Toby frowned thoughtfully. “Who is that guy supposed to be? Why would Zach think he could help you?”
Rhys shrugged. “He didn’t explain much, just that this Nico had known Littlewood before the plague.” He took a deep breath and released it carefully. “Xolani . . . I know what you said about playing the martyr, and I’m not. At least, I don’t want to. But I keep thinking about what you also said the other day, about the GDM and that people in the Clean Zone might be preparing to go on the offensive against the Jugs. What if . . . what if it’s not just Littlewood who wants the Alpha strain? What if congress is sanctioning his operations?”
She groaned, falling back on her bedroll. “Oh hell.”
Titus grunted. “You trust ’im?”
“Zach?” Rhys pondered that one for a moment. “I . . . trust his intentions,” he said slowly. “I believe he’s a good guy who wants to help people. But without knowing who he’s working with, who he’s getting his information from . . .” He sighed, seeking Darius’s eyes. “I’m doing this, one way or the other. Whatever is happening here has to stop. But I’d feel a lot better knowing you’ve got your eyes on Zach and Nico. To keep them honest.”
Darius wanted to snarl at all of them for listening to Rhys. They were honestly considering letting Rhys do this. They followed Darius’s orders when it came to how to conduct patrols; it was a way of keeping operations orderly. But this was something else entirely. None of them had any official rank over the others now. If Rhys’s arguments swayed Xolani and Joe, the two people aside from Darius who were most invested in keeping Rhys safe, Darius was going to have to go along with this fucking plan.
Toby hummed. “I know you don’t want to hear it, Big D, but Little Brother’s right. He can handle this. We need to let him do it and have his back.”
Darius shook his head in adamant denial, but Rhys’s voice stopped him before he could speak.
“Would you let Toby do it? Or Gina? Or Jamie? Or any other member of Delta Company?” He looked up at Darius with a challenge in his eyes. “Did you mean it when you said I’m one of you?”
He unfurled his fists to realize his hands were shaking. He wanted to hit anyone who wanted to force him to accept this. God help him, even Rhys.
Darius saw the resolve in their eyes and swore, storming off into the trees.
It was hours before he’d cooled down enough to return to camp. Rhys was already in his bedroll, facing the fire. It was nearly Darius’s watch shift, so he took up position on the edge of their camp, refusing to look at anyone who was still awake and studying him, trying to gauge his mood.
“Darius?”
He turned at Rhys’s murmur. “Why ain’t you asleep, boy?”
Rhys scoffed. “With all this unresolved?”
“It’s resolved. Just because I don’t like it, don’t mean you’re not right.” He sighed and approached the spot where Rhys lay. “Just want to keep you safe.” He reached down to stroke the tousled hair back from Rhys’s face.
“I know you do.” Rhys’s hazel eyes glowed up at him, golden in the firelight. “Did you mean what you said, about a new Clean Zone?”
Darius shrugged. “Maybe. Xolani’s right. Could be a whole mess of trouble we don’t want.” He sighed, his thumb brushing Rhys’s palm. “Overthrowing the military government was one thing. They weren’t elected, they had no real right to be in authority, and honestly? We wanted revenge for what they had done to us. But it’s different now.”
“Why?”
“They were elected. Corrupt or not, we have no grounds to interfere with that. And if they decide to start a fight . . .” Darius suppressed a shudder. “Putting us up against civilians is a recipe for disaster. Someone will fire a gun at us, we’d be wounded, and then these thousands of people and everything they’ve built here are dead. All the work we’ve done for the last ten years would be gone.”
Rhys gulped. “I think Zach was afraid of that, too. Can you promise me we’ll never be the first to attack the civilians? No matter what?”
“’Course we won’t. Why would you think that?”
“Just making sure. Zach really wants the civilians and Jugs to live together in peace.”
“Can’t blame him. Doubt it’ll ever happen, though. Best we can hope for is to just keep to ourselves.”
“Maybe . . . maybe if you set up a new Clean Zone, it won’t have to be that way.” Rhys’s eyes shone with a hopeful innocence that made Darius’s chest ache. “The survivors you rescue, they trust you, right? Not like the people who were already here right after the plague?”
“Maybe.” Darius stood, brushing off his fatigues. “I’ll have Schuyler detach some of her people to backtrack along the routes used by the other companies, leaving notices at the way stations to divert with the survivors they bring. We’ll tell them to converge in . . .” He rubbed his forehead, considering the cities they had cleared in the last decade of patrols. “Portland. Or maybe outside the city, down the valley around where we found you. Good farmland, lots of wildlife and surviving livestock, not too cold in the winters.”
Rhys blinked slowly. “You’ve been thinking about this for a while. I thought it was something you just came up with tonight, but it isn’t, is it?”
“Been considering it since we learned about the GDM. What we’d do if Xolani’s address didn’t work out. I thought a lot of our people would have trouble with bringing the civvies here if they were going to have to live under laws like that. Hadn’t decided anything until tonight, though.” He rubbed his chin. “Think Portland should work just fine. We’ll meet up with them there, give the survivors the opportunity to decide if they want to join the population at Colorado Springs, or set up a new settlement. It’s the best I can do until I talk to Luis and we approach the rest of the Jug companies. It’ll have to be enough.”
“A new settlement, huh? You’re serious about this?” Xolani appeared out of the trees, coming in from the edge of the old reservoir, while Darius took up his watch position on the outskirts of camp.
“If you got a better idea, I’m dyin’ to hear it. ’Cause right now I’m not sure about a damn thing. Seems the best of a lot of bad options.”
She shook her head, her mouth pressed in a grim line. “I’m fucked if I do. You weren’t wrong in what you told Rhys. We can’t play kingmaker with the Clean Zone leadership.”
Darius snorted. “So we just build a new city—hell, guess it would be a new nation, wouldn’t it?—when the old one doesn’t work out.”
Xolani shrugged. “Sure, why not? And sooner or later they’ll all go to war against one another and start developing weapons of mass destruction, and then it’ll be just like old times, albeit on a smaller scale. Ah, nostalgia!”
Darius stared at her before a reluctant grin tugged at his mouth. “Sometimes your sense of humor is just fuckin’ wrong.” After a moment, though, the amusement faded and he shook his head, sighing. “You were right. We’re getting old. Way too old to be dealing with this shit.”
“That hot young thing curled up on your bedroll over there doesn’t seem to think so.”
“Think we’d be trying as hard as we do if it weren’t for him?”
“I don’t know.” She looked up through the canopy at the moon. “We were getting pretty damn jaded. Or maybe we were just tired.”
“Is that what he has to look forward to?” Darius snapped a thin branch off the limb above his head and began peeling the bark from it. “We’re in our second decade of dealing with all this, never havin’ a place to really rest, always knowin’ there’s somewhere we have to move on to, still work ahead of us that we might not get done before we die.” He forced himself to speak the thought that had been haunting him since he’d learned of Rhys’s test results. “He’s not contagious. Not a danger to anyone. I keep thinkin’ maybe he’d be better off—”
“He isn’t asleep yet, and he can hear you just fine,” Rhys called out, drawing grumbles from the Jugs trying to sleep around him. “And
he says, ‘Don’t even fucking think it.’”
Xolani dissolved into laughter, pressing a hand to her mouth to try to silence the chortles, and after a moment, Darius gave in too.
“Well, there you have it,” Xolani snickered, clapping him on the shoulder. “Now quit brooding. I swear you’re getting positively mopey in your old age.”
“You have to go.” Rhys gave Darius a gently sympathetic smile as he spoke. The plan was never going to work if Darius kept hovering over him. “I’ll be okay.”
Darius looked as though he wanted to start tearing trees and boulders apart with his bare hands. It had been a week since Zach had asked for Rhys’s help. Since then, they had been laying the groundwork to provide an opening that would allow Littlewood’s people to snatch Rhys. He’d told Zach to drop the word in the right ears that the Jugs would be at the intake center today. Darius had been insistent—and everyone else had agreed—that they would give Littlewood one shot at Rhys. No more. If he didn’t take it, Rhys would bid Zach good-bye and head to Seattle to join the rest of Delta Company.
Darius gave a growly sigh. “I know.” He leaned in close to Rhys, his breath brushing Rhys’s face. “Be safe, boy. Don’t take any unnecessary risks. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Right.” Rhys grabbed the front of Darius’s shirt and jerked him down into a hard kiss. He didn’t want to leave any more than Darius wanted him to go, but they had no choice. Not if they wanted to stop Secretary Littlewood.
Darius kissed him back as if he were suffocating and Rhys was air. Then he crushed Rhys to his chest for a moment before stalking away, leaving Rhys yearning to call him back.
Xolani snorted as she followed Darius, muttering as she went, “Big, bad hard-ass getting all dotty over a civvie. Never thought I’d see the day.”
“Fuck off,” Darius snapped, and then they were out of earshot.
Titus and Toby had left a couple of hours earlier to play cards with the Perimeter Security guards, and now Darius and Xolani were supposedly going to make another bid to address the Congressional Science Committee. That left Joe, who was placidly fishing at the edge of the reservoir as he ostensibly kept an eye on Rhys. Eventually, he would wander farther down the shore, hopefully far enough away that he wouldn’t seem like a threat to anyone going after Rhys.
“I don’t like this,” Rhys complained, propping up a nearby tree. “What if they decide you’re too much of a liability, no matter how far away you are? What if they try to hurt you?”
Joe shrugged. “We agreed it would look suspicious if we left you completely alone. One of us had to stay for show. So which of us would you rather take that risk? You want it to be Darius? Xolani?”
“No. I don’t want it to be any of you.”
“That’s just too bad.” How had he never before noticed just how annoying Joe’s mellow complacency could be? “You’re taking a risk none of us wants to see you take, either. Don’t think that just because we support you we actually like it. But we respect that it’s your choice. Think maybe you should do the same for me?”
“Shit.” Rhys let his head thunk back against the tree trunk. “Sorry.”
Joe didn’t even bother to shrug this time. “Walk it off. Head that way along the lakeshore. I’ll move along in the other direction soon. Stay in sight of the water if you can, so I can keep an eye out for you. If not, remember to leave marks so we know where they grabbed you.”
“Right. Okay.” He wiped his sweaty palms on his fatigues. “Thanks, Joe. For everything.”
“Be safe, Little Brother. See you soon.”
It was astonishing how easily the Jugs made promises like that. Every single one of them had said something to that effect, especially Darius. Were they saying it to reassure Rhys that he wasn’t being as foolhardy as he felt? Or did they really believe it?
Either way, there was no guarantee they could deliver on it. His parents had promised that everything would get back to normal soon, but when they came out of the bunker, the entire world was dead. His dad had promised to rendezvous with them. His mom had promised Rhys she’d be fine when the lumps on her breast became more inflamed and painful.
They were just comforting words. Rhys had said much the same to Cady seven years later, before he’d tried to lead a pack of revs away from her and her baby. He’d known he couldn’t deliver on those, either, though he’d fully expected to be the one to die.
That plan hadn’t worked out any better than he anticipated this one working.
Promises meant nothing. Plans meant nothing. They were just words attempting to pacify the people left behind. Rhys didn’t need anyone to tell him all the ways this scheme could go wrong. He could find himself in the hands of an evil man, either for testing or for something much worse, and if the Jugs couldn’t track him and find a way into the research facility, it would all be for nothing.
The thought made his farewell to Darius seem particularly unsatisfactory. Should he have said more, in case they couldn’t get him out? Thanked Darius for making the last two years the only good years Rhys had known since he was nine years old and the world had changed forever? He tried to remember what his dad had said to his mom, but they’d had their heads together, whispering desperately to each other. And then his dad had sprinted away, shouting at them to run and not look back.
“What are you doing out here? Where is everyone?”
Rhys’s heart slammed against his ribs as he whirled to face Schuyler, who was glowering at him from just a few yards away. “Jesus!” He pressed a hand to his chest, which ached with the shot of adrenaline. “What are you doing here? I thought you and your people all left.”
“I sent my squad on and came back because I wasn’t willing to let this issue with the GDM rest. I wanted to discuss it with Xolani some more. But then I get here to find camp empty and you sneaking around on the other side of the lake from Joe, looking like you’re up to something.”
“Wow. You caught me. I managed to shake them all off so I could take a walk and do absolutely nothing, but you’ve foiled my master plan.” Rhys grimaced, trying not to look conspicuously around for any sign of approaching kidnappers. “Look. I get it. You don’t like me. You don’t trust me. You blame me for Kaleo’s death. Fine. I’m used to being hated whether or not I actually did anything to deserve it. But it’s a little hard to stay out of your way when you’re following me, so why don’t you do what you came to do? Go talk to Xolani—who’s at the intake center—and leave me alone.”
She gave him a derisive look. “So you’re the victim now. Typical.”
“Jesus Christ! What is your problem with me?”
“You’re a civvie. That’s my problem.”
“Yeah, I know I’m a civvie. Not for lack of trying, but there you have it.”
Schuyler’s eyes widened. “Oh my God. Is that what you’ve been after?”
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re asking, but if I say yes, will it make you go away faster?”
“How much longer are you going to keep this up?” She crossed the space between them, glaring up at him. “How long until you decide you’ve gotten what you’re going to get out of us and leave?”
Fuck. He braced his hands on his hips and focused on giving the impression that he was not fighting the urge to glance anxiously around.
“I’d ask what you’re talking about, but right now I don’t actually care. Just go away!”
“I won’t let you do it,” she snarled, poking him in the chest with a fingertip. Which, coming from a Jug, felt more like a punch. “I won’t let you use Darius and Xolani and Joe and everyone else I care about the way your kind always use us. Go join the rest of the civvies in the Clean Zone and leave us alone.”
“Okay.” Anything to shut her up and make her leave. Never mind that he didn’t mean a word of it. Never mind that even the suggestion of leaving Darius made his chest hurt for reasons that had nothing to do with the way she’d poked him.
“Just like that?” Schuyl
er sneered, as if his agreement confirmed all her worst suspicions about him.
“Sure.” Rhys’s eyes burned, and damn it, he wasn’t going to give her that. Not after what she’d accused him of. Darius could see his tears, but she wasn’t allowed. He turned his back, keeping his voice flat. “Whatever will make you leave me the fuck alone. Just go.”
Sensing her there behind him was like waiting for a physical blow. His shoulders twitched in anticipation of the moment her rage would turn violent. This wasn’t about him—he wasn’t even sure it was about Kaleo anymore—and he didn’t have time to deal with it.
Silence settled around him, leaving him braced for an attack that never came. When he turned, Schuyler was gone. Which was a good thing, right? He couldn’t have her hanging around while he was playing the sitting duck. So why was it fucking bothering him that he might never get to set things right with her if this scheme to use him as bait went badly? Defending himself to someone who had already decided to hate him didn’t work. He’d learned that years ago with Father Maurice and Jacob. Some foolish, futile part of him was tempted to tear off into the trees after her and try anyway.
“Forget about it,” he whispered, leaning against a tree and scrubbing his hands down his face. Between nerves and Darius’s rather rigorous, and multiple, leave-takings throughout the night, he was far too short on sleep to focus on anything else. “Just forget it.”
He almost dozed, standing there with his hands blocking out the light. At least it seemed as though he’d zoned out, because the next thing he knew, there was a weird concussive pounding in the air around him, thumping in his chest like a bass drum. It was so low it was almost inaudible, something he felt in his bones and eardrums more than heard. He stared in disbelief as a large, repulsion-lift lightcar sank down to hover above the water at the edge of the reservoir.
It took Rhys a moment to recognize it for what it was. They weren’t common vehicles, and he’d hardly ever seen one outside of vids when he was a child. It created ripples on the surface of the lake. Not the violent splashing an air turbine engine would generate, but neat concentric circles, like sound waves made visible.
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