The praetor retaliated for the bombings by withholding food, water, and electricity from the community—in the name of “ferreting out the terrorists.” His soldiers went door to door, handing out flyers that promised extra rations for any information on those responsible for the attacks. The day Europa marched into town, the people of Roslyn had been injected with a new hope. That hope was now being twisted into anger and paranoia as neighbor turned against neighbor and father against son.
The week wore on with more bombings, but no sign of those responsible. Soldiers raided homes, pulling people from their beds, interrogating entire families on their front lawns, and burning down suspicious houses. It was the Skaggs all over again, only this time we were outmanned and outgunned.
The five of us spent days turning the town upside down. We spoke to everyone—even offered them food from our own rations—but no one had any idea where the Spathi were hiding. The terrorists had done a flawless job of covering their tracks and the town was paying the price.
We were running out of time.
We’d heard rumors that Europa held its detainees at a fenced self-storage compound off Whitehead Road, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.
That night, we crept through the dark, cold, snowy field that used to be Miller’s Dairy and crossed the old Pacific Northern railroad tracks. Tim and I took point, Milly and David followed a few yards back, and the Turner brothers brought up the rear. We moved carefully and quietly, avoiding notice. The Europa Guard was out in full force again that night and none of us could afford to be arrested.
As we got closer to the compound, I heard a voice coming over a loudspeaker. I caught words like “American” and “misguided” despite the heavy accent, but I couldn’t make out full sentences.
Tim and I aimed for a dark place along the enclosure, where the floodlights didn’t quite reach. We assessed the fence. Eight feet up, thick coils of razor wire looped along the top of the heavy chain link. The subdued, shadowy compound had patches of brightly lit areas beneath the floodlights, and the open storage units were giving off a dim glow.
I peered through the links. I could see shapes of people drifting around inside.
“See any guards?” Tim asked.
I shook my head, then turned and gave the signal for David and Milly to join us.
David scurried up beside me, out of breath. “Where is he?”
“Hopefully someplace warm,” Milly said, rubbing her hands together against the cold.
The Turner brothers joined us.
“Numbers?” Ben asked.
“Twenty, maybe thirty prisoners,” I answered.
Jude scanned the compound. “I don’t see any soldiers.”
I pulled back the bolt on my weapon. “They’re in there.”
Tim pointed at a familiar figure walking beneath one of the compound lights. Vice Principal Chaney had been taken the night before in a raid on Nevada Street. Chaney approached two other prisoners, who turned out to be Robert Ormann and Mike Jorgenson.
“We need to free them, too,” Milly said.
“No time, Mills.”
“We can’t just leave ’em here.”
It broke my heart to say so, but we had no choice. “We stick to the mission,” I ordered.
Milly’s lips tightened. “Change the mission, Sera.”
“We’ll be lucky to get G-Pa outta there before they sound the alarm,” Ben replied.
“We can come back for them later,” Jude told her.
“We grab G-Pa and skee-daddle,” Tim asserted.
I held up my hand. “Shh!” The voice on the loudspeaker grew clearer. I wanted to hear the words.
“The United States has no poets,” the staticky voice said, “no painters, no architects, no composers of world prominence. Whatever culture it has, it has borrowed from Europe. The country lacks its own language, culture, and civilization. It has borrowed everything, debasing it by Americanizing it, but never improving it. Americanization creates cheap imitations that give sound cultural values an American stamp, turning a mature language into slang, a timeless waltz into jazz, a work of literature into a crime story.”
“It’s old propaganda audio from World War II,” David said. “The praetor does seem to favor the era,” he added, ruefully.
We heard footsteps and all five of us trained our weapons on the intruder.
It was Micah, approaching along the fence. “They blast that stuff day and night,” he said quietly. “To demoralize them.”
We all lowered our weapons. Except for David, who held tighter to his handgun.
“What are you doing here?” my brother growled.
“Visiting a friend.”
That’s when we realized that Micah wasn’t alone. Grandpa was walking along beside him on the inside of the fence. My heart surged, but then I saw my grandfather’s face. He’d been beaten so badly that I wouldn’t have recognized him without his shaggy silver hair and bushy mustache. A tight rage coiled within me. The praetor would pay for this.
As the others pressed against the fence like eager puppies, trying to touch him through the chain-links, I pulled the bolt cutters out of my coat. If we moved quickly, we could all be out of town before daybreak.
Micah moved close to me. “Don’t,” he murmured.
“Don’t what?” I hadn’t seen him since I’d set him straight on the porch four days earlier. I’d begun to think he’d left town again, but now I had a strong impression that he’d been spending a lot of time here at the fence, talking with my grandfather. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“Whatever you have planned,” he answered.
“I’m not leaving him in there.”
“It’s not your decision, Seraphina.”
I glared at him. “I suppose you think it’s yours?”
“Sera?” I looked up at my grandfather. “I’m sorry if I’m ruinin’ your plans, sweetheart, but there’s not gonna be any great escape here tonight.”
I frowned at him, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Tim clarified the situation. “We’re here to getcha out.”
“It’ll be fast,” Ben assured.
Jude pulled a second pair of bolt cutters out from under his own jacket. “We brought two.”
Grandpa took hold of the fence. “I appreciate the effort, kids, really I do. I’m sure you’ve all worked hard on every detail of your plan. But I can’t leave.”
“You can’t stay here,” David breathed.
Milly sniffled. She held tightly to Grandpa’s fingers through the fence. “You have to come with us.”
“I want to, Milly. But if I let you kids break me outta here, there will be hell to pay for everybody else tomorrow—inside and outside of this compound. I won’t be responsible for that.”
The beatings had obviously knocked something loose in his head. “You have less than three days.” I clamped the blades of my bolt cutter around a link in the fence. The tears in my eyes made it hard to see. “There is no discussion.”
“Sera.”
I looked up into his battered face, my hands poised on the handle grips. “Please.” My voice was hoarse with emotion. “Please let me do this.”
His mustache twitched and his eyes filled with tears. “I won’t be saved at the expense of others.”
“But—” David’s voice choked. “They’re going to kill you.”
“Greater love has no one than this,” he replied, “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
I shook my head. How could this be happening? “You’re not making any sense.”
“I’m needed here, Sera.”
“But we need you!” I rasped. “I need you. You can’t just—”
A shrill scream came from somewhere in the compound, freezing my words in my throat. Two guards burst from the large office and held the doors wide.
Grandpa gripped the fence. “We don’t have much time. I expect you to be strong and protect each other. You’re a fam
ily now. Don’t ever give in and don’t ever lose hope.”
Milly was sobbing. “You’re coming with us.”
Another scream sounded. Praetor Stanislov came marching out the office doors with his wolf at his side. A tall soldier, who could only be George, followed him, dragging a squirming woman by the arm. “Robert!” the woman screamed. “Robert!”
It was Jenny Ormann.
Robert Ormann was still standing with Vice Principal Chaney and Mike Jorgenson beneath a distant floodlight. “Jenny?” He rushed toward his wife.
Grandpa’s expression hardened. “Go. Now.”
“No,” David bawled. “Not without you.”
Jenny Ormann screamed again and George struck her viciously, knocking her to the ground.
“Now, goddamnit!” Grandpa gritted out.
Tears streaming down his cheeks, Tim hauled Milly away from the fence and hurried her across the field. The Turner brothers, their faces screwed up with emotion, backed away, then took off after Tim and Milly.
David pressed his face against the fence. “This is my fault,” he choked out. “I shouldn’t have met with him.”
“You bought me valuable time, David. Now go,” Grandpa ordered. “Catch up with the others and look after ’em. They’re gonna need your wisdom to get through this. Don’t let ’em down, son.”
David backed away from the fence, then turned and disappeared into the dark night.
Grandpa turned to me. We linked fingers through the fence.
Tears spilled from my eyes. “I’m not leaving.” My throat was so tight I could barely breathe. I could hear the soldiers shouting at Robert Ormann in the background.
“Do you remember the cabin I took you and David to when you were little?” he asked.
Nodding, I wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“Take them there, Sera. Be smart. Stay safe. Protect them at all costs.”
“Not without you.”
“Leave tomorrow.” His voice caught. “First thing. Promise me.”
“The praetor might change his mind—”
“He won’t. He wants something we can’t give him. And when he’s done with me, he’s coming after you and David. Promise me.”
“But if we find the Spathi—”
Jenny screamed again. The guards had taken hold of Robert Ormann, shoving them both up against a cinderblock wall.
Suddenly a flashlight lit up the back of my grandfather’s head. “You zere!” a guard shouted. “Get away from ze fence!”
“Micah!” Grandpa growled. “Get her out of here!”
“No!” I held onto his fingers, crying hard as Micah slipped his arm around my waist. “No, no, no!”
Grandpa’s eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry.” And then he let go of my hand.
Micah hauled me across the field. My grandfather was swallowed up by the darkness. “Promise me,” I heard him call out one last time.
I saw a muzzle flash—heard the sharp crack of rifle fire. The screaming finally stopped. They’d shot Robert and Jenny Ormann.
Chapter Sixteen
We didn’t leave for the cabin the next day. Or the day after that. Regardless of promises, we couldn’t bring ourselves to abandon Grandpa while we still had hope that he might be released. We just needed one lone Spathi and this would all end.
I investigated leads in Lakedale and Driftwood Acres, while David and Tim questioned White Lighters on street corners. Milly and the Turner brothers dug through the burnt-out shell of the old CBC commune, hoping to find something that might help us. We all came up empty handed again. It was like the Spathi had just disappeared.
The morning before my grandfather’s execution, I woke to the sight of two Europa soldiers positioned on the sidewalk outside the house. Their presence ended any possibility of us leaving town as Grandpa had ordered. The praetor was making sure we stuck around; I felt both angry and relieved.
I’d snuck back to the compound fence on my own the night before, with the bolt cutters under my coat, hoping to finally convince my grandfather that he needed to escape. I couldn’t find him. Micah was there, though, lurking in the darkness, whispering to prisoners through the fence. I wondered if he’d told Grandpa that we hadn’t left, that I’d disobeyed him. Somehow that thought made everything feel so much worse.
I dressed, then braided my hair with shaking fingers. A stranger stared back at me from the small chipped mirror over my dresser. Large green eyes, hollowed out cheeks. I looked gaunt, grim, much older than sixteen. I remembered a time when all I’d cared about were clothes and school dances. I cringed at the memory, but longed for those simpler days.
I stepped into the kitchen. Everyone was eating a silent breakfast around the table, nobody saying what all of us were thinking. We had twenty-four hours.
“Did you see them?” Milly’s face was pale. She had dark circles under her eyes. I’d heard her tossing and turning all night. She wasn’t sleeping any better than I was.
“Yes.” I grabbed a bottle of Europa water from the cupboard and sat down to drink it for breakfast. I hadn’t had much of an appetite lately.
“Guess we’re staying,” Jude murmured.
“As if we would have left,” Ben retorted.
David took a deep breath and set down his spoon. “We need a Spathi.”
“Got one in your pocket?” Tim grumbled.
David scowled. “Let me rephrase that. We need to invent a Spathi.”
“Invent?” Ben frowned.
“Yes. We grab a lowlife off the street and tell the praetor he’s the terrorist.”
Milly glared daggers at him. “You’d turn in an innocent person?”
David sighed, impatiently. “Everybody is guilty of something.”
And then Tim spoke up. “I think we should give ’em Harold Victor.”
Everybody stared at him in surprise.
“What?” Milly breathed.
Jude looked confused. “But he’s, like, eighty years old.”
“Exactly,” David interjected. “He’s perfect. He’s old and his entire family is gone. His son died during the quake. His wife died from silicosis.”
Ben looked around the table, nodding slowly. “He’s got arthritis. He can’t work.”
Tim shrugged. “Nobody would miss him.”
“Nobody needs him,” David added.
Milly was aghast. “So we’re Skaggs now? We judge people’s right to live based on their age and ability?”
David’s glare drilled into her. “You’d rather they shoot my grandfather?”
“I don’t want ’em shootin’ anybody, David!” she cried. “But we can’t just start turnin’ in innocent people.”
Tim slammed his hands down onto the table. In the entire time I’d known him, I’d never seen Tim lose his temper. “Welcome to reality, Milly!” he shouted. “Innocent people are gettin’ shot every day at that compound! Nobody is safe! Not even you!”
Milly put her face in her hands and broke into quiet sobs. The table fell silent. We were each struggling with what to do. Milly was right, this would make us no better than the Skaggs we fought to defeat. But not doing it meant giving up Grandpa, our only compass in this lost world.
Ben slowly raised his hand. “I vote for Mr. Victor.”
David’s hand shot up. “So do I.”
All eyes fell on Jude. He looked at Milly. From my seat across the table I could see her silently pleading with him.
Jude shook his head. “Milly’s right. It’s not who we are.”
David grunted and rolled his eyes.
Tim looked at me. “Sera?”
Now I bore the weight of their stares. Did I kill a stranger or let my grandfather die?
David saw my hesitation. He arched his brows. “Tell us another way.”
There was no other way. But if I raised my hand, Harold Victor would be executed. My fingers twitched in my lap. I just had to hold my breath, raise my hand, and my grandfather would live.
The front door burst
open and Micah walked in. “Pack up.”
David clenched his teeth. “Who the hell does he think he is?”
“Leave behind what you can live without. I’ve got a truck parked in the alley between Idaho and Washington. We’re leaving.”
I stood up from the table. “What are you doing?”
“What you couldn’t.”
A judgement if I’d ever heard one.
Tim folded his arms. “We’re not goin’ anywhere without G-Pa.”
Milly brushed the tears from her face. “They want to exchange Harold Victor for him.”
“What?” Micah looked at me, shocked. “Why?”
“Because Mr. Victor is old!” Milly was disgusted with us all. “And apparently useless.”
Micah’s jaw tightened. He looked directly at me. “Your grandfather made it clear that he was not going to save himself at the expense of anybody else.”
“What’re you, his lawyer?” David shot back.
Ben blinked back tears. “We have to do something.”
Milly folded her arms. “Killin’ somebody else isn’t the answer.”
“The praetor would be the one doing the killin’, Mills.”
“Don’t play that game,” Micah countered. “You’d be killing Mr. Victor whether you pulled the trigger or not.”
David sneered. “Oh, how profound.”
“It’s the truth!” Milly stated.
“At least take responsibility for what you’re planning to do,” Jude joined in.
“We’re plannin’ on savin’ G-Pa’s life!” Tim bellowed.
“You heard Micah!” Jude shouted back. “He doesn’t want to be saved if it means other people will die!”
“So now we’re listening to Abrams?” David demanded. “Am I the only one here who remembers he vanished for six months? Convenient how he came back after the fighting ended.”
“Enough!” I stood from the table. “I vote no!” I looked at Micah. “And we’re not leaving. So that’s settled, too.” I grabbed my coat and stormed out of the house.
I had one day left to save my grandfather, and I didn’t plan to waste it sitting around a table arguing like a bunch of children.
The Goliath Code (The Alpha Omega Trilogy) Page 18