Outbreak (7 page)

Hot pain radiates from my nose to the back of my skull, and Harper takes the opportunity to yank her arm out of my grasp and stalk out of the room.

The door slams shut behind her, and almost on cue, I feel the hot trickle of blood gushing from my nose. 

Under any other circumstances, I’d be thrilled by that punch, but now I don’t know how I’m going to fix things with Harper.

Jayden must have sent Mina to my room to remind me in no uncertain terms that Harper’s life depends on me killing the drifter leaders. I hate hiding that detail from Harper, but I don’t think she’d be able to live with the guilt if she knew I was trading their lives for hers. I still don’t know what I’m going to do about Owen, but killing Malcolm and Jackson to save Harper is a no-brainer.

Even though I’m only lying to protect her, Harper has every reason not to trust me. And after today, I doubt she’s ever going to trust me again.

six

Harper

The heat of the Fringe isn’t enough to counteract the icy vibes I’m sending Eli’s way. 

I didn’t say a single word to him after I left his compartment yesterday, and I barely made eye contact when he brought me my gun from the weapons room. 

I could feel his eyes on me as Remy Chaplin read our deployment disclosure, but as soon as the compound doors shut behind us, I began to feel sick for an entirely new set of reasons: the fear of getting shot and the creeping dread that I may have to shoot someone else.

We barely make it ten yards before Eli broaches the suffocating silence of the desert.

“Will you just let me explain?”

“Now really isn’t the time,” I snap, scanning the horizon for any sign of movement.

I don’t know why Eli thinks it’s still a good idea for us to be partners. I feel off balance and distracted every time we’re together, and all our emotional baggage doesn’t exactly make for a healthy partnership. 

“Nothing happened with Mina. She literally broke into my compartment the night you left and brought me up to Constance’s headquarters to see Jayden.”

“She seemed pretty cozy on your bed,” I mutter. 

What is wrong with me?
I am not this girl. I don’t want Eli to think I’m hurt and bitter — even if I am. I don’t want to give him that power over me, but my emotions are not cooperating.

“That’s just the way she is,” he growls. “She’s like Jayden. She just uses that shit to manipulate people.”

“Then why did you have her gun?”

“She
gave
it to me,” he sighs in exasperation. “She knew I wouldn’t come with her otherwise.”

“You expect me to believe that a woman from Constance — a woman Jayden trained — would just hand over her gun?”

“Yeah. I guess.”

I scoff in disgust. He can’t expect me to believe that.

“Do you
really
think I’d go down to Neverland and find someone to sleep with the night you go off to 119?”

I know he can’t see my full expression behind my mask, but I give him my best sideways glare.

Eli’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise. “
Really
? Wow. Thanks.”

Now he’s pissed. Good. He deserves it after all the shit he’s put me through.

“Well, I guess that clears a few things up,” he growls, uncharacteristically flustered. “Only, I’m not sure why you’d even
be
with me in the first place if you thought I was such a scumbag.”

That strikes a nerve. 

“I guess I didn’t know,” I say lamely.

“That’s bullshit, Harper. You know the type of guy I am. You know me better than anyone. What you see is what you get, so if you think I’d do something like that, you must have had a low opinion of me for a while.”

I open my mouth to retort but close it quickly. I
do
know him — at least I thought I did. It never crossed my mind that Eli might cheat on me until I saw that bitch sprawled out on his bed. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed it.

“You should know I’d never do something like that,” he says, filling the heavy silence with his reassuring voice. “There’s no one else I want to be with.”

Those words are enough to break through my wall of anger and confusion. A pleasant warmth starts to spread from my chest to my extremities, and I feel my jealousy-induced icicles start to melt.

“Well . . . that’s good to know, I guess,” I say, fighting a smile.

He stops walking, and I stiffen, instantly on high alert for drifters. I don’t see anyone approaching, so I chance a look at his face.

He’s got a playful twinkle in his eyes, but I can’t read his full expression. Slowly, he turns toward me and runs his hands up and down my arms.

“You didn’t know that?”

His gentle touch is incredibly distracting, but I manage to blurt out a muffled “no.”

Eli’s breath hitches behind his mask, and he lets his hands wander up to my neck. It’s as far as he can go with my mask in the way. “This is when I’m supposed to kiss you,” he whispers.

I nod and try to pull myself together. This isn’t the time or the place, but Eli’s looking at me with so much affection and desire that I know if he pulled off his mask to kiss me right now, mine would be gone in a second.

Watching him watch me behind the heavy piece of plastic, I get the sudden urge to laugh. It rumbles up my chest and bursts out of my mic before I can stop it, and Eli’s eyes narrow.

“I’m sorry,” I choke, unable to contain my laughter. “I’m sorry! It’s just . . .” I reach out and tug on the bottom of his mask. “We’re having a moment out on the Fringe. It’s kind of funny.”

At first I think I might have ruined everything and that Eli is going to become sullen again, but then his eyes crinkle in amusement, and he starts laughing, too. 

I decide it’s my favorite sound in the whole world. 

Our little moment doesn’t last long enough. Eli regains his focus within a few seconds, but when his laughter subsides, he’s still staring at me with a disarming fondness that makes coherent speech impossible.

He redirects his gaze to the horizon, and we start walking again.

As we approach the land mines, I pull up my interface and study the three-dimensional map that shows where they’re buried. Dozens of new red dots crowd the path in front of me, which makes charting a safe course more difficult than usual. I can see the freshly packed dirt where ExCon installed the new ones, and I wonder if they’ll be able to keep the drifters at a safe distance.

By the time we clear the mines, the sun is beating down with fierce intensity. My long-sleeve overshirt is soaked with sweat, and I fight the urge to strip down to my tank top and shorts. 

I’m still replaying Eli’s words in my mind, and I’m so distracted that I barely notice him leading us in a completely different direction from last time. Instead of the imposing sandstone formations looming in the distance, all I see is open desert.

“Where are we going?” I ask in alarm. Surely I couldn’t have thrown Eli off his game so much that he lost his way.

“We’re taking a different route into town. It’s a longer walk, but there’s nowhere for the drifters to hide.”

“Oh . . . good.”

“And I doubt they would rebury our land mines all the way out here. Nobody from Recon comes this far north.”

I nod.

“Did you think we were lost?” he asks, clearly amused.

“No. Well . . . maybe a little.”

He chuckles, and it strikes me just how different this deployment seems. Our little moment made everything feel deceivingly light, but it’s more than that. After provoking Constance’s ire, I might actually be safer out here than I am in the compound.

Eli wasn’t kidding about the roundabout path being longer. My throat is parched from thirst, and I can feel the heat making an imprint on the top of my forehead and the bridge of my nose. I could really use a water break, but something about Eli’s purposeful stride makes me think he doesn’t want to slow down.

When I finally emerge from my bubble of discomfort, I see the fuzzy shape of a town looming off to our left. On our right, the highway carves a gentle path through the rugged terrain, the blacktop swimming in and out of focus in the sunshine.

We walk faster as we approach the town, and I grip my rifle a little tighter. There aren’t any rock formations to provide cover for a sniper, but the drifters probably still have lookouts stationed near the edge of town.

Then I hear a high-pitched rush of wind. It’s a sound I’ve heard twice before, but it takes me a second to recognize it.

Eli grabs me around the shoulders and pulls me to the ground. My elbows burn as they scrape pebbles and grit, but he pushes me down farther. He shimmies along next to me, trying to conceal himself in the slight slope of the land, and I copy his movements until we’re lying side by side.

That’s when I realize that the sound I heard was a car.

As the vehicle approaches, I tuck my head and focus on lying absolutely still. My heart is pounding against my ribcage, and I can feel Eli’s ragged breathing as his chest expands and contracts against my side.

There’s a sharp
whoosh!
as the hunter-green SUV blazes past us, and I let out a low breath of relief.

“It’s headed into town,” says Eli. “That has to be the Desperados.”

We lie in the dirt for several minutes, steeling ourselves for the possibility that we could encounter Owen’s gang.

“You think he’s with them?” I ask.

Eli lets out a long breath. “Only one way to find out.”

“What are you going to do if we find him?”

He shakes his head. “Hopefully get close enough to talk to him — tell him to get the hell out of here.”

“
And you think he’ll listen
?” 

I don’t mean for the question to come out so indignant, but it does.

I only spent a few hours with Owen on our last deployment, but that was enough time to realize he was even more stubborn than Eli. I can’t imagine he’d cut and run just because his brother asked him to.

Then again, I never thought Eli would admit he had feelings for me, so it’s possible the Parker brothers aren’t as incorrigible as they like people to believe.

Once the SUV has disappeared from view, Eli helps me back up, and we continue our trek toward the town.

“Stay alert,” he mutters under his breath.

I nod and hurriedly wipe my sweaty palms on my fatigues.

That old fear of the Fringe is back in full force, and it feels like my first deployment all over again. At the sight of the SUV, all my training melted away — leaving me with nothing but my basic instincts. I try reminding myself that Eli is here, but that does little to quell my panic. He’s had so many close calls on the Fringe already.

Luckily, I don’t have much time to dwell on the horrible thoughts running through my mind. We’ve reached the outskirts of town, and unfamiliar buildings are popping up all around us.

Once we break through the sparse industrial area, we emerge onto a street that looks much nicer than the pit-stop side of town. The sidewalks are lined with old-fashioned street lamps and wrought-iron benches, and artsy shops and restaurants stretch all the way down the block. 

We cut through the alleyway between a rustic-looking brewpub and a stationary store, but just as we step off the sidewalk into the street, male voices drift over on the wind. 

I hear the scuff of their boots, but there’s no way to tell where the men are coming from. 

I duck down between a trashcan and an empty newspaper stand, and Eli does the same. There isn’t a lot of room in our little hiding place, so he has to practically fold his body over mine.

The men round the corner, but they’re still too far away for me to discern what they’re saying. They’re in their midthirties and look less intimidating than most of the drifters I’ve seen guarding the town. They aren’t dressed in black T-shirts and bandanas like the Desperados; they’re wearing faded jeans, T-shirts, and button-downs. The two I can see are armed, but their handguns are tucked into holsters. 

The men seem to decide something as a group, and one of them rubs his forehead, looking agitated. They talk for a few more seconds and then head out in opposite directions.

For several minutes, the only sound is Eli’s uneven breathing against the back of my neck. Then he rises into a standing position and pulls me up, too.

“Come on.”

Glancing around to make sure the men are really gone, I follow him across the street toward one of the touristy clothing stores. Its windows are still intact, and the wooden sign hanging over the door reads “Mountain Man Outdoor Emporium.”

Eli pulls a tool out of his belt and uses it to jimmy the lock. The door swings open easily, and I follow him inside.

The shade is a welcome relief, but it’s still hot and stuffy inside the store. I pull off my mask and take a huge drink of water, surveying the racks of outdoor clothing and sporting equipment.

“Who were those guys?” I ask, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.

“No idea.” 

Eli removes his mask and hangs it from a hook near the cash register. Then he heads straight for the men’s clothing.

Judging by the barren walls, the store owner must have sold off or taken anything valuable with him, but there’s still plenty of clothing hanging from the metal carousels.

“Pick out something to wear,” says Eli. “Our uniforms are too recognizable.”

“We’re changing?”

“Yeah. I don’t know who those men were, but they weren’t Desperados. There’s bound to be plenty more where they came from, and I’m not taking any chances.”

Eli doesn’t look up from the clothes, but the anxiety in his voice is palpable. He selects a light blue shirt from the rack, and the full meaning of his words finally sinks in.

“You want to pretend to be drifters?”

What he’s suggesting is brilliant, but it’s also treason. Recon operatives don’t go undercover. They work by staying out of sight and shooting drifters.

“We’re not going to become best friends or anything. We’re just going to blend in.”