Ballistic: Icarus Series, Book Two (19 page)

“I know exactly where he is,” I said releasing Riley from my embrace. I pointed to the wall. “See? Dibs on blue.”

“Which means what, exactly?” Christa narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.

“It means everything,” I said. Bella laid her head on my leg, whimpered softly, and nuzzled against the palm of my hand demanding affection. I scratched at her ears and continued. “A couple of years ago my dad surprised us with family passes to this water park, right? It was a really big deal for my brother because his doctor had never cleared him for something like that before. So, of course, he immediately became obsessed.”

I laughed and shook my head remembering how excited Beans had been when my dad showed him the tickets. For weeks leading up to our trip, my brother spent nearly every minute of his allotted computer time searching for videos and images of the different water slides and attractions plotting out his plan of attack for the big day. He was determined to experience every single ounce of chlorine-filled fun the place had to offer.

“He seriously bugged me every day about it,” I said sliding Bella’s floppy ears through my fingers. “Even though he is like half my age, my brother is crazy competitive. The little punk challenged me to a duel—loser does the other’s chores for a full week. There was this one water-slide in particular that my brother had set his sights on. It was a massive side-by-side open top tube with a near-vertical drop to the ground. Every time he showed me a video or picture of it, he’d say
dibs on blue
. He said the red one was slower
.
”

“Hold up,” Falisha said. “Are you talking about the Double Dare Drop? As in that death trap of a racing slide at Magic Waters?”

I nodded.

“Magic waters, which is in
Rockford
,” Zander smiled cocking his head at the smeared letters on the wall. “He was leaving you a trail of breadcrumbs, Liv.”

“Exactly,” I said.

“Smart kid,” Eli said.

“So, let me get this straight.” Christa raised a brow and cocked her hip. “You are saying that the army kidnapped your brother and took him to a freaking water park?”

“Pretty much,” I said.

“Okay, I’m sorry, but that’s seriously the stupidest thing I have ever heard.” Christa plopped down on the bed and crossed her arms. “Why would they do that?”

“While I don’t agree with her attitude, she kind of has a point,” Riley said. “Rockford is a crazy-huge city. There must be like a million schools, at least two hospitals that I know of, and a giant airport. Why would the army set up
there
, of all places?”

“Water,” Eli said with a shrug. “By securing that park, they have pretty much guaranteed themselves a regional monopoly on one of the most desirable commodities in this new, messed up world. If they can find a way to get those water pumps back up and running all they would have to do is reroute the filtration system and dechlorinate the water as needed.”

“What about that other water park at the fancy hotel?” Riley asked. “Coconut-something, I think it was called.”

“Coco Keys,” Falisha said, “and they got shut down like four months ago. Me and Sara were—”

Falisha’s voice caught in her throat. Her jaw clenched tight. She hadn’t said that name aloud since we had found Sara and Blake’s bodies melted into the rooftop at the school. Sara had not only been Falisha’s best friend, but she and her family had taken her in when Falisha’s own mother had turned her back. Sara and Blake had been the first we had lost since the world had come crashing down around us. They would not be the last.

Falisha cleared her throat. “We were going to go over winter break, but the health department shut them down. They mentioned finding harmful bacteria in the water, or something. I don’t know.”

“So they control the only safe water supply within a hundred miles,” Jake said throwing his hands up.

“If they can pump it and purify it, yes,” Eli said, “but there is still a question of power.”

“I don’t think that will be an issue,” Zander said. “A place that big would probably have an emergency generator system the size of a house. They would have to, for safety reasons, on the off chance there was a power failure while the park was in operation.”

“If it’s set up like the hospital camp was, they probably have food and medicine, too,” Ty said.

“And vehicles,” Falisha added.

“So, they have everything we need,” Christa said.

“Yeah, it’s a one-stop shop.” Jake huffed slamming his back against the door. “All we have to do is hike thirty-five miles in the dark in one hundred-and-ten-degree heat, break through a twelve-foot-high security fence, and sneak past a group of armed soldiers to get it.”

“Don’t forget about all the monsters that want to eat us,” Christa said shaking her head.

“Speaking of which,” I said flinching as that familiar ache slammed hard into my chest. I rubbed at it and slung my pack over my shoulder. “I think the lightning stopped.”

* * *

“Wow,” Falisha said as she stepped through the front door.

“Sweet Jesus,” Riley covered her mouth. “It looks like a tornado went through here.”

Aside from a couple of broken windows and a gaping hole in the roof, the Foster’s house remained mostly unharmed. The one across the street had not been so fortunate. It wasn’t just destroyed. It was
gone
.

All that remained was a gaping rectangular hole in the ground and a few splintered struts embedded in the concrete foundation. The charred and skeletal trees that had previously lined the west side of the property were completely uprooted. Their withered carcasses littered the street, crushing abandoned vehicles and toppling useless power lines.

“All due respect, Miss Riley,” Ty said leaning over the curb that skirted the Foster’s lawn. “I ain’t never seen a twister do
that.”

The pavement along the edge of the street had caved in completely, forming a bluff. The mouth of the newly formed cavern spanned half the width of the roundabout. The rubble was smoking like a burnt-out match. Chunks of crumbled roadway and half-melted rebar lay in a heap, six feet below street level, in what had presumably been a drainage pipe. Blackened trenches sliced through the pavement that remained, spidering its surface like a rock thrown through a windshield.

“Good Lord.” Eli knelt by the Foster’s minivan and picked something up off the ground.

“Whoa,” Ty said joining him by the drive. “What is that?”

“Well, it
was
a lava rock,” Eli said handing Ty what looked like a massive black diamond. “Now it’s obsidian.”

The air reeked of rot, burning plastic, and raw electricity as it swirled about the tattered remains of the moonlit warzone. The ground still sizzled and smoked in spots where the white-hot bolts of unrestrained power had sliced through it. Then, as if a switch had been flipped, the wind stilled completely.

For the first time in days, the sky was still. We watched in awe as the remnants of this latest storm swirled back up into the night sky and disappeared into the steadily thickening cloud cover.

“This isn’t even close to being over yet,” Jake stared up into the darkness and shuttered. “We should go.”

“Agreed,” Zander said reaching for the knife at his waist.

Our eyes met, and I knew immediately he had sensed the same weird presence I had. I didn’t know what it was, but it was definitely on the move, and I really didn’t want to stick around to find out.

“So we are seriously going to walk all the way to Rockford?” Christa asked. “In the dark?”

“No,” I said stuffing the phone directory back into my pack. “There’s a sporting goods place about ten blocks from here. If we are lucky, maybe they will have a few bikes we can liberate.”

“Well, then,” Christa said scooping her arm through Ty’s crooked elbow, “what are we standing around here for? Lead the way, freak-show.”

I nodded and whistled beckoning Bella to my side. I turned onto the sidewalks that lead away from my brother’s temporary home. As bitter as I had been about the whole arrangement, the Fosters had taken good care of my brother. He had made it this far—he was
alive
— because of them. I knew I could never repay a debt like that. I was sure as hell going to try.

“Stay together and be careful,” I said hiking my pack up higher on my shoulders.

My heart thudded in my ears, and my mind raced. No matter how fast my feet moved, I could barely keep up with it. Zander caught up to me and slid his fingers through mine, squeezing gently. He didn’t speak, but then he didn’t need to. No matter what dangers awaited us, Zander would be by my side to face them. That terrified me more than the thought of doing it alone.

The group fell silent as we carefully navigated our way through the wreckage the storm had left behind. A couple of blocks down the road, we passed what had likely once been my little brother’s school. Half of the brick and mortar building had collapsed in on itself. The A-frame support poles from a large swing set were embedded fifty feet above the ground, in the side of the last remaining wall. The chains hung down from the brackets, completely motionless.

All was still like a snow globe gathering dust on a shelf.

“I don’t like this,” Jake said rubbing at his neck.

“I’m with him,” Ty said helping Christa over a pile of broken pavement. “It’s too quiet.”

“Just keep moving,” I said ducking under a street sign that leaned against a nearby truck.

The wrath of this latest storm had been both unpredictable and absolute. It seemed to have danced from neighborhood to neighborhood, pardoning and condemning arbitrarily. Darts thrown in the dark. An entire city block had been completely decimated; laid to ruin leaving nothing behind but a pile of kindling and discarded memories. Aside from the debris that had drifted over from the first, the next street lay virtually untouched by the havoc. It was as if the universe were trying to prove a point.

As far as I could tell, there was only one positive result of the dark squall that had torn through the city of Byron. The temperature had dropped. In fact, it had dipped enough that for the first time in days the change was noticeable. Had there been even the slightest hint of a breeze that evening, it would have been almost bearable.

Almost.

What should have been a fifteen-minute walk was made considerably more difficult by toppled buildings, downed poles, and massive piles of rubble that littered the streets and gardens. The lightning had done quite a number on the pavement throughout the area. The ground was blasted it to bits in some places and leaving behind large craters.

The closer we got to the downtown area the more vehicles we saw scattered through the streets. The wind had been so fierce that it had pushed most of them off to one side of the roadway. In some places, they were four and five deep creating a wall of tangled metal. We had no option but to climb over them to move forward.

“A few more blocks,” I said over my shoulder as we turned onto West 2nd Street. “The shop should be just up the street, a couple of blocks past that cluster of cars.”

“Thank God,” Christa groaned stumbling over something on the path. “Must be nice to have laser vision, or whatever. I am getting kind of sick of tripping over crap every time I take a step.”

“You’ll get used to it, Princess,” Falisha laughed patting Christa’s shoulder.

“Watch out for that pothole guys,” I said. “Swing to the right side a bit.”

We edged past the big hole sidling along a squat brick building. The storefront window and its fabric awning were long gone, and the thick wooden sign was charred beyond recognition. It hung precariously from the bracket above the door. The place had most likely been some kind of clothing shop at one point. All that remained of its interior was a scattered pile of smoldering of ash and ruined metal wracking.

“Whoa.” Riley stopped dead in her tracks, and I nearly ran into her.

She stared straight ahead with her flashlight aimed at a massive heap of cars brick-stacked in the roadway. It spanned the width of the street and stood almost fifteen feet high.

“There is no way the storm did this,” I said shaking my head at the strategically placed metal carnage.

“Does it really matter how it got here?” Christa asked. “If our only alternative to walking is on the other side of this thing, then we need to get over it. Like literally.”

“Maybe we should go the long way around,” Riley suggested shining her flashlight down the side street to our right. “Liv, what do you think? Left or right?”

Just past the reach of Riley’s flashlight beam were the obliterated remnants of what had probably been a very nice neighborhood. The storm had hit hard on that street. All that was left of the houses and businesses that had called this place home was a pile of smoldering rubble as tall as a two-story building. A giant tanker truck lay on its side amidst the wreckage, leaking a strange yellow fluid onto the pavement. Turning left was not a better option. The street ended in a steep drop about five hundred yards down as if the earth had opened up and swallowed an entire city block.

“Neither direction is going to be an option, Ry,” I said blowing a stray hair out of my face.

“So, what—we just stand here until someone learns to fly?” Christa kicked a rock. “Just climb over the stupid thing.”

“It’s not that simple,” Jake said cocking his head to the side as he approached the wall. “This thing is not stable. The slightest bit of weight in the wrong place and the whole thing could come down. Maybe we could—”

“I got this, y’all,” Ty said rushing past.

Before his words even registered, Ty had launched himself onto the tailgate of a small pickup truck at the end of the precarious stack. The truck sat perpendicular to the wall of crushed cars and SUVs, its cab completely flattened by the weight of a black Hummer. He cleared the length of the small bed in a single stride, grabbed onto the side mirror of the Hummer, and swung his leg up and through the missing driver-side window.

The metal creaked and squealed in protest, the vehicles grinding together as he climbed. My stomach crept farther into my throat the higher he got, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when his foot slipped knocking a piece of metal clambering to the ground at my feet.