CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
TOMMY
Echoes of the unexpected blast pulse through my aching skull as the forest ahead erupts with movement. Flashlight beams swing through the trees; guards yell and curse in the dark. Safe in the deep shadow of a sycamore, I thank my lucky stars I hadn’t caught up with them yet. If they were closer, I’d be screwed.
But what was that? Was it back at the camp? Is Mel okay?
Screams shatter the night, high-pitched, agonized screams, coming from where I left her.
Mel’s screams.
To hell with stealth.
I dart out of my hiding spot and sprint for the cabin. Her raw screams drag over my scalp, pushing me faster.
Faster.
As I barrel through the last of the trees, I search the shadows by the cabin where she should be.
She’s not there.
Stomach full of needles, I skid around the corner, almost losing my balance thanks to the spinning in my head.
There.
Writhing on the ground by the door, her mottled skin sallow and shining with sweat. Her hands are clamped around her gut, which is soaked in blood.
“Mel!”
I stumble forward and fall to my knees by her side. She’s still thrashing when I yank her messy hands away, her yells hoarse, horrific wails starting to rise in the camp behind us. Thick, dark blood seeps from a small but nasty hole in her abdomen.
She groans. Her body shudders. Then the tension bleeds out of her, leaving her still, white, and cold.
Dead.
Mel is … dead.
“No!” Tears scald my cheeks. “No, Mel! Please, no!”
Voices approach from behind the cabin, getting louder. The guards.
We have to move.
I haul her limp body over my shoulders and bolt through the cabin door, hiding behind it just in time. Sentries melt out of the woods from every direction, running toward the chaos in the center of the camp.
Mel’s blood paints my skin as I watch them dash by, relief nearly sending me to my knees when I note her labored breath in my ear. The guards don’t look for us, don’t give the blood in the dirt a second glance, utterly focused on the scene of destruction before them. Their own noise, coupled with the cries of the injured in the camp, must’ve disguised ours.
Raising my eyes, I take in the charred semi. The trailer’s engulfed in a ball of flame, sending huge, billowing clouds of orange fire leaping for the stars. The smell of burning metal stings my nose. The pathogen couldn’t have survived a blast like that.
I swallow back the sob that presses in on me.
Headstrong, brave, incredible Mel. She did it.
She gave up her own life to save everyone else, but she’s not dead. She won’t die.
I won’t let her.
The guards disappear into the commotion around the truck, and I dart out the door with Mel slung over my shoulders, slipping into the shadow of the forest that tickles the cabin’s rear wall. The Veloster is parked on an empty dirt road, about a mile’s trek through the woods directly across camp from where we are now.
The guards are distracted. If I’m quick, I might be able to skirt the clearing before they pull together a coordinated search. Then I’ll sprint through the woods, straight for the car.
I’m fast. Even with Mel’s weight, I will outpace them. I will get her home.
The earth seems to shift under my feet as I run, keeping to the dark edge of the forest. The night presses in, my ears full of an incessant ringing. Without my impeccable sense of hearing I’m half-blind, relying on my eyes alone to navigate the murky woods.
Mel’s dead weight doesn’t help. Her labored pants spike the panic that stabs like daggers in my chest. I need to get her to a doctor.
The Resistance must be here somewhere. No one else would’ve attacked the camp while Mel and I were being interrogated.
They can save her.
I stumble over my boots as I pick up the pace, staring into the dark for any sign of my adopted family. I’m most of the way around the clearing, on a ridge overlooking the camp below, when I see her.
Cait.
Curled on the ground just outside the tree line, about fifteen feet ahead and to the right of where I am now. Four surly guards stand around her, pistols drawn.
I pause, shocked into stillness. Cait’s wrists and ankles are bound. Her thin shoulders are hunched, her forehead pressed to her knees. Her long blond hair is a mess. As I hesitate, she raises her head, revealing a fat black eye and a swollen, bleeding lip.
My heart shivers.
Oh, Cait. Why?
If she were here with the Resistance, she’d be in full tactical gear, no question. But all she’s wearing are her normal fatigues and a hoodie. If she brought weapons, they are no longer in her possession.
She followed us. Went rogue.
Mel’s harsh breath stutters as I glance down at the camp, at the bottom of the ridge beyond Cait.
Squads of sentries have spread in an organized wave through the rows of tents. The nearest group moves straight for the woods ahead, almost directly at the spot where Mel and I stood earlier tonight.
They’re going to cut off my route to the Veloster.
Once they get ahead of me, they’ll find the car. There’ll be no escaping. We’ll be stranded, dodging through the woods until they find us.
And they will find us.
If I run now, if I put my head down and sprint, I could still beat them to the car. I could still get Mel out.
But Cait.
I stare at her as she buries her face back in her knees. If I leave her, she will die at the hands of those evil interrogators. She won’t have anyone to save her.
My throat burns. The guards sweep closer, the opportunity for escape narrowing, and still I can’t bring myself to act.
My boots twitch toward the deeper woods, toward the Veloster waiting beyond, but I can’t leave Cait. I can’t.
As gently as possible, I lay Mel down at the base of a sprawling pine. Her blood is everywhere, saturating her clothes and smeared over my neck and shoulders, causing the fabric of my shirt to cling to my back.
I rest my ear on her chest and hold a palm in front of her mouth. Yes, she’s alive. The relief is so powerful I can hardly see straight.
“Keep breathing,” I whisper, brushing a loose strand of hair from her swollen face. “Keep fighting. Stay with me.”
With a soft kiss on her forehead, I leave her huddled beneath the sweeping boughs of the tree.
Dizziness slows me as I creep toward Cait, Mel’s glass shard clenched in my hand. Cait raises her head again, her uninjured eye wide. Her lip curls, and she jerks her head from side to side, a small, vehement motion.
She knows I’m coming.
I narrow my eyes, mouth flat, and continue. A twig snaps under my unsteady feet, setting my teeth on edge. Cait’s guards peer into the shadowy woods.
“Hey, assholes!” Her voice is thick but loud. “How long are we going to hang around here? I’m bored. And hungry. And, well, I have to pee, and I’m not going in my pants. Where’s the bathroom? Surely you have one?”
“Can it!” one of the sentries growls. The others ignore her, still searching the darkness around them for the source of the crack they must have heard.
Cait doesn’t pay the guard any heed. She continues to whine, a long string of noisy complaints, covering the sound of my blundering approach. The guards are suspicious, but they seem reluctant to move away from her.
“If you don’t shut up, I’ll give you something to complain about.” The man who reprimanded her before raises the butt of his pistol.
Before he can drive it down, I’m on his back, shoving the point of Mel’s glass shard into his eye. His scream splits the night and he doubles over, fingers clawing at his face. I disarm him easily. By the time the others open fire, I’m already swerving away between the trees.
I zip through the maze of branches, my gait unstable. If I lead them far enough into the woods, maybe I can double back and free Cait before they catch onto me. Then she can slip away and disappear into the forest. She’ll be able to evade the guards. No one can become invisible like Cait.
I drop under a fallen log and freeze, waiting. I hold perfectly still, silent even as my lungs scream for air. Two guards blow by me. Their swinging flashlights set my head whirling.
I wait ten more seconds, then sneak back to Cait, stolen pistol cocked and ready. The man with the glass in his eye is still shrieking and clutching at his face. Blood dribbles between his fingers and streaks down his forearms. The remaining guard stands over Cait, his gun fixed on her.
Despite the swimming in my head, I manage a clean shot, straight between his eyes. I put the second, injured guard out of his misery before the first hits the ground. Two quick pops and I’m clear. I rush for Cait, pulling apart the knots binding her wrists as quickly as I can.
She’s already snarling. “You stupid, idiotic, infuriating?—”
“Good to see you too.” I pull the rope from her wrists.
She sits up, eyes on the woods over my shoulder, where the guards who chased me through the trees are crashing our way like a pair of angry rhinos. I yank the rope from her ankles as a series of sharp cracks reverberate in my skull.
Cait and I dive in opposite directions. Bullets spray around us, throwing leaves and dirt everywhere.
“Don’t move!”
A woman steps toward me, her gun trained on my face. I scramble backward over the grass, too dizzy to stand. My shoulders bump into something scratchy.
Bark. A tree trunk.
“Where is she?” The other guard’s voice skitters up an octave. “The girl’s gone!”
A jolt of excitement hits my stomach.
Yes! Go, Cait! Run!
The woman rolls her eyes. “Then find her! I’ve got this one covered.”
Back pressed against the tree, I lick my dry lips. The world roils around me. I can hear the second guard through the ringing in my ears, kicking up leaves as he hunts for Cait. His wandering steps take him farther and farther away.
After a good minute, he groans. “No sign of her. She’s gone, I say.”
“I really doubt that.” The woman’s voice drips with impatience.
A gruesome gurgling noise is the only answer she gets. She glances over her shoulder, her face going pale. “Jenkins?”
The grisly sound continues, sputtering out until it fades completely. The woman shudders and backs away, her gun pointed over my head now. Her wide eyes search the woods behind me.
“Please.” The pistol rattles in her white-knuckled hands. “I’ll run. I won’t tell anyone where you are.”
Like a demon, Cait materializes out of the darkness, her dagger tearing through the woman’s throat. The guard falls to her knees and her hands scrabble at the bloody gash.
Cait and I don’t stay to watch her struggle. Instead, Cait drags me back into the woods in the wrong direction. Away from Mel.
“Wait,” I gasp, and she skids to a stop.
“So much blood.” She reaches toward me, then drops her hand. Her fingers shake. “How hurt are you?”
“I’m fine. This is mostly Mel’s blood.” My words warp on their way out. Panic seals my throat around them.
We need to get back to Mel.
I take Cait’s hand and pull her to the massive pine, where I crouch down, pushing the thick fringe of branches aside to reveal Mel, curled in the dirt. My heart stutters.
The swollen, violet-and-crimson pattern on Mel’s face stands out, stark against her milk-white skin. Blood leaks from her nose, from her mouth, from the worst of the welts, from the slash across her throat. It coats her abdomen and her shin, soaking through the fabric of her clothing. Behind me, Cait gasps.
“Oh, Tommy.” She drops to her knees by my side, and I’m shocked to see tears sparkling in her good eye. “Shirt,” she snaps.
“What?”
“Shirt! Now!” She clicks her fingers, eyes on Mel.
I yank my tee over my head and pass it to her. Without looking at me, Cait draws her dagger and slices the fabric down the middle. She balls up half and presses it over the wound in Mel’s gut. Shifting Mel carefully, she uses the other half to secure the wad tightly in place.
“She’s losing too much blood. If we don’t stop the bleeding…” Red coats Cait’s slender hands. “She won’t have long.”
My eyes burn. Desperately, I grab Cait’s arm. “What can we do? Please, Cait. Please. Save her!”
Cait shoots me a pained glance. “We need to get her to Aaliyah. I only know so much first aid. She won’t make it if we’re not quick. Where is the Veloster?”
“They cut us off. There’s no way we can get to it now.”
I drop my head into my hands, fighting the wave of misery that threatens to crush me.
“Okay,” Cait says, cool as ever. “Shh, Tommy. Listen. There’s a way. It’s not ideal, with Mel in this condition, but it might be our best chance.”
I raise my tear-stained face. “How?”
Cait casts a wary look over the woods around us. “When I followed you here, I hoped to extract you. That was my only goal. So I had to figure out how. How could I do it by myself, against so many?”
She pauses, frowning. “At first I thought it would be impossible. But then I remembered what Mel did for her team at Levett Tech. It gave me an idea. I would need to distract the Organization, to lure them away from you, wherever you might be. I knew a lone rebel wouldn’t be enough of a threat to do that, so I recruited Vik, Hunter, and Sam. We stole grenades and the Telluride and followed you here.”
Vik, Sam, and Hunter are here? Dead or alive?
“I climbed a tree and threw my grenades in four different directions, aiming for tents around the edge of the camp. The others did the same. Then, we fired our weapons with the goal of creating as much chaos as possible. We tried to sneak into the camp on the heels of the commotion and find you. We each took a different route to cover as much ground as possible.”
“The others?”
“Based on what I heard from those guards, I don’t think anyone else was detained. If they escaped, they’ll be back at the Telluride.”
Back at the Telluride.
Sam’s here. Sam can save her.
With a sigh, Cait goes on. “I knew there was a good chance the Veloster would be compromised, and I knew parking on the road would be risky, so I left the SUV at a farmhouse. Parked right in someone’s driveway. Hopefully whoever lives there is sleeping and hasn’t called the police.”
I stare. Cait defied orders to help Mel and me, even after being stripped of her title. She stole weapons, a car, assembled a team. To Cait, there’s no higher law, nothing more important, than orders. Nothing.
Until now.
Touched, I take her hand and give it a grateful squeeze. “Thank you.”
She squeezes back, then pulls away, running her fingers through her tangled hair. “The thing is, that driveway’s far. Five miles or so, through the woods the whole way. We could make a break for it, or we could hope a hole opens in the guards’ patrol so we can take the Veloster instead, meet the others that way. I won’t lie, traveling five miles through the forest is probably not in Mel’s best interest, but Sam can stabilize her better than I can. We need to get to him.”
My stomach drops as I examine Mel’s bruised, bone-pale face. If we could reach the Veloster, we could get to Sam faster, but we’d need to be both lucky and invisible. My stealth is compromised, and with Mel over my shoulders, I won’t be able to fight if I need to.
We won’t make it. But if she can hang on until we reach the Telluride, Sam will save her. He’ll keep her breathing until we get back to Aaliyah.
We have to take our chances in the woods.
“Let’s head for the Telluride. You’re incredible, Cait.”
She gives me a watery smile. “Let’s see whether this works before you say that.”
Ten minutes later, Cait’s leading me by the hand, helping me navigate as we sprint through the pitch-black forest. Mel hangs across my shoulders, bumping slightly as my steps waver under me. With her keen senses, Cait guides us away from patrolling guards, keeping us hidden. Keeping us safe.
I’ve never believed in miracles. But I have to admit, I just experienced one.
If one miracle could come to pass, why not two?
Please, Mel. Please. Don’t leave me.
Over and over, I beg in my mind, knowing she cannot hear. Pleading with her anyway.
And I run.