Lockdown (The Fringe #4)

by Tarah Benner

  There’s a good chance he only nicked Owen. And if Owen’s alive — if they’re bringing him back to the compound — he’ll be taken straight to Constance.

  My thoughts are interrupted by the slamming truck door.

  I look up, expecting to see Harper storming back toward the compound, but she’s sitting in the passenger seat, staring out into the desert.

  This, more than anything, is a mark of how much things have changed between us. Harper no longer fights me every step of the way. She respects my judgment and actually listens when it’s something this important.

  “You need to change,” I mutter, diving over the center console and rummaging around in the backseat for the clothes Owen mentioned.

  Sure enough, inside the duffle bag is a pair of rolled-up jean shorts that will fit Harper and a small zip-up hoodie.

  “Here,” I say, handing them over.

  Harper doesn’t waste any time. She shimmies out of her Recon uniform and pulls on the borrowed clothes. I strip off my T-shirt with the Recon emblem and grab a plain gray shirt from Owen’s bag. It’s a little baggy, but it will work.

  Once we’re changed, I take a quick inventory of all the foreign-looking knobs and buttons. I’ve never driven a real car, but I know the basics of how it’s done: brake left, gas right. How hard can it be?

  I reach down to touch the brake with my foot and move the gear shift into drive. The truck starts to roll forward, and I glance over at Harper. She’s trying to keep her expression calm, but I can see her white-knuckling the seat.

  I fix my eyes on the ground in front of me and touch the gas. The truck shoots forward, and I hit the brake to avoid crashing into a rusty hatchback. Harper jerks forward and catches herself on the dashboard and then reaches behind her for the seatbelt.

  Somehow, I manage to get us out of the truck graveyard with lots of starting and stopping.

  Things get easier once we’re out in the open desert, and it only takes me a few minutes to get used to the gas pedal and the steering.

  The darkness seems to swallow us whole as we barrel toward the town, yet every nerve in my body is screaming for me to go back for Owen.

  Instead of hitting the brakes and turning the truck around, I focus on forming a new plan. Recon will be on high alert tonight, and tomorrow the town will be crawling with patrols. We need to find a safe place to hunker down and regroup.

  Once we’re a mile or so from the perimeter, I take the chance of turning on the headlights. I see a road off in the distance and slow down as we approach the shoulder.

  The ride evens out as we roll up onto the pavement. Harper sits up a little straighter, gripping her gun between her trembling hands and scanning the road for drifters.

  Miraculously, we don’t encounter anyone. And after a while, familiar scenery emerges from the darkness.

  I turn onto the road that leads to Owen’s house, and the tall shadowy forms of three dilapidated houses come into view.

  I pull the truck around the back of Owen’s house and kill the engine. Harper and I climb out, and a wave of fatigue washes over me.

  Just then, the back door to Owen’s house bursts open, and a short figure emerges at a dead sprint.

  Every muscle in my body stiffens, but I’m too shocked to reach for my gun.

  The stranger careens into me, but instead of getting tackled to the ground, I feel a pair of soft lips crash down on mine.

  My brain goes haywire as I try to summon an appropriate reaction. I’m surrounded by a heady mix of cocoa butter and floral perfume, but it isn’t the right scent. Harper is somewhere behind me, and this is so wrong.

  Finally, my brain catches up, and I push the stranger away. A light inside the house flips on.

  As the girl stumbles into the dim light filtering through Owen’s boarded windows, I catch the shimmer of long black hair and a confused, slightly hurt expression. My window to study her lasts about two seconds.

  Behind me, Harper lets out an angry growl and shoots forward. She slaps the girl across the face and shoves her into the dirt. “What — the — hell?”

  The girl falls back with a surprised “Ooph!”

  “Harper!”

  She shoots me a furious look and kicks dirt in the girl’s face. “Who the fuck are you?” Harper demands.

  Now that the girl is closer to the house, I can see her face clearly. She looks pissed. She’s got a dark Cherokee complexion, a soft face, and eyes that could cut glass, but I’m more worried about the second person inside the house.

  “I was about to ask you the same question,” she growls. “Owen?”

  My brother’s name gives me a sharp pang in the gut, and it takes me a second to realize she’s addressing me.

  Suddenly her greeting makes a little more sense.

  “Eli,” I say. “Owen’s my brother.”

  “Holy shit,” says the girl. “You two could be twins.”

  “So . . . you’re Owen’s . . . girlfriend?” Harper asks slowly.

  I can’t see Harper’s face in the dark, but I can practically feel the heat of her blush.

  “Not exactly,” says the girl, feeling her cheek where Harper struck her. “But I take it he belongs to you.”

  Harper gives an embarrassed nod, and in any other situation, I’d be smirking.

  “What the hell is going on out here?” comes another voice — male this time. The back door swings open, and my body kicks into gear.

  I draw my handgun. “Hey! Stop right there!”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Easy, dude. It’s me.”

  “It’s not Owen,” the girl calls from the ground. “It’s his brother.”

  “No shit?” The stranger sounds amazed.

  “I told you he was alive,” says the girl.

  “Yeah, I know, but . . . this is wild.”

  The girl turns her attention back to Harper and me, and then her face falls. “Where . . . Where is he?”

  I swallow down the lump in my throat and glance at Harper. She stares helplessly back at me.

  “He isn’t with us,” I croak, lowering my gun. “He was shot. He might still be alive, but if he is . . . he’s been captured and brought back to the compound. I’m sorry.”

  Owen’s friends are silent, but their devastation hangs heavy in the air. These people knew Owen well. They cared for him.

  “We’re gonna get him back,” I say, sounding more certain than I feel. “If he’s alive, we’ll find him. We just need a place to regroup.”

  “Right,” says the girl in a faraway voice. She gets to her feet and dusts herself off but doesn’t meet my gaze. “Let’s get inside before someone sees you.”

  I nod and reach behind me for Harper’s hand.

  “I’m sorry about . . . you know,” Harper says to the girl.

  “It’s all right. I would have done the same thing if I’d walked out and saw you kissing Owen.”

  There’s a brief awkward pause, but then the girl smiles.

  The back door opens again, and I squint at the sudden brightness.

  “I’m Sage, by the way,” says the girl, turning around and holding out a hand.

  I shake it but don’t stow my gun just yet. Sage doesn’t seem to mind; she’s too busy studying me and marveling at my resemblance to Owen.

  When we step into the kitchen, the guy turns, and I get the sudden feeling that my eyes are playing tricks on me.

  I know this guy. I’ve seen him before. He’s got sandy-blond hair that’s short and spiky on top, a round, youthful face, and dimples that would make someone want to believe just about anything he says.

  Unlike Malcolm’s guys, who dress like your run-of-the-mill street thugs, he’s got on frayed khaki cargo shorts and a light-blue polo that’s slightly wrinkled in the front. He’s maybe a couple years older than Owen, but his face is the type that holds on to youth.

  He extends a hand to Harper. “I’m Jackson Mills.”

  “You’re kidding,” she says, taking his hand and giving me a sideways glanc
e.

  Suddenly it all makes sense. I know where I’ve seen this guy before: Constance’s security feed. He’s the former leader of Nuclear Nation, whom Owen risked his life to protect.

  Jackson looks slightly confused, and Harper clears her throat. “Harper Riley.”

  “You seem surprised.”

  “It’s just . . . if you’d caught us a couple weeks ago, we would have tried to kill you,” she says, trying to keep her tone light. “Our commander has been obsessed with finding you, Malcolm, and Owen,” Harper adds. “She seems to think that if she took out the gang leaders, your people wouldn’t be much of a threat anymore.”

  Jackson frowns. “She’s not wrong . . . about the Desperados, at least. Malcolm is the engine driving us to the edge of extinction.”

  He shrugs, a bitter look on his face. “Me . . . I’d be a bit of a disappointment. Nuclear Nation disbanded a while ago. A few of us tried to stay together under the Desperados’ leadership, but I can’t say I have much sway with those guys anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I left,” he says. His tone is neutral, but I can tell his decision was fraught with conflict.

  “Owen didn’t take it well,” Sage adds, answering my unspoken question.

  He hangs his head and nods slowly. “Yeah. Well . . . I didn’t have much of a choice.”

  “How did you meet my brother?” I ask.

  “I got him out of a bit of a tight spot back when we were both trying to hack it out in the city. I was only eighteen or nineteen, and I was barely surviving. There was a group of us living in this old hotel, but Owen was on his own.”

  “How old was he?”

  Jackson shrugs. “Sixteen? I could tell right away that he’d had a rough go of it. He was fighting off a couple gang bangers with a knife. And after I helped him take them out, he almost turned that knife on me.”

  Jackson motions for us to take a seat and then reaches up into Owen’s kitchen cabinet. He withdraws a bottle of whisky Owen once shared with us, which gives me a pang of nostalgia.

  Sage collapses into a chair, and Harper and I follow suit. I know it’s not polite, but I set my gun on the table right next to me.

  Sage doesn’t bat an eye, which tells me she’s spent plenty of time around Owen and his band of thugs.

  “I was scared to take him back to my people, to be honest,” Jackson says, pouring a bit of the amber liquid into four glasses. “But there was something about him that made me think he wasn’t a bad kid. He was smart, too . . . It was his idea that we get out of the city.”

  “Was it really bad there?” Harper asks.

  “Yeah. And the violence was the least of our problems. I was doing okay, but there were members of our group who were really sick from the radiation. Owen figured it would be better in the desert — farther away from the blast zone.

  “We staked out a little settlement not far from here, and we were doing all right. We were growing our own food, protecting our territory from compound people . . . We didn’t have much muscle to speak of, but we could handle a couple of intruders at a time.”

  “So what happened?”

  Jackson folds his arms over his chest and leans against the counter. “The Desperados began expanding their territory. They were growing so fast. It was like a religious movement. I knew it was only a matter of time before they came knocking on our door.”

  “They didn’t like having another gang in the area?”

  “Uh-uh. One day Malcolm shows up with his crew, packing AK-47s. They didn’t even bother attacking at night. They knew we were that outgunned.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like him,” I mutter, feeling a swell of anger when I think of Malcolm’s rally at the church.

  “I saw them standing outside the fence, and I thought, Fuck. This is it. He’s gonna annihilate us.”

  A muscle is working in Jackson’s jaw, and I can tell he’s reached a turning point in the story.

  “But then Malcolm steps forward and says he wants to talk . . . just talk. I mean, my bullshit detector was going haywire, but I sat down with him, and he laid it all out there. He gave me an ultimatum: Either we could stand and fight and most of us would die, or we could join forces.”

  “And you chose to join the Desperados,” I murmur.

  “Owen told me not to. But I knew we couldn’t fight Malcolm’s crew and survive. We were more tribe than gang at this point, and he had a fucking army.”

  “And that didn’t last?” Harper asks.

  “It wasn’t a good match,” says Jackson bitterly. He and Sage exchange a serious look, and I sense that Malcolm’s motives and approach was a regular conversation between them and Owen.

  “The Desperados are war mongers,” Jackson adds. “We were just trying to survive. We had families . . . old people, kids . . . people who were in no shape to go to battle with the compounds. Malcolm made it pretty clear that if you couldn’t fire a gun, you didn’t belong there. He was brainwashing former compound people to go on suicide missions, for Christ’s sake. A bunch of my people left and went underground, but not Owen.”

  “And you?”

  Jackson shifts uncomfortably on his feet, and I can tell whatever happened after that still grates at him. “I told Malcolm his obsession with clearing the compounds was gonna get us all killed. I hated compound people as much as the next guy — no offense — but there was really no reason to do it. As long as we stayed away, we didn’t have to deal with them much.”

  “So why do it?”

  Jackson lets out a disgusted sigh. “Malcolm swore up and down he just wanted to eliminate the threat of the compounds, but that’s bullshit. I think he wants to take over the compounds for himself.

  “Having fortresses like that would make him untouchable. He’d have everything: food, power, clean water, medical care . . . It’s the dream. But it’s not worth wiping out half the survivors in the region to do it.”

  “Did you explain that to my brother?”

  Jackson’s mouth twitches into a frown. Sage crosses her arms, and I can tell we’ve stepped on a land mine of tension between them.

  “I didn’t explain it to anyone,” Jackson admits. “I just cut out in the middle of the night like a coward . . . left Owen to clean up my mess.”

  “He took a beating for you,” says Sage in a low accusatory voice. “He covered for you, and you just left him to deal with Malcolm.”

  Jackson slides his gaze over to her, looking ashamed. “I couldn’t tell him,” he murmurs. “He would have convinced me to stay.”

  “Why would Owen want to stay if he never wanted to join in the first place?” I ask.

  “It’s easy to get sucked in to the Desperados,” Jackson adds. “The Southwest is lousy with gangs. The protection Malcolm can offer . . . It’s hard to walk away from.”

  “Owen knew that wherever he went, he’d have to deal with men like Malcolm,” Sage adds. “I think he was just sick of running.”

  Jackson nods and looks back to me. “I shouldn’t have left him. I regretted it as soon as I ran. But the truth is that I was never cut out to lead people. I’m terrible at making decisions. Look at Owen. If it weren’t for me, he never would have gotten under Malcolm’s thumb in the first place. I wanted to get him out after I left, but I just didn’t know how.”

  I sigh. Hearing about Owen’s initial reluctance to leave the Desperados makes his plea for me to leave with him even more heartbreaking.

  “He was gonna get out,” I say in a hoarse voice. “He came to warn me about Malcolm attacking the compound. He wanted us to leave with him.”

  I meet Harper’s gaze, and she nods to let me know we’re on the same page.

  If we’re going to infiltrate Malcolm’s base, find the cure, and rescue Owen, we’re going to need some backup. Jackson might not be my first choice, but he knows how Malcolm operates, and he owes my brother. We don’t know anything about Sage, but she clearly has a thing for Owen, which makes her useful.

  “Lo
ok,” says Jackson, his gaze bouncing from me to Harper. “I know what you must be thinking, but your brother is one of my best friends. He stuck by me through some crazy shit, and we’ve saved each other’s lives more times than I can count.” He takes a deep breath. “It may not seem like it, but I’ve got his back.”

  “Good,” I say, meeting Jackson’s gaze in a silent dare. “We need to break back into the compound to save my brother . . . and you’re gonna help us do it.”

  Author’s Note

  Thank you for reading Lockdown. I hope you enjoyed the story and that you’ll continue the journey with me for book five.

  After I released Outbreak, a few readers told me that they’d been expecting a trilogy, but I couldn’t have crammed everything into three books if I’d wanted to. Harper and Eli’s journey has been fully formed in my mind from the very beginning, and I always intended The Fringe to be a five-book series. Thank you for sticking with me.

  One aspect of Lockdown that proved extremely challenging for me was telling the story from five different perspectives. It was great because it allowed me to give more depth to the world and explore issues from multiple points of view, but it also required carefully managing all the secrets the characters were harboring and constantly shifting into different people’s heads.

  Owen was by far the most difficult character to write, but that made his chapters the most satisfying. He and Eli share many of the same childhood traumas, but Owen never had the few advantages Eli was afforded in life: He didn’t grow up with a loyal friend like Miles; he didn’t have the basic security of the Institute as a teenager; and he hasn’t allowed himself to experience the powerful kind of love that kick-started Eli’s personal growth.

  I hope delving into Owen’s subconscious helps you forgive his abrasive personality and appreciate his redeeming qualities. Above all, Owen is a survivor. He’s tough and smart and brutally honest, so having him in my head was a blast.

  As always, this book also gave me the chance to explore all kinds of interesting topics to add realism to The Fringe world, from land-mine detection to hot-wiring a car to port-scanning techniques hackers use to exploit network vulnerabilities.