Omen Operation (3 page)

“Tiebreaker for the side dish?” Dawson asked.

The sun was starting to set, and Terry’s whistle sounded from the dining hall.

“No time, but I do want mashed potatoes tonight.” Porter shrugged, glancing at Brooklyn.

Brooklyn grinned. “Good, me too.”

“See? We don’t even need a tiebreaker,” Porter said, shoulder bumping into Brooklyn’s as he walked by. “She gets me.”

Gabriel appeared at her side, cat eyes narrowed playfully from under her lashes.

Brooklyn told her to be quiet before she had a chance to say anything.

Julian glanced over his shoulder as they all trudged through the grass toward the dining hall. She followed his stare and found what he’d caught sight of, Dawson’s muscular frame slinking around Terry’s small, secluded lodge near the front of the grounds.

“What’s he doing?” Julian mumbled. He linked his arm through Brooklyn’s as they walked.

Brooklyn glanced over her shoulder again, watching closely. “I don’t know,” she said softly.

Dawson’s silhouette disappeared behind the cabin’s front door, and Brooklyn looked away.

Something didn’t feel right.

But nothing ever felt right anymore.

Chapter Three

Brooklyn held her breath as she curled further under her bed sheets. The floorboards dipped under the weight of footsteps. The five of them knew where to step in the night, the quiet paths to take so they didn’t disturb the others.

Brooklyn knew that whoever was awake didn’t want to be alone.

The first thing Brooklyn saw when she opened her eyes was Porter staring back at her from his bed a few feet away. His jaw was set hard, lips pursed into a tight line.

He glanced up, and Brooklyn followed the tiny flick of his lashes until she noticed that the bunk above him was empty.

She heard laces being tied and pants being tucked into the top of a pair of boots. A jacket, the slide of it against bare skin. A zipper.

“What’re ya doin?” Gabriel slurred.

Brooklyn started to sit up when Gabriel swung her legs over the side of their bunk and let them dangle there. The shine of shell-pink polish glittered off her toenails.

“D,” Gabriel whined, “what the hell are you doing?”

Dawson rolled the sleeves of his black jacket up and crouched down to pull a heavy duffle bag out from under their bed. Brooklyn held her breath when he looked over his shoulder and said, “We’re leaving.”

Julian was on his feet, reaching for the lights. Dawson snatched his arm. “Don’t,” he hissed. “Do not turn on the lights. Just get your stuff.”

The thoughts that circulated through Brooklyn’s mind were a mess of memories and warnings. They swarmed around Dawson’s words,
we’re leaving
, and she felt tightness in her chest that reminded her of what it was like to be vulnerable. To be scared. Because people like Dawson didn’t make empty statements like
we’re leaving
without reason. People like Dawson didn’t run.

Gabriel said his name, “Dawson,” like tires skidding to a stop on the asphalt, like an emergency break being pulled. “We can’t just leave…there’s nowhere for us to go.”

“We can just leave, and we’re going to. Tonight.”

“We can’t.” Gabriel slid off the bed and took a couple quick steps toward him. “Everything’s contaminated. Everything’s gone. We can’t…”

Dawson thrust a magazine against Gabriel’s chest, which she fumbled to catch. Brooklyn watched as she analyzed the cover then the back, soft fingertips peeled open page after page. It was one of those glossy beauty magazines. A picture of a woman smiled on the cover and block words spelled out the headlines
“what makes her sexy”
and
“please your man this fall”.

Dawson reached forward and pinched the spine of the magazine. Gabriel let him take it, and he shook it until a folded piece of paper fell at Gabriel’s feet. She didn’t move. She didn’t breathe. Just stood, swaying slightly with her eyebrows pulled down toward the bridge of her nose.

“What…” Brooklyn picked it up off the ground. She glanced at Julian who was in front of the door with his arms crossed over his bare chest, silently asking for guidance. She didn’t know how to do this; she didn’t know how to keep Dawson from exploding.

“Read it,” Dawson interrupted her mental plea for help. “Out loud.”

Brooklyn wanted to snap at him, to tell him to calm down and not to bark at her, but the way his eyes moved, careful and nervous, made her reconsider scolding him.

It was a handwritten letter with a smudged signature decorating the bottom of lined notebook paper.

“We miss you,” Brooklyn sighed out the words, eyes drifting over the first line before she continued. “Marly did well on her science project…” Her voice dropped lower, eyebrows pulled together as confusion started to spread like frostbite under her skin. “But she wishes you were here to help pick out her homecoming dress. She keeps asking where you are. This is getting too hard, Theresa…”

Brooklyn’s hands started to tremble.

“My parents asked about you. They want us to fly out to Chicago for Christmas this year; will you be home by then? I love you.” Brooklyn’s voice trailed off. “Marly loves you. Please ask for some time off.”

She paused before clearing her throat. “P.S they published my article in The Times. Hope you like the magazine. Marly picked it out.”

The piece of crinkled paper felt unbelievably heavy in her hands. Her eyes followed the swoop of the curved “S” on the sender’s name at the bottom of the page.

Gabriel’s breath was shaky. Julian stared down at his feet.

Dawson kicked an empty duffle bag toward Porter. “There’s a truck behind Terry’s cabin, and the transport bus is on the other side of the field. The surplus trucks brought supplies and food yesterday that we’ll stock up on before we take off.” Stern blue eyes darted around from one person to the next.

“I don’t…” Brooklyn heaved a sigh. “I don’t think we should jump to conclusions.”

“That letter,” Dawson said, pointing down where Brooklyn had it clasped in her hand, “was sent from Seattle. Not from a ‘recovery camp,’ from
Seattle
.”

Gabriel tossed the magazine on to the bed and shook her head, turning to stand next to Dawson. “It was published this month,” she said bitterly.

That wasn’t possible.

“They’re lying to us,” Dawson said, teeth grinding together as he spoke. “Terry and whoever brought us here.”

“You sound paranoid and insane,” Brooklyn said, eyes narrowed as she stood and waved her hand between them. “They’ve done nothing but take care of us!”

“Take care of us,” Julian repeated. He turned his gaze from the floor and looked at her sadly, an unspoken apology for not taking her side. “By training us how to use military grade weapons?”

“You saw what the virus does to people,” Brooklyn said, heart beating fast against her ribcage. “They have to train us so we can defend ourselves if there’s ever another outbreak. It’s standard.”

Dawson shrugged and pointed toward the door. “Go on then. If you have so much faith in her, then go and ask Terry, I mean
Theresa
, if you can call your parents.”

He challenged her with his eyes, jaw clenched. He gave a slow nod when she looked away.

“Yeah,” he growled under his breath. “That’s what I thought. Miss Theresa is allowed to hear from her family, but we’re completely cut off from ours. It’s been almost two years, but I bet it’s just
standard
.”

Brooklyn shoved past Gabriel and was busting through the door of their cabin before Dawson could finish the last sarcastic word. She couldn’t defend something when everything he was saying made sense. She couldn’t keep her friends under the safety of this camp if she didn’t have some kind of leverage.

Brooklyn was scared, scared of the idea that perhaps Dawson was right and scared of the reality that something else was going on. The unknown had been so far away, a flicker of noise through the trees. Now it knocked feather-light and enticing against their lives. Against her life.

Julian stood in the doorway, his voice a hushed whisper calling her name as she barreled through cold wet grass and misty air toward the small lodge.

The fire pit was still smoldering.

The stars shone bright.

But the moon was hidden and cowered behind thick clouds.

Hesitation wasn’t an option. When she reached the large wooden door, Brooklyn twisted the handle and tried to push forward. It was locked.

“Terry!” She didn’t expect to sound so desperate. “It’s Brooklyn!” Her knuckles rapped against the door. “Can you open the door please? I really…”

Brooklyn paused. Her neck craned forward to press against the splintered wooden panels. She wasn’t one to lose her words in a fit of rage or to have them punched out of her by fear. But that sound, the click, click, roll, click was so familiar. The faint slow clicking pieced together an image stored away in Brooklyn’s mind.

The image of a gun.

It sounded like wind when the bullet was fired, like a dart cutting through the air. It sliced right through the door, inches from the lock, and sank into the soft flesh stretched over Brooklyn’s abdomen.

The pain came after the sound, after the sight of blood and the bewilderment. It came in slow waves. An ache and then a burn, lapping like the tide, pulled in and out with every breath she took.

Dawson was right.

One hand pressed hard over the small hole torn just shy of her belly button. Brooklyn took a step back, readied herself, and winced as she slammed her foot against the door. It swung open on its hinges. There on the other side of it was Terry with her gun, a long black silencer screwed on to the barrel.

“Stay where you are, Miss Harper,” Terry said. She sounded different, guarded and controlled.

“What’s going on?” Brooklyn gasped. She stumbled forward, her trembling hand slick with blood where she held it over her stomach.

“You were almost ready. They were making plans to have you transferred; you didn’t even have two weeks left. But they’ll find you, you know.” Terry shook her head, a wry smile crossing over her face. “No matter what, they’ll find you.”

Brooklyn winced when a pair of hands gripped her hips, hauling her backward. She squirmed and yelped until a hand smashed over her mouth.

Porter pressed his lips against her ear. “Keep pressure on it.”

“She shot me,” Brooklyn breathed when Porter’s hand slid away. “That bitch shot me…”

“I can see that,” he sang matter-of-factly. She could practically hear him rolling his eyes.

Another bullet ricocheted off the edge of the doorway. Brooklyn huddled back against Porter’s chest as they crouched down just a few inches away.

The sound of running matched the uneven rhythm of Brooklyn’s heartbeat. She closed her eyes until Gabriel’s voice, shrill and filled with rage, cut through the heavy air around them.

“You shot her?” Gabriel squealed, leaping forward past Porter and Brooklyn through the open door of Terry’s cabin. “
You shot her?
”

Brooklyn could make out the sound of Gabriel’s foot, the thud of it connecting with the side of Terry’s head, and the skip of the gun as it clattered against the ground.

Dawson followed behind her, offering a sympathetic glance down to Brooklyn as he stepped around them into the cabin. “Hold her,” he said calmly.

Brooklyn wiggled in Porter’s arms until he let her go. She crawled forward and held her breath, pain surging into her lower back. Her father had always said that it was impossible to look away from a train wreck. It was the truth. Because as she peered around the edge of the door, she saw Gabriel with her foot smashed between Terry’s collarbones, and Dawson’s hand wrapped around their camp supervisor’s jaw, pushing her head back.

“They’ll find you,” Terry choked.

Brooklyn didn’t look away when Dawson dragged the knife in a perfect line across Terry’s throat.

Chapter Four

“I need to get the bullet out.” Porter adjusted his glasses, leaving a smear of Brooklyn’s blood on the bridge of his nose.

Julian nodded as he struggled to prop Brooklyn’s arm over his shoulder so they could get her inside the cabin.

It felt like a hot piece of coal was charring her insides. Her entire abdomen ached, and pain shot down her legs, up her chest. Brooklyn gasped, whimpering when the two boys hauled her up and helped her walk through the doorway.

Terry’s lifeless body was on the living room floor, a wide puddle of blood leaking out around her shoulders from the deep slash below her chin. Brooklyn was bitter that she hadn’t been the one who’d killed her.

Gabriel turned on the lights. Dawson laid a blanket out on a small coffee table where they helped Brooklyn lie on her back.

Brooklyn kicked when Porter pressed his hand over her abdomen. “That h-hurts!”

Nimble fingers lifted the edge of her shirt up to expose the mangled, torn hole. Brooklyn tensed, constricting the wound, and went pale as she watched it cough out globs of dark blood.

“Okay,” Porter breathed, unfastening his belt and handing it to Julian. “Put this in her mouth.”

Julian winced, shifting nervously on his feet. He reached out and took the leather belt from Porter’s hands. His eyes batted down to Brooklyn, who was glancing around like an animal looking for somewhere to hide.

Julian swallowed nervously. “You want me to…”

“Yep. That or you can let her bite your hand,” Porter said, glaring at Julian, whose cheeks were frosted a deep red.

Brooklyn stammered, fighting with the words that all seemed to come out at once, “What are you doing? I…I’m fine, just—n-no, no, seriously Porter, is it that bad?”

“I need you to trust me.” Eyes the color of whiskey watched her from behind the lenses of his glasses, and Porter nodded.

Gabriel’s hands clenched down over her wrists. Brooklyn surged against them while her ankles were held tight by Dawson, who knelt down by her feet.

Julian whispered, “I’m sorry,” before he slid the folded belt between her teeth.

Brooklyn trembled as she tried to avert her eyes, to find anything else to look at. Sweat beaded up on her temple. She couldn’t tell if it was adrenaline or anxiety that leaked into her veins and burst out from her pores. None of that mattered when Porter’s fingers dipped into the small open pocket on her hip. It felt like she was being gutted—like a rabbit being skinned for a pack of hungry wolves. The muscles below the surface of her skin clenched. Her back bowed off the cherry wood table.

Gabriel’s grip tightened. Brooklyn could feel the sensation of her friend’s thumb rubbing back and forth along the side of her wrist.

Tears burst from Brooklyn’s eyes. She whined, loud gritted puffs of air tinged with sobs and muffled curses.

“Got it, got it, I got it,” Porter rambled as he withdrew his fingers. He let the bullet drop to the floor.

Brooklyn’s entire body was wracked with violent shakes. She tried to breathe, but the pain was a constant throb. The wound itself had a burning, fiery heartbeat that sent ripples of heat down into her left leg.

“Okay, hey.” Porter hovered over Brooklyn, touching her tear-drenched cheek with his clean hand. “I’m almost done. It was shallow, so it’ll heal up quickly, but, hey, c’mon, eyes open.”

Three fingers tapped against her cheek. Brooklyn bit down hard on the belt still shoved between her top and bottom jaw. She jolted forward, forehead wrinkled as she snarled at him. If there was anything she didn’t want, it was to have her eyes open. She didn’t want to face the reality of the situation. She felt betrayed, used, bamboozled. Her eyes being open meant she had to feel something other than the pain in her hip.

Porter sighed. “You don’t have to like me right now, but you have to listen to me.”

“Are we cauterizing it?” Dawson asked.

Brooklyn snapped one of her legs loose, and swung a hard kick to Dawson’s jaw.

Gabriel tightened her grip, seething down at Dawson. “Nice way to keep her calm, asshole.”

“I was just asking!” Dawson blurted.

“No,” Porter said quickly to Brooklyn. He gripped her cheek. “I’m not gonna cauterize it, I’m not gonna burn you. But I need to close it. You understand that? We’re almost done, okay?”

Regret sank down into the pit of her stomach, and Brooklyn nodded quickly, craning her neck to look at Dawson who was rubbing his chin.

“I’m sorry,” she slurred around the belt, shifting her leg to rest against his arm as he continued to hold her down. “I’m so sorry.”

It was clear that she wasn’t apologizing for kicking Dawson but rather for not listening to him in the first place.

Porter disappeared momentarily. He returned with a slender glass bottle and a small portable first-aid kit.

“If you continue to lose blood, you’ll just get weaker,” Porter said as he twisted the top off the bottle. “This will have to do.”

“What about the medical unit in Cabin D?” Gabriel asked.

Porter shook his head. “That would be an option if we had the time.”

Brooklyn arched her back and cried when the liquid cascaded down over the bullet hole. It stung worse than any burn, any cut, any injury had ever burned. The inside was the worst, where her flesh was raw and new. It screamed out through the rest of her body as it was drowned in top-shelf vodka.

The gentle stroke of Porter’s palm along the curve of Brooklyn’s side made her turn away and hide her face in the inked skin of Julian’s bicep. She knew what a touch like that meant; it was an apology in advance. But being stitched up wasn’t as bad as she anticipated.

Julian let the belt go and knelt down around her shoulders so he could cradle her head. She hid against his chest, closing her eyes. She squirmed every time Porter would scrape the needle against the burnt peaks of her injury. Gabriel released her hands and cooed ridiculous loving things at her while she brushed her hands along Brooklyn’s face, removed the spit, sweat, and tears that Brooklyn couldn’t help but be ashamed of.

Two hands gripped her ankles. Dawson rubbed his hands soothingly against her calves.

She didn’t deserve to be cared for so efficiently after running headfirst into a dangerous situation. She should have trusted them. She should have listened.

“I’m done,” Porter said quietly.

A piece of light gauze was taped over the now tightly stitched skin.

Brooklyn didn’t want to move, but Julian stood up, which forced her to look at Porter, who leaned over her. He tried to smile, but it was broken and timid.

“Thank you,” Brooklyn whispered.

Porter nodded.

The even rise and fall of her chest was enough to remind Brooklyn of their vulnerability. They were no longer safe.

They’d never been safe.

The heavy bounce of a shattered phone hit the ground next to the table.

“She wiped it,” Dawson said as he ran his hand through his hair.

“Terry must have done it when she noticed that the letter was gone,” Gabriel said.

Brooklyn laid her hand over the white patch on her stomach and wrinkled her nose. She lifted off the table, leaning into Portland’s shoulder. The ache was dull and monotonous, but the injury would heal. Everything always healed. However, the bone-chilling impact of Terry’s words, the pain from them would linger.

They’ll find you

“Guys…” Julian’s voice was crisp. It pulled the attention of the group toward the door, where he stood with his eyes focused on the outlines of bodies in the dark. “I think we need to explain.”

A girl with long curly red hair stood in sweats and a baggy t-shirt next to a large group of other campers. Aquamarine eyes took in the scene in Terry’s cabin. Stephanie tried to catch her breath, to suppress a scream.

“What…?” Stephanie swallowed, stepping forward. She had her hand outstretched behind her, signaling for the others to wait. “What happened?”

Dawson sighed through his nose and shook his head. “We don’t know, Steph. But we’re getting out of here.”