The Goliath Code (The Alpha Omega Trilogy)

by Suzanne Leonhard

  The leader in me came to life. I tightened my grip on my weapon. “No,” I said. Micah didn’t get to come back from the dead and start ordering us around. “We drive the truck to the doctor.”

  “No,” he countered, “we don’t. This truck is a magnet for every patrol in the vicinity.”

  “The risk is worth it if it gets Jude there faster,” I insisted.

  But Milly was already preparing to move Jude. Ben stooped down to lift his legs. The two of them had decided who they would follow and it wasn’t me.

  Micah helped Ben carry Jude out of the truck bed and lay him carefully in the road. Jude didn’t wake during the process. He didn’t make a sound.

  Ignoring me and the gun I still had pointed at him, Micah detached the strap from his M16 and slipped it around Jude’s stomach to secure Milly’s scarf to the wound. Milly watched with worried eyes from the back of the truck. “Milly,” he called to her. “Grab the canvas cover in the storage locker under your feet.”

  She found the canvas beneath the floor of the truck bed and Ben helped her drag it down to Micah.

  Micah pulled a long knife from the sheath on his hip. I flinched and steadied the rifle in my hands. If he intended to take revenge on us for handing him over to the praetor, he’d be dead before his blade touched skin.

  He cut out a six-foot square of the canvas, then he and Ben placed Jude in the center of it. They used the tie-down cords to wrap Jude up like a burrito, then made a towing harness out of the remaining cords. The whole thing would slide along the ground easily while keeping Jude’s legs slightly elevated. It was an impressive act of improvisation.

  Milly moved past me, shoving my weapon out of her way. “Excuse me.” She took off her coat and tucked it beneath Jude’s head for a cushion. Both Milly and Ben seemed to have forgotten who Micah was.

  “We go due north,” Micah said. He slipped the corded harness around his chest. “Through these woods. We’ll avoid the blue coats and be at the doctor’s house in an hour.”

  Ben and Milly nodded, but I’d been fooled by Micah too many times to make the same mistake again.

  “Wait.” I moved in front of them all. “A year ago he was a terrorist and now we’re going to follow him blindly into the dark woods?”

  “I don’t care if he’s the praetor himself,” Ben retorted, “as long as he can get my brother to a doctor.”

  Milly gave me a desperate but firm look. “Sera, if we don’t find Jude medical attention soon he isn’t gonna make it. We can deal with this other stuff later.”

  I looked down at my friend, bundled up in the canvas. Only his pale face was visible, but even in the waning light I could tell he was struggling. Micah was his only hope.

  Tears burned my eyes. Life had been so peaceful at the cabin. Now my world was upside down again. And David was to blame.

  Left with no choice but to trust him, I nodded at Micah. He moved past me and headed into the forest, dragging Jude, feetfirst, on the makeshift litter behind him.

  We followed a smooth, rarely used hunter’s trail at a rapid, determined pace, avoiding the logging road altogether. Jude’s litter moved easily over the fallen pine needles. After a while, Ash came bounding up to walk beside me and I rubbed one of his ears. Micah seemed very sure of where he was going, even in the dark, giving me the impression that he knew the terrain. Was he working for the praetor? Or was he with the rebels now? He seemed to switch sides as often as the wind changed directions.

  We marched on in silence. Every now and then Jude would moan and Ben would reassure Milly that he was going to be okay. I hoped Ben was right. We had a lot riding on Micah, somebody who’d proven time and time again that he couldn’t be trusted.

  “Not much further,” Micah announced.

  Ash’s ears perked at this new voice, but instead of taking off into the woods, he loped up the path to greet Micah. I watched, stunned, as Micah reached out and patted the wolf on the head—something that would have cost anybody else their arm. I’d never seen anything like it. Even Ash was on Micah’s side.

  The wolf paused to sniff a bush and I brushed past him. “Turncoat,” I whispered.

  When we finally reached the outskirts of Leavenworth, Jude had fallen silent. He was running out of time.

  Micah led us to an old farmhouse in the middle of a meadow. We crouched behind a broken split rail fence and observed the main house in the red moonlight. I could see a thin trail of smoke coming from the chimney and the white hot glow of LED lantern light in the window. Somebody was home.

  Ben assessed the house. “I don’t see any sign of Europa.”

  Ash walked up, plopping down beside me with his ears flat and his eyes on the farmhouse. He panted, reacting to my nervous energy. I pointed to a large barn a few yards from the house. “What’s in there?”

  “An infirmary,” Micah answered.

  I gave him a direct look. “For who?”

  “Europa soldiers.”

  I blinked. He’d led us right into the heart of our enemy. “Are you crazy?!”

  “They’ve all got viridea,” he added. “People stay away from this place.”

  Viridea? This just got better and better. “And so should we!” Viridea had become airborne and highly contagious.

  “He’s the only doctor I know.” Micah slipped through the fence and headed off across the meadow, pulling Jude behind him. Ben and Milly followed without hesitation.

  Left with no choice, I set off toward the house with Ash at my side. I kept my weapon ready, alert for any sign that we were being watched or followed. Ash acted as my early warning detection system. If anything moved out there in the dark, he’d be on it in seconds.

  I caught up with the others on the porch. My first impression of the farmhouse wasn’t a good one. The place was a wreck. There were broken boards, sagging siding, and cracked windows. The floor of the porch had a foot-sized hole in it.

  Milly turned to Micah. “Are you sure a doctor lives here?”

  The front door creaked opened. The nose of a .22 rifle poked out. “State your business,” a gruff voice demanded.

  “A deep need for Hilda’s cooking,” Micah replied.

  The door flew open, revealing a familiar tall, balding man with a grin on his face. “Micah!” he exclaimed.

  My mouth dropped open. It was Doctor Reinkann.

  The doctor took one look at the rest of us and his expression melted. “Oh, my heavens.” He stepped aside and held open the door. “Come in, come in, all of you.”

  Micah pulled Jude’s litter across the threshold, and Ben and Milly filed inside behind him.

  The doctor’s eyes fell on Jude. “Take him in there, Micah, by the fire.”

  I lagged back with Ash, doing a quick final scan of the meadow. Nothing moved. “Wait here,” I told the wolf. Then I went inside and shut the door.

  The inside of the house proved to be homier and more inviting than the outside. Nothing was chipped, peeling, or scarred with holes. Several crank lanterns lit the main room, throwing a white glow over an invitingly fat sofa and an overstuffed lounge chair. Both pieces of furniture were cozied up to a snapping fire built in a big stone fireplace. It reminded me of my grandfather’s house before the Devastation and for a moment I thought I might burst into tears.

  Though he’d left with Vivica Davis and the rest of the 1st Cascade, clearly the doctor had made himself at home here. There were pictures of his family on the walls, medical books lining the mantle, and amazing smells coming from the kitchen. At least we hadn’t missed dinner.

  The others left their weapons at the door, but mine was staying with me so long as Micah was around. I moved into the living room to take advantage of the warm fire.

  The doctor gave orders; Ben and Micah unwrapped Jude on a cot by the fireplace. Milly’s work had slowed the blood loss, but he was still unconscious and his face looked gray in the flickering light.

  Dr. Reinkann peeled back Milly’s saturated scarf to examine the wound. “I’ve s
een worse.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Milly asked.

  “Good. You did good.” He sat down on a stool beside a wooden cabinet full of medical supplies and got to work. Milly hovered nearby, assisting him.

  I moved away from the scene. It had been a hard day and the sight and smell of the blood made me nauseated.

  “Where have you kids been?” the doctor asked.

  “At the Donner cabin,” Ben answered. “Near Colchuck Lake.”

  “I heard what happened to your grandfather, Sera.” He shook his head. “I’m so very sorry.”

  I nodded back, preferring not to talk about it.

  “Have you maybe seen Tim?” Milly asked hopefully.

  “He’s not with you?” the doctor responded.

  Milly’s lip trembled. “The praetor took him.”

  The doctor looked away. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  My eyes drifted to Micah. He sat on the sofa, emptying his backpack onto the coffee table. A tin cup. A faded lighter. A pocket notebook and pencil. A ratty blanket. A Bible. Finally, he found what he was looking for—a small, nondescript packet—and tucked it into his shirt pocket.

  In the middle of refilling his pack, he glanced up and caught me staring. I quickly looked away.

  I heard a loud gasp behind me. Startled, I swung my weapon around, raised and ready to fire. A plump woman emerged from the hallway. It was Hilda Reinkann, the doctor’s wife.

  “Oh, Otto,” she whispered tearfully. “They are so pale.”

  “Then feed them, my love,” the doctor replied. “I’m sure they won’t mind.”

  Micah cleared his throat at me. “It’s considered bad manners to shoot your hostess.”

  Realizing I still had my rifle pointed at Hilda, I lowered it to the floor. “Sorry,” I muttered.

  Hilda spotted Jude on the cot. “Should I get your nurse, Otto?”

  “No,” the doctor replied. “She has her hands full with the patients in the barn. I have a perfectly capable nurse right here.” He smiled at Milly.

  Hilda clicked her tongue at us, gesturing toward the sofa. “Come. All of you sit, sit.”

  Ben dropped down at one end of the sofa and Milly sat down at the other. I eyed the only vacant place in the middle, beside Micah, and refused to comply.

  “Sera?” Hilda asked. “Is that little Sera, Alice Donner’s girl?”

  Her words took me back to another time, when the world was whole and the sky was blue. Memories of my mother flashed through my head, flowing red hair and the smell of lavender and jasmine. I missed her.

  “Sera,” Hilda coaxed. “Come. Sit. I promise you, Micah won’t bite.”

  She held out her hand to me. “Come.” She wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “And then I will bring the food.”

  Food. I supposed my issues with Micah could wait until later—at least until after supper. I laid my weapon on the coffee table beside Micah’s pack, where I could grab it quickly, and sat down next to him on the sofa.

  “Perfect!” Hilda exclaimed.

  She grabbed a folded quilt from a nearby chest and shook it out. Then she spent a generous amount of time tucking us all in and fussing. “You must be tired.” She gasped. “Look at them, Otto, they are white as ghosts. When was the last time you ate? Oh, poor things.” Once we were all tucked in and warm, she stood back and surveyed her work. “There,” she said. “Now. Who is hungry?”

  The heat from the fire combined with the softness of the quilt and made me want to close my eyes and slip into a long, deep sleep. Yet the idea of food had my stomach wide awake. I didn’t know about Micah, but the three of us hadn’t eaten a thing all day.

  “I could eat a little something,” Ben answered sheepishly.

  “Me, too,” Milly added.

  Hilda broke out in a beaming smile. “I bet you could all use some spritzkuchen.”

  I didn’t even know what that was, but my stomach assumed it was food and my mouth watered accordingly.

  “I made it just this afternoon.”

  “Hey, Hilda.” Micah pulled the brown packet out of his shirt pocket and held it out to her. It was a tea bag.

  Hilda gasped and clapped her hands. “You remembered!” She took the tea bag, held it to her nose, and took a long, deep sniff. “Ahh. Honey lemon.” She smiled at Micah. “You get extra tonight.” She headed for the kitchen.

  Micah turned back to the room, smiling. “Extra,” he breathed.

  The doctor looked up from where he was still working over Jude. “You’ll spoil her.”

  “She deserves it.”

  Clearly, Micah had spent a considerable amount of time with the Reinkanns. That surprised me. The Reinkanns were decent people, not the kind to be socializing with a terrorist. But then I remembered they’d left Roslyn before the Welcome Ceremony, before the stage explosion, before the truth about Micah had come out. Micah was conning them just like he’d conned me and grandpa.

  I could feel his gaze and knew he was staring at me. I turned to look at him. “What?”

  “That looks painful.”

  I had no idea what he meant until he tapped his own jaw. I’d forgotten all about the bruise on my face. Considering how it had felt, I could only imagine what it looked like now.

  “Bar fight?” he asked.

  “Private Gunnar,” Milly answered. “She fought him for his weapon.”

  Micah’s eyes hardened. “Gunnar,” he repeated.

  Doctor Reinkann stood from his stool. “All right. I’ve removed the bullet, cleaned and stitched the wound. This is one very strong young man.”

  Ben leaned forward on the sofa. “Is he gonna be okay?”

  The doctor pulled his stool closer to us. “He’s going to need a lot of rest to heal properly. But he’s going to be fine.”

  Ben and Milly smiled; all the day’s tensions flowed out of me like a sigh. Finally. Some good news.

  Doctor Reinkann looked at Milly. “And it’s all thanks to you, young lady.”

  “Micah’s the real hero,” Milly said. “If he hadn’t come along and helped us get Jude here…well, I’m just real grateful we don’t have to think about that now.”

  Great, I thought. Now Micah was a hero. He had everybody fooled.

  Hilda came back from the kitchen carrying a plate of food that smelled as sweet as heaven. She set it on the coffee table, then plopped herself down in the overstuffed chair by the fire. “Spritzkuchen,” she announced.

  We stared at the plate of little donuts, then looked up at her. When she’d said she was going to feed us, I’d imagined MREs or some other slop pulled together from rations. Where had she gotten the milk, the butter, the eggs to make pastries?

  “Europa,” the doctor supplied. “We fix their soldiers, they pay us with food.”

  I looked at Milly and Ben. We were all thinking the same thing. Was it treasonous to eat food provided by the enemy?

  Finally, I reached for one of the little donuts. I was too hungry to let principles—or the ache in my jaw—stop me from eating something that smelled so good. I shoved the spritzkuchen into my mouth.

  “Jehovah Elohim…”

  I stopped chewing and glared at Micah, who was praying with his head bowed.

  “Bless this food that we are about to eat…,” he continued.

  Shocked that he would flaunt his Spathi beliefs so shamelessly, I looked at Milly, expecting her to be incensed, too. But both she and Ben had stopped eating and closed their eyes respectfully. Hilda and Otto even had their heads bowed.

  “…heal our friend Jude…” Micah continued.

  The rest of them may have been willing to compromise their standards out of politeness, but I refused to play along. Ignoring the pain in my jaw, I finished my spritzkuchen, then stubbornly picked up another from the plate.

  “…protect us with your strong hand…”

  I ate and chewed.

  “…In your Son’s name, we pray. Amen.”

  By the time Micah finished pray
ing, three of the donuts from the plate were in my belly. I glanced at Milly and our eyes locked. She pinched her lips in disapproval, but she was the one who should be ashamed of herself for compromising with a Spathi.

  While we all quickly emptied the plate of spritzkuchen, Hilda brought out bowls of something called spatzle. I must have been German in another life because it was the best macaroni and cheese I’d ever tasted. After my second bowl, I leaned back into the sofa, closed my eyes, and tuned out the conversation around me.

  A few minutes later I woke with my head nestled against Micah’s shoulder. I jerked upright.

  The doctor winked at me. “I think it might be time to show our guests to their beds for the night, meine liebe.”

  Like zombies, we all followed Hilda down the long hallway. I couldn’t wait to put my head on a pillow. Hilda directed Ben and Micah to a room on the left and Milly and I to the room opposite theirs.

  The room was dark. Milly fell onto the bed, but I pulled off my boots before crawling up beside her onto the wide, soft mattress, where I closed my eyes and drifted toward sleep.

  “They believe in him,” I heard her whisper.

  “I know.”

  “We have to tell them.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  I quickly fell fast asleep.

  The nightmare came. I’d had it at least once a week since leaving Roslyn, but this time it was even more terrifying.

  The blue sea. My mother in a print dress. The gold mountain. So tall I can’t see its peak. The white sand beach. So long I can’t see its beginning. A crowd of men. Their faces bright. Micah. The red dragon rises from the sea. It roars. It opens its mouth. Sharp white teeth. It devours him.

  I lurched up in the bed, gasping.

  “The dragon again?” Milly asked groggily.

  “Yes,” I breathed, trying to remember where I was.

  “Just a dream,” she murmured and promptly fell back to sleep.

  I sank my fingers into the soft down comforter beneath me and took several deep breaths. The dream was always the same: water, my mother, gold, blood. But tonight had been different. Tonight, I had been the dragon who ate Micah.

  Chapter Twenty-Two