The Lair

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Carter

After the apocalypse, after you’ve lost your home and your family, after you’ve buried friends, you might think it’d be hard to know where rock bottom is. You might think it’s hard to know exactly when you’re beaten.

It’s not.

Defeat isn’t just being caught. It’s knowing there’s no one else to blame and no one left to fight for. I mean, who was I kidding? Sure, my goals seemed noble—save humanity, right?

But really, I’d only been in it for the girl. All this time that I fought, that I searched Farm after Farm, liberating people, organizing people. I’d done it for Lily. To find her. To keep her safe.

But what was the point? I couldn’t keep her safe. I didn’t get to be with her. And obviously, I was a miserable leader.

Right now, the best thing that could happen for the entire rebellion was for me to get caught. If I was extremely lucky, the Elites would figure out what had happened when they couldn’t contact me, and they’d get the hell back to Utah. If the best that I could hope for was that I was the only one to pay for my mistakes, then I could live with that.

I guess in the end, I was just so effing tired. I was tired of the constant responsibility, of the fear that I might make the wrong decision. That I might have ruined everything. That I might get everyone killed.

If I could have had Lily, maybe I could have made peace with all of that. But without her, what was the point?

It was all so goddamn hard and for once—just for once—I wanted to take the easy way out. I wanted to just lie down and let the bad guys win, because honestly, I wasn’t winning either way. So I might as well just roll over, right?

I walked through the gates of the Farm in handcuffs, my head hung low. It wasn’t the first time I’d come in to a Farm this way, but it was the first time I didn’t have an exit strategy.

Pit Bull led me through the Farm himself, his tranq rifle poking me in the back every time my steps slowed.

Zeke was up ahead, talking to the other two Collabs, guys Zeke greeted as Victor and James.

“If I’d known that’s why he was sneaking off, I never would have let him go,” Pit Bull said, giving me another surly poke.

I slanted a look back at Pit Bull. “You didn’t know?”

Was Zeke’s side trip to Utah something he’d come up with on his own?

“Nah, he just disappeared. If I’d known he had a lead on you, I would have gone with him.”

“On me?”

“Yeah. Who would have thought Zeke could have brought in the great Carter Olson. I never would have thought he had the balls to pull off something like this.”

This little speech tripped me up. “You know who I am?”

“Shit, yeah. You’re one of the most wanted terrorists in the New Republic.”

Again, I stumbled. “Terrorist?”

“The New Republic released the news about a month ago. Thirty-four counts of conspiring to commit treason. Twenty-seven counts of aggravated assault. And fifty-four counts of kidnapping a minor.” Pit Bull reached out and shoved me in the middle of my back. “You would not believe the pain in the ass the Greens have been since then. Like you’re some kind of friggin’ hero. You’d think you were Iron Man.”

Despite myself, despite being at rock bottom, despite my exhaustion, I laughed at that. Iron Man? Seriously? Because they had no idea how wrong they were.

Pit Bull jerked me to a halt and whirled me around to face him. “You think that’s funny? You think that’s friggin’ hysterical? The fact that you’re making my life a pain in the ass? That our Dean has left because of you? That our friggin’ food shipments have stopped because of you? You think that’s funny?”

“Your Dean has left? Your shipments have stopped?”

Was that possible? Was Zeke right? Because to hear Pit Bull describe it, this Farm was in serious trouble. Just like Zeke had described. So why had Zeke betrayed me?

I was still trying to wrap my brain around it when we reached the Dean’s office. It’s almost always at the top of some admin building. In the biggest, plushest office on campus. This Dean was no different.

Pit Bull had swiped his security card and opened the door. Victor, James, and I followed Zeke in. A moment later we were piling out of an elevator on the top floor.

The elevator opened up into some kind of reception area. A couple of Collabs sat in front of a flat-screen TV watching one of those Kate Beckinsale vampire movies. Assholes.

Pit Bull marched across the room and hit one of them upside his head. “Turn that shit off.” The other guy scrambled for the remote and a second later Kate vanished. “You two go patrol the perimeter. Make sure every Collab here is suited up and on patrol.”

“Why? The Dean’s not—”

“Unless you want to be chained up outside like a freakin’ Green, you’ll follow orders.”

The two Kate Beckinsale fans didn’t even wait for the elevator. They dashed straight for the fire stairs and vanished.

Zeke whirled me around and pushed me through the door into the Dean’s office. It was a pretty typical set up. Oversized desk. Lots of book shelves. A couple of chairs against the wall on either side of the door. As soon as the door closed, the Pit Bull started giving Zeke a hard time. I let Zeke push me into one of the chairs, and ducked my head, trying to look whipped, but inside, my mind was whirling. This Farm really was in trouble. And to hear Pit Bull talk about it, I was partly to blame. And right now, I was the only person who could save them all.

And no matter how much I wanted to just give up, I couldn’t. Because if I just rolled over now and let these Collabs win, then I would be no better than they were. If I had the chance to save people and let it slip by because it was too hard, than wasn’t that worse than what the Collabs did?

And maybe I didn’t have Lily anymore, but I still knew exactly what she’d say about that. She wouldn’t give up. Ever. She would fight this until there was nothing left in her to fight. And so would I.

All I needed was something to pick the lock with. All I needed was a moment alone to find a friggin’ paper clip. Then I could almost do this in my sleep. It was the kind of thing I used to practice, just for the hell of it, back in my room at the academy. Looking back, there were so many things about my time there that made sense only in retrospect.

We had all the normal military school stuff: discipline, exercise, and duties, plus the normal school stuff. But then, we had stuff you’d never want to teach a bunch of troubled teens: combat simulations, military strategy. Real-world covert skills. How to hack a computer system and cut the electricity to a building. How to pick a lock and scale a fence. Real guerilla warfare stuff. Who teaches that to kids?

A vampire building an army, that’s who.

But who was I to complain since those skills were going to get my ass out of here. If I could ever get a moment alone to search the desk.

Just then, there was a knock on the door. Pit Bull broke off whatever he’d been saying and glared at me as he walked past. I glanced over at Zeke while Pit Bull opened the door. I expected gloating, maybe a flash of guilt. Instead he frowned at me, shifting his shoulders in a what’s up? gesture. What the hell?

He glanced over at Pit Bull to make sure he was still distracted. Then he held his wrists together, like they were cuffed in front of him and then jerked them apart in a sharp little gesture.

By the time Pit Bull turned around a second later, Zeke was playing with the paperweight again. He smirked at me. Yeah, there was that gloating I’d been expecting. But what had that other gesture meant? He seemed to be telling me to break free of the handcuffs.

I ducked my head again and let the sleeves of my jacket cover my hands. Then, slowly, carefully, I eased my wrists apart . . . and felt the handcuffs give. The pressure slipped one of the teeth free, then another.

All this time, I hadn’t really been captured. And Zeke apparently, hadn’t really betrayed me.

But that didn’t mean I was home free. Far from it. Even if Zeke was on my side, we still had to subdue Pit Bull—one of the bigger, nastier Collabs I’d ever run across. Even though Pit Bull was still giving Zeke hell about running off and not paying any attention to me, I was excruciatingly aware of each click the handcuffs made as I eased my hands out of them.

I watched his every move, letting the handcuffs click when he strode to the other side of the room. Letting them click again when his voice rose as he yelled at Zeke about how Zeke should have let him in on his plan. Yeah, I agreed with him there. Zeke and I were going to have a talk about that, too.

Zeke seemed to have realized that I was timing wiggling free of the cuffs to the loud noises in the room, because suddenly he hopped up, his feet slamming heavily to the floor and he dropped the paperweight on the desk.

I got two clicks out of that and was finally able to ease my right hand out of the cuffs.

Pit Bull turned to follow Zeke’s progression across the room. He was only a few steps away. His back was toward me. I went for it. I jumped to my feet and wrapped the chain of the handcuffs around Pit Bull’s neck, yanking hard before he could get his fingers under the links. He flailed around, but I managed to stay behind him. I had the fingers of my right hand wrapped around the one cuff and my wrist through the other. The metal bit into the skin at my wrist and on my fingers.

He couldn’t shake me free, so he stretched both hands up over his head and grabbed fistfuls of my hair. I’ve been shot. I’ve had my shoulders sliced open with razor blades over and over again to insert and remove chips. I’ve been in serious pain. You wouldn’t think having your hair pulled hurts in comparison. Trust me. It does.

And he was damn strong. When I still didn’t let go, he swung his whole body around and I almost went flying off. Then I heard a sharp little pop and a moment later, Pit Bull’s fingers slipped through my hair and he let me go. He sank to his knees and just toppled forward. I let go of the cuffs just in time to prevent myself from being pulled forward, too.

I felt a moment of . . . something. Remorse, maybe? I’d killed Ticks before, but I’d never killed a human. At least not that I knew of. And, yes, it had been him or me. But not even just that. It had been him or me and all of my crew and all of Base Camp. Even knowing he would have killed me in a second in order to save himself, I still felt nauseated. Like someone had ripped out my stomach.

The weight of all those deaths at Base Camp. Yeah, I was prepared to shoulder that. But I hadn’t been prepared for this.

Then I looked up and saw the tranq rifle in Zeke’s hands.

I hadn’t killed Pit Bull. Zeke had just shot him with the tranq rifle.

I sucked in a deep breath and made a conscious effort to slow my heart rate.

When I trusted myself to speak, I said, “Thanks. Good move.”

Zeke stood there, the rifle dangling from his hand. His skin looked a little pale.

“Holy crap,” he said. His gaze moved up to mine. “Ely said you were hard core, but I had no idea. You freakin’ tried to strangle him with your handcuffs.”

“What’d you expect me to do?”

“You were four feet away from the tranq rifle!”

I yanked the other side of the handcuffs off my wrist and dropped them on the chair.

“Yeah, well, my handcuffs were only four inches away from his neck. I couldn’t risk it.” I looked around the room. “You have any real handcuffs? Or better yet, a zip tie?”

Zeke nodded, his expression still dazed. “There’s a supply cabinet just down the hall on the left. Check in there.”

I crossed over to Zeke and eased the tranq rifle out of his hands. “He’ll be out for at least thirty minutes. I’ll stay here with him, you go get the zip ties. Act natural. Don’t talk to anyone. If you can get your hands on another tranq rifle and more darts, do it.”

Zeke nodded mutely. He was almost to the door when he turned back around and said, “I’m um . . . sorry about the . . . you know.” He mimed punching me. “I saw the Collabs sneaking up and knew I had to do something.”

Funny, thirty minutes ago, he seemed like such an arrogant jerk and I’d been ready to kick his ass as soon as I got out of those cuffs. Now that I knew he’d just been play-acting, I was glad he was on my side. Now that he knew what I was actually capable of, he was rattled. And maybe more than a little scared of me.

Hell, maybe I was scared of myself, too.

It was easy to forget that we—none of us—were as badass as we wanted to be. A year ago, we’d just been kids. I hadn’t thought so then. I never would have admitted it. Then.

Now, looking back, I didn’t even know that kid I used to be anymore. Sometimes I felt like I barely knew this guy.

This guy, the one who had stood outside the Farm, desensitizing himself to death and violence so that he’d have the will to kill another human? When had I become this guy?

Since Zeke was still looking at me with that wary, nervous edge to his eyes, I forced myself to smile at him. “Hey, you could have just told me you wanted to pretend to bring me in like a prisoner.”

He gave a nervous laugh. “Yeah, wish I’d thought of that now. But I had to think fast when I saw the Collab out there on the street.” He shrugged. “Besides, you needed to seem really pissed off or they wouldn’t have bought it. I mean, shit. You’re Carter Olson. No one would have believed I’d brought you down if they hadn’t seen it themselves.”

He was gone before I could ask him exactly what he meant by that. He’d said my name in tones of mixed awe and horror. Like I was two parts bogeyman and three parts Keyser Söze. Like I was a big friggin’ deal.

Maybe to him, I was. The thought made me uncomfortable. I didn’t need any more power or influence than I already had. So I shoved the thought aside and got to work.

Alone with Pit Bull, I turned his head to the side and checked his pulse, which was still strong. I left him where he was for now. It was rare, but every once in a while, people asphyxiated while they were out. I didn’t want to have not killed him on purpose only to accidentally kill him later.

Since he was out cold, I searched the room for anything else that might come in handy. In one of the drawers, I found a box of matches, a pocketknife, and a box of Clif bars. In another drawer, under a false bottom, I found a pistol and full clip. I loaded the clip and swapped it out for my handgun since Zeke had emptied mine. I would get the bullets from Zeke later, but it never hurt to have an extra gun.

I thought about what I’d said to Armadale back in Utah, about how Texas had fallen because we were all so damn eager to kill one another. About how fear and suspicion had made things so much worse for us here. All of that was true. I believed every word. And yet here I was, grabbing every damn gun I could find, standing over the body of the guy I’d nearly killed.

We had to find a better way. This shit had to stop.

But it wasn’t going to stop with me. There were a lot of frightened kids outside this building who needed someone to kick some ass. For now, I was the only one they had who could do it.

I was sliding the gun into the holster at the back of my waistband when Zeke came back in with the ties and an extra rifle.

I took one from him and quickly tied up Pit Bull. The office had an attached bathroom, so I had Zeke help me drag his body in there. I did a quick survey of the room but didn’t see anything that Pit Bull could use to cut open the ties. If he was determined, he’d get out, but not quickly. Then I headed back to the reception area.

I paused with my hand on the knob. “The other two guards still out there?”

Zeke nodded. “Victor and James? Yeah. Now they’re watching that movie. Didn’t even notice when I went out for the zip ties.”

“Did you know either of them before you deserted?”

“I knew Victor pretty well.”

“He a decent guy or a fascist bully like Pit Bull in there?”

Zeke frowned. Maybe because he didn’t know the meaning of the word fascist or maybe because he didn’t know my code name.

So I added, “The first officer. The head Collab. That guy I just nearly killed?”

“Oh. Brad.”

“Yeah. Him. Either of them as bad as he is?”

Zeke shook his head, but he was frowning. “I don’t think so. Most of us aren’t. We just—”

But I didn’t have the patience to listen to Zeke’s excuses. “Most Collabs never meant to hurt anyone. You just took the easy way out. You protected yourself. I get it.” I pinned Zeke with a stare. “But that’s not who you are anymore. When you throw in with me, that has to change. If you want to take the easy way out, I can tranq you right now. You’ll wake up in thirty minutes, zip tied next to your commanding officer. If things go wrong on my end you still have plausible deniability.”

Zeke shook his head. “No. I’m in.”

“Are you in? Or are you all in? Because if you’re in this just to save your own ass, I don’t need that kind of trouble.”

Zeke’s gaze narrowed and his shoulders straightened just a little. “If I was in it for my own ass, I wouldn’t have told you this Farm was in trouble, would I?”

Good point. Still, I’d had to ask.

“Okay. Do you know any other Collabs who you can trust? Any you think we can win over to our side?”

“I know of at least three guys. They know something’s wrong, too. They’ll want to help.”

“Okay. Good. Do you know where you can find them?”

“This time of day, they’ll be in the dorms. We all worked the night shifts together.”

“Once we get out of here, securing the rest of the Collabs and finding the ones who could be allies will be our top priority. After that, we’re going to need to convince some Greens. Who do you know who’s got influence among the other Greens?”

Zeke thought for a minute and nodded. “I can think of a couple of people. There’s a guy. Named Wilson, I think. Real geeky, but everyone likes him. He’s been talking to people for months now about how the Greens need to be better organized.”

“And he’s gotten away with it? On most Farms, a guy like that would be fed to the Ticks.”

“He’s Brad’s baby brother.”

“Oh.” And Lily had thought she’d had problems keeping her sister safe. I almost felt sorry for Brad.

“Yeah.” Zeke winced. “And there’s this girl. Her name’s Trinia. She hangs out with Wilson a lot, but I don’t think they’re . . . you know . . . together.” Zeke paused for a second and I thought he might have been blushing. “Anyway, she seems to take care of a lot of other Greens. The younger ones, you know. She watches out for them. They’ll go anywhere she goes.”

“Okay. We’ll start there.”

“And there’s this one other guy. He was brought in about a month ago. His name is Joe. Even though he hasn’t been here very long, people like him. There are even rumors that he was at another Farm and escaped.”

I hesitated for a second, wondering. How crazy would that be if this Joe, this guy who had randomly shown up at this Farm in Texas after all these weeks, was McKenna’s Joe?

How crazy lucky would that be? How happy would it make McKenna if I could bring him back alive? How happy would it make Lily?

But then I remembered that Lily and McKenna weren’t even at Base Camp anymore. Wherever they were, it was far away from me. They were getting farther and farther away from danger—I hoped. And even if by some miracle it was Joe, how would I find McKenna to tell her? Not that it would be him, even if the name and timing were right. Because that’s not the kind of thing that happened in this world.

Once, I’d thought it would be a miracle if I ever found Lily again. Now I knew it was just another form of torture. Having her, but being unable to keep her safe. Finding her, but not being able to keep her at all.

“Good,” I said to Zeke. “Once we’ve secured the Collabs, we’ll need to find those three first.”

I swung the door open. Just as Zeke had said, James and Victor were watching Kate Beckinsale on the tiny screen. They’d even set their tranq rifles down on the receptionist desk behind them, a good six feet from their chairs. I didn’t bother securing the rifles yet, because I didn’t want to make any noise. Zeke followed my lead; for a Collab, he was light on his feet. Victor and James didn’t even look away from their movie until they felt the nose of the tranq rifles on their shoulder blades.

“Listen carefully, boys.” I kept my voice soft in case there was someone else on the floor that I didn’t know about. “Zeke and I are taking over. Neither of you is stupid enough to think this Farm is still functioning like it should. The Dean’s gone. He’s left you to die. Unless we stop it, the fences are going to go down soon, too.” I inched back a step to give them room to twist in their chairs. When they were both looking at me, I continued. “We’ve already taken out Brad. We’re going to work our way through the rest of the Collabs. Either you’re in or you’re out. If you’re out, I tranq you and you wait this out locked in a room. If you’re in, we could use your help. Which is it?”

James’s gaze flickered infinitesimally to the desk where his tranq rifle lay well out of his reach. He was thinking about going for it.

“Wrong answer,” I said and fired one of the tranq darts into his chest. He jerked to his feet, but swayed almost immediately. A second later, he staggered backward and passed out in the chair.

I turned my rifle on Victor. “How about you?”

He held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I’m in!”

Ten minutes later, we’d secured the top floor, had two more Collabs in custody and one more—a guy Zeke swore by—on our side. Better still, Taylor had reported back in that he’d found the site of the solar array and they’d secured it. Which meant we might—might—be able to at least keep the fences working for a few more days while we devised a game plan for getting these Greens out alive.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe things didn’t always go bad.