Текст книги "State of Rebellion"

Автор книги: Summer Lane

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Summer Lane
STATE OF REBELLION

In memory of Eva.

“Tiny but mighty.”

Prologue

Today is my birthday.

The last time I celebrated a birthday I was sitting at a table in a McDonald’s, staring at a wet glob of ice cream in a plastic cup. I was living in Culver City, California. My dad was at work. My mother and I weren’t speaking. And friends? No. I didn’t have any friends.

So my birthday was spent in a corner of Culver City, eating cheap vanilla soft serve while the world passed me by and I wondered:

When will my life begin?

I regret asking that question. My life did start not too long after that birthday, but in a way I never wanted or dreamed about. Good things have happened. Bad things have happened. No matter how you slice it, the world is a different place than it was last year. Everything has changed. Nothing is the same.

I am no longer the same.

My name is Cassidy Hart.

Today is my birthday.

Chapter One

One Month Earlier

Pine needles are painful. Just saying.

At the moment, hundreds of them are poking into my legs, digging against my skin. Sweat plasters my hair to my forehead. Blood is crusted under my fingernails. It stains my dark green shirt. The tight, gauzy bandage wrapped around my waist is cutting off my circulation.

In other words, it sucks.

But that’s what happens when you get shot.

I was wounded several days ago during an ambush on Omega soldiers. Luckily for me, it was only a flesh wound. In and out. No major organs punctured. Besides the discomfort and soreness of recovering from a wound like that, I’ve managed to survive. I can walk, I can talk, and I can still hold my rifle.

That’s good news.

The silence of the forest is broken by a strong breeze. It sweeps through the trees, rustling leaves and pinecones. On any other day, I would stop to listen and enjoy the natural orchestra. Not today. Because right now is not the time.

Now it’s time to survive.

I’m sitting on my knees, camouflaged within a grove of fern. Beneath the pine needles is a layer of damp earth, and behind us, a gentle creek trickling down the mountainside.

My hands grip Chris Young’s arm as he crouches beside me, his handsome face smudged with grease and traces of ash and blood. Leaves and twigs are tangled in his hair, pulled into a tight ponytail against his neck. My fingers press against his bicep, more from habit than from anything else.

We’ve been here a long time.

An hour. Maybe two.

Early morning sunlight streams through the trees. The perfect picture for a postcard. Too bad this isn’t what you’d call a touristy situation.

“How are you feeling?” he whispers.

“Like I got run over by a truck.”

“Cassie.”

“I’m fine.”

He takes a deep breath, sharing a glance with Derek. Tall, lean, blonde Derek. He’s huddled against a tree, ready.

“What do you think?” Chris asks.

Derek peers downhill, studying the forest. He lifts one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. Behind him, Max – our resident undercover ex-narcotics officer – is running a hand through his slick brown hair. He shakes his head, fiddling with his backpack. On my right, my good friend Sophia is leaning her cheek against my shoulder, exhausted. With her mocha skin tone and dark clothing, she’s almost completely invisible within the underbrush.

“We can’t stay here forever,” Max hisses.

“We can’t risk moving in broad daylight when they’re sweeping the area,” Derek replies. “They’ll shoot us on sight.”

Besides the five of us, about twenty-five militiamen are hiding here, too. The other half of our forces – a makeshift army we call the Freedom Fighters – are with Chris’s second in command, an ex-Marine named Alexander Ramos. Last time I saw him, Chris was helping him limp across a smoky battlefield.

Alexander has recovered enough to take control of his platoon. They’re hiding uphill from our position, about two hundred meters up. Derek keeps watching them through his binoculars, looking for any dangerous activity. Our militia is too big to keep together, so we’ve separated into groups to avoid detection.

A few days ago, we barely escaped with our lives from an Omega ambush. I lost consciousness towards the end of the attack – compliments of being shot and suffering from too much blood loss. Apparently Alexander took his platoon back to our basecamp and rescued the survivors there. If it hadn’t been for him, the women and children waiting there during the ambush could have been killed by Omega patrols.

And there’s that other little thing that happened.

I finally found my father.

In the middle of a battlefield.

Let me rewind.

Last year, an electromagnetic pulse disabled the technological infrastructure of the United States of America. Major bummer. The pulse, also known as an EMP, wiped out every piece of computer-based technology in the country. Cell phones, airplanes, automobiles, microwaves. Even remote control cars and Easy-Bake-Ovens.

I was living in Culver City, California when it all went down. Just a few miles down the road from Hollywood. The second the EMP hit, everything died. Airplanes fell from the skies. The populace panicked. And I got the heck out of the city as fast I could in a vintage 78 Mustang – a vehicle that was conveniently computer-technology-free, making it immune to the effects of the pulse.

I got separated from my father – Frank Hart, a former L.A. cop – and planned to rendezvous with him at a remote cabin we owned in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Unfortunately, things went sour.

An invading army with the code name Omega arrived, killed people, and threw them in concentration camps. They took over everything. And they did it fast. The United States was thrown back into the Stone Age. People went crazy, hoarding supplies, vandalizing homes, murdering innocent civilians.

Instant anarchy.

I lost my Mustang to desperate rioters, but in the process of trying to reach my father, teamed up with a former Navy SEAL named Chris Young. Six foot four, twenty-eight years old, and a serious force to contend with. His military expertise and experience kept me alive.

I fell in love with him.

But I never found my father. Omega’s hold on the states got tighter, and we backtracked to the foothills to try and survive. Not a good idea. I got captured by Omega troopers and forced into a slave labor camp run by an officer named Vika Kamaneva. I was almost worked to death. I would be dead now if Chris hadn’t taken control of a local militia and rescued me.

Ever since then, that small militia has grown to become a fighting force to be reckoned with. We’ve staged devastating attacks on Omega forces, and Chris has become the militia commander. He’s established training and recruiting for our new soldiers. It’s amazing how many ordinary, everyday people have been willing to take a stand and fight for their homeland.

Fight for their lives. For their families.

But last night we were betrayed by one of our own – a young man named Harry Lydell. Our forces were ambushed. A lot of our people were killed. We barely got out of there alive. I should be dead… but for some reason I’m too stubborn to go down that road just yet.

The only reason we survived is because a friendly fellow militia force – the Mountain Rangers – swooped in and gave us valuable backup support. And, right before I passed out due to an unfriendly gunshot in my gut, my dad showed up.

My dad.

The commander of the Mountain Rangers.

He so has some serious explaining to do.

I turn my head to the left, watching a tall, thin man walk towards me. This guy is new around here. Desmond. He’s the field medic for the Rangers, and we were introduced after I got shot.

“Got yourself shot, did you?” he had asked me.

Long, shaggy hair fell to his shoulders, matted into dreadlocks. A dull green bandana was tied around his forehead, setting off a weathered, middle-aged face and unkempt beard.

“Yeah,” I gritted out, wincing with pain.

“Well, let’s see what we can do about that.” He took a long look at the wound, probing and investigating and opening up his medical bag. “You’re a lucky lady. Bullet went clean through. If it would have hit a major organ you could be dead right now. That’d be a buzz kill.”

Yeah. Because I’d be dead.

“You’re lucky,” he repeated, setting to work. Cleaning it, closing it. Some medical stuff I wasn’t really aware of. At that point I was more than a bit delusional and exhausted after surviving the ambush.

“You’ll live,” he said simply. “It could have been worse.”

Yeah, yeah.

And now he walks up to me, checking my condition. I’ve improved rapidly since he initially treated the injury, and besides some intense soreness, I don’t have anything to complain about. He was right. It could have been worse.

“Status report?” he says, grinning wryly.

“Alive and somewhat operational.”

“Good to hear. Let’s check and make sure those stitches are good…” He does a quick recheck of the wound, nods, and looks me in the eye. “You bounce back quick.”

“Thanks,” I smile.

Chris says nothing, but the worry lines around his eyes relax a little.

“Stay gold, kid,” Desmond says.

He’s so full of wisdom.

I bite my lip, turning back to Chris. Focusing on the situation at hand.

“How could my dad just leave me?” I whisper, frustrated. Hurt. Confused.

Ticked off.

“He has a militia to command,” Chris replies, helping me to my feet. “Your dad couldn’t just abandon them and run after you.”

“Oh, that’s nice. He finally finds me and then dumps me when I’m bleeding to death,” I say. “What a great guy.”

Chris rolls his eyes.

We’re slowly starting to move again, tracking our way up the side of the hill, away from the foothills. Because I was unconscious and delirious when we fled the ambush, I have no memory of how we arrived in the forest. We must have ditched our vehicles at some point, because the last thing I recall is being pulled out of the cab of a pickup…and then I saw my father’s face…and the next thing I know, I’m waking up in the middle of the mountains.

“That’s not how I meant it, and you know it,” he answers, keeping one arm under my shoulders to steady me. “He’ll meet up with us as soon as we reach the RV point with the others.”

I nod.

I’m not an idiot. I know this is how warfare works. You look after your men first, and then you worry about emotions and relationships. But still. That doesn’t ease the sting of knowing that my father was this close and he took off.

Such is the way of war, I suppose.

Maybe Chris senses my discomfort, because he presses a quick kiss against my temple, whispering, “Let it go. Focus your energy on staying in the game. He’ll be back. He’s just doing his job.”

“Right, right.”

We continue to move stealthily through the woods, moving towards our emergency rendezvous point little by little. It’s a pain in the butt to try to walk uphill when you’re recovering from an injury like I am. What usually wouldn’t make you break a sweat becomes a challenge.

I struggle along, sweating with the effort. My clothes are heavy and itchy. After several hours, I stop and place my hands on my knees, breathing hard.

“It’s okay,” I murmur, “I’ll just stay here. Take a nap…”

Words of a true warrior, I know.

But I do need to rest. I may bounce back quickly, but I’m still human.

Flashes of the ambush flit through my mind:

Screaming, crying, blood, detonations. Kamaneva, a wicked expression on her face right before she shot me. Harry Lydell, smug as he watched everything go down. As his betrayal lured good people to their deaths. The numbing punch of being hit by a bullet. Me telling Chris I loved him, because let’s face it – I thought we were going to die. And then my father…a short glimpse of his face before the world went black and I fell into the no-go zone of unconsciousness.

I exhale sharply.

I don’t want to think about that right now. I have to stay focused. I have to stay alive. The rendezvous point isn’t too far from here, and once we reach it, we can rest and figure out what we’re going to do. We can’t go back to basecamp… Harry Lydell blabbed the location to Omega. What are we going to do with our militia?

Set up tents next to the creek and start prospecting for gold?

Not a foolproof strategy.

I glance at Derek and Sophia, moving a couple hundred feet ahead of our platoon. They’re keeping low to the ground, quiet. Scouting far enough ahead to warn us of any impending danger that our scouts might have missed – not that that’s a likely scenario, because our scouts are awesome. It’s merely a precaution. The rest of our group is silent, pensive. Exhausted but trudging onward, because we’re almost there.

I curl my fingers against the palms of my hands, watching Sophia walk. Her head is bent, her lips are pursed. Her face is emotionless. Steely. Others are moving with a reserved, hollow expression on their faces. Some appear angry, some appear frightened.

It’s what you can expect in the aftermath of what we’ve been through.

Up ahead, our scouts walk towards us, slipping out of the dark undergrowth of the forest. They appear out of nowhere, like shadows. It would be frightening if they weren’t on our side. One of the scouts exchanges a few words with Chris, and he signals to Sophia and Derek.

We must be there.

I tilt my head. Chris stops, a deep sigh escaping his lips.

“Finally,” he mutters.

At the top of the slope, a familiar face is peering at me.

“Cassidy, are you okay?” Isabel says.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” I answer.

And that’s the truth. For now.

Chapter Two

I’m lying with my head propped up against a bedroll, my feet on Chris’s lap. Isabel, twelve years old, blonde and blue-eyed, is combing the hair away from my face. “I thought for sure you were dead,” she says, braiding some of my strands together. “I was so worried. Everybody was.”

“Well… we’re all okay,” I say.

Lie. Some of us aren’t okay. Some of us are dead.

The rendezvous point is a high spot on the side of a mountain, hidden by a massive rock cliff. The other half is a steep, brushy slope. The one we just climbed up. We can see the enemy approaching long before they get here. A definite plus. We’ve been storing ammunition and supplies here for months. I’d hoped we’d never have to use it.

“Good to see you made it out alive,” says a familiar, gravelly voice.

Alexander Ramos. He’s limping towards us, a bloody bandage wrapped around his head. But he’s still walking and talking, so that’s a good sign.

“You too,” Chris replies, swapping handshakes. “Thanks for getting my family here safely.”

Chris’s parents barely escaped the basecamp after the ambush. While I was unconscious, our platoons returned to the camp and evacuated the women and children there. We separated our platoons into two sections to avoid detection, and the Young family went with Alexander’s group. Chris wanted them to reach the rendezvous point as soon as possible – even before we did – so he sent them ahead with Alexander.

“Cassidy,” Alexander nods. “I heard you got shot.”

“You heard right.”

“Well.” He pauses. “Stay alive.”

“Um. I’ll work on it.”

The ghost of a smile touches his lips. I tuck the moment away in my brain:

Alexander Ramos smiles for the first time.

“He actually has emotions,” I whisper to Chris as Alexander walks off.

“Give the guy some credit,” he shrugs, grinning. “He’s only human.”

I look down at my hands – slicked down with dried tree sap, mud and crusty blood. “Gross,” I mutter.

“You look awful,” Isabel remarks.

“Gee, thanks.”

“I mean, does it still hurt?”

“Yeah. Getting shot does that.”

Chris rubs his thumb up and down my ankle, his lips pressed together in a thin line. I only have to look at his face once to know that he’s doing the same thing I am: Thinking about the dead we left behind on the battlefield.

“Hey,” I say, nudging him with my boot. “You okay?”

He looks at me, weariness in his eyes.

“Yeah. You?”

I shrug.

I sit up, eyeing the group around me. There’s nearly seventy-five people here. Many of them lost mothers, brothers, sisters and fathers last night. Things are different, somehow. We’ve been jolted into the reality of war in a way we hadn’t been before.

“What do we do, Chris?” I whisper. “Omega’s looking everywhere for us. They won’t stop until we’re all dead. You know that. I know that. We’re screwed if we stay in one place.”

“We need to set up a new base,” he replies, staring at the ground. Calm, steady. Just like a leader should be.

“Where? We can’t just go set up living quarters in Boyden Cave.”

“No,” he smirks. “Your father will be able to help us.”

I swallow a lump in my throat.

But we can’t stay in one place for too long. That could be lethal. We’re dealing with asymmetrical warfare here. To stay alive we have to stay active. We have to keep moving. If Dad isn’t here soon – very soon – we’ll have to move on to somewhere else. And since we’re a guerilla warfare militia, we have small pockets of supplies hidden all over these mountains.

I don’t want to leave without my father, though.

My father. The Commander of the Mountain Rangers. It’s a piece of information that hasn’t completely set in, yet. I need time to absorb it. How many times did we communicate with Eagle One – his codename – and have no idea it was my dad, Frank Hart?

If my life were a story nobody would believe it.

“They must have a basecamp,” I realize. “We can combine with them.”

“Possibly.” Chris throws me a sideways glance. “You know as well as I do that allying with somebody will change the dynamics of what we have here.”

“Chris, what we have here is a bunch of misplaced volunteer soldiers,” I reply. “And a lot of them are dead now. We can’t be picky. We have to do what we need to do to survive.”

“I know.” He swings his legs around the log, straddling it like a chair. “You’re right.” He closes his eyes. “But it will be dangerous.”

“What isn’t dangerous anymore?”

“Good point.” He brushes the back of my cheek with his hand. “You know, if you could avoid getting shot again, I’d appreciate it. You scared me. I thought you were going to die.”

“Nah,” I grin. “I’m too stubborn to die.”

“Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t.” I place a kiss on his lips. “I love you.”

He smiles softly. A moment of happiness.

And then a commotion draws his attention to the edge of the slope. People are gathering at the border of the camp, talking in hushed voices. A few Rangers appear, dressed in worn clothing. A crude depiction of a white star is stitched onto their right sleeves. My breath catches in my throat.

“Well,” Chris says. “It looks like your dad finally showed up.”

“Good,” I reply, nervous. “He’s got some explaining to do.”

Call me dramatic, but I had pictured my reunion with my father as something a lot better than this. I’d imagined running towards him across some kind of meadow, giving him a hug, and then we’d walk home to Culver City and things would go back to normal. Just like that.

Nope. Reality check.

I pull myself painfully to my feet, Chris keeping a steadying arm around my shoulders. Dad is wearing dark clothing. A broad rimmed hat is pulled low over his forehead, casting a shadow over his unshaven face.

“Dad!” I exclaim.

“Cassidy!” He smiles widely, slinging his rifle on his back. “Cassidy, my girl.”

He crosses the distance in a few strides, wrapping me into a bear hug – albeit a gentle one, because I’ve been shot. I bury my head in his shoulder, a million emotions flooding me at once. Happiness, confusion, frustration. Mostly happiness.

“Where have you been?” I say. “Why weren’t you at our cabin? How did this happen?”

A tear slides down my cheek.

Embarrassing. I hadn’t even realized I was crying.

Dad holds me at arm’s length.

“I’ll explain everything,” he promises. “Cassie, don’t cry.”

He hugs me again, and I don’t even care that everybody in camp is staring at us. Give me a break, people. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been looking for my father? A long time.

“Frank?”

Dad slowly loosens his embrace as Chris steps forward.

“Glad you made it here alive,” he says. “I’m Alpha One. Chris Young. Your daughter’s been trying to find you for a long time.”

Dad keeps one arm around my shoulder, offering Chris a firm handshake.

“Chris,” he says. “Nice to meet you. Thanks for taking care of Cassidy for me.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dad, this is Sophia, and this is Isabel….” I begin introducing the people from my inner circle, feeling excited. Happy that, for at least one second, something good has happened.

“We need to discuss our next move,” Chris states, folding his arms across his broad chest. He’s a good four inches taller than my dad.

Dad looks at Chris.

“You have other supplies hidden in these hills, I assume?”

“We do,” Chris replies.

“I have something better.”

“You have a basecamp.”

Dad nods, the hint of a smile on his lips.

“Yes.”

“We need to move out now if we want to stay out of Omega’s crosshairs.”

“No. I want to know what’s been going on with you for the last year,” I interject, turning to Dad. “Why weren’t you at the cabin? How did you end up doing this? What happened?”

“It’s a long story, sweetheart,” he replies.

“Join the club.”

“Still sarcastic?”

“Some things never change.”

Dad chuckles good-naturedly.

“Okay, fine,” he says, grinning, looking at Chris again. “We fed Omega a false trail. Some of my men are leading them away from our position, which gives us a chance to head back to our basecamp.”

“Where is this place?” I ask.

“It’s a four day journey from here,” he replies.

“Four days? Where the heck are we going? Disneyland?”

“No. Someplace safe.”

“Define safe.”

Dad smiles again.

“It’s good to have you back, Cassidy,” he says, kissing my forehead. “I’ve missed my little girl.”

“I’ve missed you, too.” I look around. “But now that you’re here, do you mind explaining how you ended up commanding a militia outfit?”

“I have a feeling it’s not much different than how you ended up with the Freedom Fighters,” Dad replies. “But yes. I’ll explain everything. I promise.”

“Good.”

I look at Chris. He’s watching the two of us closely, and I can’t help but notice that Dad is returning the inquisitive expression.

Yeah. At some point, I’m going to have to tell my father about Chris and me. And I have a feeling it may not go over well.

“The night the EMP hit,” Dad begins, gripping a cup of hot coffee, “I was in Santa Monica. A good twenty minutes from our house on a moderate day of traffic. You had just texted me that you were going to bring home Chinese food for dinner.” He smiles wistfully at the memory. So do I. It was the last thing I ever did on a cellphone.

Chris is sitting next to me. He hasn’t put his arm around me or offered a comforting touch since Dad showed up. I’m guessing he’s waiting for me to break the ice and tell Dad about us before he makes a move.

Smart boy.

It’s dark now. We have no campfire. Heat comes from portable camping stoves and the warmth we siphon off from hugging thermoses of steaming coffee. We’ve taken a few moments to rest, having started our journey towards the Rangers’ basecamp immediately.

Sophia sits next to me.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

Silence. We suddenly hug each other.

“We’re still alive,” she says. “Can you believe it?”

“No. We should be dead.”

“I know. But we’re not.” She shrugs. “Sorry, Mr. Hart. Please go on.”

He takes a drink.

“I knew what had happened the second my cellphone stopped working,” he says. “I didn’t even try to find my car. The first airplane hit less than a mile away from where I was. I’ve never seen such a level of hysteria.” He drains the last of the coffee from his cup, leaning forward. “It took me three days to get back to the house. Rioters were going berserk throughout the city. There were massive fires, vandalism. Crime everywhere.”

“It didn’t take long for people to go crazy, did it?” I remark grimly.

“Unfortunately, no. When I got back to the house, the Mustang was missing. I knew exactly where you’d taken it, Cassidy. To the cabin.” He smiles proudly. “You took the supplies you would need, and I took mine. I had to get out of the city on foot. It took me days to get through the chaos. And you know what was strange?”

I shrug.

“Not a trace of Omega anywhere,” he continues. “Omega started setting up relief camps about two days after the pulse hit, right? They rolled in right away. They were prepared and ready to go. But in Los Angeles? Nothing.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Sophia mutters.

“Why?” I say.

“Do you remember when we were in Kamaneva’s labor camp?”

“How could I forget?”

“There were the rumors that all the big cities like L.A. and New York had either been nuked or attacked with a chemical weapon.” She outlines her initials in the dirt with the toe of her shoe. “Why would Omega bother sending their forces into a city where they were going to kill everybody with a big weapon?”

A lead weight settles in the pit of my stomach.

“God,” I breathe. “You’re right.”

“I figured about as much,” Dad says. “It took me weeks to get up to the cabin, and when I finally arrived, you weren’t there. That was the worst. I didn’t know if you had been there and left or if you never made it.” He shakes his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. I looked for you around the mountain communities. It was a mistake.”

“Why?”

“A woman turned over my name to Omega officials,” he answers. “It’s a long story, but I guess my name and what I did for a living didn’t sit well with Omega. They came and tried to pick me up. They didn’t get me. I left the cabin and didn’t come back. I couldn’t. They would have just waited for me there.”

“I found your backpack on the floor,” I say, frowning. “We probably just missed each other.”

“So you did make it up to the cabin at some point.”

“Yes. But that’s another story. Finish yours first.”

“Right.” He lets his shoulders fall, relaxing against the back of a fallen log. “I wandered around the hills for a few days, trying to throw them off the trail. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why Omega cared about capturing me. All I was doing was staying off the radar.”

“That makes you an instant target,” I say. “We found that out the hard way, didn’t we?”

Chris nods.

“Yeah, I figured that out, too,” Dad continues. “I ran across a group of capable men living up in the higher mountains and we combined forces. Started doing everything we could to disrupt Omega’s supply chains and transportation routes through the mountains. Our militia kept growing, and well… you know the rest.”

“I can’t believe we’ve been so close to each other all this time,” I say.

“It happens,” Dad sighs. “I didn’t believe you were dead, Cassie. You had to be alive somewhere, and I figured you’d find a way to fight back. You never did like being told what to do.”

I crack a grin. “Omega was asking for it.”

Chris stirs, sitting upright, his leg brushing my knee.

“How many men do you have all together?” he asks.

“About a hundred.”

“Where exactly is your basecamp?”

“Like I said, four days from here on foot. There are other survivors there. A lot of military protection.”

“Whoa. Did you say military?” I interject. “As in, the United States military?”

“Yes. Former military. Other militias like us.”

“I thought our military was on the East Coast somewhere.”

“What’s left of our forces are gearing up for something a hell of a lot bigger than Omega’s push on the Eastern Seaboard,” Dad replies, grim. “Most of our military is staked out on the West Coast, from Washington to the bottom of California.”

“What’s coming?” Sophia whispers.

I glance at Isabel. She’s gone completely silent.

“Backup,” Dad says. “The next wave of the invasion is on its way.”