Dal fired up the engine, made a slow three-point turn, and headed back the way they had come. They entered a thickly wooded section, the tall trees on either side of them casting the truck into shade. Dal was forced to weave among the trees.
Amanda fished the tissue sample out of her pocket. She pressed the flesh between her fingers, once again marveling at how solid it was. It felt firm, almost like a cork from one of her parent’s wine bottles.
She would love to know how it compared to a piece of muscle off a regular human, but they didn’t dissect humans in high school.
Amanda had been considering a degree in pre-med for her college undergrad. As she turned the Ziploc-wrapped sample between her hands, she realized how well-suited she would be for the field.
It wasn’t until she returned the sample to her pocket that she looked up and noticed the helicopter in the sky. The old truck was so loud, she hadn’t even heard the approaching chopper over the roar of the engine.
Panic leaped into her throat.“Guys, helicopter!”
“What the hell?” Lena spun around, kneeling on the seat for a better look. Dal craned his neck, attempting to adjust the rearview mirror while he drove.
“Holy shit,” Lena said. “Dal, we have to get out of sight.”
19
Log
Dal jerked the steering wheel, heading into a thicker clump of trees.
Amanda couldn’t peel her eyes from the incoming helicopter. It was white with a big red cross painted on the side. It was a medical helicopter flying over Armstrong Woods—and heading straight for them.
It must be filled with Soviets. As much as Amanda wanted to believe something else, it was the only reasonable explanation. There hadn’t been anything in the sky since the invasion.
“They found us,” Amanda said.
Lena must have come to the same conclusion. “Dal, how long was your broadcast?”
“I cut it off at forty-five seconds.” The truck bumped over the rocky terrain as Dal frantically edged it through the trees. “Not a second over. You know how careful I am.”
“They were ready for us.” Amanda tracked the helicopter. It gained on them with every passing second. “They must have assigned a team to monitor the airwaves and track us.”
This was bad. Very, very bad.
Dal continued to edge the truck between the trunks. They came up against a wall of bay trees and were forced to stop. The trees were too close together. There was no way to get the truck to the other side without backtracking.
They couldn’t afford to backtrack. They were out of time. The whomp-whomp of the helicopter blades were nearly upon them.
“Out,” Dal cried. “We have to hide!”
Amanda seized her gun, jumped out of the truck, and landed beside Lena. They hustled around the front of the truck and sprinted as fast as they could away from the truck.
The helicopter flew into view. Amanda felt the wind of its blades against the back of her neck. She poured on an extra burst of speed, pumping her arms. The machine gun bounced against her back. Mrs. Fink wouldn’t recognize her if she saw her now.
“Get down,” Lena screamed.
The girls went in opposite directions. Lena leaped for shelter in a tight cluster of madrones. Amanda dove for cover behind a fallen bay tree, hugging her machine gun to her chest.
The tree had tipped over recently; the leaves were still green and pungent. Amanda had just enough time to throw her arms over her head before an explosion detonated behind her.
She smothered a scream as shrapnel cut through the air. Chunks of metal from the truck. Glass. She even saw the remains of the transmitter ejected through the air. The very air vibrated from the strike.
The dust hadn’t even settled before another explosion hit the truck. This time, dust and forest debris accompanied the shrapnel. Amanda inhaled a lungful of dust and coughed. The helicopter whirred overhead.
She braced herself for another explosion.
It came. Except it wasn’t the truck that was under attack this time.
She peered through the trees just in time to see the helicopter drift ten yards to the right—heading straight toward the cluster of trees where Lena had taken cover.
A grenade fell through the sky.
“Lena!” Dal’s howl could probably be heard all the way back in Rossi.
Grenades rained down. The Soviets circled the area where they hid, dropping them out of the sky.
Amanda did the only thing she could think to do.
She ran. She didn’t know where Dal and Lena were in the confusion, but she couldn’t help if she stuck around and waited for a grenade to fall on her head.
The loose earth slipped under her feet as she darted away from the attack. She nearly face planted into a tree. Catching herself on lichen-covered trunk, she pushed free and burst forward in a headlong sprint.
She dodged under low-hanging branches, around thick clusters of manzanita, and plunged straight through thickets of ferns. When a shallow creek yawned before her, she didn’t hesitate. Her feet hit the water as she splashed through.
The explosions chased her. The air vibrated with every strike, sending a spear of fear through her each time.
A fallen tree loomed before her, the top half of the crown lodged in a neighboring tree. It was too tall for her to jump over. Going around would take too long.
Amanda dropped to the ground and rolled, crunching on rocks and leaves and sticks as she popped out on the other side. A twig became lodged in her hair and scratched at her cheek. She barely noticed.
She kept running. The shockwave of each grenade was like a the bay of a hellhound.
After some time, she realized the only sound was that of her own ragged breathing. The bombing had stopped. The helicopter was still out there, but it was moving away from them. The whomp-whomp of the blades grew distant.
She halted in a small clearing. Her chest heaved. Sweat dripped down her temples, chest, and back. Every nerve stood on end as she listened to the retreating chopper.
Except, it wasn’t retreating. Not entirely. Peering up through the branches, she caught sight of the chopper lowering itself to the ground. It was at least two miles away, but that was a hell of a lot closer than she would have liked. Honestly, Italy would be too close as far as she was concerned.
The Soviets were coming for them. They wanted to find their bodies and make sure they were all dead.
Through the pounding of the blood in her ears, she heard a voice. Fear spiked through her, but she forced herself to stay where she was.
The voice shouted a second time. It wasn’t Russians like she’d feared. No, she knew that voice.
“Amanda! Where are you?”
It was Dal. He was somewhere behind her, calling her name.
“Dal! Dal, where you are guys? Is Lena with you?” She hurried through the forest, following the sound of Dal’s voice. Apprehension prickled her scalp as she strained to follow the sound of the descending helicopter. All she wanted to do was cover her head and hide under a bush.
Suck it up, she scolded herself. Your friends need you.
The forest was a wasteland. The Soviets had bombed the shit out of it. Debris from Mr. Cecchino’s brown pick-up was everywhere. Entire trees had been blown up. Huge cavities yawned open in the earth, big pits of scorched dirt and singed forest debris.
A war zone. She was moving through a literal war zone.
She knew they were in the middle of war, of course. She’d heard stories from Jennifer and the others of just how bad it was. But this was Amanda’s first time in a combat zone. In just a few short minutes, this beautiful patch of forest had been reduced to smoldering trunks and scorched earth.
She didn’t like the idea of making noise, but there was no other way to find her friends. Besides, the helicopter had just landed; the Soviets were at least two miles away.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Dal? Where are you guys?”
“Amanda! Over here, quick!�
�
There. Just off to her left.
She pushed through a tangle of fallen branches, squeezing herself between logs. Using her hands to shield her face as she pushed through the debris, she finally found her friends.
Dal stood over a tree trunk. Dirt and blood smeared his face. Tear tracks cut through grime. His face was set, something dangerous and frenetic lurking behind his eyes.
“The Russians are coming,” Amanda said breathlessly. “We have to get out of here—”
She froze. Beneath a fallen tree trunk was Lena. A tree almost a foot in diameter had been felled during the attack, trapping Lena beneath it.
Amanda’s lungs stopped working. Lena wasn’t moving. Her eyes were closed, her body slack. Blood ran down her face from a gash in her forehead. She’d been hit pretty hard in the head.
She stared at the other girl, searching . . . searching . . . there. Amanda’s shoulders sagged with relief as Lena’s chest rose in a shallow inhale. She was still alive.
“I can’t get this fucking thing off her!” Dal shocked the hell out of Amanda by delivering a brutal punch to the side of the fallen tree. He hit it so hard the skin across his knuckles cracked open and began to bleed. He followed this up with a kick that shook the smaller branches of the tree.
The easygoing, sweet Dal she was used to had transformed before her eyes. She’d never seen this side of him before. To be honest, it freaked her out. A lot.
Then again, his girlfriend was unconscious and pinned beneath a tree. Amanda was close to losing her shit, and she wasn’t even remotely as close to Lena as Dal was.
For both their sakes, she tried to remain calm. “We have to get the trunk off her.”
He rounded on her and screamed, “What the fuck do you think I’ve been trying to do? We have to get her out of here before the Russians find us!”
Amanda froze, not daring to move as Dal seethed in front of her. His chest heaved. She swallowed, never taking her eyes off him. She’d heard stories about his crazy dad. Maybe Dal had inherited a temper.
She forced herself to keep her voice level. “I’m going to try and lift it. Help me?”
She watched him visibly wrangle his temper.
Amanda had once gone to a bull-riding contest at the county fair with Cassie and Stephenson. In her opinion, no one with any amount of common sense would enter an enclosed space with an enraged animal. It would be less scary sticking your finger in a live light socket.
But Stephenson had wanted to go. He’d had a whole speech about wanting to see masculine intelligence at his finest. Amanda thought it was weird, but she went for her friend’s sake.
It had been as awful to watch as she’d imagined. Full-grown men purposefully got onto the back of a crazed animal for the singular purpose of trying to stay on its back. Which was impossible, of course. The bull always won.
Watching Dal wasn’t so different from watching those idiots on the bucking bulls. Except Dal wasn’t an idiot, and his temper was ten times scarier than those bulls.
His fists clenched and unclenched. He drew in several deep breaths, trying to stop the heaving of his chest. A shiver ran through his body as he fought back whatever demon lived inside him. If she hadn’t been so wary of him, Amanda’s heart might have broken when she watched him scrub at his eyes with the back of his hand.
When his hand fell away, the Dal she knew was back. Almost. There was still an edge in his eyes that intimidated the hell out of her, but at least he didn’t look so scary anymore.
He came to stand by Amanda, bracing himself by the tree trunk. Amanda wrapped both her hands around the trunk, bending her knees to give herself leverage.
“On the count of three.” At Dal’s nod, she counted. “One. Two. Three.”
Amanda gripped the tree with everything she had. She pressed up with her leg. She pulled with her arms. She strained with her back.
The tree moved. Inch by painful inch, she and Dal pried the tree up from Lena’s still form.
“Get her,” Amanda wheezed, refusing to let go of the tree. “I’ll hold it.”
Dal didn’t have to be asked twice. He released his part of the tree, diving to the forest floor to grab Lena by the shoulders.
Amanda gasped as the added weight strained her muscles. Sweat popped out along her brow. Her arms screamed. Her back protested. Her legs wanted to collapse.
She held on.
“Hurry,” she gasped. “I don’t know how much longer I can hold it.”
Dal had both hands under Lena’s armpits. He scurried backward, dragging her out from under the tree.
As soon as Lena was free, Amanda dropped the tree. It thunked back to the ground, limbs and leave rustling.
She sucked in great gulps of air, hardly able to comprehend what she’d just done. For the first time, her eyes took in the enormity of the tree she’d just singlehandedly held up from the ground.
Massive did not begin to cover it. No way should she have been able to hold it on her own. Dal was a big, strong guy like Leo. Not even he had been able to lift the tree on his own.
But she’d done it. She’d held the tree long enough for Dal to get Lena free. Somehow, she’d done it.
“You’re a fucking amazon.”
She turned around. Dal sat on the ground, Lena cradled in his lap. When he looked up at Amanda, she felt like she was being seen for the first time.
“You’re a fucking amazon,” Dal repeated. “You saved her.” His chest hitched. “Lena would still be under that tree if not for you.”
For the first time in her life, Amanda looked down at her body with a sense of reverence. Until today, she hadn’t really acknowledged or appreciated the strength that lived within her.
Amazon. That’s what Dal had called her. Hell, yes.
Amazon. Tasting the word felt like reconnecting with a hidden part of herself. She was an amazon.
So what if she wasn’t a petite triathlete like Mrs. Fink? Mrs. Fink couldn’t have thrown a mutant zombie off Dal. Mrs. Fink couldn’t have picked up that tree off Lena.
She bet Mrs. Fink couldn’t even nail her own ropes course. Amanda recalled the PE teacher showing off on occasion, like when it came time to planking or jumping over a hurdle. But she’d never scaled one of her long ropes like she made all the girls do. Maybe Mrs. Fink wasn’t as confident as she pretended to be.
Amanda knelt beside Dal and Lena, wishing she had some water to clean Lena’s face.
Something caught her attention in her periphery. Mr. Cecchino’s truck. Or what was left of it, anyway.
It lay in pieces. The trees around it had been blown up with the grenades. The undercarriage of the truck was nothing more than a twisted metal hunk. The remains of the front seat were lodged ten feet away in the boughs of a fallen tree.
It was gone. Their mobile broadcasting station had been blown to smithereens.
The sight of it hurt. How would they get messages out to the people?
How would they get home?
More importantly, how would they get away from the team of Russians bearing down on them?
20
Boulder
Dal rocked Lena in his arms, continuously smoothing hair away from her face.
“Come on, babe,” he murmured. “You have to wake up.”
It hurt to see the anguish in his expression. Even worse was knowing they had no supplies—no water, no food, no first aid kit, and no way home.
“Dal, we have to get out of here.” How fast could the Soviets run through the forest? The very idea of them bearing down on their location filled her with terror. “Can you carry her?”
Dal nodded. He rose, lifting Lena in his arms and holding her close.
Amanda hustled through the ruined trees, heading away from the general direct of Mr. Cecchino’s truck. She held back the bigger branches, doing her best to clear the way for Dal.
They had to weave in and out around the wrecked trees. They even came across the steering wheel of Mr. Cecchino’s truck. Par
t of it had melted in the explosion. Dal paused, looking down at it.
Emotion passed over his features. Grief. Loss. Amanda guessed Mr. Cecchino had been like a father to Dal. Losing his truck probably felt like losing one of the few things that remained of him.
Dal stepped over the steering wheel and kept going.
They hiked another ten minutes. Amanda kept her ears peeled for sounds of the Soviets, but heard nothing.
Not good. She’d feel a whole let better if they were shooting off guns or shouting. The quiet made her feel like they were being hunted.
“Dal?” Amanda whispered. “What are we going to do?”
“We walk home.”
Walk? All the way home? “Isn’t home, like, fifteen miles away from here?”
“Give or take, yeah.”
They had no supplies and Lena was unconscious. Amanda decided now was not the time to point out their shortcomings. She wasn’t sure Dal could handle any more bad news. That scary edge had dissipated, but she sensed it could return.
A soft moan escaped Lena’s mouth. Her eyes snapped open, a hand flying to her head. “Dal?”
“Oh, thank God.” Dal crushed her against his chest, kissing her cheek. “You scared the shit out of me.” He paused, setting her gently on her feet.
Lena swooned, latching onto Dal’s elbow. Blinking rapidly to clear her vision, she drew in a few deep breaths. “I got hit in the head.” She probed at the wound on the side of her forehead.
“You got pinned under a tree. You’d still be under there if not for Amanda.” He shot her a quick smile.
“Sorry to be a buzz kill, but the Soviets are coming. We have to get out of here.” Amanda strained her ears, the silence making her skin itch. “Lena, do you think you can walk?”
“Dad’s truck?”
“It’s gone, baby.” Dal brushed the side of her face.
Lena’s mouth set in a tight line. “Then we walk.”
“Are you okay?” Dal surveyed her with concern.
“I can walk.” Her eyes hardened. “No way am I going to sit around and wait for the Soviets to find us.”
Scattered (Zommunist Invasion Book 3) Page 10