Strike (11 page)

We're greeted by a shout. “Morning meeting on the porch. Won't you kindly join us?”

“Hell of a wake-up, Leon,” I mutter. The man is standing on the front porch steps, his gun pointed at the sky. The rooster struts on the roof above him, staring at him. Sadly, he didn't shoot it. Wyatt finishes unzipping the tent, and we step through, guns in hand, to join the sleepy crowd doing a zombie walk through the tent town.

“Good morning, sunshine,” Chance says, punching Wyatt in the arm. Wyatt punches him back.

“You get any sleep?” Gabriela asks me.

I shrug. “Yeah, but it's not good anymore.”

“I hear that. Same in our tent.”

There must be at least two hundred people around us, maybe a hundred tents in the field, some smaller than ours and some bigger. There are at least a dozen more than there were last night—some new folks must've spent a long time shopping with their gift cards. A few old-school RVs around the edge of the camp look a hell of a
lot comfier than sleeping on the ground. The crowd is a weird mix of people. Mostly white, just like the city of Candlewood, but with a range of ages that I find surprising. There are maybe twenty teens; then it skips up to what looks like single parents with little kids and a lot of middle-aged folks.

If I had to guess, judging by the drawn, drained looks on their faces, these are people who watched their spouses and kids get gunned down at the front door. They look haunted, which is how I feel too. The teens are in a group, and they glare at us distrustfully. I recognize two of them—one is the small girl I noticed in the gym the other night. She's wearing camo clothes I saw while shopping the clearance rack at Big Choice, still creased, so they must've given her the same sort of card they gave us. She stands alone. The other familiar face is a football bully from school who made my computer class hell.

You'd think the fucking dystopia would free us from bullies, but now they just have guns and more ammunition.

“Citizens, I'm proud to report that last night's meeting brought ninety-three new recruits for the good work we're doing here.” Leon pauses dramatically, and Tuck and his boys start clapping, so everyone starts clapping. It feels uncomfortably like a church revival. “Our cause is a beacon to those who suffer under Valor and its corrupt ways. I hope you'll all join me in giving a warm welcome to our new friends and in helping them find comfort and camaraderie
around our fire.” He gives a lopsided grin. “Although that fire must remain metaphorical, as we don't want to send any smoke signals to our friends at Valor, now, do we?” The crowd laughs, slightly uncomfortably. Guess nobody wants to be reminded of how vulnerable we are. “Now, if you're one of our new folks, please join us in the kitchen for a home-cooked breakfast and a brief meeting on the role you'll play as part of the Citizens for Freedom. Everyone here has to pull their weight, but when we all pull together, it's a hell of a lot lighter.” He claps his hands and throws them out like a preacher. “And now, friends, let's eat!”

After the screen door slams behind him, most of the crowd disperses. The new folks file inside in about the same order as we approached the tables last night, which means our crew is last.

The small girl is ahead of me as we wait to squeeze into the crowded hallway. I catch her sleeve, and she spins on me, gun in hand. It's a Valor Glock—I can see the gold stamp. So I was right. She is one of us.

“Don't touch me,” she says, her voice calm and flat.

I hold my hands up. “Sorry. I just wanted to introduce myself. You look a little lonely.”

She looks me up and down, then glances at my friends. Her eyes are dark brown, her hair light blond, and she can't weigh more than ninety pounds.

“Don't talk to me, or I'll kill your dog.” She turns back around,
and I put my hand on Matty's head. The look in the girl's eyes—she'd do it too.

So much for making friends.

Wyatt's hand finds my waist, protective, but not obviously so. “Don't take it personally,” he murmurs in my ear, finishing with a kiss on my cheek. His breath smells like mint.

I know he's right. The world, as it is—it's messed up. I can't imagine what last week would've been like without Wyatt at my side, without Matty's unwavering love. If this girl did it alone or, worse yet, lost whoever was helping her through it . . . I imagine her nightmares must be worse than mine. I want to believe that there's still a good person inside her, too, but I could definitely be wrong. When I look in the mirror or catch Chance's eyes, I see a crust of hardness over liquid pools of heartbreak and regret. In this girl's eyes, I see only a bottomless, murky swamp. But was she always that way, or is she another sin to lay at Valor's door? Did they break her, or was she already broken?

Everyone inside finally shifts enough to let us through the door, and the house is overly warm and smells like old people and fatty breakfast. There's a line in the kitchen, and we pick up paper plates and ladle on what's left of scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, and biscuits.

“I'm a vegetarian,” Gabriela says, and an older lady in a housecoat grunts and dumps lumpy grits all over her plate, drowning her biscuit.

Once we've got Styrofoam cups of crap coffee, we follow the line to a den, but Tuck blocks our path.

“Y'all go on down to the parlor. Leon wants to talk to you, special.”

Two doors down, we find a room with an old piano and older sofa, already taken. There's nowhere else to sit but in folding chairs. I count nine of us kids, and I sit as far as possible from the girl who just threatened to kill my dog. She's tearing her biscuit into tiny shreds and swallowing each shred one by one. Everyone eats in silence, eyeing each other as we balance breakfast on the laps of brand-new jeans. No one speaks. Matty stays at my knee, tail wagging politely, but she doesn't try to make friends. Because no one here is friendly.

“Good morning!”

Ugh. Heather. She's extra perky and dressed in a velour camo tracksuit.

“So did everybody get everything they need at the store? And a good night's sleep?”

Dead silence.

Heather's big, glossy smile turns into a sneer, and she knocks the little blond sociopath's plate to the ground and plants a foot in what's left of her biscuit. “I asked you a question.”

The girl looks up at her. “I'm not ‘everybody.' ”

“No. You're Beatrix Kiddo, according to your form. Do you really expect anyone to call you that?”

A flat, reptile stare. “You can call me Bea.”

Heather's smile is sweet as poison. “Did you have a good night, Bea?”

Bea's mouth widens in something that seems like an alien pretending to smile. “Oh, yes. I was a good little do-bee. I used my card and bought all sorts of lovely things. I feel like a princess. Now, who is it you want me to kill?”

Heather sighs. “No one. We're not Valor. But we do have jobs for you. And we think you'll actually find it pretty fun. First off, we're going to do target practice today. Does anyone have experience with survival skills?”

“Considering we're all alive after a week with Valor, yes,” Chance says, and everyone smothers their laughter because Heather looks like she's going to have a tantrum.

“Can you find water in the woods? Can you start a fire without matches? Can you forage food? Can you survive, alone, with no money and no way to get money? Because that's where you're going to be if Valor raids Crane Hollow. And most of you bought fancy tents that you can't break down and throw on your back, so you're going to need to know how to make shelter, too.”

Wyatt gives me an apologetic look and a shrug. I elbow him in the side to let him know that there's no way he could've anticipated the need to buy a smaller tent in case we became mountain men.

“I thought this was a briefing,” Gabriela says. “I don't feel briefed.”

“I'm getting to it,” Heather snaps. “So, Crane Hollow. You have your tent. We provide food at meal times. You get one scheduled shower pass per week, so anything outside of that you'll have to cover on your own. The line starts early for the downstairs bathroom and can get long. There's a lake out back, or you can buy a solar shower or double up in the shower, if you have a buddy, so that you each get two showers. We've got porta-potties on the far side of the field, hidden in the trees. Don't mess with the food animals. Don't hunt squirrels on property. Don't steal the eggs. Don't steal from your neighbors or their tents, or they're in their rights to shoot you. If we catch you stealing,
we'll
shoot you. Don't leave the compound unless you're on a mission—”

“Don't leave the compound?” Gabriela says.

Heather's smile is so fucking patronizing. “We can't have people screeching in and out of here all the time. It draws too much attention. That's why there are guards. And they will take you down.”

“For the Citizens for Freedom, y'all don't seem too big on freedom,” one of the other kids drawls, and I can tell by looking at him that he's rich, or was. Or, at least, like Wyatt, his family pretended he was.

“We're fighting for freedom. That doesn't mean we have it right now. So shut up and listen. Where was I?” Heather looks at a sheet of paper. “Okay. So. You don't need to be in this house unless it's a designated meal time or you've been summoned. Don't hang out
here, don't try to sneak into the bathrooms, and no one goes upstairs.”

“Why not?” Gabriela asks.

“Because it's off-limits.”

“Well, now, see, that just makes me want to go up there more.”

Heather's grin disappears. “There's going to be a big ol' Crane boy with a gun at the stairs every moment of every day. They get real bored. Don't give 'em a reason to shoot.”

“I want to see Clark.”

“Well, here's the thing about Crane Hollow. If you want something, you've got to earn it.”

“We've got to earn the right to see our friend?” I say. “That's bullshit.”

Heather looks at me, all innocent. “That's funny, coming from the person who shot him.”

Every kid in the room turns to stare at me.

“I didn't know him at the time,” I mutter.

“Badass,” murmurs one of the other kids.

“Yeah, we were breaking into her hideout at the time. Not her fault,” Gabriela says, and I feel like I'm going to owe her for life for not blaming me.

“Still. Do good work at the range today, and if the weather holds, we'll have a job for you soon. Do it well, and you'll see your friend. Who, I assure you, is upstairs and doing great.”

Nervous looks pass between me, Wyatt, Chance, and Gabriela.
Matty burrows her face among our knees, her tail thumping. One thing I know for sure? I'm not letting this dog out of my sight.

Heather leads us to the front porch and points us to a trail in the woods. “Follow that. Brady's waiting for you in the field.” She disappears inside, and everybody eyes everybody else.

“You heard the bitch,” Chance says. He takes off with Gabriela at his side looking fierce. She must've kept some of her own makeup after Valor, as her eyes are striped with electric purple today, surrounded with heavy black liner.

Wyatt's hand curls in mine, and Matty wiggles at my side, all ready to go. The small, terrifying girl, Bea was what Heather called her—she's directly in front of us. I can't even hear her sneakers on the path, like she doesn't weigh anything. Her hair is in a tight French braid, her outfit entirely in camouflage. I know from the Valor records in Alistair's trailer that she has to be at least sixteen, but she looks like a murderous doll. I slow down when it feels like we're walking too close to her.

It's a beautiful morning, full of birdsong, with the last of the leaves softly drifting down through the sun-dappled autumn forest. Matty's practically dancing on her fat paws, and Wyatt swings our hands, just a little, as if he's forgotten where we are and why we're here. He has some ability that I lack to forget the past and the future and live in the moment. I envy it. He's barely spoken of his father's
death, but I can't forget it. I can't stop thinking of the thousand different ways Valor might've already tortured and killed my mom. I begin to see why she sank into painkillers after her car accident. She said the nightmares would wake her up, like she was reliving it, trapped in the crushed car and bleeding, and her heart would pound so high and fast that her fingers and toes would go cold, and then she was gulping down pills in the dark with trembling hands. If I could numb myself to what I feel in the night, I would do it. I would totally do it.

But I can't. Even if Chance has the pills, I can't. I have to be ready to run and fight, every second of every day.

The path opens up to a field like any other field, except that there's a line of makeshift targets at the other end and a big, built kid with a rifle over his shoulder at this end. He's at least seven feet tall, wearing overalls and a non-ironic trucker hat, and he's staring at us like he's trying to decide which duck to shoot in a barrel.