Melisa and I slowed and stopped, each of us scanning the garden area. We had been harvesting food from there ever since we’d found it. My parents had liked that job. I guess it sort of took the place of their job in the Nursery. I’d told them they should stay with the other group, help with the babies, but they insisted on being with me.
Melisa lifted her keeper and hissed. “Something’s moving over there.” She pointed to a tall patch of plants that had clusters of long, skinny green things that tasted really good.
Both of us immediately got low and started running. As we drew close, Melisa fanned out to my right. I got to the source of the movement first and found Tifani, a lady who had lost her husband the first time the Ranjers found us. Most of Tifani’s right leg and shoulder were masses of destroyed red.
“It’s Tifani,” I said as Melisa arrived. Tifani lay on her back, her eyes wide and staring.
Her eyes swiveled to land on mine. Cold tingles washed over me. “She’s alive!”
Tifani coughed. I dropped next to her, reminding myself of that awful night months ago when I did the same thing next to my best friend. I forced myself to swallow the scream that tried to crawl out from the pain in my side. Tifani tried to talk, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly.
“It’s okay,” Melisa said. “Don’t talk. We’ll get you help.”
I stared at Melisa. We couldn’t fix this. “Tifani. What happened? Please. Did you see my mom and dad?”
“Nik, come on,” Melisa said. “Now’s not the time.”
Now’s the only time! I nearly shouted, but kept it inside at the last second. Everything was happening too fast. My side hurt and the rest of me felt like it was being squeezed and spun in circles. Cold panic held me by the throat. Tifani coughed again.
“Please, did you see what happened to them?”
She nodded, gulped, and opened her mouth. “Taken. Ranjers. I tried. To distract. Them.”
“Taken? What does that mean?”
Melisa pushed me back. “Nik, we have to get her to the camp and treat these—”
Tifani brushed Melisa’s knee. “No. Not worth. It.” She grimaced at Melisa. “Don’t waste.”
“What do you mean taken?” I felt bad for pushing her, but she was the only one who might know. I mouthed, “I’m sorry,” at Melisa. She just shook her head and looked away.
Tifani’s eyes closed and her mouth sagged wider. No. Please no. “Tifani, come on. Stay with us.” I shook the wounded woman’s shoulder. “Please!”
Her eyes opened again, but stayed unfocused. “Ranjers. Took. Said.” She made a wet, raspy noise in her throat. “Said. Insurance.”
Melisa took Tifani’s hand. “Insurance? What does that mean?”
“Don’t know.” Tifani’s breath was coming in short, useless gasps. “That’s all. They said.” She swallowed. “Didn’t shoot. Found them. Right away. Said insurance.”
Found them right away? The Ranjers were after my parents. Insurance? “But what does that mean?
Melisa shook her head, obviously as confused as me.
Tifani coughed again, this one almost inaudible. I took her hand and squeezed. “Thank you, Tifani.”
Her body shuddered. She met my gaze for a moment and her lips parted and stretched—almost like a smile. Then she was gone.
“Nik, we found something,” Jan said in my EarCom. “Get back here.”
Melisa and I looked at each other across Tifani’s body. Did she feel what I was feeling? Fear and confusion and exhaustion. When was this going to end? Would it end without us all being killed?
“Jan says they found something and we have to get back,” I said.
Melisa nodded. “Okay. But we have to take her.” Her eyes darted to Tifani’s face.
“I know,” I muttered into the EarCom. “Okay, Jan. We’re on our way.”
By the time we got back to the campsite, our arms totally exhausted from carrying Tifani’s limp body, the sun was beginning to set. Warmth trickled down my side again from the exertion.
“Who is that?” Dyana asked as we appeared. “Not Karl?”
“Tifani,” Melisa said.
“We found her at the gardens,” I said.
Jan and Koner ran up, one of them holding a small, flat, black box the length of my hand. There were words on it. "You have to see this,” Jan said.
“Give us a minute,” I said. Melisa and I laid Tifani with the others in the cave. It looked like the survivors had finished clearing the campsite.
As we came out of the cave, Dyana and Krista showed up with stream water in a bucket we’d found in a falling down house during a previous excursion. They washed their hands and arms and others followed suit. Melisa brought another bucket, and she and I washed up too. I pulled my shirt up to check my bullet wound. The bandage was saturated. And my clothes were still wet.
Jan pressed closer to me. “Nik, you have to see this.” Her hand felt warm on my shoulder. A bolt of despair and emptiness shot through me. I just wanted to collapse, feel my parents hugging me like they did the night we left New Frisko. She saw the bandage and her lips parted in an O shape. “You’re hurt!”
“It’s not bad,” I said.
“Nik,” Koner said. “Come on.”
I looked at the flat black thing. It was maybe five millimeters thick, with no protrusions or anything. I guessed it was about fifteen or so centimeters by maybe eight centimeters in dimension. It was matte, like an Enforser helmet. There were two words written in bright white letters on the outside.
NIK GRANJER.
Chapter 4
“What is that thing?” I grabbed it from Jan’s hand. “Where’d you get this?”
“It was on the Ranjers’ bodies.” She pointed at one of the dark forms on the ground. “Like, attached to the chest.”
“Which Ranjer?” The box was lightweight and felt totally smooth to the touch. Not even the letters in my name were raised. How’d they do that?
“All of them,” Jan said.
I stepped back, stunned. “What? What do—”
“Every single Ranjer has one attached to the chest plate.” Jan stared at me, her eyes wide.
I looked around the gutted campsite and stumbled to the nearest fallen Ranjer. His chest was blank. “Where?”
Koner pointed at a pile of the thin black things. Pol was bent over one, poking at it. His face was still wet with tears.
I ran a finger across the letters of my name. What was this? More people showed up, obviously wanting to know what was going on, too. “Every Ranjer had one?” What were these things?
“Yes,” Koner said.
Jan grabbed me again. “It’s like the Prime Administrator—I mean Holland—”
“Holland obviously wanted to make sure that we found it,” Koner said. “I think.”
“But what is it?” I rapped a knuckle on the casing. It was some kind of plasteel.
“Got it!” Pol ran up and held one out. “There’s a button, nearly impossible to see, right at the corner.”
“What does it do, though?” I stepped back.
“Nik, if they were supposed to kill us, like if they were back up explosives or something, they would have gone off,” Pol said.
“Spam,” I said. I watched where Pol was pointing and found the same spot on the thing I held. “Everyone get back. Holland’s smart. He would know we’d all be curious.”
“Let me do it,” Melisa said, grabbing at the one I had.
“Bug that,” I said. “It’s got my name on it, so I press the button.”
“No, Nik, not happening. You’re too important to the—” Melisa trailed off. “To whatever this is.”
“What are you talking about?” I stepped away. “Just everyone get back.”
“Mr. Granjer.” Adam Holland’s voice filled the campsite.
My heart stopped. I spun. Jan held one of the black things and stood maybe ten meters from the group. A wide shaft of light extended from one end of the thing, and in that shaft
was Adam Holland’s face. Jan dropped the thing—apparently a projector of some kind—and stepped back. The projector hit the ground and the light winked out.
“You guys were arguing,” Jan said, surprise and fear in her voice. “Maybe stop arguing and just do it, right?”
I met her gaze, although that was harder in the fading day. I nodded. “Yeah.”
Everyone was staring at me. Melisa made a gesture with her hands, as if to tell me to hurry up. I lifted the projector box thing. “Everyone stand back.” Nobody hesitated and a second later there was a meter or two between me and the group. “I’m going to play it. I guess it’s a message or something.”
“Which is why all of them had one,” Koner said, obviously proud of his reasoning. “To make sure you got it.”
I ignored him and pressed the button. The voice came again, louder than the thin projector should have been able to broadcast. A band of light flashed on, extending at least a meter out from the projector.
Holland’s face stared at me. “Mr. Granjer. If you’re seeing this, you somehow survived the attack.” A long pause. I stepped closer to my friends and held the projector higher so everyone could see the holographic image of our enemy.
“You are very lucky, there’s no doubt.” Holland’s face smiled. “But your luck has ended. If you’re seeing this, my insurance is either on its way to me or I have already secured it.”
Insurance. Like Tifani said.
“Of course, you do not know what insurance is, because I made a world free of the filth and mistakes of humanity. But in this case, my insurance is your parents and a few other choice prisoners.”
The holographic light illuminated a bunch of scared faces around me. But I saw relief in a few. They must have been looking for a family member or friend too. Dyana looked like she was ready to chew rocks, or maybe reach through the projection to Holland and end him right there.
“My Ranjers have taken a select few of your members prisoner. If you try to reach Anjeltown or Mento again, I will kill one of them very painfully.” Another long pause. We would have to figure out who Holland had taken. “And you should know that I am very capable of bringing pain. The human body has no further mystery to me.”
I wanted to punch the smug holographic smile. Evil Bug-eater.
“This is my insurance. Unless you want a painful death to happen to one of these people, you will stay away from my New Chapter. And each time you make the mistake of trying to go near, or even contact anyone in my cities, another one will die.”
A bright flash from the ground and a loud bang filled the area. I jumped back. The projector Jan had dropped had just exploded, throwing bright fire at least a couple meters around it. The fire adhered to tree trunks, as if it were sticky. Bug me!
Holland’s message had continued. “I leave you to your wanderings, at least until my wonderful Ranjers find and kill you. I have a lovely new crop to send your way. Goodbye.”
The light winked out the moment that I threw the projector as hard as I could. In that second, just before it left my hand, I felt it heat up fast.
It exploded in the air, flinging the strange sticky fire all around it. A flame splattered at me.
Suddenly my wrist was burning.
Chapter 5
Somebody slammed into me, pushing me to the ground and away from the group of New Frisko survivors. The intense burning in my wrist grew worse, traveling past my shoulder and into my neck. I screamed and writhed, desperate to bury my arm in the dirt to put out the fire.
Then somebody wrapped something heavy around my hand and arm. I blinked past the pain and saw James holding me down, throwing dirt on what looked like a blanket wrapped around my wrist. The fire went out, but the pain throbbed and jolted and made me want to wrench my arm off.
“Get away from them!” Melisa waved and shoved the group away from the pile of thin, black projector bombs. James and I scrabbled away from the pile, each movement feeling like it was going to shatter my wrist.
It felt like everyone held their breath for a long time, waiting for the pile to explode.
Nothing happened. Nothing but my left wrist cracking open from the inside—or at least feeling like it wanted to.
Pol led the way back to the pile of projector bombs. He picked one up, tapping the middle of the harness on his chest. His chest light illuminated the space in front of him. Pol and Rojer had cooked up the chest-mounted lights.
James yanked on my arm. I shouted at the sudden flare of pain added to the already fiery throbbing. “What are you doing?”
He wasn’t yanking on my arm; he was unwrapping the blanket. But where it wrapped around my wrist, it didn’t want to come off. “I have to get a look at it.”
“What was that stuff?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Sticky explosive of some kind,” James said.
Jan dropped to her knees next to me. “I’m so sorry, Nik.”
“For what?” I asked.
Jan tapped my left arm, far up from the injured part. “For this. I made you hold it and turn it on.”
I watched James pulling the blanket off, hissing and trying not to kick him away each time he peeled more of the blanket off my wrist. There was a spot at least five centimeters in diameter on the outside of my wrist that the blanket and previously wet shirtsleeve had stuck to. It felt like a kilometer of skin had burned off. Maybe the dampness of my clothes had helped.
“No,” I said, between clenched teeth. Jan squeezed my arm and shoulder, I guess trying to help me hold still. “You dropped the first one. That way I knew. Before it blew up.”
She sat back a bit, her eyes growing thoughtful. Then she smiled, though it looked pained. “You’re right. I guess you’re welcome.” Even with the waves of hot pain that seemed to be cooking my entire arm, I couldn’t not notice how her dark hair made her eyes look bigger and how even her small smile made me feel warm.
James gave one final tug and the blanket was off. He and Jan activated their chest lights. The part of my wrist where the sticky fire had landed looked black and chewed on.
“Not good, Nik,” James said. “And I don’t know how to treat it. We need to get you back to Kristin to fix this up.”
“Can we at least give me some painkiller?” If the painkiller didn’t work, I’d find a really heavy knife we could use to cut my arm off. This was so much worse than when I’d broken my arm a few months back. Against this throbbing torture, my wounded side felt like a butterfly was kissing it.
James injected my upper arm with the painkiller and a cool, numb sensation washed down the entire length. It was the greatest thing I’d ever felt. By the time he’d applied some clean bandages to my arm and side, the rest of the group had piled rocks at the front of the cave. Pol hadn’t moved. He seemed transfixed by the projector bomb. Maybe he was thinking about David.
The fresh MedGlu that James had used on my side held the bullet wound’s trench closed, although it felt tight as I helped move rocks. We finished covering the cave opening with stones big and small as the daylight completely faded. Movement to my left caught my eye. Pol had appeared, staring at the new rock wall. Koner showed up a moment later on Pol’s left.
“What now?” Melisa asked softly. She stood to my right. All four of us had our chest lights on, making the space in front of the cave glow softly.
A quiet, broken sound came from Pol. Melisa stepped closer to us as I reached for Pol. Koner wrapped him in a hug and I pulled them close. Melisa joined in, her arms warm and tight.
We stood like that for a while. I felt like my throat would never stop hurting, like my breath would never come back all the way. And Pol must have felt it so much worse than the rest of us. His small body shook and convulsed like it would never stop. I squeezed tighter and felt my three friends’ arms tighten around me. Only us four left of my original Pushers from that night.
Holland wasn’t going to take any more. He wasn’t going to take any more of these people away.
The light aro
und us grew steadily brighter. I looked up. The rest of our group, Annie’s squad, Dyana’s squad, James and Nate, Koner’s squad and my squad—they all had turned on their chest lights. The lights shone at the cave that held our family and friends. The rocks seemed to be absorbing the light and casting it back at us in multiple shades and colors.
The moment stretched. Then Pol switched off his chest light. “Bye, David.” I watched his profile, struck by how grown up he looked—the strength in him.
Melisa turned off her chest light. “Bye, Tifani.”
I met her gaze, careful not to blind her. We looked around. The others nodded though Pol didn’t notice. It was a good idea.
Each person turned off their chest light in succession, saying goodbye to one of our fallen friends. Zavier was last. He stood for a long time, his light the only one left glowing. Tears streamed down his face. He’d lost his whole family, wife and grown daughter, in one terrible day.
Finally, moving slowly, his hand lifted to his chest. “Goodbye, my hearts.”
The devastated campsite fell into darkness.
Chapter 6
“Nik.” Jan fell into step next to me.
Shadowed tree trunks stood all around us, their branches waving gently in a pale gray sky. A light breeze blew across my face. It felt refreshing and clean.
Dyana called from the front. “Okay, let’s stop for the night.”
I looked at Jan. “Hey.”
“How’s the arm feel?”
I lifted the heavily bandaged thing up and waved it carefully. The painkillers were beginning to wear off. “Like a club. Need anything hammered?”
She laughed. “No.”
“You okay?”
She was quiet for a moment. I slid my pack off my back. “No. I’m scared.” She looked tired, too.
I reached for her hand with my non-bandaged limb. “Me too. We’ll get them back.”
She nodded and squeezed my hand. I pulled her into a quick hug. “We will. We’ll get them back.”
She looked up at me. I had a sudden urge I had to fight back, because I was terrified of what she would do if I gave in.
Push (Beat series Book 2) Page 3