Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (30 page)

Greyson and Logan were already waiting outside the girls’ cabin, rucksacks over their shoulders — Logan with two loaded rifles in her hands. The red Ford Ranger screeched toward us through the snow with Amory in the driver’s seat. We tossed the bags into the back with the spare containers of gas, and I shoved Mariah into the backseat to be sandwiched between Greyson and Logan. I didn’t trust her back there with Jared for a minute.
 

“She’s not going with you.”

“Yes, she is,” I growled.

Jared opened his mouth to protest, but Logan had her gun trained on him from the backseat.

I jumped into the front with Amory. “You coming or not?”

Jared shot me a murderous expression and then climbed in on the other side of me. It was a tight squeeze.

Amory toggled the clutch, and we plowed through the snow. By now, several carriers had emerged from the woods. The hunters had abandoned their posts, and I could see the flash of PMC officers clad in white emerging behind them.
 

It was an odd sight. Some carried rifles with what looked like bayonets on the ends; others toted stun guns that they were using to drive rogue carriers forward.

“Shit,” Amory muttered. “They’ve seen us. We need to ditch this truck as soon as possible. It’s too easily recognized.”

By now, the other defectors’ vehicles were long gone. We wound through the trees down the snow-covered gravel road.
 

“Where should we go?” I asked, directing the question to Logan. “Where do you think they’re coming from?”

“No idea. Those officers could have been sent from anywhere.”

We crunched through the snow in silence for several minutes. Finally, I asked the question I knew no one wanted to hear.
 

“Where is World Corp based?”

No answer.

I could see Mariah in the rearview mirror, sandwiched between Greyson and Logan. She wore an oddly blank expression.

“There’s no reason for you not to tell us,” I said. “Nobody has to know you used to be PMC. You can join up with us, and we’ll just . . .” I trailed off, partially because I had no real plan of what we would “just” do, and partially because I realized I was also speaking for Greyson, Logan, Amory, and Jared. I didn’t care what Jared thought, but I knew it wasn’t fair to tether Mariah’s fate to the rest of theirs.

Mariah didn’t answer. She wasn’t even looking at me anymore. She was staring out the window, seemingly oblivious to what I was saying.

“Don’t you want to stay with Jared? It’s not as if you can go back to the PMC anyway. And now you don’t have to. If you help us —”

“Stop,” Amory snapped. “Just stop. She’s not going to help us, and we’re not going on some wild goose chase for a cure that might not even exist.”

I looked at him, feeling the anger and hurt churning in my stomach. After everything we had been through, Amory had always been on my side. Even when my rescue of Greyson from Sector X amounted to a suicide mission, he was always willing to follow.
 

What had changed? Was I being selfish and reckless, or had he simply stopped believing in me?

I fell silent, the hurt and humiliation pooling in the pit of my stomach. I could sense Greyson’s sympathetic stare burning a hole in the back of my neck, and with my thigh pressed up against Jared’s, I could practically feel the smugness radiating from him.

“So. It’s finally happened,” Mariah crooned.

I snapped my head around to look at her, and she wore a wicked smile I longed to smack off her face.

“The golden boy has finally stopped swallowing your bullshit. Nobody wants to listen to you, and you’re all —”

The sharp smack like a whip cut off Mariah’s voice. Logan was so fast I didn’t realize what was happening until I saw her blond hair fly around like a cape. A moment later, Mariah was lying in Greyson’s lap — an angry red patch glowing on her cheek — with Logan’s hands gripping her throat.

“You fucking bitch,” Logan whispered. “We could have let you
die
in there.” Logan laughed one sharp, scary laugh. “Believe me!
Nothing
would have made me happier than to see a horde of carriers rip you apart.
 

“If you don’t help us find the cure, I’m sure I’ll have a chance to do it myself. When I’ve turned, you’ll be my — first — victim.” She punctuated the last few words by shaking Mariah by the throat.
 

In that moment, Mariah looked much smaller than Logan. She gagged and choked, and an alarmed Greyson had flattened himself against the other side of the cab. Jared twisted around, swatted once at Logan, and then unbuckled and tried to climb over the seat.

Amory jerked the wheel once, and the truck slid across the snowy road, nearly colliding with a tree and sending Jared flying into the window. I smacked into his left shoulder — hard — and Greyson flew into Logan. Losing her grip slightly, she stayed hovered over Mariah, but she seemed to have lost the murderous gleam in her eyes.

“Calm the fuck down!” Amory yelled. “Logan, cut the drama. We have bigger problems right now. We need to get off the road or ditch this car.”

“Where are we going?” Logan screamed in Mariah’s face, her huge green eyes bulging.

“Head north,” Mariah gasped. “You have to cross the border to get to headquarters.”

The cab fell silent.

“Across the border?” repeated Greyson after a long pause. “Well, that’s just great. How are we supposed to get across?”

“That’s why it wasn’t even worth it to tell you,” croaked Mariah. She had freed herself from Logan’s clutches and was massaging her throat. “You’ll never get three defectors and one carrier across the border.”
 

As she punctuated the word “carrier,” I threw a sympathetic look at Logan, but she was still relishing Mariah’s reaction.

Watching her watch Mariah, I could tell that lashing out was only masking the helplessness she felt. Her eyes looked yellow and bloodshot around the edges, and there was a distinct sheen of fever on her brow.

“We have to try,” I said.

Amory turned his head toward me. “It’s a suicide mission.”

“I know. You don’t have to go with me. No one does. I can take Logan and try to get us across. It’s a long shot, but we don’t have any other options right now.”

“I’m coming with you,” said Greyson. “Going into Sector X to save me was crazy, but you did it anyway.”

Logan seemed to soften slightly at this, but she turned icy when her eyes met Amory’s in the rearview mirror. “I’m not sure when you turned into such a coward.”

A pang of rage flashed across his face, and I saw his grip tighten on the steering wheel. “You have to
think,
Logan. I know strategy seems to come as an afterthought around here, but it’s going to get us all killed.

“You don’t have to go,” I said, quietly enough so only he could hear. “You’re right. I can’t ask you to do this.”

Amory groaned, pulling his hand down over his face. We had reached the highway.
 

For several seconds, all I could hear was the loud hum of the truck idling. Then Amory let out an exasperated breath and pulled onto the road headed north.

We drove on for several minutes before we were forced to pull off at an exit to avoid a rover.
 

We had reached a cluster of abandoned gas stations and restaurants — a good place for a pit stop on the highway. Amory turned on the ramp and pulled into the snow-covered parking lot of an abandoned fast food restaurant with a sun-faded kids’ slide in the courtyard.
 

“How are we on supplies?” he asked.
 

“I had some in my pack ready to go,” said Logan. “There’s four bottles of water, a few granola bars, deer jerky, and some almonds.”

“I’ve got instant oatmeal and two cans of beans,” said Greyson.

They looked expectantly at Amory and Jared. Jared continued staring out the window, and Amory jerked his head once. “I got nothing.”

“I didn’t stash any food,” I said. “But there’s about five boxes of rounds in the bottom of my pack.”

Logan grinned. “You stole from the supply cabin?”

“Technically, Ida and I stole from one of the vendors at the Exchange who was trying to steal from us, and we ended up with way more than we would have paid for. I figured that would be much harder to get than food, and we’re always running away at a moment’s notice . . .”

“All right,” said Amory. “We still need to get more food. I don’t want to risk this kind of exposure again — not while the PMC is looking for us. Greyson, you stay and guard Mariah. Jared can go over to that store and try to find food. Haven and I will try to find another car we can take.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Logan snapped. “I’m not an invalid.”

“You can go with Jared. But if there’s any sign of trouble, get out of there.”

I didn’t like the idea of splitting up and leaving Logan with Jared, but watching her holster her knives and sling a rifle over her shoulder, I knew she could more than handle herself.
 

I helped Greyson tie up Mariah and left knowing he was the best person to guard her. Of all of us, he was the most levelheaded and the least likely to kill her on impulse if provoked.

“Meet back here in thirty minutes,” said Amory. “And look alive.”

Grudgingly, Jared followed Logan across the parking lot toward the mega store on the other side of the road, and Amory and I headed toward a cluster of connected parking lots behind the restaurant. I felt in my pocket for my spare magazine, trying to ignore the nervous twitch on the back of my neck.
 

The strip was eerily quiet. Most of the parking lots were completely empty, and the shelves inside the gas station were white and bare.
 

The only car I could see was an abandoned Corolla parked near the employee entrance. Amory inspected it with a furrowed brow. One of the windows was missing, the frame covered by a sheet of opaque plastic and discolored packing tape that rippled in the breeze. The front hood was discolored and slightly rumpled, and all the hubcaps were missing.

Once he cajoled the hood up, he hunched over to look inside and let out a long, exasperated breath. “This won’t work.”

“You think?”

“Well, we might have to settle. Beggars can’t be choosers, but this looks like it just died here.”

“It’s also way too small for six people.”

“Our options are fairly limited,” he said through gritted teeth. I was taken aback by his tone.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with
me
?” He rolled his head around. “Are you kidding?”

I gave him a blank look, which only seemed to enrage him more.
 

“You told me that after we rescued Greyson, we were going west. You didn’t say we would be teaming up with more rebels and then marching to our deaths up north.”

“I didn’t know! And in case you forgot, I had to join the rebels to save
you
! What was I supposed to do? And with Logan —”

“Logan wouldn’t be infected if we had just left the camp. This only happened because we stuck around with Rulon’s sinking ship.”

“You could have said something. And we were in no shape to go anywhere. Why are you blaming all this on me?”

“Because you’re a leader!” he yelled. “And you don’t see it. You just think you make decisions for yourself and people follow you because it’s the right thing, but that’s
not
how it is.
 

“Me and Logan and Greyson . . . and even Kinsley would follow you anywhere, and it’s not because you make the best decisions. It’s because people want to believe in you. You have to take that more seriously.”

The tension stung harshly in the air between us.

“I thought you guys followed me because we were friends.”

Amory raked an angry hand through his hair. “Yeah, but Logan and I are friends. Max and I were friends. But you know how many times we’ve shot down one another’s stupid plans because they were too dangerous? They stick with you because they know you’ll go alone, and they think you’re smart enough to do the right thing.”

“Stop,” I said, trying to hide the waver in my voice. “This is your conditioning talking. You wouldn’t be saying this if —”

“If what? If I hadn’t gone along with your plan to break Greyson out of prison? If I hadn’t been captured?”

His words felt like a punch to the stomach.

“And what about you?” My voice shook, and I could feel my lip trembling as I turned on him. “If I’m so awful at making decisions, what’s your excuse?”

“I go along with it because I’m in love with you!” he yelled.

His words were out there, and I didn’t know what to do. His angry expression told me it was not a romantic declaration, but I felt it could not go unacknowledged.

“Amory . . .”

“It’s not smart,” he said. When he looked at me sideways, his eyes were dark. “Everything was fine before you came along. We were safe.”

I blinked back the tears that threatened to spill over. Basically, he was saying his life would have been much better if I had never come to the farm.

“But then you showed up and . . . you breathed life into us again. You gave us something to fight for, and that’s . . . dangerous.”

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“I’m not,” he said. “It would be easier if I were. Besides, I let myself get dragged in.” He took a step toward me, and I could see the frustration in his eyes. His anger, unleashed by the PMC simulations, was fighting with something else and fading quickly.

“I just get so angry now . . . in a way I never did before . . . and it
scares
me.” He sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,” I whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

That was all he needed. Wordlessly, Amory closed the gap between us, reached up to cup the back of my neck under my hair, and planted a kiss on my forehead. “Come on. We have to find a better car.”

We scoured the parking lots along our side of the road. Most of them were rusted-out junkers that had died there when their owners attempted the journey north. During the migration, hitchhikers had run rampant along the highway. Some were harmless ordinary people trying to get a ride, and some were murderers, rapists, and carjackers trying to take advantage of people’s implicit trust in troubled times.