“I’ll bet.”
He winced. “I couldn’t help overhearing.”
I felt a twinge of guilt that we had woken him.
He regarded me seriously. “Don’t listen to Roman.”
Heat crept up my face; I wasn’t sure which part of the conversation he was referring to.
Amory sighed. “Caring about Greyson doesn’t make you weak.”
“No. It does,” I said. “The people who always survive are the people who have nothing to lose. Besides, why would they even take me with them?”
“They’ll take you. Rebels are always looking for followers to join their cause.”
I swallowed twice to ease the tension building in my throat. “He might be dead.”
Amory nodded once. “He might. You should prepare for that.”
My eyes were welling up. I breathed deeply, not wanting him to see me cry.
“If he’s alive, though, you can find him.” Amory was speaking quickly now in a low voice, as though he was afraid we would be overheard.
“He was just caught stealing, and he’s undocumented. Those are pretty minor offenses. They have no reason to think he’s a dedicated rebel, and he was picked up alone. The PMC has a lot of undocumented illegals to deal with. For a minor crime, he’ll be in the lowest security prison. They don’t do a great job keeping track of petty criminals. You might be able to help him escape.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked.
“To operate outside the system, it’s important to understand how the system works.”
I should have asked him what he meant, but Amory looked exhausted from the bout of conversation, and it seemed unfair to demand answers when he was recovering from a stab wound. I wanted to ask him about his life before he ran away — why he was so guarded — because nothing I knew about him seemed to add up.
Maybe that was what happened when you went off the grid. You cut out your CID, and you cut out your old identity. I didn’t want to talk about my past. The memory of my parents was still too painful, and if I allowed myself to think about it, I didn’t know if I would be able to keep going. Maybe Amory was running from his past, too. Maybe all of them were.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Bringing a doctor to the farm was out of the question. The only doctors who hadn’t already migrated north were working for the PMC. Unfortunately, without a doctor, there was no possibility of procuring pain medication for Amory. Although he said the pain wasn’t bad, I knew from watching his fitful sleep that it was a great deal worse than he let on.
For the next few days, whenever I wasn’t needed for carrier watch — which was less and less often since we were down one person — I sat up with Amory in the living room, reading old issues of The Patriot by the light of a kerosene lamp. Despite the worries gnawing at my chest, reading other illegals’ accounts of events made me feel lighter inside. It was good to know that other people out there were fighting the PMC’s lies and trying to survive just as we were.
When my eyes grew too tired from reading in the dim light, I watched Amory fight through sleep, but I was reluctant to let my own eyes shut. Part of me was worried he would wake up in pain or that infection would set in. Between my lookout shifts and watching over Amory, I barely slept at all.
But on the third night after the attack, Amory said he felt good enough to move upstairs. I helped him get to his feet, and I could see he made a concerted effort to hide the discomfort he felt when standing up. I wrapped an arm around his torso, and he leaned against me and shuffled toward the stairs.
It seemed strange supporting some of his weight when he towered over me by a foot. Amory had a slender build, which prevented me from noticing what a big guy he was until I had an arm wrapped around him. I would never be able to catch him if he fell.
He must have realized this, too, because he said, “I feel a little ridiculous.”
“I feel a little ridiculous agreeing to help you up the stairs. You’re pretty much on your own if you fall.”
Amory laughed. “That’s fine. I feel like I could take on about twenty carriers right now, anyway.”
The steps were a long and painful process for him. Even with my help, he had to stop about every other step. I could tell he was embarrassed, but there was nothing to be done.
By the time I helped him down onto his bed, he looked exhausted and a little pale. I brought him a glass of water and helped him arrange the pillows comfortably. As I pulled the quilt up to his chest, I felt a slight twinge of awkwardness at our close proximity. He never asked me to play the nurse, but I had attached myself to him for the last four days.
“You probably think I’m an idiot,” he said.
“What?”
“I got stabbed by a carrier,” he said in a flat voice. “I’ve never even encountered ones that were armed before.”
I sank down on the bed. “What happened out there?”
He sighed. “Roman thought he saw a carrier passing through in the woods. He’s got these night-vision binoculars . . . he gets pretty into it. He was going to shoot, but I said to wait and see if the carrier kept moving.”
Amory’s brow was furrowed in rage. “That’s our policy,” he said. “If one moves in on our land, we shoot him. So we’re sitting there, watching this one like a hawk, and I see a group of them almost at the pasture.”
He ran a hand through his hair in exasperation. “Those sneaky bastards gave us a decoy to keep us from noticing they were advancing. I was about ready to shoot, but Roman was gone and running toward them.” Amory shook his head. “Crazy son of a bitch. He’s got this blind rage. I don’t even think he knew what he was doing. He scared off two of them, but the one I was fighting . . .” He trailed off, looking weary around the eyes.
“I had it there on the ground in front of me. I had a knife at its throat. I was ready to end it. Then I see it’s a woman — the carrier — and she’s older . . .” Amory’s eyes glistened, and his voice was thick. “She’s got these earrings on. These little dangly earrings like my mom used to wear. Everything else that’s human about her is long gone, but she’s still wearing those earrings!
“That’s when one of the others Roman was fighting stabbed me. I killed the female I was fighting, but two of them got away.”
“And that’s why Roman was angry,” I finished.
He nodded. “Roman hates carriers. Did you know about his family?”
I shook my head. It was hard to imagine Roman as anything other than the surly lone wolf.
“Before the Collapse, Roman used to live in St. Louis with his mom and his little sister. His sister had special needs, and Roman worked all kinds of odd jobs to help out with the bills. One night, he came home to find a carrier ransacking his kitchen. There was a whole gang of them holed up in the apartment next door, but they were starving. They killed Roman’s mom and his little sister — all he had left in the world. Gone. Just like that.”
It all made sense now. I had seen the virus through my mother’s illness, but Roman had only experienced carriers as killers. They weren’t human to him. How could a human do something like that?
Amory sighed. “So now you know why he hates carriers so much.”
I nodded.
“And you know why he was so angry. I acted like an idiot. I shouldn’t have hesitated. I let one get to me, and that almost got me killed.”
“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” I said. “I don’t see compassion as a weakness. They were humans, too, once. They were someone’s family.”
“I didn’t want to do it,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“Do you think killing them makes us bad people?”
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t stand the thought of my mom being shot just because she was infected, but I understood the danger better than anyone. “It’s not that simple.”
Amory looked at me, sensing there was something I wasn’t saying.
“My mom was infected,” I said.
He looked taken a
back. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I shook my head. “I know. It’s fine, I just . . . I know I should see them as people, but I don’t anymore. Is that wrong?”
I broke off, wondering how much I should tell him. “In the end, my dad had to lock her up to keep her from killing him. He didn’t talk about it, but I know she changed toward the end. She wasn’t my mom anymore.”
My voice shook as I said what I had been too ashamed to think. “Maybe Roman . . . Maybe his way is kinder.”
Amory stared at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. We didn’t say anything, but the silence that passed between us was empathetic, not judgmental.
I felt exhausted but relieved at the same time. I had not realized the burden I had been carrying, and voicing aloud the thing that had plagued me for weeks felt liberating.
Saying it opened up a floodgate of new emotions: grief that my parents were gone, anger at the PMC for killing them, anger at my father for throwing away his life to preserve the life of someone who wasn’t really my mother anymore, and a horrible choking guilt that I was betraying my mom’s memory.
Guilt. I hadn’t felt the full weight of it until I let it go. It served no purpose; feeling it wouldn’t bring her back.
Amory was looking at me as if he understood. I didn’t know how he possibly could, but it was comforting just the same.
I cleared my throat, got up from the bed, and turned to go, but Amory caught my hand, pressing his thumb into my wrist. “Hey. Thanks, by the way.”
I didn’t really know what he was thanking me for — maybe helping him up the stairs. I should have thanked him. Telling someone about my mom had lifted an enormous, suffocating weight off my chest, but of course he couldn’t know that.
“It’s nothing,” I said with a shrug. “You would have done the same for me.”
He grinned. “I definitely would.”
I nodded and started to pull away, but he didn’t let go when he should have.
“Why, though?” he asked.
My thoughts screamed. I should have taken the time to form a more coherent response, but my words tumbled out before I had a chance to censor myself. “I just like you, I guess.”
I tried to distance myself from Amory after that night. He had seen right through me, and I liked him — I liked him a lot. But I couldn’t let myself be distracted. The rebels would arrive in a few days, and I needed to prepare myself as much as possible.
The main problem was that, since I only had a few days left on the farm, I didn’t have time to learn the skills the rest of them had been perfecting for months. I knew I wouldn’t be able to become a master marksman with just two weeks of training, but I didn’t want to run away with the rebels without being able to protect myself.
Logan agreed to teach me some basic hand-to-hand combat skills for self-defense. Before the Collapse, she had studied Krav Maga and mixed martial arts, and she had taught all the rest of them the basics of close-quarters combat.
We went out to the field in the morning. I was nervous, but Logan looked excited. Just like when she was shooting, anyone could see she was in her element. She was wearing slim-fitting black pants, combat boots, and a long-sleeve athletic shirt. Her long hair was pulled back in a fishtail braid, and her eyes were bright with anticipation.
“Why did you bring your gun?” I asked, staring down at the rifle in her hands with apprehension.
“The PMC aren’t going to go all kung fu master on you,” she said. “They’ll be armed, and you won’t have much of a chance to escape.”
She stepped to my side, pointing the gun at me.
“How am I supposed to defend myself against a rifle?”
“You get one chance,” she said. “You can’t hesitate. It has to be fast.”
I breathed deeply, trying not to think about the gun pointed at my heart. “That’s not loaded, right?” I asked.
She ignored me. “Put your hands up.”
I raised my hands like a hostage.
“Now, throw out your right hand.”
I reached over and around, the side of my hand making contact with the cold, smooth barrel. I pushed it over.
“Grab the handle.”
I did, and she snapped the gun back, training it on me again. I sighed. This was already proving to be just as difficult as Logan’s shooting lessons.
“Too slow,” she said. “And you forgot to grab it from the other end. You want to take it away.”
“You didn’t tell me —”
“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “You’ve gotta think.”
She raised the gun, and I moved back into position to try again. This time, I wrapped both my hands around the gun and pulled it away from her.
“You finish him off with a kick to the groin.”
I looked at her in disbelief, but her expression was serious — a complete poker face. I drew back my leg and feigned a kick below the belt, stepped backward, and held the gun on her.
“That was good,” she said. “But it’s got to be faster. Like this.”
I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
She knocked the rifle sideways in my hands, grabbed it, and aimed a kick at me. I was ready for the fake kick, but the heel of her boot caught me in the stomach, and I fell backward with a grunt. Logan stood over me, pointing the rifle at my face.
I lay on the ground, curled up and writhing with pain. I’d never been beaten up before, unless you counted the carrier attack. I wasn’t prepared for the pain.
“What — the — hell?” I gasped.
“Get back up!” she yelled. “The PMC won’t hesitate to hurt you.”
I scrambled to my feet, still doubled over. Logan grabbed my wrist tightly. I pulled away.
“No!” she said. “They’re bigger than you. Do you really think you can win that way?”
I stopped.
“Step in and use the strength of your whole body.”
She showed me how to bend my arm into a triangle and use my back and hips to wind up and strike the attacker with my elbow.
“Now you finish them with a swing to the side of the head.”
We ran through that move several dozen times, Logan constantly adding in new variables. It got to the point where the moves were muscle memory, but I was always a step behind. Just when I seemed to get something, she added something new and berated me for letting my guard down.
After my third kick to the stomach, I felt the hot tears welling up in my eyes. I felt ridiculous, like a bawling baby who’d fallen down, but there was no stopping them. It was awful taking a beating when you were trying to learn.
“What is your problem?” I yelled from the ground.
“I’m trying to help you. We don’t have much time, and the PMC officers have had training.”
“I asked you to teach me,” I stammered between labored, teary breaths. “I’m — not — learning anything.”
She sighed, holding out her hand to help me up. Just as I got to my feet, she shifted her grip to my wrist, and I instinctively stepped into her and knocked her on the side of the head with my bent elbow — hard.
I felt a pang of guilt ripple through my stomach, but I was also secretly satisfied.
Logan rubbed her head where I’d struck her. “Yes, you have.”
She grinned, and I had the off-putting feeling — not for the first time — that Logan was not like the rest of us.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The night before the rebels were scheduled to arrive, Ida told Max to prepare a special dinner. I knew Max had been scrounging together some ingredients from the cellar and Logan’s private stash of herbs to make a roasted turkey with stuffing, but instead, he decided to make everyone’s favorites: eggplant parmesan for Logan, mashed potatoes for me, lasagna for Amory, rhubarb pie for Ida, and even extra-toasty grilled cheese for Roman.
I felt a wave of anxiousness and desperate sadness wash over me as I sat down at the table. If the rebels came, I would be leavi
ng soon. This was what I had been waiting for: my chance to get to Sector X and rescue Greyson. But leaving the farm also meant leaving the people who had opened their home and made me feel safe. It felt like leaving family.
Ida blew into the room, skirts billowing around her, and sat down heavily at the head of the table. She looked uncharacteristically grave, angry even. Silence fell all around the table.
“I hate to do this,” she said. “I hate to cast a shadow on Haven’s farewell supper. But I received some upsetting news today.”
We all held our breath, and possibilities raced through my mind. Had we been discovered by the PMC?
“While being documented has its advantages, it has made my situation here precarious at best. I’ve known for a while I would be asked to migrate north with the rest of the students at the end of the semester.”
My heart sank. She was leaving us.
“However, I received notice today that the PMC will be handing over the management of the farm to World Corp International to combat the food shortage.”
A chilling silence hung in the air. Finally, Roman spoke.
“That’s bullshit! The government can’t just hand over your land.”
Logan sighed. “With the mandate, legally they can.”
“Legally? There’s nothing ‘legal’ about this totalitarianism! The law is whatever they want it to be.”
“Where will we go?” Max asked.
“They’ve given me some time to . . . get my affairs in order,” said Ida. “I will make arrangements for all of you at the nearest safe houses. Temporary solutions, of course, but no one is being turned out in the cold.” Her voice faltered. “I . . . don’t want you to think I’m turning my back on you. You kids are my family.”
“I’m sorry they’re doing this,” I said.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Amory broke in. “The food they produce will be trucked out east to the PMC bases and prisons, but we don’t have the fuel for that.”
“They’re not acquiring the farm so they can grow food,” snarled Roman. “That’s just their cover. It’s probably going to be another base or a warheads manufacturing plant.”
The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) Page 13