And the rest of Hutch’s logic doesn’t need to be explained. If we let Berg go, or even subdue him, we’ll never make it back to camp. He’ll track us, and the next confrontation will be on his terms. All of this boils down to a simple concept: if Berg lives, we die.
But it’s not that easy. Killing the first man was instinct. I did it without thought. To save Sig. But I’ve had time to digest that horror, and I understand the effect it will have on the rest of my life.
But is letting Berg live any different than pointing a gun at Sig’s head and pulling the trigger? Just because he’s not pointing a gun at me, doesn’t mean killing Berg isn’t self-defense.
It’s pre-emptive self-defense.
And gentle Hutch supports it. But that’s easy for him. He’s not the one who has to pull the trigger.
But then he does, and the gun coughs a bullet. The loud report makes me duck, and that simple reaction saves my life. A black throwing knife sails over my head, its blade driving into a tree trunk at the same height as my heart.
Berg dives and rolls to the side as Hutch fires two more rounds, each missing the mark. Berg’s aim is much better. He flings another knife, this one striking Hutch’s hand, knocking the gun away.
I raise my weapon again. There will be no hesitation now. But I never get the chance to fire it. I’m kicked in the stomach by Luiz. The gun falls from my hand when I hit the ground. Hutch tries to punch him, but the man is too fast, ducking back, catching Hutch’s overextended arm and using his momentum to throw him. The fight lasts just seconds, and it ends with Hutch and me on our backs, defeated.
Luiz, looking frenzied and angry, stalks over to the fallen Russian and takes an ax from his belt. He struts back to me. “This time, you’re going to stay dead, bi—”
The insult is cut short by an arrow in his throat. He clutches the wound and falls to his knees, gagging.
I hear a crash of vegetation to my left. It’s all that’s left of Berg. He’s bugged out, leaving just Duff, still on his knees, to face whoever fired that arrow.
Please let it be Gwen, channeling her outdoorsy past.
The man who steps out of the clearing’s far side is definitely not Gwen. Like the other savages, he’s dressed only in torn pants. His hair is shaved on the sides and long on top, pulled back in a tight ponytail. He’s got an arrow nocked in a homemade bow, aimed at the trees where Berg fled. He glances at me, at Hutch, Sig and the others, but never points the weapon at us. He doesn’t even aim it at Duff, who hasn’t left his submissive position on the ground. He carries a variety of blades, but no guns. He’s also ripped. Not weightlifter buff, but a healthy kind of strong. Balanced. Probably the way men looked before gluttony became normal and robots took over manual labor. But it’s his face and skin that hold my attention. He looks a little like my father.
The man stops over Duff, never lowering his guard. “Duff.”
The frail Base looks up, relief flooding his face. “Vegas. Thank, God.”
“You going to leave him now?” the newcomer named Vegas asks, his Spanish accent thickening as he gets upset.
“He’ll find me,” Duff says. “He’ll kill me.”
“Probably will anyway,” Vegas says. “The question is, how do you want to die? As Los Diablos? Or Los Perseverantes?”
As one of ‘The Devils.’ Or ‘The Persevering.’
“I just want to live, man,” Duff says.
“Then go,” Vegas says. “And when you’re ready to come home...you’ll be welcome.”
Duff nods, climbs to his shaky legs and runs away. Vegas lets him leave.
I turn around to Sig and envelope her in a hug. She’s stiff for a moment, but then leans into me. I feel a sob building in my chest. Tears threaten to reveal my weakness. This small person is the most important force for good that has ever been a part of my life. I kiss the top of her head and lean back.
“I knew you’d come,” she says, and when she sees my quizzical expression, she adds, “Because you were alive.”
“How did you know that?”
“I would have felt it,” she says, “if you had died.”
I’m not sure what to say. I’ve heard stories about people feeling that a loved one has died before actually being told, but I always wrote them off as superstition. But at the same time, I have believed, against all odds, that Sig still lived. And here she is. Maybe she’s right? Maybe we’re connected on some kind of spiritual level? I’d like to think so. It would be a hint of something more, of some life beyond the physical.
Of hope.
I bend to pick up my gun, but I’m stopped by a command. “Wait.”
My fingers are on the handle. It would take just a second to pick it up, turn it toward him and pull the trigger, but I’m pretty sure he’d put an arrow in me before I got my fingers around it.
“Who are you?” he asks.
Our group responds with silence.
“Why are you here?”
If there were crickets on this island, this is the point when you’d hear them, comically filling the void.
“Why did you shoot Bear?”
Bear? Ahh, the Russian. Kind of a stereotypical nickname, but none of the natives strike me as creative types. There are no paintings happening on this island. No limericks. No Kumbaya, after all. Just killing and surviving. And now we’re part of that cycle.
My response is simple. I turn my hand, the one reaching for the gun, so he can see the brand.
I’m a Point, I think, same as you. I have no doubt that in the same situation, he would have done the same. Only he didn’t. He let Duff live. They’re on opposing sides, but still friends. Maybe Bear was his friend, too?
Before my concern can register on my face, there’s a pop and a fizzle of sound that retreats skyward. It’s Luiz, not quite dead yet, hand lifted to the sky, holding an orange gun. The flare’s red glow, arching up over the jungle, is easy to see.
An arrow pierces Luiz’s chest, ending his life.
When I look back up to Vegas, he’s sliding the bow over his shoulder. “Get your gear. We need to leave. Now.”
“We’re not—”
He backs away, holding out his hands in a way that says, ‘my hands are clean if you stay.’ “If he finds you, there’s nothing you or I can do to stop him.”
I’m about to argue that we have two guns—two loaded guns, thanks for telling me Hutch—but then I remember they didn’t help against Berg, and I doubt they’d help against Vegas.
“Him, who?” I ask. “Quinlan?”
He turns around, heading for the jungle. “You can hang around and find out for yourself.” He glances back. “But I think Gwen would prefer it if you came with me.”
23
The first thirty minutes of our hike pass in hurried silence, each person following this Vegas guy through the jungle toward a glimmer of hope. But for all I know, he’s got Gwen rotating over a spit and is going to lock us up in whatever cannibals use for a pantry. That’s not the vibe I get from him, though. If it was, I’d shoot him—or try to. Still, I’m not about to let my guard down.
Problem is, my body is not complying with the wishes of my mind. The wound in my left side has stayed together. Hutch did a good job sewing it up. But the meat and muscle inside is still shredded and swollen. Hutch has tried to support my weight a few times, but I’ve shrugged him off. At first I’m not sure why, because I could really use the help. When Vegas looks back at us, waiting for us to catch up, and I stiffen and put on a brave face, then move a little faster, I realize I’m trying to impress him.
Maybe because he’s a bona fide alpha male stud.
Maybe because he’s a seasoned Point and I’m a newbie.
Either way, the realization makes me a little disgusted.
I don’t need to impress you, I think at Vegas’s back, but I also don’t ask Hutch for help. I’m starting to hobble like an old crone. The kind that lives in a gingerbread house, or gives poisoned apples to pretty people.
; Sig stops and waits for me, falling in line beside me when I catch up. Hutch brings up the rear of our little parade. The few times I’ve looked back at him, I’ve expected him to be watching me. Maybe even checking me out. But his eyes are on the jungle. Watching. Protecting. Always thinking of others. And here I am, dwelling on the woes of my physical pain, and the stranger who might eat us.
Sig looks me up and down and says, “You’ve changed.”
“Getting shot does that.”
“You killed that man,” she says, not talking about my physical appearance.
The image of Bear collapsing, his life stolen by my hand, flashes through my thoughts. I squeeze my eyes, like it will help, and I focus on Sig, alive, well and judgmental. “I’ve killed two men.”
We walk in silence for a moment, and then, “Why?”
“The first man...” I look back at Hutch. He’s a good fifteen feet back, gun in hand, walking backward as he watches the jungle for danger. I lower my voice. “The first man killed Mandi and tried to kill me.” I don’t mention the dog. For some reason, I think she’d think even less of me for killing a dog, even if it was a hellhound intent on gnawing my bones to dust.
“Oh...” The news strikes a chord.
She doesn’t ask about Bear, but I feel like I owe her an explanation. “The second man, I needed them to believe I would do it. That I would kill them if they didn’t let you go.”
“You would, right?” She looks up at me with her big green eyes. Sig was born in the United States, but her parents are Armenian immigrants. She has the slightest of accents, olive skin and a delicate face, but it’s those innocent eyes that really set her apart. “Kill them to save me?”
“I would,” I say.
She takes my hand and squeezes. “Thanks.”
Her affection nearly breaks through my emotional defenses, but then I see Vegas waiting. He motions for the American Indian girl, who has yet to speak a word, and Sean—aka: Freckles—the Support who’s doing a good job keeping the American Indian girl moving, to keep going. As they pass, he snaps his fingers and points to Hutch at the back. “Take the lead. Straight up the hill.”
Hutch says nothing, but looks at me. I give the slightest of nods, thinking, you don’t need my permission, dude. If codependence is part of the Point/Support relationship, we are definitely going to make some changes to the program.
Vegas looks at Sig and motions his head toward the others. “You, too.”
“There are no secrets between us,” Sig argues. Her defiance surprises me. Makes me proud. I’m not the only one who has changed.
“That’s good,” Vegas says, and I’m pretty sure he means it, “but you still need to go.”
“She’s just going to tell me what you say when you’re done,” Sig says.
There is a trace of impatience in Vegas’s voice, but he’s keeping his cool for a savage. “As expected.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “Go ahead.”
Sig sighs, but trudges ahead. She has short legs and a shorter stride. I normally have to walk slow so she can keep up. But she has no trouble pulling ahead of my hobbling gait.
Suddenly uncomfortable at being alone with this strange man, I fill the momentary silence with a question. “So... Bear. Duff. Mack. Berg. That’s a lot of four letter nicknames. Vegas is one letter too long.”
“It’s also not a nickname,” he says, sounding conversational. I was expecting a grunt. “My parents got married in Vegas and conceived me that same night. My father was from Los Angeles, my mother was from—”
“Puerto Rico?” I guess, still seeing hints of my own father in him.
Now he grunts. “Everyone says that. My mother was Mexican.” He eyes me. “But you’re Puerto Rican.”
“Half,” I say. “I’m a mutt, like you.”
“Mutt would be a good four-letter nickname.”
I can’t hide my hint of a smile. “I already have a nickname.”
He waits for me to reveal it, but I say nothing. Then he holds his hand in front of me, unfurling his fingers to reveal two white pills. “I’ve been saving them. Looks like you could use them.” When he sees my suspicious eyes, he adds. “Painkillers. They’ll last twelve hours and won’t make you loopy.”
I take the pills and swallow them dry.
He smiles and holds up a canteen, sloshing it around. “You don’t need to play the action hero all the time.”
I take the canteen, drink until my expanding stomach flexes against the bullet wound. Had the bullet been two inches further to the side, the water would be leaking right out of my stomach.
When I hand the canteen back, he says, “Still getting used to this?”
“You mean surviving on a deserted island with cannibals?”
“No one is going to eat you,” he says. “Not even Los Diablos.”
The Devils. “You come up with that name?”
“And Los Perseverantes. Reminds me of home.” He holds aside a low hanging branch, letting me pass. “I was talking about being a Point.”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“You’re what, sixteen?”
Good guess. “And you’re like twenty-five, right?”
He smiles and his teeth are too perfect for a caveman. “Eighteen. Was seventeen when we got here.”
So they’ve been here for a year. Just twelve months and they’ve already gone Lord of the Flies? Seems kind of fast.
“Any military training?”
“No.”
He shakes his head. “No offense, but why is a sixteen-year-old girl with no military training and hair bright enough to attract the enemy from miles away, a Point?”
“That’s a question I think we’d both like answered.” I glance at his muscular arm. The black tattoo on his shoulder is a winged skull over a combat knife with the words, Death Before Dishonor. “So you were in the military?”
“Unofficially,” he says. “My father, a general, nominated me. Unity accepted me when I was fourteen. Completed Army Ranger training three months before being dropped off here. They wanted us young and elite. They made us killers and then left us.” He shakes his head. “What did they think was going to happen?”
The question is clearly rhetorical, which I’m not a fan of, so I make it a legit question. “What did happen?”
“Quinlan,” he says. “He believed we were being used. That we were brainwashed slaves. Part of a military cult. He was paranoid, but he was also charismatic and convincing. We fell in line. Erased ourselves. Lived underground. Destroyed the cameras, during storms, so it looked natural. Masked our bodies from the infra-red sensors. When Unity came back a month later, there wasn’t even a footprint to reveal our presence. They searched for a week and then left. I can only assume they believed we all died, which was our intent.”
“But that’s not where he stopped,” I guess.
“Not even close.” Vegas waits for me to stumble my way through a maze of roots. He doesn’t offer any help, and for a moment, I wish he was Hutch or Gwen. “Paranoia feeds on itself. Inside a month he was convinced that some of us were still working for Unity. Still in communication. When he killed a Base, my friend, the group split. Eighteen with him. Twelve with me.”
“The Devils and The Persevering.” Like gang names.
“Yeah.” He pauses for a moment, cocking his head to the side, listening, sniffing the air. Then he’s back to normal. “Unity left us on the island with four ExoFrames. Not the kind available to the public, or even used by the military. We’d never seen anything like them, but we figured them out pretty quick. They make the wearer stronger, faster, far more deadly and virtually impervious to harm. Before we could arm ourselves, Quinlan used an ExoFrame to destroy the others and take most of the weapons. On that first day, he killed eight of us.”
“There are only four of you left?” Not much of a gang.
“Three,” he says, but then he adds, “Well, now eleven. Like it or not, your people are either with us, or dead. And there’s a good c
hance you being with us isn’t going to help anyway, since you’re all...” He hesitates, looking at me.
I can see him wondering if I’m going to be offended, but I already know what he’s going to say, and I agree with him. “Kids.”
“Exactly.”
“I think,” I say, forming this opinion even as I speak, “that when all of you G.I. Joes failed, Unity decided to take a different approach.” I motion to the four kids trudging uphill in front of us. “They’re not just kids. They’re brilliant. They might not be the toughest, or brave, or even capable of violence, but their strength is up here.” I tap my head. Then my chest over my heart. “And in here.”
“And what about you?” he asks. “Are you like them?”
“I’m...something else.”
“I noticed,” he says with a smile. His attention makes my hands sweat. I wipe them on my hips. “But it still doesn’t make sense...”
I stop in my tracks. “Wait, you know why they’re doing this, don’t you? What all of this is for? That guy, Mack, knew, too.”
His eyebrows raise. “You met Mack? And you’re still alive?”
“I am. He’s not. Now tell me, what is all of this about? Unity. The testing. The training. Point, Support, Base.”
“You really don’t know?”
“I’ve been with the program for three weeks.”
He actually flinches at this news. “Three weeks.” He motions to the others. “And them?”
“Some as long. Some longer. A year at the most.”
His head is shaking like a perpetual motion machine. No sign of slowing down.
He stops when I say, “But Gwen already told you most of this, didn’t she?”
His facial expression flattens. Busted. “I had to make sure she was telling the truth. Again, no offense, but you all being here, and Unity thinking a bunch of smart kids can replace us—”
“The people who went native and killed each other?” I interject.
“Fair point. But it doesn’t add up. They’re not fighters.”
They’re. He left me out of the observation, and I take it as a compliment.
“So what are they training us to fight?” I ask.
Unity Page 14