inDIVISIBLE (26 page)

Lightning flashed, and I ducked beneath the overhang that had been guiding me but the wind blew the drops beneath, pressing me to the stone wall where I thought I’d find shelter. I huddled low, arms wrapped around myself, shaking so badly I could no longer rise.

I couldn’t be out here alone. I had to find T. We had to help each other. I pushed away from the wall, stumbling into rain that fell as if from a waterfall, pressing my weakened legs down, trying to bury me.

“T!” I called, my voice lost in the storm.

Thunder wracked my joints
, and I squealed. My teeth clattered now, my jaw bouncing so hard I couldn’t close it. Water streaked through my hair, ran down my face, into my eyes—my mouth.

I lifted my face, opened my mouth and drank, the water cooling my throat as it ea
sed into my belly. I scrubbed the webs from my face too, the ones I’d gotten in the mine, my hands trembling. Then I pushed back up to my feet and forced them to take one step at a time, using the rock ledge as a guide to keep me upright, pressing into the storm. The lightning became erratic, the thunder just one step behind, rattling, booming, shaking.

I pressed my hands to my ears, chills setting deep into my bones
, and yet I stumbled forward. The scrubby trees offered no shelter. The hills turned to mud. The cliffs became torrents from the runoff above.

The thunder turned to a crackling
, and I remembered the machine gun in the valley the night before. The patter of gunfire had been aimed at T. Did that mean they’d found him?

I couldn’t entertain those thoughts. I focused ahead and marched so that the crooked-nosed mountain stayed at my back. The hills rose and fell around me, rocks jutting at a thousand angles. How had T ever thought we could just meet up again once we got out this far? We should have taken time to come up with a better plan.

I stumbled, caught myself on my knees and pushed myself up to my aching feet. I wondered if T gave a good foot rub.

I’d have to ask him when he caught up to me.

The cliff wall ahead had turned into a waterfall, the water gushing from a crack above and washing out the ground ahead. I skirted to my left, wondering if I could squeeze between the rock and the water to continue as I couldn’t go
through
the water. With my current strength, I’d be washed away for sure. I pressed my back to the rock wall and the water sprayed out enough that it looked like I’d fit. I eased under the falls, water spraying my face and making it hard to breathe. I held my breath and crept under further when the wall behind me fell back, allowing me room to stumble behind the waterfall and into a sliver of shelter.

My chin still rattled and my hands shook so hard I couldn’t even swipe the water from my face. My clothing clung thickly to my body, making me feel heavy and
claustrophobic.

I ripped the pack from my back and placed it back in
the cave on the only patch of dry ground I’d seen. Next I removed my shirt, ringing the water from it as it splattered into the mud.

I draped the shirt ov
er the backpack, a bit of chill lifting as I discarded the wet clothing. If that had helped so much, I had to remove my jeans. They were stubborn, clinging to my legs as if they were welded there. I sat on the ground and tugged, turning them inside-out before they pulled free, leaving goose bumps to rise in their place. I flipped the jeans right side out and pushed them under the coursing water, rinsing away the mud before I rang them out and set them on top of the pack. Standing in the dirt in nothing by my underwear and shoes, I rinsed myself with the water, a freezing shower to clean away the sweat and any remaining spider guts I’d accrued in the mine. I bit my bottom lip to keep from quivering and scrubbed. I stepped back from the water, the lightning making it glitter with each strike, and I concentrated.

I had become a ‘terrorist’ by One United definitions
, and it was time I developed the strength to cling to those convictions. What I’d been through at this point would seem trivial before I reached my goal, but I
would
reach it—and I’d do it for my father, Sofi, T, and myself.

I shook my arms out by my sides, my hands still now, my breathing calm. I pulled out my braid and rang the water from my hair before braiding it tighter. I threw it over my shoulder and it slapped against my spine.
The ensuing chills left me scrambling for my thin, silver blanket.

With
little between me and my blanket, my body heat multiplied and warmed me until I dozed on the ground.

Three hours later the rain stopped. The sun peaked over the horizon and my clothing still sat in a wet pile atop the backpack.

CHAPTER
31

I ate one of the apples for breakfast—the juice spilled down my chin, and I swiped it away with the back of my hand. I sat in the sun, sheltered behind scraggly trees, my clothing on rocks beside me.

With the sun out and the rain gone, I
unwrapped my hand. Fresh blood from the pulled stitches stained the gauze, and I flinched when I touched the string that had ripped completely through one layer of skin. It did little good now. I dug through the first aid supplies until I found the tiny medical scissors. Clasping them in my left hand, I snipped, missed the string but agitated the wound. I cringed and tried again, the string cutting cleanly. The string pulled out easier, but still left me sweating when I dropped it to the ground.

I rewrapped the wound and dropped the first aid supplies back in the pack when I remembered T’s note. I
pulled out the notebook and map.

The pages were dry, the map undamaged. I felt the backpack again, realizing it must be some kind of waterproof pack.
Good.

I set the map aside and held up the notebook, surprised at T’s penmanship. So much easier to read than my father’s, but the words just as hard to take.

Let’s assume we have not found one another—so you’re on your own, at least for a bit. This is your first checkpoint. You can reach it. I have faith in you. If I’m able, I’ll meet you there. If not, keep going. You have a lot to offer the world. If you don’t believe me, read what your father wrote. He knew you well.

I slammed the notebook down and threw the map on top of it. How dare he abandon me! I stalked across the ground and back. I didn’t want to be alone in this. I needed T. I cursed the helicopter and T’s plan.

I kicked a rock and the pain in my toes throbbed. “Stupid cactus,” I muttered.

I slouched back down on my rock and glanced down at the book, picking it up to trace T’s words. He’d been creating a distraction for
us
.

I understood that he was trying to help us both, but why did he have to write that note as if a final farewell? Had he expected to die along the way? If so, I could kill him …
Maybe he’d had to hide out.
The only way I’d know for sure was to go to that first checkpoint and pray he’d be there.

I flipped the map open and searched it for the symbol that corresponded to the one in the notebook. The first checkpoint could only be a few miles away and the details were so clear in the book that I didn’t know how I could go wrong. I folded the map, placed it back with the notebook and placed them in the zippered pouch.

My clothing had not completely dried but I yanked and pulled until my jeans fit over my hips and I zipped them in place. As I grabbed my shirt, I thought of T’s inside that bag, dry, warm and smelling of his skin. I wadded my shirt and tossed it into the bag, slipping his baggy shirt over my head instead. I ran my hands over the fabric, smoothing it against my skin, a small comfort in his absence.

CHAPTER 32

I heard the helicopter approaching late in the afternoon. I’d come within a hundred feet of the checkpoint, but had to follow the instructions in the notebook as I passed, and I couldn’t do that while dodging surveillance. I hadn’t yet seen the helicopter, but wouldn’t take the chance of being spotted before I made it through so I found a dense stand of trees and ducked beneath to wait out the search.

T
he helicopter circled to the south in ever widening circles as they looked for us. It moved out further and further but never close enough for my heart rate to explode. The helicopter finished its patrol over the settlement where we’d stayed, made a fly over the mine shaft I’d escaped from and had returned to the east where T had created his distraction. They hadn’t seen my tracks if they’d already flown away—then I remembered the rain. It would have washed evidence of my struggles away. I rocked my shoulders back and settled deeper into the shadows, content that they wouldn’t find me today.

The machine beat its way across the sky, and though I
could no longer see it, I stayed rooted until it silenced altogether. Enough time had passed that my stomach rattled. I had two apples left, but I had to save them for T. I crept from the trees and reoriented myself with the checkpoint. I had to pick up three small rocks and toss them casually on the ground one by one as I walked between a boulder and a gully. I picked up my rocks and strolled ahead. The animals had resumed their chattering, and I paused.

T said he’d meet me here.

The sky had washed clear to a cloudless blue, so calm that even the wind had quit blowing. It prickled my skin, and I scanned the hills around me. If a Freeman was watching, I’d be able to see him too, wouldn’t I? He couldn’t be too far and that meant that the settlement had to be within reach. Maybe they’d see I wasn’t a threat. Maybe they’d already stepped in to help T.

I found no one.

I couldn’t wait.

If I didn’t get to the Freemen, the Alliance would kill me. I marched ahead. “Where are you, T?” I asked as I reached the boulder.

I nearly leapt from my skin when T said, “It’s about time, Brynn. I thought you’d never show up.”

He laid
back against the boulder, his face pale and chest red from the sun.

I threw my arms around him and held him. He returned the embrace. His hands tracing my back, easing to my sides until he leaned away and said, “Please tell me you saved me an apple.”

I chuckled. “You’re all about the food,” I teased and tossed him an apple.

He bit into it as soon as it hit his hands
, and he couldn’t hide the hunger that claimed him. He bit faster than he could chew until nothing but the stem remained.

Juice had dripped to his bare chest
, and I remembered that I wore his shirt. I turned my back to him and pulled it over my head.

As I stuck my arms into
my
shirt, his hands touched my bare sides and his lips tickled my ear. “I was just about to say that I like the way you look in my shirt, but I think I like the way you look out of it even better.”

I ducked away and pulled my shirt
over my head, turning in time to catch his dimple deepen.  My cheeks burned and he noticed, the smile widening. He grabbed his shirt and slipped it on, protecting him from the sun’s relentless rays.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” I said when he took me into his embrace. I wrapped my arms around him and my chest swelled.

“Me too,” he whispered.

I laid my cheek against his shoulder and wished we could hold each other longer. “Looks like your idea worked.”

“For now,” he agreed. “How was the mine?”

“Easy,” I lied.

He chuckled. “Liar. I’m glad you’re okay too.” His heart beat through his shirt, and I pulled him tighter, never wanting to let him go. Now that his plan had thrown the Alliance off course, we couldn’t waste the efforts, and we both knew it.

Our arms slipped away and he took me by the hand, leading toward the checkpoint. “Do you have the stones?”

I opened my hand, three rocks in one palm.

“Toss them.”

One at a time I let the stones go, hoping a Freeman actually watched, prepared to bring us into their settlement.

The rocks thunked to the ground, unremarkable, unchanging anything … I looked up at him when my hand emptied and he smiled.

“It felt a bit anticlimactic,” I whispered.

T chuckled. “I thought you’d crave that for once.”

I couldn’t deny the fatigue that pulled at my shoulders and made my eyelids sag. Could anticlimactic mean a nap too? I wanted to know. T grasped my hand, pulled me further up the hillside in silence. The pines grew larger now, interspersed with thin-trunked oaks and towering aspen. Moss speckled rocks dotted the landscape, and the fallen limbs made it difficult to hike unheard. Still, we saw no security officers—or helicopters, and the opportunity to hike relaxed, as we felt like taking a break.

“What happened in the mine?” T asked, pulling me around a boulder that had washed down in last night’s storm.

I recounted, a condensed version that minimized the number of spiders and the terror of I’d felt clinging to the grate.