“Any idea how I can get out of the dog house on this one?”
“I stuck her with babysitting duty. I’m sure if you take the kids off her hands when we get back, she would forgive you for just about anything,” Kade said.
“But when we get back, Drew . . .”
There was a long silence between the two of them.
“Jem will take the kids over,” X finally finished.
That was the moment it dawned on Kade that Jem might not make it back—and to make things worse, that meant Tiny might not either. The thought of losing her made him feel like someone was wringing his intestines.
The walkie sitting on the center console rang. Tiny’s voice said, “Final stop.”
Kade followed the Hummer off the road and parked in the trees. Through the foliage sunrise burned the sky pink.
They climbed out of the truck.
“Grab your stuff. We’re going to set up camp on the other side of the road,” Tiny said.
Kade and X followed their orders without a word and let Tiny lead them over the road and into the trees. Each step Kade took felt leaden. In his own mind, he had been courageous, rushing into the battle to create an opening for Tiny to save Drew. He hadn’t thought that if he’d had a rifle, he would have been able to save Drew without anyone’s assistance.
His sword was over his shoulder, his Judges were on his hips, his knuckles were on his fist, but he felt entirely unprepared. He didn’t know who he thought he was, trying to play commando. He had skills that made him a half-decent leader back in Houghton, but there had been nothing in his life to make him think he was qualified for this rescue mission.
The people who had surprised them weren’t even military—they were just a ragtag group from some place called the Democratic Republic of West Virginia. A bunch of nobodies had got the drop on him. They were so desperate for people, they’d sent a boy.
A boy that Tiny had cried over. He had seen Tiny cry a handful of times in her life, but never during the Primal Age. Something didn’t seem right with her on this trip. He was trying not to be offended by the fact that she hadn’t noticed the box of Snickers he brought her, especially after she’d gone off to get herself a Snickers. And Snickers were better than roses to that woman.
Everything she had done since Zack arrived was out of character.
Zack—the man he knew nothing about, but who the love of his life trusted like he was sent from on high. Kade watched Zack as he did a quick sweep of the area.
Since the dawn of the Primal Age, Kade had been puzzled by how Tiny could move in such a mechanical yet fluid way. Her body was always moving as one cohesive unit.
Watching Zack move, he understood that it was their training. Months spent conditioning each fiber of muscle to function as one. They made Kade feel childish about his own abilities.
He had been feeling so sure of his capabilities, but all of his knowledge was limited to what he had taught himself. Not that there wasn’t a mountain of knowledge he had consumed over the years, but never truly believing the end of the world would happen, he’d only studied subjects that he enjoyed.
Even Grace, the dark horse of their group, had proven to be more valuable with everything she knew about construction. Kade stood amongst the trees feeling like a child lost in the woods.
Zack finished his sweep, and the five of them regrouped.
“Looks like we’re clear here. No signs of anything that is or was human,” Zack said, putting his back against a tree and sliding to the ground.
“Take some rest. I’ll brief the other two,” Tiny said.
Zack nodded and propped his gun on his knees. He closed his eyes, and a second later his head drooped to his chest and he fell asleep.
Number Five took a seat by Zack. Her eyes met Kade’s for just a moment before they flicked away. That brief connection was all he needed to see the emotion—the same emotion he had seen for most his life when people would make eye contact with him. She was sorry for him. He felt like screaming, crying, and hitting something all at once. Her brown eyes that usually held such warmth for him had turned cold.
“We’re going to rest through daylight. Zack and I will infiltrate DC tonight. We’re about forty-five minutes from the Mall. Five is going to be waiting for us to come out. You guys will start the trek back to make sure we have a clear path when we get out of there.”
X took his hat off and ran a hand over his buzzed hair, letting out a long sigh. “I’ll give you two some space.”
As X stepped away, the air became weighted with silence. Kade clenched his hand into a fist, channeling his frustration into his balled hand. She wouldn’t leave him behind. She knew what he could do. Kade cast a sideways glance at the sleeping soldier.
“I can’t believe you would let him bench me,” Kade growled.
“It was my choice,” Tiny said.
Kade curled his hand around a low branch. Zack and Tiny had served together, which meant she had a level of trust with Zack that she didn’t with Kade, but it didn’t make Kade enjoy being cut out. “I understand you have history with him, but I thought you’d have more faith in me.”
Tiny glanced at Zack, and her face softened. “It’s not like real history. We just slept together a few times.”
There was a loud snap as Kade broke the branch. He stared at the stick in his hand, like he was confused how it got there, as the torrent of emotion that swirled through him settled on rage, clenching the branch with such force he felt every ridge of bark imprint on his hand. The teeth in his mouth felt like they were going to crack under the pressure.
Tiny’s eyes went wide. “You didn’t mean history like that, did you?”
Kade shook his head.
Tiny dropped her gaze. “Sorry, Kade, but we both have pasts. I can’t help mine is here now. But you’re my present.”
“Since your old fuck buddy is back, you’re just going to send me away. Seems like I don’t really matter to your present.” A lump rose in Kade’s throat.
“Kade, this has nothing to do with him. I’m trying to keep you safe. Our best chance of success is if just Zack and I sneak in and out.” She pulled her ponytail over her shoulder and picked at the split ends. “If this were a fight, I’d want you right beside me. If we were trying to steal something other than people, I’d want X. But Zack and I are the only two actually trained for this.”
“You’ve been so different since he arrived.” The branch splintered in Kade’s grasp.
He felt like an angry child throwing a tantrum. Even as the words spewed out of his mouth, he knew they sounded immature. He had never felt emotions like this before in his life.
Her eyes locked on his, and for a moment they showed their usual warmth, before they took on a steely resolve.
“Things have been different since he got here.”
“I never thought that if I let you in, you would walk away,” Kade said, turning his back.
He cast aside the branch and picked a direction to go. She started after him, but caught herself against a tree and retched. Buckling in half, she spewed up their last meal. Even though Kade wanted to be angry with her, seeing her so vulnerable made most of his rage dissipate. He went to check on her, but she held up a hand.
“You don’t get to say what you said, then act like you care. Screw off,” Tiny said before another spell hit her.
A hand rested on Kade’s shoulder. Zack stood beside him, wiping the sleep from his eyes.
“Let me take this bullet,” Zack said.
Kade’s first instinct was to punch Zack in the mouth, but he kept a tight leash on that desire and let it pass. The thought of punching Zack sounded appealing, but the person he wanted to hit was himself. He was the one acting like a child. Jealousy was a monster he was not used to fighting.
He shrugged off Zack’s hand and walked away.
Chapter V
Wounds
Mick was exhausted, but the only thing he could do was stand—which was painful, but less
painful than sitting. Anytime he bent or swiveled, his back throbbed from the countless burns. During his last session, Cunningham had basically used his quads as pin cushions.
He was proud of himself for not giving up any information. The idea crossed his mind to give her fake answers and earn himself a brief respite, but he needed to be able to communicate that plan with Jem, who was currently in one of his sessions. Since their arrival, Yuzuki and Anquan hadn’t been taken, but Mick figured they would resume their usual sessions once he was executed.
His cloud of pain was broken by Yuzuki doing sit-ups in her cell. She was short enough that she could actually lie back in her cage.
“Yuzuki,” he whispered. “Shouldn’t you save your energy?”
She stopped mid-sit-up, holding the position. “I can’t let myself get weak, or I have no chance.”
“When do we get fed?” Mick asked. He figured if she was training that hard, there had to be calories coming in.
She shook her head and looked away. “About once a week. Just enough to keep us from dying.”
“How are you so strong when he’s so frail?” Mick asked, nodding toward Anquan.
She went back to doing sit-ups. Mick waited for her answer. She didn’t seem like she was going to give one. He thought about asking again, but he didn’t have the energy.
Letting his head fall against the bar, he closed his eyes. He wondered if he could sleep against the bars like that, and a moment later, as he drifted to sleep, Yuzuki’s small hand tapped his cheek. “No sleep.”
Mick’s eyes followed hers, and he saw there was a soldier at the top of the stairs with a sack in his hands.
“Certain soldiers like to take advantage of a commodity I have. No one wants a skeleton, so they keep me healthy. Please, no sleep. They’re more gentle when there are witnesses,” Yuzuki pleaded.
Mick nodded, forcing his eyes open. What he watched Yuzuki go through was the hardest thing he’d had to endure yet. The police officer in him wanted to do something, to strike out, or yell at the man, but he restrained himself, feeling anything he might do would only make things worse for Yuzuki.
When it was over and the man left, she covered herself in her jumpsuit and opened the sack of food. She gave a protein bar to Anquan and held one through the bars to Mick.
His eyes darted from the bar to Yuzuki. Everything she just suffered replayed in his mind. Unlike him, she didn’t have a death date. After what she’d gone through, he couldn’t imagine taking that food from her.
“No, thank you.”
She shook the bar at him. Tears ran from her green eye, and yet she didn’t say a word.
Mick backed as far away as he could. “I’m dead in a couple days. You need your strength.”
She stuffed the protein bar in her mouth and turned her back to Mick.
* * *
“This is a tricky one. Mostly the same as the last one, but a few differences,” Ashton said to Meredith and Franklin.
Ashton was in the driver’s seat of a car they had found in a townhouse complex off campus. Meredith and Franklin were sharing the passenger seat and learning how to drive. Bristle crawled across the two kids and onto Ashton’s lap.
“Franklin, I told you to leave her in the dorm,” Ashton said.
“I can’t leave her,” Franklin replied.
Ashton clenched her jaw, then put on a smile. “Then control her, or I’ll toss her out the window.”
Franklin quickly wrangled the cheetah onto his lap and kept the purring creature there, encircling her in his arms.
Ashton was moving the car for their most recent defensive project, which they called the south wall. Most of the campus sat in a water-formed wishbone, which gave them a good defensive perimeter. However, anyone approaching from the south had a wide area from which to easily access the campus. One of the main roads crossed both the river and the stream running east and west. What they had been doing was finding cars and driving them into a solid line of vehicles in a lane. Once the car was part of the wall, they would remove the tires and syphon whatever gas was left.
Many of the cars had been brought to the area by X while he was out on his grocery runs, and on the maps he kept he had marked areas where there were full parking lots. Ashton’s goal for the morning was to keep Meredith and Franklin occupied while maybe teaching them to drive enough to be able to put a car into place in the wall. She cared far less about their driving skills and more about keeping them from asking where Scott had gone.
“This is a manual car. You have to use this stick and the clutch to change gears as you drive, but you guys won’t need to be able to do more than first gear for now,” Ashton said.
She walked them through how to get the car into gear, and after a few demonstrations let each of the kids have a crack at it. Seeing as it had taken her most of a day to teach John to drive stick, she doubted these twelve-year-olds would pick it up on their first try.
Holding people back from driving because a law said so had always been a stupid idea to her, even before the Primal Age. If someone had a desire and ability to do something, she didn’t see any reason to stop them. Now it was necessary for these kids to learn as many skills as they could to increase their chances of survival, and one skill that made a huge difference was the ability to drive whatever car you ended up in.
Meredith had tried to drive first, and after a half hour of stutters and stalls, Ashton gave Franklin a crack at the task. She hadn’t decided yet how she felt about Franklin. The kid reminded her of Damian, and she still wasn’t sure how she felt about her own brother. They both were naturally smarter than the average human by leaps and bounds, and they both expressed their intelligence at every possible occasion, but neither understood how it could feel demeaning to others.
As Franklin put the car in first gear and drove the car at a rolling pace on his first try, she tried to look at the positive side of his intelligence.
* * *
Victoria stood in the doorway of Damian’s lab. She saw he had put a cot on the floor, which didn’t surprise her. He had always been married to his work. It had been almost two years since he’d broken off their engagement, and she had not seen him since.
His back was to her while he worked, so she decided to watch him for a while longer. Too much had happened in these two years. He had left her to go work on the Feline Flu vaccine, leaving her with wedding invitations sent, venues booked, and no groom.
She could have suffered all the humiliation and pity in the world if she hadn’t had to lose him in the process. It was strange to see him with his hair so disheveled. Damian had always been meticulous about his appearance. He’d barely been legal when she’d met him. Naive in so many ways, but so incredibly brilliant. Her little man-boy. A smile crossed her face as she remembered how nervous he’d been the first time she had invited him out with the rest of their team. He had clearly traded his social development for his pursuit of knowledge, but he was cute. At first he was cute like a monkey in the zoo, but over time his childlike heart won her over.
Most people in their field were in such competition with each other that they would step on anyone to advance themselves. Damian had been totally different. If his team failed, he’d personally feel responsible. He’d always step down to allow someone else to step up. It was about the only trait he shared with Kade.
It hadn’t just been Damian who’d changed. She had gone through hell and back since the vaccine had been released. If she’d known what she knew now back when she’d deserted Kade and his band of misfits, she would make the same choice again. However, the Tribe hadn’t turned out to be what she thought it would be. Her mind became her weapon, and her body became her tool. She’d been forced to use her body as a means of survival—she, who had always been so proud of her brain.
First she used Sarge for protection, but after She-Chief ordered Victoria’s return to Houghton with a war party, she knew that was going to be a short-lived affair. She did everything she could to sabota
ge the mission, but to Kade and the crew it would never look like that. They would think she was just saying this now to try to get back into their good graces. The problem with being a survivor was anyone who knew your game always figured you were playing an angle, even if you were being honest.
After Sarge and his soldiers met their end, she knew she would have to climb the hierarchical ladder fast or she would end up raped, or murdered. Henson had become her best chance, and she clung to him like a life preserver in open water. Once the Feline Flu resurfaced, she used the mass deaths as a time to solidify her place.
One morning, two of the three chiefs hadn’t awakened.
They had died of natural causes.
She’d had absolutely nothing to do with it.
She had been with Henson all night long.
Henson was such a sound sleeper, it amazed her.
With Henson as the ranking leader, she had been able to effect some change in the Tribe, and between the two of them they brought a modicum of civilization to the people. She was never safe, though. Losing close to thirty soldiers meant there wasn’t a single person in the entire camp that hadn’t suffered a loss because of the mission from which only she returned.
She never strayed from Henson in the camp’s public areas and spent most of the time he was occupied locked in his quarters, learning what she could from the limited supply of books in the camp. That was when she hatched her plot to leave the Tribe, but the only place she knew she could go was back to Kade. She played the part and got her way.
Now here was the man who was supposed to have been her husband. Too much had changed for them to ever find their way back to each other.
“Kade said you would be stopping by,” Damian said without turning around.
She hadn’t been aware that he knew she was there, or that Kade would have predicted she would come here first. “Did he?”
“Care to lend me a hand?” Damian lifted himself from his work and faced her. His hair was a greasy mess, and the splotchy beard made him look like a homeless person. He’d lost the boyish energy he used to exude. His face had aged nearly a decade since she’d seen him last. “I screwed up.”
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