by Summer Lane
I close my eyes, because I don’t believe that. In the end, it all comes down to self-preservation. If Sophia saw an opening to escape, she’d take it without looking back. So would Harry.
And so would I.
Wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t Chris?
Yes. Chris would escape and then find a way to come back and get me out. He would never throw away an opportunity to stay alive. He’s just that kind of person.
“I just...” I begin, but trail off. “I appreciate that.”
“You’re all I have.” Sophia’s eyes go glassy with tears. “We’re like family now.”
“I’m sure your family is alive in New York,” I say, touching her shoulder.
“Not if the rumors are true and New York was nuked.” Sophia hunches closer to the table, looking at the floor. “Then they’re all dead. My parents, my brother...they’d be gone.”
“We don’t know if that’s true.”
“I heard all the major cities were nuked,” Harry adds.
I slap his arm as Sophia pales a little more.
“I mean...not all. Just some.” He tries to smile. “Honestly, how are we supposed to separate reality from rumors?”
“With common sense,” I say.
Easier said than done. At that moment, Kamaneva walks into the cafeteria. She’s wearing her blue uniform, knee-high boots and signature skin-stretching bun. Her eyes scan the room. She slowly walks down the center aisle of the cafeteria. Everybody has stopped eating. People are looking at their feet or the table, afraid to make eye contact with the female incarnation of the Grim Reaper. I don’t blame them.
She stops at our table. Sophia keeps her head down. Harry’s fingers are trembling around the brim of his soup bowl. And I’m the only one who’s not afraid to look Kamaneva in the eye. I don’t say a word. Not that there isn’t a lot of sarcasm dying to get out of me...I just know better than to challenge this chick when she has the power to kill me.
She motions for me to stand up. I do.
“I believe I’ve found our thief,” she purrs.
And there it is. Just like that. A lead weight drops to the pit of my stomach as a twisted sneer spreads across her face. I can tell she’s been waiting for this moment. It’s probably the highlight of her day. She’ll probably write about it in her journal later.
Dear Diary,
Tonight I screwed up some poor prisoner’s life. Epic win.
Love,
Kamaneva
Nice.
I glance back at Harry and Sophia, but their eyes are glued to the floor. Harry is shaking. They look worse than I do.
“How-” I begin, but Kamaneva cuts me off.
“I have my sources,” she says.
Her eyes flick to Harry. He swallows and the food I just ate turns over in my stomach. He won’t look at me.
“You...?” I whisper.
He still doesn’t say anything.
“Why?” I demand, tears springing to my eyes.
Sophia is shocked. Frozen. Kamaneva wraps her fingers around my arm and pulls me away from the table, pushing me towards two Omega troopers. Sophia suddenly starts screaming.
“You traitor!” she shrieks, lunging at Harry.
He crashes to the ground with Sophia on top of him, either trying to choke him or tear the hair out of his head. Maybe a combination of both. Kamaneva watches in silence. Guards break up the fight, and when Sophia is hauled to her feet, her face is covered with tears. Harry is crying, too.
Add me to the list.
“She made me tell you,” Harry says. “I swear, Cassidy, I wouldn’t do anything like this unless-”
“-Unless your life depended on it?” I snort. “I guess it did.”
He nods, fisting his hands and sinking to the ground.
Kamaneva and her guards drag me outside. The next thing I know, I’m being led through the school to a storage building behind the complex. And the whole time, all I can think is:
Harry betrayed me.
“What did you do to Harry?” I demand, shooting daggers at Kamaneva with my eyes. “What did you threaten him with?”
Kamaneva doesn’t answer. She just continues looking smug.
“You made him do that.” I struggle against the guards, total rage turning my vision red. “Why are you doing this to me? Why do you hate me so much? I never did anything to you!”
“You’re alive,” Kamaneva snaps, cold. “My daughter should have been alive.”
The storage facility is a small building with a tiny window in the top of the wall. The guards open the doors and throw me inside. I land on my hands and knees, looking at a blank room. It’s empty. Not even a bench or a bucket to use for a toilet.
“So you want to kill me and Sophia because your daughter died?” I shake my head. “You’re insane.”
Kamaneva flushes and lands a heavy kick to my side. I double over and jump to my feet, drawing back. “Only one of you has to die,” she hisses. “It’s only fair.”
“I’m not the one who killed your daughter.”
“My daughter died around your age.” Kamaneva’s features don’t soften. They remain steely and emotionless.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I say.
She looks me up and down. “The prisoners have to be kept in line. You violated the rules. You have until morning.”
She turns around so fast I swear she’s going to fall over, but she doesn’t. The guards slam and lock the heavy door behind them. The building is plunged into darkness. It’s cold. Empty. Creepy. I pace up and down, trying to process everything that just happened.
Harry turned me in for stealing. Kamaneva must have given him something in return. Extra rations? A bed to sleep on? Who the heck knows? She’s just a borderline sociopath who loves the drama of dragging out an execution. I had no idea the woman hated me that much. Scratch that. Hated Sophia and me. What’s worse, Chris was right. I really can’t trust anybody.
Harry betrayed me.
You don’t know what Kamaneva did to him to get him to do this, my conscious points out. She probably threatened to have him killed. He didn’t have a choice.
No. We all have a choice. I never would have betrayed Sophia or Harry.
And Chris never would have betrayed me.
I curl up in a ball in the front corner of the building. My mouth is dry, my heart is beating fast. A wave of fear like I’ve never experienced before in my life crashes over me. Tears blur my vision.
Tomorrow, Kamaneva will come back for me.
Tomorrow, I’ll be executed.
Chapter Seven
It’s weird. I’ve been in life or death situations before. How many times did I almost die when I was trying to find my father after the EMP hit? More times than I’d like to count. But this is different, because all you can do is sit and wait for death to come knocking at your door. You can’t fight it, you can’t do anything about it. You can only hope something scares it away and gives you a little extra time to stick around.
But that’s not going to happen. Not now.
Dawn has broken outside, and slits of sunlight are falling through the single window near the roof of the storage building. I’m standing with my back pressed against the far wall, studying the words and phrases etched into the wall by prisoners that have been locked in here before me. Everything from names and dates to Bible verses has been scratched into the paint. Somebody wrote:
Rose Leland
Reedley, California
Don’t Forget Me
A final note. I fight the tears prickling behind my eyes. Breaking down isn’t going to do any good at this point. My fate is sealed. And now that the hysterics have passed and I’ve accepted this fact, I’m swamped with an eerie calm feeling.
It’s like being stuck in a dream. It doesn’t seem real, but it is. I’m totally spaced out. I keep rubbing my thumb along the gold shield necklace Chris gave me so many months ago. If he knew I was about to die, would he tell me he loved me? I don’t know. I don’t think I wan
t to know. But I’d like to think he would.
Thirty minutes after sunrise, I hear footsteps approaching the building. My muscles tense. Everything gets sharper, louder. My fear is a physical thing. I’m going to die. I’ll be executed just like everybody else Kamaneva has ever made an example of. Nobody will even remember that I existed.
Suddenly frightened at the prospect of being forgotten, I pick up a small shard of metal from the floor. I scratch my name into the dark paint on the wall, leaving CASSIDY HART in white letters. Underneath it I put my age, 19. There. At least I’ve memorialized myself somewhere. It’s not like I’m going to get a funeral. They’ll probably throw my dead body into a ditch...
The door rattles, breaking me out of my morbid thoughts. Kamaneva steps inside, four Omega guards with her. I tilt my head to look up at her from my crouched position on the floor. She takes in my appearance and smiles – not in a friendly, fuzzy way, either. It’s more like a twisted leer of satisfaction.
So not helping.
“Ready?” she asks.
I don’t say anything. I just glare at her.
Two Omega guards pull me upright, and that’s when I notice that one of the troopers with Kamaneva is Grease. He’s looking at me with sad eyes. I lock gazes with him and he frowns before looking away.
And that’s it.
I’m taken out of the storage building and led through the center of the school. We pass the LAB and the cafeteria. By the time I’m brought to the front of the school, there’s a big crowd of POWs. A curving section of the road dips close to the front sidewalk, widening near a few steps that lead to a dried up fountain. It used to be a school bus parking area. Now it’s a stage for prisoner executions.
I also realize that all of the POW groups in the labor camp are gathered around. Hundreds of them. Kamaneva has turned this into a bloody circus performance. What’s next? An elephant balancing on a beach ball?
I’m led to the center of the road, up the steps to the fountain. The Omega troopers release me. Kamaneva takes a step forward and gestures to Grease, looking him over.
“Kill her,” she says.
He blanches, frozen. I don’t even trying to resist. Why would I? I’ll be shot if I try to escape, and I’ll be shot if I don’t. I’m a dead girl either way. Escape isn’t happening.
“Let this be a lesson to everyone here,” Kamaneva growls, stalking around the circle like an angry cat. “Look at Cassidy Hart and witness what happens if you disobey.”
“Now there’s a cheerful rant,” I comment. “You’re a real crowd pleaser.”
A rush of satisfaction fills my heart. It’s as if the crowd of prisoners isn’t even there. There’s no stage fright, no humiliation. I’m angry and hey, I’m about to be executed. I might as well say what I want to say.
“You can kill me,” I continue, lifting my chin higher, “and you can kill everybody else in this camp. But you can’t kill the desire to be free. Somebody will take you down. It will happen.”
Wow. Since when did I get so articulate? Last time I checked, I bombed speech class in high school.
Kamaneva’s jaw is tight and her cheeks are bright red.
“You’re replaceable.”
“I’ve got news for you,” I reply. “You’re replaceable, too.”
The crowd murmurs softly. Kamaneva’s eyes dart to Grease.
“Give me your weapon,” she commands, referring to the handgun he’s holding. “Let’s get this over with.”
I swallow and fist my hands at my sides.
So this is how it ends for Cassidy Hart? She gets shot in the head by a crazy woman at a bus stop? Not the glamorous death I’d envisioned for myself. I’d always pictured myself dying some kind of tragic death where I get put in a glass coffin and people look at me lying there and say nice things about me.
Not that I have an ego or anything.
“Any final words?” Kamaneva asks, taking Grease’s weapon.
“Yeah.” I make a monumental effort to keep my lower lip from trembling. “I didn’t go down without a fight.” I turn to the crowd. “And neither should any of you!”
Kamaneva lifts the gun, pointblank range, muzzle to my forehead.
This is it. My ears fill with the frantic beating of my heart. My vision turns hazy as I stare down the cold, steely bore of the gun. I blink and tears run down my cheeks. I curl my fingers into fists to control my shaking.
I hear the crack of a gunshot and jerk backwards, expecting a short burst of pain. Light at the end of a tunnel. Blood. Something. But instead I just hear a lot of screaming. I open my eyes and stare at Kamaneva. She’s on the ground, shrieking in pain, clutching her side. Blood is soaking her jacket.
A long burst of automatic fire erupts, and a second later two Omega guards are sprawled dead on the ground. The prisoners freak out. They start running in all directions, panic setting in. I search the trees and the school property line for the source of the gunfire but I don’t see anything. Omega guards are shoving and firing.
I leap to my feet and sprint away from Kamaneva, weaving my way into the panicked mob. Omega guards are scrambling to close the gate around the prison, randomly firing into the crowd. In the midst of the chaos, Grease shoves his way through the crowd and grabs my arms.
“Come on!” he yells.
I jerk away and plunge into the crowd, squirming out of his reach.
“Cassidy, if you want to live you have to stay with me,” he continues, chasing after me. I ignore him, fear pumping through my system. Well, fear and a lot of shock. I came way too close to getting shot in the head.
Not cool.
“Cassidy, I’m with Chris!” Grease shouts.
I spin around, staring at him.
“You have to believe me,” he says.
Stunned, I open my mouth to reply, but my words are lost as a massive explosion rocks the school. I’m thrown backwards by the impact. Heat hits my face and the front stretch of the gate outside the administrative building bursts into pieces. Heat and flames lick around the edges. Omega troops as well as prisoners are flat on their backs (or faces), groping around, trying to regain their balance. My ears are ringing and my hearing is temporarily out of order, making everything just that much more confusing.
A wave of men start pushing through the front entrance in a wave, guns blazing, systematically working their way onto the property. I struggle to my feet, looking at their clothes. Worn pants and boots, rifles. Blue bands of cloth tied around their upper right arms.
Blue?
I search the crowd for Grease. He’s saying something, but between the ringing in my ears and the background noise, I can barely make it out. Something like, Follow me!
“You’re with Chris Young?” I ask.
He nods.
There’s no way logic can even factor into what I do next. I just jump up and follow the man because of two words: Chris Young. As I struggle to keep up with Grease – I must be out of my mind to believe anything an Omega soldier says – a trooper on the ground jams his boots into my legs, knocking me off my feet. I hit the ground hard. The air rushes out of my lungs.
I roll to the side, just out of his reach, and crawl towards an Omega man who’s unconscious on the ground. As I do, the rapid sound of gunfire peppers the camp as the mystery men with the blue armbands flood the area, picking off...Omega soldiers.
They’re not hurting prisoners.
Realization slowly dawns. Omega is being attacked. By the good guys. Whoever the “good guys” are. I don’t know and I don’t care. I grab an obnoxiously huge gun off the unconscious trooper’s body and get to my feet, determined to do something to help.
I have no idea where Grease went. I lost him in the crowd. I look over the weapon, trying to figure out how to operate it. No such luck. It’s about as alien to me as a UFO. I just squeeze the trigger...barely. A spray of bullets razes the administrative wall next to me, hitting a few Omega troopers in the process. I let go of the trigger and take a few steps backwards,
blinking at the downed men.
Oh. That would be my handiwork, I guess.
Five Omega men are charging towards the front gate, preparing to take on the advancing enemy – the Blue Bands. I squeeze the trigger again and take the whole group down with one sweep of the gun. I don’t think they’re dead. I was aiming low. Their legs have been shot out from under them, sending them sprawling.
I swallow, and a shout of exhilaration bursts out of my mouth as adrenaline surges like fire in my veins.
This is war, isn’t it?
I squeeze the trigger again in an attempt to scare off some more troopers from the front gate but I don’t get anything but an empty click. Nothing. I drop it to the ground. I don’t know enough about weapons to figure out how to load it and fire it again. I just turn to run, smacking into Grease. He grabs me by the arms.
“Not bad shooting, kid,” he says. “For a girl.”
“Jerk.”
“You need to come with me now.”
He keeps a steady grip on my arm.
“Where?” I demand, hesitating. “Where’s Chris?”
Another explosion detonates on the other side of the schoolyard. The sound of glass shattering and people screaming fills the air. Black, acrid smoke fills the sky, making my eyes tear up.
“I’m taking you to Chris.” He pulls me forward. “Look, I’m not the enemy here. I just killed Kamaneva for you.”
“Whoa. You?”
And that’s the extent of our five-second conversation. Because all hell has broken loose in the school. Windows are being blown out, bullets are flying everywhere. Prisoners are sprinting away from the building and Omega troopers are rushing around the perimeter, trying to close the civilians in and keep the Blue Bands out.
It’s not working very well.
“We’re in trouble,” Grease says.
I follow his line of sight. A few Omega troops are pointing at Grease, and next thing I know, we’re being fired at. I duck for cover behind the edge of the front administrative building, barely missing a bullet to the head.
“Why are they shooting at you?”
“Because I just betrayed Omega.” He stands up and takes the butt of his gun, smashing an office window apart. “Come on. We have to take cover.”