The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) (10 page)

“Farm-fresh eggs,” he said, grabbing some from a bowl on the counter and cracking them into the pan. Amory looked strangely oversized in the small kitchen, but he seemed at home.
 

It was an odd package, I thought — a guy who read mystery novels and cut out his own CID so he could drop out of med school and run away to join a gang of illegals living on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Now he was making me eggs. But by the time he flipped them onto my plate over easy, I found I didn’t care. Mouth watering, I scarfed down four, and he poured me a glass of water.
 

“Better slow down. You’ll make yourself sick if you haven’t eaten in a while.”

“I haven’t had enough to eat since I left,” I said between bites, shoveling in food with my good arm. “And I haven’t had eggs in months.”
 

Amory sat down across from me and watched me eat with a mixture of amusement and wariness.
 

“What?” I asked. “Are you going to throw me to the carriers now that I’m eating you out of house and home?”

He looked startled and then apologetic. “No. Sorry, I was just wondering where you were from. What brings you here?”

I set down my fork. He had vouched for me, even when I had posed a threat to him and his friends, and now I was nobody as far as the PMC was concerned. I realized there was no harm in telling him the truth.

“I’m on the run,” I said. “My friend Greyson was captured by the PMC, and I want to find him and free him from prison.”

I carefully left out the part about appearing on the news and the PMC manhunt that ensued after I was identified by the rovers.
 

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“It was my fault. We were stealing food from a grocery store. We were planning to make a run for it, and I missed one of the rovers.” I didn’t know why I was spilling out the whole story. Amory hadn’t asked me to. “We were ambushed right outside, and he gave himself up so I wouldn’t be captured.”

I looked up at him, and he was looking at me with understanding, but not pity. His mouth twitched as if he were going to say something, but instead, he reached across the table and brushed his thumb over my arm, where a large bruise was beginning to form. It was where he had twisted and pushed into my arm when he had tackled me.

“Shit. I’m sorry about that.”
 

I wasn’t sure if he was talking about the bruise or not.

I shrugged. It still hurt, but I couldn’t blame him. After all, he fought for me to stay even after I came at him with a knife.

“Are you okay?” I asked, nodding at his jaw. There wasn’t a bruise, but I knew it had to hurt where I’d struck him.

“I’m fine. It was a decent hit, though.”

I grinned sheepishly.

Amory reached in his medical bag for the antiseptic. He held my forearm lightly and began cleaning the cuts on my wrists where the carriers’ zip ties had dug into my skin. It stung, but in a good way that makes you feel as if you’re going to be all right again. His hands were strong but surprisingly gentle.

“What are these from?” he asked quietly.

“A couple of carriers grabbed me and tied me up.”

He stiffened. “Carriers had you? When?”

“Yesterday.”

“And you escaped?”

I nodded. “They fell asleep.”

“Shit.” He slammed his fist on the table. “How far behind you?”

“I-I don’t know. I’ve been kind of out of it. They move pretty slow, normally.”

He was already on his feet calling for the others. Roman stomped into the kitchen first, looking annoyed.

“We need to be on high alert for carriers,” said Amory. “Haven had a run-in with them yesterday on the trail.”

“
Now
she tells us?” Roman’s voice was full of hatred.

My stomach dropped. “Carriers” should have been the first word out of my mouth when Amory brought me to the house, but at the time, I’d been focused on other things. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the carriers might follow me to the farm.

“How many are there?” Roman spat.
 

“F-four,” I stammered.

“Why didn’t you say something?”

Amory wasn’t coming to my defense. Why should he?

“I thought you were a carrier when you tackled me,” I mumbled.

“Well, clearly I’m not.” He looked sullen again. “If carriers are on the move, we have to be prepared.”

“Oh, shut up!” Logan had reappeared at the bottom of the stairs, looking irritated. “Honestly, she’s been through enough today.”

Everyone, including me, stopped and stared at Logan in surprise. I couldn’t believe she was coming to my defense.

“Well, I mean, it’s a pretty bad day when you run into a bunch of carriers and then stumble onto a farm where everyone’s like, ‘Hey guys, should we kill her?’ Amory cut her arm open, for god’s sake.” She made a face at them, one hand on her hip.

I felt a rush of gratitude toward Logan and decided to take advantage of Roman’s and Amory’s temporary speechlessness to explain.
 

“I was captured yesterday,” I said. “They tied me up, but I don’t know why. I escaped when they fell asleep. I think they were at least a few hours behind me.”

Everyone turned to look at me.

“You were their prisoner?” Roman asked in disbelief.
 

I nodded.

“Why would they —” Logan began, but Roman cut her off.

“You’re lying. Carriers don’t take hostages! They slit your throat and leave you to die. If you had a run-in with a pack of them, you’d be dead.”

Amory was studying me. “I believe her,” he said finally. “She was ready to stab me with that butter knife I got off her. Something definitely had her running scared.”

“Well then, she could be infected!” Roman yelled. He rounded on Amory. “Why did you bring her here? She’s been nothing but trouble!”

What was this guy’s problem?

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Logan screamed. “She was vaccinated!”

“That vaccine is bullshit!” Roman yelled. “Nothing but a media stunt to control the American people. If she came in contact with carriers, she could be infected.”

 
“It doesn’t work like that, and you know it,” said Logan. “Nobody knows for sure how the virus spreads.” She turned to me, looking serious. “Did they have the sores yet?”

I shook my head. “These ones weren’t far enough along. They’d only been infected for two months or so, by the looks of it.”

Logan turned to Roman. “There. We’ll know within a week if she’s infected. The fever will set in, and you’ll see it in her eyes. If she has the virus, we’ll have plenty of warning before she becomes a murderous, raving lunatic.”

“Well, if they’re starting to take hostages, we’ve got a bigger problem than before,” said Amory. “The virus is mutating. They’re getting smarter.”

Logan rolled her eyes. “Well, this looks like a case for the idiot detectives. Haven’s coming with me.”

Logan threaded her arm through mine, and I allowed her to steer me up the stairs, away from the boys. It was very strange to be pulled along by this capricious, fiery blonde when she had been vying for my murder only hours ago.

“Max told me Roman destroyed your CID,” she explained. “I’m sorry about before. We’re all just a little . . . on edge living out here.”

“What is this place?” I asked.
 

“It’s supposed to be a safe house, but it doesn’t always feel very safe. Not with everything that’s going on.”
 

We reached the landing at the top of the stairs.

“Only one bathroom,” she said apologetically. “We can’t exceed our energy quota, so hot water is a luxury. But I figure after what you’ve been through, a hot bath would be nice.”

I smiled. “If I weren’t disgusting, I would hug you right now.”

Logan beamed, squeezing my arm. “It’s going to be nice having another girl around here. I mean, there’s Ida, but she’s old!”

She gestured to the bathroom, which was dark except for a single candle. “Like I said, electricity is only for the essentials.”

For a split second, I wondered how she kept her long blond waves so pristine without a hairdryer.

“That’s my room, and that’s Max’s room.” Logan pointed to the only closed door, wrinkling her nose. “Roman’s room . . . sorry he’s such a dick, by the way. You’ll get used to it. That over there is Ida’s room.”

“Who’s Ida?”
 

“Oh! I totally forgot to tell you about her. This is her house. The farm has been in her family for decades. She has an open-door policy for illegals on the run. She’s documented, but she’s a sympathizer. She teaches at the university in Columbia, so she only comes out here on the weekends.”

“That’s where I went to school,” I said.

“You came all the way here on foot?”

I nodded.

“That’s incredible.”

“How long have you all been here?” I asked.

“Roman’s been here the longest . . . nine months or so. Since the mandatory ID bill passed, I think. Right after Ida opened her home to undocumented illegals. Max and Amory came here together a few months after that. Amory was in bad shape — nearly killed himself cutting out his CID. Then I came. I’ve been here almost six months. There are others who stay here, of course — people who are just passing through and in need of a safe place to sleep for the night — but most don’t stay long.”

“I guess I thought you all came here together.”

She smiled. “Oh, no. You just get to know people pretty well when they’re under your skin twenty-four/seven. Some people more than others . . .” She rolled her eyes, gesturing to Roman’s door.

“Your room will be up here.”
 

I stopped. “I really appreciate all this, but I really won’t be staying long. My friend has been captured by the PMC, and I have to keep making my way east.”

“Haven, you won’t make it to Sector X on foot.”

“I have to try.” I swallowed. After saying it aloud a second time, it sounded hopeless, even to me.

By the expression she wore, I could tell Logan understood — as if she too had lost someone in the aftermath of the Collapse. What a mess.
 

“There’s a migratory bunch of rebels passing through sometime in the next two weeks,” she said. “Maybe you can go with them. They have transportation. It will be much faster than going on foot.”

“Would they let me come?”

“I don’t see why they wouldn’t. You’re on our side.”

I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude for her. She had come up with a better plan in five seconds than I had come up with in five days.

“But for now, you need a place to recover,” she said.

I followed her up a small flight of extremely steep stairs to a tiny landing. There were only two rooms. One door was closed, which I recognized as Amory’s room, where I had slept earlier. The other room looked about the same but didn’t have any windows. It was just large enough to hold a single bed with a cheery quilt, a bedside table with a propane lamp, and a tiny chest of drawers. Somebody had already laid out a stack of clean towels on the bed.

“It gets pretty cold up here, but there’s extra blankets in the dresser. You can come downstairs and sleep by the fire if you want. Amory sometimes does, now that it’s getting colder.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “I’ve been sleeping on the ground. You have no idea how grateful I am.”

She laughed. “Really, I do. I’ll bring you some clean clothes to change into, and we can ask Ida to pick you up some things at the Exchange when she goes.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s our pleasure,” she said, squeezing my arm. “We know what it’s like out there.” She turned to go but at the last minute threw her arms around my neck in a body-crushing, floral-smelling hug. “I’m so glad you’re here. Living with three boys is really awful!”

I laughed and she released me, flying out of my room and thundering down the stairs.

Once she left, I caught a glimpse of myself in the small mirror that hung on the back of the door. I was startled by how awful I looked. My cheeks looked sunken and streaked with dirt. My hair was a matted, tangled knot. I looked like a wild animal. A bath could wait no longer.

Grabbing a towel, I retraced my steps down to the tiny bathroom. Like most of the rooms, the wood panels were painted white, and a huge clawed bathtub took up nearly half the room. The candle had burned down, but I was grateful for the dim lighting as I peeled off my filthy clothes.

Sinking into the hot bath water, I didn’t think anything had ever felt so wonderful. I fought the temptation to fill the tub to the brim and sink down deep to let the warmth envelop my entire body. Careful not to get my freshly stitched arm wet, I scrubbed the grime off my body, turning the bathwater a murky gray.
 

I carefully removed Amory’s head dressing and dipped backwards to wet my hair. My head wound stung sharply, but my hair was too filthy not to wash. Freeing the dirt and debris from the tangled, matted locks, I marveled at the dark chestnut sheen I hadn’t seen in days.

By the time the water cooled, the candle was burning so low it had nearly gone out. I hurried to dry myself and wrapped the skimpy towel around my torso. Peeking out through a crack in the door to see if the coast was clear, I dashed up the stairs to my room with my dirty clothes in a bundle.

As promised, Logan had left some of her own clothes for me to wear on the bed: a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, a soft hoodie, and sweats to sleep in. I found her jeans to be a bit baggy — she was much curvier than I was — so they sat low on my hips.

I was still in awe over the relative cleanliness of my hair, so I left it to dry in its choppy waves over my shoulders and padded down the two flights of stairs to the first floor.

I found Logan on the back porch cleaning a shotgun. She jumped up when she saw me, looking relieved by my normal, less grimy appearance.

“You look refreshed!”

“You have no idea.” I grinned, eyeing the disassembled gun warily. What kind of house had I wandered into?
 

“Oh! Look at you, poor thing!” A warm but high-pitched cry from the front door caused me to nearly jump out of Logan’s ill-fitting jeans.