Deception

by C. J. Redwine

  I’m not going to lose them. Any of them.

  We’re one third of the way across. Carrington soldiers are skirting the crater and carefully climbing onto the bridge. I leap from the wagon’s step and reach for the first straggler.

  “Get in,” I say, and half scoop, half shove a woman with gray hair and stooped shoulders into the wagon. The next two stragglers get unceremoniously tossed into the wagon as well.

  I glance behind me and see a line of red-jacketed soldiers coming for us, walking two abreast. The bridge jerks and shudders beneath their momentum, but they don’t hesitate.

  “Faster,” I say to Jodi, and race ahead of her to help a man struggling to carry two toddlers. As soon as the wagon pulls abreast of us, we dump the children inside and the man hurries to pick up a woman who clings to a rusty pillar streaked with black.

  I look back. Carrington’s men have reached the one-third mark. We’re now a little more than halfway across. We’re never going to make it.

  Hoofbeats slam against the planks, and I turn to see Thom riding toward me, his broad face filled with determination. Instantly, I come to a decision. I’d wanted to toss jars of acid and glycerin out of the back of the wagon as we sped to safety, blowing up a chunk of the bridge in our wake. But there are too many people between me and the other side, and the bridge is already too unstable to risk blowing up any part of it before all of my people are on solid ground again.

  Jodi and the man who was carrying the toddlers can get most of the remaining people into the wagon. Thom can shepherd the rest across.

  I’ll wait here with my jars and my sword and hold Carrington off as long as possible. If I soak the boards with glycerin, it will only take one jar of acid to destroy this section of the bridge. I’m a strong swimmer. If I don’t get injured by flying debris or crushed by metal pillars, I have a chance to survive this.

  “Keep going,” I say to Jodi. “Pick up anyone you can fit into the wagon and get to safety.”

  “What about you?” she asks.

  “I’m going to stop Carrington.”

  I grab three jars of glycerin and one of acid, and then move away from the wagon. The lead soldiers are less than fifteen yards away from me. I unscrew the first jar of glycerin and spill its contents on the boards at my feet while the unsteady creaking of Jodi’s wagon wheels fades into the distance.

  I’m spilling the contents of the second glycerin jar when Thom reaches me.

  “I’ll do that.” His feet thud against the planks as he dismounts. “Give me the jars.”

  I shake my head and unscrew the third. Carrington is closing in on the one-half mark. The shudders running through the bridge’s frame are slowing them down, but still they’ll be on me in another minute.

  “Make sure all of our people get to solid ground,” I say. “Yell to me when the bridge is clear.”

  “And then what? You die?” he asks.

  “Hopefully not, but it’s a possibility.” The contents of the third jar arc through the air and splash onto the planks a few yards in front of me.

  I need a wide base for this explosion.

  Thom grabs the fourth jar from my hands, and unscrews the lid.

  “Thom, please. Get on the horse. Get everyone off the bridge.”

  “Get on the horse yourself. I’m doing this.” His voice is calm.

  “No, you aren’t. I’m a strong swimmer.”

  “Don’t figure I’ll need to know how to swim,” Thom says, and the finality in his voice stops me dead.

  Carrington reaches the halfway mark and the bridge dips and sways, sending a few of them into the pillars and nearly bringing me to my knees. Thom grabs my cloak and holds me upright. I stare at him, at the pale sheen to his skin, the dilated pupils in his brown eyes, and I realize he means to die.

  For me.

  “They’re almost here. We don’t have time to argue. You aren’t sacrificing yourself for me, Thom. I have a good chance of surviving. Please—”

  “You have almost no chance of surviving, and the group needs you.”

  The insistent slap of Carrington boots against the planks comes closer. Thom upends the fourth jar of glycerin and coats the planks behind him.

  A sense of sick desperation wells up within me. “The group needs us both. Go back, Thom. Please.”

  He meets my eyes, and pulls the sleeve of his tunic up to his elbow. A bouquet of purple-black bruises mottles the underside of his arm.

  “I’m a walking dead man, Logan. Let me die with dignity. I want my life to count for something bigger than myself.”

  “Thom,” I whisper. My throat closes, and my eyes burn. This quiet, hardworking man deserves better than this. I hold his gaze for another few seconds as gratitude and regret twist through me until I can’t tell the difference, and then hand him the jar of acid. “Your life already counts for something bigger than yourself. I couldn’t have come this far without you. You’re a hero. Even before you blow up this bridge, you’re a hero.”

  Grief is a tight band across my chest, and I clasp Thom’s shoulder as Carrington’s soldiers reach the glycerin-soaked planks. Then I lunge for the horse, pull myself into the saddle, and hammer the first soldier with the hilt of my sword.

  His partner attacks, sword flashing. I parry, thrust, block, and stab. The horse dances in place, the bridge shudders and moans, and over my shoulder, I see the last of the Baalboden survivors reach solid ground.

  I spur the horse into the next two soldiers, hacking and chopping with my sword to build a perimeter around Thom.

  “Logan, go,” Thom says. “Go!”

  He holds the open jar of acid above his head. The planks around him are a glycerin-soaked bomb waiting for a spark. I kick another soldier into the men behind him, and whip the horse around.

  Thom meets my eyes and nods.

  I can hardly speak around the grief that suffocates me. “Thank you,” I say, and spur the horse into a gallop toward the end of the bridge.

  Ahead of me, solid ground is less than ten yards away.

  Behind me, Thom’s voice rises in a tremendous roar of fury.

  “For Baalboden!” he yells.

  I twist in my saddle and see him throw the acid onto the planks at his feet. There’s a split second of silence as the liquid splashes through the air, and then the bridge explodes, sending a hail of wood, metal, and bodies to the river below.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  LOGAN

  “No!” Frankie spurs his horse forward and meets me as my mount leaps onto solid ground. I duck against the horse’s flank as chunks of debris slice into the surrounding trees. A hole the size of two wagons lined up end to end rips the bridge in two. The shorter piece, the one closest to us, remains solid. The longer piece, bereft of support and filled with soldiers, twists slowly in the air as if at any moment, it might rip free of the few pillars that still hold it in place.

  Huge freckled hands reach for me and haul me out of the saddle.

  “He doesn’t know how to swim. Do you hear me?” Frankie shakes me like I weigh nothing. “He doesn’t know how to swim.”

  Letting go of me, he rushes to the edge of the drop-off and stares into the pile of wreckage and bodies littering the river below. “Thom!” he screams. “Thomas Kocevar, you get out of that water. You raise your head right now. Thom!”

  A flash of golden skin runs by us, and suddenly Willow soars off the cliff’s edge. Jackknifing in midair, she splits the water between a slab of iron and a body dressed in red. Seconds later, the unsteady portion of the bridge rips free of its moorings with an earsplitting shriek of metal on metal and tumbles into the water below.

  “Willow!” Quinn rushes to my side at the cliff’s edge, and we scan the river. “Willow!”

  Bodies flail in the water, but all of them are wearing red. Another kind of red is spreading in an ever-widening circle from the epicenter of the bridge’s fall. The current tugs at the wash of crimson and slowly pushes it downstream until everywhere we look th
e water runs red with the blood of its victims.

  Willow doesn’t surface. Neither does Thom.

  “She’s a strong swimmer,” I say. “Give her more time. She’ll be okay.”

  But time passes, and she still doesn’t surface. Two Carrington soldiers haul themselves out of the water and flop onto the bank on our side. A handful do the same on the opposite bank.

  Willow is nowhere to be found.

  Quinn makes a strangled noise in his throat, grabs Frankie’s cloak, and throws him against a tree. Frankie raises his meaty arms, but Quinn plows a fist into his stomach and then pins him to the tree trunk with his forearm across Frankie’s throat.

  “Are you satisfied now?” Quinn yells. “Are you?”

  Frankie’s face turns red, and his lips move, but nothing comes out. I grab Quinn’s shoulder.

  “Let him go, Quinn.”

  Quinn ignores me and leans closer to Frankie. His dark eyes are cold and furious. “From the moment we joined your group, you’ve done nothing but degrade us and cast false accusations at us. Do you know why Willow jumped into the river? To prove you wrong.”

  Frankie gurgles, and his lips begin turning blue. He punches and kicks at Quinn, but Quinn parries the blows with swift, graceful movements, never once releasing Frankie’s throat. It’s like watching a cat toy with a mouse already half-dead.

  “Quinn, you’re killing him. Let him go,” I say.

  “She jumped in to prove you wrong. Not because she cares what you think of her, but because she cares what you think of me.” His voice is calm. Deadly. The voice of a predator who knows his prey is helpless. “Your opinion isn’t worth her life. You aren’t worth her life.”

  “Quinn!” I slam into Quinn from the side, knocking his arm away from Frankie’s throat. Frankie falls to the ground, gasping and choking. Quinn snarls at me and lunges toward Frankie again.

  I jump in front of Frankie, and Quinn plows into me. We hit the dirt. I grab Quinn’s tunic with both hands before he can get back up again.

  “Stop!” I say, and Quinn looks at me—really looks at me—for the first time since Willow dove into the water.

  “He dishonored her.” He spits the words in Frankie’s direction.

  “Yes, he did. But Willow rose above it. For you. Because she admires who you’ve become. It was her way of defending your honor. Honor you’re about to destroy by killing Frankie.”

  Quinn stares at me, his breath heaving. “I wasn’t . . .” He stares at Frankie, who is rubbing his hands against his throat and coughing in harsh gasps.

  “You were killing him,” I say quietly.

  “Yes.” Quinn’s voice is quiet.

  “I’m sorry about Willow.”

  A flicker of pain lights Quinn’s eyes, and then his customary emotionless mask slides back into place. Wordlessly, he rises and turns away from me. Away from Frankie.

  “Logan!” Jodi is on her hands and knees, leaning out over the drop-off, her feet digging into the soil to help her keep her balance. She’s pointing at something below.

  I scramble to her side and peer over the edge.

  Willow is slowly climbing out of the water, blood pouring from a gash in her back. Some of the pressure squeezing my chest eases. I whip my head around and say, “Quinn, she’s alive. We need to help her.” Then I jump to my feet and race to the supply wagon for the length of rope I have stashed inside.

  Quinn is at the edge when I return. His jaw is clenched, his hands fisted as he watches his sister pull herself onto the river-bank. I loop one end of the rope around a sturdy tree trunk and lash it tight. All around us, survivors cluster at the edge of the drop-off. Some call encouragement down to Willow. Others stare in mute shock at the bridge’s wreckage, and the long line of red-jacketed soldiers standing at the edge of the opposite tree line, their swords gleaming like a row of wicked teeth.

  “I’m going down to get her,” Quinn says, and I don’t argue. If Willow were my sister, I’d be the one going down, too. He quickly fashions a harness and then slowly lets out the slack as he lowers himself over the edge.

  Several more Carrington soldiers have now climbed out of the river’s swift current on our side of the bank. Three of them lie panting and bleeding on the rocky bank. A fourth starts moving toward Willow, who huddles on her hands and knees, blood pouring onto the sand beneath her.

  A faint thwing disturbs the air, and an arrow flies past me and buries itself in the soldier’s neck. He staggers, reaches up to grab the arrow, and falls backward into the river. Three more arrows fly, and all of the injured soldiers stop moving.

  I turn and see Rachel standing behind me holding Willow’s bow, her eyes bleak.

  “Did I miss any?” she asks.

  I scan the riverbank, but the only bodies washing ashore now are already dead. “No, you got them all.”

  She lowers the bow and comes to stand beside me. Together, we watch Quinn work his way down the side of the embankment.

  “Thom is dead,” I say, and the words burn my tongue like acid. “He insisted on staying behind to blow up the bridge instead of me, even though—”

  “You were going to stay behind and blow up the bridge?” Her voice is as bleak as her eyes.

  I look at her. “I wanted to toss the jars out of the wagon as we left the bridge, but there were too many people still trying to get across. I had to send the wagon ahead of me to help get everyone to safety.”

  She meets my eyes, but I can’t figure out what she’s thinking.

  “Thom sacrificed himself. He was poisoned. Bruises already on his arms. And he insisted on staying instead.” I want her to understand. To see that someone had to do it. Someone had to cut us off from the Carrington army or we’d have died like sheep penned in for slaughter.

  “You were going to blow yourself up with the bridge?”

  “I was hoping not to. I was going to get as far away from the glycerin as I could before throwing the acid, and then dive over the side before the explosion hit so that I had a chance of swimming to the shore.”

  Her gaze drifts past mine and lingers on the sea of wreckage floating in the crimson-streaked water. “You wouldn’t have survived.”

  She’s right, but the terrible emptiness in her voice keeps me from admitting it. I put my arms around her, but she remains stiff and unyielding. It’s like holding a stone to my chest. Leaning down, I press my mouth against her ear and say, “They would’ve destroyed us, Rachel. Someone had to stop them. I didn’t want it to be me, but sometimes we just have to do what comes next.”

  Below us, Quinn wraps his arms around his sister and gently slides her onto his back. She clings to his shoulders and wraps her legs around his waist. Her braid is undone, and her dark hair covers her face as she leans her head against Quinn’s shoulder. I let go of Rachel and reach for the rope in case Quinn needs help pulling them both up to the tree line.

  “Sylph is going to die,” Rachel says, and I shiver at the aching void behind her words. “You’re all I have left. How can I live with the fear that every time I turn my back, you might be sacrificing yourself for the rest of us?”

  I dig my heels into the soil and brace my arms against the rope as Quinn begins to climb.

  “Like you sacrificed yourself to save Jeremiah when Carrington broke into the compound?”

  She doesn’t respond.

  “Do you want me to promise you that I’ll never risk my life again?” I ask. “Because that isn’t the kind of life we have, Rachel. I wish it was, but it isn’t.”

  She still says nothing. I look at her, but she’s staring beyond me, her skin dead white against the brilliant flame of her hair, her eyes filled with cold fury. Turning, I follow her gaze and see the Commander standing at the distant edge of the ruined bridge, his sword flashing in the morning sunlight and his dark eyes boring into mine. Slowly he raises his arm until his sword is pointing straight at me. A row of archers stands along the embankment, their arrows nocked.

  “Give me the tech, an
d I’ll stop hunting you,” the Commander yells, cutting his words into sharp, precise pieces.

  Rachel whips the bow up and lets an arrow fly. It sails toward the Commander, but falls short, landing just shy of the opposite bank.

  “He’s too far away to kill,” I say.

  She says nothing.

  As Quinn and Willow clamber onto the embankment, surrounded by hands reaching to help them up, to untie the rope, and to whisk Willow away to the medical wagon, I step to the side. I want an unobstructed view of the man who’s ruined my life and the lives of so many others in his relentless quest for power. Then I whip my sword from its sheath, raise it in the air above me, and lower it until the tip is aimed at the Commander’s vicious, brutal heart.

  “You will never get the device from me.” I fling the words at him, and then motion my people to move back into the trees.

  “I will never stop hunting you.” His voice echoes across the water. “Do you hear me, Logan McEntire? I will spend every waking minute of my life hunting you down like the dog you are. And when I catch up to you, I will slaughter you and everyone who follows you. Man, woman, and child.”

  “Not if I kill you first.” Before he can reply, I turn on my heel and walk away.

  He can’t get to me. Yet. The ruined bridge made sure of that. But he’ll keep coming, and I’ll be ready. I’ll train my people. I’ll build every weapon I’ve ever designed. I’ll make alliances of my own. And on the inevitable day when we finally confront each other face-to-face, I’ll destroy him.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  RACHEL

  The medical wagon creaks and sways as it rumbles across the faint path leading north through the tree line. The river is a constant presence on our left. The tangled greenery of the Wasteland presses against our right.

  I have to keep reminding myself that I’m not at the Commander’s mercy. Oliver isn’t dying in front of me. No guard waits to undress me and scrub me clean of blood.

  Still, the four walls of the wagon want to close in on me, and I struggle to breathe past the rapid beating of my heart.