Waterproof (17 page)

I thought about her words. That was my pla
n
—
to see if Riley could help me find Max. But now that we knew about the blood…

“Yes, maybe.
But I’ll have to tread lightly.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Sasha said with a smirk. “Just distract him with your womanly charms.”

Trevor laughed. “Oh yeah, you’re good at that.”

I kicked him under the table and Sasha grinned. “Where’s Zach?” I asked her.

“Wherever the mercenaries go when they come here. Ask your Riley about that.”

“I will.” And right on cue, the doors grated open with the signal for our day to begin.

“What’s this?” Trevor asked.

“School time for me.
Bottle washing time for you,” Hunter said, and got up to join the handful of other kids. He greeted Iris with a smile and a slight blush in his cheeks. My heart ached for Zach. And knowing he was so close, just grated at me even more. I needed to figure out a way to get some alone time with Riley again today.

“Just follow along and don’t fight back.” I look
ed pointedly at Sasha as the corner of her mouth curled up in a defiant smile. “I mean it, Sasha. Be invisible and give me the time I need to see if I can find out how we can all get out of here alive.”

“I need to find Max,” she said.

“I know. But give me some time to see if I can learn more without you causing a scene on the first day, okay?” She didn’t say anything. “Okay?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” I said. Sasha had always been the strength of our little family. And now I was asking her to have the same amount of trust in me.

We didn’t have time to say anything else befor
e we were forced to march out of the room to our respective jobs. Sasha, Trevor, and I went in three different directions. I had a quick second to give Trevor a reassuring smile before his elevator door closed. I really did hope he’d be okay. As long as he kept his mouth shut, no one should want to kill him.

I twisted my fingers together in a tight ball as my elevator plunged to the correct floor, wishing that for once, things would go my way today.

I had to find Riley and we had to get to Zach.

SEVENTEEN

Zach

I woke feeling guilty for sleeping through the night like a rock. Too many years on the run had caught up to me and the moment I found a real bed to lie in, my body remembered the comfort.

Having a fresh shower with hot water only added to my satiated mental state.
For the first time in years, I was clean and wide awake. My stomach growled, reminding me that it wanted more food. Real food like we ate last night in the shiny mess hall.

“R
eady?” Jackson asked, slipping his arm into the new button-up shirt we’d received.

Clean clothes - another novelty I
never thought I’d see again. I’d already dressed and had a quick conversation with Lew and Annie. Today they’d try to learn more about where the prisoners were kept and slipped away before the rest of the room woke up.

“Yeah,” I answered. “We need to get ourselves in the factory.”

Jackson raised his eyebrows. “And what? March in there and ask for our friends?”

“No, ask to be on babysitting duty so we have more time to figure things out.” I stood and walked past my friend who loved to antagonize me. “I have a plan.”

Jackson laughed this time. “I’m sure you do, Zach.”

Ignoring the jab, I led the way to breakfast where we look
ed forward to filling ourselves once again. I’d briefly wondered where the variety of food came from, but was too enthralled to put more thought into it. With plates overflowing with a sample of every item, we sat down between two groups of mercenaries close in age to us and laughing about a recent collection.

“
Are you serious? She offered you sex?” A guy almost choked on his muffin when he asked the question. His wide mouth giving way to an obnoxious voice.

“Yep.
And I almost took her up on the offer,” another guy bragged, swiping his hair out of his face. “She was hot, but a little too rough for my liking.”

“Please. You’ll do anything that moves, Todd. Since when did you get standards?” A slightly older female with short blonde hair laughed at her own joke.

“I have standards, Lisa. You just haven’t lived up to them.”

Lisa reached across t
he table and slapped Todd in the side of the head. The group erupted in laughter and cat calls.

“She showed you.”

“Burned.”

“When are you two
gonna do it and get it over with?”

That last comment brought a pain to my gut with such intensity I almost cried out. All through high school, our friends would ask me a
nd Vee that same question. All though high school we ignored them. And for what? If we’d just admitted how we felt, we would have had so much more time together…

“Right, bro?”
Someone punched me in the shoulder.

I turned to see Todd waiting for an answer to a question I hadn’t heard. “Huh?”

He laughed. “I said why fuck around in the slums when you can have steak at the Plaza?”

“Huh
?” I asked again.

Lisa sighed.
“Todd, you’re never going to be one of them. They won’t ever pick you because they don’t
see
you.” She turned to look at Jackson sitting by her side. Her eyes traveled over him like a lioness eyeing her prey. “Now you, on the other hand, you might have a chance of being noticed.”

I swear Jackson blushed. “Noticed by who
m exactly?” he asked, flashing his charismatic smile at Lisa.

“Those rich
Plaza bitches.” She pulled her attention away from Jackson and glared at Todd. “You see, Todd has this fantasy that he’ll be swept away from the barracks to be married to one of the heiresses. Like Cinderella or some shit. I keep telling him it’s never going to happen and he should be thankful for the females that give him two minutes of their time now.”

“Two minutes, Lisa? You insult me,” Todd smiled and she rolled her eyes.

“Hey, it happened to Federico,” the guy with the muffin said.

“That’s because he was Italian.” Lisa faced Jackson again
with a hunger making even me uncomfortable. “They like exotic.”

I think I heard her purr. Jackson didn’t budge.
“And what about you, Lisa? Are you waiting for your Prince Charming?”

She huffed.
“Hardly. They only want the beautiful to breed.”

“You’re not so bad,” Jackson said
, ignoring that odd statement, and Lisa blushed three shades of red. Todd fidgeted in his seat beside me.

“You guys new?”

I looked across the table to see another girl around my age, but much more harsh than Lisa. With dark hair and sharp features, she had an aura about her that dared me to challenge. So I smiled and turned on the charm.

“Yes,” I said. “We had our first collection yesterday.” Jackson and I shared a look. Better to
minimize the lies.

“I thought you looked new,” the girl said. “Where are you from?”

“Where are you from?” I countered before I could panic. She stared at me for a full thirty seconds until Todd jumped in.

“
Carolina’s from Region 10. And she thinks she’s high and mighty and better than us all because of it.”

“
I
am
better than you,” she snapped back.

“Not good enough
to make it to the Plaza though,” Todd countered.

“At least I’m not a babysitter,” Carolina said, eyes boring a hole through Todd.

“You’re a babysitter?” I asked, catching Jackson’s expression out of the corner of my eye.

Todd sighed and shook his head. “It’s just temporary.” Everyone quieted down to a hush, as though he’d been shunned. “It is! I only have two more weeks of
dud duty.” He looked around the table at all of his friends who would no longer joke with him.

“What did you do?” Jackson asked.

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“Todd thought he’d go out collecting on his own. He came back with a limp and a bruised ego,” muffin guy filled in.

“Control punished you?” I guessed.

“Yeah.
I lost a vehicle and two guns.” He shoved a bite of food into his mouth and swallowed before continuing. “But I found a group of deserters and told Control where to find them.” He pleaded with his friends more than explained the situation. “I heard they got them a few days ago.”

“Is that the typ
ical punishment?” Jackson asked, while I wondered which group of deserters he meant.

Lisa finally spoke again.
“Sometimes. I think Todd got lucky due to his unnatural ability to dig himself out of a shit storm.”

A few from the group chuckled, and Todd smiled.
“Told you my good looks would pay off.”

A bell chimed in the
cafeteria before I could ask any more questions. The mercenaries jumped up, leaving a ridiculous amount of uneaten food on their plates. I couldn’t help but drool over their waste. Jackson and I had nothing left to throw away.

As we stack
ed our trays in a pile by the trash cans, Jackson slid up next to me. “We need to find Control and get punished.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

I looked around the room at the hundreds of misguided mercenaries itching at a chance to collect deserters. It made me sick, and angry, and ready to find our friends.

“How do we do this?” I asked.

“Maybe we can searc
h
—
”

“
Barto and Hollings.” A voice I recognized carried through the mess hall with authority. “Report!”

I recognized Captain
Doucenné’s nasally voice the moment he stepped between the rows of mercenaries lined up for roll call or something. My heart beat furiously in my chest but I cleared my throat and walked forward with Jackson right behind. We’d been summoned.

“Here, sir.”

He looked us over then flicked his head toward the side door. “Time to face the music, gentlemen. You’re expected at Control. Now.”

Not knowing where Control was, we didn’t move right away.

“Weller, please escort these two and don’t let them out of your sight.”

Weller
stepped forward, my nose barely reaching the cobra-like muscles on his neck. With a grunt, he moved forward and expected us to follow him. He didn’t speak, in fact, no one did. I caught a glimpse of Todd standing at attention with a look of pity consuming his face.

“See you soon,” I said and Weller
the Giant gave me a look that shut me up instantly.

We made our way back through the barracks and out of the fence. As we turned
down the paved road, I noticed we were on the outskirts of the city. A city we’d been told didn’t exist. And apparently that city was full of people segregated into classes and forced to work according to their status.

Nothing
had really changed since the war.

I watched the factory grow the closer we got to it, like a relic representing all that we
had lost. Groups of soldiers marched by us, stomping to a cadence and twirling their rifles around like a color guard. None of them glanced our way and none of them stood out.

We rounded a corner, turning us down a narrower street that led diagonally toward the factory. The sunlight fought against the tall buildings for a chance to illuminate the depths below.
It felt moist and dark and eerily like we were walking to our demise.

A sudden burst of laughter caught me off guard and I tripped over my own feet. A line of children ran across the alley and down a road we had
n’t reached yet. Dressed in similar tan uniforms, they represented a range of ages from elementary school on up.

“Where are they going?” Jackson asked, dread filling his voice.

Weller stopped and looked back long enough to know he was annoyed. “To school.”

“They have school here?” I asked. A boy brought up the rear of the group and I stopped bre
athing. Hunter bounced along with the rest of the kids.

“For the juveniles.”

I looked at Jackson, whose eyes focused on Hunter too. The relief sweeping through me felt as welcomed as the shower we had last night. Hunter was alive and he looked like he was doing okay. Suddenly, he glanced down the alley and we both dropped our heads.

He couldn’t see us yet.

Thankfully, Weller’s sheer size helped hide us as we stepped behind him. I risked a glance ahead only to see the last of the children disappear between the buildings. Breathing a sigh of relief, I rushed forward again to catch up with Weller before he got suspicious.

Three alleys and two streets later, Weller opened a metal door in the side of a buildin
g and ordered us inside. We immediately descended three flights of steps, causing an echo in the stairwell loud enough to be uncomfortable. At the bottom, Weller punched in a code on the keypad next to the only door. A high-pitched beep followed the green light above the door, and we were permitted inside.

Artificial lights
flooded our sight, a sharp contrast to the dark alley we lurked in a moment ago. We followed Weller through a maze of cubicles and tiny hallways. I shook my head thinking about how we lived on the outside, where in here, life progressed like nothing had changed. Men and women in uniforms pushed papers, answered phone calls, and went about their business like my parents had when they worked.

I caught a glimpse of Jackson and the look on his face told me similar thoughts crossed his mind. Everything seemed so normal in here.

Until we thought about the blood harvesting. I wondered if these workers knew what was happening  next door.

“In here,” Weller demanded. He held open a door that led to a smal
l waiting area with three black plastic chairs and yellowing walls that could have used a fresh coat of paint. Once inside, he shut the door and left us alone.

“Not what I expected,” Jackson said, and I nodded.

A moment later, a small older lady looking more like a librarian than a soldier walked out from a door hidden behind the counter.

“You here for
the General?” Her deep voice didn’t match her petite frame.

“Um…yes?” I said, and the lady smiled.

“Don’t be nervous. He’s a big softy at heart.”

I had doubts about that and so
did Jackson if his loud gulp meant anything.

“Come on, guys,” she said. “Everyone makes mistakes. You
’re handsome enough to get away with a warning.”

It gave me chills as her statement reminded me about Todd’s declaration. He claimed he got off easy because of his looks. Aside from the blood harvesting, this place
had plenty to creep me out. I suddenly missed the forest.

Making our way around the old counter and away from the
peculiar librarian, we found ourselves in a large, nicely decorated office. Mahogany furniture, a brightly colored oriental rug, and an immaculate tropical fish tank made it feel like we just walked into a parallel universe. Where did he get fish from?