“Stay here,” I said to Jenny as I started around the edge of the wall. “I’m going to go see if I can help.”
“Did you just meet me?”
“Jenny, if it wasn’t for me, this wouldn’t—”
She darted out into the darkness.
Right. Should have known. I shot out from behind the school as a volley of gunfire erupted from the crest of the hill, lighting the playground in flashes of yellow and orange. I ducked my head and ran, passing within feet of the swing sets.
A voice called out from my left. “Stephen, over here!”
It was Violet, kneeling down among a group of ten or more people.
“Violet, I have to get to—”
“Later.” She pushed a flashlight into my hand and pulled me down next to her. “Shine that here.”
I looked up the hill, searching for Jenny. “Now, Stephen!”
I flicked the light on, shining it down onto someone on the ground. As soon as I did, my hand shook.
All I saw was blood, shockingly red against the white of the snow.
“Steady,” Violet said.
I didn’t know the man on the ground in front of me. He had been shot as many as three times. There was so much blood it was hard to tell where. He was unconscious. Violet leaned over him, probing a wound on his shoulder with a small pair of pliers until she pulled out a big piece of shrapnel. As soon as she did, blood welled up in the gash and coursed down his arm. I was sure I was going to be sick. Violet grabbed a towel off the ground next to her and pressed it deep into the man’s shoulder. My stomach turned again as the towel grew damp with red. I turned my head away. Others were laid out to Violet’s left, a line of wounded men, women, even kids my age. Some unconscious, some twisting and moaning.
“The soldiers didn’t expect us to fight. Neither did Caleb and his people. His family and a few others joined with the slavers. We let them chase us back here to get away from the houses and then we turned on them.”
I fumbled for a roll of bandage on the ground and handed it to her, still holding the flashlight on the figure in front of me. I got a better look at him. He was young, maybe even my age, wearing a dark T-shirt and jeans. He had fine features and his hair, where not matted and red with blood, was golden and flopped down over one eye.
Something inside of me went cold.
It was Will Henry.
“But… he’s with them,” I said. “With Caleb and the slavers. He—”
Violet gritted her teeth and yanked a bandage tight. “He’s dying, Stephen. It doesn’t matter what side he’s on.”
“Is he really going to…” I couldn’t finish. My throat had closed up.
“I don’t know,” Violet said. She wiped her hands on her jeans, then moved down the line. “I’ve got it from here.” She took the flashlight from my hand. Another volley of gunfire roared behind us and we ducked instinctively.
As Violet moved along the line of wounded, I wiped a splash of blood off Will’s cheek with the edge of my sleeve. For an awful moment I thought I would never be able to leave that spot. There was a time I probably would have claimed that I wanted Will Henry dead, but now, seeing him lying there pale and covered in blood, all I felt was emptiness, waste, and stupidity.
I pushed myself off the ground and ran up the hill, anger crashing through me. When I got to the crest I dropped down into the grass and peered over the edge. Out across the field, near second base, was the black shadow of the remaining jeep. A line of low swells in the grass stretched to the right and left of it. The soldiers and Caleb’s people, I suspected, dug into shallow pits.
Jackson was lying to my left, a rifle in his hands. Marcus and Sam were on the other side, their eyes steady on their rifle sights. There was another barrage and we all ducked our heads. Bullets whistled past inches from us.
“Where’s Jenny?” I asked.
“She said she was going back to town to help look after the little ones,” Marcus said.
Right, I thought, looking all around trying to find some trace of her, but seeing nothing.
A roar of machine-gun fire rose from up ahead and was answered with shots from the line to either side of me. The bullets slammed into the ground between the two sides, kicking up a fog of snow but doing no damage.
My mind raced. When I was little, Grandpa would sit me down almost weekly for one of his endless lectures on military tactics. I’d humored him, barely paying attention, but I struggled now to bring some of it back. Marcus had numbers, but the slavers were so well armed it more than evened things out. I scanned the snowfield and surrounding trees ahead, looking for a way out. Suddenly something fell into place.
“You’re pinned down,” I said. I could almost hear Grandpa’s voice in my head. “You need a smaller group to go out into the trees, around to their flank, and distract them so the main force can move in.”
“I can’t spare anyone to—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “When the flanking group attacks, the soldiers will be distracted. That’s when the rest of the line has to get up and rush them. It’s the only way.”
“Wait, where are you going?” Marcus yelled. “Stephen!”
But I was already on my way, hurtling down their line toward the woods, staying as low as I could. There was no time to worry about where Jenny had gone. It was best we were apart, given what I had planned.
As soon as the soldiers noticed my movement, they let go with a hail of bullets that Marcus and the others quickly answered. The mud and snow made it tough going, but I made it into the trees and out of sight. I thought I was home free until I heard someone running after me. I turned and there was Jackson, his rifle slung across his chest. “Jackson, go back!”
He ignored me and kept coming. I ran as fast as I could, putting some distance between us, but I could still hear him behind me, his footfalls mixing in with the gunfire and shouting. There was no time to try to turn him back. I prayed that I’d either lose him or, when he saw what I was planning to do, he’d turn back on his own.
I ran until I was sure I’d made it as far as the soldiers’ line out in the field, then jogged to my right. My heart sank when I saw who was waiting there.
“What are you—”
Jenny put her finger to her lips, then motioned me over next to her.
There were only a few thin ranks of trees between us and where the soldiers lay. It had gone quiet out in the field. The jeep was maybe fifty yards away, surrounded by about twenty men arranged in a half circle. One man stood at the back of the truck behind an armor plate, operating the swiveling machine gun and shouting orders. I could tell from the hulking outline that it was the man with the scar.
The underbrush behind us crunched. Someone coming. I slipped my knife out of its sheath and turned, but when the trees parted it was Jackson, rifle in hand.
“Oh great,” Jenny whispered. “The cavalry’s here.”
“What are you two —?”
We both shushed him and motioned for him to get down. “What are you doing here?” Jackson said, pulling close to us.
“Up and at ‘em,” Jenny said. “You in?”
“No,” I said sharply, then dropped my voice down to a whisper. “We’re not doing it. We’re going back and joining Marcus’s line.”
“That’s stupid, and you know it,” Jenny snapped.
“It’s not.”
“Then what did you even come here for? God, Stephen,” she said. “These people have more guns and more ammunition. They can just wait us out. I mean, think about it — the only reason they’re firing right now is so Marcus and them will waste ammo shooting back. Right? Am I right?”