Sabotage (Powerless Nation Book 3) (8 page)

Her happiness drained when she spotted several military vehicles coming toward her. So much for avoiding attention.

Captain Downey was behind the wheel and he signaled for her to stop. She slowed, but when she saw the look on his face, she wished she’d taken another way out of town.
 

“Where are you headed?” he asked. “I was hoping we’d see you at the recruiting event today.”

“Of course,” said Dee, the lie coming easily. “I’m running a quick errand right now.”

“No doubt it can wait,” said Downey. “Why don’t you come on back with us? I’d hate for you to miss the excitement.” Dee was sure she detected an unsavory glint in the man’s eye. He reached down for something beside him on the seat and Dee panicked. What if it was a gun?

“All right, got it. I’ll follow you. Thanks. Bye!” Before the words were completely out of her mouth, she gunned the engine so hard she almost stalled it.

“Come back!” Downey shouted behind her. Without stopping to think, Dee swerved behind his truck and shot out the other side into a wooded area, thankful it wasn’t fenced. The trees grew too close together for the army vehicles to follow her out here.
 

She wove through the woods, hardly daring to glance back. Was she overreacting? Maybe he’d been reaching for a cigarette. She thought about the steel in his voice and was glad she hadn’t waited to see.

CHAPTER NINE

T
HE
WIND
CLAWED
AT
her face, leaving her cheeks raw. She blinked in the cold air, tears leaking from eyes. The snowmobile blasted ahead through the snow and she almost laughed. She’d gotten away and she’d see Mason soon.

As she passed the Turner home, she slowed. Darla Turner was outside in the snow. Dee looked more closely and realized the woman was in a robe. She pointed the snowmobile for the house.

Once she was closer, Dee saw tire and boot tracks ravaging the once pristine drifts. Darla was holding her new baby in her arms, kneeling over the body of her husband. He lay crumpled on the ground, his blood still steaming, melting the snow into pools of sorrow. There was a bullet wound in his head. Both Darla and her baby were wailing.

The woman wasn’t even wearing shoes, only thin slippers.
 

“We have to get you warmed up,” said Dee. “Come on.”
 

Darla didn’t move.

Dee shook her by the shoulder. “Mrs. Turner— Darla! Lizzie is going to freeze out here. She’s too little. We have to get her inside.”

Darla seemed to register Dee for the first time. “They took my son.”
 

Dee took the baby from Darla’s stiff arms and helped the woman stand. “Lean on me,” said Dee.

Inside, Dee put baby Lizzie in her bassinet near the stove. While she built up the fire, she asked Darla what had happened. “Where’s Charlie? Who took him?”

Darla stared into space. She didn’t speak until Dee began helping her put on dry clothes. “There were army men, first thing this morning.”

Dee’s mind immediately flashed to Downey. “Big guy? Blond?”
 

Darla held her head. “I don’t know. Maybe. Everything happened at once. They were at the door before we were even awake. Fred went to see who it was, but they were already in the house.” Darla indicated the empty room, as if the men were still there. “They demanded to know if we had any kids between the ages of fourteen and twenty. Said it was our duty to enlist Charlie.”

“He’s just a kid!” Dee exclaimed. “He’s too young to join the military.”

“Fred told Charlie to run, but it was too late. They tried to drag him out to their truck but Fred pulled a gun on them. He said they’d take Charlie over his dead body.”

Darla’s voice broke on a sob. “They shot him and then laughed. They asked me if they should take him over
my
dead body too. They were still laughing when they drove away with my boy.”

Lizzie fussed and Darla held her arms out automatically for her baby. Dee gave her to her mother and asked, “Do you know which way they went?”

Darla shook her head, her eyes focused on the precious bundle. Dee hoped she would be okay to take care of the baby.
 

Dee’s stomach knotted with a fear so sharp it hurt. A horrible premonition came over her. “Are you sure you don’t remember what he looked like? The man in charge?” Dee already thought she knew the answer.

Darla pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand. “Evil,” she said. “Like a blond vampire.”

Dee raced for the snowmobile and pointed it at Grandpa’s farmhouse.

*

The ride took forever, especially when she saw billowing black smoke rising in the sky ahead of her. She pressed the accelerator and hurried down the lane toward the house.
 

When she came around the corner she discovered the source of the smoke. The barn was on fire.

Animals were screaming, and their black and white farm dog ran up and barked at her. “Jasper!” yelled Dee. “Where is everyone?”

Jasper raced away, running in circles around the barn, barking like crazy. Dee listened. Were those voices?

She ran to the back of the barn where the heat from the flames was less intense. The door was barricaded with a bar on the outside.
 

There was definitely someone inside. Someone was sobbing, and beating fists against the door. She lifted the bar and swung the door open.

Sammy stumbled out, followed by Angela, Katy, and Joseph.

“Is anyone else in there?” Dee yelled. “Where are the others?”

Angela shook her head and pulled Dee away from the flaming building.

“Where are they?” Dee screamed, pulling her arm roughly from Angela’s grip. “Where’s Mason?”

Animals were running out of the barn now—several chickens and a couple of cows, the whites of their eyes showing as they bellowed their fear.

Angela caught Dee’s hand again and pulled her away. She coughed and tried to speak.

“Not… here,” she managed.

“They’re not in there?” Dee shook her roughly by the shoulders. “Where are they?”

Angela opened her mouth to answer and then sank to the ground, her body wracked by coughs.
 

“Sammy, where’s Mason?” she asked the little boy. “Where are Hyrum and Kade and Jeremiah? What
happened
? Why won’t anyone tell me what’s going on?

Sammy ran to her and hugged her around her knees, but didn’t answer.

Dee realized everyone was too overwhelmed by the smoke and the fire to speak. She needed to help them calm down and find out if they were hurt.

Inside the house, Katy shuddered at the sight of the flames in the fireplace, and the flickering lights reflected in Joseph’s fear-filled eyes. Sammy was quieter and more subdued than she’d ever seen him.
 

Angela couldn’t stop coughing and she raised a hand to cover her mouth. Her fingers were bloody, the nails and fingertips shredded. Dee swallowed a lump in her throat. Angela had obviously been trying to get the children out of the barn by digging through the wood with her bare hands.

Dee looked everyone over. There were some minor burns, but nothing too bad. She found the bucket of clean water they kept in the kitchen and used it to put cold cloths on the burns.
 

Once the children were taken care of and tucked under a blanket on the couch, Dee sat next to Angela in the kitchen. “Let me see your hands.” The tips of her fingers were full of slivers. Dee lit a lamp and brought it closer, then got out a needle and began to gently pry the pieces of wood from her flesh.

“The kids are asleep on the couch,” Dee said. “You can tell me now.”

Angela’s rough voice was a snarled thread. “The boys were out in the barn doing chores while I made breakfast. I heard shouting and when I got outside, Hyrum and Kade were fighting a bunch of men. They were holding their own too,” she said with a hint of pride in her voice.
 

“Then someone grabbed me and held a gun to my head. He told the boys if they wouldn’t cooperate, there would be
repercussions
.” Angela flinched and Dee didn’t know if it was the memory or her efforts to remove the splinters.
 

“That’s when Sammy came outside. He saw them loading the boys on the truck and he lost it. Somehow he got a gun and shot someone in the foot.” Angela barked a humorless laugh that turned into a hacking cough. “They were so angry,” she whispered.

Dee listened in growing horror. “Was that when they locked you in the barn?”

“They tried to burn us alive.”

Dee was sure Downey was behind this, and she knew he had to be stopped. “Did they say why they wanted them?”

“They’re building an army. You’re not safe here,” Angela added. “They said girls can fire guns just as well as boys.”

Dee thought of Sena and the kids in her school class. By now, Downey had probably conscripted all of them. His offer to give out supplies was merely an excuse to get everyone in one place so he could steal their children.

“Do you have any idea where they were taking them?” asked Dee, trying to steady her voice. Her hands were shaking, and she set the needle aside, hot anger burning in her chest.
 

The front door opened and Dee jumped to her feet, looking around frantically for a weapon. Then a familiar voice shouted, “Angela!”

She choked back a sob, and the strength suddenly went out of her legs. Mason burst into the kitchen.

“Dee?” He gathered her in his arms and held her.

“H-how are you here?” she stammered. “I thought they’d taken you.”

“Taken me? Who? I was over at the Searle place working on a project. I saw the smoke and came straight over. What happened?”

“Hyrum, Kade, and Jeremiah were kidnapped. We’re going to get them back.”

*

While Dee told Mason what had happened, Angela worked in the kitchen, awkwardly using her bandaged hands to prepare food for their trip. When she handed the bag to Mason, her face was wet with tears.

Mason engulfed Angela in a tight hug and whispered, “We’re family now. I’ll bring them home.”

Dee said goodbye to Sammy, Joseph, and then Katy. “We’ll be back, okay?” she told Hyrum’s little sister, kissing her pudgy cheek. “We’re going to go get your brothers, so don’t you worry.”

Katy’s trusting eyes fixed firmly on Dee, and she spoke for the first time since her ordeal. “I know you will.”

Dee and Mason loaded their supplies on the snowmobile, then filled it with gas from the large farm tank.
 

Mason checked the pack. “We have blankets, food, matches, and first aid supplies. Can you think of anything else?”

“A gun,” Dee said without hesitation.

Mason patted his pocket. “We’re covered.”

They raced toward Lookout Falls, the sound of the snowmobile rolling through the early afternoon.

They stuck to the fields and forest, avoiding the main roads, not wanting to run into any of Downey’s men. Dee drove and Mason rode behind her, his breath warm against her ear. She felt a burst of anger at Captain Downey. She had wanted to spend the day with Mason, but not like this.

As they neared the steep rise that flanked one side of town, Dee slowed. “I think we had better go the rest of the way on foot.”
 

“Agreed,” said Mason.

They hid the snowmobile beneath low hanging branches of a large evergreen in a dense copse of trees. The teens didn’t have to go far before they reached a ridge that gave them an unobstructed view into town. Several pillars of smoke climbed into the heavens, black towers starkly visible against the glowing backdrop of the evening sky.
 

There weren’t any trees on the rocky ledge, but several boulders provided cover. Mason reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a pair of binoculars and focused them on Lookout Falls.

“Can you see anything?” asked Dee.
 

“There are at least six big trucks and a lot of guys in camo, all armed. They’re loading people onto the trucks.”

“Do you see anyone you know?”

Mason studied the scene for a minute. “Yes. A few kids from school. I’m surprised they aren’t putting up more of a fight.”

“I’m not,” said Dee grimly, pointing to a vehicle on the outskirts of town. “Look at that.” She didn’t need the binoculars to make out an army tank.

Or the explosion, when the tank fired a few moments later.

CHAPTER TEN

A
TREMENDOUS
BURST
OF
sound rocked the air around them, and a bright flash of light instantly became a billowing dust cloud — all that was left of someone’s home. Dee hoped no one was inside.

“Lookout Falls never stood a chance,” she said grimly. “Downey wasn’t planning to bring them supplies. He just wanted more guns and recruits.” A wave of sorrow washed over her for the town that had so recently become her home.

Mason raised the binoculars again. “It looks like they’re moving out.” The line of trucks was lumbering toward the main road out of town.
 

“We should follow them,” Dee said, glancing at the sky. “It’s dark enough they probably won’t notice us if we stay back and keep the lights off.”

They hurried back down the steep ridge to the snowmobile, lucky they didn’t hurt themselves in their haste over the rough ground.
 

It was a frigid night, and the cold wind took their breath away.
 

Dee started the engine and they followed the trucks, keeping a safe distance. After a while they turned off the main road and onto a dirt track surrounded by thick trees. Dee felt Mason’s rough whiskers against her skin as he spoke into her ear. “I think they’re slowing down.”

Dee pulled to a stop in the trees and shut off the engine. The convoy turned off the road and drove through a gate lit by a large floodlight. “Where are we?” she asked.

Mason studied the scenery. “Not sure, but it looks familiar.”
 

“If we start the machine again they’ll hear it.”

“I guess we’re stuck here,” Mason said. “Do you want to explore a little?”