State of Chaos (Collapse Series) (13 page)

He stops and clasps his hands behind his back, instructor-style.

“Can you commit?”

There’s a dead silence. Isabel clambers across the log and squeezes me into a playful hug, her eyes on the conversation going down in front of us. At last, somebody in line steps forward. “I can commit,” he says. He’s a tall, lean young man with a rifle slung over his back.

“What’s your name?” Chris asks.

“Andrew,” he replies. “And I’m in.”

Chris nods. A few other guys step forward and, after several moments, the entire crowd of
ex-POWs takes one step, signifying their decision. My chest swells with pride – pride for Chris’s leadership, pride for the people willing to give their lives to take down Omega.

It’s a rush.

“Thank you,” Chris says, rubbing his chin. “My men and I will start training you. It won’t be long before you’ll be able to inflict as much damage on Omega as they’ve inflicted on us. It won’t take much to turn all of you into their worst nightmare.”

After a few more minutes of talking, Chris lets another man start speaking. I don’t recognize him. He’s tall, blonde and blue eyed. He looks young. His plaid button up is tucked into his blue jeans as he speaks.

Chris looks over at me, ghosting a smile.

“He’s got it bad for you,” Sophia grins.

I feel myself blushing.

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“You’d be crazy if it wasn’t.”

The blonde guy wraps up his talk, and then Chris is moving the group away from camp.
I’m assuming they’re going somewhere to train. I stand up and stretch.

“We should train, too,” I say. “I want to help.”

“Me too!” Isabel starts walking back and forth on the log, balancing like a tightrope walker. “Chris says nobody’s too young or old to help win this war.”

Sophia winces at the word
war
. I don’t blame her. It’s a loaded word.

Small, but loaded.

“I’m going to grab lunch,” Sophia says. “Mrs. Young is making something. I can see her from here.”

“I’m coming with you,” Isabel replies, jumping off the log and taking Sophia’s hand. The two of them have become pretty close in the last few days. “Coming, Cassie?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

Something catches my attention at the other side of camp. Sophia and Isabel start walking towards the Young’s tent as I go the other way. A tall, powerful man with dark, cropped hair is standing with his arms crossed.
He’s studying me. Judging by his appearance, I’m going to make an assumption: he’s ex-military. He
has
to be with his build, hairstyle and presence.

“Hey,” I say, approaching.

He cocks an eyebrow.

“I’m Cassidy,” I continue. “Are you helping Chris train the recruits?”

He shifts his stance, giving me a cold once-over.

“Ramos,” he replies, his voice gravelly. A smoker’s voice. “Alexander Ramos.”

“Oh, I know who you are.” I stop myself. “I mean, yeah. I heard about you.”

“Really?” He smells like smoke.

I furrow my brow as he pops a package of cigarettes out of his pocket.

“Smoke?” he asks.

“No thanks.” I watch him take a cigarette out. Light it. “Where do you get those? I don’t think they’re selling them at the local gas station these days.”

Alexander snorts.

“A lot of people leave them behind in their houses,” he says.

I notice the lines around his mouth. “Well, I just wanted to…introduce myself,” I say lamely. “Have a nice day.”

I turn to leave, but he catches my shoulder.

His hands are huge – almost three times the size of mine.

“Cassidy,” he says, narrowing his eyes.

I take a step backwards under the intensity of his gaze.

“Yeah?”

“Be careful,” he warns.

“What are you talking about?”

He shrugs and takes a long drag, giving me a farewell wave. Then he stalks off like I never existed, leaving me alone on the edge of camp. How weird is that?

I shrug off his strange behavior as the “attitude problem” Chris was talking about and head back to the Young family tent. Mrs. Young has cooked up some lunch, and it smells delicious. I’m surprised Omega can’t track us
down based on the scent of our campfire cooking alone.

“You know, Chris was telling me that you thought your father might have been taken to the city as a war criminal,” Mrs. Young says, setting a bowl down in front of me. “But after what I’ve seen of Omega, I don’t think they’d bother.”

She makes an attempt to smooth back her wispy gray hair as she sits down and joins Sophia, Isabel and myself at a table. “What makes you say that?” I ask.

“Because Omega doesn’t just single people out of the crowd,” Mrs. Young says, “unless they have a very good reason. As far as I know, your father just got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“They made a point of leaving the warrant of arrest up for everybody to see,” I answer. “Why would they do that if they didn’t think he was important enough to single out?”

“Your father sounds like a smart man, from what you’ve told me,” Mrs. Young continues. “And I could be very wrong, Cassie,
but I feel like Omega wouldn’t waste their time taking war criminals back to the cities.”

“Why wouldn’t they?” Sophia asks.

“There’s nothing left of the cities,” Mrs. Young says, stirring her bowl of soup. “Rumor is Los Angeles was attacked with a chemical weapon not long after the EMP. I’ve heard from other people in camp that a
lot
of the major cities in the country were hit with a chemical weapon, too.”

Sophia stops eating. The color drains out of her cheeks.

“I thought New York was nuked.”

“There are those rumors, too.” Mrs. Young studies the branches of the trees before she goes on. “I don’t know a lot about military strategy like my son, but if I was an invading army, I would want to take over everything – not destroy it and rebuild it. If it’s already in place, why waste all that time building everything from scratch?”

“A chemical weapon would wipe out the population,” I say, realization dawning, “but it would leave the infrastructure of the city in
place. Omega could literally clean out the dead people and then move in.”

Sophia covers her mouth.

“That’s
disgusting
!”

“It could be exactly what happened.” I fold my hands together, getting a plotting look on my face. “You might be right.”

Then what
did
happen to my dad?

Did Omega arrest him and send him to a labor camp? Was he killed on sight? I have no idea, and I’m afraid that if I spend too much time thinking about it, I’ll go crazy. So I focus on something else.

“Who do you think Omega is?” I ask.

“An alliance.” Mrs. Young doesn’t hesitate with her answer. “We know Russia is involved. Alexander is from the Midwest. He said he suspected Syria and North Korea were involved as well. There could be more.”

“Well,
somebody
decided to gang up on us,” I sigh. “How nice.”

After we finish lunch, I decide to go for a stroll around the campsite. My strength has returned and I want to familiarize myself with
everything before I start training with the rest of the recruits.

Then again, thinking of myself as a “recruit” is kind of hilarious.

I was never the type of person who engaged in strenuous physical activity outside of jogging, hiking or riding a bicycle. And suddenly I’m going to join a guerilla militia group and fight against an invading army. God has a great sense of humor.

On the east edge of the camp, a few guards are stationed around the perimeter. Many of them are actually hidden in the forest a good distance away from the camp, just in case somebody tries to sneak up on us. It’s always good to be prepared.

As that thought crosses my mind, Harry pops up out of the bushes. He’s wearing combat pants that are two sizes too big, and he’s holding a stick.

A big walking stick, by the looks of it.

“Um…” I say. “What are you doing out here?”

He draws back, clutching said stick, and drops his eyes.

“Guarding,” he replies.

“What’s with the stick? Getting in touch with your inner caveman?”

He doesn’t crack a smile.

“I’m not allowed to have a gun,” he says.

Gee, I wonder why.

“Look, Harry,” I begin. “I know you didn’t set me up on purpose. Kamaneva was the devil in disguise. I was angry with you at first, but I’m not anymore. I understand why you did what you did.”

Forgiveness is not something I dole out on a regular basis. In fact, I have been known to hold a grudge against late postal carriers and waitresses who forget to put lemon in my water. But this is different. Harry didn’t betray me because he’s a bad person. He betrayed me because
Kamaneva
was.

“I should have been stronger,” he replies, exhaling. “I should have refused. That’s what your boyfriend would have done.”

“You were scared. It’s okay.”

“Well, there comes a point when you’ve just got to look after your own skin,” he snaps, glaring at me. Mood swing alert. “That’s what I was doing. Any logical person would have done the same thing.”

One second he’s apologizing and the next he’s making excuses for himself. I’d say Harry Lydell is having an emotional crisis right now. I would be, too, if I’d set somebody up to be executed.

“Forget it,” I sigh. “I just wanted you to know I’m not angry with you.”

“Bloody likely,” he mutters.

“Whatever. Be that way.”

I leave, upset. I’ve never had anybody reject mercy before. Is that even possible? If I did something bad, I’d want somebody’s forgiveness…wouldn’t I? Maybe it’s just a pride thing. Harry’s obviously embarrassed that he sold me out to Kamaneva.

He’ll get over it.

If I can, he can, too.

Chapter Ten

Rest and relaxation can only last so long before A) something goes wrong or B) you have to get back to work. I consider life one big long list of As, but today is an exception. It’s time to get back to work.

The liberated prisoners are being turned into a guerilla war fighting group to be reckoned with. The militiamen are training them every day – hard. As a result, the Free Army has dozens of new citizen soldiers, both young and old. And Sophia and I are among the newest recruits.

Chris, because of his natural leadership abilities, has grown to become the leader of our militia. People look up to him. Ever since the raid on the labor camp came off successfully, nobody’s even questioned the idea that Chris should be in charge. Below Chris there are other men who instruct the newbies. The first one is Alexander Ramos. Tall, tanned, slightly creepy. Chris told me that he was an active-duty Recon Marine home on leave when the world went haywire. Aside from that, nobody knows
anything about him. He’s a man of mystery, and despite his gruff exterior, Chris seems to trust him.

Next we’ve got Max. Outside of his Omega uniform, he looks like a different person. No more Grease. His hair is cut short and the fine features of his face stand out against his brown eyes. He can’t be older than thirty.

Aside from him we’ve got a young man named Derek. About twenty-three years old, he’s got short blond hair and a tall, powerful frame. He’d only been in the military for a year before the EMP hit. An explosives specialist in the Army.

And then there’s me. I’m not an instructor. Heck, I don’t even know if I count as a student. But I’m here. I want to do everything I can to help this group – I owe them that much for rescuing me from prison. Besides, with no clue where my dad is, what choice do I have but to keep busy? If I sit around and think about all of the things I’ve lost since the EMP, I’ll turn into a delusional downer.

Kind of like Harry.

One of the first things Chris wants the new recruits to learn is how to handle a weapon. An army is kind of useless without weapons, and since Omega is equipped with guns and bombs, it’s only fair that we fight fire with fire. The militia has amassed stockpiles of weaponry from Omega storehouse raids, abandoned houses and other sources. Chris starts newbies like me at the very bottom. My knowledge of weaponry is limited to what my dad showed me when I was in high school. And most of that consisted of, “Do
this
if you’re attacked in a dark parking lot, then run like hell and call 9-1-1.”

There’s no 9-1-1 anymore, so I’ll have to think outside the box.

We start day one with something I like to call the “Dummy Course.” Chris and the other instructors roll out rugs and mats along the edge of camp and nail targets to trees. We’re all given an empty, harmless rifle and told to lie facedown on the rugs.

I settle onto the rug and prop myself up on my elbows, watching Chris assess the line of
trainees. His lips twitch in an obvious attempt to try not to laugh at us. We must look pretty bad.

“Form good habits now,” Chris says, “and you’ll make active combat a lot easier for yourself and your team. You actually have an advantage if you’re completely new to this. You haven’t had the time to form bad habits, so everything you learn now will be the
right
way. You won’t have to unlearn bad habits.” He stops at the end of the line and kneels next to me. “I want you to learn how to shoot straight and steady,” he says. “Omega’s got numbers and firepower, but if we make every single bullet count, we can even out the playing field. We’ll be neat where they’re sloppy and we’ll be fast where they’re slow.”

He positions my left hand under the barrel of the rifle, bringing the stock into my shoulder. “Bring your right knee up,” he says. “Let your body relax.”

“I
am
relaxed!”

Well, not entirely. I could probably use some de-stressing therapy, now that he mentioned it. But now isn’t the time to get into
that. I crane my neck to the right to try to see down the sights of the rifle. Chris places his hands on my head, moving it to a more relaxed position. “Don’t do that,” he instructs. “Just fall into it. Find the natural place for your cheek to rest against the stock of the weapon.”

“I can’t see through the sights if I don’t tilt my head.”

“Yes, you can. If you’re in the natural position everything will be easier.”