The Last Uprising (Defectors Trilogy) (12 page)

I was itching with thirst, but I knew we were headed for the trailhead with the good water fountain.

Greyson veered off to the concrete sidewalk marked by a trail map. He slowed to a walk and turned back to me.
 

He was drinking in heavy, rhythmic breaths, but his eyebrows were raised in satisfaction. I nodded, trying to catch my breath. He checked his watch. We’d made good time.

We both drank our fill of lukewarm water and flopped down in the grass to rest. As I sat there, grass prickling my legs, I felt completely at ease.

We got up to double back, and the cadence of my feet blended with my heavy footfalls in the snow.
 

The memory was gone, but I felt that happiness still. It expanded in my chest, a warmth that spread through my whole body.
 

Something clicked into place, and I knew I had been right to place my trust in Greyson and the others. He always ran ahead, but he was constantly listening for my footfalls behind him. He never led me astray.

Suddenly, Greyson stopped. It was so dark that I almost bumped right into him, and he held up his hand for me to be quiet. I choked down my labored breaths, ears piqued for a sound.

Then I heard it: the snapping of branches and the wet, raspy intake of breath from the trees. I heard the mucus rattling in his lungs and his stumbling footfalls.

It wasn’t possible. They couldn’t be
here.
 

But then a shadow appeared to my right — not the source of the noise — and I knew there was more than one. There was a scuffle in the trees and then more snapping. A third shadow appeared, stumbling into a fourth.

Carriers.

I was frozen, and the sounds of snapping branches and the low rumble of dying breaths reached my ears.

“Run,” Greyson breathed.

I staggered backward, nearly tripping over an exposed tree root, and took off through the trees at a sprint. I could hear Greyson behind me, and this time I was leading.

I pushed my legs harder, and they burned in protest. My boots and clothes felt too heavy, and I wished I was in better shape. My breathing was fast but controlled. I knew we could outrun them, but I needed to put as much distance between us as possible to buy us more time.

We had to warn the others.

I tore into camp breathing heavily. “Carriers! In the woods!” I panted.
 

There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at me, trying to work out what I was saying. Then there was chaos.
 

The rebels jumped to their feet and ran. Ida, Godfrey, and Roman emerged from the leaders’ tent, and Amory was already at my side. The blazing fire burned my corneas as I tried to focus. After the relative stillness of the woods, there was too much to take in.

A curtain of blond hair whipped around, and Logan materialized in front of me. “That’s impossible. There
are
no carriers north of the border.”
 

Greyson appeared on my left, trying to catch his breath to explain. “I saw them, too.”

Amory turned to me with a grave expression. “They’re
here
? You’re sure?”

I nodded, still breathless.

“How many of them?”
 

“I don’t know. I saw at least five, but I heard more moving in the trees.”

“There have to be more,” added Greyson. “The hordes are growing. We haven’t seen a pack of less than thirty since the riots.”

“Not here, though,” snapped Roman. “There are no carriers in the north.”

Greyson rounded on him, clearly exasperated. “Well you can tell them that when they’re ripping your throat out.”

Roman bared his teeth but didn’t say anything else.

Logan snapped into fighting mode at once. The steely veil dropped over her face, and suddenly she was a soldier again. The rifle was already in her hands, and her hair was in a ponytail.
 

But out of the corner of my eye, I saw her fingers shaking as she loaded her gun. Something was off.

Roman stepped around Logan and handed me a rifle. The way he placed it in my hands made me think he was acting against his better judgment. Roman clearly didn’t trust me, but I could shoot, and they needed all the help they could get. He held out a box of ammunition, and I took a fistful of rounds.

I marveled at the familiar coolness of the metal in my fingers. It was strange how something that had once made me so uneasy now gave me comfort. This was something I could do.

The five of us, Kinsley, Ida, Godfrey, and a few defectors I vaguely recognized fanned out near the perimeter of the trees — close enough that we could almost touch each other and prevent the carriers from breaching our first line of defense. I positioned myself between Greyson and Logan, feeling the comforting weight of the ammunition in my pocket.

Some of the other rebels and defectors stood behind us wielding sticks and tools as weapons, but I could tell they were terrified. Most of them had come straight from the states to the communes. Many had never even
seen
a carrier, let alone killed one. They were inexperienced as fighters, and I for one was glad they weren’t holding rifles at my back.

“Take ’em down clean,” shouted Godfrey. “Shots to the head. Don’t let them break through. If any do, we’ll fall out from the edges to kill them. Stagger your reloads.”

My heart was pounding with adrenaline. I didn’t even feel scared. I felt alive.

Silence fell over the crowd as we waited, poised to fight.

Uneven footfalls crashed through the underbrush. There was a low growl and the sound of damaged lungs panting. Then the first carrier emerged — bald, emaciated, and with oozing flaps of angry red skin around his mouth.
 

He barely had a chance to gnash his rotten teeth before Amory aimed and landed a bullet right in the carrier’s skull. He let out a howl like a dying animal and collapsed in the snow.
 

There were more footsteps. Branches cracked sharply in the stillness, and the hulking outline of half a dozen others appeared in the trees.

I held my gun on one, waiting until she showed herself in the dancing light from the campfire, and shot her right between the eyes. A shot fired from my left, but it missed the next carrier completely. I took aim and fired at the same carrier, catching him in the chest. The carrier went down.

Sneaking a glance to my left, I saw Logan jut out her lower lip, looking livid.
 

Something was definitely wrong. Her hands shook as she took aim once more, missing another carrier.

I shot that one, too, before he could fully disentangle himself from a snarl of thorns, and Logan let out a desperate little breath as she reloaded.
 

I tried to focus on the shadows moving in the trees, but I was distracted by Logan’s clumsy movements beside me. Logan, the deadly PMC-trained soldier — I’d never seen her miss a shot.
 

As she fumbled with her rifle, I felt a surge of pity in my chest. She looked close to tears. My heart ached, and pain shot up the back of my head again.

I blinked furiously, tearing my eyes away from Logan to refocus on the kill. Three more carriers had emerged, and I aimed for the middle one. I missed and had to reload, cursing myself silently for allowing myself to be distracted. I finished reloading before Logan did and fired again.

As my carrier fell to the ground, another three stumbled out from the trees to take his place.
 

In the time it had taken me to bring down one, the other two had advanced. I shot desperately, but the horde was coming more quickly now, as if the carriers had been waiting just out of range to hear how many of us were shooting.
 

Most of them were stage five, but they were faster than they should have been. Dread pooled in my gut. They were mutant carriers, and none of us was immune to this strain of the virus. Letting carriers through our line wasn’t an option; one bite was enough to end someone’s life.

My shoulder was aching from the kickback of my rifle, and my fingers were nearly frozen in the cold. I wasn’t wearing gloves.
 

But while the others’ shots seemed to be coming more slowly, I took the discomfort in stride. If my time as a runner had taught me anything, it was how to convert pain into power. Two carriers were coming my way at once, but I zeroed in on one and then took down the other.

The others weren’t faring as well. Two carriers had breached our line, and Amory had broken off from the end to dispatch them with his knife. Worry prickled on the back of my neck, but I forced myself to keep my head straight forward and concentrate on those emerging from the woods.

I fumbled in my pocket to reload and came up empty.

“I’m out,” I shouted to Logan.

Her eyes flickered with panic, but she didn’t put down her gun. I didn’t know if she’d managed to take down a single carrier, but she wasn’t going to give up.
 

“Hey! I need to get more ammo,” I yelled to Greyson. He nodded once without looking at me as he aimed at a particularly nasty carrier ambling toward him.

I ran around to the crate of ammunition Roman had left in the snow and shoved a handful of rounds into each pocket. I heard a shot coming from near my post, and I looked over my shoulder in time to see an enormous carrier tearing through our line of defense. Greyson and Logan continued to shoot, and another broke in near Kinsley. They were overwhelming us from the left side.
 

I rushed to reload, but the huge carrier was stumbling too quickly — a drunken sprint in my direction.
 

Amory was busy struggling with another that had broken through a while ago. Blood was gushing down the front of the carrier’s ragged shirt, but he didn’t seem to want to go down without a fight. Amory stabbed again, and the carrier howled in pain. The sound pierced my eardrums like nails on a chalkboard — the sound of vocal chords ripping and the carrier’s dying breath.

I felt for my knife at my side and found nothing. I wasn’t wearing my holster. I had no other weapons.

But then the big carrier adjusted course. He was headed for Amory, who had just finished the carrier he was fighting and was already fending off another.

For a moment, everything slowed down. I watched Amory’s deft swipes through the air — a graceful, deadly dance. His brows were knitted together in fierce concentration, but I didn’t see that cold, empty look from my memories. His eyes were bright and clear, and they were full of terror.

The carrier he was fighting lunged, knocking him off-balance. He stumbled, and the carrier fell on top of him. Amory yelled, stabbing him in the back with his right hand while holding him by the throat with his left. Meanwhile, the other carrier was still charging toward him.

Something shifted inside me, like the right puzzle piece snapping into the last empty space. I couldn’t recall moving my legs, but a second later, I was there.

I jumped between Amory and the carrier, wielding my rifle with both hands like a staff. With as much force as I could muster, I thrust it upward into the carrier’s jugular. He howled, but he was too large. He pushed against me, and my feet slipped in the wet snow. They flew out from under me, and suddenly the carrier was on top of me.
 

I jerked the butt of my gun upward, catching him hard in the jaw, but my limited range of motion weakened the blow.

His putrid breath burned my nostrils, and warm saliva flecked my face. I could see his rotten teeth snapping and the crusty, oozing sores festering around his mouth. I couldn’t let him bite me. I wouldn’t.

“Haven!” Amory cried.
 

He was still buried under his carrier, which was fighting like a hyena as he bled everywhere. Amory’s arm was pinned under the carrier, shaking as he held him off. I caught the look of fear in Amory’s eyes. We were going to die.

In a final, desperate move, I reached over to Amory’s thigh and clasped the knife he couldn’t reach. The leather handle was warm and deadly in my hand.

I brought the knife down as hard as I could, aiming for my carrier’s heart through the back. My blade sank in easily, as though I were cutting into a watermelon, and he let out a terrible shriek, neck stretching in pain. I took the opportunity to jerk the knife out of his flesh and plunge it into his eye socket. Blood spewed all over my face, and I closed my eyes and mouth instinctively.

The carrier made a noise I knew would haunt me for the rest of my life, but he tumbled off my chest, and my lungs expanded instantly.

In one motion, I flipped over onto my knees and drove the now-sticky knife into Amory’s carrier. He howled, and I shoved him off Amory with all the strength I could muster.
 

Amory climbed out from under the carrier, getting shakily to his feet and holding out a hand for me. I took it, trembling with adrenaline and relief, and he pulled me up.
 

For a second, my vision narrowed. I had no idea what was going on around us. There was a loud ringing in my ears, and I was shaking with nerves. Amory’s intense gray eyes met mine. Both of our faces were spattered with blood.
 

I didn’t know what I expected — rejection and disgust, perhaps — but Amory reached for me and yanked me into his arms. The side of my face collided with his strong chest, and he held me tightly against him, his shoulders heaving with exertion.
 

He was making a labored noise, but whether he was panting, crying, or both, I couldn’t tell. I felt my body relax and a magnificent warmth spreading through me. The pain in the back of my head was dull — overwhelmed by the heady feeling I got as I breathed him in.

This was right.
He
was right. My need to be this close to Amory was almost overwhelming, and I reveled in the feeling of his arms around me. It was brief.

Within seconds, Amory released me, and we staggered back to the line of people fighting near the woods. In the time we’d been down, several more carriers had broken through. Godfrey and Kinsley were dispatching them with their knives one by one, and several of the commune dwellers lay bleeding or dead in the snow.