The Secret Citizen (Freedom/Hate Series, Book 3)

by Kyle Andrews

  It took him a moment to pull himself together. Though he knew that he was out of that place and free at last, part of him was still back there, expecting the next round of torture to begin at any moment. When he was finally able to calm himself down, he turned toward her and saw the look in her eye. It was a blend of remorse and pity, but she said nothing.

  “Sorry,” he told her.

  She sat back in her seat, apparently wanting to forget what happened and whatever she had been planning to say to him. She looked as though she felt worse than he did.

  “You were going to say something,” he told her.

  “No. It's nothing.”

  “You don't have to worry about it. I'm just a little jumpy.”

  He was hoping that that would be the end of it, and that Tracy would say whatever it was that she wanted to say. Instead, she remained silent. It made Collin feel like a victim that needed to be handled with care. He hated that.

  Another HAND vehicle pulled up alongside the van. Collin hadn't noticed it approaching. When he saw it, he nearly dove for cover, before remembering that they couldn't see inside. At least, he hoped they couldn't.

  “Transport fifteen, come back,” said a voice on the radio.

  Collin saw Mek look down toward the radio and then to his mirror, where he could see the other vehicle driving beside him.

  “Transport fifteen, come back,” the voice said again.

  Mek glanced at his rear-view mirror and looked at Collin for a moment, considering his options before he picked up the radio and said, “Transport fifteen.”

  Mek seemed perfectly calm and collected, but the way he'd looked at Collin in the mirror gave Collin the distinct impression that he didn't like this situation. Communicating with another HAND vehicle was opening the door to being discovered.

  “Channel seven,” the voice said over the radio.

  Mek switched channels on the radio and then spoke into it, saying, “Go on seven.”

  “Busy enough out here?”

  Mek hesitated before saying, “What? This?”

  The man on the other side of the radio chuckled and said, “Well, if you're getting bored, you can always tag along with us. We have a rat who's taking us back to its nest. Feel like doing some exterminating?”

  Mek groaned. It was a deep, angry groan. Whether it was directed at the Freedom member in the other car, who was about to turn in his own people, or the HAND officers who had arrested him in the first place, Collin didn't know.

  Collin looked over to the other car. He wanted to look inside and see who they had in the backseat. He wondered if it was someone he knew. He wondered which base that person was leading HAND to. He wondered what those officers could have done to that person in the span of one evening that they hadn't been able to do to Collin in a month. How could it be so easy?

  “We can't let this happen,” Tracy said, though not too loudly. She was saying what everyone in that van was already thinking.

  “What's the location?” Mek asked into the radio.

  The man on the other side came back and said, “Stay close.”

  “Did you call it in?” Mek asked.

  There was a moment of hesitation from the other side.

  Mek pressed, “Did you confirm with HQ?”

  “Will confirm on arrival. Stay close.”

  Mek put the radio back in its holder and glanced in the mirror once again. He told Collin and Tracy, “Hold on.”

  Collin looked around for a seat belt that he could strap on, but there were none. He grabbed onto the seat in front of him and braced himself, not knowing quite what to expect. He didn't know Mek well enough to know his style. Ordinarily, his own people might follow the other vehicle to the location of the Freedom base and attack the HAND officers once they got out of their car.

  His own people. His base. Home. Even after being set free, those thoughts felt like fragments of a half-forgotten dream.

  Without warning, Mek twisted the wheel hard and rammed the van into the side of the HAND vehicle next to them, dragging Collin away from any thought or feeling that wasn't about that moment. The other vehicle swerved, trying to avoid the van and plowed through a stack of boxes on the side of the street.

  The enemy vehicle turned on their lights and sirens and moved toward the van.

  “Dispatch, sixteen seventy-one,” said the man from the other vehicle over the radio.

  “Sixteen seventy-one, go ahead,” the dispatcher replied.

  “We are in pursuit of a stolen HAND van.”

  “Identify.”

  “Transport fifteen.”

  “Copy. Maintain pursuit.”

  Mek picked up the radio and said, “Dispatch, transport fifteen. Ignore report. Sixteen seventy-one has been commandeered by rioters. Suggest immediate shutdown protocol until backup arrives.”

  “Transport fifteen, dispatch. Shut down your engine and wait for backup.”

  “Copy,” Mek replied.

  “Sixteen seventy-one, you are to shut down your engine and wait for backup,” the dispatcher ordered.

  “Negative. We are en route to a Freedom base. We have an informant in custody.”

  “Sixteen seventy-one, shut down your engine and wait for backup.”

  “Negative, dispatch. We—” the officer in the other vehicle didn't even finish his sentence before the vehicle next to the van went dead and began to coast to a stop right in the middle of the street.

  Mek hit the brakes in the van and pulled on the wheel, turning the van so that they would come to a stop in front of the other vehicle.

  As soon as the van was stopped, Mek reached down to the space next to his seat and grabbed a handgun that Collin hadn't even noticed before. He and Tracy got out of the van and moved toward the other HAND vehicle.

  Collin couldn't move. He could barely breathe. The thought of throwing himself into combat wasn't something that he had dealt with very often, even before his capture, but he wouldn't have frozen before. He would have gotten out of the van and stood beside his allies. Now the cracks in him were beginning to show. He was starting to understand how damaged he really was, because as he sat in that van, he didn't think about the HAND officers or the traitor in their backseat. He just thought about the way HAND had been able to turn his pain off and on like a light, and he found himself waiting for that pain to be turned up once again. He was waiting to be punished for his escape.

  He was sweating. His mouth was dry. He couldn't think clearly. All he could do was watch as Mek and Tracy put their lives on the line to protect their allies.

  Mek was taller than Collin expected. He towered over Tracy as he walked toward the HAND vehicle. He was a very muscular man—so much so that his t-shirt barely fit him and looked as though it might rip in half at any moment. If Collin saw Mek walking toward him with a gun in his hand, he would have been scared out of his mind.

  Mek walked right up to the passenger side of the HAND vehicle and aimed his handgun at the officer in the passenger seat.

  “Unlock your back door,” Mek ordered.

  The driver of that other vehicle opened his door and got out of the car, pulling out his own gun. He was a tall, muscular man as well. In fact, it looked to Collin as though that officer and Mek might have come from the same mold. It was suddenly very obvious to Collin that Mek was a HAND officer—or had been at one time. That would explain how he could steal the van. It would explain the ease with which he spoke to HAND over the radio.

  As Collin watched, Mek shot the driver of the other car through the neck. The officer fell to the ground, dead.

  The officer in the passenger seat started to open his door and get out. Mek grabbed him by the collar, pulled him to his feet and proceeded to slam the door into the officer, over and over again. After doing this several times, Mek held the officer in the door, pressing against the door and demanding to know, “Did you report the location of the base to anyone?”

  The officer didn't answer. He struggled to get free, but Mek wou
ldn't let him. He put his gun to the officer's head and asked the question again, “Did you report the location to anyone?”

  “We reported it to everyone,” the officer replied.

  Mek shot him and the officer fell to the ground, dead. The sight of it caused Collin to gasp, though he had no pity for any HAND officer who would threaten Freedom.

  Tracy ran around to the driver's side of the car and worked to unlock the back doors. Collin still couldn't see the traitor inside, but he couldn't imagine it being anyone that he knew. None of the Freedom members that he knew would sacrifice countless others to save themselves.

  When the back doors of the other vehicle were unlocked, Mek opened the door and reached inside. He grabbed the traitor and pulled her from the car. The girl couldn't have been more than twelve years old. Dirty. Scared. Dry blood smeared from her nose to her cheek.

  If Mek felt any sympathy for the child, he didn't let it show. He held the girl against the hood of the car and asked her, “Who are you?”

  The girl didn't answer. Tears welled up in her eyes and her jaw trembled, but the girl's face remained blank otherwise. Even from a distance, Collin could see that the girl wasn't meeting Mek's gaze. Her distant eyes were fixed on his chin.

  “Who are you?!” Mek demanded. “And where were you taking them?”

  The girl was terrified. She couldn't have answered his questions if she wanted to.

  In the distance, Collin heard sirens. HAND reinforcements were getting closer. When they arrived on the scene, they would find four members of Freedom, and they would have more backup than Mek could take down on his own. They needed to get out of there.

  Collin got out of the van and yelled to Mek, “We have to go. Bring her.”

  Mek turned his head only slightly, letting Collin know that he'd heard what he was told, but Mek didn't take orders from Collin. He continued to hold the girl where the was.

  Tracy was scrambling around the HAND vehicle, grabbing the officers' guns and whatever else she could find that might come in handy. She patted Mek on the back and said, “He's right. Move out.”

  Without waiting for Mek to respond, Tracy grabbed the girl by the arm and pulled her toward the van. She shoved the girl into the seat next to Collin and climbed behind them, shutting the door behind her.

  Mek got behind the wheel of the van and started the engine. As the van started to move, Tracy handed Collin one of the handguns and said, “You might need this.”

  Without hesitation, Collin took the gun. He wasn't sure that he would be much help if a battle broke out, but he would much rather have a gun than not, should HAND stop them. He wasn't willing to go back to their playroom.

  “They can track the van,” Collin told Tracy.

  “We disabled the trackers and the kill switch. We should be good as long as they don't spot us,” Tracy told him before smiling and adding, “You're not dealing with amateurs.”

  The van sped down the street, turning down a dark alley and nearly running down several pedestrians as it exited the other side.

  Collin turned toward the girl who had planned on betraying Freedom and said, “Look at me.”

  The girl did not comply. She was staring straight ahead, futilely trying to suppress sobs. She was shaking.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked her, but the girl remained silent.

  “I'm Collin Powers.”

  The girl's eyes went wide and she moved away from him as fast as she could, clawing at the door in an attempt to get out. Tracy grabbed her and pulled her back to her seat.

  From the driver's seat, Mek told them, “She's not a traitor.”

  “What?” Tracy asked.

  “She's not Freedom,” Collin told her. “She's scared of me.”

  Tracy caught on and said, “Oh. Yeah, I totally noticed that too.”

  “Who are you?” Collin asked the girl, but she didn't answer him. He didn't know what to make of her. Obviously, she'd been lying to HAND in order to avoid being taken into custody, but why? What could she possibly gain by pretending to be Freedom?

  As they sped through an intersection, Collin caught a glimpse of a HAND vehicle approaching from another street. He knew that the van had been spotted.

  The radio was buzzing with chatter coming from various HAND officers. Some were on their way to the location of the other vehicle. One reported the location of the van, and reported that they were going to pursue.

  Mek increased their speed and turned down another street, hoping to lose the other vehicle. Instead, they found themselves right in front of another HAND vehicle, which immediately lit up their lights and turned on their sirens.

  On the sidewalks, citizens were going crazy. Some cheering. Some throwing things at the van. The sky was glowing orange with the light of a distant fire.

  Up front, Mek activated the navigational computer and typed in a number of codes and commands. A map of the city appeared on the screen, with blinking red dots scattered throughout. They were HAND vehicles.

  “He knows what he's doing,” Tracy told Collin.

  “I'm starting to figure that out,” Collin replied.

  Collin's eyes moved the the girl next to him. She was staring at him now, with puffy red eyes. But she wasn't looking at his face. She was looking at his chest.

  Collin looked down. He could see blood soaking through his shirt. He looked to his arms and saw more of the same. Whatever they had used to close his wounds wasn't working as well as he would have liked.

  His head had been strapped down for the past month. He had felt the pain of their cuts, but some part of him had hoped that it was an illusion. He had hoped that his body was still whole, but that hope was gone now. The pain was growing, and nobody could turn it off anymore.

  Mek made a hard left turn. Three HAND vehicles were close behind them.

  “It's going to be okay,” Collin said, looking back at the girl. He tried to smile, but it didn't quite take. The pain was beginning to get the best of him. “We're going to be okay.”

  “All units be advised,” came a voice of the dispatch woman on the radio. “We have confirmation that the objective has been accomplished. Stand down code six on Libby Jacobs.”

  That was all the dispatch woman said. The radio was then flooded by responses to that call:

  “Unit seven-oh-one-eight. Much joy.”

  “Unit eight-five-one. Much joy.”

  “Unit four-four-one-three. Much—”

  Mek turned off the radio. He didn't want to hear it anymore.

  “What does that mean?” Tracy asked him. “What do they mean, 'stand down code six?'”

  Mek kept his eyes on the road as he replied, “It means she's dead.”

  Mek kept driving as the van fell silent. Collin stared at the seat in front of him. He couldn't see the look on Tracy's face, but she was breathing heavily through her nose. The girl next to him was smart enough to remain quiet.

  Libby Jacobs was dead. Did that mean that Freedom had traded her life for his? Why would they do that? Why was she even near that place when she should have been as far away as possible? Why was she dead? Why was he alive?

  After several seconds had passed, Mek slammed his hands into the steering with such rage that the girl started crying again.

  Collin turned and looked out of the back window. There were still HAND vehicles in pursuit, getting closer by the minute. His wounds were starting to feel as though he was being cut into all over again.

  When Collin looked forward once again, he could see HAND vehicles coming at them. They were surrounded. Even if they managed to turn down one of the other streets, there would be no way to escape. At least, none that he could see.

  Mek was not as easily defeated. He gripped the wheel hard and straightened in his seat. The HAND vehicles in front of them spread across the entire street, attempting to block their path. But Mek refused to slow down. He pulled onto the sidewalk and increased his speed. Pedestrians dove out of the way as he narrowly avoided hitting them.
The mirror on the right-hand side of the car scraped against the wall of a building and was finally pulled off of the van entirely as the van sped past the vehicles in the street.

  The HAND vehicles which had been blocking the street scrambled to turn themselves around and resume the chase. Those that were still behind the van pulled onto the sidewalk and followed the van as closely as possible. Collin could hear one of those vehicles scraping the side of the building far more severely than Mek had with the mirror. If he turned around, he wouldn't have been surprised to see the pedestrians being run down. He chose not to look.

  When he pulled back onto the street, Mek cut across to the other sidewalk, which was lined with storefronts. Fortunately, it was long past closing hours and there were few people in those stores or on the sidewalk.

  Approaching the next intersection, Collin could see the flashing red lights of the HAND vehicles that were waiting to cut them off and end the chase once and for all. The sidewalk trick wouldn't work twice.

  Mek didn't wait until he reached the intersection before making his turn. He ran the van through the large window of what used to be a restaurant on the corner. The van plowed through the restaurant. Debris crashed down upon the roof of the van, but the restaurant had no furniture inside. Mek was able to crash through the large window on the other side and back onto the street with little effort.

  Though HAND vehicles attempted to follow them through the restaurant, they were slowed down by the pieces of building that had crumbled behind the van. The vehicles that were waiting at the intersection tried to back up and turn around, causing even more chaos as those inside the restaurant finally made their way out.

  Mek had successfully put space between the van and those vehicles in pursuit, but they weren't out of danger yet. There were many more HAND vehicles that were capable of catching up to the van. On an ordinary night, they would have had all of their resources dedicated to this chase. But this wasn't any ordinary night. HAND had other concerns that needed to be taken care of. The direct assault on the HAND building and the riot that was spreading throughout the city were factors that worked in favor of Collin and those with him.