“Where’s the rest of the platoon?” I ask. “Where’s Derek?”
“I don’t know where everybody is. We scattered.”
I bite my lip.
“We need to get out of here. The cover’s been fried.”
“Exactly.” Chris kneels down. He grabs his radio and calls the other nearby platoons. “We’re going to light these mountains up. We’re burning them down.”
“But… why?” Sophia asks, trembling.
“We’re going to push Omega back. They can’t fight against a wall of flames.”
“They’ll try.”
“They’ll just come in with their jets,” Uriah says.
“It’s a lot harder to see the enemy when the ground is covered in smoke,” Chris replies.
Our militia platoons roll in with a couple of vehicles. Soldiers dump barrels of diesel fuel on the grass. And from there, all it takes is a spark. Soon the entire field before us on fire, the flames reaching skyward, the wind whipping it hotter, towards Omega.
“Keep lighting up the hillside,” Chris orders. “Follow the interstate and make sure you drive it back. The wind is blowing south, right in their direction. Keep it going.”
The smoke is getting thicker. I watch in amazement at how quickly the fire takes hold of grass and devours it. Within a few minutes, acres of hillside is consumed with flames, billowing black, angry smoke and tossing it into the night sky. The cold drizzle is no match for its power.
We have to pull away from the fire as the heat becomes more intense. The militia continues to ignite walls of flames across the hillside, skipping over the interstate and jumping to the other side.
“Not a bad idea, Cassie,” Chris compliments. “By the time it gets to them, it’ll be too big for them to stop.”
“I hate burning the mountains up like this.”
“Think of it as a reverse scorched earth policy.” He shrugs. “We’re burning up their supplies and their troops in front of us rather than behind. That gives us the advantage.”
“I guess.”
We’re standing at the base of one of the bigger mountain ridges, the one currently being eaten by fire. Sophia is holding onto Jeff’s arm, and I find myself smiling. She’s made a new friend.
Chris looks at them, then back at me.
“Jeff and Sophia?” he asks.
“Don’t ask me,” I shrug. “She’s trying to get over Alexander.”
“I didn’t see that coming.”
I laugh.
“I didn’t see us coming either, but here we are,” I say.
And then I’m surprised again.
Jeff suddenly moves away from Sophia and runs forward, yelling something at the top of his lungs. I don’t even have time to make out what he’s saying before something hits Chris in the chest.
He stumbles backward, and I can feel the force of the impact from here.
I scream and Jeff, Sophia, Uriah and Max drop to the ground. I do the same and crawl on my belly over to Chris, who’s lying on his side, his face contorted in pain. I roll him on his back, frantically searching his body for any wounds. I hang my head in relief. A bullet is wedged into his vest, but it didn’t pierce the skin.
Thank God.
I twist around and pop a grenade off my belt, pausing. Militiamen are heading towards me, weapons out, shooting… at us.
What the hell?
That split second of hesitation almost gets us killed. One of the militiamen fires a round at my head. I drop to the ground and chuck my grenade blindly in his direction, as far as I can. At least thirty feet. I blow up the militiaman and another guy.
“We’ve been infiltrated!” I pant breathlessly.
Jeff and Sophia reach us just as I chuck another grenade in front of us, bounding it down the incline, slowing the attack. Sophia empties a half magazine of repressive fire on the oncoming troops to help me.
Chris hasn’t been shot, but the impact of the bullet knocked the wind out of him. It may have even broken a rib. Jeff puts his arm under his brother’s back, and Sophia and I take the other half of his weight, helping him kneel. He pulls his handgun out, rejoining the fight. “Just run,” Chris says, grimacing. “Just go.”
“We’re not leaving you, bro,” Jeff says. “Don’t start with the selfless crap.”
We help him run and, a few minutes into our escapade, Max is hit in the left leg. He slams into the ground, rolling over and grabbing his wound. Sophia — always prepared for these situations — rips a compression bandage off the medic kit on her belt and applies it to his injury. She cinches it tight.
“You can move now,” she says.
I foolishly look behind me. The wall of flames heading south highlights the silhouettes of dozens of our own men hunting us down like animals.
How could this happen? This has to be a bad dream.
“Uriah!” I shout. “Get Max!”
Uriah drops back and hauls Max to his feet. He can’t walk, he can barely drag himself along. I grope for the radio on my belt, Chris’s pressure on my shoulders easing up as he recovers from the physical shock of the impact.
“Rivera,” I say, unable to hear my own voice over the sound of the gunfire and my heavy breathing. “We’ve been infiltrated! Our own men are firing on us. Send backup! Send backup!”
I get nothing in response.
God help us. Is Rivera just being an idiot again or has his platoon been compromised by traitors, too? Chris removes his arm from around my shoulders and starts moving on his own, but every step is painstaking. He can barely breathe. I’m guessing one or two of his ribs have been broken.
The militiamen who are clearly still on our side are retreating in the same direction as we are, many of them standing and fighting their own friends. It’s the most chilling, heartbreaking thing I’ve seen since this whole mess started. Brother fighting brother. Men and women in matching uniform duking it out on the battlefield.
I try calling for backup again and again, getting nothing but static. Nothing but silence. “Sundog!” I beg. “Please, answer us. We’re dying out here. We’ve been compromised!”
Nothing.
Along the side of the freeway, a small ditch runs underneath the interstate. It’s little more than a drainage pipe. I spot it out of the corner of my eye and direct Sophia’s attention to it. She nods and veers to the left.
“Left!” I yell to Chris.
He and Jeff follow me, and Uriah is right behind them, dragging Max. Sophia crawls into the tunnel first. Chris pauses at the entrance to the tunnel, collecting his strength. He turns to help Max and Uriah, and as he does so, I shout a warning. The mammoth wall of flames blazing across the mountains makes it easy to see what’s coming towards us. Black shadows massing around our position. Four or five men tackle Max and Uriah. Chris raises his handgun and begins picking them off, kneeling down. I do the same with my rifle, trying to keep them away from Uriah and Max long enough for them to reach the tunnel.
Uriah pulls himself out of the pile and shoots someone pointblank in the head with his handgun, tearing his way towards us. Leaving Max behind. I scream at him to stay, to help us hold them off, but he ignores me. He’s only got one thing on his mind: Keeping himself alive.
Chris pops off a few more, but dozens of our own militia turned traitors are seeping out of the grass. “Cassie, get in the tunnel!” Chris yells.
“Not until you come, too!”
“That’s not a request, that’s an order!”
Two bullets narrowly avoid my chest. I take a few more shots and stumble backwards, the sheer number of the enemy overwhelming me. “I won’t go without you!” I shriek, tears streaming down my face.
Chris turns to me. It only lasts for a second, but it seems as if time slows down and the world around us fades. “I’ll be right behind you,” he says. “I promise.”