The Girl in the Wilderness (Leah King Book 2)

by Harris, Philip

  The Girl in the Wilderness

  Leah King Book Two

  Philip Harris

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Author’s Note

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  About the Author

  Also by Philip Harris

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  1

  Leah watched the village burn. Thick, gray smoke-filled air that reeked of burning flesh. People screamed as they ran, some of them already burning, some trying to find their loved ones. Others were just trying to escape the carnage. Every now and again there was the crack of gunfire as the Transport soldiers surrounding the village picked off those lucky enough to escape the flames.

  Leah clenched her fists, ignoring the pain where her nails dug into the palms of her hands. There was a soft thump. Flames billowed across the far side of the village as something exploded. Another explosion, this one close enough that Leah felt it through the ground beneath her. More gunfire.

  One of the soldiers threw something inside a house. A few seconds later, it exploded. Fire and glass and wood burst from the windows and bounced across the road. A figure wrapped in flames crashed out of the house and ran at the nearest group of soldiers. They raised their weapons, ready to defend themselves. The figure made it to the edge of the village before falling to the ground. It lay there, writhing for a few seconds, then was still.

  A young boy, fourteen or fifteen, about Leah’s age, darted from behind one of the few huts that hadn’t yet been engulfed in flames. He ran across the village, dodging between the lumps of burning wreckage that littered the ground. He was coming straight toward the hill where Leah was hiding. She tensed. He couldn’t have seen her—she was lying at the edge of the tree line, surrounded by shadows.

  Another building exploded, scattering hunks of burning wood across the street. Leah gasped as one of the pieces arced over the boy’s head. He dodged sideways, then ducked lower and pushed on. As he broke outside the circle of buildings he turned east, skirting along the edge of the village.

  “No!” whispered Leah. “Not that way.”

  He was running into the path of a team of soldiers and the woman who seemed to be in charge of the attack.

  The light from the burning village cast a flickering orange glow like a faulty street lamp. Beyond the firelight, the landscape was cloaked in shadows, and the boy had almost reached them when the soldiers saw him.

  The woman shouted something, the words too distorted by distance for Leah to understand. But the soldiers heard. Two of them raised their rifles and took aim. Leah pressed her fist against her mouth.

  The first shots hit the ground around the boy’s feet, kicking up clouds of dirt. He turned away, his hands covering his head and sprinted toward a nearby cluster of rocks. Two more shots. The boy twisted sideways and went down. He rolled over, clutching his shoulder, then struggled back to his feet. A building nearby exploded with a muffled crump. The flames illuminated the boy, sending his shadow racing across the ground as he charged toward the safety of the rocks.

  The soldiers lowered their guns, and for a moment, Leah was convinced they’d taken pity on the boy and were going to let him live. Then the woman raised her own gun and fired. The shot hit the boy in the back. He fell forward, his face slamming into the hard earth. He didn’t get back up.

  Leah blinked away tears, then steeled herself.

  She heard the low-pitch thrumming of an engine from somewhere behind her. Seconds later a massive helicopter roared over the trees to her left. The door in the side of the aircraft was open. Leah could see a soldier at the edge of the opening, manning a machine gun.

  The helicopter swept over the village. The prop wash fanned the flames as it passed. One of the bigger buildings collapsed in a flurry of sparks and billowing smoke. More gunfire. This time, Leah could see the flash of weapons inside the village. The shots were coming from one of the few buildings untouched by the fire so far.

  TRACE? thought Leah. She hadn’t known they were operating this far away from the cities.

  Whoever was in the building was shooting at the chopper. Sparks flew from its body as it banked away. Then a rocket flew from inside the helicopter. It streaked across the village, leaving a trail of pale gray smoke behind it until it disappeared into the building where the defenders were hiding.

  There was a pause, less than a second, but long enough for Leah to wonder if the rocket had failed to detonate. And then a fireball tore the building apart. Leah shielded her eyes as the flames turned night into day and the rush of the explosion drowned out the gunfire and the screams of the dying.

  When she looked again the helicopter was landing at the base of the hill. A ramp dropped open at the rear as the chopper touched down, and a dozen more troops joined those surrounding the village.

  There were no more signs of resistance. It was as though the rocket had extinguished the last embers of hope. Shapes appeared in the doorways—men, women, and children with their hands raised. They walked slowly, tentatively. Transport raised their rifles. Leah flinched but forced herself to watch.

  The gunfire she’d been expecting never came. As the people reached the edge of the village, the Transport troops came forward and herded them toward a row of three trucks parked nearby. No one resisted as the soldiers pushed and shoved and prodded them forward. The survivors were split into three groups. The handful of children went into one truck, the women into another, the men into the third. The tailgates on the trucks slammed shut.

  Two groups of soldiers made their way through the village, stopping occasionally to pick off the few people who’d opted not to surrender. More fires were set, and by the time the three trucks rolled off down the road, the entire village was engulfed in flames.

  The Transport Authority troops moved back from the inferno. Some boarded the helicopter; others climbed into Jeeps or armored cars. The woman was the last to go. She stood beside the village as though hypnotized by the flames.

  When she finally turned away, she stared up the hill, and Leah was convinced she was looking directly at her. Leah pressed herself flat against the ground, terror turning her veins to ice. Then the woman climbed into a Jeep, and the convoy headed down the dirt track leading away from the village.

  Leah watched them until the taillights disappeared, then returned her gaze to the burning houses. She could see the young boy’s bo
dy still lying on the ground where he’d fallen. She felt a pang of sadness but quashed it before it could spread.

  This was the way of things now. This was the world she lived in. She had to adapt. Adapt or die in the dirt as her father had.

  2

  The flames from the village were just an orange glow in the distance when Leah settled down beneath the branches of a beech tree to rest. She pulled open her pack and removed the handful of utensils she’d managed to trade with fellow wanderers—a dented metal plate, a folding plastic knife and fork and a glass that despite its thickness had gathered three big chips along its rim.

  Leah’s stomach grumbled. She’d gone to the village to get food. As a rule, she stayed away from other people—it was safer that way, and she didn’t want to get involved in their problems, but her supplies were dwindling.

  She could gather rainwater or refill her canteen from the rivers and streams, but she wasn’t a hunter. The need for food drove her into the villages to trade, and that had almost gotten her killed. If she’d arrived at New Leighton a few minutes earlier, she would have been caught in the Transport raid. As it was, she’d almost walked straight into the path of one of the trucks and had to scramble into a ditch as they’d passed on their way to the village.

  Leah dug around in her pack and pulled out the tangled mass of metal wiring she’d been planning to trade for a loaf of bread or maybe even some meat. She tossed the bundle to one side as her frustration bubbled over.

  Who was she trying to kid? She’d never have been able to trade that. Not for anything of any value, anyway. It had been her father that had done the trading. He’d known the value of things, the way to get the best price.

  That was how they’d lived. She’d scavenged; he’d traded. They both had their roles, and they were good at them. But then he’d left her alone, and she was the one trying to barter junk.

  Leah poured water from her canteen into the glass, then yanked open the front pocket of the pack and pulled out the last of her rations. There was one piece of jerky left. She slapped the chunk of leathery meat onto the plate. Anger and resentment swirled in her gut. A breeze slipped through the branches above her. The tree sighed.

  Her stomach grumbled again, and reluctantly, Leah picked up the jerky, tore off a chunk with her teeth and began to chew. The meat was bland and dry, and she had to wash it down with a mouthful of water. She sloshed the water in the canteen, the paucity of her rations adding to her black mood.

  The rest of the jerky stared up at her from the plate. Should she eat more? Or should she save it until tomorrow and use it to give herself some energy for the day’s scavenging? Sighing, Leah slipped the jerky back into the pack and pulled out an almost rectangular piece of slate and a nail. A series of scratches marked one side.

  She used the nail to scratch a horizontal slash across the last group.

  Thirty scratches. Thirty days. Thirty days since her father died. Since he’d left her.

  The resentment flared inside her again. He’d died because he’d gotten involved with terrorists. He knew the risks, knew that the Transport Authority might kill him if they caught him. He’d been stupid. He was the adult. He was supposed to look after her. Leah’s mother’s death had been an accident—a terrible, stupid accident. But her father’s death—that had been a pointless sacrifice. He’d died trying to save the City, but the City had been destroyed anyway.

  Leah swallowed hard, choking back a sob. She still couldn’t believe that it was Transport that had been responsible for the bomb. Why would they do such a horrifying thing? It didn’t make any sense to her.

  Isaac had said it was because TRACE was winning, but could that really be true? And why had Katherine sacrificed herself to ensure the bomb went off?

  At the thought of Katherine, anger began to burn deep inside Leah. Katherine was the real reason her father was dead. And what about Isaac? The Amish man had been part of TRACE, and that made him a terrorist, at least in the eyes of Transport, but he’d been kind to Leah and helped her when she needed it most. Katherine had killed him too.

  “No,” thought Leah. Her anger evaporated, turning to guilt. Leah had been the one that found the circuit board. If she’d left it there on the street—

  Leah’s shoulders sagged. If they hadn’t gotten involved, they’d both have died. The City might have been destroyed, but Leah was alive because her father had gone to TRACE. They’d warned him about the bomb and given them a chance to get away. But Leah wasn’t sure being alive was a good thing. Perhaps it would have been better for them both to die in the explosion.

  Her vision blurred as conflicting emotions warred inside her. Part of her wanted to give up. She could just curl up here and wait for the end.

  Leah sniffed and folded the knife and fork and put them into her pack, along with the metal plate. She picked up the glass of water. She didn’t really need to use the glass. She spent her days drinking directly from the battered metal canteen, but there was something soothing about drinking from a glass, even one as scratched and chipped as this one. Leah raised it and tilted in the general direction of the City.

  “Cheers, Dad.”

  She sipped the water and stared out across the landscape toward the flickering orange glow that was all that remained of New Leighton. If she hadn’t been there to see it, she’d have thought the carnage was TRACE’s work. They were the ones who went around blowing things up. Leah smiled grimly. She, of all people, should know that wasn’t true.

  Her thoughts returned to the boy. She wondered if he too had gotten caught up in Transport’s war. Or was he just an innocent victim of it?

  Leah looked out across the landscape. The sky was clear, and the moon was full, its light casting a blue glow across the countryside. She counted three campfires. None of them were nearby. They could belong to scavengers like her, or the roving bands of Wild Ones. Either way, she’d steer clear. She might only be fifteen, but she understood the dangers they posed.

  A dark shape, probably a Transport Authority shuttle, appeared from behind one of the hills near New Leighton. It rose into the air and then made its way north.

  The sight didn’t concern Leah. She was nothing to Transport now. She was just a wanderer, one step up from the Wild Ones. She wasn’t a threat, nor did she have anything to offer them. As long as she didn’t go out of her way to antagonize them, they’d leave her alone. That didn’t preclude her accidentally getting caught up in the war between Transport and TRACE, of course. Today had shown that. But the war wasn’t hers to fight.

  Leah drank the rest of her water, almost upending it and tapping the side to get the last droplets out. Then she exchanged the glass for the two blankets stuffed at the bottom of her pack.

  One was pink and thin. It was speckled with holes and did little to combat the nighttime chill. But, like the glass, she found it comforting, and she had the second blanket to keep her warm. This one was dark green and thick and heavy. It was also valuable enough that she kept it crammed into the base of her pack and was careful not to let anyone else see it. She’d get a good trade for it, but without it to keep her warm at night, she’d probably get pneumonia, or something.

  Leah wrapped the blankets around herself and lay back. The ground was hard, but she’d found a natural depression. There was even a slight hump of earth that she could almost imagine was a pillow.

  It took Leah a while to get to sleep. It always did. Even after a month, she didn’t like sleeping in the open—there were too many creepy crawlies sneaking through the grass. She kept feeling them tiptoeing down her neck or up her leg, but whenever she slapped or scratched at them, there was nothing there. But eventually, the itching and tickling settled down, and Leah’s eyes drifted shut.

  3

  A shadow passed over Leah’s eyes, blocking out the early morning sun. She moaned and shifted. Her back ached, and her right arm was numb. She cracked open her eyes. A figure was standing over her, a dark shape against the blue sky.

  �
��Dad?” mumbled Leah.

  Adrenaline flooded her system as she realized whoever it was couldn’t be her father.

  Leah kicked out. Her feet were tangled in the blanket, but the heel of her boot connected with bone and someone cursed. Leah rolled right, kicking out again, but this time to free her legs.

  “Hey, hey,” said the voice—a woman.

  Leah ignored the voice, got her feet underneath herself and pushed off, like a sprinter. The grass was wet with dew and her boots skidded, but she kept moving. Ahead she could see a copse of birch trees. At least that would provide her with some cover.

  As she ran, Leah listened for sounds of pursuit, or worse—the crack of gunfire—but she heard nothing but the thumping of her boots on the grass and her own ragged breathing.

  Reaching the cluster of trees, Leah risked a glance back over her shoulder. She could see the woman, still standing at the top of the hill. At least she wasn’t chasing her.

  Leah crashed through a wall of bushes at the edge of the copse.

  “Don’t you want your gear?” shouted the woman.

  Leah slowed. The woman was right. Leah might not own much, but what she did have could be the difference between life and death. Leah’s boots slid on the layer of leaves and other detritus coating the ground as she stopped. She turned back and peered out through the trees.

  The woman was sitting cross-legged on the ground, Leah’s pack sitting in her lap. The blankets were in a pile beside her. One corner of the pink blanket poked out from beneath the dark one, like a shoot stretching toward the sun. The woman wasn’t going through the pack, as Leah would have expected. She was just sitting there, watching.

  “You really should take it with you!” called the woman.

  Pins and needles tingled down Leah’s arm where she’d slept on it. She shook it as her father always told her to. Had always told her to.