The Lair (14 page)

No one had fought for us except Sebastian, and even he had had ulterior motives.

And here was the thing: if I walked away from those kids in San Angelo, then I was no better than Edmunds.

We were at war. In the months since the Academy had fallen, I’d seen almost no signs that civilization existed beyond the Farms. I had no idea what was going on in other parts of the world or even other parts of the country, but right now, we were at war. And we were losing. Bad. The other Elites and I had joined this fight knowing we might have no chance of winning. We had joined the fight because fighting was better than rolling over and dying. We joined knowing that we might well die so that other people could live. But the Greens in San Angelo weren’t soldiers who’d willingly joined the battle. They had no training. They had no choice. And they would be drugged. Even if they wanted to fight, could they?

By the time Ely backed away from me, panting, and held up a hand as a sign of concession, my hands were aching, my knuckles bloodied and bruised. It was an enormous effort just to pull air into my lungs. I dropped down to my knees and lowered my head.

“It’s impossible,” I panted.

“So you’re just going to let all those kids die?”

“Kids are dying every day. I can’t save them all.”

“So what? You’re not going to save
any
of them? You’re just going to sit on your ass?”

“No,” I admitted.

It was stupid. It was a suicide mission. It would be a bloodbath whether we were there or not. But it was a bloodbath I couldn’t walk away from. Not if I wanted to live with myself.

Suddenly, resolve settled into my gut and my mind starting clicking the puzzle pieces together.

“Okay, if we’re going to do this, we need five vehicles. Five kids in each one, loaded up with food and gas for the trip. I can’t leave Base Camp unguarded, so we’ll be pulling equally from the Elites and the Greens. That should leave about twenty Elites to guard Base Camp.

“We’re going to drive straight through the night to get there as quickly as we can. We’ll go in, take out any Collab resistance, and get the Greens off the Diazepam and keep the electricity online so the fences don’t go down. I’ll have to make sure Taylor comes.”

“Why?” Ely asked.

“Turns out he’s damn good with electronics. He’s the guy who set up our electrical system from solar panels we’d scavenged. If anyone can keep the grid from going down, he should be able to. The drugs and the grid are our top priorities. We’ll worry about how to get everyone back here later. If we don’t get there in time, that won’t be a problem anyway.”

Ely smiled, and for the first time I got the sense that he was actually enjoying himself. I didn’t know if I could blame him. He’d always liked a good fight, but then, so did I.

“Anything else?” he asked.

Yes. I needed to find a way to keep Lily from coming with me. She wouldn’t be happy about it. If there was a fight, she’d want to be in on it. But this time, that wasn’t an option.

“Yeah.” I pinned Ely with a stare. “This is top secret. I don’t want you breathing a word of this to anyone. Especially not Lily. Got it?”

“Got it. But you are bringing her with you, right? That’s the whole point.”

“No. The point is saving lives. Lily stays here. As far away from the action as possible.”

“But—”

I whirled on Ely. “Back off. She’s not coming to Texas.”

Ely raised his hands in the air and backed up a step. “Hey, no worries,
vato
. You don’t want her in Texas, she won’t go to Texas.”

Maybe if everything lined up, if we got there in time, if we could keep the fences up and stay ahead of the Ticks and the Collabs. Maybe, just maybe, I could save some of those kids. Maybe.

But when it came to Lily, I wasn’t willing to trust it to maybe. When it came to Lily, I wanted her safe. Which meant I had to keep her the hell away from me. I had to make damn sure she didn’t even know about the trip to Texas.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Lily

By morning, the mood in Base Camp had shifted from fearful to angry. Lily sensed the change the second she stepped out of the RV to go empty the composting toilet, which had to be emptied every day. Most people rotated the duty between everyone who lived in their RV, but she certainly wasn’t going to make McKenna do it. She could use the exercise anyway. Funny, she’d never been much for exercise in the Before. Being able to run had never seemed important until she had something to run from.

McKenna had already been out for food and back again by the time she got up. Lily had hoped that by morning, McKenna would be ready to see reason, but she wasn’t. She was just as determined as ever. She woke Lily with perky descriptions of how they could steal a car from the nearby city of Logan.

Listening to McKenna’s plans made her head spin, and for once she was actually glad to leave the RV in the morning. Even drop duty was better than trying to change McKenna’s mind.

She watched her step as she made her way through the cavern. After twelve hours, a bucket of piss really starts to reek. The ammonia seems to worm its way into her nose and lodge there. The last thing she wanted was for any of it to slosh out. But worst of all was the wrenching pain from her shoulder. Pain was good, right? Her body’s reminder to take it easy.

Besides, once she was up there, she planned to talk to Carter about McKenna’s plans to leave Base Camp. If anyone could talk some sense into the girl, Carter could.

Early mornings were usually busy around Base Camp, but this morning everything seemed unusually still and quiet. People were staying in their RVs. The few people who were out and about kept their gaze down and skittered away from each other. She wanted to believe that this was a normal reaction to the Tick attack. That people just wanted to grieve in private, but what if she was wrong? What if people weren’t grieving, but were hiding from her? Carter had been with her when the attack had happened. If he’d been here instead, maybe it wouldn’t have been as bad. Maybe people blamed her for the attack. Maybe they were right.

As she made her way toward the receiving bay, she noticed the front doors were still closed. By this time there should be enough light to scare off the Ticks. The doors should be open. So why weren’t they?

She skirted around the new triage area and made her way to the doors. The smell grew overwhelming as she got closer. A row of buckets lined the wall beside the doors that a pair of Elites was guarding.

Lily set her bucket down near the others and went over to Chris, one of the Elites standing guard. She gave a nod of greeting to Merc and then asked Chris, “What’s up with the doors still being closed? I have drop duty.”

Chris gave a sympathetic shrug of his shoulders. “Sorry, Lil. Can’t let you out. We’ve been ordered to keep the doors closed this morning. We’re going to have armed guards to go out with the group in about an hour. You can leave your bucket here until then.”

“Okay, I’ll be back.”

Only then did Merc speak up. “Didn’t you get shot yesterday?”

“I’m okay,” she lied. “It’s barely a scratch.”

Merc just shook his head. His voice was deep and no-nonsense. “Sorry, Lil. No way you’re doing drop duty today.”

She wanted to argue, but could tell it would be pointless so she left the bucket and walked away. Great. Now she was making more work for people.

The block of offices at the front of Base Camp where the Elites lived was like a rabbit’s warren, but she’d been back there enough that she knew her way around. The door was partially open, so she knocked on the frame and then let herself in but Carter wasn’t alone. There was another guy in there with him, someone Lily had never seen before.

He was shorter than Carter, but broad through the chest, like a pit bull. He had long, dark hair and enough tattoos to have had his own reality TV show in the Before. Okay, so she didn’t really know how many tattoos he had. She was just extrapolating based on the fact that he had tatts peeking past each sleeve cuff and his collar. One sprawled up his neck.
Mi Familia.
This guy had “Latino badass” written all over him. Literally.

The desk had been moved back to the center of the room and had a map of the U.S. spread out across the surface with bobbleheads holding down the corners. Both of the guys looked up when she walked in. Carter smiled when he saw her, but there was something invasive about the way this new guy sized her up. It was a look that simultaneously assessed her physical assets and dismissed her as useless.

That kind of good ol’ boy bullshit annoyed the crap out of her, so she walked up to him and stuck out her hand. “You must be Ely.”

His eyebrows inched up his forehead then slowly he smiled as he gave her another once-over. “I guess my reputation precedes me.”

“Only forty-three Elites made it out of the Academy. I know forty-two of them already, so . . .” She thrust her hand forward again. “You’re Ely, and I’m Lily Price.”

He had already started reaching for her hand, but when he heard her name, he froze. “Lily?” He sent a look to Carter, before finally taking her hand in his. “Lily. You’re Carter’s Lily.”

She firmed up her handshake a little. “Actually I’m
my
Lily.”

Ely chuckled. “Yeah, you are.”

Even Carter laughed a little and the sound made something inside of her quiver with longing. God, it had been so long since she’d heard him laugh. Only then did she notice that he had a nasty-looking black eye forming and that the skin on his cheekbone was spilt open. The injury didn’t look fresh, but she was sure it hadn’t been there the day before when they’d left Armadales’ house. Ely had a similar collection of scrapes. His lip was busted open. And those were just the wounds she could see. Obviously they’d beaten the crap out of each other sometime in the past twenty-four hours.

Funny, everything in the world had changed. The friggin’ apocalypse had happened and she
still
didn’t get guys. Go figure. If they had so much extra fighting energy, did they not have enough targets?

Carter gave her a nod and asked, “What’s up?” She walked over to the desk but Carter rounded it quickly. “You need something?”

“Yeah, you got a second?” She tried to glance around him, but again he angled himself between her and the map. Which was definitely strange. Why the sudden secrecy?

“Sure.” He took her arm and started steering her out the door.

He led her a few steps down the empty hall before turning toward her. “What do you need?”

She sucked in a deep breath and just spat it out. “I need you to talk to McKenna. She’s freaked out about the Tick attack and about having the baby here. She’s started talking about leaving. Trying to drive up to Canada. But she trusts you. If you tell her she can’t go, she’ll listen to you.”

“Of course she can’t go,” he said stiffly, still not really looking at her.

He seemed distracted—which was fine, she didn’t feel like she had to be the center of his universe. But there was a distant, dismissive quality to his voice that she’d never heard before and it tore at her heart.

So this was it. This was him distancing himself from her. This was going to be brutal. This was going to hurt. Not just now, but every day, it was going to hurt.

Half to herself she muttered aloud, “Maybe I should just go with her. Solve all our problems.”

Carter’s gaze cut to her. “What was that?”

She blinked. “What?”

“You’re thinking about going with her?”

“Well, no. Not seriously.” Until now. Maybe leaving now would be better than this. “I can’t let her go alone. I can’t force her to stay here. And what if she’s right? What if we could find help in Canada? Maybe they have no idea there are still kids in the United States who need their help.”

Carter looked at her like he couldn’t decide if she was a genius or a crazy woman. “You can’t be serious. You can’t just take off for Canada on your own, when—” He broke off and spun away from her to plow his hand through his hair. “It’s out of the question.”

“What am I supposed to do? Base Camp is a sanctuary, not a prison. I can’t lock her in the RV and force her to stay. And I can’t let her go by herself.”

Carter paced the hall, clearly frustrated. Which was no different than how she felt.

She had wanted his help convincing McKenna not to go, and now—inexplicably—she was arguing to leave with McKenna. How had that happened?

“Forget it,” she said, turning to leave.

Except Ely was there in the hall, arms crossed over his chest, listening to their argument.

“She’s right.”

“What?” Both Carter and Lily asked at the same time.

“No one knows for sure if Canada is there, but it couldn’t hurt to send them to check it out.”

Carter’s expression darkened. “No way.” He took a menacing step closer to Ely. “There is no way in hell I’m sending two girls, unprotected and alone, to drive up to Canada just to ‘check it out.’”

Ely held up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender. “Just saying. It’s a short trip. Canada’s, what, a two-day drive from here? They’d be gone, what? Four or five days. Tops.”

“Did you miss the part where I said I wasn’t sending two girls alone?”

“If you don’t want them to go alone, no worries, I’ll go with them.”

“You?”

Ely flashed a smile that was more arrogance than charm. “Hey, you could do worse than me. I’m the best there is.”

She looked at Carter, expecting him to slap down Ely’s offer, but instead, he was looking from Ely to her, his expression calculating.

She held out her palm to Ely. “Give us a minute, okay?” She didn’t wait for him to answer, but closed the distance between her and Carter and leaned in to whisper, “Is this what you really want? You want me to go with Ely?”

Carter looked at her. For the first time today, she felt like he was seeing her. Really seeing her. His expression softened and she felt that familiar pull. That aching yearning that she’d always felt around him.

“He’d keep you safe,” he said simply.

“That’s not what I’m asking.”

How could he do this? How could he even think about sending her away?