I will carefully stand guard, and if anyone tries to hurt someone in the camp again, I will carefully spill their guts across the Wasteland floor and carefully wait for the vultures to feast on the remains.
For the first time since Melkin died beneath my blade, I don’t mind the thought of having more blood on my hands.
Chapter Twenty-Two
LOGAN
When we finally climb to the top of a steep bluff and see the ruins of a large city laid out before us, I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s taken six days instead of four to get here, despite the fact that I’ve pushed my people to their limits. I guess estimating distance on a hand-drawn map is harder than I realized.
I’ve spent those six days triple-checking our security, encouraging the group to move faster, and worrying that the Commander could catch up to us at any moment. His army is too large to move much faster than we can. Still, every day we catch glimpses of them behind us, on hilltops and ridges, and it seems like they’re steadily closing the distance.
When I’m not worrying about the Commander, I’m busy trying to figure out who killed our boys. There’ve been no more deaths, either because of the increased security or because the killer is somewhere in the Wasteland being hunted by Quinn and Willow.
Or because he’s simply waiting for his next opportunity.
The constant threat against us has caused a subtle shift in the dynamic of our group. Fewer complaints. More offers to help without being asked. And most surprisingly, instant obedience from the most rebellious survivor—Adam.
I fold Jeremiah’s map and put it into my cloak pocket. I hope Quinn and Willow are already in the city, because with the Commander closing in behind us, we can’t afford to wait for them. The sun is sinking toward the western skyline, and we need to be back on the road at dawn.
The ruined city laid out before me is a mess of charred, twisted hunks of metal and piles of broken brick. Thick trees dressed in spring blooms push their way out of windows. Wildflowers grow amid tumbles of debris. And what look like wide roads balanced on thick white pillars rise up from the ground and then drop away into nothing, their jagged edges draped with ivy.
A slim metal pole near the entrance of the city has a tattered, sun-bleached flag flapping in the wind.
“The stars and stripes,” Jeremiah says beside me.
I turn to find that most of the group is lined up along the bluff staring at what remains of the city. “The what?” I ask him.
“Stars and stripes.” He points to the flag. “You can’t really see it anymore, but it had fifty white stars on a blue background in the upper left corner. One star for every state.”
“There were fifty city-states?” a woman asks.
“No, there were fifty states,” he says. “States were big territories with hundreds of cities inside their borders.”
“Sounds crowded,” Rachel says in the same tone she’d use when Jared made his infamous broccoli casserole for dinner and expected her to eat it.
Jeremiah laughs. “Oh, some of the cities were a bit crowded. Take this one. See that?” He points to the strange wide road that rises up on pillars. “That used to be an interstate overpass. We built roads over the top of other roads in some places just to allow everyone to get around.”
“Fascinating,” I say, but I’m already looking beyond what’s left of the interstate to examine the city itself. Somewhere in its depths, I need to find shelter for my people tonight. Near the center of the city, a short distance from a large river, three buildings rise toward the sky in slender, towering masses of steel draped in moss and kudzu. I’ve never seen buildings so tall. The thought of living so far off the ground makes my stomach queasy. It’s one thing to climb fifteen yards up a strong tree and rest in its cradle. It’s another to be one hundred yards off the ground in a man-made tower of metal and glass.
I study the ground between us and the buildings. Even with nature trying hard to reclaim the land, I can still make out a faint grid of roads slicing the city into neat rectangles. One road, the one leading through the center of the city, is mostly clear.
We’re two weeks away from Lankenshire. Three weeks from Hodenswald. I don’t know how far it is to the other three northeastern city-states, but it’s apparent that Jeremiah’s map has led us to the main artery used by highwaymen and couriers alike when traveling between the southern and northern territories. We’re going to have to leave the main road if we ever hope to elude the Commander and his army. Tomorrow, I’m going to find another way to reach Lankenshire. One that will hopefully throw the Commander off our scent.
First, though, I need shelter for the night. A scan of the buildings we could reasonably reach with the wagons without leaving an obvious trail shows limited options, however. We could travel through most of the main part of the city and hope one of the brick buildings near the north edge is intact enough to shelter us. We could split up and camp throughout the semidestroyed shops that line the side streets to the west, but I’d feel better keeping us all together.
That leaves the ridiculously tall buildings, which seem to have survived the fires and destruction mostly intact. If we cover our tracks, and if the inside of the building is in decent shape, we could assign guard shifts high enough to have a panoramic view of the ruins, which would be to our advantage.
My stomach pitches at the thought of being trapped above the ground in a prison of steel and glass, but I give the order to move out. Several hours later, we’re ensconced in the most stable of the three buildings, and we’ve covered our trail well enough that we’ll see Carrington coming long before the army ever sees us.
My people are spread across the bottom three floors of the building. The animals and wagons are stashed on the main level. The living quarters are on floors two and three. The medical quarters and the rooms reserved for my inner circle are on floor five. The fourth floor smelled like dead rats, so we left it alone.
I’ve stationed guards at the stairwells of each occupied floor, just in case. The more experienced guards are posted on the ground level by the wagons and livestock. And, per his own request, I’ve sent Adam up the stairs to the roof, where he can watch for Quinn, Willow, Carrington, highwaymen, or anyone else we need to worry about.
We’ve yet to see any sign of Quinn and Willow, and tension coils inside of me. I told them we’d meet them here in four days. It’s been six. I don’t know what could’ve held them up, but we can’t wait for them. The army will be inside the city limits tomorrow, and we have to be long gone. I have to hope they’ll either show up tonight or be able to find our trail when they do arrive.
I refuse to contemplate any scenario in which Quinn and Willow fail to return to us at all.
With everyone settled for the night, I decide to work on perfecting the tech design for the Commander’s tracking device. I’ve been chewing on an idea all day long, and now it’s time to put it on parchment and see if it will work.
Frankie stands guard in the stairwell as I approach my floor. I clap my hand on his shoulder as I pass, and he nods a greeting. He surprised me the morning of the Cursed One’s attack. He and Thom both. Not that I expected them to be cowards, but I also didn’t expect them to risk everything without a second’s hesitation and without needing to be told what to do. Thom kept up with the runaway wagon, gathered the reins, stopped the donkey, and calmed the frantic people trapped inside. Because of him, we didn’t lose anything more valuable than a cracked wagon wheel, and we have several spares.