inDIVISIBLE
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“They want us alive,” I said.
T shook his head. “Not after they believe we’ve killed their men. Besides, their men are close enough to the Freemen settlement that the Alliance will find it one way or another soon. They no longer need us to lead them.”
“You’re saying we’re leading them right to it?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
I stopped walking and scanned the mountain. “I didn’t want to put anyone else in danger.”
He stopped beside me and breathed his shallow breaths. “You’re not. The Alliance is, and they will continue until someone stands up to them and stops it. Besides, you’re the one who can do it. You have your father’s research and you have—”
“But, that man,” I interrupted, rubbing at my sore wrists. “If he was a Freeman and he left us there to be captured by the Alliance, how can we trust any of them?”
T took my right hand, held my fingers lightly between his. “He’s not a Freeman. He has no scar.”
I looked down at my own ugly scar, a scar I’d have for the rest of my life. “You mean he still has his sensor?”
T nodded and grabbed my hand, keeping me beside him as we picked our way up the hillside. With his free hand on his ribs, he’d slowed and I felt like I pulled him up the incline now. I ignored the jitters that accompanied the thought and asked, “How can that be? He’s way outside the public hiking boundaries. The Alliance should have picked him up by now.”
T shrugged. “Maybe he’s a spy.”
“Who kills other officers?”
T’s limp became more pronounced as he favored his side. “What I wanted you to understand is that the Alliance may have had a plan for us, but we’ve proven we’re not open to discussion. The next plan of action will be death and I suspect drones.”
Chills coursed from my fingertips to spine and all the way down my back. I’d seen too many deaths by drones to underestimate the threat. They picked off the enemy as easily as playing video games—only, the enemy usually had no recourse. “How do we fight drones?” I asked.
T stooped and picked up a rock. He tossed it in the air and caught it before shoving it in his pocket, making it bulge. He picked up another and another. “Ever played baseball?”
CHAPTER 37
If my survival rested in my ability to throw a proper fastball, the odds were definitely against me. I didn’t like the idea but hadn’t come up with anything better so I picked up rocks as we passed them, adding them to my pockets or backpack. All the while I prayed T would be a good enough shot that we wouldn’t have to rely on my athletic ability.
I excused his pain, hoping that when the moment struck, his adrenaline would carry him through and he’d forget about his broken rib until our lives were saved.
“How soon do you think they’ll come for us?” I asked.
T glanced behind us, searched the sky and shrugged, grimacing with the strain on his ribs. “I thought they’d pick up their men by now.”
“Me too.” My thoughts went back to the injured man, and I wondered if he was still alive. He couldn’t hold out too long with the blood he’d lost, and I worried for him, even knowing he’d tried to take our lives. But, there’d been something different about him, a humanity I hadn’t seen in any of the other men. “Do you think he’s still alive?” I asked.
T shrugged. “They’ll come for their men. I just have a feeling they’ll come for us first.”
“And leave their own to die?” I picked up another rock and smoothed it between my hands.
T scratched the back of his neck. “I don’t know.”
My conflict echoed in his voice, and I dropped the issue. “Do you remember the way, without the map?”
T nodded. “Mostly.”
Mostly. I tried to think of the word in positive terms but it left my gut heavy. “What part don’t you remember?”
He laughed, and my stomach eased a bit. “If I knew that, I don’t think I’d be saying ‘mostly.’ Do you?”
“At least we still have the journals,” I said. “They may help some, right?”
“Not without the map.”
I turned this idea over in my head as we continued, the sun pounding down on us, making the sweat run between my shoulder blades. I rolled my shoulders, my shirt sticking to my back—itching. “What about the map without the journals?”
T held a branch out of the way as I passed and said, “There were a lot of false marks on the map so that it wouldn’t help without the interpretation.”
“So that man may not find the settlement?”
“I doubt it.”
“How long before he realizes it, do you think?”
T lifted his shirt and adjusted the bandage around his ribs. It had loosened and I moved in to untie it, cinching it tighter to keep the pressure where he needed it. “I wish I knew.”
“Because he’ll come looking for us again.”
T dropped his shirt back down, and I wondered if my ribs poked through my skin as badly as his. I lifted my hem to look when he turned and asked, “What are you doing?”
My face reddened, and I dropped my shirt. “Nothing.”
“Jealous of my wound?” he teased, his dimple on the verge of exposure.
I smiled despite our circumstances and said, “Yes. Then I could be the one to limp around.”
T’s mouth dropped open like an O and he feigned hurt. “Are you calling me weak?”
I started ahead again. “I’m calling you slow, a cripple.”
“Feisty’s right,” he said, catching me easily and falling into step beside me.
Birds chirped, and I felt a fraction of my tension slip away as my shoulders settled. Animals could detect trouble faster than people so if we listened for them, we’d have a warning—however slight—that something was amiss.
T pointed off into the distance and said, “Just past those trees we should reach some cliffs. We’ll cross along the top, find a dead branch, walk twenty steps and drop it over the edge of the cliff. Then we circle around to our left, over that ridge … then things get sketchy.”
“Throw a dead branch over the cliff?” I asked. “Are you messing with me?”
He smiled, and I took his hand without thinking. He squeezed my hand and shook his head. “Serious.”
“I guess it’s no stranger than dropping rocks on the path.”
He caught his bottom lip between his teeth for a moment, gazing up the mountain before he said, “I wonder where they’re watching from.”
“You think they’re really watching for us then?”
“Not for us,” he said, “for anyone.”
“Do you think they’ll help if they see us under attack?”
T’s thumb moved across the back of my hand. “No.”
“Because they don’t know us.”
“Because they have families to consider and if the drones caught a bunch of Freemen on tape and sent it back to control, they’d be found—massacred.”
“And the Alliance would be heroes for wiping out more terrorists.”
He shrugged. “I doubt they’d even put it on the news. In fact, I think we’d be surprised by how much they don’t put on the news.”
We reached the trees he’d motioned to earlier and the shade beckoned me to stop and sit—to try and soothe my burned face and arms.
“Five minutes,” T said, bracing himself as he lowered to a rock. Sweat ran in rivulets down either side of his face, his skin red like the tomatoes we used to get at the market. My stomach clenched and grumbled.
“When we get there,” he began, pulling out his knife and cutting away a chunk of bark from an aspen, “we need to eat, but only a little at first. Too much will make you sick.” He peeled the outer bark away and placed a piece of inner wood in his mouth to chew. He handed me a piece and I copied him, the wood bitter but oddly comforting.
A little saliva formed and I could swallow again. “How do you know these things?” I asked.
“I’ve trained hard. E
ating too much after intense training teaches you a lot about pacing yourself.”
That made sense, but I wondered about the other things, the things he seemed to know about maps and the woods. “What about this, the bark?”
He shrugged. “Like I said, as a boy all I wanted to do was play in the woods, and I did, every chance I had. I got in trouble for it plenty, but I learned a lot too. Between experimenting with the plants and my brief horticulture education, I also learned that these trees—aspen—have medicinal qualities in their bark. It helps take away the pain.” He grimaced as he pushed back to his feet.
“Can we take a whole tree with us?” I asked.
He half-smiled and cut away another chunk to place in his back pocket before starting off again. I reluctantly pushed away from the cool earth and followed.
“T,” I whispered.
He stopped. “Yeah?”
“When was the last time you heard a bird chirp?”
CHAPTER 38
The Alliance had not returned for their officers. No machine guns flew in to blow us apart, but the birds continued to hide. Squirrels vanished, and even the gentle hum of insects had ceased.
“How loud are drones, T?”
We walked slowly, watching our trail, surveying our left and our right. “The replays on the PCAs are silent,” he said.
I clutched the rock in my fist as the earth tilted harshly, and I had to clutch onto a tree to keep from toppling. “Did you feel that?” I asked.
T turned. “Feel what?”
I pushed from the tree. “Nothing.”
T placed the back of his hand to my forehead then my cheek, feeling for a fever. “You’re paler than I’ve ever seen you, even with the sunburn,” he said, “and you’re burning up.”
“I think I’m dehydrated,” I said.
T chuckled. “What gave you that idea?”
I ducked my head, remembering how thin he’d been when he lifted his shirt. At least he could handle it better than me. One of us should be coherent. “Have you seen any water lately?” I asked.
He motioned toward the valley. “Just down the street. Should I go pick up a bottle or two?”
I laughed but it hurt, and my head ached. “Please.” I must have touched my temple because T caught my hand and pressed his fingers to my temple before turning his back and pacing. “It’s not fair, Brynn,” he mumbled, “we can’t let them kill us, not like this.”
Pressure built at the backs of my eyes, and I knew that if I had any water in my body at all it would have turned to tears—tears of frustration and anger—tears that would fight for revenge. I took a deep breath and focused on the cliffs ahead. We would make it and give the signal, at least that way, they’d be expecting us. They would see us stagger and they’d have water ready.
If we both made it.
“T?” I asked.
He stiffened as if sensing my question.
“That premonition,” I continued. “Do you still feel it?”
He picked up the pack and slung it onto his back, though the effort caused a great strain on his ribs. “We’ve got to keep moving, Brynn.”
I caught his arm. “Please, T.”
He rolled his eyes but relaxed long enough to look me in the eye and answer, “Something bad is going to happen, but I don’t know what and I don’t know how to stop it.”
“Happen to who?” I whispered, but I already knew the answer from our last conversation.
He shook his head and touched my cheek, the motion making my heart swell and break at once. “I’m new to this God concept—so let’s call it worry.”
I thrust my hands into my pockets. “I’m worried too, T.”
“I worry about you, about anything happening to you,” he began, “because I truly love you, every bit of you.”
I caught my lip between my teeth and sniffed back the emotion building behind my eyes. “And I worry about you, because I don’t think I could go on living without you.”
T’s hand slipped beneath my chin and he raised it. “You’re stronger than you realize, Brynn.” He kissed me, a lingering kiss that made my chest ache with wanting—wanting a secure future, a life with T.
“I don’t want to be strong without you.”
He smiled and took my hand. “It’s worry,” he confirmed, “nothing more.”
I knew he lied, but I preferred to believe it.
CHAPTER 39
“Sofi believed in an afterlife,” I said.
T held onto my arm as we began our walk along the cliff’s edge, worried I may fall right over. “Yeah?” he asked.
“She told me that men more often than not, did what they thought was best, but sometimes it doesn’t turn out to be the best thing for anyone. She said it would all be sorted out one day, when we die.”
“So she believed in God?” T asked, sounding like he was more involved in keeping me talking than the conversation itself.
“She didn’t say.”
“She had to believe in something if she talked like that.”
Loose rocks made it difficult to find steady footing, and my heart pounded erratically as I inched my way forward, toward a few trees that were more bark than leaves. We’d found our dead branch, now to get to it without plummeting to our deaths. The hillside sloped up on our left, rocks cutting through the soil to prove how harsh the land could be beneath the plants. To our right awaited a 100 foot fall. The cliff face had few indentations or shelves, making it a deathtrap should the loose soil beneath us deem our lives unnecessary. Sand fell over the cliff with each step, the rocks lost in the fall before I ever heard them hit. I closed my eyes, feeling the world sway and threw them open again, taking a step to keep the earth beneath me. “She said there was something out there bigger than all of us.”
T’s steps were no faster than mine, one arm splayed out for balance while the other held his ribs. “God.”
Sweat dripped into the corner of my eye, stinging. I swiped it with the back of my hand but just seemed to rub more sweat into it than I removed. I lifted my shirt and swiped my eyes. “Just something big.”
“What would that be if not God?” T asked.
I ignored his question and asked him, “Do you think it’s true that people generally have good intentions, they just go wrong?”
His pace stayed steady. His breathing more labored. I wondered if he was so tired or if the rib had injured a lung. “I guess it’s possible.”
“So is God going to get mad at them for doing bad things when they were really doing what they thought was right?”
T tripped and dropped to his knees. One leg slipped off the edge of the cliff when he tried to stand. I planted my feet shoulder width, bent my knees and reached out. T waved me away. “I don’t want you coming over the edge too.”
I backed up, my head swimming and tried to keep the world upright.
The thunder in the distance felt welcome, a rainstorm to wipe away the heat, until it continued at a steady pace, increasing in volume until a helicopter swooped overhead, passing us by to land near the fallen officers.
“I hope he’s still alive,” I whispered.
T rolled onto his butt and scooted backward, pulling his leg back up. “There’s no way they didn’t see us.”
“But—but,” I stuttered. “They went for their men first. We still have time.”
“Not much,” T said, pushing to his feet. “We’ve got to get over that rise and find cover.”
I turned and took the lead, picking my way over stones and loose sand, still soft and slick after the rains. My feet slid, my heart slamming in my chest. I rubbed my hand along the back of my neck and tripped over nothing.
“You’re okay,” T called, falling behind. I turned. His face contorted with pain—his hand pressed tightly to his broken rib.
“You’re okay too, T.”
He smiled, gritted and pushed forward.
A gentle whirring started at the back of my head.
T’s eyes widened, and I wondered i
f I’d gone so pale that he thought I’d pass out again. Was the whirring some kind of indication? “T,” I said.
“Duck, Brynn. Duck, then run out of here. Find safety,” he ordered, glancing over the side of the cliff.
The whirring got louder, and the world tilted again. I placed my hands over my ears and dropped as an explosion ripped apart the tree where we’d been planning to get our branch.
I screamed, the noise echoing off the cliff face.
“Brynn!” T yelled, his movements frantic now as he scrambled forward. “Run!”
The drone circled around, took aim at T and my stomach sank. “Do something,” I whispered.
“Play ball, Brynn. Strike them out,” T said, his voice calm, legs still propelling him forward, though too close to the cliff.
I pulled a rock from my pocket and threw it like they’d taught me in elementary. It fell a yard short of the drone and bullets erupted. Rocks splintered and dust flew. As the bullets stopped. T was missing.
“T!” I screamed.
I dove to the side as the drone aimed at me. The machine gun blew shards of rock into powder and it filled my nose threatening to make me sneeze. I swiped my nose across my sleeve and gripped another stone.
“Come on, T,” I pleaded, eyes darting between the empty cliff and the drone.
I turned the rock over in my hand as the drone advanced again. It hovered and I threw like I’d been taught, just clipping the back of the gun and making it spin so that the bullets embedded in the dirt to my left. I scooted back, away from the drone and pulled another rock from my pack.
I could do this. I threw another rock and it cleared the rotors before falling away. Maybe I couldn’t. “Please be safe, T.”