Torch

by Tricia Copeland

  Leaving River and Shooter to watch Dena, I challenged my friends to race to the water. Diving in, I resurfaced as a waved splashed over my head. I raked my hand across the surface soaking my friends.

  “What are you doing?” Amelie wiped water from her face.

  “Who knows when we’ll all be together again. We have to savor every second.”

  Troy charged me, grabbing my legs and turning me over into the sea. We played chicken, me atop Troy’s shoulders and Amelie on Mace’s just like in middle school. Switching out guarding Dena, River and Shooter joined our antics, going along with our how-long-can-you-hold-your-breath, who-could-do-the-best-flip, and skipping-rock contests. Tiring of the surf, Amelie and I found a stream and rinsed off. With a fresh set of clothes, we sat on the sand and watched the guys fishing.

  “I mean, I always knew I’d be dating a football jock, but you surprised me, Walker.” She bumped her shoulder to mine.

  “Dancing is athletic. I was an athlete.” I pushed her away. “Know what? The first day I met him, I wondered what you would think if you knew I was talking to Troy Masterson.”

  “I would have thought… damn, girl, I’m proud of you. You used to be so shy, timid.”

  “I always felt different than everybody else.”

  “Well, you fit in in this world. All those trips your dad made you take. It paid off.”

  Pulling a handful of grasses, I weaved them into a braid and handed it to Amelie. “You have some pretty sweet skills yourself. What will you do?”

  “I’ve been thinking.” She spun to face me. "Maybe Mace and I will go back, try to find our families. Hopefully Butler doesn’t have them.”

  “Like taking candy from a baby.” I chuckled.

  “We are really tough broads.”

  “Yes, we are.” I stood and offered Amelie a hand. Pulling her up, I hugged her to me, never wanting to let go. “And don’t you forget it.”

  “Hey, no hug fest yet. We have alcohol and fish out here,” River yelled from the shoreline.

  Running to the sand, we joined them around the fire. Even though I gave River a hard time about his contraband liquor, I brought the bottle to my mouth. If there were ever a time to drink, it was then. The sip I’d had in the cabin in Missouri had been my first ever though, and I wanted to stay sharp. One swig would be enough. I passed the bottle to Amelie, and she took a long chug.

  Shooter let out a long whistle. “This might get fun.”

  “You guys need to bug out soon.” Troy took the bottle from Amelie.

  Tight-lipped, Mace waved it off, and Shooter grabbed it from Troy. I hadn’t let myself think about what might be waiting for me, but I could guess what Mace might see in his future. He and Amelie faced a life on the run, being undocumented, hiding out, possibly never seeing family again. Maybe Troy and I were lucky.

  Taking a deep breath to stave off tears, I leaned over and motioned for River to close in. “Can you watch out for them, help them out? You know how to do this, deal with all of it. Do you mind showing them the ropes?”

  “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of them.”

  Tears pooling in my eyes, I nodded my appreciation. His arms wound round me, and he squeezed tight. “You take care of you, girl. Whether this country knows it or not, you are a hero. It’s been my pleasure to serve beside you.”

  “Don’t,” I whispered into his ear.

  He patted my back. “There’s no other time for it. You gotta suck it up.”

  Releasing me, he stole Shooter’s fillet from his stick. After we ate all the food, we doused the fire with sand. Troy and I trudged behind Amelie, Mace, River, and Shooter, escorting Dena to the truck. She hadn’t said a word since the decision to meet the EC ship had been made, but I didn’t care. She’d made her bed.

  My heart thudded as we loaded the gear. It felt like it might beat out of my chest. As Amelie approached me, I pulled her into my arms. “If you get back to Missouri, find my bear skin, okay? If you find Sadie, tell her”—my words caught in my throat. I took a deep breath.—“to be happy. I love you. Be safe.”

  “Be safe,” she whispered into my ear.

  Pulling from my embrace, she ran to the truck. Mace held out his fist, and I bumped mine to it. “Don’t be a stranger.”

  “I’ll be up there.” He pointed to the sky. “Always watching for you.”

  “Thank you. I’m sorry you got pulled into all of this.”

  He wrapped his arms around me. “We knew what we were getting into. Take care of Troy, okay?”

  “I will.” I patted his back as he slid from my arms.

  River and Shooter hugged me, and I fought the onslaught of more tears. I needed adrenaline and anger right then. Anything but sadness, loss. As Mace revved the engine, I grabbed Troy’s hand and ran towards the vehicle, motioning for them to stop. Mace let the engine die.

  “Guys, this is a good thing. We did it. We won. Even if no one else knows it, we did.”

  “Oo-ooh.” River let out a big howl, and the others followed.

  Troy and I ran around the truck, giving them high fives and jumping and hollering. We got our win, and as bittersweet as it felt, damn if I wasn’t going to go out celebrating. Noting the time, Mace gunned the engine again. I held my arm up, signaling victory to them till out of sight.

  “Only fifteen minutes.” Troy grabbed my hand.

  “Good.” I slung my bow and quiver on my back and snatched my bag from the ground with the free one. “I don’t want to have to think about this for too long.”

  “We’ve still got each other.”

  “That’s about all that’s keeping me together.”

  “You were right. We need to celebrate that we made this happen. Thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people will live because of what we’ve done.” Troy reached up and ripped a branch from a palm tree.

  He carried it to the shore and shoved the end into the wet sand. Striking his flint stone, he set the top on fire.

  “What are you doing? The satellites.”

  “They couldn’t get here in time even if they do see us. I feel like we’re about to be snuffed out of existence. I want there to be some proof that this was real, we were real, meant something, stood up for justice, fought for our country.”

  I laced my fingers in his. “We’ll come back.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  We stood there staring at the flames till it burned down to the sand.

  I spun in front of him. “I’m sorry we don’t know where your mom is.”

  “Miles said he’d look for her, make sure she was okay.”

  “That’s good.”

  He hooked his arms around my waist, and I breathed in his smell, praying above all that they wouldn’t separate us. I figured I could get through just about anything with him by my side.

  “Guys, I see lights.” The sound of Dena’s voice surprised me.

  Turning to face the water, I saw a white light in the distance. We waited at the water’s edge as a skimmer approached. Sliding off my boots and hooking them over my shoulder, I rolled up my pant legs. My pulse raced as a soldier dropped the anchor from the back. Four soldiers jumped off the front, landing knee deep in the surf. Holding flashlights aimed at our faces, they stopped four feet out. One instructed us to lay our packs down, and we held them out and dropped them onto the sand. A woman approached and patted me and then Dena down, while a male soldier searched Troy. Scanning us for electronics, they motioned for us to proceed to the boat.

  Troy boarded ahead of me and offered his hand. I took it and swung my leg over the bow. In addition to the four soldiers that greeted us, four others were on the boat. They helped Dena onboard, lead her inside the small bridge, and seated her behind the person I determined to be the captain. Guards flanked her, but none moved towards us.

  Questions flooded my head, and I blocked them out. Whatever would be, would be. As the boat backed up and turned out to the open water, Troy wrapped his arms around me and kissed the t
op of my head. At least we didn’t have to worry about hiding anymore. Where would they take us?

  My eyes cut to our gear stacked inside the bridge. I probably wouldn’t have to hunt for survival. I’d miss that. Correction, I’d miss the solitude of being in the woods.

  “I think I see the outline of a large ship,” Troy whispered in my ear, and I squinted into the darkness.

  Within minutes, I made out the silhouette of a military cruiser, dark save for a single light on the bow. I gripped Troy’s arms with my hands, dreading what would come next. I guessed we would be stripped, cleaned, and quarantined. My heart raced as I pictured of being separated from Troy. One step at a time. Whatever happens, you will figure out how to get through.

  The skimmer maneuvered up alongside the cruiser, and we were instructed to climb the ladder. They escorted Dena to a small dingy and hoisted her up with ropes. I watched as she passed us, noting her face remained the same—stoic, perhaps determined. Focusing on the ladder, I pulled my torso up rung by rung. At the top, a soldier offered her hand, and I took it, swinging my legs over the edge onto the deck. Not a few feet away, I noted the dingy with our packs and my bow and arrow stacked on the seat. Where had they taken Dena? Troy’s head appeared above the railing, and he hoisted himself over.

  Behind him, a soldier joined us on the deck. Motioning for us to follow, he pointed to our belongings as we approached the small boat. I lifted my bag and slid it over my shoulders. Breathe, just breathe. One step at a time. I scanned the deck and structure above. We were led through a metal door and down a narrow hall punctuated by lights. At the end, the soldier in front of me opened a door and stood back, motioning for me to enter.

  I surveyed the space—carpeted floor and wood-paneled walls, a wood table—but no people were visible through the small door frame. I stepped forward and, pushing the door open, slid my back to the wall, inching sideways to allow space for Troy to enter beside me. With only a few feet between the table and the wall, the door blocked our view of the other side of the room.

  An arm appeared on the other side of the door, the sleeve and shoulder of a person decorated with military insignia I could have placed anywhere. Chinese. Not EC. Not WHO. Chinese. I wondered if Zhou commandeered every governing body save the UNS. Turning to face the soldier, Troy positioned himself in front of me. The door closed, revealing the face of the soldier. Zhou.

  “Welcome.” He bowed.

  As he did, I caught sight of the faces sitting behind him. Dad? Admiral Masterson?

  “Thank you for coming. Welcome to the new World Order.” General Zhou stepped back as Dad and Admiral Masterson stood.

  “Dad! Excuse me, sorry.” I bowed to General Zhou.

  “No apologies, I will leave you to your reunion.” He bowed to us and then to Dad and Admiral Masterson and backed out of the room, closing the door.

  I weaved behind Admiral Masterson and flung my arms around Dad. Tears filled my eyes. “I can’t believe you’re alive.”

  “I could say the same of you three times over. You’ve given me at least ten thousand more gray hairs.” Patting my back, he released me. “Sit down. Look at you. You look like you’re going to blow away.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m okay.” I looked to Troy thinking we must be in a dream. They’d drugged us and we would wake up in a tiny metal room with only a cot.

  Released from a hug, Troy sat down. “What about Mom?”

  “She’s safe in Moscow. Worried sick about you, but fine otherwise. I nearly had to put her on house arrest to keep her from coming here.”

  Red-eyed, Troy crossed his arms on the tabletop and rested his forehead on them. “How did you get out?”

  Admiral Masterson sat down beside him. “There are tunnels leading from the underground barracks. We left long before the bombings. I’m sure Cmdr. Butler knows. That’s why they closed off any access to the aftermath. Zhou’s forces picked us up off the coast of California twenty days ago.”

  Tears streamed down my face. My father was alive. He’d been alive the whole time. “All the other soldiers from Port Orford?”

  “Safe on Chinese soil.” Dad wrapped his hand around mine.

  “Avia and Miles. Their fathers are alive. They need to know.”

  Troy raised his head and swiped a tear from his cheek. “We’ll get them word.”

  Admiral Masterson cleared his throat. “Well, we’ll have to figure all that out. We’re sorry we couldn’t get them out too. General Zhou would only allow you two.”

  My body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds and I slouched to the backrest. “He just wants the cure. He may need us for that.”

  “Yes.” Admiral Masterson stood. “But we’re building a new governing body, the World Order. I know the name sounds ominous, but Zhou insisted. It will give us the power to oust Butler.”

  “Dena has to cooperate in order for them to be able to produce a cure.” Even through my exhaustion, I couldn’t sit still and stood and paced to the other side of the room. “I’m sorry about the coup. It was a good plan, and we were close, so close.” Fresh tears sprung to my eyes and rolled down my cheeks. “I wanted to get Nave and Mom back. But I failed. Made things worse.”

  Dad crossed to me and wrapped his arms around my back. “Are you kidding? You did your best. No one is prouder of you than us. I can’t even fathom what you’ve been through. You probably saved the world from a third world war. There’s no telling what Zhou would have done if Owen didn’t give up the cure.”

  “Why?” I sobbed into his shirt. “Why is Owen doing all this? I don’t understand. He just seems evil.”

  He cupped his hands on each side of my head. “Your uncle sees things as black or white, has always gone to extremes. Working for Biosism he got so involved in his project he tested it on himself. Afterwards, he shifted the opposite way, abandoning all technology. Dena told him about the flu epidemic, and he built Lovelock. He doesn’t know how to walk in the middle of the road. I’ve never understood him.”

  Backing away from Dad, I leaned against the wall. “What if Dena won’t help?”

  Admiral Masterson placed his palms on the table. “That is up to the EC and ultimately Zhou. If he is what his reputation makes him out to be, I speculate that he could make anyone do anything. We will be focusing on diplomacy, going nation by nation to build support for the World Order. We want to erase borders. There aren’t enough of us left to be involved in these petty disputes.”

  Troy ran his hand through his hair. “Diplomacy? You think Butler will respond to diplomatic persuasion, that he will just hand the country over? If you trust the polling, at least half the citizens of the UNS side with him.”

  His dad’s eyes cut from Troy, to me, and then to my dad. “The UNS is our home. We will take it back.”

  THE END

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for travelling this journey with Jema and Troy. I value all my readers and want to hear what you think. Please take a moment to rate and/or leave a few thoughts about this book on Goodreads, Amazon, BookBub, or wherever you bought this book.

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  Here’s a bit more about me…

  I grew up in Georgia but now live in Colorado with my family and four-legged friends. I believe there is magic in every aspect of our world and try to infuse my works with inspiring characters. With novels ranging from dystopian sci-fi, paranormal, fantasy, romance, and inspiring adversity stories, I aim to capture heart, humor, and imagination. You can find me and all books at www.triciacopeland.com or your favorite social media. To keep up with all things bookish subscribe to my newsletter at https://www.triciacopeland.com/newsletter.html.

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