Three (Article 5) (30 page)

I slung a pack of medical supplies from the truck’s cab over my back. Chase took point, his gun held high and ready, while Jesse covered our backs. No one knew what to expect as we hiked through the high grass between the beach and what was left of the town, but we prepared for the worst.

It didn’t help that I had the skin-crawling sensation of someone’s eyes on my back.

“Here,” Chase said quietly as a stop sign on the main road came into view. Once we reached the street I recognized the area. Two half-burned houses, their remains still black and raw, butted up against an old shipyard where half a dozen boats were turned on their sides. Three blocks down was the mini-mart where the injured had taken refuge, and as we made our way toward it I counted how many places there were to hide.

The intersection before the mini-mart was empty. The gas pumps still stood, but their hoses were ripped away. In the sun outside the entrance a man in street clothes was seated on a metal chair. He was slumped forward, asleep, his hands on his lap, his chin on his chest.

His hair was blond and messy.

“Tucker.” I started forward, but Jesse snagged my forearm.

Muscles tense, I crouched beside him behind an overturned sailboat, twenty feet away. Chase crept forward, disappearing behind the shop on the opposite side of the street.

“Listen,” Jesse whispered.

Silence. Nothing but the birds and the crash of the waves at the beach. My blood began to buzz. No shadows moved behind the broken windows. Those that had stayed behind with the medic were hurt, and I had supplies on my back that could help.

“Stay here.” Stealthily, Jesse bled into the surrounding landscape, making his way around the building.

I kept my eyes on Tucker, finding it odd that he sat in the sun when the metal awning provided shade just a few feet to his right. He seemed to sense that I was watching him because a second later he shook himself awake and rolled his head in a slow circle. Even from a distance I could see the red welts on his face, and the brown spattering of dried blood across his chest.

Someone had done a number on him.

I lowered the pack of medical supplies to the ground beside me while I waited. Across the street Chase stepped out into the open. I caught a glimpse of Jesse’s white undershirt moving through the thick emerald shrubbery behind the overturned trash cans in the back. He waved to Chase.

I left the pack and hurried toward Tucker, the gun I carried heavy in the back of my waistband. In the open, the sun was hot, and I couldn’t imagine how Tucker had been able to stand it.

I had only reached the first set of gas pumps when he saw me. He did a double take, and I cringed at the deep cut across his jaw. Then, so subtly I almost missed it, his gaze lifted.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he whispered.

The next moments seemed to pause, and then lurch forward at twice the speed.

I followed Tucker’s gaze, and saw the flash of a navy dart across the roof. Seconds after a clatter on the metal came a loud
crack,
but I didn’t stop to see where the shot had been aimed because I was running for the closest cover, the mini-mart.

Another shot, and then another. I crashed into Tucker, and knocked him into the side of the building. We fell hard, a mess of arms, legs, and the hard metal angles of the chair.

“Help me up!” he shouted.

I was already scrambling toward the entrance on my hands and knees. A quick look over my shoulder revealed that he had yet to rise, and was thrashing around like a fish out of water. It was only then I saw that his hands were bound in front of him, and his waist and legs were fastened to the chair.

What remained of the glass double doors behind me shattered as a bullet screamed by my left ear. My ears rang, my heart hammered against my rib cage. I drew myself as close as I could to the building, feeling the shards of glass slash my thighs, and reached for the gun.

The trigger stuck.

An instant of frozen panic.

I released the safety, cocked the slide, and fired up at the roof. Once, twice. The kickback sent reverberations up my arms. I locked my elbows and fired again, straight into the metal overhead, watching the holes puncture through it like it was tin foil. There was a stunted cry, and then a crash as the awning gave way near my last shot, and a man fell through, landing ten feet away. There was blood on his face. It soaked through his open uniform jacket. He gripped his leg, screaming. It bent forward at the knee to the same degree that the other bent back.

I shoved myself up. In a surge of strength I grabbed Tucker’s shoulders and began to drag him backward through the front doors of the mini-mart. He twisted, trying to help me, and threw the chair onto its side.

My back strained. The muscles of my legs quaked. With a cry, I jerked us both through the entrance, landing on a warm, dusty floor.

Immediately I searched for more soldiers, any signs of movement. It wasn’t until that moment that I saw what filled the mini-mart.

Bodies. A dozen of them. Tossed over each other like dirty laundry. I smelled it then, the rotting flesh, the sharp tang of blood. Flies buzzed through the air, a thick black cloud over them.

The medic from Chicago leaned against an empty rack, his face white with death, a hole in the center of his forehead.

I stared at the gun in my hands needing something, anything, solid to hold on to. My vision shook, or maybe it was my grasp. Maybe it was my whole body.

We were too late. The MM had set an ambush and used Tucker as the bait. And DeWitt, who’d led us to believe he’d sent a team to help, had done nothing.

There was no time to think about it now.

I crouched behind the counter, locking my jaw as I removed an icicle-shaped piece of glass an inch wide from my side. My mouth opened in a silent scream, but though the beige tunic blossomed red, the pain numbed instantly. I pressed down on it to slow the bleeding.

“Chase,” I said between my teeth. “Do you see him?”

Tucker had managed to free his waist from the chair, though his ankles and wrists were still bound.

“Find something sharp!” he ordered.

I grabbed the closest thing I could, the piece of glass that had been embedded in my skin, and crawled over to him, keeping as low as I could. I sawed at the tight ropes around his hands.

“Don’t move!” I snapped at him when he strained against the ties.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” he chanted.

The shots continued outside, and when I heard a grunt, and a drawn-out groan of pain, I dropped the glass and shoved past him, ducking low to see who had been hit.

A soldier kneeled out in the middle of the street. He lifted the rifle to his shoulder too slowly, and in the time before he fired he was hit three times across the chest. He fell back, motionless. I didn’t see the shooter until Jesse streaked by toward the cover of the shipyard.

Another window shattered. Tucker, hands now released, grabbed my arm and ripped me back. He returned to frantically trying to cut the rope around his ankles.

“They followed me,” he said. “I didn’t know. I swear.” His eyes, green and glassy, met mine. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

I believed him.

A groan behind me drew my attention, and both Tucker and I froze. Still with the gun aimed on the door I crawled backward, keeping my head low.

The first thing I saw was Jack, or what had once been Jack, his long body splayed out across the floor as if he’d been tossed there. Under his legs was someone else. Someone whose pale face was turned to the side, revealing a head of light brown hair, matted with blood.

“Sean?” I kept my eyes on the door but crouched low, close to his face. I gave his arm a firm shake and he groaned again. He’d been shot low in the shoulder, but from the looks of his shirt had bled significantly.

A bullet zipped overhead, implanting in the back wall. Tucker swore.

With one arm I shoved Jack’s legs off of Sean’s, and pinched him as hard as I could beneath one knee.

He gasped, coughed weakly. The tears burned my eyes. I was so overcome with relief I nearly broke down.

“Sean!” My voice cracked. “Get up right now!”

“Ember?”

“
Up!
” I ordered. He struggled to get to his elbows. His eyes found Jack and wandered around the rest of the room before falling out of focus.

“Three,” he said faintly. “They know where the doctor is. We’ve got to get back. Becca’s…”

The screech of metal behind me, and someone burst through the back door.

I jerked my gun around, and felt the sob strangle my breath when I saw Chase.

“Ember!”

“Here,” I said. He dodged between the bodies, eyes going wide with horror before stooping beside me.

“DeWitt didn’t send anyone,” I said.

“You sure about that?” His voice was cold, and his intention made my blood run cold. This couldn’t have been Three’s work. This had to be the MM.

“Good. You brought backup,” mumbled Sean. His eyes began to roll back.

I pinched him again, this time in the crook of his elbow.

“Ow!” Sean shook his head.

“Jesse?” Chase asked me.

“Last I saw he was running for the shipyard.”

His lip curled back as he saw the way my shirt was sticking to my side. “You’re hit.”

“Just glass,” I told him. “I’m fine.”

He looked as though he didn’t believe me, but nodded anyway. “I’ll clear the back for you. It’s a straight shot into the woods; we’ll meet back at the car.”

“You hear that Sean? We’re running,” I said. “Get ready.”

He groaned as Chase hoisted him to his feet.

“Wait,” I heard Tucker say from the other side of the counter. “Wait, I’m almost … wait, okay?”

Chase flinched, his eyes cold and hard.

“We can’t leave him,” I said.

“Once you’re clear, I’ll come back for him.”

“Chase…”

His hand cupped the back of my neck and drew me forward, smashing his lips against my brow. He was gone too soon; when I opened my eyes it was to see his back as he dodged toward the exit.

I ducked under Sean’s arm and we hobbled after Chase. When we were in the doorframe, I wiped the sweat off my hand and replaced the gun, then made sure my friend was tight against my side.

“Ready?” Chase asked.

I glanced to Sean. He inhaled through his nostrils, face beginning to flush in patches.

“Now or never,” he said.

I nodded.

Chase stepped out on the crumbling concrete step and aimed directly into the woods. Shots came from the roof, and then someone called, “Hey! They’re back here!”

Without hesitation, Chase ran to the side, spun, and fired up at the roof. Sean and I sprinted toward the tree line. We hit the bushes with a crash, barely staying upright. I told my feet to keep moving, and they pedaled on, tearing through the vines and flimsy roots. Sean stumbled, then regained his footing, shoving forward.

I grabbed his arm. “Keep going,” I said. “There’s a truck three miles south where the road ends. I’ll meet you there.”

He looked like he would object, but when I pushed him, he turned and stumbled away.

“Come on, Chase,” I whispered. Gripping the gun I ducked behind an overturned refrigerator someone had left out here years ago. Chase was back inside the building now; I could see his shadow move across the room.

Ten seconds,
I told myself. I would give him ten seconds to get out, then I was going back after him.

Nine.

Eight.

Seven.

Six.

Chase sprinted through the exit, head down. Someone rounded the side of the building and began firing, and Chase dropped, rolling across the ground.

I jumped to my feet. Just before I crossed into the open, Tucker broke through the door and ran to Chase. He bent and grabbed his shirt, pulling him up.

Another shot, only this one from around the side of the building. Automatically, I ducked low, but my mouth fell open in shock when I saw Jesse firing toward Chase and Tucker.

No!
I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find my voice. Jesse was making a mistake. Tucker was with us, he’d been imprisoned.

Tucker fell to his side with a blunted cry. He gripped his thigh and drew his knee to his chest.

Jesse disappeared around the side of the building again.

Chase looked down at Tucker for one instant, but that was all it took.

“Freeze!” shouted a soldier from the opposite side of the building. “Drop your weapon!”

I raised my gun, willing my arms to stop shaking. A noise in the bushes behind me startled me, and I glanced back, but saw nothing. When I turned back around, Chase had lowered his gun, and dropped it on the ground. Two soldiers faced him now, and another emerged from where Jesse had been hiding just seconds ago. The guard on the roof aimed down his sights at both he and Tucker.

Chase raised his hands in surrender.

A soldier approached and kicked Chase’s gun across the dirt in my direction.

“Lucky I don’t kill you right now,” he spat. “On the ground. Hands behind your head. The chief’s got some questions for you.”

The chief was in Charlotte for the celebration. They meant for Chase to join the other prisoners there.

I lifted my gun again, blinking through the sweat dripping in my eyes, ignoring the whispering in the grass behind me.

I aimed.

I never saw the rope slip around my neck.

CHAPTER

20

THE
boat rocked gently from side to side. The water below was silent, slick and black as oil, coating the metal siding and dripping over the rim with the sway. Overhead, the sun beat down, cold and unmerciful. I shivered.

Chase stood on the shore ten feet away. He dragged his toe in the water, jolting back when it burned the bottom of his boot with a harsh hiss. I searched the hull desperately for a paddle, but found only splintered pieces of wood.

“It’s broken,” I called, holding them up. The waves dragged me away, inch by inch. They thrashed harder, and I gripped the wooden bench I sat upon, fearful the boat would capsize.