I crossed to the laptop table, sat in the camp chair, and pulled up my e-mail account. I typed the message in. Read it over. Read it over again, my cursor hovering over the send button. Did I trust Marcus? Yes. Did I trust him enough to send a message to my mother I didn’t understand?
I clicked send and got up to pack my clothes.
19
BOYS WITH GUNS
From up on a shrubby ridge, we watched the four men down below search the ruins of the old lumber mill where we’d so recently camped. It had been clever of Marcus to pitch the smaller tents inside the abandoned buildings. His larger tent had been under an overhanging fir tree, nearly invisible from above unless you knew what to look for. There was no way the CAMFers had seen it from the air. Still, it had been impossible to remove all signs of Piss Camp in fifteen minutes. The men below had already discovered the remains of the campfire and the tramped down path that led to what was obviously a latrine. And of course, there was a tent, a small pup tent Marcus had left pitched in an old tool shed, the tent that Chief Palmer was about to find.
Marcus tapped me on the shoulder and held out his hand. Reluctantly, I handed his binoculars back. I glanced to my right where Yale, Nose (still in his ski mask) and Jason were all hunkered down on the ridge watching, each with their own field glasses. Yale noticed my glance and held out his pair, but I shook my head, looking back down below. Mike Palmer was opening the shed. He looked inside and then ducked in, unnoticed by the other men. After several minutes, he emerged and called the others over. They pulled the tent out and inspected it, obviously having a discussion we were much too far away to hear.
The whole idea had been for them to think the tent belonged to me, a lone runaway hiding out in the lumber camp all by myself. I was beginning to appreciate Marcus’s intelligence almost as much as I appreciated his exterior.
After a few minutes, the men down below folded up the tent, took a final look around the lumber camp, and headed into the woods back toward Old Delarente Road.
“So, what does that mean?” I asked, turning toward Marcus.
“I think they bought it,” he said, sounding confident.
Yale and Nose joined us in a huddle up against the ridge. Jason kept his distance, moving only close enough to hear the discussion. Maybe I should have felt guilty that he was afraid of me, but I didn’t.
“They took it with them,” Marcus continued, “and they didn’t even look for tracks or a trail. They’re hoping you’ll get spooked when you come back and find your tent gone. And maybe you’ll run back home to your mommy.”
“Which would make it easier for them to grab me,” I said. Which was why the e-mail wasn’t making any sense to me. If the CAMFers thought I was going to run back to my mother, wouldn’t that be the worst move we could make? Wouldn’t I be running right into a trap?
“There were four down there,” Yale said to Marcus. “I thought you said there were only two.”
“There were two in the cemetery, but who knows how many there are now,” Marcus answered.
“The Dark Man wasn’t down there,” I pointed out. “The only CAMFer in that group was the Fire Chief. The others were just firehouse rookies.”
“How could you know that?” Jason asked, oozing suspicion.
“Because,” I explained, “when he saw the tent in the shack, he didn’t call them over. He checked it out first, so he could cover up anything he didn’t want them to see.”
“That doesn’t mean shit,” Jason argued, but Marcus gave me a look of approval.
“Who cares how many there are?” Nose asked. “We got what we came for,” he said, nodding at me. “If she’s good enough to travel, why don’t we get the hell out of here?”
“We will,” Marcus said, “but first we need to retrieve something.”
Jason and Nose looked surprised, but Yale didn’t. Maybe Marcus had told him earlier.
“Retrieve what?” Jason asked.
“Something the CAMFers took from Olivia,” Marcus said. “Something that can block minus meters.”
“Where the hell did she get something like that?” Nose asked.
“Yeah, what a coincidence,” Jason said sarcastically.
“She found it,” Marcus said, ignoring Jason. “I was with her when she did. But when the CAMFers torched her house, they took it. There’s a chance they haven’t figured out what it does yet. And I want to get it back before they do.”
“You still haven’t said what it is,” Jason pointed out.
“A set of blades,” Marcus said.
“Blades?” Nose perked up, a gleam in his eyes. “You mean like swords, daggers, throwing knives, that sort of thing?”
“Not exactly,” Marcus said. “They’re razor blades.”
“Razor blades? Like for shaving?” Nose asked, looking confused.
“Razor blades that block minus meters?” Jason laughed, rolling his eyes. “That makes sense.”
“I’ve seen them do it,” Marcus said, staring Jason down, “and there’s a chance they can block extraction as well.”
“Holy shit!” Yale said. “That would give us a huge advantage.”
“If they couldn’t track us or extract us, it would change everything,” Nose said.
“I don’t believe this,” Jason said, throwing up his arms. “We find this girl and she just happens to have something that can block CAMFer tech, but conveniently the CAMFers steal it right after she tells us about it, and the only way to get it back is to walk right into a CAMFer trap. Come on, it’s obvious she’s working for them. You’re idiots if you trust her. No way. I’m not setting foot in that town for this.”
“Good,” Marcus said without missing a beat. “Because I want you to hold down camp while we’re gone in case anyone comes back looking for us.”
Jason opened his mouth, shot me an extra-dirty look, glanced at Marcus, and closed his mouth again. He’d walked right into that one.
“So,” Yale said, “how do we get into town without being detected in the first place?”
Suddenly, I knew the answer to that.
“They think she ran away,” Marcus said. “They also think they found where she’s been hiding. And, if they’re monitoring her mom’s e-mail like I think they are, they also think Olivia’s coming to town to meet her tonight. That’s how we get in. As one blip on their meters. The blip they’re expecting.”
“So you know it’s a trap and you’re going to walk right into it?” Jason asked in disbelief.
“He’s right,” I said. “When they catch up to that blip, they’ve got all of us.” This was Marcus’s plan?
“They won’t catch up to it,” Marcus insisted. “When we get close to your house, we split up. Yale and Nose will stay in that general area, but separate, creating two different targets for them to chase. You and I will split off together, and go to the Fire Chief’s house to get your pack. He won’t be home because he’ll be chasing Yale and Nose around in the dark, thinking they’re you.”
“That’s why you put the thing in the message about the fire,” I said. “So he’d think I was going to tell my mom about him.” It wasn’t as bad of a plan as it had first sounded. Except for one thing. “But what about my mom?” I asked, dread creeping over me.
Marcus didn’t say anything. He just looked at me that way he did. Resigned. Determined. Like in the picture with the girl and the shed.
“She’s just going to stand there in the dark waiting for me.” I said, letting it sink in.
“She’ll be safe,” Marcus said. “The CAMFers don’t need her, and they certainly don’t want her to suspect you’ve disappeared under unusual circumstances.”
That was his answer; that the CAMFers weren’t after my mother? Yes, I was still pissed at her, but that didn’t mean I was okay with using her as bait.
“What if they have enough manpower to follow all of us?” Nose asked, “Then we’re screwed.”
The plan moved on, the boys oblivious to my dilemma. Having grown up i
n the foster care system, maybe Marcus couldn’t understand, but surely the others could. Did they miss their parents and families? Did they even care? Maybe it was different for boys. When Grant had left for college, he’d just smiled, hugged his mom, and gotten in his car and driven away. It hadn’t seemed to bother him to leave his family behind for the first time. But later that day, Emma had caught her mom crying in the laundry room holding one of Grant’s shirts to her face.
“Not necessarily,” Marcus was saying. “The three-way split on their meters will confuse them. There’s a good chance they’ll think it’s a malfunction again. That confusion will buy us time, and that’s all we need—time to find the blades. Because once we have them, their meters will be useless.”
“Not on Nose and Yale,” I pointed out. “You and I will have the blades, but they won’t. It’s too risky.”
“We won’t get caught,” Yale said.
“We’re sneakier than we look,” Nose added, which was funny coming from a guy wearing a ski mask.
“What if we don’t find the blades fast enough? What if we don’t find them at all?” I protested.
“We’ll find them,” Marcus said, overconfident.
“What if we don’t?” I insisted.
Marcus exchanged a look with Nose, who caressed the stock of his gun unconsciously. “We improvise,” Marcus said after a long pause.
“You mean shoot people?” I asked, appalled.
They didn’t say no, but Yale glanced away from me. The others just looked at me, grim faced, but with some deeper glint of excitement in their eyes. They were talking about shooting people. About shooting people in my home town. What was it with boys and their guns?
“No way,” I said. “I’m not doing anything that involves guns or shooting. The blades aren’t worth that.”
“She’s right,” Jason said grimly, surprising everyone. “Not about the killing part. But she’s right about the risk. It ain’t worth it. Once you do this, they’ll know she didn’t just run away. They’ll know there’s a group of us, and they’ll come after us.”
“Not necessarily,” Marcus argued. “If they don’t see us, they could still think Olivia ran away and just came back for her pack before she left town.”
“They could think that,” Nose said, “but I doubt it.”
“So, by the time they figure it out, we’re long gone,” Marcus said. “And I think it would still be worth it. Those blades would finally give us the upper hand.”
Passion’s blades. They were talking about using Passion’s blades to help get the rest of the teens on the list. Marcus had wanted those blades from the moment he’d known about them. For this. As a powerful piece in a game of strategy against the CAMFers. What if Passion’s blades weren’t meant to be thrown off a cliff? What if they were meant for this?
“He’s right,” I said. “We should do it.”
They all looked at me.
“But no guns,” I said. “I’ll help, but only if we don’t take guns.” They needed me to pull this off. I knew the town. My mother was the bait, and it was my hometown, and I wasn’t going to lead an armed contingent of teenage boys into it, no matter what.
“Fine,” Marcus said. “We leave the guns with Jason.” He pulled out a map of Greenfield, and spread it out before us. “Here’s what we do,” he began.
20
JASON'S BULLET
By the time we’d hiked down the ridge to the dry creek bed where the wheelers were parked, the sun was already high in the sky.
Between getting buzzed by the helicopter, tearing down camp, spying on the lumber camp, and mapping out our plan, there’d been no time for breakfast, so Nose unpacked a cooler of sandwich stuff, and we each made our own. He never took off his mask. Of course, I knew why; it was pretty obvious. His nickname was Nose. Maybe mine would be The Hand.
“So where do you get all this stuff?” I asked Yale as I ate my sandwich, glancing at the ATVs and their trailers piled high with camping and survival equipment. “Do you steal it?”
“No, we don’t steal it,” he said, laughing. “We resupply once a month from the nearest town. Everything you see here was bought and paid for by our infamous leader.”
“Marcus?” I asked, looking around for him, but he and Jason were deep in a discussion well out of earshot. “I thought he was—” and suddenly I didn’t know how to finish that sentence. Poor. Homeless. An orphan with no resources. Thankfully, Yale rescued me from my own idiocy.
“He has a trust fund,” he said, taking the last bite of his PB&J and talking right through it. “Some kind of out-of-court settlement from when he was a kid. I guess by the time he turned eighteen and finally got access, it was a lot of money.”
“So, Marcus is rich,” I said, “and he lives in a tent.”
“Yep,” Yale nodded, grinning.
I was leaning against an ATV, polishing off a packaged oatmeal cookie, when Marcus came over and handed me one of the black hydration packs.
“Thanks” I said, slinging it on and taking a long sip.
“Follow me,” Marcus said. “We need to talk.”
“Oow, it sounds serious,” I said, “Are you breaking up with me?”
“I—we aren’t—” Marcus stammered, all his cool composure of a moment before completely obliterated.
“Um, that was a joke,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. Except it was only partially a joke. It was probably time to admit to myself that I liked Marcus.
“Right. Good,” he said, sounding relieved.
“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“There’s a stream just over there,” he said, pointing toward the woods. “I like the sound. It helps me think.”
And covers the sound of us talking so the others can’t hear. The more I got to know Marcus, the more I realized how calculating he was. His motives were never simple. Marcus was not “what you see is what you get.” What you saw barely scratched the surface.
“Lead the way,” I said.
It didn’t take long for us to reach a burbling, shady stream. Marcus sat down on the grassy bank and I sat next to him. He seemed suddenly unsure of himself, which made me feel pleased and worried all at the same time. I looked across the stream, waiting for him to speak.
“So, mainly, I just wanted to, you know, see how you’re doing,” he said, digging his hands into the grass like it was Berber carpet.
“Oh, I’m great,” I said. “Last time I checked I had smoke inhalation, a concussion, and a hand that likes to reach inside people and yank random shit out.”
Marcus looked up, startled by the heat in my voice. “You didn’t hurt Jason,” he said.
“Maybe not,” I countered, “but I certainly pissed him off.”
“He comes pre-pissed,” Marcus said, smiling. He reached out and took my ghost hand in his, tugging at the fingers of the glove.
“Don’t,” I said, pulling away.
“You know, I honestly don’t think your hand is doing anything bad,” he said, giving me one of his intense stares. “Unusual, yes. But not bad. And you’re obviously gaining control of it. You pulled your hand out of Jase on your own.”
“It was different than before,” I said. “Like my hand knew exactly what it was doing. And what it was looking for.”
“Can I see the bullet?” Marcus asked, almost shyly.
“Sure,” I dug in my front jeans pocket and pulled it out, rolling it in my ghost hand. It gleamed like a tiny, golden missile, nestled in a crease of my glove.
“It’s live ammo, not just a shell casing,” Marcus said, poking it with a finger. “For some kind of hunting gun, I’d guess.”
“Hey, it has something etched into it,” I said, turning it so he could see.
It was a name, Jason’s name, scratched into one side.
“Huh. Did any of the blades have that girl’s name on them?” Marcus asked.
“Her name is Passion. And I don’t think so. Not that I noticed anyway. What does it
mean? A bullet with his name on it.”
“I don’t think you want to know,” Marcus said, looking away.
“Yes, I do. If it has something to do with my hand, and what it’s doing, and why, of course I want to know.”
Marcus sighed, finally looking at me. “We picked Jason up right before we came to Greenfield, about two weeks ago. His dad runs a game preserve outside of Fort Worth, Texas,” Marcus paused, as if that should mean something to me.
“And?” I prompted, because it didn’t.
“His dad is a CAMFer.”
“Jason’s dad is a CAMFer?”
“Yes,” Marcus nodded.
“But how can that be? His own son has PSS.”
“Now maybe you understand why Jason comes pre-pissed.”
“Yeah, I do.” And here I’d thought I had it bad with my mother. “Where’s Jason’s PSS?” I asked.
“Right leg below the knee,” Marcus said.
“But I still don’t understand. What does this have to do with the bullet and the name?”
Marcus inhaled a huge breath, as if it hurt to, and said, “Before we got Jason out, we did a lot of recon. We hid outside the game preserve at first, but eventually, we went inside the grounds. Jason’s dad is pretty high up with the CAMFers. His preserve is sort of like a lodge for them. They didn’t exactly treat Jason well. Honestly, his dad treats the animals on the preserve better than he treated Jason. Until he shoots them.”
Until he shoots them. Jason’s dad treated animals he raised for slaughter better than his own son. When I had first felt that bullet, first pulled it out, I’d assumed it was some kind of symbol of Jason’s violence and hate. But it wasn’t that at all. It was a bullet of fear. A bullet with his name on it, etched there by his father. A bullet of belief that his own father might, at any moment, decide to kill him.
“It ended up being pretty easy to get Jason out,” Marcus went on, “because they considered him just another animal. It never occurred to them that he would leave, or that anyone would want to take him.”
“But he’s on their list,” I said, feeling my throat tighten up, rage battling with sorrow.
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