“Warheads?”
I was confused. The pushback from the Canadian federal government had been stifled months ago.
“The United States is on its own,” said Roman, as though it were obvious. “No fuel, not enough food . . . no other country wants to align itself with a sinking ship.” His words fell heavy across the table. “The PMC is preparing for the next World War.”
We all fell silent. Nobody ate much of Max’s celebratory dinner spread. Even Ida’s rhubarb pie went untouched. I knew I should fill my belly with as many nutrients as possible since I would soon be traveling again — and would likely be short on food — but I couldn’t bring myself to feast happily knowing that everything I loved about the farm would soon be destroyed by the same monsters who ran me out of my city.
After dinner, I dragged my weary body up the stairs to take a bath before the others came up to bed. The rebels were scheduled to arrive early the next morning, and Ida had pulled everyone off carrier watch so we would be well rested.
The freezing cold water lapped at my hand as it poured into the bathtub. Normally on a cold night like this, I just took a quick dip in the tub, rinsed my hair, and soaped my underarms and feet. But I knew tonight could be one of my last chances for a real bath, so I shivered through a proper scrubbing and even gave Logan’s homemade shampoo bar a try.
By the time I dried myself and drained the tub, my legs were covered in goose bumps and my teeth were chattering like a cartoon. The candle on the sink was burning low in its dish, so I wrapped myself in one of Ida’s thick towels and scooped up my dirty clothes.
I nipped up the stairs quickly, hoping Max wouldn’t poke his head out of his room wanting to chitchat. Passing the rooms on the first landing without incident, I quickened my pace on the tiny staircase that led up to my room and nearly collided with Amory.
His hair was mussed and his eyes were ringed with purple shadows, but he looked handsome in an off-putting way. He blinked several times, covertly taking in the sight of me shivering in my now too-small towel.
“Sorry.” I clutched the towel tighter, feeling self-conscious.
“Oh, no,” he said, averting his eyes. “I was looking for you, actually.”
I swallowed, wishing I could just duck into my room and put on real clothes.
“Do you think you could help me change the bandage? I can’t reach all the way around.”
“Sure.” Why did my voice sound like that? “Just give me a minute.”
He cleared his throat, and I took the chance to slip into my room and shut the door quickly.
I felt very aware of him standing just outside my door as I dropped the towel on my bed and pulled on clothes.
Raking an impatient hand through my wet, tangled hair, it occurred to me how rough I must look. Now that I thought of it, Amory had never seen me in a state where I would say I looked nice.
I scrutinized my reflection in the tiny mirror by the chest of drawers. There was nothing to be done. As quickly as I could, I twisted my raggedy hair into a short side braid. Why did I even care? I had already decided I couldn’t allow any feelings I had for Amory to distract me from my ultimate goal.
By the time I emerged, Amory had returned to his room across the hall. A chink of light from a solitary lamp fell from his cracked door. I pushed it open, and he sat up on his bed, looking agitated. Sprawled out on the twin mattress, he looked much too big for it.
“Thanks for this.”
“Sure.”
He held my gaze for a second longer than was necessary and then averted his eyes and yanked off his shirt. A week and a half of inactivity had done nothing to diminish his physique. If anything, his muscles stood out more sharply than I remembered. I cursed myself for appraising him this way, crossed to where he sat, and perched on the very edge of the bed.
I hadn’t been this close to him in a while — not alone, at least — and I could tell his injury had taken its toll. He had lost some weight, making the planes of his already chiseled face more pronounced, and he looked tired around the eyes.
Untying the gauze, my fingers burned where they brushed his warm skin. His chest rose and fell, as if he were making an effort to breathe steadily. I sure was. He lifted his arms so I could unwind the bandage, and my gaze lingered on his toned shoulders.
Peeling back the last square of gauze, I could see that his wound looked considerably better. It had scabbed over nicely, but I knew he would always have a jagged scar under his ribcage to match the one on his arm. I kind of liked it.
“Hopefully it will be all healed up before swimsuit season,” he said.
I grinned. “You can impress all the ladies with your story about fighting the carrier.”
“Are you impressed?” he asked jokingly, raising an eyebrow.
My face felt hot, and I fought an embarrassed smile. “It’s not the carrier fighting that impresses me.”
To steady my breathing, I concentrated on setting the clean bandage into place, but Amory was watching me closely. His fingers brushed mine as he held the gauze in place so I could wrap it around him. We had done this so many times since the attack that I didn’t need to say anything. Wrapping the fresh gauze around his torso while sitting next to him on the bed proved difficult. I had to get closer and wrap my arms around his chest — so close I could feel the heat radiating from him.
I finished bandaging him too soon, and I took more time than necessary to tie off the gauze behind his left shoulder blade. I lowered my hands, and he turned his head to face me.
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
I stared at him, confused.
“Out east . . . to rescue Greyson. I’m not letting you go by yourself.”
I grinned. “I won’t be by myself.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ll be with the rebels. But we don’t know these people. They’re complete strangers, really.”
“You’re practically a stranger,” I said with an offhand laugh.
An expression I couldn’t quite place flashed through his eyes, but it passed quickly, to be replaced by a look of certainty and stubbornness.
“No. I’m not.”
I tore my eyes away from his, deciding a change of tactic was in order. “You just got stabbed. You’re not strong enough to travel yet, anyway.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’ll be fine. Honestly.”
“Amory . . .”
“I’m going.” He grasped my arm tightly, glaring at me with such intensity that I drew back on impulse. His expression softened, and his voice was hurt. “If you want me to.”
“It’s not that I don’t want you to. I just don’t think there’s much of anything left for me once I get him out. I don’t have a home to return to. I’ll have to go west.”
“Don’t you think I know that?” he asked. Looking down at his arm, I could see the jagged scar where he had ripped out his CID. It stood out brightly against his otherwise smooth, tanned skin.
“But you have a life here.”
“You heard Ida! None of us will be able to stay here once the PMC takes over the farm.”
“They won’t be here forever. It doesn’t make sense to produce food here and haul it out east. There isn’t fuel for that.”
“They’re not selling it to World Corp for food production. I think they have other plans they aren’t letting on.”
“But still. Someday you may want to come back here. It’s your home.”
He was quiet for a long time, and when he spoke, the words came slowly, painfully.
“It’s not the same for me as it is for Logan and Max. I’ve just never felt right being here. Ida opened her home up to me, and I don’t deserve it.”
This had taken a strange turn. He’d never opened up like this, yet for some reason, I could tell he was closing off just as I began to skim the surface. “Why don’t you deserve it?”
He grimaced in frustration. “It doesn’t matter now. I just . . . I’m not proud of what I’ve done in my life. I haven’t been . .
. a good person.” He looked away, and I could see the disgust in the jut of his lower lip.
Tentatively, I placed a hand on his knee. It felt completely foreign to me, but with Amory, it was right.
“I think you’re a good person.”
He didn’t look at me. “That’s why I want to go with you.” He was speaking hurriedly now, as though he worried he might lose his nerve. “You’ve only been here two weeks, and already I feel . . . better. I don’t want that to go away when you leave.”
I tore my eyes away from his face to the dark field outside his window. Through the trees, I could see headlights.
“Do you see that?” I asked. My heart was pounding.
Amory’s eyes snapped to the window, and we both got up to press our faces against the glass.
“Is it the rebels?”
“Let’s hope so.”
Bolting down to the landing and pulling on a shirt, Amory pounded on Roman’s door first. “Get Logan up,” he said to me.
I knocked loudly on Logan’s door, and Amory slipped into Max’s room. Crossing through the darkness in two strides, he shook Max awake and bent down to explain in a quick whisper. Max stirred, muttering angrily. Amory said something I couldn’t quite hear, and Max sat bolt upright.
“Holy shit. They’re here?” he yelled, excitement overcoming the grogginess.
Roman’s door cracked open.
“What’s going on?” He didn’t look as if he’d slept. I didn’t think he ever slept.
Logan opened her door, bleary-eyed. When she saw Roman standing in his doorway, she seemed to perk up with irritation, discreetly uncurling the Coke cans from her hair.
“We think the rebels are here,” I said.
“Oh,” said Logan, looking completely numb.
Ida emerged from her room wrapped in a horrible fluffy pink bathrobe. “What’s all the noise about, huh?”
“The rebels are here,” said Roman. “Haven thinks.” He placed a heavy note of condescension on the last word, looking at me.
“Well don’t just stand there, all of you! We have to go welcome our guests.”
“We don’t know for sure if it’s the rebels,” said Amory.
“Could be PMC,” said Roman.
“You two are the most paranoid —” Ida stopped short, closing her eyes and bringing her palms together to form a plan.
“Logan, go put on a pot of coffee. Max, start cooking whatever we have in the cupboard. The rest of you, go say hello.” She looked sternly at Amory and Roman. “And please don’t scare them off. We need their help.”
“What are you doing, then?” Amory asked.
“I am going to make myself presentable. I am the hostess, after all.”
Rolling his eyes, Roman led the way downstairs and stopped in front of the coat closet. I always thought it was a coat closet, but as it turned out, it was stocked with shotguns. Of course. He passed one to Amory and then pulled out another, eyeing me warily. He was enjoying this.
“Have you learned how to shoot yet? Or would arming you put us in more danger?”
I glared.
“Give her the gun,” said Amory in a low voice. I could hear an engine idling outside.
Roman conceded, but it felt cold and heavy slung over my shoulder as we walked out to the porch.
The headlights of an enormous, militaristic-looking truck blinded me instantly, and I could smell the thick cloud of diesel it emitted in sharp contrast to the dank, earthy aroma of fallen leaves.
Suddenly, the lights went off, and my eyes strained to adjust to the sudden darkness. A heavy boot kicked the driver’s side door open, and a dark-skinned man in army fatigue pants emerged, boots crunching gravel.
The other doors opened, and three more people spilled out: a pale, skinny guy with a lip ring in his late teens, a rugged-looking man with a gnarled beard, and a waiflike woman with long, bleached blond hair.
The first man stepped up to Amory but did not extend his hand. His head was shaved, and he looked older, his face weathered and unfriendly. He towered over Amory, and his biceps bulged through his T-shirt. Despite the chill in the air, he didn’t have a jacket.
“Choice is an illusion,” he said.
“When free men are entranced by illusions, they are easy prey for men who seek to steal their freedoms,” Amory recited in reply.
I remembered the code from an issue of The Patriot as a greeting between illegals.
“My name is Rulon,” said the man. “We are just passing through in need of safe lodgings.”
“Of course,” said Amory. He was still speaking in a stiff, formal tone. “If you’ll come inside, I’m sure we can find a place for you and your crew to sleep.”
“Very good. Thank you.”
Amory looked awkward. The man still hadn’t dropped his hardened expression.
“Our friend Max is making some food. I’m sure you’re all hungry.”
“We are. We’d be very grateful for a hot meal.”
The rebels filed inside, and for the first time, I could see and smell the rest of them up close. The men in particular smelled of unwashed bodies, smoke, and diesel. Rulon was the tallest, but the rugged man with the tangled black beard was just as tall as Roman. He walked with a pronounced limp, his eyes were dark and distrustful, and he wore a heavy coat with lots of pockets I knew concealed several weapons.
“This is Godfrey,” said Rulon. “He’s our explosives specialist.”
“I’m Mariah,” said the woman in a raspy, smoldering voice. Up close, I could see she was in her late twenties with dark, greasy roots and startlingly huge hazel eyes — almost yellow, like a cat’s.
“Haven,” I said. I clutched her cold, boney hand in an awkward handshake.
Mariah’s thin-lipped smile didn’t quite meet her eyes, and her skin was so pale she looked almost translucent.
The other guy, the one with the lip ring and spiky, red-tipped hair, walked past with only a nod in my direction.
When we entered the kitchen, Max was in his element. He had managed to pull together a delicious-looking feast with the leftovers from dinner. As Rulon ducked under the low threshold, Max’s eyes grew large. Indeed, the rebels did make an imposing group. Even Mariah and the pierced boy exuded an air of danger.
We sat down awkwardly as a group at the dining room table just as Ida fluttered in. She was dressed as I’d never seen her: resplendent in a breezy red silk dress with long, draping sleeves that billowed out behind her like an Oriental poppy as she walked. I instantly thought of a bejeweled butterfly. Her long white-blond hair trailed down her back, and her big glasses made her look even more insectlike.
“Welcome, welcome!” She held out her arms to the group. “Welcome to our home.”
“Thank you for your hospitality, Ida,” said Rulon. “Mica told us how kind you were to him when he was . . . asked to leave the university,” he said, nodding to the pierced boy with the dyed hair.
The boy made eye contact with Ida in acknowledgement and then quickly dropped his gaze to his plate.
“Mica has been of great use to us and is causing quite a lot of trouble for the PMC, to be honest.” Rulon’s mouth twitched. Was that his smile? “He has learned how to interfere with their technology.”
“That’s fascinating,” said Ida. “I could tell he was a smart boy. He’s responsible for my setup here. His surveillance equipment saved us from a pretty sticky situation two weeks ago.” She dropped her voice to a grave tone. “I’m sure you’ve heard about all the extra raids. It’s caused us a lot of trouble recently.”
“I’ve heard.”
Logan came in with a carafe of fresh coffee and promptly dropped it on the floor. It shattered to pieces.
“Shit!”
Everyone looked up at her. Something I couldn’t quite place flickered across Mariah’s face — a smirk perhaps — and Logan was staring at her as if she had seen a ghost.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Logan recovered almost immediately, but
that look in her eyes seemed familiar to me.
“Oh, sorry!” she spluttered. “It splashed up and scalded my hand. I’ll get a mop.”
Max immediately sprang up to help her, looking concerned. She shrugged him off, but he pushed past her to fill a bucket with water.
I got down to help her pick up some shards of the broken carafe.
“I’ve got it, Haven,” she said. Her voice was level, but it sounded oddly high to me.
“It’s fine.”
She lowered her voice so only I could hear. “Please, just sit down. I’m embarrassed as it is.”
I studied her face, but she didn’t look embarrassed. Her expression was perfectly set — like the poker face she used when she trained me. Again, I had the feeling that something was not quite right with her, but I gave her a reassuring half smile and went back to my chair. Max returned to help, and I watched her face out of the corner of my eye. She looked . . . nervous?
I’d lived at the farm long enough to witness Logan’s colorful spectrum of emotions, but never had I seen her anything less than completely self-assured. When she was angry, she was unapologetically furious. Even when I had brought up Max’s affection for her, she was glowing with happiness and flattery. When Amory got stabbed, she was openly terrified. Now, she was apprehensive and trying to hide it.
“The meal is delicious,” Rulon said to Ida. “My compliments to the chef.” He nodded at Max.
Ida beamed. “My house is home to people with an extraordinary range of talents.”
“Indeed.”
It suddenly occurred to me that Rulon had been speaking for his whole crew since their arrival. As if he had read my mind, Amory turned to Godfrey.
“So. How did you all come together?”
“It’s not important.”
Amory’s mouth became a hard line. I could tell he was irritated that Godfrey was not more forthcoming, but he didn’t want to push them in case they decided not to help me on my journey east.
I nudged his foot under the table, and his eyes met mine. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes looked amused.
“Do you all have any cigarettes?” Mariah asked suddenly.
The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) Page 14