“And once one is down, the others have to fall quickly behind it like dominoes,” Ryan reminds us. “We can’t give them time to call for help from the other Colonies.”
“Wherever the others are. No one knows.”
“We do,” Elijah says simply.
I blink, surprised. “You know where the other Colonies are?”
“We know where one is. The one in the south, near the shore. They have boats there that they use regularly. We assume there’s another Colony across the water, but we don’t know exactly where.”
“How many are there?” I whisper to myself, starting to feel hopeless.
“There’s the one in the north where you were held,” Ryan says, counting, “the two stadiums, one in the south, and now one across the water. So five.”
“That we know of.”
“Yeah.”
I start to panic a little inside. When all of this started I never intended to get involved beyond fulfilling my promise to the people in the MOHAI: I’d bring them help if I could and I’d get them free. From there I figured it would be between them and The Hive what happened next. I never planned on being part of it—the Colonies were their problem—but the deeper I sink into this mess, the more I see that the Colonies are everyone’s problem: the Hive’s, the Vashons’, the cannibals’, the Hyperions’ Crenshaw’s—even mine. Very, very much mine.
So now here I am amassing an army of my enemies, exposing myself to all of the people I’ve lived in fear of for the larger part of my life, and I’m talking about taking down more Colonies than I ever knew existed. This is insane. It’s impossible.
“We’ll need more people,” Trent says quietly. He’s still reclining, comfy and at ease, but his eyes are piercing. “We’ll need to talk to the others in the Hyperion to see if we can recruit more bodies. We’ll need to visit other gangs as well. The Elevens. The Pikes. You,” he says, looking directly at Andy, “will need to blow your cover. Start shopping for help.”
Andy stares back at him impassively. There’s a tension passing between them, one that I don’t understand but I’m pretty freaked out by. The way Trent is eyeing Andy… it makes me happy Trent likes me.
“This is what I was planted for,” Andy finally agrees. “I have some connections I can tap into. There are always people unhappy with the status quo.”
“They’re going to need to be pretty angry if we want them to go against The Hive,” Ryan warns him.
Andy grins knowingly. “Oh, they’re a very angry bunch. Trust me.”
I don’t. I don’t trust this guy that has probably sat at a table full of Hive members just like he’s sitting with us now, smiled that same smile, and spoken those same words. He’s a traitor, and it doesn’t matter if he’s betraying the trust of a man I hate or not—he’s still willing to look people in the face and lie to them about absolutely everything. I don’t trust your average person even on a basic level, so this guy is setting off all kinds of alarms inside me.
“How many people can you rally to make a move on the northern Colony?” Ryan asks Elijah.
“At least twenty men and women from our guard.”
“It’s not much.”
“It’s more than none at all,” he says, carefully reminding us just how many people we’ve successfully recruited from The Hive and Vashon Island.
Ryan nods in silent, grudging agreement.
Elijah stands suddenly, gesturing for the rest of us to do the same. We do, though I’m not sure why, and the ease with which he commands the room bothers me. He leads Trent, Ryan, Andy, and I down one of their dark, strange hallways to the room where we first met him. Large white tubes have been brought in and propped up against the far wall. He and Andy immediately begin examining their tops.
“Do we have that area?” I hear Elijah mutter thoughtfully.
“We have everything,” Andy answers confidently. He looks over his shoulder at me. “Where exactly up north is the Colony you were in?”
“On the shore. In the old MOHAI building. It was a museum. The Museum of—”
“History and Industry. Yeah, I know. Here it is.”
He pops the cap on one of the tubes and pulls out a large scroll of paper. When he spreads it out on the table, the faded blue paper a mess of white writing that makes me dizzy, I nearly gag. More maps. It makes me think of Captain Hook and his whorehouse. It makes me oddly angry.
“This is a map of the sewer systems and storm tunnels,” Elijah explains. “We have street maps too, but the best route for making a move against the Colony is by the underground. They’ll never see it coming.”
“That area is swarming with zombies,” I warn.
“Yes, everywhere is lately.”
“Not like up there. They have barricades to lock most of them in as a natural defense.”
Elijah looks at me pointedly. “We can handle the Risen.”
I nod silently but inside I’m thinking he’s using a Colony word. Is he like me and it became part of his vocabulary as he adjusted to this life? He’s old enough to know where that word started, but does he remember?
Or is he like Andy? Is he playing both sides?
“We’ll move on the smallest Colony immediately,” he says.
“How soon is immediately?” Ryan asks.
“Tomorrow night.”
“No,” I say firmly.
He looks up at me with a mix of surprise and annoyance. “And why not?”
“Because it’s impossible. Because we don’t have a solid plan yet. Because we don’t know how many people we’ll be able to gather from the gangs.” I look him hard in the eye. “Because I don’t know you. I don’t trust you. I don’t want to make deals with and fight alongside vicious, rabid animals.”
Andy snaps up, his posture going rigidly straight. I ignore him. He worries me, but not right now. Not when I’ve got Ryan and Trent beside me. I’m still afraid—I should probably watch my back when I think I’m alone—but I don’t feel vulnerable right now. It’s a heady drug knowing the Boys have my back.
“You don’t know a damn thing about us,” Andy seethes.
“Lucky me.”
“We don’t need her,” he tells Elijah. “We know where the northern Colony is now. Get her out of here.”
I grin at him. “All you gotta do is show me the door.”
“Right this way.”
“Stop, both of you,” Elijah barks impatiently. “Andy, we need her because the location of the Colony isn’t enough. She’s connected to them. They know her. They won’t work with us—they’re terrified of us—but they’ll follow her.”
“She’s nothing but a mouthy brat. She’ll get people killed. Our people.”
“And you’ll have dinner for a week,” I tell him with disgust. “What are you complaining about?”
He shakes his head, his mouth a tight line of compressed anger. “Get her out,” he snarls. “Get her out of my sight.”
“She stays,” Elijah tells him, his voice quiet yet firm. “But I’ll make a deal with you.”
“I get to kill her when it’s over?”
I smirk at Andy even though my stomach is a tight knot of dread. I feel Ryan and Trent close ranks around me. It’s a half step each but it’s a warning—one I really hope Andy heeds.
“No,” Elijah tells him. Then he looks at me and I see the anger Andy is so openly expressing buried deep inside this small man. The firelight is in his eyes where it burns hot, livid, and…happy? He smiles faintly. “You get to educate her.”
Chapter Four
My education is a true learning experience—I’m sitting at a desk and everything. It’s a reminder of something I barely got to experience back in life pre-apocalyptic wasteland, and if this is anything like the real deal, I’m not sorry I missed out on most of school.
Trent and Ryan sit on either side of me. They’re also in old, broken down school desks that were probably jacked from an abandoned elementary school because they’re about three sizes too small for all of us. The room we’re in is a legit classroom with a blackboard, chalk, a tattered world map, the alphabet and numbers counting up to one hundred painted in brilliant colors on the plain walls. And bones. There are bones, clean and shockingly white, stacked up neatly in a corner underneath a chart with a picture of the human skeleton. Beside that is a very beautiful painting of a bunny in a meadow.