I glanced over at Mike, Aleandro, and Casey. “Yes, I did. I’ve worked with them for a number of months now. They’re not Trads.”
He jerked the barrel of the shotgun toward the agents. “And what about these two? Did you know them before?”
Faw’s expression darkened, though he kept his tone even. “Sir, we’ve come from the White House. We have ID. If you put down the weapon, we can show it to you.”
The guy with the gun shook his head. He looked jittery and wired, though I was unable to tell if that was from fear or if he’d been taking something.
“Uh-huh. No fucking way. The moment I put down this gun, you’ll kill me.”
Agent Miller put out his hands as though to calm the man. “No one is killing anyone.”
The man had a point, though. I didn’t know either of the agents from before the attack. Just because they’d turned up in a high-spec helicopter and had looked official didn’t mean they were who they said they were. But no, even though the younger agent, Miller, was handsome enough, I didn’t feel that same pull of attraction. I knew it was all subjective, and just because I didn’t find him irresistible didn’t mean another woman wouldn’t, but I didn’t think either of them were Trads.
What I thought, and what this guy thought, however, were two different things.
Agent Miller took another step closer, and my wannabe rescuer swung the shotgun around. “Stay right where you are.”
While he was distracted, Agent Faw acted. He pulled out his gun and darted to the left, moving to the opposite side of where the other agent was standing. Now the man was pointing the shotgun at Agent Miller’s head, but he also had a gun pointed at his own.
“You need to drop your weapon,” Agent Faw commanded, holding his gun firmly. There was no sign of a tremor in his hand.
“No! If I do, you’ll take her, and then you’ll come back for more!” His eyes were wild with fear.
He was only trying to protect me, and because of that I felt responsible for him.
I took a step closer. I didn’t like being anywhere near so many guns, but I didn’t want to see anyone get hurt on my behalf. “Hey, listen to me.” I tried to keep my voice from shaking, but deep down I felt sick and tremulous from adrenaline. “It’s all right. I trust these men, and none of them are Trads.”
His crazed gaze darted to mine. “That’s what they want you to think. That’s how they work.”
“Come on. Put down the gun. Let us take what we need and get out of here.”
The shotgun trembled in his grip. “You’ll end up on a spaceship, getting probed and God knows what else. I can’t let that happen.”
“I’ll be fine. These three men here will take care of me. You don’t need to worry.” I tried a different tactic. “Hey, what’s your name?”
“Ben,” he replied.
“I’m sure you have people who need you to take care of them, too. If you hurt anyone here, you’re never going to be able to get back to your family. I’m sure they’re going to need you, too.”
Emotion flickered over his face. I didn’t know which part of what I’d said had gotten through to him, but a little of the determination in the set of his jaw waned.
He lowered his weapon.
A massive bang ricocheted through the store, and I jumped in shock. To my horror, in front of me, the man slowly toppled to his knees and then fell facedown onto the floor. There was a bullet hole in the back of his head, blood seeping out of the wound, his hair almost black with it.
I didn’t even scream. I stared in muted horror at the body, barely believing what had happened. I wanted to go back in time and undo the last few minutes, but such a thing was impossible.
Tears filled my eyes. “What have you done?”
“He was a danger to us and others.” Faw holstered his weapon.
My mouth dropped open. “So you just shot him?”
“These are dangerous, violent times we’re living in, Ms. Harran. We don’t have time for this sort of bullshit.”
“The only one who was violent was you!”
He frowned at me. “I think you’re forgetting what your job is. We need to think of the many now, not of the few, and this man was posing a threat to getting you safely to the White House.”
“He was putting down the gun,” I insisted, my voice unnaturally shrill.
“And it would have only taken a moment for him to change his mind and shoot one of us. What if he’d grabbed you and decided to take you with him to ‘protect’ you? You wouldn’t have minded him being shot quite so much then.”
“You can’t kill someone based on an idea that never even happened.”
A hand on my arm made me jump.
“It’s okay, Camille.” A soft, deep voice came from close behind me. Aleandro.
He pulled me into him, but I was rigid with anger and didn’t want his comfort. What the fuck was our world coming to?
“If you can’t accept the necessities of what we have to do to survive, Ms. Harran,” Agent Faw said, “Then we may have to suggest they find a different planetary scientist to work with.”
I stared at the floor. “No, it’s fine. I’m fine.”
It wasn’t in the slightest, but I knew there was no arguing with this man. Besides, if he was happy to shoot a complete stranger, what was to say that he wouldn’t resort shooting one of us if we happened to disagree with him?
“Good, then I suggest we do what we came here for and get moving again.”
I gritted my teeth but managed to keep my mouth shut. I had completely lost my appetite, which was no wonder considering I’d just watched a man get shot right in front of me, and he was now lying dead on the floor—but I needed the bathroom break more than ever.
I was happy to vanish in the direction of the toilets and shut myself in one of the women’s cubicles. I sat and relieved myself and then remained sitting, my trembling hands cupped over my face. Fresh tears spilled down my cheeks. Was this what we were going to be doing now? Just shooting anyone who caused us any problems? I wasn’t sure this was an Earth I wanted to continue living on if that was going to be the case. Maybe Tara had gotten the better deal by being taken to Tradrych.
No, I couldn’t think like that. At least here I still had my freedom, though if men decided they all needed to ‘protect’ us, I wondered how long that freedom would last. Women might find themselves being the ones locked up, even though we’d done nothing wrong.
I sniffed and wiped my face, and then finished up.
Letting myself out of the stall, I went to the sink to wash my hands and splash a little water on my face. I didn’t want the men—and especially not the agents—to see I’d been crying. Now wasn’t the time to look like the weaker sex.
We weren’t the weaker sex. We still had a woman in the White House, and she’d do everything within her power to protect us. At least, I hoped she would.
A knock came at the door, and I turned to find Casey peering into the bathroom.
“Everything okay?” he asked. “You’ve been awhile.”
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just needed a minute.”
“No problem. The agents are making noises about needing to get back to the helicopter.”
“Sure.”
I left the bathroom to join Casey. Mike and Aleandro were waiting for me as well, and the two agents had made their way outside and now appeared to be guarding the gas station door.
I couldn’t bring myself to look at the body—no, his name had been Ben. He wasn’t just a body, he’d been a person, too. But I had to ask. “What are we going to do about him? Surely we’re not just leaving him there.”
Aleandro gave an awkward shrug of his big shoulders. “Seems that way. Where else would we take him?”
I sighed and shook my head. “I have no idea.”
It wasn’t as though there was anyone we could report his death to. I didn’t know exactly how the hierarchy worked, but I was pretty sure the agents were higher in ranking than the local cops. B
esides, the police had their hands full with everything else going on. No one was going to blink at one death among the thousands that had occurred during the asteroid strikes.
We left Ben’s body and joined the two agents outside. A new tension had risen among us, and where I’d previously been relieved at being accompanied by the two agents, I was now worrying about how unpredictable they might be. What if Casey, or Mike, or Aleandro stepped out of line? Would they just shoot them, too?
In fraught silence, we hurried back through the streets to the field where the chopper awaited our return. I stayed close to the guys, reassured by their presence. I kept reminding myself that the agents had been sent to make sure we get to Washington safely, so they weren’t going to hurt us, but the events of the last hour had made me anxious. As we ran, curtains twitched in the houses, and I wondered if people had heard the gunshot and knew we were responsible. Was that someone’s father, or son, or brother lying dead on the gas station store floor right now? Was someone going to discover the body and mourn him?
A hand took hold of mine and squeezed, and I glanced to one side to find Mike right beside me.
“Another couple of hours,” Mike said, “and we’ll be in Washington.”
I sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I know. It’ll be better when we’re there.”
He gave me a tight smile. “Let’s hope so.”
We didn’t know what sort of state the city would be in. As bad as Las Vegas, I imagined, though at least we could travel by helicopter, so we wouldn’t need to try to navigate the streets.
The hum of the helicopter cut through the air, the pilot already warming up the rotor so we could take off as soon as we were all on board. We ran up to the aircraft, ducking low, and climbed into the chopper. Each of us took the same seats, so I was across from Agent Faw. I couldn’t even look at him. Every time I even glanced in his direction, all I could see was that man falling forward, a bullet hole in the back of his head.
Our world had changed, and maybe I needed to learn how to be a bit harder in order to survive, but I didn’t think I’d ever get over seeing a man die in front of me that first time. Especially as he’d died thinking he was protecting me, even if it was misplaced.
I didn’t want anyone else to die in my name.
Chapter Four
The next couple of hours passed slowly. I spent most of it locked inside my head, going over and over what had just happened, trying to figure out if there was something I could have said or done differently to change the outcome. Unease coiled sickeningly in the pit of my stomach, and I feared this was only a hint of what was to come.
As we approached the more built-up East Coast, the true extent of the attack was brought to life. I stared down at the cities below, horrified by what I saw. Barely a single area had escaped from damage of some kind. Fires continued to burn, but I didn’t know if they were due to the asteroids, or if these were manmade from the looting.
“We’re going to need to find a way to pull together,” I said, thinking out loud. “We’re never going to be able to rebuild if we don’t.”
“It’s thought the president is to announce marshal law shortly,” Agent Miller told us through the headset.
I frowned at him. “Is that a good idea? It’s not as though we’re fighting ourselves.” Martial law would mean people would lose their civil rights, and at the moment I thought we needed our rights more than ever. “What kind of message does that send out?”
“It sends out the message that people need to wise the fuck up,” Agent Faw snapped. “This isn’t a time for being nice. We’re still under attack, whether we can pick out the intruders or not.”
He was right, but his attitude concerned me. “A little kindness can go a long way in these situations,” I reminded him.
He snorted air out through his nose and turned away.
Mike nodded out of the window. “We’re nearly there.”
My stomach churned in anticipation. I was about to meet the president of the United States and I wasn’t completely sure what I was going to say to her.
I thought of something. “Was the White House damaged during the strike?”
Miller shook his head. “Thankfully not, though a number of other government buildings were destroyed.”
“Thank God for that. The president wasn’t taken somewhere safe then? I always thought she would be moved to a bunker or something if there was an attack on the city.”
Agent Miller nodded. “She was during the asteroid attack, but once the initial threat was over, she refused to hide away.”
I’d always respected the president, but I found my respect cranked up a couple of notches. “I’m looking forward to meeting her.” I hoped she wouldn’t be disappointed that we didn’t know more.
As we approached Washington, I anxiously chewed on a dried piece of skin on my lower lip. I’d been hoping the city might have escaped some of the horrors of the other places we’d seen, but the damage and destruction appeared just as bad, if not worse. I glanced over and caught Casey’s eye. He gave me a tight smile and adjusted his glasses. He didn’t need to say anything for me to know he was thinking exactly the same—this wasn’t looking good.
Mike’s eyes widened at the sight of the city, and he shook his head. “Fucking hell. This is insane.”
Aleandro pressed his lips together. “And that’s before we start to worry about aliens posing as human men.”
Other than the brief time on the ground where we’d gone to the gas station, the men hadn’t yet properly experienced the result of the asteroid attack for themselves. I’d had to travel through the city to reach our Observatory, but they’d already been there when the strike had happened. Even seeing the destruction on a screen was nothing like experiencing it in real life. We were sheltered by the windows and doors of the chopper, but I could still smell the tang of burning in the air. Black smoke billowed into the sky from multiple areas. Skyscrapers that hadn’t already toppled hung to one side, strangely sagging, as though their insides had been removed. Other areas were no more than rubble. The asteroids may have caused the initial damage, but it was the fires and collapsing of buildings that had continued the destruction. There was no possibility of anyone living in the structures around this area. It was perilous just being in the vicinity, never mind attempting to live in the buildings, and I wondered where all the survivors had gone.
Tears filled my eyes, and I covered my mouth with my hand. “God, it’s just too much.” The thought of this disaster not only affecting one city, but being the sight all over the world, made my head hurt to comprehend.
Aleandro reached out and squeezed my knee. “Baby steps, Camille. We’ll rebuild, one brick at a time.”
“The areas that were hit look bad,” Casey said, “but there are plenty of parts that have gone unaffected as well. Aleandro’s right. We will come back from this. It’s going to take time, but it can be done.”
“As long as the Trads don’t destroy any possibility of a future for our species,” I added.
Mike’s blue eyes flashed with anger. “We’ll wise up to those motherfuckers. They caught us by surprise, but we won’t let that happen again.”
I hoped he was right, but I wasn’t sure it was going to be that easy.
We approached the White House, and my breath caught at the sight. In amongst such destruction and ruin, the building stood proud. My heart swelled with emotion, taking comfort from its survival. Maybe Aleandro was right when he’d said we’d be able to rebuild.
“We’ve called ahead,” Agent Miller said. “They know we’re coming.”
The helicopter circled the White House to hover over the south lawn. As Miller had said, people moved below us, their clothes billowing in the downward blast from the chopper. Red discs were rolled out onto the lawn, like giant coffee coasters, meant to absorb the impact of the chopper landing, and I thought it was almost comical that they were still worried about damaging the lawn considering half the city was either b
urning up or falling down.
The helicopter descended, though I’d left my stomach somewhere several hundred feet above ground. It bumped and lurched, and I found myself reaching out and clutching Mike’s hand tight. I’d never liked these things, and my feelings on that hadn’t changed over the course of the last few hours.
The landing skids finally touched the ground, and I exhaled a sigh of relief and tried to calm my pounding heart. People in suits ran forward, opening the doors for us, and one by one, we climbed out.
I straightened, looking around. The size of the magnificent building took my breath away, and I thanked God that it had survived the asteroid strike.
A woman in a smart, caramel suit, her light-brown hair smoothed back into a bun at the nape of her neck, stepped forward. She glanced between each of us, her gaze lingering on Aleandro for a moment, before refocusing on the two agents who had accompanied us.
“Agents Faw and Miller,” she said, shaking both of their hands in turn. “You did well.”
“We came up against a little resistance,” Faw replied, “but we handled it.”
I knew he was talking about the dead man in the gas station, and I gritted my teeth to stop myself telling this new agent that the force he’d used to ‘handle it’ had been brutal and excessive.
“My name is Tammy Olsen,” she said, turning to me. “I’m a special agent working here at the White House.”
I shook her hand. “Camille Harran. Planetary scientist.”
She gave me a warm smile. “Yes, I know who you are. I’ll take you through to the president shortly, but first I just need to run through some security protocols.”
“Yes, of course.”
One of the men who’d run forward to open the doors of the helicopter moved toward me.
“If you could put your arms out, please?” He was directing the question at me.
At first I wasn’t sure what was happening, but then I realized he had a handheld metal detector.
“Sorry,” he said by way of an apology. “We have to be tighter on security than ever.”
“I understand.”
Her Resistance: Planet Athion Series (Darkest Skies Book 2) Page 3