The Last Uprising (Defectors Trilogy) (24 page)

Maybe I imagined it, but I thought I saw a ghost of a smile flit across Godfrey’s weathered mouth.

That just stoked my anger. “Do something!” I snapped, pushing him hard in the chest.

Godfrey gave me a long hard look before limping off across the yard.

I felt a little sick as I watched the others move the trucks, revealing big pools of blood in the gravel. The bodies were still there, and I didn’t know what we were going to do with them.

Roman rounded up a group of the beefier-looking rebels and disappeared down the road with a few of the vehicles for a blockade. That left us with fifteen able-bodied men and women to defend the farm if they should fail.

Had Ida sent us here on a suicide mission?
I wouldn’t accept that.

While the rest of our forces reloaded, I ran inside the house to help Amory patch up some of the less serious wounds.
 

Greyson was already working on one of the men, and Logan had busied herself at the stove boiling water, sanitizing instruments, and collecting fresh supplies. She hated blood, and it was beyond her ability to patch up a bleeding man without throwing up.

I fell in with Greyson and applied pressure to one man’s wound. He had taken a bullet to the shoulder. His face was roughly the shade of cooked oatmeal, but I knew it was mostly due to shock rather than blood loss.
 

Amory was bent over the man on the table — the one called Jimmy with a bullet in his stomach. I watched him reach up with a bloody gloved hand to dab the perspiration gathering on his forehead, and I felt very sorry for him — sorry he had this responsibility.

Godfrey’s words were still ringing in my ears, but I pushed the sick feeling down.
 

We were
not
a sacrifice.

Amory’s strong back muscles were working furiously, but then he stopped again, and his back buckled. Suddenly, he swore loudly and slammed his fist on the table, making his instruments rattle.

He stood there for a moment, breathing heavily, before turning to face us. “I need help moving him.” Amory’s voice was thick. “He’s gone.”

Greyson got up, and the two of them carried the dead man outside.

I wanted to reach out for Amory — comfort him — but there was no time. I was scrubbing the kitchen table with soap and water, and Amory was already helping me heave the next man onto the table.

For a moment, I just watched him speak to the injured man. His voice was as even and controlled as ever, but his jaw was stiff, and those beautiful, intense gray eyes were tight with grief.

He turned to grab a fresh pair of gloves, practically colliding with me. Before I could stop myself — before I could think — I reached out and threaded my fingers through his.

For the briefest moment, his eyes met mine, and the corners of his mouth lifted into a tired smile. His trembling hand stilled.
 

Then the back door banged open, and Godfrey strode in. “They’re back.”

The rebels had used the cruisers and trucks to form a barricade to shield us from the immediate line of fire. They’d parked the trucks bumper to bumper and piled cinder blocks, lumber, and debris from the PMC’s construction site on top of and underneath the vehicles. It wasn’t an impenetrable wall, but it was better than nothing.

I was relieved to see that the bodies had been moved away, though the blood-soaked gravel was a stark reminder of what had transpired. There were little bumps of gravel here and there, as though someone had tried to cover up the blood but had given up.

The sound of gunshots coming from up the road cracked through the air and bounced off the trees, giving them an almost organic tenor. My heart was pounding, and I nervously checked my pockets for extra ammunition.
 

There was just Roman and fifteen of our men between the PMC and the rest of us. If they couldn’t hold them off, it would just be us.

We had no backup — no one to pick up our guns and rally. I didn’t even have anyone who would miss me if we all died today, I realized. We would be permanently erased — a welcome void on the PMC’s radar.

Suddenly, the gunshots drew closer. Two rebels standing next to me hit the deck, and I ducked behind the wall of cinder blocks, too. I scrambled to find a good vantage point to shoot, but I still didn’t know where the shots were coming from.

Then I saw officers through the cracks in the cinder blocks. Some were emerging from the woods, and some were running toward us from the driveway.
 

Their bullets ricocheted off the trucks, but the vibrations still shook my chest. I aimed at one officer standing out in the open and fired. He yelled and collapsed on the ground. I’d just hit his leg.
 

I shot again, and he went still.
 

A bullet flew over my head and shattered the window of the truck I was hiding behind. Glass rained down on my back, and I scooted away carefully. Logan had made herself a hole in the cinder blocks and was in full sniper position.

With the stability from the ground, she was able to take out three men in a row, but the rest of our forces weren’t doing as well. A couple had caught stray bullets, and the rest weren’t great shots. We had wounded and killed a few officers, but more were encroaching, spilling out like dozens of white spiders.
 

As more officers appeared, any hope I had felt was absorbed by a black hole of cold resolve. Roman would never have let so many through — not unless the PMC had overwhelmed our forces. It was just us now.

Amory reappeared from the house covered in blood and threw himself behind the barricade to help us take down the officers.

Part of me felt glad he was here by my side, but the other part wanted to die hoping he might have survived.

Death. That was what I was preparing for now. I refused to be taken — refused to have my mind hijacked again.

Officers were approaching slowly and cautiously, taking their time. They had us outnumbered, and they knew it.

I pointed my gun at one who was crouching in the trees. He was inching along, trying to get a good shot around the side of our barricade. I had him in my scope, but then he stepped forward, his toe nudging one of the tiny bumps in the gravel.

An explosion erupted, throwing the officer backward in a burst of flames. I threw myself onto the ground closer to the house, and the wave of heat washed over my back.

Stars erupted behind my eyelids, and three more booms echoed through the trees in quick succession. They shook the ground and rattled my ribcage. My body was a tuning fork, quaking from the blast.

I heard yells and screams and saw fire licking at the ground as I forced my eyes open. The smoke burned, and tears streamed down my face. Everything was blurred and shaking.

I didn’t know who was hit. There were bodies everywhere.

Amory.

I crawled on my hands and knees through the smoke until my hands found his arm.
Please don’t be dead.

“Haven!”

“Are you hit?”

“I’m . . . I’m all right,” he coughed. “You?”

“I’m — yeah,” I choked, gagging on the acrid air.

I opened my eyes cautiously, squinting through the smoke. Amory was lying back against the truck, but he was still in one piece. I threw an arm around him and looked around.

The PMC officers were gone, languishing in the flames. The smell of burning hair, flesh, and polyester stung my nostrils, and Logan bent over and retched on the ground.

The explosions hadn’t touched our people, who were poking their heads out over the trucks hopefully. No one seemed nearly as shocked as I was.

Then Godfrey strode out from behind the house wearing an expression of grim satisfaction.

“Why didn’t
we
think of that?” Logan coughed.

Explosives were his specialty.
I wasn’t sure how I’d forgotten, though now I realized he’d been building homemade bombs in the shed.

I glanced up toward the road, searching for more officers, but I didn’t see anyone. The relief I felt mixed with horror and dread. I didn’t want to be here when the fire died down, but we needed to know if any officers had survived.

Worst of all, we needed to know if any of
our
men had survived.
 

Roman.
 

I didn’t know if he was dead or alive, and the thought gave me a surprisingly strong ache in my gut.
 

Roman and I had never been friends exactly, but he was part of the family I’d known on the farm since the very beginning. He and I had formed a grudging acceptance of one another, and if he was gone, I knew I would feel the loss.

We all waited, holding our breath. We didn’t dare approach the road in case the remaining PMC had planned an ambush.

But then I heard footsteps. Everyone’s heads snapped toward the drive, listening to the scuff of boots on gravel.

Just as the smoke began to clear, I could see half a dozen figures rounding the bend. Several rebels raised their weapons, preparing to shoot down the officers who had survived.
 

But I didn’t see the flash of PMC whites. The figures were too close to be shadows. They were clad in rebel black.
 

Walking in the middle, toting an AK-47 from a dead officer in each hand, was Roman.

It took the rest of the day to clear up the devastation from the attack. Several men in Roman’s squad had been killed, and many more were wounded. I served as Amory’s assistant, removing bullets, cleaning and bandaging wounds, and getting the injured rebels settled in bed.

When the bodies had been cleared away and all the wounded had been treated, I gathered around the kitchen table with the others.

With five wounded men sprawled out on cots in the living room, we couldn’t conduct our meeting in secret, but we needed to plan our next move.

“Any thoughts?” grumbled Roman.

Logan rolled her eyes. The joy of finding Roman alive had worn off slightly since the attack.
 

Sitting there nursing a black eye from the butt of an officer’s gun and scrapes from asphalt all down his arms, Roman looked even more smug than usual. I could tell he was incredibly pleased with himself — even if he had let half the PMC’s forces slip past the blockade.
 

“We can’t take another attack like that,” said Greyson. “Not with twenty men.”

Godfrey let out a breath of frustration. “Not with
fifty
men. The PMC won’t underestimate us again, and we can’t recruit fast enough. But maybe we can distract the PMC by taking out some of their supply lines in the Midwest.”

“Like Rulon did, you mean?” Amory asked sharply.
 

“No . . .” Godfrey cracked a shifty grin. “Not entirely. I’ve got more style.”

“Oh, we know,” muttered Greyson.

“I say we do it,” said Logan. “If it buys us more time.”

“If we could just hold them off until summer . . .”

“What’s that going to do?” snapped Roman. “A few months —”

Godfrey shut him down with a single look. “It’ll give us time to recruit and train a proper army. This group of misfits may have gotten us through on sheer piss and luck, but we won’t survive a second wave of attacks. Mark my words.”

“He’s right,” said Logan. “We need to double down on our forces. I don’t care if we have to bring twenty more people into this house.”

“The men we have need more training,” said Amory. “We’re hemorrhaging ammunition, and we won’t be able to afford missing shots at the PMC next time.”

I nodded, feeling slightly numb at the prospect of rallying for another fight. I was starting to think I wasn’t cut out for this — the constant fear and having so many people’s lives in our hands.

I knew we needed to gather the survivors for a debriefing. Even though we’d managed to overpower the PMC, it didn’t feel like a victory. We’d lost too many people.

Logan and Greyson gathered our forces in the front yard, and I scanned the waiting crowd nervously. They looked tired but satisfied. Perhaps they were more resilient than I gave them credit for. They certainly looked stronger than I felt. I was overwhelmed.

I nudged Amory, hoping he would understand. I couldn’t address these men. I could barely stand.

He looked surprised but gave me a tender look and stepped up beside me. He cleared his throat, and the crowd fell silent.

“You all fought well today,” he said. “Truly. You pulled together to operate as a unit and performed much better than we could have ever expected. We managed to subdue the enemy . . . but the PMC will return.”

He paused. His hands were hanging loosely at his sides, and he kept clenching and unclenching his fists, which were shaking slightly.

“We lost six men and women today, and more are wounded.”

Amory swallowed, and I took a long, deep breath, hoping it could somehow steady him, too.

“We feel their loss, but we cannot dwell on the people we failed to save.”
 

Amory’s voice caught, and for a moment, I wondered if he would continue. There was a line in his brow, and I ached to take his face in my hands and smooth it out.

“We have to think about what we have left to lose — everything we have that’s still worth fighting for.” His eyes flickered to me, and my breath hitched. “Personally, I still have a lot I’m fighting for. And even if your loved ones are gone, we all still have our freedom. That alone is worth saving.”

He took a deep breath, and for a moment, everyone just stared.

There was a long pause as Amory’s words sank in, and I wondered briefly if the others would give up and abandon us — if they were too scared to continue.

But then a man in the back clapped his hands together, and the sound spread to the front until it was a solid wave of noise. People cheered and nodded as though Amory had spoken to them personally, and I had the strong urge to wrap my arms around him.

He stood there, looking slightly awkward from the attention but stronger than ever. His eyes were blazing with a bravery I loved, and his shoulders were strong despite the weight he carried.