Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (29 page)

My stomach clenched with dread, but even as she said the words, I knew she was right.

“It’s only a matter of time before someone finds out. It’s already in my eyes. I can’t hide it much longer.”

“When should we leave?”

“We?”

I looked at her, puzzled, and then the realization dawned on me. She wasn’t talking about leaving camp to find the cure as a group. She was planning on leaving by herself — going off alone to die.

“No!” I stammered. “No. You’re not leaving us.”

“I have to. Haven, I’m going to be contagious soon. I won’t take the chance of infecting any of you.”

“Ida and I think it’s bloodborne. None of the other rebels who fought the carriers and lived
became infected.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I was bitten, and
I’m
not infected.”

“I’m not willing to risk it on a guess.”

“Mariah said the virus mutated. That means that the vaccine doesn’t protect against any carriers with the new strain. Think about it. Most reported cases of infection were transmitted by carriers with the open sores because it passes from person to person through the bloodstream. And Mariah was with us the whole time on the way to Sector X. None of us are infected.”

“How did she get it?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“And what about the thousands of people who were infected before the outbreak? It doesn’t make sense! I think people would have remembered being bitten.”

“Maybe sharing needles . . . blood transfusions . . . I don’t know.”

“Millions of people would have to be heroin addicts or blood donors, Haven.”

She was right. That was the piece that didn’t fit.
 

“What about your mom? When would she have come in contact with the virus?”

Logan didn’t need to ask. I’d already been racking my brain trying to remember what she had been doing that spring that could have brought her in contact with contaminated blood. I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. If you leave, we’re all leaving. We’re going to World Corp International to get the cure.”

“We need Jared to come with us.”

“Why do you want to bring him?”

“He’s the only way to guarantee she won’t lead us into a trap and drop us right on the PMC’s doorstep.”

I nodded. “When do we leave?”

“As soon as possible. No point waiting until I get worse. I don’t want to be a burden.”

I looked at her. She was staring into the fire, face still flushed from the hunt. If it weren’t for her eyes, I wouldn’t have been able to guess that she was infected.
 

“We need to tell Greyson about Mariah.”

“I’ll do it,” she said.
 

“Are you sure?”

Logan nodded, looking tired. “I’ll meet you back at the cabin.”

As she walked off, a horrible image flashed through my mind: Logan as a carrier, sickly and emaciated, her long blond hair gone. Logan gasping for air through infected lungs, not remembering who I was. I wondered if I would fight her like any other carrier — kill her to save Amory or Greyson.
 

I pushed the image out of my mind. I couldn’t think that way. We still had time, and our shot at finding the cure hung on Mariah.

The wind kicked up, cutting through my jacket and sending a shiver through my entire body. The naked trees caught the breeze, creaking and swaying. Realizing I was all alone in the center of camp, I got up and headed back to the cabin.
 

It was already dark inside when I pushed open the door, and I could see the lumpy outlines of Maggie, Dolores, and Camille already curled up in their bunks. I sank down on the bed and pulled off my boots, taking care not to disturb the other women.
 

Lying back onto the sheets that smelled like cedar and pulling the soft quilt over my head, a sudden wave of sadness washed over me. Soon we would have to leave the comfort of the defectors’ camp, and I had a feeling we wouldn’t be coming back. Nothing post-Collapse seemed to stay the same once you left it.

Then I heard a gunshot.

Camille jerked awake with a tiny yelp, and I sat bolt upright. I twisted on the bed to peer out the dusty window, but I couldn’t see anything through the darkness. I heard another shot and then another.

Springing up, I shoved my feet into my boots and ran out into the snow, ears piqued to discern the direction of the shots. Moving through the shadows toward the sound, I almost collided with Greyson and Logan. Greyson was trying to situate his gun and pull on a coat at the same time. Logan looked eerily pale, but her coat was fastened, and she was calmly loading her rifle.

Another shot fired in tandem with a second.

“Carriers,” she muttered.
 

“Amory,” I choked. “Kinsley.”
 

“They’ll be fine,” said Greyson. “Get your rifle, and we’ll go help them.”

My mind felt jumbled.
Why hadn’t I grabbed my gun?
 

I tripped back up the cabin steps and whirled around in my room, looking for anything else I might need and ignoring Maggie’s and Dolores’s panicked questions.

I grabbed my rifle and the knife sitting on the window ledge beside my bed, stuffing two boxes of ammunition in my pockets on my way out. When I emerged, Greyson and Logan were already edging along the line of trees, weapons poised. More gunshots punctuated the darkness, and it was easy to follow them. I heard a shout ring through the bare, frosted trees, but it was too low and far away to tell if it could be Amory.
 

Up ahead, I heard the sound of footfalls. Someone was crashing through the underbrush. I raised my rifle, squinting through the shadows. Finally, I could discern the bulky outline of someone running toward us. He moved too quickly to be a carrier, but I did not lower my weapon.

He was nearly on top of us before I could make out a face. It was Kinsley.

“What’s happening?” Logan hissed.

“Carriers,” he gasped. “A whole horde of them. Too many. I have to warn the others.”

“Amory?” I choked.

“He’s holding them off.”

I heard more gunshots.

Without another word, we were running again in the direction of Amory’s shots. We came to a stand of tall spruce trees, and the shots became deafening.

At first I couldn’t see him, but then I noticed something moving in the trees. My eyes caught Amory’s red and black plaid coat. He was reloading his gun.
 

It was impossible to see clearly in the low light, but as my eyes adjusted, I could just make out a dozen hulking shapes lurching in the shadows.

“Oh my god,” Logan breathed.

There were so many carriers — more than I could count. All of them wore ragged scraps of clothing that hung off their coat hanger–thin frames. Some were missing shoes, their toes blackened from frostbite. As soon as I finished counting one group of them, more seemed to materialize out of the fog. We began shooting with Amory, taking them out one by one. But for each carrier we shot, two more seemed to take its place.

“We need to fan out,” yelled Greyson. “They could try to go around us.”

He and Logan moved in opposite directions, and I stood shoulder to shoulder with Amory. The largest groups seemed to be headed straight for us, and I knew he had to be running low on ammunition. I raised my rifle and aimed for the closest ones on my side.

As he fumbled for more rounds, I saw his ashen face and the strain in his eyes. His hands shook a little as he reloaded.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Nothing,” he said, brushing me off as he raised his rifle.
 

But I could tell something was wrong.
 

“You’re fighting it, aren’t you?” I yelled as I took aim on another encroaching carrier.

He didn’t answer, but I knew the urges born from Amory’s conditioning at Isador were fighting for dominance. He was struggling to remain in control — to stay himself.

 
After several minutes, when the carriers didn’t seem to be diminishing in number, I had the fleeting thought that we might have a better shot if he just allowed himself to lose his tenuous grip on control. But once he gave in to that part of him, there was no way to predict how he might react. He could shoot Greyson or Logan. He could shoot me.

As Amory ran out of ammunition, I split the spare magazines and the boxes of rounds from my coat pocket, but we still weren’t making a dent in the enormous horde. If anything, they seemed to be coming at us more quickly.
 

Where were Kinsley and the rest of the hunters from camp?
I thought desperately.

Then I heard a shout behind us. I jerked my head over my shoulder just long enough to see Murphy running in our direction. His coat was flapping, showing the bright red long johns he wore underneath. Even after shooting with Amory and losing ground as quickly as we lost ammunition, it was the look on his face that told me we were truly fighting a losing battle.

“Pack it in,” gasped Murphy.

“We can’t,” grunted Amory as he reloaded. A bead of perspiration was trickling down his brow, and he brushed it off impatiently as he took aim.

“There’s too many of ’em,” said Murphy. “Pack it in, and run back to camp.”

Amory ignored him.

“Now!” he barked. In that moment, Murphy looked terrifying. His face, brown and rough as tree bark, was superimposed against the stormy night sky. He looked like Zeus. I suddenly understood why all these people trusted him to protect their camp.

Amory’s face was screwed up, conflicted. The carriers nearest us were lurching forward at an alarming rate, slowed somewhat by their fallen comrades sticking out of the snow.
 

“Amory,” I breathed. They were getting closer.

Finally he sighed, and we turned to run back to camp.

“Greyson! Logan!”

They both snapped their heads around, and I could read the defeat on their faces. They saw us running and followed.
 

Stumbling through the snow, I barely registered the twisted thorns and underbrush catching on my boots or the small branches that smacked me across my face as I ran. I didn’t stop to glance over my shoulder, but I could feel Amory jerking his head back to look.
 

As the trees began to clear, I could see the chaos that had descended upon the camp. Several of the hunters and watchmen stood with their rifles trained in our direction, and everyone back at the cabins was running in and out with bags and crates overflowing with supplies.

“What’s happening?”

“We’re getting overrun,” said Murphy. “I got Kinsley up there with a birds-eye view, and it ain’t lookin’ good.” He gestured to one of the tallest trees near the perimeter of the woods, and I could see Kinsley roosting up in the highest branches with a pair of binoculars.
 

“Where will we go?”

Murphy ran an agitated hand over his beard. “We’ll try to regroup. There are other camps north of here, but this horde’s moving fast from that direction. I’ll be surprised if there’s anything left.”

He was right. The swarm was moving fast, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that a single group of carriers could wipe out an entire camp. These were not the carrier problems we had faced on the farm — this was a siege.

Suddenly, Kinsley lurched forward, almost tumbling from his perch as he strained for a better look.

“PMC!” he yelled. “PMC approaching from the north!”

My stomach clenched.

“That’s the direction the carriers are coming from,” said Logan.

My brain struggled to piece the two together, but then Murphy sighed, removing his hat and rubbing the top of his head. “Holy mother of god. They’re driving them toward us. They’ve
weaponized
the carriers.”

I heard the rumble of a truck engine and turned to see a small convoy barreling into camp from the road entrance. I recognized the supply trucks we had taken to get here, but there were several smaller trucks and even an old pickup.

Murphy tossed Amory a pair of keys. “You’ve got two minutes to get your friends and get the hell out of here. There’s a walkie-talkie in the front seat. As soon as you shake the PMC, tune to channel seven. The nearest safe house is thirty miles west of here if you get into trouble. We can’t all go there, but you four have your whole lives ahead of you. Don’t do anything stupid.”

A gunshot drowned out his words. I saw a carrier who was lumbering out of the woods fall, and Amory grabbed my arm. Letting him pull me away, it took several paces before I realized he was leading us to the trucks.
 

“Stop! We have to get Mariah.”

“We can’t. This solves all our problems. We don’t have to kill her, but she can’t lead them to us. She’s already done that.” His voice was clipped and angry.

“We still need her,” I growled, jerking out of his grip and sprinting back toward the cabins. Logan came with me, breaking off to grab our things.
 

I was so focused on getting to Mariah that I didn’t notice the figure leap out from behind a tree in my peripheral vision. I turned too late, and we collided. The brute force of the impact knocked me into the snow. My rifle went flying, and I jerked sideways to free myself from the tangle of limbs, but the man had his arm around my neck.

“Give me the fucking key,” Jared growled. “You can’t leave her here.”

“I — wasn’t — going to.”
 

“Liar.” He tightened his grip around my throat, choking me in the crook of his elbow.

Struggling for air, I tried to squirm out of his grip, but he was too strong. I jerked my elbow back to collide with his face. He grunted, shifting on top of me, and I jerked my knee up. Missing my original target, I felt my knee connect with his abdomen, and he coughed. In one clumsy motion, I shoved him off me and struggled to my feet, pounding up the cabin steps. Throwing my shoulder against the door and inside, I could see Mariah sitting bolt upright against the radiator, looking more scared than I’d ever seen her. Jared was hot on my heels.

Crossing the room, I collapsed onto my knees and fumbled with the keys. My hands were shaking too badly to fit the tiny silver key into the hole, and Jared shoved me aside to do it himself. He pulled her free and tossed her a coat he’d slung over one of the metal bunk frames. It covered her PMC jacket, but she still wore the telltale white pants. It didn’t matter; everyone was too distracted to notice her as we ran out of the cabin.