Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (16 page)

“Why would you let him go, but not me?” Amory asked Logan.
 

“He’s too stubborn. I don’t want either one of you to go.”
 

Amory turned to me. “I need to go.”

I shook my head. “Not after what just happened.” I lowered my voice. “You can’t control yourself in a fight, and none of the rebels trust you.”

“That’s exactly why I
should
go.”

I could see that his decision was made. There was no point arguing.

He and Greyson ran off to their tents to dress and find weapons, and I sank down on a log by the fire and put my head in my hands.

“I hate this.”

“Me too,” Logan sighed.
 

Her weary expression caught me off guard. It was sometimes so easy to forget that she had once been an officer. She must be used to watching her friends go off to fight, not knowing if she would see them again. I didn’t ask, but I was sure it never got any easier.

A few minutes later, Amory and Greyson reappeared wearing bulletproof vests and carrying two of the most terrifying rifles I’d seen in the rebels’ stash. Greyson was doing a poor job hiding his excitement. Amory looked grim.

I got up to hug Greyson first. “Please don’t let anything happen to him,” I murmured into his coat. “And if anything happens to you —”

“Relax.” He pulled away and squeezed my arm once. “I’ll make sure none of the rebels shoot Amory before we get to the PMC.”

Logan hugged Greyson awkwardly, and I moved to Amory. He looked so tough in his battle gear. The scruff that had grown on his face from two days without shaving only added to his rugged appearance, and I reminded myself that he would have become a field physician for the PMC if he hadn’t fled to the farm.
 

“You know why I have to do this.”

I shook my head. “You don’t have to prove anything to anyone. This is only temporary.”

Lowering his voice, Amory took a step closer to me. “We don’t know how long this rebellion is going to last. As long as the PMC is still in power, we are going to need allies.”

“It doesn’t have to be them,” I said, eyeing the rebels milling around waiting to leave.

“Let’s go, men!” Rulon yelled.

I felt a sting of irritation. A dozen or so women were also dressed for battle, but they didn’t seem to bat an eye at Rulon’s address.

Before I could say or do anything else, Amory grabbed me by my coat and pulled me up to kiss him. My feet left the ground for a moment, and his warm lips pressed against mine. The scruff was new, and it burned against my chin in a pleasant way. I tried to memorize every part of him: his smell, the feel of him against me, and those gray eyes I loved so much.

Just as I let my hands settle on his strong chest, someone near us cleared his throat. Amory pulled away, looking dazed, and his face glowed with heat.
 

Greyson raised an eyebrow at me and cocked his head approvingly. My face felt hot.

Without another word, Amory flew in for one last quick kiss, and then he was gone.
 

He and Greyson followed the others through the trees toward the hill, and Greyson turned one last time to wave before they disappeared out of sight.

“Wow,” said Logan. “That was intense.”
 

She was grinning in a way that made me feel embarrassed.
 

“I mean, I always expected Amory would be really intense, but
man
.” She fanned herself with her hand.

I opened my mouth to retort but closed it immediately. I had nothing to tease Logan about. The only guy I’d ever seen her with was Max, and I couldn’t sully the few memories she had with him by making a joke.
 

She seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because her eyes looked suddenly misty.

“Oh . . . I’m sorry,” I said. I sank down on the log next to her, feeling like a terrible person.
Why had I let Amory kiss me in front of her and rub it in her face like that?
Max’s death was still so fresh.

Melting against my side, Logan let her head fall onto my shoulder. I knew she was crying, although she did not make a sound.

I understood how she felt, even though I hadn’t wept for my parents much in the last few weeks. Grief was not a wound; it was emptiness.

“I’m sorry,” I repeated to no one in particular.

“It’s fine,” said Logan. “I’m so glad for you two. And Amory . . . he deserves to be happy. He’s had a really shitty life.”

“What do you mean?” I had always suspected things were bad for Amory to leave his dad and come to Ida’s, but I never asked him about his life before the farm. Everyone there had left for a reason, and I made it a point never to ask.

“I only knew the rumors. Captain Elwood was old PMC, like Godfrey. He was a legend — evil. Everyone knew the stories. I don’t think he started experimenting on Amory until he got older, but he used to hit him and his mom. One day, she finally had enough. I guess she left him. But that’s not even the worst of it.”
 

Logan swallowed, looking sick. “They found her car in a lake . . . with her in it. The papers said she killed herself, but it never made sense. And with her gone, I think things got a lot worse for Amory.”

I sat back, my mind reeling with this information. It made sense why Amory used to hate killing carriers as much as I did. He had grown up around so much violence that it probably disgusted him. That was all different now.

I ate breakfast without really tasting any of it. The food was cold as usual, but I knew I should eat.
 

Exhausted and defeated, I went back to the tent and collapsed onto my sleeping bag to take a nap. It was strange sleeping during the day with all the commotion going on around me. I knew the camp was shorthanded now that half our forces had gone off to fight, but I desperately needed to rest.
 

I tried not to think of Amory out there marching toward the PMC without breakfast, without sleep, and without any real allies other than Greyson.

I had just nodded off when I heard the screams.

I awoke with a start. High-pitched screams pierced the air and rang out across the camp. I heard shouts, followed by gunshots.
 

We were under attack.

Tripping and fumbling to extricate myself from my sleeping bag on my bad ankle, I looked around wildly for my weapons. The rifle I had taken into Sector X was long gone. All that was left was Logan’s second rifle she had stolen from the rebels and the knives from my rucksack. I stuffed two knives into my holster, grabbed Logan’s rifle, and struggled into a standing position.
 

How could I fight with my crutch?
It was absurd. I couldn’t even fire a gun leaning on it. Head still spinning with sleep, I limped out into the snow without it.

Crouching in the shadows behind the block of tents, I looked for the telltale whites of PMC officers moving through the camp, but we weren’t being attacked by the PMC.

The camp was crawling with carriers. I hadn’t seen so many since the riot outside Saint Drogo’s. This was an enormous horde of them that had grown and grown as one pack merged with another. There had to be more than a hundred. Judging by how spread out they were, they had ambushed the camp from the woods.
 

I watched one carrier grab an old rebel woman by the hair and drag her through the snow. Another rebel leapt on his back, but the carrier just shook him off, finally catapulting the woman against the table outside the mess tent.
 

As I stood there, frozen, I realized something was wrong. These were not the slow, weak carriers I’d seen in the riots. They were too fast.
 

Some early-stage carriers could take on a human with nearly as much strength as they had before infection, but these carriers were so far along that it was difficult to tell if they were male or female. They had all lost their hair except for a sick, downy fluff coating their scalps, and they were wrinkled and emaciated. Their mouths were raw and chapped, and when they screamed, their unnerving bloodshot, jaundiced eyes bulged from their sockets. Even their clothes were destroyed, hanging in filthy rags from their bony shoulders.

Stunned, I looked around for Logan, but she was nowhere to be found. Many of the rebels who had been taken by surprise when the carriers stormed into camp were locked in combat, using anything they could find to fend off their attackers. Some kneeled behind the tents, guns poised, but very few people were firing shots for fear of hitting other humans. I wanted to shout that shooting the carriers was our only chance — that these carriers weren’t like the others — but those who were still at camp were not trained fighters. Many were injured, weak, or timid.
 

I raised my rifle and fired at a carrier who had broken off from the group in search of a new victim. The familiar kickback stung my shoulder, but my aim was true. Scanning the perimeter of the camp, I took out two more carriers in range who had broken away from the fighting rebels.

A few yards away, another carrier fell. I could see the blood spurting from the back of his head — a perfect shot. I glanced around for Logan but didn’t see her.
 

I wanted to yell at the rebels fighting the carriers with sticks and pans and bats. It was too risky to shoot into the fray with so many people, and we were losing.
 

Hands shaking slightly, I took aim for a knot of carriers who had cornered two older women near the woods. I aimed conservatively toward the carriers and missed. Adjusting my aim, I took a deep breath to fire, and something huge collided with me from the side, knocking me off my unsteady leg.

A sharp pain rippled up from my lower back, and the weight of my attacker crushed my chest.
 

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe.

I didn’t have to look to know it was a carrier. The stinking rot of his flesh filled my nostrils and curdled my insides. I choked, feeling the fear surging inside my chest. There was no one to help me — no one to pull him off.

Flailing wildly, I struck him hard on the head with the butt of my rifle. He groaned but did not back off. I couldn’t shake him. He was the size of a fully grown man and just as strong. He was staring down at me with those horrible eyes, and I could see the skin peeling off the corner of his mouth. He was going to rip into the soft flesh of my neck and dismember me.

Without thinking, I reached up and shoved my thumbs into his eye sockets, fighting the urge to vomit as I felt the wet, round softness against my fingertips and heard the carrier’s scream of pain.

He fell off me, and I took the chance to hit him with my gun again and struggle to my feet. He was writhing on the ground in pain, clutching his eyes. When he turned, I stomped on the back of his neck as I’d seen Logan do once and heard the sickening crunch.
 

He stopped moving.
 

My throat contracted, and I bent over automatically and vomited into the snow. It was too much.

This time, I heard the carrier crunching through the snow behind me. The sick rattle of his dying breaths made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
 

I whipped around, my injured ankle throbbing in protest, aimed, and fired. He was so close I could feel the mist of blood on my face, but he was still coming at me. I backed away, tripping over the carrier I had killed, and fell back onto my elbows.
 

Another two carriers were ambling over, and I struggled to stand as the one I had shot slowed to a stop. He was too close to shoot again, so I hit him as hard as I could on the side of his head.
 

I turned to the other two carriers. It was hard to tell from their deteriorating faces and fluffy bald heads, but their features looked eerily similar; these two were twins. I raised my rifle, but my hands were shaking too badly for a clean shot.
 

Instead, I flung it over my shoulder and felt for the knife at my belt. One of the twins flew at me so quickly that I wasn’t entirely prepared. Her bony fingers wrapped around my throat, pushing down hard on my windpipe. I froze, my brain fighting the sudden lack of oxygen. I whipped the knife through the air — grazing her shoulder — but she didn’t even seem to notice.
 

Choking for air, I let myself collapse back onto the ground. She fell forward with me, and I took the opportunity to drive the knife into her back with as much force as I could muster.
 

It hadn’t been a clean shot to the heart, but she screamed in pain. It was an eerie, tearing sound of sinew in her throat that made my stomach turn. I shoved her off and tried to sit up, but her sister flung herself onto me. Out of breath, I fell back again and dropped my knife. Swinging wildly at the side of her head, I watched her sister twitch slowly out of the corner of my eye. The other twin holding me down had a mad look in her eyes. She drew her shoulders back like a snake preparing to strike its prey. I groped behind me for the knife.
 

Nothing.

My hands shook as they pushed into her rotten flesh, holding her off me. I was exhausted, but she was about my size. I could win this fight. Glowering down at me with her bloodshot blue eyes and wild, drooling mouth, she continued to struggle. She chomped her teeth together, and they made a horrible clicking sound. I shut my eyes — wishing I could shut my ears — and suddenly she stopped.
 

The twin looked around as if she had lost her train of thought, and I saw the blood blooming on the front of her shirt like a boutonniere.
 

She let out a horrible shriek, as though she knew she was dying, and I took her distraction as an opportunity to shove her off me and get to my feet. I looked around wildly for the sniper. It had to be Logan, but she was nowhere to be seen. I grabbed my knife and the rifle that had fallen off my shoulder and looked around. There were so many carriers. Some rebels were still fighting, but many were injured or helping those who were get to safety. Without Logan or Greyson or Amory fighting by my side, I felt completely alone.