by Hunter, Ryan
“Do you want to open it?” I asked T.
He raised one eyebrow as we stared across the bag. “Do you?”
My heart pattered. “I want you to do it.”
“Sacrifice me for the greater good?” he asked.
“That’s not what I meant,” I said, feeling guilty anyway. The wind continued to sway the doorway, the zipper pinking now, metal on metal.
“I don’t get it,” T said. “Everything else looks so old …”
“This was underneath,” I said.
“So there’s nothing to worry about?” he asked, raising one eyebrow.
I shoved my hands in my pockets so he wouldn’t see the nervous shake. “Of course not.”
“Then open it.”
I crouched—stared at the zipper—counted to ten and then recited the Pledge of Citizenship to the Alliance, using my own terminology, silently … then reached for the zipper.
T swatted my hand out of the way. “It’s okay. I’ve got it. It’s not like it’ll explode or anything.”
I stopped him. “It won’t, will it?”
“What?”
“Explode?”
“Only one way to find out,” he said, yanking it open, the buzz of zipper teeth making me jump back.
He paused, his hand still on the bag, a smile taunting me. “Scared, Brynn?”
I eased beside him, so close our thighs touched. “Of course not.”
He placed his hand on my knee, the two of us crouched over a missing man’s bag, and just rested it there a moment before he gave me a slight squeeze. “Of course not. Me neither.”
I felt the trembling in his hand and muttered, “Liar.”
He reached into the bag. “Seems like you’ve called me that before.”
I watched his hand disappear inside, holding my breath as if he were delivering a baby. He glanced up at me, and I exhaled. “Maybe you deserved it.”
I put my fingers on his arm—the one inside the bag ready to deliver our bundle of joy—and asked, “What if it’s a trap?”
“Set by the dead man by the river?”
I dropped to my butt, head swimming. “Dead man?”
“Ah,” he groaned, dropping beside me. “Why do you think I looked so shaken when I came back?”
I hadn’t wanted to think about it, not really. “What happened to him?”
T cringed. “He’s really too far gone to tell.”
My stomach heaved, and I clenched my teeth. After counting again I asked, “Do you think he was murdered?”
“For what?”
“Food? Terrorism?”
T reached for the bag again and withdrew a can of peaches. “His food is still here.”
“Terrorism?” I asked.
T pulled out a bag of jerky and another can of fruit. “Maybe. Seems like it’s going around.”
“How long do you think he’s been there?”
T brushed his hands on his jeans. “He’s nothing but bones now. I’d say a while.”
So it hadn’t happened yesterday, I reassured myself, but given the condition of the tent, I’d already known whoever had been here had been gone quite some time.
T placed the food in his own pack and pulled out a final object, an oval device with a large orange button on one end and an orange tab on the other.
“What is it?” I asked.
T stood and stepped back. “Says it’s a safety beacon.” He touched his ear and pointed toward the device in his hand, with a listening device, he meant to imply.
I nodded. Time to be careful because if it had a tracking device in it too, they’d know exactly where to find us as well as what we said. “What’s it for?”
“Signaling your location for a rescue crew.”
“That’s what our sensors are for.”
“What if you’re missing your sensor?”
I nodded. He had a point. “Why didn’t the other guy use it then? He might still be alive.”
“Maybe whatever happened to him happened too quickly—he couldn’t get back in time for help.”
He put it in his backpack along with the food and I raised my eyebrows in question. Why would he want a safety beacon? It could already be active, transmitting our location as we spoke.
His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled—he winked. He had some kind of plan he’d have to explain later. I rolled my eyes. “What else is in there?” I dug in beside him and pulled out another bag of jerky and a small, soft blanket. “I could definitely use this,” I said, rubbing the fleece across my cheek.
T added the other bag of jerky to the backpack and I pointed to my belly.
“We’ve still got a long walk ahead of us,” he explained. “We’ve got to ration the food. We eat the rest of what we brought tonight and begin on this in the morning.”
Something must be wrong with the food too. “I’m just hungry,” I lied.
T zipped his backpack and left the other bag open and empty in front of the tent. “Knowing there’s a dead guy over there kind of creeps me out,” he said. “Let’s go.”
We moved in closer to the river again, the tinkle a comfort to my stomach if not my mind. But the campsite still bothered me, the dead man with a safety beacon waiting in his tent—the bag that hadn’t weathered even though his other belongings had been torn apart?
I clutched the blanket to my chest and rushed to catch up to T. He stopped, leaned down in the sand and with a stick wrote simply, You were right. A trap.
My stomach fell and I wondered why we’d taken any of the supplies. If the Alliance was setting us up, we had to fight against it, not fall for it. I dropped the blanket.
“Are you tired?” T asked, obliterating the message.
I nodded.
He picked up the blanket. “If we can make it another mile we should be safe to stop for the night, then we’re going to look for our first marker. It’ll tell us which direction to go from there.”
I didn’t want to play this game anymore—code-talk to throw them off, heading in the wrong direction to confuse them while we grew weak …
I sat. “I can’t go any farther, T. I really can’t.”
He took my hand and hauled me to my feet, dragging me beside him. “One more mile, Brynn. We’ve got to make it a mile, okay?”
I fell into step beside him but he still kept hold of my hand, tugging me along each time I slowed. He sure had strength, determination, persistence.
He had value to the Alliance. What did I have? I slowed to a walk again, breathing heavily. They wanted him for more than what he knew about the Freemen, and I wondered how they’d dispose of me once they had my father’s research and their athlete back.
CHAPTER 25
We lay under separate blankets that night, warm under the cloudless sky. We spoke little but when we did talk we directed it toward the “colony” we’d created in the desert, the one we’d eventually veer off to find when we were certain the Alliance had tired of us.
As my eyelids grew heavy, I asked, “You don’t think they’re listening to us, do you?”
T smirked. “How would they listen to us out here?”
“I don’t know,” I lied. “I just want to be careful, you know?”
T grabbed my hand, interlaced his fingers with mine and squeezed. “It’ll be okay. I promise.”
I wanted to believe him, but my gut still clenched and my head swam. How could everything be okay when the forces of the Alliance were trained on you and you had nobody to turn to? “Thanks,” I whispered instead.
The fitful night ended before dawn when we heard footsteps just beyond camp—human footsteps. T placed his hand over my mouth and pointed in the direction we needed to flee but we didn’t make it a single step before the sound of fist meeting flesh thunked through the trees. A man grunted and scuffling followed. I gathered my blanket and flung it over my shoulder while T threw our supplies in his pack. He slung it over his shoulder and headed out before me, his footsteps muted by careful footing. I tried to follow
exactly and breathed a sigh of relief when I made less noise than usual. The scuffling stopped or faded, I wasn’t sure which—followed by goose bumps up and down my arms. A thick chill hung in the air, and I wrapped the blanket around my shoulders wondering who fought and how they’d found us so fast.
We knew the bag had been a trap, but were there people actually waiting around the tent for us to grab it? And how would they have known we’d go that way—unless they’d been watching us the entire time … so we could lead them to the Freemen.
I shivered and glanced over my shoulder to see who followed. No doubt one of the Alliance men who’d been chasing us had crept in on us but who had attacked him?
My hands took up trembling, and I clenched them together just beneath my chin, the blanket in a death grip between them. I had to stay focused.
The river gurgled to our left, and T made a sudden cut toward it, ducking branches and leaping from stone to stone as he rushed forward. The sound grew louder and even as I relished the idea of the tumbling water, I feared not hearing the men who trailed us.
T stopped. He dropped his pack on the ground in a heap and took the blanket from around my shoulders, adding it to his pile. The cold struck my arms like needles, and I wanted to pick the blanket up again to hold it around me until the sun came up and warmed the air.
T grabbed my hand and dragged me away from the pile, close to the river, to the noise that blocked out any sound of our stalkers. When we’d traveled several minutes, he sat me on a rock and paced.
“The safety beacon is sending out a signal, the blanket is bugged, the food—,” he whispered, “I don’t know but I don’t dare eat it.”
“Why did we take it then? And how do we get rid of it all without them finding out what we know?”
T ran his fingers through his hair before clasping both hands at the back of his neck and craning his head back to stare into the lightening sky. “The beacon already transmitted our words. They knew we were there so I figured taking it might give us a chance to turn them in the wrong direction.”
I folded my arms, rubbing my biceps to smooth the chills. “And what about the men in the bushes?”
T dropped his arms to his sides. “I saw one of them—a Freeman.”
The river seemed to intensify in sound, louder and louder until I thought it would burst my eardrums. I cleared my throat. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
I stood but T motioned for me to sit back down. “Then who were the others?”
“Just before you woke, the Freeman was going through our supplies. He didn’t take anything, just looked at each object before dropping it back into place. He headed into the trees as you woke. I’m assuming he ran into Alliance officers.”
“How do you know he wasn’t with the Alliance?”
“He dressed like someone out of our history lessons,” he said, turning away and walking three steps before turning back. “He had on faded jeans, old hiking boots and some kind of brown jacket—and he fought the officers. If he was with them, they wouldn’t have fought ...”
This time I stood and stared into the water. “Do you think they killed him?”
T pushed his toe through the dirt. “I don’t know.”
The loss nearly overwhelmed me, making my heart cold and heavy. I dropped my hands and stepped back, feeling nearly as though I’d lost my father a second time. “What do we do now?”
“It’s time we sent the Alliance off course and put some distance between us—and that Freeman found us once, so I’m hoping he’ll find us again.”
“How do we get away from them? They know right where we are because we took those stupid supplies. ”
T glanced up river to where he stashed them and said, “I’m going to secure the beacon to a log and float it downriver.”
“What about the rest, the blankets and the food?”
The jerky has enough air in it to float and let’s see if we can get those cans headed downriver.”
“The blanket?” I asked, wishing I didn’t already know the answer.
“We’ve got to lose it too. We’ll drop it in the water or along the bank. Have a preference?”
I considered for a moment before I remembered the map. “Isn’t there a cliff just south of us?”
He smiled. “I’ll drop it over. You find something to attach the beacon to while I’m gone.”
“What about the men?” I asked.
He cupped the side of my face. “If the Freeman won, there’s nothing to worry about—and if the officers won, they’re going to have to take care of the Freeman before they come hunting us. We’ve got a short window and we need to take advantage of it.”
I didn’t want him to leave me alone. I wanted to be beside him. “We could both go …”
T shook his head. “I wouldn’t leave you if I didn’t think you’d be okay—five minutes—find something for the beacon and stay put.”
I nodded and T took off at a sprint through the trees to the pile of supplies. By the time I reached the same place, he’d already disappeared to the south. I picked up the beacon—lighter than I’d imagined. I started into the brush to find something that would float when an idea occurred to me.
I returned to the river and crouched among the food. Carefully, I tore away the top of the jerky bag and the scent of the meat struck my nostrils, made me salivate. My stomach rumbled, and I reached inside for a piece when T said, “No.”
I jumped and dropped the pouch into the dirt.
He crouched opposite, sniffed the jerky and mouthed, “May be drugged.”
I clenched my teeth and took the package from him, my hands now trembling. I placed the beacon inside and sealed the package back up with the zippered seal, trying to leave as much oxygen inside as I could so it would float atop the water as long as possible. As I held that package up, the meat mocked me—made me remember how little the Alliance really valued me. All they wanted was my knowledge—or my father’s knowledge—and as long as they thought it was only in my head, the longer I’d live. I cursed them for it, for thinking we lived to serve only them. I wouldn’t do it anymore and letting their stupid beacon be swept away would be one more step of defiance I hoped they’d feel like a slap to the face. My teeth throbbed, and I released my tight jaw. I opened my mouth, stretched it open to help me relax and lowered the bag.
T gave me a thumbs up, gathered up the canned food and held them over the water. I held the jerky next to his armload and we met each other’s eyes. I could still smell the jerky, and my stomach rumbled for it but I wouldn’t give into the traps again. T shook his head once and nodded toward the river. We released our loads together and they hit with a splash before drifting away.
T tossed his backpack over his shoulder, the backpack we’d depleted of supplies, and grabbed my hand. I followed him away, a jagged line to the west, each of us making heavy steps, breaking limbs, an easy trail for the officers to follow. After half a day, we stopped and T whispered, “I found a settlement, a few miles to the south.”
“How?”
“I saw it from the cliff when I dropped the blanket.”
“Freemen?”
T shook his head and took a long drink of water. “But it looked big … and cluttered. I think we could blend in for a day or two, really throw the Alliance off our trail—maybe beg a little food.”
I sipped from the bottle, my emotions at war. “We can’t lead them to an innocent settlement.”
“Listen, Brynn, I think we actually lost them for a while, but they know where we are now. We won’t lose them again without doing something. They’ll send in helicopters or drones once they realize we’ve discovered the bugs and disposed of their ‘gifts.’ We can’t let them catch us and if we hurry, they’ll never know we went to the settlement.”
“What if they show up in the settlement?” I asked.
T said, “My bet is that those people don’t care much for the Alliance. I think they’ll help us.”
I couldn’t main
tain the same level of conviction as T but I agreed by saying, “Food sounds good.” We inched toward the cliff and I saw it—an entire city in the middle of a forsaken desert. From a distance, it had houses, streets, apartments and squares of blue and black plastic between many buildings, wooden structures between others. “It looks—”
“Exciting?” T asked, walking down the cliff until he found a place with ledges, almost like stairs down the face of it.
“Disorganized,” I said, slipping down to the first ledge, a five foot drop. My jaw rattled when I hit.
“Land with your knees bent,” T said, demonstrating as he jumped off the next. “Just like jumping out of two-story windows.”
My knees shook but I squatted and jumped, nearly going over the edge and down a ninety foot drop. T caught my arm and pulled me back toward the wall. “Easy,” I said.
“Exactly.” He dropped to the next level and waited for me, the rest of the ledges the same until we reached the scree slope. The next thirty feet was fine sand and rock, a slippery sloped descent to the desert floor. “Ready to tuck and roll?” he asked.
I laughed even as my heart trembled. We’d run out of time if we didn’t find some way down it in a hurry. “Any other ideas?”
The six feet from our ledge to the top of the scree looked like twenty but it would be a softer landing than rock. “Jump and let the loose stuff just carry you down—like skiing.”
“I’ve never been skiing.”
T took my left hand in his and said, “On the count of three—”
“Together?”
“You know how it works,” he said, skipping one and two and saying, “three.”
We jumped and I sank to my shins in the debris, but it did roll downhill, carrying me with it like the mudslides I’d watched on my PCA.
Adrenaline shot through me, making me lightheaded—and wanting to laugh out loud. I bit down on my bottom lip and rode out the debris until it slowed and jumped again. The base of the slope became harder and we ran until we met flat ground.
With the worst behind us, we burst forward, making the two mile run faster than I thought possible, but with T pulling me beside him I had little choice to slow. My lungs burned and my thighs ached.