Outbreak (11 page)

The sight reminds me so vividly of Celdon that I get a pang of homesickness. I have an urge to step around the mound of cords to see what they’re working on, but I force myself to stay right at Eli’s side.

“Holy shit!” calls a voice from the shadows.

The drifters’ body language changes instantly, and I know the voice must belong to Malcolm.

“The prodigal son returns!”

Eli’s fists clench and unclench nervously at his sides. Every muscle in his forearm is tightly flexed. I place a covert hand on the small of his back to calm him down, but when the man emerges from the shadows, Eli stiffens as though he plans to launch himself straight at Malcolm.

The man standing in front of us is definitely the guy from the surveillance photos. The Desperados’ leader is tall and wiry — about Eli’s height but much scrawnier. His face is pointed like a rat’s, and he’s got heavy black eyebrows that are furrowed in constant suspicion.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asks.

“Well, hello to you, too,” says Eli, feigning offense.

“Hello?” Malcolm’s face falls. “
Hello
? Don’t fuckin’ ‘hello’ me. I’ve had search parties out hunting you for days, Parker. You strut in here after god knows how long, looking like you fucking own the place, and all you have to say to me is ‘
hello
’?”

I can’t breathe. 

For a moment, Eli and Malcolm just stare at each other, and the mood in the room becomes very tense.

Even though Eli and Malcolm have never met, there’s a deep sense of history and resentment between them. Clearly Owen had a habit of challenging Malcolm, and Eli came equipped with that same boldness.

Then Malcolm’s furious expression slips, and he falls into an easy — if somewhat off-putting — smile. “I’m just fuckin’ with you,” he says, flashing a pair of pronounced canines and extending a sideways handshake to Eli.

Eli lets out a stiff chuckle that does little to convince anyone, but he takes his hand anyway.

I release a slow sigh of relief, and Malcolm’s heavy gaze shifts to me.

“And you brought a
friend
.” He pronounces the word with clear double meaning.

“This is Harper,” says Eli.

“Nice to meet you,” says Malcolm, extending a hand.

“Likewise.” 

His palm is surprisingly cold. He envelopes my hand with both of his, and when we shake, I feel Eli shift a tiny bit closer.

I glance around the room, trying to keep my nerdiness in check. “You’ve got an impressive setup here,” I say in an attempt to be gracious.

“It’s coming along,” says Malcolm. “We’re able to keep pretty close tabs on the compound rats . . . not that it’s done much good.”

“Oh, no?”

Malcolm shakes his head. “We’ve lost a lot of men recently.”

I nod, fighting the bile rising up in my throat. I think back to the men at the body shop — the man I killed — and the trail of dead bodies we’ve left in our wake since.

To distract myself, I wander over to the wall behind the computers, where they’ve tacked up a map of the town and the surrounding desert. Several routes are hand drawn over the terrain in blue marker, and I recognize one as the path Eli and I took last time.

To the left of that map, there are eight grainy photographs that look like mug shots — six men and two women staring blankly at the camera. I don’t know any of them personally, but I recognize their photos from the compound news feeds. They’re the AWOL Recon operatives.

I drag in a shallow breath and try to focus on something else. My hands are shaking so badly that I have to shove them in my pockets to avoid attracting attention.

“Are these them?” I ask, touching the edge of one of the photos.

“What?”

“The compound workers who’ve been killing your men,” I say, more harshly than I meant to. “Are these the ones?”

“No,” says Malcolm. “Those operatives are . . . Well, let’s just say they’re no longer a threat.” 

I swallow twice to wet my parched throat. “What about the workers from 119? How are you managing them?”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize I’ve gone too far. I’d been fishing to see if the drifters knew that 119 had been wiped off the map, but when Malcolm’s mouth twists into a sneer, I realize I probably just got Eli/Owen into even more trouble.

Malcolm chuckles. “I see Owen has been sharing.”

Then something in his expression changes, and his amusement makes an almost imperceptible shift to suspicion. “Where did you say you were from?”

I swallow, trying to keep my expression neutral. “I didn’t. I’m from Salt Lake City.”

Malcolm points between me and Eli. “And . . . how do you two know each other?”

I let out an embarrassed laugh to hint at something scandalous and glance at Eli. It’s time for him to start fielding some questions.

“We ran into each other between here and Fort Sol,” says Eli. “She was having some car trouble, and I stopped to help.”

“Huh,” says Malcolm. He rubs his chin, his expression pensive. “Was this before or after you ran off and sold me out to Jackson?”

I freeze. A heavy silence falls over the room, and I realize all the drifters are staring at Malcolm and Eli, bracing for the storm. 

Eli recovers quickly. “
Sold you out
? Is
that
what you think?”

“I don’t really know what to think, to be honest,” says Malcolm in a low, threatening voice. “All I know is that you have Nuclear Nation tattooed all over your fucking forehead. You’ve made it clear from day one that you’re Jackson’s man through and through. 

“I thought he and I were going to work together on this. I’ve been more than generous and accommodating with his people. I brought them into the family like they were my own. Then he sends me you to deliver a progress report, and five of my men turn up dead. The base was almost compromised. Three of my enforcers are still missing — the men I sent looking for
you
. 

“What am I supposed to do with that, Parker? Am I supposed to believe you work for
me
now?” He shakes his head. “It just doesn’t sit well.”

Eli lets out a long sigh and rubs the back of his head. Part of me wonders what the plan is. I’m ready to pull out my gun and start shooting my way out of here, but he doesn’t look as though he’s in a hurry.

“I knew this would come up eventually,” Eli sighs. 

I can tell he’s choosing his words carefully because he knows whatever he’s about to say is going to put us at enormous risk.

“I’m not going to deny killing those thugs you sent to question me. I showed up in good faith to tell them what I knew — which, by the way, wasn’t much. Then your men tied me to a chair and started beating the shit out of me to get information that I didn’t have. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

Behind him, Mouse makes an angry noise in his throat and glowers at Eli as though he wants to curb stomp him, but Malcolm throws Mouse a warning glance. Then he shifts his eyes back to Eli, sizing him up as though he’s trying to decide whether to have him shot on sight or mess with him some more.

Then, to my enormous surprise, he nods. 

“Thank you for telling me, Parker. It takes a man to admit what you did. I won’t apologize for doing my due diligence, but I can’t say you’re entirely to blame for the unfortunate events that took place at the restaurant.”

Mouse looks as though he’s about to explode with rage. His shoulders are hunched in a fighting stance, and he’s breathing hard through his nose like an agitated bull.

“Are you serious?” he asks Malcolm. “He killed Santiago and the others in cold blood, and you’re just gonna let him get away with it?”

Malcolm snaps his head around and fixes Mouse with a piercing glare. “I will decide on an appropriate punishment later, but right now, we have more pressing matters to deal with.” 

Mouse opens his mouth to retort, but Malcolm cuts him off. “This discussion is over.”

Just then, I hear heavy banging from the side door, and Gunner clatters through the beaded curtain to answer. Urgent male voices drift back to us, which seems to capture Malcolm’s attention.

Gunner reappears a moment later, slightly out of breath, with two more men trailing behind him.

“Compound rats about two miles out,” says a dirty-looking man in a yellowish wife beater. “They’re moving fast. Kill or capture?”

“Can you tell who they are?”

“We’ve identified one of them,” grunts the man. “He’s good. The other one is brand new.”

“Shoot them.”

A wave of nausea rolls through me when I realize they’re talking about two Recon operatives — one of whom has to be a cadet.

Everything moves very fast after that. Jay, Mouse, and Tony cross to a cage of rifles in the corner and start grabbing their sniper gear. One of the drifters working at the computers gets up and points to the large map on the wall. He tells them the Recon operatives are approaching from the south side, charting the same path Eli and I took when we got shot at. Jay and Mouse argue briefly about the best place to position themselves, and then they turn to leave.

“You comin’?” Tony calls to Eli.

I’m sure I’m wearing a look of pure terror, because Eli clears his throat uncomfortably and glances down at me. “I don’t think so.”

“I need to take care of something,” Malcolm says to Eli. “But you and I still have a lot to talk about.”

Eli nods.

Malcolm slaps him on the shoulder. “Don’t go too far. I may need you.”

“Right.”

Malcolm follows the others out, and something tells me it’s time to go. I pull on my mask, and Eli starts moving toward the door.

“Hope to see you again real soon, Mama,” drawls Gunner as we leave.

I glance over my shoulder and attempt an awkward smile, but Eli yanks me around the corner so fast that Gunner is just a blur. His hand finds mine, but it’s not a romantic gesture; he’s very close to ripping my arm out of the socket as he strides through town in the opposite direction of the approaching Recon operatives.

“Wait!” I gasp. “Where are you
going
?”

Eli doesn’t answer. It’s as if he doesn’t even hear me.

“Eli, stop!” I yell, digging in my heels and yanking my arm out of his grasp. “We have to help the Recon guys.”

“Help them how?” he asks, rounding on me with a look of desperation. “The Desperados have them in their crosshairs as we speak. If we go out there, we’re as good as dead.”

“We have to try!”

“How? They all think I’m Owen. If I turn against them, what do you think’s gonna happen the next time Owen shows his face? I’m not going to put him at risk again. I won’t do it.”

“We don’t even know if Owen’s coming back!” I yell. “But we
do
know our friends need our help.”

Eli lets out an exasperated growl and drags a hand through his hair. He knows I’m right, but at the moment, he’s single-mindedly focused on protecting Owen.

“Fine,” he says, resuming his long strides in the wrong direction. “But we can’t do anything without our rifles. We need to get our stuff and get into position.”

“We don’t have time!”

“It’s the only way, Harper. You want to do this or not?”

I want to argue, but he’s right. We can’t very well take out the drifters from afar with a handgun.

We half walk, half run up to the store where we left our rucksacks and weapons. Eli rummages around for some extra ammunition, and I see him place the photo of his family and his mother’s necklace inside the bag for safekeeping. Then he flings the rucksack over his shoulder, loads his rifle, and jerks his head toward the door. 

I wish he’d put on his mask, but I’m not about to waste time nagging him when our friends could be in jeopardy.

The trip across town goes much more quickly. I know we must have run most of the way there, because my heart is beating wildly against my ribcage. The sun is starting to sink lower on the horizon, but I don’t know if nightfall will help the situation or make it worse.

As Eli leads us back through the bad part of town, I try to conjure up a mental image of the drifters’ map to remember where exactly they planned to station themselves.

Then I hear a gunshot, and my mind goes blank.

nine

Eli

At the sound of gunfire, my heart drops to my knees.

The look on Harper’s face is one of utter devastation. We may already be too late.

I stop in the street and tilt my head up to scout the buildings around us. Most of them are only one story, but there’s a rundown old apartment building that stands taller than the rest.

Nearly all the windows are broken, giving the building a menacing smile. My eyes follow the brick ledge about ten feet up and catch sight of a rusty fire escape.

I turn to Harper. Her face is flushed from running, and her eyes are full of terror. I kneel down in front of her, and she gives me a bewildered look.

“Climb onto my shoulders.”

“What?”

“I can’t reach the fire escape. I’m going to lift you up so you can grab the ladder.”

She gives me a shaky nod and swings her leg over my shoulder. I hold out a hand, and she uses it to steady herself as she puts all her weight on my back.

Harper’s light, but she’s trembling so badly I’m afraid she’s going to slide right off. I stand up, gripping her legs, and she latches her ankles around my body as I position her under the ladder.

She wobbles a little, but then I hear a loud
creak
as she yanks on the rusty ladder.

When I kneel down, Harper slides gracefully off my shoulders and clambers up ahead of me. 

We’ve barely reached the halfway point when another gunshot shatters the silence.

I feel the vibration inside my rib cage, and the image of a bullet ripping through the air paralyzes me on the ladder.

The gunshot came from far away — and the bullet wasn’t meant for us — but I still feel death deep in my bones.

Every nerve in my body is stretched to the breaking point. My hands are gripping the ladder so tightly that my palms are numb. I can’t move.