I run my hands through my hair.
“We’re motivated.”
“And they’re not?”
“We actually have something worth fighting for.”
“What?”
“Freedom.”
She makes a face.
“How many people have said that,” she says, “and then died?”
“Millions.” I stand up, dusting the dirt off my pants. “I can’t think of anything I’d rather die for, though. I’d rather die fighting than hiding in a hole somewhere. Or in some disgusting labor camp.”
Sophia slowly nods.
“I guess so.”
“You guess so?” I hold out my arms. “Sophia, look around you! We were enslaved together, remember? Kamaneva almost executed me on the front sidewalk of an elementary school. That’s not normal, is it? We’re fighting for normalcy. We’re fighting for what we lost. I think that’s a worthy cause, don’t you?”
She rises to her feet, and when she speaks, I can tell she’s trying to avoid crying. “It is worthy,” she whispers. “You’re right. I just…sometimes I think I can’t do this another day.”
“We all feel like that.” I wrap my arms around her neck and pull her into a hug. “Nobody said fighting a war was going to be easy.”
“They sure didn’t. Your boyfriend makes it sound like a walk in the park.”
“He does not,” I laugh. “He just knows how to inspire people.”
We turn to watch him. He’s standing on the other side of the camp. His muscular arms are folded across his chest, his hair pulled into a tight ponytail. He’s listening intently to what one of the soldiers is saying. After a few beats of silence, he responds, pats him on the back, and moves on to the next person waiting to speak with him.
“He’s becoming quite a leader,” Sophia remarks.
I feel myself smiling.
“Yeah, he is.”
The truth is, we’ve all changed. We’ve all matured. We’ve all seen things that have forced us to grow up. It will bring out the best in some of us. In others, it will bring out the worst. But when it comes right down to it, at the end of the day, we’re all on the same team.
We’re all fighting to get our freedom back.
And that’s when the name hits me.
Freedom Fighters.
Chapter Twelve
If anybody would have told me seven months ago that I would be spending my college years as a guerilla warfighter with freaking Rambo as my boyfriend, I would have said they were crazy. But life is weird like that. And considering the fact that everybody’s lives have been turned inside out by the effects of the EMP and the invasion of America, everything’s been on a whole different level of weird.
Weird on steroids.
It’s July now, and the heat is brutal. There have been days when the hundred-degree weather is torture. It’s hard to keep cool. The only thing we can do is stay in the shelter of the trees during the day and move around at night. We’ve been consistently hitting Omega where it hurts: convoys, supply depots, anything and everything that will effect their ability to feed their troops or keep their morale up. This is not just a game of firepower. It’s a game of mind over matter. Which one of us is more motivated to win?
We’ve relocated our camp to a higher elevation. It’s easier to keep hidden when we’re farther away from the valley, anyway. And since Omega is constantly combing through the area searching for our “headquarters,” we constantly change the location of our camp, too. If we stay in one place for too long, we’ll be found.
The Free Army — or the Freedom Fighters, as we’ve come to be called — have become pretty well known in the area. Our forces have expanded. We’ve got a few hundred people in our ranks now, and Chris is becoming an impressive leader. He’s logical, fair and knowledgeable. People trust him.
I’ve become something different, too. Instead of just running with the pack, I work with Derek, Max, Alexander and Chris to train the new recruits. I’ve got responsibilities. I’ve got people who look to me for advice.
I never thought I’d see that day.
Despite the fact that our army is made up completely of volunteers — most of which are civilians who have never been in a fight in their lives — we’re well organized. Chris goes to a lot of trouble to train the new recruits, and to keep the older ones’ skills sharpened. Ever since the day Chris almost killed Harry Lydell, I’ve been painfully aware of the fact that all it takes is one wrong move to turn organization into murder. It’s easy to think that all you have to do is get a bunch of people together and fight the bad guys, but it’s not that simple.
It requires structure.
Chris is the head honcho in this camp, something along the lines of a mini-general, but he makes few decisions without consulting his officers first, which would be Derek, Max and Alexander, who are all platoon leaders. They each command a force of about thirty to fifty fighting men and women. I’m not in charge of a platoon, but I am in charge of training the new recruits. Yup, the “newbies” are all mine. I teach them the basics, go with them on missions and make sure everybody is doing their job. We work as a team, so we basically go on a majority vote. Everybody has a say in everything that goes on at the basecamp.
But sometimes things aren’t so simple.
When an organization gets big, there will inevitably be people who will betray you. In this war, betrayal can lead to the death of everybody in the militia, so it has to be dealt with swiftly and effectively. In the event that somebody commits a horrible crime, the officers convene with Chris. All it takes is three command level officers to vote for a punishment to make it happen. So far we’ve been lucky. We’ve only had to punish people for petty crimes like stealing extra food rations, hoarding ammunition and getting into fights. But at some point, somebody will do something so big that we’ll have to figure out how to handle the situation.
Maybe we should just build a jail.
At any rate, we’re not the only guerilla war fighters in the area. Other militia groups have been popping up in the state, an encouraging piece of information we learned from the Underground, a network of rebel militiamen who carry messages up and down the state for people like us. Like undercover pony express riders, they travel on foot from one destination to the next, passing on messages to fellow rebels. They have a dangerous job. They travel alone, they travel fast, and they travel light. The cover of darkness is their best friend as they run from camp to camp, sending messages between the rebel “communities.” If they’re caught, they’ll either be killed or tortured to death.
So of course their number one priority is to avoid getting caught.
Everything has gotten faster, cleaner and more efficient. The Freedom Fighters are turning into a well-oiled resistance front, and I’m starting to find my groove. I never thought I’d fit into a society like this, but life has a way of surprising you. For the first time in my life, I actually feel like I belong somewhere. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing, I haven’t decided yet.