“It’s the common theme among the survivors here,” John said.
Wright shook his head and leaned back in his chair, straightening out his vest. “Don’t you find that strange?”
“That most of us aren’t vaccinated?” John asked.
“No. That two brothers and a sister, as well as their closest friends, all survived this together. In the Tribe, no one had family left.” He turned a photo on his desk so John could see a woman and two children. “None of my family survived.”
“I guess they were just really lucky.”
“Or they knew something the rest of us didn’t. Either way, it doesn’t seem fair.”
John sat rigid, like his chair was made of nails and if he budged an inch he would be skewered.
Wright turned the picture back around and gazed at it. “I guess nothing’s really fair about this life anymore. Look at poor little Scott. I hate to say this, but do you think he’s part of their research? It’s been bugging me how a child could escape this dorm without notice. It almost seems like someone had to have helped him.”
John thought back to that night he had been on guard duty. He might not have ever been looking out the side that Scott left from, but he had never heard the ladder. Most of the time they just heaved it out, and it sounded like a bag of wrenches on the way to the ground. To have kept it so quiet Scott would have had to lower it rung by rung, which would have taken a ton of strength and patience. More than a child would possess.
“And all I know of Kade is that he turned down the Tribe’s help to maintain control of his little empire, which cost many Tribesmen their lives. Even one of his own left him over that choice. I just can’t help but wonder what kind of leader he is,” Wright said.
John had never given much thought to the fact that Kade could have prevented the fight with the Tribe by joining forces with them, something he now chose to do willingly when it was convenient to him. He didn’t like the direction his brain was turning, but he couldn’t help but think of how adamant Kade had sounded when he said he planned to lead this group until he was unable to because of a disease he knew he had that would kill him. Logically, he should want to find safety and a leader for the group, not parade as its champion.
But Kade was his surrogate father. He couldn’t believe that all of this, all of their survivals, was just something he was using to stroke his ego.
The one thing John was sure of, though, was that the newcomers didn’t make him feel like the stray.
“All I can say is he took me in and has kept me alive this long. You’ll have to excuse me—it’s time for my shift,” John replied, wishing he could push the new thoughts from his mind.
Chapter VII
Humble Pie
Ashton ran from door to door, flinging them open. Meredith was close on her heels. Somehow she had lost Franklin. She had put the two children down for bed and had gone to do some studying, but just like in the Old World she was asleep before she knew it.
She threw open the door to Kade’s room, but no one was in there. She kept moving down the hall, hunting for her missing kid.
The cheetah, Bristle, mewing at the door was what had awakened her. Meredith had still been sleeping, but Franklin’s bed had been empty. After losing Scott, she couldn’t let something like that happen again.
The first place she had checked was the main exit to the dorm, but the ladder was still rolled up. She couldn’t find the kid anywhere, and her panic was about to go to full-blown terror. Being in charge of the kids was something she had not wanted in the first place. If she’d had anyone to pass the task to, she would have done it the moment Scott died. She was in charge of only three human beings, and it had taken her less than twenty-four hours to let one of them die. She was a horrible matron.
Ashton reached Wright’s room and threw the door open. He was the first person she found home.
“Franklin’s disappeared.”
“Calm down and say that again,” Wright said.
“I can’t find Franklin. Have you seen him?” Ashton said, getting control of herself.
Wright crossed his arms over his chest. “I haven’t seen him, but if you’d like I can keep Meredith with me while you search. I’m good with kids.”
She wasn’t sure if it was her panic that made her feel like his last few words had been an attack on her, or if he was trying to be helpful. Either way, she could cover more ground without Meredith in tow.
Wright welcomed her warmly, and Ashton found herself glaring at the psychiatrist for immediately being better than she was with the kids. She put the bitterness out of her brain and resumed her hunt.
After searching the rooms, she headed straight for the roof—not that she expected any of their incompetent guards to actually have seen something, but maybe she would get lucky.
When she burst out onto the roof, John hurried to put distance between him and Emma. Ashton wanted to tell him she expected the stray to suck at his job, but she didn’t have time to insult him with the current state of things.
“Have either of you seen Franklin?” Ashton asked.
“No, but there is a light on in the science center,” Emma said.
Emma was right. There was a light on in Damian’s lab in the neighboring building.
“Can you guys walkie over?”
John called over to him, and in the minute it took for Damian to respond, Ashton swore she could hear her own heartbeat.
“He’s here,” Damian said over the walkie.
Ashton snagged the walkie out of John’s hand. “Do not let him out of your sight. I will be right over.”
Everything flew past as she rushed to the science center. She threw the door to the lab open, and immediately remembered being trapped in this very room a few months ago by a pack of foamers. X had come to her rescue. Thinking of X put her in a worse mood than she had already been in, which her brother must have picked up on, because he put himself between her and Franklin.
“I’m sorry, sis. I assumed you knew he was here,” Damian said.
Victoria looked up from her notes for a moment to take in Ashton, but went right back to work.
“Franklin, come here,” Ashton hissed.
Franklin stepped from behind Damian and strode toward her. “Don’t be mad at them. I thought I’d be back before you were awake.”
“You cannot wander off without telling me. I am responsible for you,” Ashton scolded.
“I didn’t mean to make you mad,” Franklin said.
“I’m not mad. I am concerned.”
“Can I stay? Your brother is teaching me how to use all the equipment,” Franklin said.
Ashton took a deep breath. “If one of these two promises to escort you back when you are done.”
“I’ll make sure he gets back in one piece,” Damian said.
“Don’t keep him out too late. He’s just a kid,” Ashton said.
“Sure thing, Mom,” Damian replied.
Ashton pointed an angry finger at her brother. She’d love nothing more than a chance to let out all her pent-up frustration.
Franklin tugged at her sleeve. “Miss Ashton, Bristle needs different food. She doesn’t have a healthy diet,” Franklin said.
“I’ll check some things out and see if I can’t make a trip tomorrow,” Ashton replied.
Franklin threw his arms around her. “Thank you. She doesn’t have a mom to take care of her.”
Ashton looked down at the kid like he was made of gold, then slowly closed her arms around him. “We’ll get her taken care of.”
He separated from her and Ashton left to go check X’s maps. Maybe she could do something good for these kids after all.
* * *
“Flash them!” Kade yelled as he pointed at the oncoming vehicle. Both of the vehicles were driving by the light of the full moon. The half hour it took to reach Number Five felt like an eternity.
X toggled the high beams and slowed the truck.
Before it came to a stop, Kade ha
d already jumped clear off the truck and was running for the Hummer. Number Five slammed on the breaks, practically sliding into Kade.
He flung open the passenger door to find Tiny sprawled across the backseat. Kade climbed in and hit the dome light.
Her eyes were open but completely dazed. The left side of her scalp was bleeding all over. Kade placed a hand on the seat as he moved in closer to examine her, but at the pressure change on the cushion she let out a roar of pain.
There it was. Halfway down her combat harness, just below her breasts where her sidearm hung, the pistol was dented from a bullet.
“It went to hell fast,” Number Five said.
Kade drew Tiny’s Ka-Bar knife from the other side of her harness.
“Where’s Zack?” Kade asked.
With a quick swipe he cut her harness free and let the busted gun fall away from the impact zone.
“Zack got her to me. Then he told me to go, that he’d cover the escape. I’m not sure what happened to him.”
Kade lifted Tiny’s shirt at the waist and sliced it all the way to her shoulder. He peeled the shirt back. Tiny’s rib cage was already purple from breast to hip. Kade pulled a flashlight off of her torn harness and shined it in her eyes. Her pupils didn’t respond at all.
“What’s the plan?” X asked.
Kade examined every remaining inch of Tiny, looking for more wounds.
“Not to tell you what to do, but it might be time to cut our losses. Mick and Jem knew the risk they were taking. We’ve already lost Drew. She needs attention,” X added.
Seeing Tiny like this made him want to kill all the president’s men, every last one of them. But he couldn’t leave Jem or Mick to die either. Every ounce of his being wanted to walk across their last bridge and tear every man stationed there limb from limb.
Then it hit Kade—no one would leave themselves only one exit.
“What did we do when we knocked out the bridges?” Kade asked.
X shared a confused look with Number Five. “We created a controlled way in while protecting our ways out.”
“And when we boarded up the first two floors of the dorm?”
“We stopped people from getting in, but made ways to get out.”
This wasn’t a military base. It was no different than Houghton—a survivor colony. The president may have created ways to prevent people from getting in, but he still had to have ways to use those very same things himself. Kade had been so stuck on his fight with Tiny that he hadn’t even considered the task at hand.
“Shit. He’s got an idea,” X said.
Kade turned away from his wounded love and faced X. “I’ve trusted you to look after the things I love the most in this world. I need you to take Tiny home. Five, I need you to go along and”—he choked on the next words—“keep her alive.”
“Kade . . .” X said.
“I’ll also need the Hummer, a cigar, your handcuff key, and your word you’ll get Tiny to Houghton safely.”
“It was one thing when we both had to leave. You can’t expect me to sit back and let you run your own suicide mission,” X said.
Kade pointed to the burn on his neck. “It worked last time. Now, your word.”
X titled his belt and pulled the handcuff key out of its hiding spot. “You’re a son of a bitch.”
“My mother was a very nice lady.”
X gave Kade a quick hug with a single pat on the back. “Don’t die.”
“I’m invincible, didn’t you know?”
“Just don’t go knocking on the front door.”
* * *
Mick was in a state of half-sleep when the door to the Castle burst open. He looked over to Jem’s cell to see if he was being brought back from a session, but Jem and the others were in their cells.
Instinctively, Mick moved to the back of his cage, wondering if they were coming for him. Two soldiers came into the room hauling a large, dark man between them. The man was dressed like a soldier, but showed some signs of being roughed up pretty badly. The man had a bright smile, which was slowly tinting red from his bloody lips. The two soldiers threw the man into the cage next to Mick and locked him in.
With that, the two soldiers left the Castle.
“Which of you is Mick and Jem?” the man asked.
Both Mick and Jem looked at the man, but neither took ownership of their identities.
“I’m Zack. I’m from the Tribe, working with your friend Kade on a way to rescue you two,” the man said.
Mick wasn’t sure what Cunningham was trying to pull when she added a new prisoner to their group. The Tribe and Kade were two pieces of information that could only have been learned from Mick or Jem, but whoever was trying to lure them into giving information had their facts wrong. The Tribe and Kade were enemies—they wouldn’t be working together.
Mick and Jem both looked at each other at the same moment, realizing that one of them had given up information. Cunningham might not have been able to put the puzzle together properly, but she at least had some of the pieces.
Mick did not blame Jem. They were both heavily drugged. They had had no sleep, food, or water since they’d arrived. Mick, who had sustained less physical torture, was hallucinating more than he was coherent anymore.
The Castle doors opened again as a soldier approached the cells. The soldier opened Mick’s cell and hauled him out. Any escape plans were now gone. His only goal was to make it to his execution without giving up his friends.
For a few minutes he was able to feel the night air on his skin. Compared to how painful walking was, the fresh air felt like heaven. He wondered if he would be able to walk back, or if they would have to haul him in the wheelbarrow again.
It wasn’t long until they reached Cunningham’s HQ and the soldier put him on the table and stripped his jumpsuit, but for the first time he wasn’t shackled. The smell of bleach reached him before he saw her.
“I am truly sorry for your treatment. Our new captive shed light on your predicament for us. He said that James was responsible for everything and that he forced you to come along by threatening those you cared about. I’m going to patch you up, and we’ll keep you here only as long as it will take you to heal. We’ll need to keep you in the cells until James is executed. After that we will properly house you until you’re well enough to travel home,” Cunningham said as she wiped his back with alcohol.
Mick didn’t know what to say, so he just lay there. He tried to think the situation through, but it felt like the Grand Canyon stretched between his thoughts. Cunningham went about cleaning up his wounds and stitching the worst gashes.
“Oh dear,” Cunningham said, pausing at Mick’s lower back. “I’ll need to lance a few of these blisters, then I’ll patch you right back up. Don’t worry, though—I’ll give you a sedative.”
The next thing Mick remembered was waking up in his cell. He pulled his jumpsuit away from his body and looked down at the bandaged wounds. For the first time in days his brain didn’t feel totally fried, only slightly derailed. He didn’t know if he had dreamed, hallucinated, or actually experienced what he remembered. The best thing, he figured, until he could think clearly, was to keep it to himself.
* * *
John hoped his life would get easier when the others returned. He was on his second leg of guard duty for the night. Ashton had asked John to cover her leg since she was doing research into nearby stores.
The worst part was his second leg of guard duty put him opposite Grace. Before Emma he wasn’t sure how to act around Grace, and now he had no idea what he was supposed to do.
“Some strange weather,” John said, for lack of anything else.
Grace glanced around at the surrounding campus, then back at John.
There was nothing strange about the weather. It was a spring night. No precipitation. No weather fluctuations. Just a cool clear night.
“You been getting enough sleep lately?” Grace asked.
“Not really,” John said.
&
nbsp; Grace came over and took a seat beside John, facing the opposite direction. She was wearing yoga pants and a grease-covered sweatshirt large enough for her to swim in. There was nothing flashy about her, but her simplicity was one of things he found most attractive. Emma was beautiful and nice, but she wasn’t Grace.
“Worrying about Kade?” Grace asked.
John hadn’t been worried about Kade, but the moment she put the idea into his brain it was the only thing he could think about. The end of the world made no promises about tomorrows—that was something Kade always preached. However, knowing that Kade had an expiration date was daunting. It was like knowing he had Superman on his side, but it wouldn’t be long before he left to find his home planet—which had been destroyed, so it wasn’t like he could find it anyway. But he was leaving, and that feeling of invincibility he gave John would leave with it.
“Dr. Wright doesn’t think he’s the best of leaders,” John said.
“The quack can think what he wants,” Grace said.
John’s eye caught movement down by the creek that ran near the dorm. He tapped Grace’s shoulder and pointed to where he watched a foamer slurp water from the creek.
Bringing the rifle to his shoulder, John put his sights on the creature. The mangy male looked like a shipwreck victim, all bushy-haired, clothed in only scraps that hardly clung to him. This might be the monster that had killed Scott.
“It’s just a foamer,” Grace said.
Kade had asked John to keep the foamers alive, but Wright made a good point when he said it was preemptive self-defense. This foamer might have the potential to kill one of them at a later point.
His finger rested on the trigger.
“Relax. You know Kade’s orders. We don’t harm foamers,” Grace said.
The palms of his hands grew slick as he debated if he should pull the trigger.
The foamer was a monster, a soulless creature that was nothing more than an animal. If that had been a wolf drinking from the creek and it had just killed Scott, he would take the shot. He wondered if Kade’s orders would change once he knew Scott was dead.
Strays Page 12