Текст книги "State of Pursuit"

Автор книги: Summer Lane

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“He just did!”

Bam!

A gunshot ricochets off the wall. Bullets crack past my body. We drop down, instantly covering ourselves. Manny is nowhere in sight, and the alarm bells are ringing in my head. Four guards are moving toward us in the office, taking cover behind desks and cubicles. I fire a round at one and hit him square in the chest. He goes down. I roll backward and slide behind Harry’s desk. My ears are ringing and sweat is pouring down my forehead.

“What happened to Manny?” I shout.

“He was here two seconds ago!” Uriah replies.

One shot, two shots, three shots…

What do I do? We have to go. We can’t stay. This was the plan – get in and get out. If we can’t find Chris, we have to leave. Now.

“We’re done here!” I yell. “We’ve got to go!”

“But we haven’t found—”

“—I know!” I hold my stomach, gasping for breath. “Believe me. I know.”

I know right now, in this moment, that the decision I make will define the rest of my life. With or without Chris, I have to choose to either move on or hesitate and risk the lives of the rescue team.

I steel my nerves.

And I choose to move on.

The tears will come later.

“Get out of here!” I say. “Move out, let’s go!”

I force myself up. The adrenaline of combat keeps my emotions at bay for the time being. We push back through the office. It is actually easier getting out than getting in because of the efficiency of my team – most of the Omega troops are dead and the entrances have been opened on our way inside.

“Manny?” I yell.

To have someone completely disappear during a mission is an anomaly. By the time we reach the other side of the office area, there is a trail of dead Omega troopers in our wake. The frantic scream of the sirens is grating on my nerves. It’s times like these that I wish I could simply throw down my gun and make a run for it. Unfortunately, you can’t do that if you want to stay alive.

We sweep the stairwell, moving back onto the first floor again. The walls are bathed in red light. I continue to scream Manny’s name while we move. Honestly, there’s nowhere Manny could really be where we wouldn’t come across him at some point. It’s almost as if he left the building.

And he did it quickly.

Or…he’s dead on the floor with countless other Omega troopers.

Please, God. Not Manny, too. Manny’s a good man.

I hope God is listening, because nobody else is.

We slam the rear exit doors open and enter the alley. We stick to the plan and retreat around the east side of the alleyway. The airport is clearly visible from here – literally just across the street. Our rendezvous point with Derek is several blocks away from this location. The trick will be getting there without being shot.

“Commander!” Uriah says, pointing.

A black helicopter is rumbling to life on the tarmac. Its blades begin to spin – slowly at first, and then faster.

“We should leave,” Andrew advises. “Like, now.”

I don’t disagree. We stick under the cover of the building, rounding the corner. Omega troopers suddenly emerge onto the street. We return with heavy rifle fire, knocking down troops like bowling pins. We retreat back to the opening of the alley. More guards are flooding the street.

“We can go west!” Andrew says.

“If we go west we’ll just run into Omega!” I reply.

We can’t dash across the airport – there is absolutely no cover there.

Patrols are surrounding us from three sides. Our only escape route is straight ahead of us – the airport. It’s surrounded by a chain link fence and barbed wire. Our chances of getting over the fence, running and finding cover are minimal. Very minimal. We’re trapped.

The helicopter is pounding the air with its blades, obnoxiously loud, even with the sound of gunfire and shouting here at the end of the street. I grimace. We’re boxed in on four sides, now. Three sides by troops and one side by a combat helicopter.

Still in tight, familiar formation, the few people I have with me tuck in and fight valiantly. I take cover behind the wall of the last building on the block. I am exposed to the clearing of the airport, in addition to being in clear sight of the helicopter. Omega is surrounding us from three sides of the building. We fire and peel back, fire and peel back.

A huge blast rips through the cyclone fence around the tarmac. I drop to the ground, covering my head from pieces of hot metal and flying dirt. The fence springs apart like a slinky. The thundering black helicopter swoops forward, the snouts of the heavy automatic weapons visible from the fuselage.

We are so dead.

“Take cover!” I shout.

Heavy, ripping automatic weapons fire razes downward. It misses us! The trail of thudding bullets whips through the air, taking an Omega patrol out with it. They scream, collapsing, blown apart. I stay where I am, firing and reloading furiously.

The Omega patrols closing in on us from the opposite side of the building scramble to take cover behind the brick walls. The helicopter is hovering about one hundred feet away from our position, but the blast from the blades and the roar of the aircraft itself is tremendous. Enough to knock you off your feet.

The chopper descends and bounces off the asphalt, coming to a harried landing.

“CASSIDY!”

I tilt my head up. The doors on the helicopter are open. Manny is standing in the doorway. He’s shouting my name, motioning me with his free hand, his shoulder bloody. In that moment, everything makes sense. It clicks.

“Move it! Everybody in!” I yell, motioning toward the chopper.

We sprint toward the chopper, snapping shots while we run. I feel like I’m clawing my way through a dream. Everything is overwhelmingly loud and each beat of the blades is like a punch in the gut. I reach the door and Uriah helps me climb inside.

“Manny!” I gasp, relief seizing me. He claps me briefly on the shoulder, and pushes his way into the cockpit. His flight cap is strapped tightly to his head and he’s grinning devilishly. The team scrambles inside. Vera slaps Manny’s arm and gives him the all-clear signal. Then we are airborne, and we are lifting fifty feet off the street.

“There’s a wounded POW in the back!” Vera screams.

I can’t hear her. I can only read her lips.

“Andrew?” I shout, jerking my thumb toward the back of the chopper.

He nods and makes his way through the aircraft, toward the wounded man in the back.

“Hold on, ladies and gentlemen,” Manny yells, still grinning like a madman. “This exit may be a bit bumpy.”

The inside of the helicopter is cramped, but we are together – and we are hanging on for dear life.

We gain elevation and bank right and left so fast that I become dizzy and fight the urge to gag. I hang on and hunker down. I see Alexander in the cockpit beside Manny, shouting something that I can’t hear.

The urban landscape of Los Angeles flashes past the doorway, but unlike the times that I remember before the EMP, this city is dark. Very few lights can be seen.

The helicopter continues to gain altitude and speed.

Someone grabs my shoulder.

“Cassidy, you’re going to want to see this,” Andrew says.

“Now is not the time to admire the city lights!” I gasp, exasperated.

He maintains his grip on my arm, insisting. The Commander in me kicks in and I realize that Andrew is not that shallow. He must have a reason. We stumble to the back of the chopper. There are two canvas beds on each side. Medical stretchers for the wounded.

Please, don’t be somebody I know, I pray.

Andrew looks up at me. In the dim light, he opens his hands as if to offer an apology. He stands up. “He should be okay,” he says. He gives me a long, sad look and returns to a more stable position with the rest of the team, gripping the walls for balance. I kneel beside the stretcher. The man is clothed in black, soaked in blood and sweating. I scream.

“Chris?” I brush the hair away from his face. He opens his eyes. Unshaven, drenched in sweat and blood, he stares at the ceiling before turning his gaze to me.

“Cassie…?”

It’s barely a whisper, but it’s something. I touch his face, placing my hand on his chest. “Oh, my God,” I yell into his ear. “Chris? What happened? How…?”

The words die on my lips.

BANG!

The chopper shakes violently and spins through the air.

I clutch the stretcher. Chris is strapped in, but I’m not. I wrap my wrist around the strap of a safety belt. I will not leave his side. Manny shouts something. I can’t hear it above the roar of the engine and the air pouring through the opening. Gravity is sucking me sideways, but centrifugal force has pinned me against the floor. Chris is barely conscious, head lolling back and forth.

“I don’t have a choice!” I hear Manny yell. Warning lights flash bright. I see orange flames coming from outside.

I brace myself.

We are going down.

Chapter Eleven

I’ve imagined death so many times. As a soldier, it’s something that you have to think about. I figured I’d be dead on a battlefield sometime in the next year – if I even lasted that long. Going down in a flaming helicopter wasn’t something I planned on. First, because I was never crazy about heights. And second, because I didn’t think I’d be riding in a helicopter.

Whatever. Life continually surprises me.

Manny fights for control of the chopper. It spins and lurches violently in the air. Militiamen and women scream, terrified. A hole in the side of the fuselage is sucking the flames and the smoke outside of the aircraft. The chopper skids sideways. Which way is up? Which way is down? I clutch the strap on the stretcher, gasping for air. The G-force presses down on my chest like a weight. Black spots dance before my eyes as the pressure increases. I can’t scream, I can’t see. I can’t breathe.

The chopper lurches and everything levels out for a moment. I swallow some much-needed air. Manny shouts, “BRACE YOURSELVES!”

I try. I really do. It’s not much of a preparation, though. The chopper slams into the ground. Manny has slowed our descent enough that the impact doesn’t break the helicopter into pieces – but it still hurts. My neck snaps forward. My wrist is wrapped around the seatbelt strap but it does no good. My wrist is jerked at an odd angle. I feel the bones grind together. I don’t even have the breath to scream about it.

The chopper bounces roughly, gritting through dirt and trees. Are there buildings here? I don’t know. It’s too dark. Too loud. The sheer chaos overrides every sense in my body. I hang on with the one functional hand that I have left and slam against the wall. More pain shoots through my body.

This is going to hurt later.

If I’m even alive later.

The aircraft begins to slide, tearing apart. The strap that I’ve been holding onto snaps and I’m thrown against the opposite wall. I protect my head with my arms, landing in a crouched, compact position. The prolonged slide seems to stretch for eternity, but it is only mere seconds.

The giant rotor blades collide with the ground, shards of deadly metal flying everywhere – faster than the speed of a bullet, shredding everything in its path.

I’m thrown back across the chopper. I land on someone’s legs. Uriah grabs my shoulders and pulls me upright, offering support. The screaming engine abruptly halts, smoke swirling around us, flames licking through the openings in the chopper.

“Find a hole and get out!” Manny warns.

He manages to climb out of the pilot’s seat, rattled by the crash as much as the rest of us. I climb on hands and knees to the medical stretcher again. I unsnap Chris’s restraints and drag him out of the bed. He is completely unconscious – and heavy. Superhuman levels of adrenaline is the only reason I have the strength to drag him the first few feet through the helicopter as the team hurriedly exits through the holes. They scramble and tumble outside. I am dragging Chris along with me – using every ounce of strength left in my body.

Uriah suddenly takes Chris’s other shoulder and we are dragging him together, outside, into the cold, night air. I stagger out, drop to my knees, and hold my head in my hands. I shake myself and turn back. Uriah and I take Chris further away from the burning helicopter.

I look at my left wrist. It’s already turning black and blue.

It could be worse.

“Help me get him out of here,” I tell Uriah.

Chris groans and a couple of the men carry an empty stretcher out of the helicopter, which is quickly becoming engulfed in flames. This thing is going to be a pain to escape with. We do a quick assessment of our men – a headcount, a check – and hobble to our feet. The enemy is all around us. We are miles away from the Holding Center, but we are still in Los Angeles. If we are able, we should keep moving. We cannot stop. Not yet.

Uriah and Andrew carefully move Chris onto the stretcher. My heart sticks in my throat. I’ve never seen Chris down and out. Ever. Not like this.

“He’s going to be okay,” Vera says.

A gesture of comfort? I look at her, smiling sadly.

“I know,” I whisper.

The night air is a crisp, welcome change from the sweltering confines of the crashed copter. We’re surrounded by trees on all sides.

“Where are we?” I say.

“Looks like a park,” Andrew replies. “If we move, we can hide before Omega arrives in full force.”

“Okay, we’re all accounted for,” I say. “We move, we stay hidden, and we work our way back to the rendezvous point to meet with Derek and his team. I want men on point and men on the flank. I want a rear guard.” I point to two of the stronger militiamen – tall, burly soldiers. “You carry the stretcher.”

I brush the hair away from Chris’s forehead. He’s burning up.

We start moving. There is no time to waste.

“How did you find him?” I ask quietly.

“Ask yourself a question,” Manny replies. He’s limping, breathing hard. “If Chris Young and Harry Lydell are both gone at the same time, chances are, they’re in the same place, yes?”

“Possibly,” I reply.

“When we were moving into the Holding Center,” Manny says, “I noticed some activity on the airfield. They were using a POW transport truck and an official Omega vehicle. I thought it might save us all some time if I took the initiative. I was slowing the team down, anyway,”

“I thought you were dead.”

“But I wasn’t.” He winks. “They were moving Young into the chopper. Harry, too, but I didn’t see him. I got the feeling that they were transporting him somewhere…more important.”

“Why would they transport one officer with a District Prefect?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they think Chris is worth it.”

“No. Harry must have thought it was worth it.” I chew on my bottom lip. “God, Manny. If you hadn’t stopped that chopper…he’d be gone. Our whole mission would have been a waste.”

“Hijacking a helicopter was a piece of cake when Omega’s attention was on you,” Manny cracks. “Besides, it was a whim. Didn’t have time to explain it, our deadline was a little too tight, my girl.” He briefly puts his arm around my shoulders. “We’re still alive.”

It’s a statement that’s meant to cheer me up. I don’t feel cheerful. Not yet.

I only feel sweet, complete relief.

Chris is here. He’s still alive.

As we push forward through the city park, the distant echo of sirens is audible. Omega is searching for us, and that is exactly what we had expected. They will find the helicopter – a hulking, melted mass of metal – and hopefully assume that we are dead.

If Derek can meet us at our rendezvous point within the next twenty-four hours, we will have survived this thing with almost all of our team intact.

Like Andrew said, we can only hope.

Sometimes I think even that is a little too optimistic.

–

Beverly Hills, California, is no longer a celebrity city. It’s the dwelling place of high-ranking Omega officials. The houses have been taken over by soldiers and patrols. The entire glitzy neighborhood is under control.

We are careful to avoid it.

On our way to the rendezvous point, we pass famous streets like Wilshire Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard. Once swanky apartment buildings where only the elite lived are either being occupied by Omega officials or abandoned altogether. Millions of Milkshakes, a celebrity dessert hotspot, is empty. The windows have been blown out. Only the memory remains.

The famed Beverly Hills sign – which, for as long as I can remember, sat in the midst of a green lawn in the middle of the city – is covered with graffiti and smudge marks.

Nothing has escaped Omega’s devastating presence.

We head back to Toluca Lake. Twice during our journey we run into Omega patrols, but we outnumber them and we overpower them easily. By the time dawn is breaking over Hollywood Hills, I am bone tired. I can barely lift my feet and keep my eyes open. Each step is robotic. Even the joy of knowing that we have rescued Chris is not enough to energize my body. I am worried that he might not wake up. I am worried that Derek won’t make it out of Los Angeles.

Our rendezvous point is a house. A mansion, technically speaking. It’s just outside of Toluca Lake, hidden behind a fence overgrown with shrubs and trees.

“Alexander?” I say. “Is this the right place?”

“This is it.” He shoves his boot into a crevice and begins pulling himself over the fence. “Start climbing.”

“How are we going to get Chris over this thing?” Vera asks, motioning to his still form on the stretcher.

“We’ll open the gate,” I say simply.

I dig my heels into the brick wall and use the thick foliage and vines to pull myself up. I reach the top of the wall and study the house. It’s a large two-story mansion. The entire façade has been overgrown with foliage and twisting vines. It’s almost impossible to find the windows.

I swing my legs over the top of the wall. We follow a cobblestone path to the front gate. We unlock it and swing it open. The rest of the militia cautiously moves inside, Uriah and Andrew bringing Chris in on the stretcher.

In the early morning sunlight, Chris’s complexion looks pale. Wrong. I press my fingers to his neck, nervously making sure his pulse is still there. It is, and I sigh with relief.

“Check it out,” I tell my team.

Wounded and exhausted, I let Uriah and Alexander lead the recon team around and inside the mansion, making sure there are no signs of Omega or unsavory individuals. The scouts report back, and Alexander gives the all-clear signal.

I cradle my aching wrist. It’s swollen, black and blue. Every step brings a throbbing sensation of pain. We pass the threshold of the front door. It’s cold inside. Musty, dusty. Dark. Rooms full of expensive, dusty furniture. Two sets of stairwells separate from the main hall, leading to an ornate second level.

“Take Chris upstairs, into one of the bedrooms,” I say. “I’m going to need a medic.” I pause. “Or two.”

“Roger that, Commander,” Andrew replies.

“Manny, you tend to that shoulder,” I command.

He winces, but still offers a smile.

“Yes, ma’am,” he says.

“And Manny?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Thank you for getting us out of there,” I tell him. “You saved our lives.”

I wrap my arms around his neck and give him a warm hug. An exhausted hug. One filled with relief and gratitude and disbelief – yes, we’re still alive. Really. Manny smells like sweat and smoke and fuel. He gently returns the hug, then steps away.

“It was a pleasure, my girl,” he murmurs, watching the men haul Chris on the stretcher up the stairs. “Just make sure he wakes up.”

“I will,” I say.

I turn and follow Chris’s still form up the stairwell. After the record-breaking adrenaline of the last few hours, I feel like I’m coming down from an epic high. It’s like getting hit by a truck.

“Here is fine,” I say, motioning to a bedroom on the left. This must have been the master bedroom. There’s a huge bed, a massive dresser and closet, and the carpet is soft beneath my feet. Too soft. I feel like I’m ruining it.

They lay Chris on the bed. I take a seat on the edge and slip my fingers through his. He doesn’t twitch. He only breathes in and out. In and out. He hasn’t woken again since the helicopter went down.

I press a soft kiss against his forehead.

“Please, wake up,” I whisper. “I love you.”

At this point, my prayers are all I have left.

Chapter Twelve

“My brother isn’t big on romantic stuff,” Jeff Young says. “It’s kind of a wonder that he is the way he is with you.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing,” I reply. “I feel like he loves me, but I don’t know. He doesn’t talk about that kind of stuff. He just…is.”

“Yeah, that’s Chris,” Jeff agrees, laughing. He’s such a good boy. Good looking, funny, caring, sympathetic. Where Chris is rough, Jeff is sweet, and where Chris won’t discuss things, Jeff opens right up. They are, in so many ways, like night and day. And yet they’re alike.

“Do you think he cares?” I ask Jeff. I rest my hands on my knees. We’ve been in Sector 20 for two weeks now, and we’re about to roll out to the Chokepoint to face Omega’s five-million man army. Both of us are young, nervous and afraid.

“Cares about what?” he replies.

“About me. Do you think he really cares?”

“Come on, Cassidy. Of course he cares. He wouldn’t have made an effort to rescue you from the labor camp if he didn’t care,” he says. “He wouldn’t be here now.”

“I don’t want him to stay with me out of some kind of moral obligation to keep me safe,” I sigh. “I want him to want this.”

Jeff grins, and he takes both my hands in his.

“Cassidy, my brother loves you,” he says. “He doesn’t say it, but he shows it. You and I both know that.”

I press my forehead against Jeff’s and take a deep breath.

“If we get out of this alive,” I promise, “you and I are going to be besties.”

“We already are, Cassidy.” He kisses my cheek. “We’ve always been.”

I wake up suddenly, the memory slash dream ringing clearly in my brain. Jeff Young is dead. He’s no longer around for me to confide in. I close my eyes and burrow into the warmth of the pillow, the blankets soft around my shoulders. My wrist is wrapped in thick bandages. It’s painful, but necessary.

“Cassie.” I feel his breath on my neck before I feel his touch. “Hey, I know you’re awake.”

I open my eyes and look up, flat on my back. Chris is looking down at me. His face is weary, but he’s smiling. It’s a beautiful sight. His green eyes – those vibrant, electric green eyes – are ringed with pain and tiredness. But he’s awake. And alive.

“Chris!”

For the first time in forever, I explode with joy. I haven’t been this happy since I found my father earlier this year. I fling my arms around Chris’s neck and cry, sobbing out of sheer relief and happiness. He presses his fingers against my waist and kisses my neck. “It’s okay,” he says. “Cassie, it’s okay. Don’t cry. Shhh.”

But when I pull away and study his face, there are tears in his eyes, too.

“What happened?” I whisper.

“War happened,” he replies. He gently brushes his lips across my cheeks, catching my tears with his thumbs. “You crazy girl. You shouldn’t have come all this way for me.”

“I wasn’t alone,” I reply, holding him tightly. I love the way it feels to be in his arms again. I feel safe. Whole. “Everyone here came of their own free will.”

“So you didn’t bribe anybody into it?” he smiles.

“Ha. No.” I kiss his forehead, his cheeks. “Oh, my God, Chris. I missed you. I was so worried. I thought you were dead.” I start to cry again. “I thought I’d never see you again.”

“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry.” He holds me close, rubbing comforting circles into the small of my back. “You’re amazing, you know that?” My head sinks into the pillow. He gazes at me with an incredibly gentle expression. “Why did you do this, Cassie? You didn’t have to.”

“Yes, I did.” I trace my finger along his jaw. “I love you. You came for me when I was imprisoned. It was my turn to come for you. I wasn’t going to let you die.”

“You should have.” Chris looks sad. “You put yourself in unnecessary danger.”

“That can’t be helped. Not anymore.”

“It can be helped if I have anything to do with it.”

“Well, you were a POW, and you didn’t have anything to do with it.” I laugh. “They voted me Commander. Can you believe that? Me. How weird is that?”

“Not weird at all,” Chris replies solemnly. “It’s always been in you.”

“Everyone that came with me,” I say, “are all here because they believe in you. They respect you. Because we need you back.”

“I’m here now.” He presses soft, lingering kisses along my shoulder. “What happened to your wrist?”

“I sprained it.”

“I can see that. How?”

“Bumpy helicopter rides. Always wear a seatbelt.”

He chuckles. “I’m sorry.” He kisses my fingers. “Cassie, how did you get me out of the Holding Center? I don’t remember anything.”

“Maybe we should cover that later,” I say, pulling his head down to mine. “Just kiss me.”

He laughs.

“Fair enough,” he agrees.

It’s a good agreement. The best one I’ve had in a long time.

–

Our wait at the rendezvous point can only last for so long. Eventually we will have to move on. I hope Derek shows up soon. The longer we wait here, the more of a chance Omega has of finding us.

Chris’s head is in my lap. We’re sitting in the couch in the back of the bedroom. His wounds have been tended to by the medics. He was suffering from a concussion, extensive bruising from the beatings and torture of Omega interrogation, malnutrition and extreme dehydration when Manny found him in the POW truck outside of the helicopter at the Holding Center. We’ve been at the rendezvous point for six hours, now. Most of the militia team is asleep. We’re exhausted, and most are wounded to one degree or another. If we want to have enough strength to make it back over the Tehachapi Mountains, this is a necessary rest.

“Tell me everything,” I encourage Chris, twisting his hair around my fingers.

“It’s not pleasant, Cassidy,” he replies.

“I think that’s obvious.” I dip my head down and kiss the tip of his nose. “I didn’t come all this way for you to keep things from me. You don’t need to protect me anymore. Those days are over.”

He gazes up, capturing my hand.

“Yeah,” he says sadly. “I guess they are.” Silence hangs between us before he finally begins. “Back at the Chokepoint, when I sent you into the drainpipe with Jeff and Sophia,” he starts, “I was right behind you. It was just one of those things. I was shot in the shoulder. Here.” He pulls down the collar of his dark blue tee shirt. There’s the bright red scar of a recent wound. “It nailed me. I just couldn’t make it fast enough. I’m sorry.”

I stare at the ceiling.

One of the worst moments of my life was realizing that Chris wasn’t following me out of the battlefield – that I was returning to base without him. It was a nightmare.

“What about Max?” I ask softly.

Chris stayed behind to help Max, our resident explosive professional, after he had been wounded. Uriah abandoned both of them on the field. It’s for that reason I’ve had such a hard time forgiving Uriah for his cowardice. You could almost say that it was his fault that Chris was captured.

“Max is dead, Cassie,” Chris whispers. “There was nothing I could do.”

I close my eyes. Tears burn like acid in the back of my throat.

Goodbye, Max. You were a good man. You saved my life once.

“I know,” Chris says, stroking his thumb across my hand. “I’m sorry. Believe me, nobody’s more sorry than I am.” He lets the horrible news sink in for a moment before continuing, “I was pretty banged up. All I know is that they didn’t kill me outright because they knew who I was. Harry gave orders to take me alive, if possible.” He shrugs. “Next thing I know, I’m beaten, knocked down, tied up and in a truck headed south. By the time I was halfway conscious, I was in a cell in the Holding Center. Ten by ten room, no windows, standard jail cell.” He sighs. “Harry’s motives for keeping me alive are a lot more personal than they are critical to Omega’s war effort.”

“He wanted revenge,” I state. “He always hated you for showing him up when we were camped in the mountains. He hated me, too.”

“No, I don’t think he hates you,” Chris replies. “I think he wanted you dead merely for the purpose of exacting revenge on me. He knew it would kill me if anything happened to you.”

“Why was he so obsessed?” I ask.

“Selfish pride,” he says. “Ego. Maybe a little bit of insanity.” He shrugs. “Does it matter? He interrogated me for a week on militia strategy and battle plans. I didn’t give him anything except false leads and nonsense. Nothing.”

“Of course you didn’t,” I smile. It’s a sad smile, though. “I’m sorry.”

“It is what it is,” he answers. “I think he realized I was worthless to him for information, but I still made good bait. That’s when he moved me to a different cell. I was in there for almost a week…I think. It’s hard to say.”

“Manny found you in the end,” I say. “He saw the POW transport truck on the tarmac. If it wasn’t for him, we never would have found you in time.”

“Harry was leaving?” Chris looks puzzled. “That son of a…he wasn’t kidding.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He kept talking about going ‘up north,’ to some Omega gathering,” he explains. “He was hoping to have both of us there. As trophies of war, maybe. The founders of the militia groups in the central valley? It might have scored him extra points with the high ranking Omega officers.”

“Up north?” I wonder. “I wonder where he was going?”

“I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “He was taking me with him? That doesn’t make sense.”

“It does if you’re an egotistical sociopath,” I say. “You’re right. He was probably hoping to use both of us to earn brownie points. A public execution would have gotten him another promotion.” I slam my fist against the couch’s armrest. “I don’t understand. There’s got to be more to this picture than what we’re seeing. This isn’t right. It’s just…there must have been a good reason. More than just revenge.”

“I don’t know.” Chris nuzzles my waist, drawing me closer. “Thank you.”

“For…?”

“For being you,” he says. He sits up slowly, drawing me close to his chest. “There aren’t a lot of women that would do this for a man.”

“You’re not just any man.” I lean my cheek against his skin, listening to his steady heartbeat. “And this isn’t just any normal situation. This is war. And I love you, Chris. There wasn’t a question of if we could come for you. It was when.”

“I know,” he laughs. “Like I was saying. You’re one of a kind.”