Shadowmark (The Shadowmark Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

Finding east proved impossible, with the sky all grey and white and gloomy. She would have to implement her plan later. She stood and viciously beat mud off her jeans. Her stomach growled but she refused to eat another cake now. Not before she found more food to replace it. Unable to bring herself to return to the roads, Mina abandoned her feeble campsite and slipped farther away from the city.
 

DAY 6

“L
INCOLN
? L
INCOLN
? C
AN
YOU
HEAR
me? They’re looking in the tunnel. Everyone. We haven’t found Halston, but they’re looking.”

“It’s going to take days, maybe weeks. I don’t care about finding that psycho. Let him rot down there,” said Nelson.

Lincoln was laying on a cot in a large tent. Carter, Nelson, and Alvarez stood near him.

“He’s awake,” said Alvarez.
 

Carter leaned around Nelson to look at Lincoln. “How do you feel?”

“Been better. What happened?” His mouth was dry, his voice hoarse.

“Halston stabbed you. Don’t you remember?” asked Alvarez. The Army jacket was gone. She shivered in the light beige coat.
 

“I remember. What happened after that?”

“By the time we figured out what was going on, Halston had already grabbed your gun. Carter swung a torch at him, but Halston dodged him and bolted down Corridor B.”

“Would’ve been better if I’d hit him with it,” said Carter.

“He might have shot you, though,” said Alvarez.
 

“Don’t know why he didn’t. Still, he was fast, very fast.” Carter looked troubled for a moment, then smiled at Lincoln.
 

Alvarez moved to the foot of Lincoln’s cot. “We don’t know where he went after that. You were losing a lot of blood.”

Carter pulled something from his pocket and held it up for Lincoln to see. Lincoln squinted, his eyes focusing slowly. It was the sketchbook, sliced almost in two and covered in dark blood. “They found this in your pocket. Looks like it stopped the knife from doing any serious organ damage.”

Lincoln reached out and felt the gash in the middle. “Sorry about your book.”

Carter scoffed and laid it on the bed beside Lincoln. “For luck,” he said.

Lincoln looked around at his friends—they were all a little worse for wear, sporting bruises and scratches on their faces and hands. “Thanks for getting me out of there.”
 

The team stood there awkwardly, like they wanted to say more or thought he was going to say something embarrassing, but Lincoln spared them by asking, “What happened to the map?”

Nelson shifted from one foot to the other. “We think Halston grabbed it. Sorry, man.”

“That’s great.” Lincoln’s head hurt, and he laid it back down on his pillow. “How’d you get out?”

“We followed the trail of boot prints . . . and guessed. Schmidt was waiting for us outside. When we didn’t come back to our tents, he figured we had gone to the mine and followed us. He helped get you back to camp.”

For once Lincoln was glad Schmidt was so nosy. He’d have to tell the kid as much. He shivered slightly—why hadn’t anyone thought to light a fire or bring more blankets? “Any news from outside?”

Carter and Nelson exchanged glances but didn’t answer him.

Alvarez glanced at Carter and Nelson. “Actually, we just got word on the radio,” she said. “We’ve heard about Atlanta and some other places.”

“And?” Lincoln did not like the look on her face.

“And I’m sorry, but they’re completely destroyed. All of them—New York, DC . . . Atlanta.”

Nelson jumped in, “Power’s out everywhere. Widespread blackouts across the nation. From what the colonel’s pieced together, the attacks happened immediately after.”

“How do you know?” Lincoln asked.

“A man on the radio,” continued Alvarez, “and he heard it from a National Guard officer who’d been driven out.”

“That’s it?” Lincoln’s voice rose. The piercing pain in his side tormented him. “Don’t ever bring me news like that again, Alvarez, unless you can provide better evidence than that!”

“Lincoln, why would someone lie about . . .”

Carter intervened, touching Alvarez on the shoulder. “Now’s not the time. Let him be.” He turned to Lincoln. “We’ll come back in the morning. Get some rest.”

Nelson opened his mouth as if to say something, but he closed it again and followed Carter and Alvarez out of the tent.

Lincoln yelled after them, “How am I supposed to rest after that?” He knocked over a tray next to his cot, the metal cup and tray clanging down onto the dirt floor. The medic, hearing the racket, came back in and gave Lincoln some more morphine. He finally slept.

They kept him sedated for several days, as much to help him rest as to keep him from ripping open his stitches. When he finally woke, the same anger welled inside of him. But he refrained from upsetting any more trays or yelling at anyone. He didn’t actually have anyone to yell at, except the medic who helped him sit up and eat. Everyone was at the mine, although his team wasn’t allowed inside until every tunnel was declared safe. When his head cleared a bit, Lincoln realized he hadn’t asked Carter, Nelson, or Alvarez about their families. Ashamed of himself, Lincoln was glad they had left him alone.

Already he was stir crazy. There was nothing worse than being helpless, so as soon as he could sit up on his own, he swung his legs over the edge of the bed and walked out into the sunlight. The day was cold despite the clear sky. The medic anxiously followed him, admonishing him not to tear his stitches.

Lincoln shrugged him off. “I’m not staying in there anymore.” But after a few more seconds of squinting in the daylight, he began to feel dizzy. The medic helped him back inside.

DAY 7

T
REES
PRESSED
OVER
THE
CREEK
, their branches a lattice against the pale sky above. At the bank, the snarl of roots and budding vines snaked all the way to the water, and Mina treaded carefully to avoid slipping into the bitter current. She leaned against the muddy embankment, breathing heavily and listening. Men’s voices drifted over from the woodland trail above the creek. She had to be moving in the same direction they were. They could move to the creek for water at any moment—staying here was dangerous.

Mina gazed back at the path she had slogged through, at its slippery stones and moss and tree roots, and dreaded the thought of fighting her way back along the creek bed. But she dared not leave its cover. On one side of the water, to the west, the thicket thinned quickly until nothing but small trees dotted the land all the way up to the road. Thinking of the massive black ship over the station, Mina shuddered and contemplated her other option.

A narrow nature trail lay on the east side of the creek. The large trees along the trail provided perfect cover for the people fleeing the open farmlands. But bands of armed men tramped up and down the trail. Using it was out of the question. Beyond the trail, a few more thickets of trees opened up to rolling farmland broken only by windbreaks. Why she thought she would be safe here, Mina could not remember. Now she was here, though, she didn’t know if she would be safer anywhere else.
 

She stood and headed back the way she had come, hunched over, as if walking that way would make her harder to see. The nagging hunger that had awakened her this morning intensified as the afternoon wore on. And by the time Mina had fought her way back to her starting position, her body flat out rebelled, refusing to cooperate as she stumbled along the creek bed.
 

Finally, deep shades of dusk made further progress along the creek impossible. Mina washed mud from her hands and face and drank deeply. The water tasted of earth and sand and trees. If only she knew how to filter it. Thirst drove her to drink her fill.
 

She climbed out of the creek bed and crouched next to a tree, pausing to survey the path ahead. The wind blew cold night air through the trees. Nothing but the branches stirred. The men’s voices had faded. Pain rippled down Mina’s spine as she straightened and crossed the path. On the other side, the dense undergrowth grasped at her, adding new scratches to her arms and legs as she fought her way through it.
 

At the edge of the trees, the quiet field looked safe. The air was still, and a full moon shone down on brown shoots. Mina paused to find her bearings and looked for the tree she had camped by the previous night. Spotting it in the moonlight, she crept out of her hiding place and across the corner of the field. As she approached the tree, something moved at the corner of her vision, across the barren rows near a stand of trees. Dropping quickly, Mina pressed herself to the earth and lay still. The sharp smell of dirt and decay stung her nostrils and made her eyes water.
 

Mina
 
chest constricted. What was she doing? She couldn’t hide in the dirt.
Keep it together, Mina
. Rather than overthink her options, she screwed up her courage, pushed off the ground, and darted behind the big tree, pressing her back to it and listening. Another breeze rustled the newly budded branches above. After several minutes, Mina risked a look. Nothing. Her heart rate and breathing slowed. Must have been her imagination. She slumped to a sitting position with her back against the tree. The sweat on her body cooled in the night air, and she shuddered.

Nights she had once deemed “crisp” now felt bitterly cold since she had begun sleeping outside. She had finally started a few campfires using the lighters. Puny and smoky, the fires threatened to die every five minutes if she didn’t heap more small twigs and dry leaves on them. But the feeble warmth had made her more comfortable on colder nights. Tonight, though, after multiple sightings of armed gunmen and the scare in the field, lighting a fire seemed too risky. And she only wanted to sleep.

She pushed thoughts of the day aside and burrowed into the bed of last year’s leaves and pine needles covering the ground. Every twig beneath her tried to jab her in the ribs, and large tree roots dug into her shoulder. She twisted around to find the most comfortable spot. Her only advantage was her exhaustion—eventually she would sleep despite her discomfort. Mina pulled her thin hood over her head, tucked her hands into her jacket sleeves, and waited for the cold to settle over her.
 

The sky darkened as the wind blew clouds across the moon. Behind the field, a light flickered along the horizon, and the faint smell of smoke drifted through the night. But the field remained quiet. Even though the smell sent her heart racing again, Mina was too tired to consider leaving her hiding place. She closed her eyes.

When Mina woke, intense cramps knotted her stomach. From the creek water or hunger? She stood and brushed off her clothes. Every part of her body ached, and she twisted and stretched to relieve the knots in her back. When she was a little looser, she went in search of food.
What I wouldn’t do for a steak right now.
She could probably have eaten a whole cow before she felt satisfied.

The morning sun filtered through smoky clouds and warmed the earth. The day would be warm, a welcome change from the last week. Mina spent the rest of the morning examining bushes and vines for possible food. The trees and plants were mostly green, so she could study the foliage, but she really didn’t know what to look for. Hadn’t she read somewhere that dandelions were edible? But she didn’t find any dandelions.
 

Something red caught her eye and she stopped to look. A berry dangled near the ground beneath three jagged leaves. Mina looked. Several of the plants were scattered around. The fruit resembled a small strawberry. She picked one and sniffed it. It smelled sweet, but it could still be poisonous. She touched her tongue to it. Yes, it was sweet.
 

Mina’s stomach cramped again and she doubled over. She’d eaten her last snack cake four days ago. She’d eaten her last
meal
nine days ago, before the flight. Casting aside her doubt, Mina stuck the berry in her mouth. Wonderful, tart juice shocked her taste buds. She scrambled around to gather more, eating the tiny berries directly off the plants. The more she looked, the more she found, and she followed the line of plants along the edge of a small, secluded pasture. When she’d eaten all she could find, Mina sank down in the grass. Wind rustled the trees, and birds flew into the air to chase one another. Her hunger abated, and her body worn out but finally warm, Mina allowed herself the luxury of closing her eyes for a few moments.
 

“Six days,” she said to herself, her voice cracking from disuse. Six days since the truck stop. The weather was definitely warmer, but the nights were still cold. A cold snap could still freeze her before warm weather set in. She needed to make a shelter. But then how could she eat without moving from place to place? She didn’t know how to trap animals, she couldn’t catch them by chasing them, and didn’t have a fire hot enough to cook them if she could.
 

And I’ll never reach Atlanta if I stay put.
 

Her thoughts turned to her plan. Each day she had walked west through the fields, the idea of finding Lincoln spurring her on. She thought about it when she lay down at night, devising a plan for when she arrived in Atlanta. She would find the airport first.
 

Of course, getting there would be easier if she used the roads. She could stop at farmhouses along the way. She saw them all the time. Some structures had people milling about. Others sat as if empty, their windows broken and doors bashed in. After seeing the men on the trail and the gang at the station, the empty houses made her nervous. If she saw the opportunity for shelter, others would, too. And Mina had no way of defending herself if she crossed paths with the wrong sort of people. The only way to avoid them was to stay away altogether.
 

Without the road to gauge her distance, she didn’t know how far she had walked. Yesterday at the top of a tree-covered hill, she’d glimpsed mountains to the west. Without food, though, how would she reach them?