“I do not understand this at all,” I mutter.
“Really?” Trent asks, sounding genuinely surprised. “You just did this to Ryan.”
“Not like this.”
“No, you’re right. It was way more intimate what you did.”
“Why were you watching?” I groan, turning red.
He grins. “Because it was beautiful.”
***
An hour later I’m back in the central tent with Ryan, Vin, Trent, Ali, Sam, Alvarez, and a few other Vashons that I don’t know or recognize. I ask Sam why Taylor isn’t here and he looks at me like I’m crazy.
“Someone has to stay behind and watch the fort,” he replies.
I notice that Sam sticks close to Ali. He’s always with her and I wonder what that’s all about. I wonder if Taylor put him on guard duty—but if she’s so valuable, why is she here?
“We’ll attack at the gates, but we’ll go in over the walls,” Alvarez tells the room. “Crenshaw and the Hyperion boys will detonate the flash grenades at each gate of both stadiums, causing a distraction and panic. While they run to the gates to defend them, Teams One through Eight will go over the fences. Remember,” he says sternly, catching everyone’s eye, “we are going for containment. Use lethal force only if you absolutely have to.”
“You won’t have to,” Vin says clearly from his corner. He’s standing with his back against a support post, his eyes on the room, but his body language is clearly removed from the group. “It’s easier than you think to overthrow one of these things. Most of the people inside don’t want to be there.”
“Even so, they don’t know why we’re there. They will defend themselves, so be prepared. And capture who you can. We want their Leaders. We need information.”
“We want Westbrook,” Ali says.
Her voice is quiet but it carries through the tent to every corner. I watch each Vashon nod in agreement.
I hate the Colonies as a whole, as an idea and a threat, but the Vashons are obviously working on a whole other level.
The group is disbanded after that. We all have our orders of where we’re supposed to be. It’s hard to believe that this is really happening. We’ve made an attempt on a Colony once already, but it was waiting for us. The work was done. This is different. This will be a true fight.
“Sam,” I call as I see him passing through the room. He hesitates for a second, his eyes going to Ali then back to me. She stops to talk one of the other Vashons and I get the feeling it’s for Sam’s sake to give him time.
“Hey, Joss,” he says easily, stepping toward Ryan, Trent, and I. He does that weird handshake/embrace thing guys do before stepping back. “What’s up?”
“Are you Ali’s bodyguard or something?”
His face goes immediately blank. “Yeah. Why?”
“Why does she need one?”
“For protection.”
“From who? The Colonists?”
“Westbrook?” Ryan guesses.
Sam shakes his head. “Nah, nothing like that. They should be scared of her.” He chuckles. “Them I won’t protect.”
“Then who are you protecting her from?”
“From herself,” he says plainly.
I frown. “You’re protecting her from herself?”
“Kind of all of us. Look, she’s moving so I need to go. Stay safe out there, all right? Watch each other’s backs.”
Sam takes off after Ali, no other words of explanation given. I’m more confused now than I was before I talked to him.
“What is a sixteen-year-old kid protecting a grown woman from?” Ryan muses.
“I don’t know, but your crew is about to leave without you.”
Ryan and Trent follow my eyes to the growing crowd around Crenshaw. They all have backpacks, dark clothing, and the most cautiously excited expressions on their faces I’ve ever seen. This team is purely for distraction. All these guys have to do is follow Crenshaw’s instructions to the letter to light off a series of highly visual, nearly powerless explosions around the gates. They’re giving the illusion of a breach. It’s the truest magic I’ve ever seen Crenshaw wield.
I turn to Ryan, feeling anxiety in every fiber of my body. He’s going to leave me again. He’ll go with Crenshaw, I’m going over the fence, and it’s too much too soon but I’ll never say it.
“How many fingers you got?” I ask him curtly.
He grins as he holds them all up and wiggles them at me. “Ten. Five on each hand.”
“Two hands, two arms, two eyes.”
“Two legs, two feet, ten toes.”
“One liver, two kidneys,” Trent lists off. “One appendix, but you could lose it and be fine. Two lungs, one heart, one gall bladder—”
“Yes, okay,” I snap. “You know organs. Thank you.”
He smiles at my annoyance. “You’re welcome.”
“Two hearts,” Ryan corrects, tapping my chest lightly.
I roll my eyes at the sweetness of the gesture, unable to handle it the way a normal person with real feelings that they can understand would.
“Just bring it all back with you,” I tell him. “Leave no appendage behind.”
“You got it. Be careful in there, Joss.”
I grin. “It’ll be easy.”
He kisses me. It’s quick and firm and right in front of everyone. The most amazing part about it—I like it. Out in the open and everything. I really, really like it.
“Trent.”
Trent nods distractedly, securing his backpack. “Bring him back in one piece. I know.”
“No. Well, yeah, please do that, but I was going to say ‘take care of yourself.’”
He blinks at me, a system error crashing his processor. Finally he blinks again, his eyes clearing. “You too,” he says quietly.
“Thanks.”
And just like that, my Lost Boys are gone again.
***
“Line up,” our commander whispers harshly.
Eight other people and I in Team Three are in position on the outside of the baseball stadium. We line up quickly with our backs against the wall. Then we wait.
I shift the fake gun they gave me around in my hands, unsure how to hold it. It’s carved from wood and stained black, an illusion that will hopefully fool people in the dark chaos we’re about to create inside this Pod. I got a quick rundown on handguns from a Vashon named Todd before we left the forest. Basically I was told I wasn’t trusted to have a real one and I do not blame them one bit. I wouldn’t know what to do with the thing.
As Todd showed me how to use it as a melee weapon, he explained that since their island was founded by a group that was mostly military, the Vashons still have guns and a decent supply of ammo. In fact, he was military once, back before the big collapse and the cure that kicked it off. He was stationed just outside the gates of Ali’s old home, Warm Springs.
Apparently when they helped the farmers of the original Vashon Island clear it of zombies, they mostly used brute force or through ‘strategic strikes,’ whatever that means. I think it boils down to cracking skulls. Bullets, they decided, were better saved for humans. And they were right. With the near extinction of guns these days, the sight of one is pretty horrifying—like seeing a dragon or Bigfoot.
An explosion rips through the night. It flares up, black smoke billowing around it as a sound like thunder cracks through the still air. As quickly as it appeared, it’s gone, leaving my eyes momentarily stunned. Another explosion follows that one, then another. There’s shouting from inside the stadium. I hear cries of terror, some sounding like children. The foreign sound of a baby crying wafts over the walls and blends with the cracks and bangs of Crenshaw’s magic.
Men and women shout muffled commands. We hear them in the momentary return to silence as Crenshaw and his crew wait. They’re drawing the Colonists to them, then they’ll give the sig—
Boom!
There it is. Our commander doesn’t say a word. With the sound of the second round of explosions, he and another member of our team climb like monkeys up the tall fence. We hand up a heavy roll of the thickest fabric I’ve ever seen, which they toss across the layers of razor wire at the top of the fence. The heavy material weighs the metal coils down to make it easier for us to clear them while also keeping us relatively safe from the sharp edges just dying to slice us open.