I ripped it in two and tied the pieces tightly around the wound, hoping it would at least stem the flow of blood. The wound in the back of my head was throbbing, too, but I had no way of knowing how bad it was.
Despite my injuries, I felt almost giddy for the first time in as long as I could remember. Maybe the feeling of lightness was from the loss of blood, but I didn’t care. I was going to make it. I could survive.
I didn’t know for sure how far behind the carriers would be, so I didn’t feel safe stopping for rest. It concerned me that they showed some level of remaining human intelligence and self-control by holding me hostage — although I had no way of knowing why they had or if this group of carriers was unique. Maybe everything I thought I knew about carriers was wrong. The authorities fed plenty of lies to the media; there was no reason they wouldn’t lie about carriers’ capabilities, too.
The plastic zip ties disturbed me the most. They showed forethought and introduced the idea that carriers might be taking hostages. Were they organizing? Did they have a plan to capture and infect or kill as many humans as possible? They were all half dead and dying anyway. There was no reason for them to obey laws or care how many people they slaughtered in the process.
To ward off the hunger pangs and lightheadedness I hoped was related to hunger and not the loss of blood, I nibbled on a few nuts and a piece of jerky — the only food I’d managed to salvage from the carriers’ bounty. I stopped only long enough to find water and rest my legs for a few brief moments.
The woods had lost their appeal for me. Now they seemed like an endless minefield of danger: carriers lurking in the shadows, waiting for me to stumble into their wake or the PMC tailing me from some helicopter above the trees. I knew I was getting paranoid, but was it truly paranoia if people really were out to get you?
Despite my slower pace over the last few hours, I knew I must have put some distance between myself and the carriers. My weary stumble was still faster than the carriers’ lurching pace on their best day.
Even so, I decided I would just sleep for a few hours and then continue on my journey. My head was throbbing from the wound, and I knew I needed to find food soon.
Since I had left my sleeping bag behind, I had no choice but to build a fire for warmth. Luckily, the striker still hung from my pack. I used very little wood and let the fire burn low to avoid attracting attention.
It wasn’t difficult to rouse myself after only a few hours of restless shut-eye. I was too cold and hungry and scared to fall into a deep sleep anyway. I had to force myself to push the thoughts of carriers out of my mind. I had much bigger worries than what they might be up to or why I had survived. They were still somewhere behind me, but I had to keep moving and find food.
Too weak to run, I drank some water and continued at a slow walk through the darkness. The only thing worse than walking in a weak, starved daze the day before was walking through the woods in the dark. My eyes adjusted to the night, but that only made the details I could see in the shadows even more terrifying.
As the sky began to lighten, I prayed I would spot a town that might have an abandoned general store or some place I could steal food. My feet ached from constant movement, my head was strangely fuzzy, and my stomach felt as if it were eating itself from the inside.
I was stumbling more than walking now; I felt almost drunk from the weakness that was cannibalizing my body. Blackness curled at the edges of my vision despite the glow of early sunlight around the changing leaves. It rimmed the trees in a sort of halo. Maybe this was heaven.
Was I dead?
No. Death couldn’t feel this awful — caught between the urge to vomit and a splitting headache. Beads of cold sweat bloomed on my forehead, and as I wiped them away, I had the awful sinking feeling that I was going to pass out.
I knew I wasn’t moving as quietly as I should. Carriers would be able to hear me a mile away if they managed to catch up. Let them get me, I thought. They would capture me, and I’d become infected and die. Or they would hold me hostage as part of their evil plan. At least they would need to feed me to keep me alive.
Up ahead, I could see the trees thinning as the trail turned around the bend. There was a hole in the tree branches where the woods seemed to open onto another man-made trail — as though someone had ridden a mountain bike through in the old days. Or was I imagining that?
No.
As I drew closer, I saw a break in the trees and a footpath where the undergrowth had been worn away. Peering through the branches, I could see an open field. I had found a farm.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Staring out at the flat stretch of farmland, my heart vibrated in my chest like a gently humming tuning fork. If it was a farm or if it had been a farm recently, there might be food nearby: a pantry, a chicken coop to steal some eggs from, anything. I pushed through the branches in madness, no longer bothering to stay quiet.
I reached the edge of the cornfield. It looked as if it had been harvested, with nothing but decimated stalks in the ground. That made sense; it was mid-October. My vision blurred, but I could make out what looked like a rooftop jutting out over a grove of trees across the field.
I quickly and clumsily weighed the risks of trying the house. Continuing on the trail wasn’t an option; I was weak and starving with no prospect of food. I couldn’t hunt, and all the towns I’d found so far were deserted.
Going out to the house was definitely dangerous. If it was still inhabited, whoever lived there could be hostile, or I could be slaughtered by carriers hiding in the bordering woods before I even reached the house. Perhaps the farm had already been raided by carriers and some were still roaming the area. Running through the cornfield left me exposed. There was no tree cover — nowhere to hide.
But the prospect of nourishment and a safe place to rest for a while was too alluring. If I didn’t try, I would be dead in a few days anyway. It was now or never. I fished Greyson’s knife out of my pack and gripped it tightly. Its blade wasn’t very sharp — Greyson kept it as more of a keepsake than a weapon — but it was better than venturing out there completely unarmed.
I looked out across the field, eyes searching for any sign of movement. Seeing nothing, I took a deep breath and sprinted out through the hole in the trees, straight for the roof in the distance. It was only about five hundred yards away, but that might as well have been five miles.
Legs screaming, heart pounding in my throat, all I could hear was the sound of my own labored breathing as I scanned the field around me for any encroaching carriers. I pushed faster.
Four hundred yards. I was feeling extremely lightheaded, and I knew I couldn’t keep this up without any fuel to sustain me.
Three hundred yards.
I could see the side of a barn through the sparse trees.
Two hundred yards.
I began to worry in earnest that I might pass out. My body was not equipped for the exertion of a sprint. I fought the blackness on the edge of my vision. No! I couldn’t . . . lose . . . control.
Keep going, I thought. Just a little farther . . .
One hundred yards. A blurry figure jumped into my peripheral vision, and my stomach dropped to my knees. I lurched to the left — away from whoever or whatever it was — intending to make a run for it back to the shelter of the woods.
In the half second it took me to change direction, I was on my back with the wind completely knocked out of me. The assailant was sitting on my chest, pinning me down with crushing strength. Gasping for air, I swatted inexpertly with my knife. He ducked — dodging it easily — and knocked the knife out of my hand.
Carriers weren’t usually so quick and agile, I thought. I had one chance.
I swung a desperate punch as hard as I could muster, catching the side of his jaw. It felt as though all the bones in my hand had shattered, but he groaned and clutched the side of his face. I struggled to push him off me.
My victory was cut short when he caught my wrist and pinned my other arm down w
ith a knee. Pain shot through my arm as he shifted his weight onto it, and my eyes filled with tears. I blinked furiously, trying to get a clear view of my attacker — to force him to look me in the eye as he murdered me.
This was it. I was going to die. He was going to slit my throat and watch me die — or worse. My stomach churned thinking about what other horrors he might have in store. I couldn’t think — couldn’t formulate a plan.
There was no way out. After everything, making it so far on my own and even escaping a whole gang of carriers, I would die at the hands of this, this . . .
Glaring up at my attacker, I realized he was not a carrier at all. I examined his features carefully, looking for any sign that might betray early symptoms of infection.
He did not have the sunken face and bloodshot, watery eyes of a carrier. His features were chiseled but full of life, and his eyes were a bright, startling gray. They were the healthy, suspicious eyes of a human, and they were staring down at me. I stopped struggling momentarily, but he looked wary that I might make a sudden move to try to push him off again.
He seemed a bit young to be a PMC officer, but it was possible that he was some kind of freelancing vigilante. He looked about my age — twenty, maybe a bit older — with short, clean-cut dark hair. His mouth and eyes looked . . . surprised? No. He recovered so quickly, I knew I must have imagined it. He was surveying me with suspicion, his face tight, and his eyebrows knitted together.
“Who the hell are you?” he asked, glowering down at me.
“Who are you?” I snarled.
He leaned more of his weight on the knee pressing into my arm, and tears welled up and spilled over my eyes as the pain surged through my left side. So he was going to make me suffer.
“You’re . . . crushing me,” I said between labored breaths. He had a slender build, but he was still a lot bigger than me. Through his thin black T-shirt, I could tell he was well muscled and definitely much stronger.
He shifted a bit of his weight to his other knee, tightening his grasp on my arms. He looked utterly unremorseful.
“Tell me what you’re doing here.” He twisted my wrist along the cuts from the carriers’ zip ties, and I let out a sharp cry.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “You’re hurting me!” My eyes were watering profusely, which made me feel ridiculous. I was starving, tired, and extremely uncomfortable, but I refused to let this stranger see my tears.
Noticing the bloody marks protruding from the makeshift bandages on my wrists, he relaxed his grip and moved his knee, looking slightly apologetic but no less lethal. He stared intently at the inside of my forearm and caught sight of the telltale square scar.
“You’re documented,” he said, his voice full of loathing.
I grimaced, willing the mark to disappear. I felt exposed.
If he was PMC, he would know I was headed in the wrong direction and clearly not complying with mandatory migration, but he sure was taking his time arresting me. I glanced at his waist, searching for a gun or handcuffs at his belt, but he was wearing ordinary cargo pants — not the stark-white, immaculately pressed PMC officers’ uniform.
He rocked back on his knees but didn’t release my arms. “What are you doing here?” His question was sharp but not unkind.
I tried to sit up a little, but I could only manage to half prop myself up on my elbows since he still had a hold on me.
“If you want to arrest me, go ahead,” I said in a low, angry voice. “If not, let me go.”
“Arrest you?”
“You’re not PMC?”
He looked puzzled. “No.”
Who was he? It didn’t seem as if he planned on killing me, but I couldn’t figure out what he wanted. He saw me watching him with apprehension.
“What are you doing here?” he repeated.
I sighed. Clearly he was not going to let me go until I gave him some explanation.
“I need food,” I said. “I’ve been traveling for days, and I’m starving. Literally.”
His expression cleared a little, but he still wasn’t satisfied. “Why were you traveling on the trail? You were headed east. Are you lost?”
“No,” I said, the offense registering in my voice.
“So you’ve defected.”
I swallowed, unwilling to admit anything. It could all be a setup.
He read the conflict in my eyes. “I’m taking you in to the others. You seem pretty harmless, to be honest,” he said with a grimace, flipping over Greyson’s knife and sticking it in his back pocket. “But it’s not up to me.”
“Others?” I asked, ignoring his insult. “What others?” My fear and curiosity were fighting for dominance.
“We decide everything as a group. We have to consider what’s best for everyone.”
“Decide what?”
He sighed, looking a little irritated by all my questions. “Whether you’re too big of a liability to keep around.”
I was starting to panic a little when the inside of his forearm caught my eye.
“What happened to your CID?” I asked, grabbing his arm. On the inside of his forearm, instead of a clean, square scar, he had a long jagged X-shaped scar the size of a silver dollar.
He yanked his arm away and stared me down. “I cut it out.”
“Je-sus.”
He nodded darkly, as if that was the reaction he wanted. “Had to get off the grid somehow. Don’t get too attached to yours. If we let you stay, it will have to go.”
I shivered.
He held up my arm to examine it and let it flop down beside me. My skin tingled where he gripped it.
“Come on.”
He jumped up and yanked me roughly to my feet. He stood about a head taller than me and had a viselike grip on my arm. I squirmed, my head spinning again now that I was standing on two feet. He looked at me with wary eyes.
“What happened to you?” he asked, his eyes traveling from my cut-up wrists to my bloody head wound.
“Nothing. I’m just . . .” I stopped to take a breath, “starved.” I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, willing the pounding in my head to stop.
He let out an exasperated breath and pulled me along like a prisoner he might force to walk the plank.
“Who is ‘we’?” I asked again, thinking a few questions wouldn’t make or break my chance of survival. “Who lives here?”
He ignored my questions. “Do you think anyone’s out looking for you . . .?” He trailed off.
“Haven,” I said.
“Is that a fake name, or are you still using your old one?”
I felt a sting of irritation. “That’s my real name. And nobody’s looking for me,” I lied. My heart sank as I spoke the words.
“Just as well,” he muttered, and there was a dark edge to the way he said it.
“What’s your name?” I asked. Now I was just buying time.
He looked at me with suspicion. “Amory.”
“Is that your real name?”
“About as real as yours will be once your ID’s gone,” he said, waving his scarred arm with that crooked grin. It was strange, but I could see that he was actually very handsome despite the threatening tone of his voice. Maybe the loss of blood was making me hallucinate.
For a while, I couldn’t hear anything except the crunch of our feet on the gravel as he led me around the field to a cluster of trees.
“Do you live here?” I asked, peering over the trees at the roof of the farmhouse.
“Sort of.”
“Where did you live before you went off the grid?”
Amory didn’t turn to look at me. I could tell he was trying to avoid answering my questions. I was, after all, his prisoner.
“I try not to think about it,” he muttered. “I can’t go back anyway, so what’s the point?”
That hit home. I thought back to my parents’ house and my own apartment in Columbia. My old life was gone.
He pulled me along in silence for a moment, and I took the chance to study the farm
. Although the fields along the perimeter of the woods looked pretty barren, the smaller plots closer to the house were thriving.
Amory was walking so quickly as he dragged me that I stumbled and fell twice. Both times, he made a reflexive move as though he was going to catch me, but he thought better of it at the last second. He settled with tightening his grip on my arm and hoisting me back upright when I went down. My stomach lurched and my head spun, but I didn’t want to let on how weak I felt. There was no reason to make it easier for them to finish me off.
We walked past a large chicken coop, a small paddock with a few goats, and the barn I’d seen from the woods. The wood looked old and slightly warped, but the barn had a fresh coat of paint and still seemed operational. He led me around a pocket of trees that concealed a house and another large outbuilding farther back.
The farmhouse was painted a dark forest green with white shutters turning the color of driftwood. It had a big porch and that old, cheerful look of a house well lived in.
“What is this place?” I asked in awe.
“This is the farm.”
“Whose farm?”
He glowered down at me, and I knew I had reached my limit on questions. Amory wasn’t going to tell me anything else until he was sure he could trust me.
“It’s wonderful,” I muttered, staring up at the house. And I meant it. It was so strange to see a home that looked as if there was a big family residing there still intact. And even though I was a prisoner and didn’t know who might live there, I wanted to stay.
Amory led me up the porch steps, which creaked loudly underfoot. Next to the front door sat a muddy pair of rubber boots and an old orange cat that looked as though he had seen better days. The cat hissed.
“Easy, Magnus.”
The cat got to its tufted feet and arched its back in a yawn.
The front door was painted a dark blue over years of scratched wood and had a tiny window with a simple wreath hanging there. A familiar scent wafted toward me when he swung the door open.
“What’s that smell?” I asked.
“Sage.” He gestured at the wreath. “It’s a sign of good faith. It means a house welcomes undocumented travelers.”
The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) Page 6