“Who are these people?” I whisper, trembling.
“Friends,” he replies, kissing my forehead.
“Your friends?”
“Our friends.”
“Well, that’s a first. I actually have friends now.”
He turns to focus on the road, giving directions to Grease and watching for enemies. But I don’t think Omega will be able to get backup troops in fast enough to stop us.
Shocked and bewildered, I try to focus on what’s in front of us. Country roads, orchards, abandoned farmhouses and, in the distance, the foothills. Beyond that are the mountains.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“Away from here,” Grease replies. “And by the way, you can call me Max.”
I watch Sophia hanging on for dear life in the rearview mirror, wondering how many other trucks we’ve got following us in this freedom convoy. Probably five or six. A final, giant explosion lights up the early morning sky above the school. It’s the biggest detonation I’ve ever seen. A pillar of flames rolls through the air, turning inside out with inky black smoke. It mushrooms out in all directions.
The school is gone.
“Mission accomplished,” Chris remarks.
“You’ve got a lot of explaining to do,” I say, cocking an eyebrow.
“Yeah?” Chris leans closer. “I’m not the only one.”
I guess he has a point. This could be a long road trip.
Chapter Eight
We drive for several hours. So far we haven’t been ambushed or blown up, so I take that as a positive sign. Negatively, I’m suffering from the aftershock of almost being publically executed by a Russian psychopath. Despite the warmth of the cab, I’m shivering from head to toe. A classic symptom of shock.
Chris senses my discomfort almost instantly.
“Cassie? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m just… a little wiped out, I guess.”
I’m a lousy liar. He frowns and tips my chin up with his finger, looking at my eyes. “Are you sick? Wounded? Be honest with me.”
“Neither.” I lean against his shoulder. “I almost got shot in the head. Give me a couple seconds to recover.”
Grease — I mean, Max — stifles a laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I demand. “You know, I don’t get you. One second you’re an Omega soldier, and then you’re all chummy with a bunch of rogue militiamen from god-knows-where. Plus, you shot Kamaneva. What made you turn on Omega?”
Chris chuckles, sliding his arm around my shoulders, drawing me close to his chest. “Max was never for Omega in the first place, Cassie,” he says. “He’s always been a spy for us.”
“Who’s us?”
“This militia,” Max says. “We’re called the Free Army. But…we’re not really big enough to be considered an army.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Chris points out. “We did just level an entire labor camp with a couple dozen men. Not a bad day’s work.”
“Okay, since when have you been involved with a rebel army?” I ask Chris, looking up at him. “Last I saw you, you were going hunting. And you were late.”
He brushes my bangs out of my eyes.
“Yeah, I was.” He moves closer, feeling the rough ends of my hair between his fingers. “I’m sorry, Cassie. When I came back and you were gone, I looked everywhere for you. It didn’t take me long to figure out what happened.”
“We ran into each other a couple of weeks after you got picked up by Omega,” Max adds. “They had had just raided a community in the hills and taken most of the people there as prisoners.”
Sophia’s community, I think.
“Max was a narcotics officer back in Sacramento,” Chris explains. “He was an undercover agent.”
“A real secret agent?” I ask, awed.
“Kind of. I’d go undercover and pose as a drug dealer. Work a case. Get the bad guys.” He shrugs. “Like what I just did with Omega.”
“It’s dangerous work,” Chris concludes. “Max is a perfect spy.”
“But Max was there during my first day at the prison camp.”
“Yeah, I’ve been spying on Omega for a few months now,” Max replies.
“Here’s what happened,” Chris explains, smiling at my confused expression. “I found the Free Army not long after they took you to the labor camp. There were only a few men at that point. Not a lot of organization. Not really any leadership. A good bunch of men, though.”
“How did you find out where I was?” I ask.
“Max.” Chris takes a deep breath. “He was already a spy. He’d been delivering messages to the militia anyway, and I contacted him to see if you were at the labor camp. Obviously you were, so I started planning.”
“How did you get all these people to help you?”
“Well, this labor camp is a pretty big link in Omega’s supply chain,” Chris says. “They’re using prisoners to send food to other troops, plus they’ve got fuel supplies and backup generators. Taking this out hurt them, plus I got you back.”
“So this was an attack…not just a prison break?”
“Correct. A lot of these prisoners will join the militia. We need new soldiers, anyway.” Chris nudges my forehead with the tip of his nose. “You look puzzled.”
“I am!” I sigh. “So now you’re in charge of all these people?”
“People tend to follow Chris,” Max comments. “It just happened.”
“So you are in charge.”
He shrugs.
Ah. Great. My boyfriend is now in charge of a rebel army leading raids on Omega supply chains. I’m not sure if I should be happy or conflicted about this.
“You look worried,” Chris remarks.
“I’m not. I’m just tired.”
“I know. We’ll be there soon.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to base.”
I raise an eyebrow.
“I’ll explain everything in more detail later,” he says in a softer voice, “when you’re feeling better.”
I nod. He’s right. I’m too spaced out right now to absorb any more important information. We make our way back into the lower foothills, zipping through familiar territory as we pass Squaw Valley. A lead weight sinks to the pit of my stomach as we travel. Last time I was here I woke up in the back of a semi-truck with my head crammed into the wall. Won’t Omega know that this is the first place to look for escaped prisoners? The same place they picked them up? Wouldn’t they figure out that everybody would head back to their homes after they escaped from prison?
“I know what you’re thinking,” Chris says, ghosting a smile. “And don’t worry about it. We’ll be safe here.”
“Can you read my thoughts?”
“Pretty much.”
Just when I feel myself falling asleep, the truck sputters to a halt. I sit up straight, peering at our surroundings. We’re high enough in the hills to be considered “in the mountains,” but I know better. We’re probably around the snowline, putting us at three thousand feet. There are trees, creeks and forests. It smells like pine and wet earth.
“This is it?” I ask.
“This is it.” Chris opens the car door and steps outside, holding his hand out for me. “You’re going to love this.”
I take it. My skin prickles with goosebumps in the cool afternoon air. The rest of the trucks are pulling up behind us. I was right. There’s about five or six of them, half of them packed with prisoners. The other half are packed with supplies raided from the camp. Militiamen are jumping out of the vehicles, surrounding Chris. I stand beside him, uncomfortable with being at the center of the ring.
“Good job, boys,” Chris says. “That was some of the best work I’ve seen from you yet. Omega will be scrambling to figure out what happened. By the time they call in backup, the camp will be gone, and their supplies will be destroyed or ruined.”