The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) (24 page)

Making our way back to the truck, I panicked when I saw it was abandoned.
 

Max was standing alone out in the middle of the field looking up at the sky, which was a light gray color — just before sunrise.

“Where is everyone?” I asked.

He came back to earth, studying Logan’s red, swollen eyes. “Burying Mica.” Max glanced back toward the truck where the bodies of fallen carriers lay, their blood staining the light dusting of snow. “It’s just . . . dead people freak me out.”

Logan made a noise in her throat like a nervous little laugh, which surprised me. Then she stepped over to his side and threaded her fingers between his. Max breathed in suddenly, almost like a gasp, and relaxed against her. The three of us stood out there in the cold field, watching the sun peek over the horizon.

When the others returned from laying Mica to rest in the shallow grave of a dried creek bed, we piled into the truck to continue on our journey. Bumping along through the darkness, I saw Logan lay her head against Max’s shoulder. I felt an unfamiliar ache of loneliness that was more than the emptiness I felt without my parents or Greyson. It wasn’t romance I needed; it was that closeness with another person. Try as I might to deny my feelings for Amory, people still needed what Logan and Max had — even if the world was falling apart.
 

After the carrier attack, we stopped even more infrequently than before. My back ached from sitting in the same upright position for so long, and I couldn’t stop thinking about Mica. He was so young, and it could have been any one of us. Nobody talked for several hours after the morning’s trauma.
 

I tried not to let my mind wander to Greyson and if he was all right. I cursed myself for taking so long to get to him. What if he had already been killed or brutally beaten as Logan had described?
 

No. I couldn’t think about it. If Greyson were dead, I would have no one. I had no solid plan for what I would do after I found him and certainly no plan for what would happen if I didn’t.

I thought back to our last day at school together. We knew it was the end of life as we knew it, and Greyson tried to shrug it off. He high-fived a bunch of our friends in lecture and joked about being a fugitive on the lam, but really, he was ashamed and scared.
 

I was scared, too. How had we allowed our lives to get so off track? Now he was a criminal, and I was an enemy of the state. Greyson said it would all be swept under the rug after the upheaval and that the U.S. government would have to issue an apology to all the people who had been marginalized by the unconstitutional laws. I wasn’t sure.

Even though he shrugged off failing his background check at the Citizen Identification Office, I could tell he was devastated. He would be separated from his mom and Dani — all because he’d been arrested once at a rally protesting against World Corp and subscribed to several radical newspapers. If the mandatory ID bill was never overturned, he would never see his family again.

“You just wait,” he said. “They’ll get everyone up there and realize they don’t have the infrastructure or the resources to accommodate everyone. Things will be just as bad as they are down here. Worse, in fact, because everyone will be crowded in refugee camps like sardines.”

In Greyson’s mind, the only way he could secure a future for his family as an undocumented illegal was to forge west with me. He was convinced there was a promised land without carriers or PMC or food shortages, and his pipe dream had become mine. My daydreams were filled with wide-open spaces, fresh mountain air, and clean suburb supermarkets stocked with tropical fruit we couldn’t get here. I imagined a big house with everyone there: me, my parents, Greyson, and his family.

 
Before Greyson was denied a CID, I begged my parents to get the vaccine. As a long-time freedom advocate, my father was ethically opposed to mandatory identification. But soon it became apparent that refusing the CID would destroy everything he and my mother had worked for and built their whole lives on. They would lose the house, their pensions, and all their savings.
 

By the time he came to his senses, my mother was already infected. He wouldn’t leave her, and he wouldn’t hand her over to the PMC. I don’t know if it was love or guilt or a little of both that made him chain his fate to hers.
 

She would die. It was inevitable. And once the PMC discovered my father was harboring a carrier, he would be killed, too.
 

It was dark by the time the truck rumbled to a stop. Still subdued, we got out and began gathering firewood in the dark. It was slowgoing. We’d stopped in a thicket of trees at the edge of the Hudson River. It was beautiful but intimidating to know we were so close to Sector X — the prisons and the military base that was the largest PMC stronghold in the nation.

I collapsed on the ground next to Amory, who offered me a tin of nuts. I took a handful gratefully and realized I hadn’t eaten all day.

“We’re just outside the city,” Rulon said. “You all need to prepare yourselves for what’s coming tomorrow.”

My heart thudded painfully in my chest. Soon I would know if Greyson was alive. I would see him again.

“It won’t be like today,” he said, looking at Logan. “It will be much, much worse. The carriers we encountered were stupid, blundering murderers. They had no strategy, no unity. The PMC officers are highly trained soldiers — lethal. There will be no time for hesitation.” His black eyes settled on me.

A chill ran down my spine. I wasn’t prepared to kill again — not after the last night’s carrier slaughter. It wasn’t that some people had it in them to kill and some didn’t — at least I didn’t think so. Anybody could be a killer once that door was cracked.
 

But that wasn’t what I was afraid of. What scared me the most was acknowledging that I was prepared to do anything —
anything —
to get Greyson back.

Trying to shake the anxiety festering in the pit of my stomach, I grabbed my knife and walked off on my own into the woods. The others were settling into their sleeping bags, trying to make the most of the last night of rest before storming into the epicenter of hell, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep even if I wanted to.

I found a cluster of small trees at the edge of the hill overlooking the river. They’d already shed all their leaves, but they were probably dogwoods or redbuds, and I liked those.
 

The sky looked velvety blue, and we were far enough from the city to see real stars. A distant glow on the horizon was the only thing that betrayed the beautiful scene. Flopping down on the cold, frozen earth, I stared out toward the lights, imagining that Greyson could feel how close we were. It was starting to snow. Shivering slightly, I pulled my jacket tight.

The hushed crunch of dead leaves behind me made my spine go rigid. I twisted around, gripping my knife, not wanting to leap to my feet and make a sound that would alert whoever or whatever was nearby.

Praying silently for a deer or a raccoon, my insides turned to ice when I saw the lurching outline of a person.

I waited without breathing, unsure if I should risk exposure by jumping into a defensive posture or stay where I was and hope the stranger wouldn’t see me.

“Haven?”

I inhaled sharply, sucking in a great burst of air in relief. “Amory?”

“Yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I thought you were a carrier. I almost attacked you!”

I could see his bright grin through the semidarkness. “Guess I should have learned my lesson after last time.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had training, so this time I might actually have hurt you.”

Amory came into view a few feet away, settling down on the ground next to me. “Don’t feel like sleeping?”
 

I shook my head, teeth chattering.

“We’ll free Greyson.” He leaned in toward me, hunched over slightly so he could meet my eyes. “I promise we will.”

I felt a rush of gratitude spill into my chest like warm honey. “Have you been there?” I gestured toward the halo of light emitting from the horizon.

“Not since the PMC turned it into a base, but my parents took me to New York once when I was really young. I’ve heard stories about Sector X, though. It’s not going to be pretty. We should prepare ourselves for the worst.”

“Do you think he’s still alive?”
 

Amory nodded. “If he hasn’t been branded a traitor, they can’t deny him his basic human rights, and they can’t kill him without just cause.”

“Will they have IDed him?”
 

“Unlikely. It’s difficult to guarantee a correct identification when an illegal is arrested off the streets. Even if he had a driver’s license on him, it could have been forged. Plus, they think holding him prisoner here is the real punishment. In their eyes, identification is a gift.”

“Thank you for coming,” I said. “I’m really glad you’re here.”

I should have blushed, but I wasn’t embarrassed to admit it. Ever since I first arrived on the farm, Amory’s presence had been important. He’d taught me how to use a weapon, and I’d found a new version of myself I wasn’t even aware of.

Amory regarded me carefully with those intense gray eyes — as though he wanted to say something but couldn’t bring himself to voice it aloud.
 

He finally stood up, as if he couldn’t sit still, and began pacing.

“Haven, when this is all over . . . I don’t want you to just disappear. We can’t go back to the farm, we can’t go north . . .”
 

Looking away, it was as if he was steeling himself for what came next. “Let me come west with you,” he said in a hurry. “Get Greyson, and we’ll get out of here. You and me. Hell, we’ll bring the others, too. Just —”

“Sure,” I said without thinking twice.
 

Amory’s face lit up, and he couldn’t suppress that glowing smile that probably came easily before the Collapse.
 

“Good.”

“I don’t really know why you want me with you,” I murmured. “I’m not a great fighter. All of this is new to me.”

Shaking his head, Amory knelt down to grab my hand and squeezed it tightly. “Haven. I just . . .” He looked up, as if searching for words. “I just want you there. For the first time since I cut that damned CID out of my arm, I feel like something’s going right for a change.”
 

Finally, he looked at me. “I just want to be
with you.”

I sat there, letting his words wash over me. His hair was mussed from where he’d raked his hand through it in frustration, and I felt a deep ache tugging at me that I couldn’t explain.
 

“I want to be with you too,” I said, standing up next to him.

Amory shook his head again. “No. No, it’s like . . .” He struggled to find the right words, brow furrowed, holding my hands in his. “You know how people say, ‘I don’t want to be without you because you’re a part of me’? I never understood that because it didn’t seem real. No one person ever seemed like they could be important enough.”
 

I nodded. I knew what he felt. What was worse, I could relate more to thinking no one was ever important enough. There were bigger things to worry about than who you were going to date — who you wanted to spend your life with.

“I think that’s beautiful,” I said. “But it’s just words.” I swallowed back tears that threatened to come. “Everyone I love is dead. I can’t
feel
anything else.”

He leaned in, eyes burning with hunger, his face inches from mine. “It’s not just words, Haven.”
 

He grasped both my hands tightly in his bigger ones, caressing my wrists with the pads of his thumbs, and I felt the warmth radiating throughout my whole body. “You feel this, too.”

I shook my head once, feeling my heart seize even as I did. But Amory would not be deterred.

“I know you do,” he said in a whisper.

I met his gaze and nodded once.

He grinned, and some of the tension released.
 

So why did I feel more panicky than before?

“Can I just . . .” Now it was his turn to look panicked. But it was gone in a flash, taken over by that familiar resolve in his eyes.
 

My heart pounded, and my breathing was sharp and erratic. I didn’t know what to do.
 

He leaned in, his face inches from mine, and my eyes fluttered closed.
 

Then his soft lips brushed mine, tentatively at first and then burning hot and urgent, and I felt the sudden overwhelming need to be closer to him.

Sloppy, drunken kisses at house parties hadn’t prepared me for this.
 

This was too real. The feelings came sharp and intense, just like everything else about Amory.

His hands found my waist and wrapped around the small of my back, pulling me in to him, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. He was so warm and strong; my whole body ached for him.
 

His kiss was hungry, and mine was lingering — almost in protest. I wanted to taste every detail of him and commit it to memory. He kissed me as though there wasn’t enough time in the world for all the kissing he wanted to do.
 

Amory’s fingers pressed into my side tightly, pulling my hips into his. He moved up to my hair, braiding strands of it in his hands. I shivered, and our kissing intensified. His lips moved to my jaw and then my neck, and I felt his breath tickling the top of my spine and lifting my hair.

He let out a groan and pressed me against the tree, running his hands up my sides and pushing his body into mine. I could feel all of him, and a warmth spread from my core down to my toes.
 

I wanted more, and some part of my brain — the part that told me we were about to enter a war zone and what I
really
wanted to do with him was dangerous and irresponsible — clicked off quietly in the back of my mind like a light in a vacant room.
 

I pressed against him with equal force and ran my hands down his chest, feeling every muscle under his thin shirt. Fingers contemplating, I lingered for a moment at his belt, but he already had his hands around my waist, hoisting me up off the ground. He gripped my legs tightly, holding me up against him. His fingers brushed the small of my back under my shirt, and I didn’t stop him from exploring up the skin of my bare back.