I shivered, and it had nothing to do with the freezing wind. Is Davin doing that again? Feeding his mom a quaint picture so she won’t worry?
It was exactly the kind of thing Davin would do.
Once again, I wanted to kick myself. I should have never made that deal with Dr. Roberts. It’s all backfired. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
“Meghan, what’s that?”
Ian’s question snapped me back to the present. He’d taken over the GPS navigating, and I’d been blindly following. I stopped at his side. He was staring into the distance.
“What do you see?” Through my goggles, the world was a dark sea.
“There.” He pointed. “Do you see it? A light over there.”
I followed his finger and squinted.
He was right. There was definitely illumination in the distance.
I huddled against his side and stared at the GPS before pointing at the screen. “It must be a watch tower. Look, we’re almost there.”
The dot that showed us on the screen was extremely close to the coordinates we’d plugged in for the reservation.
“I thought that might be a tower, but I didn’t know if I was seeing things.”
“You’re not.” I pulled my hat down tighter. “I see it too.”
“So if that’s a tower, that means the fence should be close. It looks to be about fifty feet on this map.”
Ian and I carefully continued walking. He kept an eye on the GPS while I searched through the snow for the fence.
It appeared suddenly.
“Stop!”
Ian halted at my side. Both of us looked up. The fence rose at least ten feet. It was only a dozen feet away. I could barely make out the barbed wire on top.
Cold wind blew against my skin when I pulled my scarf down to speak more clearly. Ian was already pulling his pack off to retrieve the bolt cutters.
“No sign of any guards.”
Ian nodded. “Let’s hope it stays that way and that this fence isn’t strong.” He opened the bolt cutters wide and moved closer to the fence.
We both hunched close to the ground as he wedged the cutters around a chain link. With a grunt, he forced it down.
It took a few attempts, but he was able to finally cut through.
“Crap. This is going to take forever.” My words barely carried through the howling wind. I looked in dismay at the single chain link that he’d cut.
“Best if we get to work then.” Ian again opened the cutters and set to work on the next one. He kept that up, struggling at times when the cutters didn’t want to break through the metal.
I felt useless watching him, but there was nothing I could do. We only had one bolt cutters.
When Ian started slowing down, I knew he was getting tired. We’d already been at the fence for twenty minutes. Neither of us liked that we’d been stationary for so long, but there wasn’t much we could do.
“Here, let me try. You take a break.” I took the cutters from his hands and pried it on the next link. It wasn’t easy. I had to push incredibly hard to make it cut. After three cuts, my fingers were cramping around the tool. “A few more and I think it will be big enough to pry open and slide through.”
Ian glanced around for what felt like the hundredth time.
Since no guards or dogs had come, it seemed our wish had come true: they’d grown complacent in the snowstorm.
I grunted and pried the cutters together as hard as I could. The last link snapped. “Okay, let’s pull it open.”
We both grabbed hold of the metal. A sharp corner nicked my glove.
“Dammit.” I surveyed the damage. Wind could be felt against my palm. That was dangerous with how cold it was.
Carefully finagling the fence, we were finally able to pry it open without compromising any more clothing.
I ducked down on my belly and wiggled through. We’d cut a hole approximately two feet tall by two feet wide. Plenty big for me. Ian was another story.
He had to hand me his bag and take off his coat before he attempted it. Even without the bulky jacket, it was still a squeeze to get his shoulders through. Not to mention he was damp with snow when he stood.
The wind continued to howl as we successfully entered Reservation 1. Ian slid his jacket and pack back on as soon as we both stood on the inside.
I couldn’t see his eyes in the night, but nervous energy oozed from him. I was sure the same came off me. We’re in!
“The town’s still three miles away. Let’s go.” I sent a quick text to Amy to let her know we were inside before leading the way. This time, I held the GPS.
Now that we were inside the reservation, my gaze kept darting around. I kept thinking I was hearing things in the distance. Shouting from guards. Labored breathing from dogs. Shots fired from a gun. With each mile that passed underneath our feet, I waited for guards to come. It seemed inevitable they would.
“This seems too easy.” Ian stepped closer to my side. We were only a quarter mile from town and hadn’t encountered anyone. “It makes me nervous.”
“I was just thinking the same thing. Where is everyone?”
We both glanced through the blinding snow. Of course, we couldn’t see a thing.
“Do you think the blizzard has really chased all of the guards inside?” Ian’s eyes were barely visible through his goggles.
“It’s possible, but it seems rather complacent on their part.”
“Maybe they’ve grown complacent. Maybe nothing’s ever happened, so they don’t think it will.”
“Let’s hope.” But the bad feeling stayed with me. If there was one thing I knew about Dr. Roberts—he wasn’t idle.
We continued hiking, crouching down at times when one of us mistakenly thought we saw something. So far, all of those concerns had turned out to be nothing.
“How far out are we?” Ian slowed and stared over my shoulder at the GPS.
“Two hundred yards. The houses are lined up in a grid off of main street. Stores, recreational facilities, and the buildings that keep this town functioning line the other side.”
“And you said the twins are kept in a house on the third street, block ten, house eight?”
“Yes, at least, that’s where they were a few months ago.” I still remembered that conversation with Sara. Sophie and I live in house eight on the third street, block ten. My one and only time inside the reservation had been when Dr. Roberts and I made our deal. I’d still had my connection with Sara then. She’d explained the layout to me.
Thank goodness she did. Otherwise, we’d be truly blind.
I couldn’t fathom what we’d do without that previous information. There were twelve hundred Kazzies in the reservation. The small houses the MRRA had built housed two Kazzies in each. That meant six hundred houses, and at ten houses a block, that was sixty blocks.
We could spend all night going from house to house and we still probably wouldn’t find my friends.
“I think I see something.” Ian crouched to the ground. He had to raise his voice since the wind howled. Six inches of snow now covered it. It was still easy enough to walk through, but once it reached a foot that would be another story. It could be slow-going to Cash’s barn.
“What do you see?”
“There. It looks like a light.”
I followed Ian’s finger. Sure enough, another light appeared through the storm. It was the wrong direction for a watch tower. “Do you think it’s the guards?”
Guards had regularly patrolled the streets the night I’d stayed here.
“Could be.” Ian tugged me. “Stay down. Let’s see if it passes.”
We waited in the snow, hunched together amidst the white powder. Both of us watched the light and listened. Only the wind reached my ears.
“It doesn’t appear to be moving.” Ian’s voice rumbled close to my ear. His jacket pressed against mine.
“No, let’s get closer and take a look.”
We both crept along the cold, snowy ground. My feet had g
rown damp. While the winter boots I wore were sturdy, apparently, they weren’t completely waterproof. Anxiety crept up my throat, like seaweed swirling up a swimmer’s ankles. Getting wet in this cold could cause hypothermia or frostbite.
We needed to move.
“Let’s pick up the pace. It’s going to be hard to sneak around the houses without being seen.” I moved farther ahead.
Ian kept close behind.
It didn’t take long to reach the light. I stood a little straighter but still kept my voice down. It didn’t stop my smile. “It’s a porch light. These are the houses!”
Ian and I stepped closer as the first tiny Kazzie house appeared in the night. It looked like the one I’d stayed in. Clapboard siding, a real chimney, and a few windows. Each house was identical in color, size, and shape. I’d heard the term cookie-cutter neighborhoods when I’d been growing up, and that was exactly what the Kazzie neighborhood was.
“It must be the corner house on the last street.” Ian nudged my arm. “Let’s move closer to the front so we can get our bearings. And best to put the GPS away and conserve the battery. It’s not going to tell us anything useful in here.”
I zippered my phone back into my pocket. “Okay, let’s go.”
We crept around the house. I kept looking into the windows waiting to spot movement through the curtains. Nothing appeared. The only indication anyone lived here was the porch light.
Once we reached the front of the house, a few more houses appeared on the street. It wasn’t a complete whiteout, and since more porch lights and street lights were on, we could see more.
I inched closer to the house. “Nobody’s out. They must still keep them locked inside at night. Either that, or the storm’s keeping everyone in.”
The home’s number appeared. Ian nodded at it. “Street 5. Block twelve. Number ten. You’re right. These are the Kazzies’ houses, and this must be the corner house of the neighborhood. It doesn’t look like all of the houses are occupied.”
I scanned the neighborhood and understood what he meant. Most of the houses had lights on inside, but more than a few were completely dark. “Maybe they went to bed,” I said hopefully.
“It’s only eight o’clock.”
Ian’s response made anxiety climb higher up my throat. If the Kazzies who normally occupied these houses weren’t here, then they were somewhere else. And it didn’t take a genius to know that somewhere else was not a place anyone wanted to be.
I could only imagine the confined areas that Dr. Roberts had built since taking over the reservation. But it’s not the Compound. He doesn’t have the mechanics nor resources like he did there. I could only hope no further experimentation was being done on the Kazzies.
“Let’s get going.” Ian nudged me. “We need to move up to the third street.”
I nodded back to the prairie. “It’s probably better to stay in the dark until we reach their street.”
“Good thinking.”
We hurried back to the dark open prairie and ran as fast as we could in our bulky attire through the growing snow. I’d spent enough time in my life running that I had a fairly good idea of how long it took to run a city block. When I guessed we’d gone two blocks, I stopped.
Ian halted behind me.
“Let’s go back into town and see where we’re at,” I said.
Ian followed as we once again approached the dim lights in the neighborhood. Sure enough, we were close to the third street when the street sign appeared.
“Okay, so the twins live on block ten, house eight, so that means we have to sneak two blocks into the neighborhood and they’ll be in the middle house since houses six through ten are on this side.”
“Let’s cut through the backyards to try and stay hidden.”
I nodded. “I was thinking the same thing. We’re going to want to avoid the streets as much as possible. If guards still patrol them regularly, like they did three months ago, the more we’re off the streets, the better.”
The street we approached was similar to the first one. Lights illuminated some of the houses in the falling snow. Most of the houses were lit up inside, but a few weren’t. While I knew that eight o’clock wasn’t a completely unreasonable bedtime, I also knew that most likely, those houses were empty.
Since the backs of all of the houses in the blocks faced each other, it wouldn’t be hard to spot us if any of the Kazzies looked out their windows. Even if one of them did, I wasn’t overly worried. It wasn’t the Kazzies we needed to hide from.
It was the guards.
As we slunk into the yard of the second house, the first bright spotlight from a patrol truck shone through the neighbor’s yard.
“Ian!” I hissed. I pulled him around the side of a house as the vehicle appeared on street two. The truck moved slowly along the snowy road. Glimpses of it appeared between the houses. Its bright light shone back and forth across the yards.
“We need to get farther down!” I pulled Ian’s arm.
Ian flattened himself to the ground just as the light shone over where his head had been. It lit up the side of the house we hid against.
I stuffed my face into the snow. Wetness and cold pressed against my cheeks. I tilted my head to the side so I could see.
The guards’ vehicle kept moving down the street in its slow fashion. The truck didn’t appear to be slipping. I squinted as it passed under a streetlight. Chains covered its tires.
“Okay, that vehicle is going to round the street in one block. It’ll probably start making its way up this side soon.” I pulled Ian to a stand. “Let’s stay on the back sides of these houses so when they pass again, they won’t be able to see us.”
Ian nodded tightly. “Yeah, good idea.”
We didn’t waste any time sprinting across the lawns in the short time we had before the guards’ vehicle rounded the corner. When they did, we plastered ourselves to the back of another house. There was no way they’d be able to see us from this angle unless they stepped out and searched behind the houses.
“Do you remember how often they patrolled at night?” Behind the house, the wind died.
“No. I didn’t keep track, but knowing Dr. Roberts, he wouldn’t stick to a routine. He’d understand that the Kazzies would have a better chance of escaping if the guards only patrolled at certain times and in specific intervals.”
Ian grunted. “So there’s no way to know when the next one’s coming.”
“No, we’ll just have to keep an eye out for them.”
When the guards’ vehicle had completely passed us and its light could no longer be seen, we sprinted from house to house. At the next intersecting street, we paused and peered around.
Nothing.
“This place is like a tomb.”
Ian’s words chilled me.
“Come on. Move fast. Stay low.” I gripped his arm.
We ran across the street to the next block. “This must be block eleven!”
We kept up that routine—running, staying low, keeping against the houses—until we reached block ten on the third street. Ian and I crouched together behind the first house, number ten. We needed to move down two more houses to find the twins’ home.
If Sara and Sophie still live there.
I breathed heavily. I wasn’t winded from the run, more from the adrenaline. “Okay, we need to find house eight.” I made myself take slower breaths. “We need to make sure we find the correct house so we’re not knocking on the wrong one.”
I could already picture it. Tapping on the window to an unsuspecting Kazzie. Who knew what kind of reaction we’d get if a Kazzie who didn’t know us pulled back the curtain. I imagined it would be surprise at the very least.
“Are you saying you want to go in the front and check the number?” Ian asked.
“It would be safest.”
“And more visible.”
I grimaced. “Yeah. That’s true.”
Since we’d only been running through the backyards, we hadn’t check
ed house numbers on any of the homes.
“All right, stick to the back until we reach the middle house. Then we’ll sneak around front and double check that we’re at the right home.”
Ian hunched over and raced through two backyards. There was no landscaping, trees, or fences. The yards were as bland and boring as the houses. They’d apparently been constructed for function only.
When we reached the middle house, Ian stopped and plastered himself against the back. My heart jumped into my throat. A light was on in the window.
“Okay, let’s creep around to the front and check the house number.”
Ian nodded. “Stay low.”
We stayed close to the house’s side. The neighbor also had a light on. I detected movement through it. So their neighbor’s home. Whoever their neighbor was.
Snow sank under our boots. Our footprints imbedded deeply into the snow. My eyes widened as my gaze swung behind us. A trail of footprints was visible.
“Crap. Ian, look!”
When he saw the prints, he swore. “They’ll know someone was here.”
“No, they’ll know I was here. Our prints come right to this house! Dr. Roberts knows I’m friends with the twins, and he knows I’ve been trying to be admitted to the reservation!”
Cloudy puffs of breath swirled around my face.
Ian put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s still snowing. A lot. It will cover the tracks.”
I shook my head. “It won’t. Not enough.” I’d lived in this snowy state for enough years to know that another six inches still wouldn’t cover our tracks. Our footprints would still be visible, just not as clear.
“We’ll try to think of a way to cover them on our way out, we—” His voice cut off and then his hand snaked around my shoulders before he shoved me to the side of the house.
A spotlight shone against the neighbor’s home.
Double crap!
The sound of a motor reached my ears.
Ian leaned closer. “We need to get behind this house!”
We slunk along on our bellies, crawling army style as the truck grew closer. Its light swung back and forth. The sound of a crackling radio came next. “. . . don’t see anyone here.” More crackling. “That’s right, the street’s clear.”
The Complete Makanza Series: Books 0-4 Page 72