“You’re going to wish you hadn’t said that,” he replies, irritated, “before the night is over.”
“I don’t think so,” I muse. “Seeing the expression on your face just now was pretty priceless. Like a Kodak moment. Does somebody have a camera I could borrow?”
Chris smirks, hiding his grin in my hair as he tightens his grip around my waist. “If you touch a hair on her head,” he says, calm, “I will make your death long and painful.”
Keller rolls his eyes.
“You’re both so theatric,” he complains. “I take that as a sign that you’re not going to tell me what I want to know?”
“Nope,” I reply. “All of our secret information is going to go with us to the grave.”
“It’s your coffin, not mine,” Keller spits. “Fine.”
“Cassidy,” Chris says, looking at me. “Duck.”
“Hmm?”
What happens next happens so fast that I don’t have time to do anything other than what he says. Chris pulls me to the ground and all of the sudden the two of us are lying on our stomachs with our hands over our heads. Something — it sounds like it’s only two feet away — explodes big time. I can feel heat on my skin as orange flames blast the office. Keller and his hacks are thrown forward, totally losing their footing and crashing into each other. I raise my head and look around, everything moving in slow motion.
I can see a giant fire outside — way bigger than the bonfire that the soldierswere hanging around earlier. It looks like some of the vehicles have been turned upside down from whatever detonated.
“Come on!” Chris yells, wrapping his hand around mine. “We have to move!”
Well, obviously.
I get up, forgetting about my health issues thanks to a rush of good old-fashioned adrenaline. Chris throws open the door and I’m hit in the face with a wave of heat. Man, it’s hot. I cover my face from the flames that are shooting up from the bonfire, which is now big enough to cook a jumbo jet.
“What happened?” I shout, following Chris’s lead through the wreckage. Two Humvees are completely flipped over, and as far as I can see, some officials seem to be stuck underneath, pounding on the windows from the inside. I feel guilty for not stopping to do something, then I remember that these people are trying to kill us, so that pretty much destroys my instinct to help them. AT trooper guards that are still upright are hobbling around like they’re drunk, still shocked from the explosion.
You and me both, pals.
Chris and I run to the other side of the motel. There aren’t any bad guys over here, because there’s no light or cars. Except for one. It’s a Humvee with anOmega insignia on the side: The O that doubles as a white globe.
And leaning against the Humvee with a pair of keys in her hands is Isabel.
“Took you long enough,” she complains, looking cocky.
“What did you do?” I demand, crossing my arms. Shocked. “How are you here?”
“I just put a little gasoline on the fire,” she shrugs. “Right, Chris?”
Chris nods.
“You did a good job, kid,” he says, slapping her on the back. Then he takes the keys and opens the door. “Get inside. Now.”
“I’m totally in the dark here,” I say, climbing across the console in the front seat. Isabel jumps into the back, which is nothing but a storage area of guns, ammo and emergency supplies. “Holy crap! We hit the jackpot!”
“It’s Keller’s car,” Isabel grins.
“No way?” I laugh hysterically. “That idiot.”
Chris turns the key in the ignition. For one scary second I think it’s not going to start, but the engine turns over and we’re home free. “Yes!” Isabel whoops. “It works!”
Chris looks pretty stoked. I can tell because he stomps on the gas and we charge out of the motel parking lot at illegal speeds.
“How did you know to come into camp?” I ask Isabel, turning in my seat.
“I saw where they took you,” she replies. “I found Chris, and the truck had a window. I snuck over and talked to him and he told me that they were going to question both of you in the main office.” She smiles devilishly. Pretty frightening, considering the fact that she’s only twelve. “He told me to throw one of the gas canisters in the fire and run. It worked. That was the best explosion ever!”
“Unbelievable,” I say, reaching around to hug her. “I am so glad we found you! I knew you’d come in handy. I told you, Chris.”
He rolls his eyes.
“I believe the gas canister was my idea.”
“Yeah, but she pulled it off.”
“Thanks to me.”
“People, the road!” Isabel screams.
Chris swerves to miss a car that’s sitting long ways across an intersection. We’re racing full speed through the dark streets of whatever county this is, one orchard after another flashing by. It’s dark, but not as foggy as it was the other night. I’m glad. Foggy enough to hide us, but not too foggy that we can’t drive.
“They’re going to hunt for us,” Chris says. “They have our stuff. They’ll try to figure out where we were going.”
“Why?” I say, kicking the door. “We never did anything to them!”
“We’re anomalies,” Chris shrugs. “They think we’re trying to fight against the new regime.”
“Maybe we are,” I say bitterly, the adrenaline starting to wear off. The uncertainties — and the headache — are all coming back to me now. “How did Keller know we had the Mustang? How did he know who my dad was?”
“Apparently there’s still some Internet access that the government’s got going for their boys,” Chris replies, knitting his brow. “Which means we were right, Cassie. Our side did plan the EMP. They planned out everything.”
I lay my head against the seat, exhausted all of the sudden. Anytime you find out that your own government is trying to kill you, you’re bound to feel a little depressed. I’ll probably need therapy when all this is over.
“So what do we do?” I say. “We have their car. Will they be able to track us somehow?”
“I don’t think so,” Chris muses. “Wherever their computer is, it’s in a truck somewhere and it’s probably got limited connection to a satellite.”
“So we’re safe?” Isabel asks, leaning between our two seats.
“Yeah,” I say, not wanting to scare the poor kid, even though she’s probably got more courage than me. “We’re okay right now.”
She sighs and leans her head against my shoulder.
“Awesomesauce.”
Chapter Ten
Around dawn, I see it. The foothills. I whoop for joy and Isabel joins in. Chris just smiles and laughs. “We seriously should get some kind of blue ribbon for getting this far,” I say. “Who’s with me?”
“Totally with you,” Isabel agrees, giving me a high-five.
“Chris?” I ask, grinning.
“Fine. A blue ribbon for everyone.” He shifts in the driver’s seat. He’s probably stiff from the hours of driving he had to do. It took a long time to get here, to find our way out of the five million twists and turns of the country roads. We even had to avoid a cow pasture with a missing fence. Dude, cows are not just stinky. They also have an attitude.
But now we’re coasting down the road that leads straight into the foothills, right into Squaw Valley. Epic win. We have enough gas in the tank to get us to Chris’s parent’s home, which he says isn’t too far away. That’s assuming we make it through the foothills without running into a stupid roadblock again.
I’ll never walk in the fog without a flashlight again, I think.