Waterproof (16 page)

Jackson’s hand grabbed me underneath the arm, stopping my impending fall. “We’ll get them,” he whispered and I nodded in agreement.

“You guys coming? It’s almost dinner time,” Dixon said. “But you might want to clean up first.” He stared at our recycled clothing and disheveled hair and wrinkled his nose. “We usually only get two showers a week, but I think they’ll make an exception for you. You guys reek.”

Lew huffed and I laughed. I bet we did smell something awful. Not to mention the distinct scent of dried blood and lingering death embedded into these borrowed uniforms. And did he say shower?

We followed Dixon through the gate in into one of the buildings where most mercenaries resided. With one last glance at the factory lingering like a black cloud behind us, I ducked my head and walked inside.

We’d accomplished part one of our plan.

SIXTEEN

Vivienne

“Vee
! Get up!”

Hunter’s voice drifted through my hazy thoughts as I covered my face with the pillow. “Go away. I just fell asleep.” I
’d spent another restless night thinking about my interaction with Riley and wondering how I could use him to our advantage. I vaguely remember drifting to sleep after swearing off the tenth stupid plan.

“Get. Up.” Hunter yanked the pillow off my
head and tossed the small, but comfortable, blanket to the ground. “I have to show you something.”

The chill in the air forced me to open my eyes but I only found darkness. “What time is
it? And why are you waking me?” I tried to pull the blanket up off the floor, but Hunter stepped on it. I glared.

“Be quiet,” he said in an exaggerated whisper and I had to smile. I don’t ever remember Hunter taking control like this before and I felt proud. Then the annoyance kicked in.

“If you don’t want us to get in trouble then you should just climb back in your bed and go to sleep,” I said. Although the large room with several hundred beds gave us a minuscule sense of privacy, the armed guards that stood watch at the doors all night would be suspicious to see us talking right now.

Hunter dropped to his knees so he wouldn’t be seen. “I have to show you something.
Some
one
, actually.”

“Someone?”
My heart flipped. “Someone we know?”

Hunter smiled
a little. “Yes, but not Zach. Sorry.”

The tears in my eyes built until I could no longer blink them away.
“It’s okay.” I tried to smile. “Take me to them.”

Hunter slunk away between the beds like a stealthy ninja and I wondered how many times he
’d done this before. We’d only been here a few days, yet he’d learned where all the shadows were and how to use them to his advantage. The surge of pride swooped over me again like a warm coat. I had no doubt Hunter would find a way to survive if he were on his own. We’d taught him well.

Halfway through the room, he suddenly stopped. Waving
me back against the wall, I crouched down between two bunk beds. The deserter on my left snored so loudly I doubted any of our guards would be able to hear us. In fact, I couldn’t even hear myself think.

I turned my head to look at the bottom bunk on my right and almost screamed when I caught someone staring back at me. Under the cover of the blanket, a pair of eyes glared out at me. They belonged to an older man
and I couldn’t interpret his look. Chills swept down the back of my neck in a way that set my senses on high alert.

The scuffling of boots drew my attention away from the creepy man. Hunter had nestled ag
ainst the next set of beds and huddled in the corner, perfectly blocked by the shadows. A mercenary shuffled by slowly, turning his head from side to side looking for trouble makers. I crouched down low enough I could have crawled under the bed. When my knee hit the metal frame and caused a screech, I held my breath.

The old man continued to stare at me and I couldn’t tell if he was friend or foe. The mercenary stopped walking and took a few steps backward, obviously hearing my mistake. I lifted my finger to my lips asking the man to remain silent. He
winked and another surge of chills flitted through me. But at least he kept my secret.

A minute later, the
mercenary returned to his rounds and walked to the other side of the vast room. Hunter flagged me forward again and I followed him past several more sets of beds. We were almost to the end when he jumped to the side and stooped down next to the bottom bunk.

“See?”
he whispered to me.

“Who is it?” The generic lump
in the blanket didn’t help identify the person underneath.

Hunter grabbed a hold of a pair of shoulders and shook them back and forth. “Wake up. Someone’s here to see you.”

Tossing the blanket down to her chest, I instantly recognized the flaming red hair. “Sasha?”

She smiled at me, a genuine smile that spoke a thousand words, and pushed up to her elbows.
“Vivienne. I’m very happy to see you and Hunter here alive.”

I leaned forward and hugged my friend. She squeezed me so tight I could barely breathe, but I was pretty sure I
inflicted the same amount of pain. Tears filled my eyes once again when I realized what this all meant.

I pushed her away and held her at arm’s length
, my voice catching in my throat. “Why are you here? Did they collect all of you? Is there anyone left?”

Hunter sat down on the floor and let Sasha rub her hand over his head. She grabbed my wrist and smiled. “He’s alive, Vivienne. They all are.”

This time I almost lost my dinner with the way my stomach trembled. She seemed so calm and reassuring. There had to be more to the story. “Where are they?”

The deserter in the bunk above her rotated in the bed in a way that made me
suspect he was trying to tell us to shut up. We all stared up at him, waiting for him to cause a commotion, but thankfully, it didn’t happen.

“Maybe we should talk in the morning,” Sasha suggested.

And as much as I didn’t want to wait a few hours to learn what happened to everyone, I knew she was right. “Okay. Find us at breakfast before Hunter has to go to school.”

“School?” she asked.

“Yeah, school,” Hunter groaned. “No trips to the roof for me.”

I gave him a look at the same time Sasha turned to face me.
“The roof?”

“Long story.
I’ll fill you in once you tell me why you’re here.”

She smiled and squeezed my hand.
“Deal. Now you two go back to your beds before we get caught.”

Hunter gave Sasha a quick hug and darted out around the bunks, heading back toward our beds. I tried to stand, but Sasha pulled me back down by my hand.

“Have you seen him anywhere?” Her voice quivered with the emotion I knew she didn’t like to show.

I shook my head. “Not since we got here. But he was alive and they were taking care of him.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know
,” I sighed, then remembered my time on the roof. “But I might be able to find out.”

She looked at me with fresh tears glistening in her eyes.
“Really?”

“Yes, and I can explain at breakfast.
Just like you can tell me why you’re in here.” I looked out past the hundreds of beds wondering if Zach was in one of them. A sharp pain stabbed at my heart and I had to swallow that hope down. I couldn’t bear it to be disappointed that much.

“He’s here, Vivienne.”

“Zach?” I couldn’t breathe.

“Yes. But not in this building.”

The man above Sasha groaned loud enough to attract the attention of the guards. I thought about punching him but didn’t want to get in trouble and risk losing my time with Sasha at breakfast.

“Find me in the morning,” I said then stood to leave.

“Okay.”

The guards had just started another round, heading directly to where Sasha and the annoying man slept. I
had enough time to skirt the edges of the bunks and hop between shadows to avoid detection. Hunter already lay on the top bunk in a deep sleep, or at least pretending to be in one.

As I sat down on my hard mattress, I knew the next few hours would drag on forever. Zach was here. Sasha was here, and I guessed that meant Trevor and Jackson might be too. But why weren’t they in here
with us?

I’d counted the slats in Hunter’s bed above me fifty times and had a plan in place to talk to Riley well before the first rays of daylight pierced through the tiny windows at the top of the walls.
As soon as the doors opened, Hunter and I grabbed a table in the cafeteria-like room and waited anxiously for Sasha to arrive.

“There she is. Oh, it’s Trevor!” Hunter spotted the two of them looking around like a deer in headlights trying to make sense of the government facility. The sight of Trevor brought a sense of comfort I didn’t know I
could feel. Two of the four stood here in front of me. Now I just had to find Zach.

Hunter hugged Trevor hard enough he nearly knocked him over. I think the boy had grown another inch in the few days since our capture, and he towered over Trevor’s stocky frame.
Sasha spotted me and pulled the three of them back to our little corner of the room where we could have a private conversation. Or at least the illusion of one.

I stood to greet Trevor and relished in the warm embrace we gave each other. Even if he was an annoying troll, he was still a part of our little family. And we’d lost too many to continue holding grudges.

“Okay, spill. Why are you here?” I asked before everyone had a chance to sit down.

“We were collected,” Sasha said with a sarcastic tone. I caught the glimmer in her eye.

“Something else is going on,” I stated.

Hunter dropped a tray filled with breakfast foods in front of us. Fruit, eggs, pancakes…plates overflowing with
calories and hope. Trevor dug right in, allowing Sasha to do the explaining.

She leaned forward to speak directly to me. “We ran into another group while we were trying to track you down.”

“Another group?”

“Yes.” She lifte
d her head and looked around the room. “Two of them should be here somewhere…” Her voice trailed off and her gaze never settled on anyone familiar. “Anyway, we all decided to take the offensive.”

“I’m not following,” I said. Hunter and Trevor watched us but their mouths were too full to speak.

“We came here on purpose. To rescue you guys.”

I had to chuckle. “But you’re a prisoner just like me.”

“True. But the others aren’t.”

“You mean Zach and Jackson?” My racing heart almost galloped out of my chest.

“And Annie and Lew.” When I looked at her in confusion, she continued. “Two from the other group.”

“Well, how did you get in here? It can’t possibly be that easy.”

“It wasn’t.” She rubbed the back of her head and winced. “We all had to play our parts but I think they’ve had enough troubles with the deserters to take what they can get. And we handed them four of us.”

“But why?”
I heard myself ask. It’s not like I wasn’t grateful for them to come after us, but it seemed like a lot for them to risk. “Why take the chance that you won’t get out of here?”

She grabbed both of my hands and squeezed.
“Because they’re harvesting blood!”

“What?” Hunter and I asked at the same time.

“It’s true,” Trevor added between bites. “Rachael confirmed it.”

“Who’s
Rachael?” I asked.

“The mercenary we caught,” Trevor said,
then shoved a piece or orange in his mouth. The juice dribbled down his chin and he used his sleeve to wipe it away.

“That’s why no one comes back, Vivienne,” Sasha continued. “They’re using deserter blood to make water for the rich.”

“Is that even possible?” I asked, looking at Trevor who was our resident medical expert.

He nodded and bile rose to the back of my throat, the smell of eggs suddenly making me sick.
“It’s very possible. As long as they can keep them alive…our bodies will keep producing new blood.”

A thousand thoughts swarmed through my mind. “But why not use the river water and purify that?”

“I’m sure they are, but since the war, uncontaminated water is hard to come by. Water extracted from human blood would be its purest form. If they could continuously isolate it, they could charge a premium.”

I thought about the city off in the distance.
A city where thousands of people would have to have water in order to survive. A city where its citizens didn’t know what was happening outside the gates.

Or they didn’t care.

“But Riley sai
d
—
”

“Who’s Riley?” Sasha asked.

“The mercenary guy who likes Vee,” Hunter cut in and I rolled my eyes.

“No. The mercenary who seems to think life is good here and he wants me to be one of his soldiers.” Trevor and Sasha stared at me with blank faces, so I continued. “Riley told me that people choose to stay here. They join the mercenaries or work in the factories on their own free will and live in the city.”

“And you believe that?” Trevor asked. Sasha said as much with the look in her eyes.

“No. I mean, not really.” I shook my head and rested my arms on the table. “But he believes it. I can tell.”

“Well how would he know? He’s a mercenary.”

“More like military royalty. His step
dad runs the place.”

Hunter choked on his food and Trevor stopped chewing. Sasha was the first to speak. “Sounds like someone we need on our side.”