Will to Survive (29 page)

I pulled back on the yoke to gain more altitude in preparation for the turn. The lake quickly came up beneath us, and I worked the rudders and pedals to execute the turn. I was cautious, wanting to get the feel for the plane.

“That's it, nice and gentle. You're doing well. Colonel Wayne has offered me the chance to be the full-time captain of this plane.”

“That's amazing!”

“And as the captain I would be allowed to choose my copilot.” He paused. “I guess I should tell you that you're not just flying this plane right now; you're auditioning for a new job.”

“You're joking, right?”

“I would never joke about flying. You'd be the youngest copilot in history to ever fly one of these. You get to achieve the dream of being an airline pilot faster than anybody would have imagined. So are you interested?”

“Of course I'm interested!”

“It would involve a lot of work. This plane may seem like something out of an old Hollywood movie, but it's just about the most sophisticated airplane in our corner of the world right now.”

I laughed. “I can picture the whole thing being in black-and-white instead of color, but I'd like to be part of it.”

“We'd be responsible for transporting people and equipment and supplies between the colonies. It could be as many as a dozen flights per month.”

“That's a lot of air time.”

“It will be. Correct your heading, please, to bring us around more until we're going almost due east.”

I made the correction, executing the bank until the controls showed I was bang on the forty-five-degree mark on the compass.

“If you take the job, I'd put you through the same routines and practices that I would when a copilot was assigned to my flight crew. I'm not going to go easy on you.”

“I wouldn't expect it … and I won't need it,” I said.

He laughed. “I like confidence. We'll also be training a flight engineer and working to develop an entire ground crew to service the plane.”

“Have you talked to Mom about any of this?”

“We've talked about me taking the job. She understands what it means for me to be in the air.”

“You are in the air with the Cessna,” I argued.

“This is different. Not just because I'm in the air but because I'm needed. This will be a job that will really make a difference. It's important. We need to pull the colonies together, to move the alliance forward, to facilitate training, to be able to get armed support from one place to another if needed.”

I knew what he was saying was completely true.

“They don't have anybody else who can do it. In time we might find another pilot or somebody I could share the job with, but for now it's me and hopefully you. I'm hoping everybody will be happy about all of this.”

“I'm happy. I know how much being in the air means to you. How much it means for me, too. I'm just worried about flying that much and still doing the things I have to do on the ground.”

“There are many people who can do most of the things you do on the ground, but there are only a few of us who can fly. And I think it would be better, safer, for you to be up here with me instead of alone out there,” my father said. “Up here is the only place where I feel completely safe.”

“I understand. It's the same for me,” I said.

“You don't have to go out there tomorrow,” he said.

“I do have to go. There's no choice, not for tomorrow, but maybe after that … maybe,” I said.

“Okay, I can respect that,” he said. “Funny, I flew off that morning to Chicago and you were still a boy. When I came back you were a man. I have trouble believing you're still only sixteen.”

“I have the same trouble sometimes,” I admitted.

“The past six months have changed you so much.”

“They have changed all of us,” I said.

“It didn't just change me,” my father said. “It broke me.”

I hadn't expected him to say that, and I didn't know what to say in response.

“I know I'll never be the same man I was. I'm just so sorry that I wasn't there for my family when they needed me.”

“You walked halfway across the country to get back home.”

“That's what broke me,” he said. “I'll never be the same again … except for up here in the air.”

I understood exactly what he meant.

Soon enough, the island was on the horizon, the airport and the runway visible.

“I'm going to take over the controls again,” my father said. He placed his hands on the yoke as I surrendered the instruments. “Don't worry, though, you'll be landing her soon enough yourself.”

Maybe being in control would be just part of who I was from now on. Whether I wanted it or not.

 

29

It had been a long day and we'd been late getting back home. We'd flown in the second group of guards and had to go back to the island to drop off the Boeing and pick up the Cessna and fly it back to our neighborhood.

My father and I had occupied the same small space for hours, but on the return flight we hadn't talked much. Well, except for things that had to do with flying. It was like we'd said too much at the start and neither of us knew what to do with it. It was an unspoken sort of agreement not to go any further, and it seemed to work.

Getting to sleep was never easy, but tonight it was going to be pretty well impossible. I had so many things crammed into my head.

I thought about what it would be like to live somewhere else, somewhere Brett couldn't reach me. I felt like running away and taking my family and my friends with me and—

But there was no place to go, no place to run.

I rearranged the pillows, punching them down with my fist to try to find a comfortable place to rest. I really did need to sleep. I needed to be as sharp as possible for tomorrow. After that, well, I didn't even know if there was going to be anything beyond tomorrow. I had the strangest thought: if I got killed I wouldn't have to make any more decisions, be troubled anymore about what to do or what had happened—and that was almost reassuring and calming.

But no, I couldn't allow myself to think that way. Or maybe I could. The key might be to just not care if I lived or died. Was that how Brett felt? If he didn't care about other people's lives, did he care about his own life?

My bedroom was pitch black except for a little ray of moonlight coming in through the window and settling onto my desk. The letter from Brett sat there and looked like it was practically glowing. It was just another way for him to haunt me, to taunt me, to rob me of sleep. It felt like even the moon was against me.

I got out of bed. I was going to put the letter away in a drawer where I couldn't see it. Instead I picked it up. It felt heavy, and there was a tingling that seemed to vibrate into my fingers and hand. Instead of opening the drawer I sat at the desk. I couldn't put it down. I needed to read it one more time.

I struck a match and put it to the wick of a candle. It fluttered and then caught. The candle was handmade—someone in the neighborhood had started to create them out of beeswax—but the light was good.

Hello, Little Prince
 …

What had I ever done to him that he should hate me so much? I flipped through the sentences.

I want you to lead this expedition.

How could I have any doubt that this was a trap that was being set for me? He wanted me out there so that he could try to kill me. Thank God there were going to be many other people out there. Then again, he knew we'd do that; he'd even taunted us to send more.

I'd like to guarantee you that I won't attack the people bringing out the food, but you know my word isn't always the best.

Why would he do that? He'd have to know that we would send out enough people to protect the party. My mother would never allow me to go out there unless I was protected.

He would expect that we were going to try to set a trap for him. In fact, by giving us five days he was almost inviting us to set that trap. That could only mean that he was setting a trap to trap our trap. My head started to hurt. This was too many levels of things to think through. I had to go back to the basics: My role in this was being the bait. I was the cheese in the trap, and we hoped we'd catch a rat and that he wouldn't get away with the cheese and devour it.

I thought about what Herb had told me—take your own life if he catches you, don't let him have the satisfaction of killing you.

I'd almost felt insulted when he said that. Now I realized that it was something I could do. Just like waiting was hard, waiting to die would be even worse, especially if that waiting involved being tortured and tormented.

Of course it still wasn't too late. In the morning I could say no to going out there. That would make my mother and father and Lori happy. Todd would cheer me on and probably be thrilled that it meant that he didn't have to go either. None of them wanted me to do it, even if they thought it was the right thing to do. In the end, though, didn't I have to try to do the right thing even if there was a cost, a price to pay? I just had to hope that the price wasn't my life.

I didn't have to be a victim, but I also didn't have to be the one who killed Brett. But still, I
wanted
to kill him. What a twisted, bizarre thought. Just six months ago, I spent my time being concerned about good grades and fantasizing about Lori. Although I still did fantasize about her, now my other fantasy was about killing somebody. And if our trap worked I might have that chance.

The thing was, something just didn't seem right about Brett's letter.

He had to know that we were going to try to trap him.

So why would he put himself in that situation? Why would he risk the lives of some of his men? Maybe he didn't care if their lives were forfeited. It wasn't like he cared about anybody. Still, it would have been a waste of resources. Even if he didn't think of them as people he still wouldn't want to have them taken away from him.

I looked at the letter again, although I didn't know what I was expecting to see that I hadn't seen the last twenty times I'd looked at it.

Then I read the final line, the final taunt.

P.P.S. Send Lori my love. Tell her that now I know you two have broken up I think about her often and it won't be too long before those thoughts become more than thoughts. Monday at noon will come sooner than you think.

That made no sense other than he was trying to get me too crazy to think. But really, the only people who were at risk were those who were going to be part of the away team. The people behind the wall were safe. He had to know that Lori was going to stay in Eden Mills, that no one would let her be there when we turned over the food.

Then it came to me, and I saw what Brett was planning.

He was going to attack the neighborhood.

I felt a rush of adrenaline throughout my entire body. I had to talk to Herb, and I had to do it now. I blew out the candle and the room was dark again. As soon as my eyes adjusted to the only light being the thin rays of the moon I got up.

Quietly I opened my bedroom door and left, letter in hand. I already had both guns strapped on, one on my hip and the second on my leg. I already had my knife strapped on. I already had my shoes on. I went down the stairs and to the front door. There were no other sounds, no signs of anybody else being awake. For a sick, terrifying second, I thought that Brett was already in the house, that he'd silently killed my family and now he was coming for me.

I froze in my tracks and felt my chest tightening and my breath becoming labored. I moved my head from one side to the other, scanning the darkness, trying to pick out one shadow from another.

“Calm down,” I muttered under my breath. “You're alone … he's not here.”

I wanted something to break the silence. I wanted one of my parents to come to the bedroom door and just call out to me. Their bedroom door remained closed. They were sleeping—of course they were sleeping, and I wasn't going to wake them up to ease my paranoia. This was all part of Brett's plan, to get so far into our heads that we couldn't think straight. It had taken me this long to figure it out, and I wasn't going to let him drive it from my head now.

I slipped off the door's chain lock, and went outside. I pulled the door shut again and checked to make sure it was locked. Funny how being outside felt safer than being in my own house behind that locked door. Out here I could see things coming.

The air was still and cool and dry. There wasn't a sound. It was as silent as the house. I knew there would be guards patrolling throughout the neighborhood, but right then I was completely alone. It could have been that I was the only living person in the world. If I was, there would have been nobody to hurt me.

Or protect me, or love me. I wasn't alone. I was surrounded by all the people who I cared for and who cared for me.

I padded across the driveway, skirted the vegetables growing on our lawn, and glided down Herb's driveway and up the walk to the front door. As I stood there I wondered what to do next. It wasn't like I could pound on the door to wake him without waking everybody else in the nearby houses.

Was there any chance he'd left the door unlocked? I reached for it and the door suddenly opened up. I jumped back in shock.

“Adam, it's all right, it's me.”

It was Herb.

A shudder went through my entire body.

“You might want to put that away,” my friend said.

I looked down. I was holding my gun. All in one motion without even consciously realizing it, I'd pulled it out from the holster and aimed it toward him. It was like looking at somebody else's hand holding a gun.

“Sorry,” I said. I lowered it and carefully tucked it back into its holster. “I didn't mean to wake you.”