Footsteps clattered up the old wooden stairs, and a familiar voice called out, “Shots fired, shots fired! Lucas, what’s your status?”
Zira ran to the stairs and stuck her head over the railing. Cecilia looked up. A moment later, the barrel of her rifle followed. Zira grabbed Tripp’s arm and ran back the way they’d come as Cecilia opened fire. She pushed him into the vacant unit where they’d been getting their water. “Get that window open!” He bolted past her and started working on it.
From the doorway, she looked towards the stairs. Cecilia had reached the top and was taking aim. Zira ducked behind the wall and fired a few blind shots into the hallway, flinching as the other woman shot back.
“It’s stuck,” Tripp called from the opposite side of the room. “Hold on.”
“Just get it open!”
The hallway fell silent. Zira glanced out, and a shadow moved ever so slightly in the light from a room four doors up. She waited, and as soon as the edge of Cecilia’s arm came into view, she fired.
Cecilia cried out as the bullet made impact. “I’m hit!” she said. “I think they’re headed out a window. Lucas is down.”
“Got it!” Tripp called. “Come on.”
Zira sprinted to the open window and ducked out to meet him on the balcony. The drone appeared in front of them without warning, but a bullet to the motor sent it plunging to the ground. She watched it fall, estimating the drop to be a good ten feet.
A shadow caught her eye, and she shifted her attention to the tall figure hurtling towards them. Without another thought, she vaulted over the railing and plummeted into Jared. He cushioned her fall, but immediately shifted his weight to throw her to the concrete. She landed on her back with the air knocked out of her lungs.
Jared trained his sights on Tripp as he jumped off the balcony and made a hard landing. “Stop!” He could have shot him then, but he never pulled the trigger.
They wanted him alive.
Two pairs of feet pounded the concrete on either side of Zira. She ejected the mostly-empty magazine from her pistol and slid the new one in, then turned left and shot the closest runner. She went down, but Zira put another round in her just to be safe.
A bullet whizzed by overhead as she rolled to the other side and pushed herself up onto her knees. The man was nearly on top of her before she got a shot off and sent him sprawling onto the ground. He didn’t get back up.
“Watch out!” Tripp cried.
Zira whirled and took the full force of Jared’s rifle stock in the nose. Blood gushed out as she took a step back, dazed. He reached for her mask, caught hold of it with his fingertips, and tore it away.
Zira raised her pistol as Jared looked at Tripp, then back at her. His eyes widened. He put the rifle to his shoulder, and for a moment, Zira was sure he would pull the trigger this time. After all, she’d just killed three of his fellow operatives and wounded another.
But he didn’t look angry, just conflicted, like he was fighting some inner battle against himself. Tripp moved towards Zira and took hold of her arm, and they both watched Jared as they backed away. He kept his rifle trained on then, then suddenly shifted the weapon and fired two shots past them.
“They’re running,” he said, and it took Zira a second to realize he must be talking to the rest of his team. He stared pointedly at them. “They’re headed west. I need backup.”
He gave Zira one last look and shook his head, then turned and ran down the alley heading west. She just stood there and watched him go, trying to think of something to say to him even though it was already too late. Tripp tugged on her arm. “Zira—come on. We have to go.”
She turned around, and together they ran in the opposite direction.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Revolver sat next to Chairman Ryku in the front seat of a car as it took them back to the compound. All efforts to find Judah after his escape from the apartment complex had been unsuccessful, so he’d returned to serve as the chairman’s bodyguard once again. As far as he could tell, Ryku was in a foul mood, though given the circumstances, that was to be expected.
Dawn would be coming soon, and neither of them had slept in over twenty-four hours. That was normal for Revolver; he didn’t need as much sleep as most people. But even Ryku seemed completely awake. He hadn’t stopped working for a second since the attempt on his life. While Revolver, Jared, and the others had been trying to capture Judah, Ryku had been busy connecting the dots behind the scenes. Where had Judah been all this time? Who was his accomplice? How had the two of them managed to get anywhere near the stage during Ryku’s speech? How had they obtained a gun and a car in the first place? They still couldn’t answer most of those questions, but they were making progress.
The chairman’s CyberLink lit up and he answered the incoming call. “Jared. I hope you have some good news for me.” His tone was more even than it had been earlier, when he’d spent the better part of an hour berating Jared for failing to catch Judah and for the three deaths that had occurred under his supervision.
“I’m afraid not, sir.”
Ryku frowned. “If you haven’t found him by now, you’re probably not going to. Return to the compound. You’ll be better off going through footage and trying to find a new lead with the rest of your team there.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How is Cecilia?”
“She’s getting patched up at the hospital, but she’ll be fine. She’s just really upset about Lucas.”
“As she should be.”
“I’m sorry,” Jared said. “I failed you. I failed my team, and three of them died because of it.”
Ryku sighed. “Yes, and I’ve already made my disappointment clear, but your incompetence isn’t solely to blame. We seem to have a security breach inside the compound. People within our own ranks have been helping Judah and the larger radical movement he belongs to, and I should have seen that earlier. I’m just as responsible for their deaths as you are.”
Jared hesitated for a moment, then said, “We’ll find him again.”
“We will. Goodbye.”
No sooner had he disconnected than his CL lit up again. This time, it was one of the E-1s back at the compound. “We found someone who might be connected to Judah,” said the woman when Ryku answered. “Her name is Aubreigh, from unit C.”
Revolver zipped his jacket up, but the cold feeling running down his spine didn’t go away. “I know her,” Ryku said, nodding.
“We took her in for questioning last night as soon as we suspected her involvement, but we just confirmed it now. She definitely gave Judah the car he was driving yesterday.”
“Good work,” Ryku said. “Keep digging into this. We need to identify everyone inside our own ranks who has connections to Judah or these radicals he’s been working with.”
“Of course, sir. We’ll keep you posted.”
Revolver stared straight ahead, watching the road pass underneath them through the windshield. Part of him wanted to say something. Another part warned that he should just keep quiet. Aubreigh was not his problem. Aubreigh was just another insignificant human being, and Revolver had to look out for himself. Questioning Ryku’s decisions seemed a poor way to go about that, but something inside him screamed that he couldn’t just stand by and let this happen.
Aubreigh wasn’t just another human being. She’d taken the time to talk to him and try to get to know him when everyone else stayed as far away as possible and treated him like he was a monster. Aubreigh had never believed he was a monster, and because of her, Revolver was starting to believe that, too. At the very least, he owed it to her to talk to Ryku about this.
“Are you sure Aubreigh was working with Judah?”
“I’ll have to see the evidence,” said Ryku, “but they wouldn’t have arrested her if they weren’t sure. It’s a shame—I always liked her. She was dedicated, hardworking. But I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, considering who her closest friend was.”
Revolver wasn’t sure wh
o he was referring to, but it wasn’t important. “Just because she’s connected to the car Judah was driving doesn’t mean she gave it to him. She’s not a traitor.”
“At this point, we can’t be sure.”
“She would never do something like that,” Revolver said. His voice came out much louder than he’d intended. “She’s a good person.”
Ryku laughed—something Revolver had never seen him do before. He didn’t understand what was so amusing. “How can you possibly know what makes a person good or bad?” Ryku asked. “How can you understand the motivations of another human being when you aren’t even completely human yourself?”
“I am human.”
Ryku laughed again, then shook his head. “You’re supposed to be so much smarter than everyone else, but she has you completely fooled. Aubreigh may spend a lot of time with you, but it’s not because you’re special to her or because she values you as a friend. She was only using you to try to get information she could pass on to Judah or other radicals. You are simply a tool, and whatever your mind has tricked you into believing about your feelings for this girl, none of it is real.”
“That’s not true.” He didn’t know why he was arguing with the chairman. Everything Ryku had said made logical sense, but Revolver didn’t believe him. Or, perhaps, he just didn’t want to believe him.
Ryku shrugged and turned back to the messages on his CL. “Why else would she have wasted her time with you?”
Revolver didn’t answer. His thoughts turned to the evening he and Aubreigh had stood out in the rain together, the way she’d taken his hand and smiled as she spun in the puddles, the unreasonable warmth that had spread throughout his body as he stood there in the cold and watched her. It had felt so real. For the first time, he’d felt like he was more than just an empty shell. Was it all a lie?
The chairman had a point. Aubreigh always asked so many questions—questions she had to know she shouldn’t be asking. The first time they’d met, she’d immediately started asking him about Ryku’s leadership capabilities, and she was always curious about what he had seen or done on any particular day. Revolver had assumed she was just trying to be friendly and her questions were an attempt to carry on a conversation, but maybe all along, her true intent had been to get information.
Was Ryku right? Had he been imagining it was more than that all this time? Had Aubreigh fooled him into believing she cared about him? His stomach twisted, like he’d eaten something that didn’t agree with him and needed to throw up. “What will happen to her?” he asked the chairman.
“She’ll be questioned and investigated with the other traitors we’ve caught. If she’s as innocent as you believe, she has nothing to worry about.”
“And if she’s not?”
“Then she will pay for her crimes with her life, just like the others.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Zira and Tripp made it safely to their designated rendezvous point in an old suburb at the edge of the city, where Chase had arranged for another rebel to meet them and take them to the main base. A van pulled up alongside them as they walked down a dark street after midnight. “Hop in,” said the driver. He was in his late fifties, with a bald head and gray whiskers growing along a pale, bony face. His voice was low and warm with a long southern drawl. “Good to see you again, Tripp,” he said as they got in the van.
“You too, Ezekiel. This is Zira.”
He extended a hand to her and she shook it over the seat. “Nice to meet you,” he said.
“You too.”
The van began moving again. “I hear y’all got yourselves into quite a bit of trouble back there,” Ezekiel said.
“We did,” Tripp replied. “The sooner you can get us out of here, the better.”
“I hear you. You’ve got a big red target on your back and now I’m an accessory to the crime. I don’t want to be caught any more than you do. We’ve got another stop to make on our way back to base, though. Chase wants me to pick up the group that managed to get out of the compound.”
Zira exchanged a hopeful glance with Tripp. “Do you know who they are?” she asked Ezekiel.
“The guy I talked to said his name was Seth, but I don’t know anything about the rest. There are four of them, I think.” He looked at her in the rearview mirror. “You’ve got friends in there still, I reckon.”
Zira nodded. “Aubreigh. I’ve been trying to contact her all evening, but she hasn’t answered.”
“Seth said he would take care of her,” Tripp said. “If he managed to get out, I’m sure she did, too.”
Zira tried to push aside the doubts in the back of her mind, but she wouldn’t be able to relax completely until she saw Aubreigh with her own eyes.
“Let’s hope so,” said Ezekiel. “I hate to think about what the chairman’s going to do to the rest.”
* * *
The miles and minutes passed by, but there was still no word from Aubreigh, nor from Seth or anyone else who’d made it out of the compound. Tripp fell asleep almost immediately, but even though the day’s events had exhausted her, Zira couldn’t rest. Ezekiel tried to talk to her to pass the time, but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Eventually, she closed her eyes and pretended to doze off.
As the dawn light seeped over the horizon, Ezekiel pulled over to consult an old paper map with the word “Arkansas” stamped across the top. The name of a state—or what used to be a state—but it didn’t mean much to Zira. As far as she could tell, they were somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Tripp yawned and stretched his limbs beside her. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost,” Ezekiel said. “The others are supposed to meet us in a little town about an hours’ drive from here. Just needed to make sure we’re still on the right road.” He folded the map up and stuck it back in the glove box, then kept driving.
Zira resumed staring out the window, though she could see Tripp watching her in her in her peripherals.
“You okay, kid?” he asked. “You look tired.”
Zira shrugged, but didn’t look at him. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“She’ll be there,” he said.
Zira wanted more than anything to believe him.
When they finally arrived at their destination, the other group was nowhere to be seen. Ezekiel parked the van on one side of an old, abandoned farmhouse and unlocked the doors to let them out. “They had a little farther to go,” he said. “I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”
Zira walked the perimeter of the house to stretch her legs. She was on her third trip around when she heard the crunch of tires rolling up the gravel driveway. She ran back to the front, where she found Tripp and Ezekiel watching as a battered sedan pull up beside their van. Two women Zira recognized but didn’t know by name got out, followed by Seth. The fourth person was a man from unit P.
Zira looked into the car. Ezekiel had said there were only four of them, but he could have been mistaken. Maybe there was someone else.
The car was empty. There was no one else. Aubreigh hadn’t come.
Zira’s heart started pounding and she found herself struggling for air. She marched straight towards Seth. “Where’s Aubreigh?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I told you to find her.”
“I tried, Zira. I really tried. She didn’t answer any of my calls. I even went back to her apartment to get her, but she wasn’t there.”
“So you just left? Before you even knew where she was?” She was screaming at him now and everyone was watching, but she didn’t care.
“We had to leave. We didn’t know how much time we had. I just hoped Aubreigh had made it out on her own already.”
Zira shook her head. “She would have contacted us by now. She would have told me she was okay.”
“Maybe she can’t,” Seth said. “We left everything behind, just to be safe. We had no way of contacting anyone. Maybe she did the same thing.”
Tripp put a hand on Zira’s shoulder. “He’s right.
She might have gotten out and just doesn’t have a way to get in touch with anyone.”
Zira didn’t want to hear his reassurances and pulled away from him. “You said she’d be here,” she hissed. She forced herself to walk back to the van when all she wanted to do was run and run and keep on running until she found Aubreigh, somewhere, somehow. She got into the seat in the back corner, as far away from the rest of them as she could possibly get.
The others filed in one by one. Tripp sat in the back with Zira but left the middle seat empty between them. The two women and the man from unit P took the middle row of seats and Seth sat up front beside Ezekiel. They left the car at the farmhouse. It was stolen and it wouldn’t be long before someone started looking for it, if they weren’t already.
A hundred conflicting thoughts filled Zira’s mind as they drove away. Maybe she should have stayed behind. She could have taken the other car and gone back to the compound to look for Aubreigh. Except she had no idea if Aubreigh was still there, and even if she was, it wasn’t like Zira could just march up to the front gate and demand to be let in. Climbing over the wall was out of the question, too—not with all the lights and cameras the Project had on it. Not knowing whether or not her friend was safe, however, was intolerable. She had to do something.
Jared—she could ask Jared. It was a reckless idea, but by now, Zira was well past the point of caution. Yesterday morning, she wouldn’t have dared, but now, after he’d intentionally sabotaged his own operation to let her and Tripp escape, it didn’t seem so crazy. He’d protected her, and if she asked, maybe he would be willing to protect Aubreigh, too.
The problem would be contacting him. The computer sat in Tripp’s bag in the trunk. She could easily reach over the seat and grab it, but she doubted any of the others would be pleased with her contacting Ryku’s right hand man. She didn’t even dare discuss it with Tripp right now. They’d have to stop and rest sometime, though, and when they did, she’d talk him into the idea. He might not like it at first, but after everything Aubreigh had done for them, they couldn’t just abandon her.
Renegades of PEACE (Secrets of PEACE Book 2) Page 18