Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (21 page)

“You never thought about going west?”

She shook her head. “I don’t have any interest in fleeing. Not when the country is falling apart. Joining the resistance . . . at least I can be of use.”

I felt a twinge of guilt. I didn’t have Ida’s heroism. Greyson and I had planned on going west, but that dream seemed so distant now. “Is your camp like Rulon’s?” I asked.

“Not quite, no. You’ll get to see it for yourself. It’s a camp run by one of my oldest friends. He doesn’t inspire loyalty by using intimidation and torture. We do our bit . . . collecting intel that will help us weaken the PMC.” Ida was staring off into the fire. “There’s a war coming, Haven. All it takes is for people to realize what’s happened. It’s right there in front of them, but nobody wants to believe it. When they see the PMC for what it really is, the American people will be at war with World Corp International.”

“How are you the only person who’s figured this out?”

Halfway into a sip of tea, Ida wrinkled her nose. “I’m sure I’m not. But most people don’t believe one corporation could ever be strong enough to hold us hostage like this. And the PMC was contracted out by the federal government. The people think their elected leaders orchestrated this, which in their view means it must be the best thing for us.”

“But the government is in hiding.”

“No one really wants to believe that.”

Something Ida said earlier surfaced in my mind. “Have you been up north?”

“No. But I don’t imagine it’s going so well. If we don’t go to war against World Corp, we’ll be at war with the Canadians.”

I sat back, letting her statement sink in. Somehow, it was hard to imagine a war so close to home.

“When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow. Before first light. I think Logan is strong enough to travel. We need to be gone before any of the people here start showing symptoms. There’s going to be a panic, and I don’t want to be caught in the middle of it.”
 

I nodded. “We’ll be ready.”

It wasn’t difficult to pack up the few belongings I had accrued since leaving Columbia. A few knives, extra socks, the FN SCAR Logan had stolen for me, and a copy of
Animal Farm
from Shriver were scattered around our tent. The rest of my belongings were already packed away. I felt a pang of sadness that I didn’t even have a photo of my parents like Greyson’s to remember them by. It was as though the PMC had erased my family entirely.

Logan breezed through the back tent flap holding a bundle of clothes and a smug grin.
 

“It pays to flirt with the supply tent guys,” she said, tossing a pile of clothes on top of my sleeping bag.

Apart from being a little thinner and slightly pale from her ordeal, Logan seemed to be herself again, which had its advantages.
 

Examining her haul, I was glad to see she had found a heavy winter jacket for each of us, several pairs of heavy wool socks, and what looked like ski pants. These were hot commodities we couldn’t even get when we were on relatively good terms with the rebels. And now that we were defying Rulon and leaving their ranks, there was no way they would let us take anything like this.

“I can’t believe you raided the supply tent without stealing any extra ammunition,” I chided. “It’s not like you.”

Logan looked at me as if I were crazy. Pulling aside her sleeping bag, she tugged at the zipper of the thin pallet underneath. She yanked out a long, flattened bag, and the foot of the pallet deflated considerably.
 

“Please. You know me better than that. I swiped these the day we got back from Sector X. And I swapped out Greyson’s HK416 for another SCAR. I doubt he even noticed.”

“You’re a genius,” I said. “We should get some stuff for them to wear.”

She scoffed. “My flirting is much less effective when I say I’m taking clothes for my two male travel companions.”

I raised an eyebrow. “They’re going to need them.”

While Logan returned to the front entrance of the supply tent, I peeked through the crack in the canvas from the back. Her high-pitched giggle was the signal — a sound I never heard her make in regular conversation. I ducked in silently and crept to the men’s clothing side.

There were bins and bins of shirts, pants, socks, coats, boots, and long underwear. The pants were loosely organized by size, but I realized I had no idea what size either of them wore. I grabbed several different pairs, hoping whatever didn’t fit one might fit the other, two winter jackets, and as many pairs of heavy socks as I could carry.

Logan was saying something about hockey players versus wrestlers on a scale of relative hotness, and I rolled my eyes in her direction to signal that I had found what we needed. She giggled, and I made my exit. We met back at our tent, Logan looking disgusted with herself.

“It’s really not even fair,” she said. “They’re like middle-school boys. Too few women rebelling, if you ask me.”

I snorted. “You should start a movement. Equality — more women for the male rebels to flirt with.”

Stomping through the snow to the back entrance of the boys’ tent, we heard two people arguing: Jared and Amory.

Logan poked her head in through the tent flap. “Hey, shut the fuck up. We can hear you guys all down the block.”

She squeezed inside, and I followed reluctantly, elbowing around Amory and standing at his side. Jared was seething by the front entrance, his shoulders raised in a defensive posture, and Greyson was sitting on his sleeping bag, looking frustrated.
 

“What’s going on?” Logan asked in a falsely cheery voice.

“Just found out you and your friends are traitors,” said Jared. Your old friend Ida is causing a huge riff.”

“Ida came to Rulon first,” I said.

“Sure she did,” Jared muttered.

“She
did.
I heard her. But Rulon’s stubborn. He won’t listen!”

Jared cracked a snide grin. “Yeah, I heard about her crazy World Corp International theory.”

“No, we need to move because this camp is going to collapse when the virus sets in,” said Amory. The PMC is closing in. We can’t just stay here and wait for them to find us when we’re most vulnerable.”

Jared shook his head, eyes still burning with fury. “Isn’t that nice?” He pointed from me to Amory to Logan. “You . . . and you . . . and you have all been vaccinated. A handful of the few people guaranteed not to become infected are leaving.”

“Everyone has the option of coming with us,” I said. “Right now, everyone else has the same chance of becoming infected.”

“And what do you plan to do once they start showing symptoms?” he shouted. “Throw them out in the cold?”

Being reminded of Mariah felt like a slap. Even though I had not been the one to throw her out of the bunker to die, revealing her secret to the rebels had doomed her instantly.

“What I did wasn’t right,” I said. “But I would do it all over again. She threatened my friends.”
 

“Can you blame her? She was just doing what any of us would have done. She was protecting the cause.” He laughed coldly, looking up over our heads. “That’s the problem with you people. All you care about is each other!”

“They’re all I have left.”

“She was all
I
had left!” Jared yelled. “She was my sister!”

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn’t know what to say.
 

Staring at my shoes, his last word hung on the air between us in the crowded tent. I opened my mouth to say something — anything — but he backed out into the snow with a huff.

Logan let out an audible sigh and found my hand. She squeezed it once, and I felt the warmth travel up my arm in a comforting way. “Everyone is someone’s sister,” she whispered, “or brother or friend. But that doesn’t mean we do anything differently.”

Hearing Logan of all people say that broke my heart.
How could she still have so much resolve after losing Max?
After everything that had happened, I felt as if I were losing mine.

I knew she was right. I couldn’t think about who might be affected every time I killed a carrier or shot at a PMC officer. As terrible as it was, given the choice between saving an unknown person’s loved one and saving one of mine, I’d choose Amory, Logan, and Greyson every time.

“I should apologize,” I said.

“Who’s that going to help? You or him?”

I gave her a funny look.

Logan sighed. “Sometimes it’s easier if you have someone to hate.”
 

We gave the boys the supplies we had stolen and returned to our tent to catch a few hours of sleep. We changed into our warmest clothes, and I decided to sleep in my gear. The coat was a little baggy, but it was warm and had lots of pockets for knives and extra ammunition. It felt as though I had barely closed my eyes when Logan was shaking my shoulder to wake me again.

It was still pitch black as we rolled up our sleeping bags and traipsed out into the snow toward the meeting place at the top of the hill.

The bonfire in the center of camp was burning low, and no one was out talking late tonight. After the carrier attack, a chilling fear had settled over the camp. I imagined no one wanted to be out alone.

The only other light came through the cracks of the medical tent. On impulse, I crossed over and stuck my head inside. Most of the beds were still occupied, and Shriver was sitting on a stool, cleaning her instruments.
 

“How are you feeling?” she asked without looking up.

“Great.”

An awkward silence hung in the air, and I didn’t know what to say.

“Are you leaving now?” she asked.

Her question took me by surprise. I nodded.

“Safe travels, then.” She reached over and tossed me a lightweight canvas bag. “Make sure your friends change their bandages regularly. Infection kills.”

I smiled. “Come with us.”

She looked up at me through those enormous glasses. “My place is here. There are going to be a lot of sick people very soon.”

“Aren’t you worried you’ll catch the virus?”

“I’ve been vaccinated,” she sighed. “Wish I could say the same for this lot.”

My insides squirmed uncomfortably. I realized I knew very little about the woman who had taken care of me and my friends without asking anything in return. I didn’t even know she had been documented, and now seemed like a strange time to ask about her story. I nodded. “Well, thanks . . . for everything.”

“Just doing my job.”

I took one last look around the crowded tent where she worked in silence caring for sick people, glanced at that picture of the man with the Dalmatian, and ducked back out of the tent.

“What was that about?” asked Logan.

“Just seeing if she wanted to come with us.”

Logan gave me a strange look.
 

“Don’t you ever think about the people who get left behind?”

She shook her head. “You can’t think that way. It’s too much for any one person to deal with.”

We continued toward the hill, and I tried to forget about all the rebels sleeping in their tents who might wake up in a few days and realize they were just months away from a terrible death.
 

Up ahead, I could see a cluster of dark figures waiting. As we drew closer, I recognized several of the people who had come with Ida and some of Rulon’s rebels. She had gone from tent to tent in the night, inviting anyone who wished to leave.

“What about provisions?” I asked the man standing next to me. He was the one who had found me after the carrier attack.

“It’s taken care of,” he said.

I heard a murmur of voices coming from the direction of the tents, and three figures materialized in the darkness. I recognized the outline of Amory’s broad shoulders and slim torso and Greyson’s brisk, effortless gate, but the third person stormed behind them with a purposeful, angry stride.

A glint of blond hair caught my eye, and my heart sank.
 

It was Jared.

“What’s he doing here?” Logan muttered to Greyson.

“He wanted to come.”

Logan gave him a threatening look, and I saw her instinctively reach for one of the knives in her holster. “He better not make trouble for us.”

Greyson grinned.

We waited for several minutes, and Ida finally arrived. She was dressed in heavy pants and boots with tufts of fur sticking out near her kneecaps, and she wore a furry hat with flaps that came down over her ears. Trailing behind her and looking nervous was Kinsley.
 

“He wanted to come and you were going to leave him behind?” I asked Amory.

He shrugged. “He’s Rulon’s errand boy. I never see him.”

“Is this everyone?” asked Ida.

I exchanged looks with the people standing nearest me. No one said anything. Most of the people from Rulon’s camp avoided each other’s gaze. I knew they must feel like deserters.

“Hold up a minute,” called a deep voice.

I looked back toward camp to see a bulkier figure loping toward us through the snow. A feeling of dread settled in my chest. If Rulon had caught us leaving, there would be trouble.
 

Then the outline of a shaggy beard began to take shape, and Godfrey came striding toward us. He was wearing a heavy coat with the furry hood pulled up around his leathery face. For a moment, I thought he might be coming to make trouble, but he had a rucksack slung over one shoulder and an AK-47 in his other hand. He looked terrifying.

“Room for one more?” he grunted.

Amory shot me a grin.

“Of course, Leo,” said Ida.

Logan snorted, but Ida just beamed.

“Well?” he said. “Let’s get the show on the road.”

As we trudged down the hill, I noticed that each of the rebels Ida had come with carried rifles, but she did not. The back of my neck prickled as we passed the tree where the lookout was usually posted before remembering that Kinsley was with us. No one called out for us to stop, and I felt slightly unnerved that no one was watching for approaching carriers or PMC.

I caught up to Ida, who was stomping cheerfully through the deep snow.