The Lair

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Carter

A few minutes later, Ely came back with another guy.

“This is Zeke,” Ely said, giving the guy a little shove forward. “I pulled him out on that last raid.”

“He came in with you today?”

Ely nodded.

I looked at Zeke again. He was Latino, like Ely, but built differently. Ely was built like a fire hydrant. He wasn’t tall, but he was broad and muscled. This guy was almost as tall as I was, but he was lean.

But there was something I didn’t like about the guy, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Something about the belligerent set of his jaw and the angry gleam in his eyes. Something about how he stood.

Then it hit me. Why he seemed so familiar. Why he set my nerves on edge.

I gave the guy a tight smile and nodded toward the door. “Give us a minute?”

Zeke nodded.

“Shut the door on your way out,” I told him. “But stay right there. I’ll call you back in a second.”

Ely smirked like he saw exactly where this was going.

I waited until Zeke was gone and the door had clicked closed behind him before I said, “You pulled out a Collab?”

Ely shrugged. “He’s a solid guy.”

“Out of all the thousands of Greens whose lives are at risk, you pull out a fucking Collab?” What the hell had he been thinking?

Ely didn’t even flinch from my gaze. “I figured he’d know more than any damn Green. That he’d be able to tell us more about the defenses, about how the Farms work. About how to bring them down.”

“Sebastian and I have been in and out of more than forty Farms. You’ve been in and out of even more. We know how Farms work. We don’t need some damn sellout to tell us how to game the system.”

Collabs were teenagers just like the rest of us, but they’d betrayed the other humans. They held positions of power at every Farm. They used power, weapons, and fear to keep the Breeders and Greens in line. They drew blood from humans to feed to the Ticks. And when a Green stepped out of line and was punished by being left chained outside the fence at night, it was the Collabs who did the chaining. In short, the Collabs betrayed the entire human race to save themselves.

In my eyes, Collabs were the real monsters.

“I don’t care how solid you think he is,” I shouted “He’s still a Collab. This guy is used to having power no person should have. He’s used to taking whatever the hell he wants. Do you have any idea what that kind of power does to someone? It messes with your head. It twists something inside of you and breaks you in a way that can’t ever be repaired. This Collab that you’ve brought into my house is fucked up. Emotionally. Permanently.”

“You don’t know that about him.” Ely got right in my face. “Zeke is a good guy and I trust him.” Ely gave my shoulder another shove. “And I don’t give a damn if you trust him or not.”

“I—”

“Hell, I don’t even care if you kick our asses out of here, but do yourself a favor and listen to what he has to say first.”

Everything in me rebelled at the idea of hearing a Collab out.

“Just listen to him. Just calm down for a second and listen to him. In ten minutes, if you still want to kick him out, I’ll go with him.”

But I’d known Ely for close to two years. He was tough as hell, and he’d saved my life more than once. Looking at him now, I didn’t see even a flicker of doubt in his gaze. He believed Zeke had some bit of information that I needed.

Finally, I gave a stiff nod. “I don’t like it. But I trust you. You’re the closest thing I have to family. If you say he’s a good guy, I believe you.”

Ely looked at me hard for a second, before giving a nod in return. Then he busted out laughing. “God, don’t be such a wuss.”

I laughed, too, because neither of us was comfortable with the sentimental crap.

“Whatever,” I said. “Bring Zeke back in.”

I made myself go lean against the wall opposite the door. If I was standing, I’d start pacing, and I didn’t want either of them knowing how on edge I was.

A moment later, Zeke was standing in front of me.

“Why’d you leave the Farm?” I asked him.

“Because when Ely showed up, he said he could get me out. Said he knew somewhere that might be safe. I figured it was worth the risk.”

“Sure, but why? You were a Collab. You weren’t in any danger. You weren’t about to age out. Collabs are like gods on a Farm. Why leave that behind?”

Zeke scowled. “Hey, it’s not like you’re making it sound.”

“How am I making it sound?”

“Like we can just do anything we want,” he said. “It’s not like that.”

“Close enough. I’ve been on Farms all over the country and it’s the same story.”

Zeke eyed me up and down, his face twisting into a frown. “Look, I don’t need this shit. I didn’t get out just so you could treat me like a freakin’ narc. I didn’t come here for that.”

“Then why did you come here?”

“Because I didn’t like the shit that was about to go down at that Farm.”

“What shit? What’s going down at your Farm?”

Zeke frowned. “Ely didn’t tell you?”

“No.” I shot Ely a glare.

He just smirked. “I thought you should hear it from him.”

I looked from Ely to Zeke and back again. “Would one of you please just spit it out. What’s going on?”

Zeke sent another look in Ely’s direction and then said, “The Dean is trying to poison the Ticks.”

“Oookay.” I drew the word out. Zeke looked like he was about to say something else, but I held up a hand to stop him. “Back up a sec.” I still had too many damn questions. Obviously the Ticks were a problem for everyone. Even if Roberto had engineered the Tick virus, they’d clearly gotten out of control. But I didn’t see how this new twist—which should have been good news—was something Ely and Zeke were both worried about. “How’s the Dean poisoning them?”

“Antifreeze. About a month ago, we were ordered to mix it into the blood before we brought it out to the feed stations.”

It was a brilliant idea. Antifreeze was poisonous but sweet. Most animals would drink it if it was out. I’d seen some PSAs about it in the Before. “Did it work?”

“For a while it was great. Ticks were dropping dead all over. But they”—he gave a shrug that seemed part shiver of disgust—“they got smarter. Or maybe only the stupid ones ate the tainted blood. After a couple of weeks, they stopped coming to the feeding stations. Then for a while we rotated the clean blood and the poisoned blood, but they always seemed to know and pretty soon, they stopped coming altogether.”

I looked at Ely. “Do you know if any other Farms are putting out tainted blood?”

Ely shrugged. “Hard to say for sure. My man Zeke here is the only Collab I’ve talked to about it. If I had to guess, I’d say there are four or five other Farms doing it. That’s based only on the number of abandoned feeding stations I’ve seen.”

“Any close to here?”

“At least one in Colorado.”

“Shit. That explains why they’ve started hunting up here when they used to avoid the area.” That meant things at Base Camp could get bad, fast.

“Exactly. And that’s not even the worst.” Ely nodded to Zeke again. “Tell him the rest.”

“About a week ago, we heard there was a new plan.”

“To get rid of the Ticks?” I asked.

“Yeah. But this time it’s super hush-hush. Only the Dean and maybe three or four other guys know what’s going on, but whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“Why do you say that?”

“For starters, the Dean shipped all the Breeders to another Farm.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. They just loaded them all up in about twenty cargo vans and shipped them off. Then they shipped off about half the Greens. And most of the Collabs went with them. We used to have close to two thousand kids, now we got less than a thousand.”

“It sounds like they’re shutting down the Farm altogether.”

“That’s what I thought, too,” Ely said.

But Zeke interrupted him. “But they’re not, because last week, they stopped moving people around and they switched out the shots they give the Greens. They used to give them a daily shot of Procrit to help increase their red blood cell count, but, they stopped doing those. Instead, we started getting shipments of Diazepam.”

“Valium? They’re sedating Greens? Why?” Sure, I could see the advantage of having the Green population as calm as possible, but outright sedation seemed a bit extreme. “Are they just trying to calm everyone down?”

“At first I didn’t get it either, but then they bought a huge shipment of tranq darts. I mean, huge: two thousand, three thousand of the things.”

I frowned. “I thought the darts had a use-by date on them. That they were only good for a month or so.”

Zeke nodded. “They do.”

Which meant whatever the Dean was planning to do with all these tranq darts, he was going to do it soon.

“If you think you know what’s going on, go ahead and tell me now. Stop beating around the bush.”

Zeke blew out a breath. “Okay, I think they’re planning on doping the Greens, then letting the fences drop. All the Collabs they’ve left on the Farm, we’re all good shots. Once the Ticks get doped up on blood, we shoot them with the tranq rifles.”

“And theoretically the combination of the Diazepam and the tranquilizer in the dart would be fatal to the Ticks.”

“Exactly. It’d be like shooting fish in a barrel once they’ve consumed a heavy hit of Valium.”

“Oh, it’s a great plan,” I muttered. “Unless you’re the bait.”

My mind was reeling from everything Zeke had told me. From the horror of what he’d described. From the crushing weight of responsibility. How the hell could I go save those people? How could I abandon the people here at Base Camp to go save the Greens in San Angelo?

With attacks from Ticks on the rise, the threat to Base Camp was very real and imminently dangerous. Leaving Base Camp now would leave nearly a hundred people vulnerable. But ignoring the threat in San Angelo could cost nearly a thousand lives.

It was an impossible choice.

Why the hell was I the one in charge of making it?

In what kind of screwed-up world was an eighteen-year-old kid responsible for the lives of thousands? And yet, I was undeniably the one in charge here, because Zeke was just standing there, waiting for me to . . . do what? Give him orders? Lead the charge into battle? What exactly did he expect from me?

Crap.

I needed time to think. To process what he had said without him and Ely standing there watching me.

I gave a stiff nod in Zeke’s direction. “Thanks. You can go now.”

He looked like maybe he was about to say something else. Like he wanted to ask a question or something, but that was one good thing about dealing with Collabs. They were good at taking orders. So Zeke just closed his mouth and left. Which left Ely standing there. Still waiting for some kind of response.

And here I was with no damn idea what to say, let alone what to do.

So I pushed myself away from the wall and walked over to the punching bag.

I threw a couple of punches before Ely asked, “So you’re just going to ignore that? Just beat the shit out of that punching bag and pretend this will go away?”

I whirled around. “What the hell do you want me to do? It’ll be a fucking bloodbath. None of those Greens will make it. I can’t go rescue a thousand kids. Even if they were still alive when we got there, even if we could get them out, how the hell would we get them back here? How would we feed them when we did? How the hell do you transport a thousand kids across a thousand miles in the middle of winter, through Tick-infested middle America?”

Ely stormed forward and got right in my face. “That’s why you don’t want to go? Because it’s going to be too hard?”

“We’ve got just over a hundred people here.” I felt a burst of raw anger, hot and caustic in my chest. I realized I was yelling again. “And we’re surviving. Do you have any idea what it takes to keep a hundred people alive? It’s not too hard to rescue those thousand kids. It’s impossible.”

“Okay, so don’t rescue them.”

I just stared at Ely, but before I could ask what the hell he meant, he kept on talking.

“Go lead them so they can rescue themselves! Those kids are terrified. Or they would be, if they weren’t drugged into not caring at all. They believe that outside those fences are unstoppable monsters they have no chance of killing. When those fences come down, they’re not going to put up a fight at all. They are just going to roll over and die. But you know differently. You know how to kill the Ticks. And you found Lily, right? That’s what the other Elites said”.

Ely eyed me. “Is she the real deal?”

I didn’t want to answer, but I’d told this lie so often, it came out easily now. “Yes.”

“And it’s just like Sebastian said? She can control what people feel? Fear, terror, courage, hope?”

“Yes.” The power of the abductura had been exactly what Sebastian had described. The only problem was that Mel wielded the power, not Lily. “If Lily really is the abductura, then she could convince them of it. As long as she’s there, she could make a difference. You don’t want to rescue them? Fine. But at least bring her down there to Texas and let them know they can rescue themselves!”

Maybe it was the stress. Hell, maybe it was just straight-up terror at the thought of Lily down in San Angelo, facing down fifty armed Collabs and hundreds of bloodthirsty Ticks. Whatever the reason, I hauled off and punched Ely. He blocked my punch and swung back. I danced out of the way, but brought my fist up to his ribs. He moved fast enough that the punch barely grazed him. And, just like that, it was as if we were back at Elite Military Academy, in the boxing ring, with Edmunds, the PT coach, teaching us to fight. Edmunds had been a good teacher, but he’d bailed early in the Tick outbreak. All the teachers had. When the world was ending, no one gave a damn about a couple hundred troubled kids.

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.