“You stare at my eye. Or where you see no eye.” My stepfather pressed his scarred face against the bars. “Do you see an eye?”
Brianna shook her head. My stepfather laughed. “That is because you are blind.” He finally let her go, and she tucked her hands into her jacket. My stepfather continued his rant. “You are all blind. Only I can see. We live in the land of the blind . . .”
“Where the One-Eyed Man is King,” his soldiers chanted in unison. Chills trickled down my spine.
“You!” He pointed at her. “You have trespassed onto king’s land without the proper tribute. Let me see your hands.”
Brianna shook her head and kept her hands tucked into her jacket. She glanced over at me in the bushes.
“No one is here to help you,” my stepfather said. “No one but me. Show me your hands, and I will set you free.”
“You’ll . . .let . . .me . . .go?” she whimpered. I wondered just what my stepfather had done to their colony to make her this afraid of him.
“You have my word.”
Brianna slowly took her hands from her jacket and squeezed them through the bars up to her shaking wrists. Palms up.
“Can I go now?” she asked.
In a blur, my stepfather took a machete from inside his coat and brought it down on her wrists. Someone screamed, but it wasn’t Brianna. Timothy had found his way to us, and had now opened fire. My stepfather took cover behind his men and fled into the woods with them. They fired back. Bullets flew everywhere. I took off, too, now knowing my two enemies would fight it out. Hopefully killing each other. Hopefully ending it. Hopefully justifying this awful thing I had just done.
I RAN ALONG THE DEER trail near the trapper’s cabin so I wouldn’t make noise crashing through the brush. The sound of gunfire echoed in the woods behind me. I darted down the path until I reached our home.
“It’s Ethan!” Tom yelled from the roost when I was in the middle of the clearing.
Kady burst from the door, and Connor was so fast behind her that he almost tripped both himself and Kady. I couldn’t believe he was here, that he’d made it back. I fell to my knees, and he leaped on me and licked my face. I hugged him hard. My eyes might have even teared up I was so happy. But it was a happiness short lived, as I was almost too afraid to ask . . .
“Is Oliver—”
“Alive and stable, thanks to that medicine!”
Gunfire cracked. Closer. And it sounded less and less like a fight. First the bang of rifles, followed by the rat-a-tat of machine guns. Soon, just rifle fire. My stepfather was driving away the army brats. I would have to return to Evergreen Resort to see if my plan to save us had worked—but even if it had, at what cost? What kind of war had I started?
Kady, Conner, and I rushed through the front door. I scrambled to the roost. “Protect Oliver!” I shouted, and Kady and Connor rushed to Oliver’s room. Tom aimed his riflescope on the surrounding woods, and I picked up a pair of binoculars. I listened. For gunfire the way one would listen for thunder. The longer the pause between bursts, the more likely the fight was done. I kept my eyes on the woods, but no one else was coming. I slowly dropped the binoculars, and then fell to my rump.
“Facebook status,” Tom whispered. “‘I miss when it was just deaders.’ What now?”
His voice shook, and I knew he was scared. He should be. We had just declared war on the two biggest neighboring colonies. If my stepfather had survived, he wouldn’t play mere games to test me after this. And when the army brats returned, they’d return to conquer. As for a plan, I had none, except . . .
“Survive the day,” I said.
I left Tom on watch and walked to Oliver’s room. Kady was beside her, and when she saw me, she met me at the doorway. Connor sat by Oliver’s bedside, ears perked, the perfect watchdog.
“She’s weak,” Kady whispered, “and who knows if she’s out of the woods yet. I’m no doctor. I guessed at how to give her the medicine.”
“She?” I asked Kady.
“I had to change her dressing to smear the antibiotic on it. Yeah, I know.”
I nodded, and as Kady left the room, I sat beside Connor at Oliver’s side. Her eyes were closed, red-rimmed, and her breaths were raspy. She was so pale. Immediately the sight of her washed away any guilt I might have felt over the deaths I’d caused that day. They did this to you. The army brats. My stepfather. Why couldn’t they have just left us alone to live in peace?
Oliver reached out and brushed my hand with her fingers. I took her hand and squeezed it. She opened her eyes, and I tried to tell her to just sleep. But when I opened my mouth, any words I tried to say caught in my throat.
“I knew you’d make it back,” she said and smiled.
“I wasn’t going to leave you . . .”
“Or your dog.” She laughed and coughed at the same time. “When Connor returned, I knew you’d be back. You love that animal.”
I recognized this as a joke, a way of bridging all those things we wanted to say to each other but almost never had the chance to. I closed my eyes tight as this pressure built in my head, but all I could see when I did so was her body lying on the ground with a bullet hole in the shoulder. I opened my eyes when her fingers left my hand and softly brushed my cheek.
“I love you,” I told her. The words were painful for me to say. I’d never heard them said to me, or to anyone actually, let alone ever had a reason to say them to someone. I knew I loved my mom and my sister, but to tell them was to show weakness. To show weakness meant a lesson in the shed. But there I was, with Oliver—and I knew that I loved her.
Oliver nodded and smiled. Closed her eyes. But as she drifted back to sleep she said back, “I know.” And again she chuckled as if from a joke that I just didn’t get. The funny thing for me was that I didn’t need to hear her say it back for me to know that she loved me, too. Somehow she’d told me she loved me long before this moment. Without the words. Simply by the way she always treated me. By the way she trusted me. From the first moment on that credit union roof until now.
WHEN I RETURNED TO the roost, Kady was scanning the woods with the riflescope while Tom lay fast asleep tucked into a sleeping bag. He’d most likely passed out from exhaustion—both physically and emotionally. I didn’t envy him his dreams. Standing watch all day was something we’d been doing for months, but we weren’t going to last long now that we were sure someone out there wanted us dead. I watched for any movement in the woods.
I knew my stepfather well enough to not expect an attack that day. He’d want a fight, one that would bring him real victory. One that might even make a name for him in this new world. I wondered what kind of reputation I had in this new world. Did my stepfather talk about me? To him, I would always be the boy who killed his sons. The cub he should have killed when he took over my mother’s pride.
Now, once again, I had hit him hard where and when he did not expect to be hit. Maybe he respected me more because of it. The next night would be a big night—even if the war did not come to us, we would have to go to it. We could hope to hide no more.
“Hey,” Kady whispered, “I think it’s going to rain. Clouds have covered all the stars.”
“We need to run.” My voice was flat, as I didn’t want Kady to know that I feared my stepfather. So long as she thought I wasn’t afraid, she’d have the strength to keep going forward.
“How far can we run before meeting a man just like your stepfather? When do we stop running?” she asked.
For the first time, I saw that Kady was truly ready to use the rifle. Somewhere along the way, we all had changed. All of us, including Kady. It could have been from the fight lessons that Oliver had given her, but I believed her asking for fight lessons in the first place had started her change.
“I have lived more in these past weeks than I did my whole life,” I told Kady. “Thanks to all of you.”
“You’re not done yet,” she said sternly. “We’re not done yet. I’m ready to fight back, but we need you t
o get some rest so we can figure out a plan of action.”
I knew where we needed to hide. My sanctuary, my fortress of solitude. “There’s a trapper’s cabin deep in the woods. Oliver knows where it is. We need to take our supplies, bare minimum, and get to the cabin. My stepfather doesn’t know about it—and maybe, just maybe, we can sit out the war and let the army brats and the One-Eyed King kill themselves.”
Kady scrunched up her forehead and let out a long sigh. She had to know I was right, but what I was hoping was that she didn’t realize my secondary plan. No way I was letting my stepfather off easy. A bullet to the head? That wasn’t what he deserved after killing my mother and my sister. He deserved to suffer vengeance at the hands of the boy he believed too weak to bring into the apocalypse.
“We won’t stop you,” Kady said quietly. “At least I won’t.”
A memory of her first scream, the one that sent me running across the field to her rescue, filled my mind. The girl in front of me now was not that same kid, that frightened child needing someone to protect her. Now she stood tall, rifle in hand, ready to fight. The hard look in her gaze told me that she knew my plan. She knew I was going after my stepfather before someone else got to him first.
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Say goodbye to Oliver. She deserves that much. And Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll take care of her. I’ll protect her.”
Kady’s words were how I knew she didn’t expect to see me come back. She didn’t expect me to win.
Chapter Twenty-two
I headed for the door, stopping outside Oliver’s room. I stared at the closed door, wondering if I should go inside. She’d know I left when Kady came to fetch her, and she’d be hurt if I didn’t say some sort of goodbye. But if I did that, if I said goodbye, would she talk me out of going?
“You’re not going alone,” Tom said, startling me back to the moment.
“You need to stay and protect them,” I answered, without turning to face him. “Oliver is still sick and weak from—”
“Kady is able to protect herself—”
“You can’t come.”
As those words left my lips, Connor sauntered up beside me. I patted his head, maybe to show Tom that I wasn’t going alone. I turned to Tom and could tell by the look on his face that he knew I was saying goodbye. That, just as Kady believed, I really didn’t expect to win.
“I’m not afraid to die,” he said in a shaky voice.
“Tom, I’m not ready to watch you die. Say goodbye to Oliver for me.”
Before he could speak again, I rushed out the door into the darkness with Connor. Machine guns and rifles still battled it out, so I fled into the woods, hidden from view. A fog rolled in along the ground, limiting my visibility so I couldn’t see patrols or soldiers or deaders. The humidity and cold soaked into my black armor, beading into my hair, and as I wiped it away, I also wiped away mosquitoes biting my skin.
I couldn’t think about any of that now as Connor and I pushed our way through dense brush. Stay silent. Find the way so they won’t expect me. Throughout the woods, I stumbled on dead army brats strung up in trees. Arms and legs spread out. A rope leading from each limb to a tree.
As I neared the farm, I heard the sound of cows and chickens. The brush thinned the closer I got to it, and soon I could peer into the colony. I could clearly see the farmhouse tucked into the far side of the clearing, nestled near the lake. And the fences separating cows from bulls, and the coop filled with chickens.
The two men who’d almost killed Kady were wandering the yard, no doubt looking for army brats. They were carrying shotguns and watching their surroundings nervously. If they weren’t ready for possible retaliation, they were at least fearful of it. I reached into my pack and took out the night vision goggles, peering into them to see if I could spot a lookout.
The top of their house didn’t have a roost and the attic window appeared shut. I didn’t see anything else that looked like a roost until I peered into the trees. I saw someone sitting in a bow-hunting platform, which was little more than a chair fastened fairly high up a tree. He was armed with a bow, scanning the area with binoculars. He didn’t seem alerted, so he couldn’t have spotted me. I wondered how many other lookouts I couldn’t see.
As I nestled into the dirt with Connor beside me, I heard someone shouting. A man. At first I couldn’t make out whom. Then the man brought a group with him, armed with rifles, running in my direction. When they were closer, I heard, “There! See him? He’s there!”
My heart raced. I’m caught. My hands went to the hilts of my machetes. But the men veered far to the left of me. I knew it wasn’t me they’d seen. It was Tom, deep in the brush, who stood with his arms up. He had followed me, making me wonder how I hadn’t spotted him. Thanks to the fog, the men didn’t see me. More men and women emerged from the house, rifles drawn and pointed, and I knew Tom was in trouble. If I helped him, both of us would get killed. “Run!” I whispered, wishing I could shout it to him.
“Step out of the bushes!” one man shouted.
Tom turned to bolt, but he had waited too long. Multiple shots rang out. My only hope was they were loud enough to reach my colony so that Tom’s needless death wasn’t meaningless, and Kady and Oliver would know to get to the trapper’s cabin.
Tom’s body fell to the ground with a thud. “Get rid of this,” a woman told two others. Without questioning the order, they dragged Tom toward the back of the house.
Tom had made this decision himself, acting like the friend we had both sworn we’d never become. A friend who had paid the ultimate price. I filled with anger. With rage. He didn’t deserve such an end. It was all I could do to stop myself from rushing out and taking down as many of them as I could right then and there. But I didn’t. Even though the game had changed. Before, to take my stepfather’s seat at his king’s table, I had killed my stepsiblings. Tonight, I was poised to take the head seat at the table—and to do that I had to kill my stepfather.
For my mom. For my sister. For Tom. I waited. Patiently.
As the darkness got longer, my head started to whirl. Exhaustion was hitting me. A previous sleepless night, sitting all day beneath the hot sun, sweat soaking me beneath my armor. Now, fatigue and chills fell on me all at once. My eyes were forcing themselves shut, and the cooling air forced me to shiver so hard I thought it could be heard a colony away.
This was not the time to deal; I couldn’t be weak. I forced myself to forget my body as the time approached to complete my task. The moment where everything would change completely—where I would have to change completely. Where I’d turn from protector to executioner. When the world would truly end.
The lookout I’d spotted started smoking, and now two more cigarettes were glowing. One man was on the opposite side of the entry road; the other faced the back of the house. A woman sat in a tree just to my left. The house had no lights, though that might have been more to preserve candles than the attic not being a lookout. My stepfather, though smart and prepared, was predictable to someone like me. Someone who’d listened to all the lessons he gave my stepsiblings. Even without seeing anyone, I knew where the sentries were posted.
Next, I had to be fast and methodical. Any hesitation might cost me my life. I couldn’t leave any of them alive, or I’d be watching over my shoulder for retaliation all my life. My goal was simple: protect Oliver, Kady, and myself so we could build again.
I searched my pack for the slingshot and took out three metal balls. It was dark, so the lookouts’ cigarettes were my targets. All I saw of the lookouts were the glowing tips as they rested low, and then rose and ignited brightly. I had to shoot, when the tips were at their brightest.
First I would shoot the woman above me. Had it not been for her cigarette, she might have gone unnoticed. But, as the package says, smoking kills. I leaned onto my side carefully so I wouldn’t make any noise. I pulled back the elastic and aimed the ball at the red
light. When her cigarette glowed bright red, I released the ball.
No scream. No gasp. No whimper. Just a red-tipped glow falling to the ground as she let go of the cigarette. Crawling beneath the lookout, I peered through my binoculars at the other posts. Their red tips glowed steadily, and I assumed they hadn’t been alerted. The cigarette the woman had dropped started to smoke in the dry brush. I reached over with my boot to tap it out. Last thing I needed was a forest fire. For a moment I thought about Mowgli getting fire to fight Shere Khan.
The other two were closer to each other than this woman was. I decided to go for the one watching the house before the one watching the lake. I needed to cross the field—and somehow do so unnoticed. I rose into a squat and moved slowly out of the brush. Connor followed. There were no lights in the yard nor could I hear any generators running. No electricity meant they were dependent on candlelight. Clouds that covered the moon stole away all natural light, though I still hoped none of these lookouts were accurate shots.
I sidled against the silent chicken coop, pressing myself against the wooden frame. One of the nearby lookouts turned on a high-beamed flashlight, passing it over the yard. If I moved he’d spot me and force me to change my plan. The light suddenly went off, and he flashed a red beam three times. I counted a three-second pause, and he did it again. The lookout tower by the lake did the same. Now I was in trouble. They were waiting for the woman I had just killed to flash hers. I could have tried to make it to the woman’s post. Climb the tree. Flash her beam. Which would have been stupid. They’d have been on me before I made it to her body.
I had no other choice than to go in fast and hard. “Stay!” I told Connor, as I didn’t want him out in the open until I knew it was safe. I grabbed the hilt of my two machetes and drew them out. I heard that Hollywood sound of shhhhfft as the metal rubbed against the leather sheath. My heart pumped faster. My eyes looked everywhere. I didn’t know who to hit first.
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