State of Chaos (Collapse Series)

by Summer Lane

  “Who gave them the tip?” I wonder, awed.

  Chris doesn’t answer. Does it matter? Backup has arrived.

  “Just stay with me,” Chris commands. There’s a hint of desperation in his voice. I lean forward and kiss him, tasting sweat and smoke against his mouth. He holds me with a death grip, breaking the kiss only when it’s absolutely necessary. Both of us are breathing hard.

  “Oh, that’s a lovely sight. I’m going to gag now.”

  I snap my head around at the sound of a familiar voice. Chris’s brother, Jeff, is standing behind us, decked out in full combat garb, his chest heaving with every breath. “Really, that was dramatic and touching,” he gasps. “But no worries. The Mountain Rangers are here now.”

  “You’re supposed to be guarding the camp,” Chris growls. “How did you even...?” And then he drops it. Just like that. There’s a lot to explain, and sitting in the middle of the battlefield behind a broken car with a girl that’s just been shot isn’t the best place to have a heart-to-heart chat.

  “Go,” I urge, fighting to take a deep breath. “You need to be a leader right now. You can’t do that if you’re sitting around in the mud with me.”

  “Cassie, I won’t leave you.”

  “You’re not. Jeff is here.” I touch the side of his face with my hand. “I love you.”

  Jeff kneels down next to me, nodding at his brother.

  Chris squares his jaw and kisses me one more time.

  “Keep her safe,” he tells Jeff. It’s not a request. He stands up and ducks into the tall grass, making his way back towards the battle zone. It’s almost impossible to hear anything over the piercing noise of all the fighting, but I make an attempt to figure out the situation anyway.

  “How did you get here?” I ask Jeff.

  “Mountain Rangers came into camp about an hour after you left.” He shrugs. “They wanted to help us fight after all. So I brought them.”

  I purse my lips.

  “Thank you,” I say. “You got here in just in time.”

  Jeff takes a look at my wound and makes an effort to stop the bleeding, packing it with combat gauze, wrapping a tight bandage around my waist. He hands me a bottle of water and a couple of pills from a medical kit. I take a long drink and choke the pills down, gagging a few times in the process. Feeling faint, I put my head between my legs to try to stabilize the rush of blood from my brain. Jeff loosens my gear and tries to give me room to breathe. My body is going into shock and I need to keep it under control, otherwise I’ll end up dead. Not cool.

  A few minutes – or maybe it’s a few hours – later, Sophia shows up, bruised and bloody. But she’s still walking, which is a fairly positive sign. “We’re pulling out,” she pants. “Now.” And then she sees my bloody shirt. “Oh, my god. Cassidy, what happened?”

  “Kamaneva,” I reply, trembling with the effort of staying conscious.

  “She’s here?”

  “Was.”

  “Are you serious?” She helps Jeff haul me to my feet, and I lean heavily against him for support. My limbs are getting stiff. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I can.” I start coughing. “Jeff, be careful. Watch for mortar rounds.”

  We pull back into the side of the hill, putting distance between ourselves and the depot. Omega is coming towards us like a dark tide, killing everything in its path. Even with the extra Mountain Rangers filling the field, we’re still being forced backwards.

  Chris finds us in the midst of the chaos, grabbing me around the waist and holding me to his chest. He pushes me halfway behind his back, protecting me with his body as we retreat. And as we do, my eyes fall on the wide expanse of the battlefield. The white smoke has turned black, shrouding the battlefield. It’s crawling with Omega troopers. It’s like looking at a sea of angry carpenter ants. And then the line stops, and our side is suddenly pushing back against Omega. It’s the most vicious game of tug-of-war on planet earth. One side surges against the other. More people drop. Another surge. Another round of gunfire. More dying.

  “Look!” Jeff exclaims, pointing.

  Mountain Rangers are coming from behind the Omega troopers, pushing their way across the field, closing them in on two sides. What’s left of our forces is joining with them, initiating Chris’s backup plan. Rangers and Freedom Fighters form a ring around Omega’s men, dropping to the ground, firing from hidden vantage points. Omega is completely surrounded, and what’s more, they’re being fired on from every direction. As they move forward, our forces move backwards, and the rest of the Freedom Fighters just follow. Omega troops are trapped inside of a giant circle of fire – and they panic.

  The Omega soldiers are scattering, confused. Running for their lives. There’s no mistaking the terror in their voices as they scream frantic orders to their men, trying to stay alive as the fire rains down on them from all directions. And here I am on the sidelines, contributing to the firefight, taking out one trooper at a time with my commandeered pistol despite my gunshot wound. Alexander Ramos staggers through the madness, making his way towards us. He stumbles and falls. Chris moves to help him, but he’s beaten to it by a Mountain Ranger. This one has an eagle feather in his hat – the only deviation from the standard broad rim hat I’ve been seeing on the Rangers all night. He puts his arm under Alexander’s shoulders and drags him through the firefight to the sidelines, not far away from my position.

  The Omega troopers are scattered and on the run. Our forces are left with an opening to retreat, so we move out. Our men move back into the side of the hill, firing on the enemy as we pull away.

  Our forces retreat to the other side of the mountain as the Rangers take care of business down below in the field, drawing what’s left of Omega’s forces away from our depleted ranks. Our trucks are close. If we can just reach them, we can get the wounded back to camp before it’s too late. We’ve already lost so many soldiers, though...

  “Cassie, stay with me,” Chris says, shaking my shoulders. “Come on.”

  I’m zoning out. I feel the cool metal of the pickup truck under my fingers and make a monumental effort to focus my vision. Our troops are piling onto the pickup beds as fast as they can, hauling the wounded along with them. I guess I’m one of them. Chris lifts me into his arms and lays me across the seat in the cab, gunning the engine. I close my eyes, licking the blood off my lips.

  That’s attractive.

  A few seconds pass. Orders are exchanged. Chris floors it. We take off into the night, leaving the battlefield. But it’s not over yet. Omega patrols are out in full force, sweeping the highways and combing through the underbrush. And where do we go? If Harry betrayed us to Omega, doesn’t that mean he told them where our camp was? Are the Youngs and the rest of the camp being raided by Omega troopers right now? How can we go back?

  I have so many questions.

  “Alright, up we go...” Chris pulls me into a sitting position, pressing his hand against my side. Something breaks in his voice. “Don’t let go, Cassie.”

  Jeff is standing on the running board outside the door. He helps pull me out of the cab.

  “What are we doing?” I ask, dizzy.

  “We have to hoof it,” Chris replies. “The roads are blocked. Too many patrols.”

  “It’s too far,” I say.

  “We can do it.”

  Well, they can. I’ll just curl up in a ball and die right here, thank you very much. Yet something in the back of my mind says: Don’t let go. Don’t give up. I force myself to keep my eyes open as Chris supports me with his body. I feel like I’m inside out. I’m hot, lightheaded. Everything is too loud and too fast.

  What I would give to pick up the phone and call 9-1-1.

  “Alpha One?” somebody calls for Chris.

  A patrol is moving towards us from across the road. The gunfire from the battlefield is still audible from the other side of the hill. Our troops fall into formation to stop the patrol. My heart sinks. There’s no escape, is there?

  “Hey
, are you Alpha One?”

  Chris turns. A platoon of Rangers are moving towards us from across the road. The Mountain Ranger with the feather in his cap is approaching Chris at the front of the group, his rifle in his hands. His face is obscured behind a scarf, and the only thing distinguishable about his appearance is his eyes.

  “Eagle One?” Chris asks.

  “At your service.”

  Eagle One. The codename for the leader of the Mountain Rangers. Looks like Chris is going to get his pow-wow after all. I sag against him, the energy draining out of me like helium out of a balloon. I can’t go any farther. I just can’t.

  “Cassidy?” Eagle One takes a step towards us. Chris tenses, ready to defend me. An explosion of automatic gunfire deafens the world around us. The moon is shining brightly against the dark sky, illuminating the foothills, making everything look like a different planet. Or maybe I’m just getting delusional.

  “Cassidy Hart,” Eagle One says, the voice familiar through the haze of pain. He’s pulling off his scarf, moving towards me. Chris moves me behind him, taking a defensive stance. Eagle One drops his rifle to the ground and opens his arms up, the scarf rolled up in his hands.

  A wave of shock ripples through me. My eyes focus long enough to recognize his face. It’s him. Familiar brown eyes, laugh lines around the mouth, a military haircut under the broad rim hat. It can’t be. I have to be hallucinating.

  I stare, openmouthed, only able to form a single word:

  “Dad?”

  I reach out to him just as the world around me starts to spin.

  Everything goes black.

  Epilogue

  War sucks. Sure, it’s kind of necessary right now, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. Last year, the only thing I would have known about warfare is what I’d seen in the movies or watched on the news. It was something imaginary. Something that didn’t really exist because I’d never personally experienced it.

  The EMP changed everything.

  How did I jump from being a struggling high school graduate to a guerilla warfighter in a turf war against an invading army? How did I end up falling in love with Chris? How did I end up surviving the EMP? How did I survive the first wave of Omega’s invasion forces when millions of other people died? How? Why? What? Where? When?

  I feel like my life is nothing but a bunch of question marks. There’s so much we don’t know about Omega, but does it matter? They’re bad, and we’re good. The Freedom Fighters are doing the job that nobody else can or will do. We’re fighting back against tyranny. We’re taking a stand. This is our home. Nobody can take it away from us without a fight.

  When I first met Chris last year, I told him that if he tried to hurt me, I’d shoot him right between the eyes. But I didn’t mean it. I didn’t know what I was doing. I was a scared teenager trying to survive a terrifying attack on Los Angeles. I’d never been in a fight in my life. I never would have been able to defend myself.

  Now I can.

  So I guess the question is, what’s next? We can’t fight Omega forever...can we? I mean, how long can guerilla forces hide out in the foothills and attack Omega? Would we be better off just giving up and assimilating into Omega’s new society? Or should we keep fighting...even if the odds are against us?

  I know what Chris’s answer would be. The same as mine.

  We can’t give up. We have something worth fighting for. Our families, our homes, our freedom. Normalcy. Those things are precious. Priceless. I never realized how great my life was until everything got taken away. I guess that’ll teach me to take things for granted. Living as a nomad in the wilderness puts things in perspective real fast.

  So we’ll keep fighting anyway. Not because it’s fun. Not because it’s easy. Because it’s the right thing to do. And really, that’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? Doing the right thing.

  I won’t give up hope, because that’s all we have left. Hope keeps us going. Believing in something bigger than ourselves. To give up would be suicidal, and personally, I’m not crazy about the idea of dying. Not yet. I’ve still got some fight left in me. We all do.

  Omega’s about to find out the hard way.

  To Be Continued

  Acknowledgements

  DONE.

  I feel like I just finished an epic 500-mile marathon. I can’t believe I’m finally done writing State of Chaos, and what a glorious feeling it is to finish editing the final page. So much work went into this installment of the Collapse Series, and I have a lot of people to thank. Pardon me while I take a breath...

  Okay. Here we go.

  First and foremost, I want to thank my dad, who was integral in helping this book get written. You are hands down the best editor and technical supervisor in the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You’re awesome. There would be no State of Chaos without you! Thank you mom, for being supportive, encouraging and always knowing exactly what to say when I’m having a hard day. I love you so much! Thank you Rocklin, for your sense of humor, and for pushing me to do things I would have been too scared to do on my own. You were right. (Don’t let it go to your head.)

  Thank you grandma and grandpa, for all of your love and generosity. Thank you to the wonderful ladies (and gentlemen) of NA Alley: Carrie Butler, Juliana Haygert, L.G. Kelso, Diana Long, Lynn Rush, Victoria Smith, E.J. Wesley and Jaycee DeLorenzo. I enjoy working with all of you so much – what a ride we’ve been on this last year! Thanks to the Revolutionary War Veterans Association. Cassidy Hart learned a lot from your Project Appleseed event, and so did I. Thank you Scott Brandt and Joseph Krahn for introducing me to the RWVA and Project Appleseed in the first place. You guys are the best! And thanks for being such a patient teacher, Scott.

  To every blogger and reviewer out there: THANK YOU. State of Emergency became a national bestseller because of people like you, and I will always have an extra special place in my heart for the blogosphere. And thank you, readers! I wouldn’t be an author if nobody read my books, and what a special audience I’ve been blessed with. Thank you for picking up State of Emergency and State of Chaos. Thanks for listening to Cassidy’s story. You’re amazing.

  Last (but certainly not least!), I want to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, without whom I wouldn’t be a writer at all. This past year has been unbelievable. Busy, difficult, fun, heartbreaking, silly, and wonderful. I’m happy to be home at last.

  God is good.

  John 8:12

  About the Author

  Summer Lane is the author of the national bestselling YA/NA Romantic Adventure, State of Emergency, the first installment in the Collapse Series. State of Chaos is the second. Summer is also a freelance writer, publicist, and creative writing teacher. She penned the how-to book, Snappy Social Networking: How to Dominate the Blogosphere & Everything in Between. Summer is the creator of Writing Belle, an online magazine dedicated to the art of storytelling, in addition to being a contributor at NA Alley, an informational hub for enthusiasts of the New Adult category.

  Summer began writing when she was 13 years old, due to the fact that the long afternoons after school were somewhat boring, and writing stories seemed to make the time pass a little quicker. Since then she has written many books about jungle cats, secret agents, princesses and spaceships. She is also a non-fiction writer, but her debut novels, State of Emergency and State of Chaos, are her favorite books yet.

  Connect with Summer:

  Website:

  http://summerlaneauthor.com/

  Writing Belle:

  http://writingbelle.blogspot.com/

  Twitter:

  https://twitter.com/SummerEllenLane

  Facebook for the Collapse Series:

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/State-of-Emergency-Collapse-Series/178664608947815?ref=hl

  Facebook for Writing Belle:

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Writing-Belle/175588832545192?ref=hl

  Contact Summer directly – she loves

  hearing from her readers!
<
br />   summerlane101@gmail.com

  Stay tuned for the next installment of

  the Collapse Series!