She’s the Incredible Hulk.
***
Alvarez wasn’t kidding—this Pod is completely different.
The Colony up north is nice compared to how I live, how Ryan lives, and definitely how the stadiums live: it’s clean, there’s power, it’s not overly crowded. But this… this is different.
I can’t say I like it more, even though I get why a lot of people would. Especially the people living in the stadiums. Show this place to them and they won’t be cowering anymore. They’ll be ready to fight. Some would probably be ready to kill.
I can see it through Trent’s binoculars where it sits across the water. The peninsula reaches out and juts north to run parallel with the shore road we took to get here. We did it so openly it makes me nervous. I’m still getting used to being seen by a few people in the same room as me. Parading around for hundreds of people to see? That’s disturbing.
We rolled down the street right up against the bay, showing them that we were coming. They can see the majority of us, they can see the trebuchet. They’re watching us set up shop dangerously close to their gates at the entrance to their Pod and I take a little satisfaction in watching them scurry and scramble. They’re freaked and it shows.
There’s an outer fence beside the gate—one nearly identical to the fence I climbed to get into the stadiums, razor wire and all. After that there’s a gate that connects to a wall. They’ve built a decent perimeter around the island. Alvarez said there are houses all over the place along with a warehouse, but I can’t see much other than trees and the odd patch of roof peeking through.
“Why don’t the Vashons have a wall like that?” I muse.
“They’re in deeper water. It’s a natural barrier against the zombies,” Trent replies instantly. “They’re also on an island. This is a peninsula. There’s land access to block.”
“That makes sense.”
“Also they’re paranoid nutjobs.”
I chuckle, sneaking a glance at him. He’s smiling.
“How long do you think we have before our shadows get here?” I ask, gesturing over my shoulder.
Trent studies the crowd of monsters making their way steadily toward us. I imagine he’s using the feel of the wind, the direction of the sun, the height of the building—all of it together in his massive brain to come to a scary accurate prediction.
He shrugs. “Eventually.”
“That’s it?” I asked, surprised by the simplicity.
“Assuming they don’t get distracted, yeah. They’ll be here when they get here.”
“Distracted as in get ahold of the Vashons leading them and stop to eat?”
“Yes. Meaning that.”
“That’s pretty vague.”
“If you want a more accurate ETA, you’ll have to go ask the zombies.”
I scrunch my up my nose with distaste. “Pass.”
Instead of running to my doom, I lean over the edge of the building to see around two hundred worker bees moving in the streets below me. Alvarez has ordered almost everyone to build barricades in the streets near our camp. Old cars, old furniture scrounged from inside homes, random debris from the streets—it’s nothing like the barricades the MOHAI had built up to keep the zombies in, but it should be enough to keep any stragglers from getting lost along the way to the Colony’s gate.
None of us will be going anywhere near it. Well, no one but the unlucky few who have to guide the zombies there. The rest of us are either coming in underground with the cannibals, creating diversions to confuse and distract, or hanging back with the trebuchet to help Crenshaw cast his spells. The cannibal crew will come up inside the walls, place more explosives to weaken them from the inside, then run like hell back to the tunnels and back to base. From there, we’ll sit back and let the zombies do the dirty work, flushing people out of the bombed-out Colony and running panicked into the night. Then it’s ours. Easy.
It sounds like a brilliant plan on paper, but something about it doesn’t sit right in my gut. I have an anxious, sick feeling that just won’t go away.
“Do you see the docks?”
“No,” I mumble, searching the shoreline.
“That’s because there aren’t any on this side. They must have their docks on the other side, the one closest to Mercer Island.”
I lower the binoculars sharply. “Then why did you ask me if I saw them from here?”
“I was testing you.”
“Testing me on what? Whether or not I know what a dock is?”
“You didn’t know where Tokyo was.”
I roll my eyes, lifting the binoculars again. “Let it go.”
“I’m looking for a baseline on your knowledge. I’ll know from there where to start with your education.”
“Dude, that was a joke. You’re not actually teaching me.”
“Why don’t you want to know things?” he asks, sounding disappointed.
“I do know things,” I snap.
“Why don’t you want to know more things? You should always be looking to learn. That’s why I read.”
“He is right, Athena.”
Crenshaw. He snuck up behind us with his crazy light tread, but I wonder if Trent didn’t hear him coming.
I lower the binoculars again but stow the sigh building in my throat. “He’s always right.”
Cren comes to stand beside me and take in the sights. The view is actually really pretty with the setting sun glistening off the water that’s rolling gently in and out against the sandy shore. It’d be beautiful, maybe even peaceful, if you only removed the slavers shouting from inside their walls.
“Are there inconsistencies in your education?”
“Glaring ones,” Trent confirms.
I smack his arm. “Not glaring ones. I’m not dumb.”
“A lack of knowledge does not indicate meager intelligence,” Crenshaw scolds. “I have no doubt of your capacity to absorb knowledge, child. You need only to be presented with it. If the boy has offered it to you freely, you’d be a fool to deny it.”
“You just told me I’m not dumb but then you called me a fool in the same breath. You see that, right?”
“I said you would be a fool to deny it.” Crenshaw looks over my head at Trent. “Perhaps English should be your first lesson.”
“I speak English!”
“Yet you do not always comprehend it.”
“Did you come up here to be mean to me?”
Cren looks perplexed. “Who is being mean to you?”
“She’s very sensitive,” Trent comments, jumping up to sit on the wall going around the edge of the roof.
He’s precise as a cat on Ritalin, but the move still makes me sweat.
“I’m sensitive because you guys are mean to me. I’m too fat, I’m too skinny, I’m rude, I’m a fool. Lay off me.”
“I did not seek you out to be cruel to you,” Crenshaw says, his tone softening. “I came to speak to you about something very important. Something regarding the Hornet. I wish—”
“Cren, you don’t have to worry about him,” I say quickly, knowing where this is going. I’m headed toward a lecture about the company I keep. “He’s not Hive anymore. He was, he was very deep in it, but he’s not now. He’s not a good guy, but he’s not a devil. I promise.”
He doesn’t answer me. When I turn to look up at him, he’s looking at me heavily.
“Perhaps your first lesson should not be English, but rather social etiquette.”
Uh oh.
“That’s probably a good idea,” I reply slowly. Cautiously.
“You have a very bad habit of interrupting. And assuming. You would do well to listen a little more and speak a little less.”
“Okay,” I mumble, looking away. I have been sufficiently shamed.
Again, he doesn’t respond. Seconds slip by and I begin to understand that we’re all waiting on me. Reluctantly, I look up at him.
He quirks a waiting eyebrow.
No, I think glumly, this is the shaming.