huge grin on his face. “I’m calling her that from now on.”

  “No!” I turned and pointed my finger at him. “You can’t tell her my nickname for her. She’ll crush me!”

  Dante slapped me on the back. “I think you could take her.”

  Tina finally regained her composure. She looked across the table at Santiago. “Can we put that down as the next fight in the ring? Emmie and Thunder Thighs? I’ve been dying to know who would win.”

  “Do you have a death wish for me?” I asked Tina. “You know she’ll kill me. There’s no way I could beat her.”

  “Not with that attitude,” Vivica said, folding her arms and pursing her lips.

  Hiro cleared his throat. “Maybe we should go back to planning the infiltration of headquarters in Kingsland.”

  I really liked Hiro. He was such a hard worker and an amazing fighter, but sometimes he took life a little too seriously. He needed to lighten up just a bit.

  “He’s right,” Vice President Jennings said. He gave me somewhat of a fatherly scolding look.

  Ever since my father had passed away in the battle last year, he had taken it upon himself to become like a father to me. But so did Eric’s dad Alexander, plus my two brothers, Derek and Joshua. It was becoming annoying. I went from having one father to four.

  I sighed and looked at Dante’s drawing. “So, where's headquarters located in your old city?”

  Dante pointed to it on the paper. “Northside. I think it would be best to walk around the city from the outside and break-in on the north, right above headquarters.”

  Terrance and Vivica nodded in agreement. They were previous residents of Kingsland like Dante.

  “What’s security like?” Santiago asked, snapping the hairband against his wrist.

  “Tight,” Dante said. “They’ve beefed things up since the list leaked. It could be even more now that they’ve captured them. They have at least ten men outside on each side of Headquarters. Plus, another twenty-five on the roof.”