by Tarah Benner
Around nightfall, Amory left me my supper on his way to lookout duty. I listened to him walk away as I chewed the hard bread crust. Several paces away from my tent, his footsteps suddenly stopped, and I heard the low rumble of Roman’s voice.
“Still playing guardian angel?”
“Go away.”
There was a brief shuffle of footsteps, as though Roman had blocked his path.
“Taking responsibility for the problem you brought here, I guess,” he taunted.
“You’re cheerful,” growled Amory. “No wonder she’s been making so much progress.”
“Progress?” Roman scoffed. “She’s completely brainwashed.”
“So was I.”
“Yeah, you weren’t there that long, though.”
“You really think a few weeks make that big of a difference?”
“Of course it does! Especially after they had you to practice on.”
An angry growl escaped from Amory’s throat. “She’s coming back. It’s only a matter of time before she —”
There was a rough sound of muscle on muscle, as though Roman had shoved Amory’s chest.
“Before she what? Escapes and betrays our position? She’s not on our side.”
“She is on our side.”
“No, she’s not!” Roman yelled.
Amory’s voice was so low I could barely hear his next words. “She’s one of us. We do not throw away our own.”
“Not all of us are as invested as you,” said Roman. “I know you two had a thing.”
My mouth fell open as the realization hit me.
“That has nothing to do with it,” snarled Amory.
“I think that has everything to do with it,” said Roman. “She warps your judgment. Everyone thought it was a bad idea for you to go in there. Greyson and Logan only went along with it because she was their friend and you were tearing around like a fucking maniac.”
Amory interrupted in an exasperated tone. “Well, she’s here. She’s safe. And she’s already given us valuable information.”
“Information World Corp is happy to disclose to its enemies, I’m sure.”
“They’re planning something . . . taking over the entire western hemisphere. This isn’t just a vision — Aryus is evangelizing. He’s psychotic.”
“See? She’s in your head. They’re just trying to distract us.”
“She’s not part of their plan . . . at least she wasn’t yet. They still had her there because she wasn’t ready. She was still defying them. Have you seen all those HALLO burns on her arm?”
Roman sighed.
“I’m telling you. She was fighting back then, and she’s fighting back now. And when she’s herself again, she’s going to be able to tell us things we need to know.”
Amory’s words hit me hard. Shame and betrayal seared my insides, burning my throat and choking me. They had made me weak — Amory had made me weak. He’d tried to make me trust him and wear down my defenses.
Maybe he had cared about me — maybe he still did — but Amory had tricked me.
I bit down on my lip to stop the tears that were threatening to come, feeling too angry with myself to care about the burning in my head.
Why did I care? What did it matter?
I knew all along I could not trust Amory and the others, yet I had let my guard down. The enemy had poisoned my mind.
I waited until the sounds of Amory’s and Roman’s footsteps had faded completely.
After a few minutes, the camp fell silent. It wasn’t very late, but I supposed the rebels didn’t dare gather around the fire at night to talk and relax. They were in PMC country after all, and their survival depended on concealing their camp.
Moving slowly and carefully, I felt my way around the tent. Awkwardly propping myself up with my tied hands for balance, I crawled through the supplies searching for scissors, a knife, anything sharp enough to cut my ropes.
My knee hit something hard, and it skittered across the tarp under a sack of beans. It was a box cutter.
Triumph swelled in my chest as my fingers connected with it in the darkness. I settled back onto the tarp and listened intently for anyone approaching. Nothing.
Holding it steady between the soles of my boots sharp side up, I began to saw at the heavy ropes around my wrists. It was slow work. The blade was very dull, but it was enough. Thread by thread, I ripped into the rope until it came apart between my hands and my bonds fell away. Stroking the skin where it had begun to chafe, I marveled at the delicateness of my freed arms.
I longed to run — to leave this camp and never look back — but I knew I had to be smart. An empty paper bag rustled at my feet, and I rummaged around in the supplies looking for food to fill it. I tore into the sack of dried beans and grabbed a box of oatmeal from a crate underneath.
I lamented the pallets overflowing with canned vegetables at the back I would have to leave. My paper bag could not handle their weight.
As a consolation prize, I salvaged a dented tin camp pot from a box of kitchenware and threw that in, too. I had no matches or flint starter to make a fire, but I would worry about that later.
I paused for a moment at the flap of my tent to listen for footsteps, my breath coming hard enough to disturb the heavy canvas. Hearing nothing, I pushed it aside and made my way carefully around the back of the tent.
Walking on the edge of the woods wasn’t as quiet. Every snapping twig made my heart leap into my throat, but the shadows offered more concealment than ducking between the tents. Plus, if I was spotted, I would have a better chance of disappearing into the trees.
I edged my way around the camp, trying to get my bearings. I had no idea where north of the border we were, but if I headed due south, I was sure to find the PMC. I remembered the direction the sun rose and set off at a ninety-degree angle from the side of my tent where the light peeked through every morning.
As I cut through the trees, my foot found a deep divot — tire tracks leading away from camp. I followed the tracks, able to walk more quietly where the undergrowth had been tamped down by wide tires.
When I was thirty paces from camp, the snap of a branch to my right nearly gave me a heart attack.
“Leaving, are you?” called a voice behind me.
CHAPTER SIX
I jumped, looking around wildly for the watcher.
I heard a match strike, and a tiny ball of light briefly illuminated a face. My stomach dropped.
There was a click, and Greyson fiddled with a lantern, throwing light and shadows between the trees. He was slumped on the ground, shivering in what looked like three bulky coats. I hadn’t seen him in the darkness, but he was so close it was a miracle I hadn’t stepped on him.
“Stealth guard,” he said. “It’s more effective if someone’s trying to sneak into camp . . . or out,” he added with a humorless grin.
I did not look at him. My eyes were focused instead on the rifle cocked under his right arm. He followed my gaze and lowered the gun to the ground.
“Seriously?” His face fell into a dark frown. “I’m not going to shoot you, Haven.”
There was a note of defeat in his voice, though he had the upper hand.
I glanced quickly down the path, my eyes following the tire tracks until I couldn’t see them anymore.
What were the chances they had another guard posted farther down? I knew Amory was on lookout duty, too. Perhaps he would see me and try to stop me leaving.
Greyson let out a cold laugh. “Wow. You really do hate us.”
I looked at him, unsure why that cut me so deep. I remembered that Greyson and I had been friends, but there was something artificial about my oversaturated childhood memories — something I didn’t trust.
“Go on, then. Leave.”
Although he was looking down the path, I detected his poorly concealed resentment and hurt.
“You’ll let me leave?”
When he met my gaze, he looked surprised. “Yeah. Haven, when have I ever made
you do something you didn’t want to do?”
I dodged this strange question by staring at my boots. I really should have grabbed some extra clothes from the supply tent. I would freeze out here exposed to the elements.
“It’s probably for the best anyway,” Greyson continued. “I don’t know if your memory will come back, and honestly, you being here hasn’t been easy. We might all be better off . . .” He glanced away, fiddling absently with the lantern.
I didn’t say anything. For some reason, his words did not bother me the way Amory’s had. Something in the back of my mind recalled that Greyson was prone to these frank, bitter statements. While they were hurtful to some people who didn’t know him well, I knew they were just Greyson’s way of protecting himself.
“I didn’t know you cared,” I said.
“Of course I care.” He still wouldn’t look at me. “You know, I accepted that you were dead. I knew you were. After Amory escaped, I didn’t think Aryus would keep you alive. But Amory wouldn’t stop digging. He wouldn’t believe you were dead.”
I felt a swell of emotion that someone had cared enough not to give up, which was strange, considering they had ripped me away from World Corp and tried to get me to divulge the information I knew.
“Finally, we got some intel that you were being held in one of their . . . treatment facilities. I didn’t think we’d ever get you out — not after last time. But Amory was obsessed.”
He stopped speaking for a moment. “Do you remember how long it was before Amory snapped out of it last time?” he demanded suddenly. “I mean, really. How long did it take before he was himself?”
I thought back, and my brain seemed to lurch and stall like an old car. Of course I knew that Amory had been held in a facility as I had, but I had no internal timeline to put the memory in context.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Greyson stared at me for a long moment, breathing in deeply. The look on his face told me he had reached a decision. It was as if this answer was enough to confirm his worst fear. I was not myself.
“I guess I expected that.” His voice was cold. “Well . . . you should clear off before Amory hears us. It’s not fair to put him through this.”
I took a deep breath, watching him and wondering what I was supposed to do. I did not belong here. I belonged with World Corp. That was what I had been trained for. These people were not my friends. Certainly Amory wasn’t — not after what I’d heard him saying to Roman. It didn’t matter what Greyson thought.
As I turned to go, Greyson’s voice startled me in the stillness.
“Do you remember sixth grade? Mrs. Sanders’s class?” I turned to look at him, startled, and suddenly had a picture of eleven-year-old Greyson. His hair had been longer then — wild, dark brown, and curly around the ears. He was small for his age.
“Yeah,” I said, but Greyson wasn’t listening to me anymore, and his voice sounded strangely choked.
“I feel a lot like I did then. Like I didn’t know what I was supposed to do — ever.”
The year we turned twelve was burned into my brain. It had been a horrible year for Greyson. His dad had died, and his mom had sunk into a bad depression.
I hadn’t understood that then, but I noticed the way Greyson came to school — as though no one had looked at him before he left the house. He wore the same T-shirt for several days in a row.
A boy in our class, Brock Epstein, took to tormenting Greyson every day in gym class — rallying a soccer-team worth of cronies to make each day a living hell. They stole his lunch money while he was changing into his gym clothes and, an hour later, told everyone that Greyson’s mom was too poor to afford food or wash his clothes. To this day, I could still hear the boys’ chants of “trailer trash” that seemed to follow Greyson down the hall.
I solved the problem as any sixth grader would: I shared my lunch with him and quietly told Brock and his friends to go away.
“Remember Brock Epstein?” said Greyson suddenly.
I nodded, my nails reflexively digging into my palms as I remembered. The pain had returned, throbbing in the back of my skull as the memory of Greyson’s tiny, sad face stared at me.
“I heard he’s PMC now.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Do you remember how you finally got him to lay off me?” He laughed a little. “It still amazes me to this day.”
“I snuck three cans of tuna to school in my backpack and poured the juice into his locker while we were in gym,” I said automatically, amazing myself with the clarity of the memory. My heart had been pounding the whole time, so sure I would get caught or Brock would turn his taunts on me in retaliation. “They made fun of him for the smell for weeks, and I got Cole Dillinger to tell him he was cursed.”
I glanced at Greyson, and we both tried to stifle our laughter. For some reason, this made me feel better than I had in weeks.
Something stirred inside me, which made the pain intensify. I ignored it and focused on the other feeling coursing through me: warmth all over and a great expansion in my chest that lifted the enormous weight I had felt for days. It was so strange to be laughing with Greyson, but tonight, he didn’t feel like the enemy.
As our laughter died away in the dark, I could tell the moment was over. Greyson’s smile was starting to fade, and we were snapped back to reality.
I had planned on leaving just then, but now it seemed foolish and impulsive. Instead, I turned around and followed the tire tracks back toward camp. It just wasn’t the time.
I sneaked back into my tent, which felt much colder than it had when I left.
Now, on top of feeling helpless and betrayed, I was wildly confused. I was starting to think Greyson, Amory, and Logan were telling the truth. We had been friends. So what had gone wrong? And why did I feel so sure that World Corp was right?
I had vague shadowed memories of a life, but that seemed so far away. It didn’t really feel as though it belonged to me.
Thoroughly drained by the encounter with Greyson and the memories he had dredged up, I didn’t have the energy to fiddle with my ropes to make it look as though I’d never left. I curled up on my cold pallet and pulled the sleeping bag over me.
Shivering and still aware of whatever had stirred inside me, I ignored the prickle of needles at the base of my neck and fell into an uneasy sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The sound of sirens shattered the stillness of the night. I was up and out of my tent before even opening my eyes, clamping my hands over my ears to block out the incessant, piercing note.
Panic choked me instantly. They were much too close.
Within seconds, beams of blue light flashed between the trees from two different directions, and the rebels started rushing out of their tents, groping for loved ones and sprinting into the woods.
I backed away into the trees. My heart was pounding. I couldn’t think clearly. Still in the fog of sleep, I tried to piece together an explanation. The PMC was rounding up the rebels. Already I could hear the screams and shouts and the scuffle of feet in the snow.
I focused on breathing and tried to tell myself that they were not the enemy. The PMC officers were on my side. They would not hurt me. Some foolish part of me half expected one of the officers to demand to know what they had done with Haven Allis.
But this was not a rescue mission. This was a raid.
I saw movement in the darkness: a lone figure sprinting around the edge of the woods toward me — or, rather, toward my tent. It wasn’t a PMC officer. He wasn’t wearing the reflective white uniform.
Gunshots erupted in the darkness, and I crouched down, covering my ears and trying to get ahold of myself.
What was wrong with me? After everything I had been through, why now? I couldn’t freeze up. I had to make a decision — had to move. The PMC raiding the camp wouldn’t know my face. They would think I was a rebel.
That thought was almost a relief. Some tiny, demanding part of me was tearing around i
n my chest, ordering me to run away from the PMC toward the fleeing rebels. It didn’t make any sense.
“Haven!”
I heard the sound of my name like a whisper. It was urgent, but I could not identify the source of the speaker. I had lost my view of the dark figure.
“Haven!” It was Amory, and his voice was coming from just outside my tent.
The canvas rustled. Amory swore quietly and tore out into the woods — right toward my hiding place.
Without thinking, without stopping to consider the consequences, I heard his name escape from my own lips.
He stopped, looking around wildly.
“Here,” I hissed.
Not bothering to tread quietly, Amory crashed through the frozen leaves and drifts of snow, stumbling slightly on a hidden tree root. I didn’t see his face until it was inches from mine, his hands gripping my arms, traveling down my forearms to untie my ropes and feeling only skin.
“Oh, thank god. How did you —” In the dark, I could see his mind working out an answer. “Never mind. We have to get out of here.”
Gripping my hand hard, Amory pulled me deeper into the woods. The shouts of the PMC were growing louder. Gunshots reverberated in the frigid air, making my teeth rattle.
Amory had broken into a run, yanking me through the trees behind him. Stray branches whipped me in the face. I swatted my left hand blindly in front of me, my right still clutched in Amory’s hard grip.
I couldn’t tell how far we ran or for how long. After a while, my legs went numb, working on their own. I couldn’t breathe, but it was from the wild fear choking my airways rather than fatigue.
Amory never released my hand.
As the fear pumped adrenaline through my veins, I noticed a strange clarity I had not felt since my rescue. There was no pain in my head. If anything, my senses seemed to sharpen. My brain had been wired to thrive on this fear — this choking drive for self-preservation at all costs.
Amory would not hurt me. I didn’t know why I trusted him, but I did, and I kept running.
I had failed World Corp — that I knew. I had made a decision, leaving with Amory, and now I was a fugitive like the rest of them. The PMC did not forgive traitors.