The past three days had been constant travel, looping around the mountains, trying to avoid the rush of Apostles and leeches in the area. She’d never seen anything like it before, and on several occasions, she had to press her way to safety.
“Please, I have nowhere else to go, no one else to ask for help,” Carlee said. “I saved your leader once and helped to save your village. All I ask is for the chance to speak with Heather.”
It was the truth. She didn’t know where else to go. Jeff had only been partly conscious for a few minutes, and all he had done was mumble something about Darwin and forgiveness. She had activated Darwin’s device, hoping that Darwin could help her out of the situation like it had promised, but it never responded. Even now it paged the Apostle, but Darwin didn’t come.
This was the first settlement she had found that was still intact. The explosion had leveled several she had visited years ago, and leeches had destroyed the larger settlements nearby. It was the worst destruction of human communities that she had seen in years, far more than typical. She had the feeling that the Apostle retaliation was just starting, but she couldn’t focus on that yet.
She needed a place to leave Jeff, so they could both get some rest. She couldn’t press; as soon as she did—even something as small as a pain pill—she would get alerts of incoming enemies. The Apostles were hunting the vagrants like never before. There wasn’t a secure way to call Stefani because the Apostles could decipher or decrypt even the most secure message. She would need to find the other vagrants in person, and she couldn’t do that while dragging Jeff along with her.
But unlike Stefani, she believed in the goodness of people. No matter how many times they had chased her away, spit on her, or cursed her name for trying to help them, she believed that when the time came, humanity would respond. And she needed that time to be now.
“I’m right here,” a woman’s voice said. She appeared from behind a tree, holding an old rifle with a mismatched scope on top of it. Carlee hardly recognized the woman; she looked vastly different from the last time Carlee had seen her lying on what would have been her deathbed.
“Heather, thank God. My name is Carlee . . . I’m a vagrant. My companions and I were here a few months ago. You were sick and—”
“You saved my life,” Heather said. “I remember you, believe it or not. I also hear that you destroyed half our village. Or is it you who saved what was left of it?”
“I need your help. I need a place to rest and to keep my companion while I find my friends.”
“Why would we help a vagrant?”
“Because I need help. Because we’re both humans. Because I promise you that I won’t do anything to bring trouble to your people.”
“People will call me a fool for trusting a vagrant.”
“I’d rather be a kind fool than a heartless survivor,” Carlee said.
Heather looked skeptical as she stepped in closer, examining Carlee at an uncomfortably close range before she turned her attention to the medical enclosure that kept Jeff alive. It had been a significant asset to press into this reality, but Carlee didn’t have any other option. He had been more dead than alive by the time she was able to treat him.
“What happened to your man?” Heather asked.
“He . . .” Carlee kept herself from spinning the story in a more favorable light. She was asking for these people to shelter them and to watch over Jeff while she found the other vagrants; they deserved the truth. “The explosion in the sky, I assume you saw it . . . that was his doing. With the help of Darwin, er, an Apostle, he destroyed the mine where the Apostles get temurim, the stuff they make their brains from.”
“You know Darwin?” Heather asked. “So, he finally found you.”
“You know Darwin?”
“He came to our village not long after you left the first time. Told us to call him if we needed help or if we came across vagrants again. To be honest, we’ve already activated the device to call him. He may be on his way already.”
Carlee picked up the small device from the side of the medical carrier and showed it to Heather.
“It found us too,” Carlee said. “I activated this two days ago. I fear that Darwin is dead.”
“An Apostle, dead?” Heather scoffed at the suggestion. “They don’t die of the sniffles. I’m sure he’ll be around soon. We all just about wet ourselves when he landed. We were sure he had come to kill us for letting you folks in the last time. But he taught us the truth—that you were our friends and that we kicked you out for no reason after you saved us. It’s been bothering me ever since.”
“So, you’ll help us?” Carlee asked. The question sapped the rest of her strength. If Heather said no, she would sink to the ground where she was and try to cry herself to sleep.
“Of course, I owe you my life. We all owe you our lives.”
Stefani jumped off the transport that they had referred to as the fortress before it had even come to a stop. Carlee had slept for sixteen hours straight before flying for half a day to find Stefani.
There hadn’t been any rest after that; Stefani had ordered the fortress in the desired direction before the words had even left Carlee’s mouth. Carlee had recounted the story of where she had found his broken body and how she had traveled with him to the village a dozen times. Every time, Stefani had asked for more details. In response, Carlee hid only the most brutal ones.
Honestly, to Carlee, how involved Stefani was in the situation was a mix of romantic, heartbreaking, and comical. She didn’t know how, but Jeff had pressed his way into the warrior woman’s heart. Stefani had always been stronger and tougher than Carlee. But Jeff had managed to change her somehow. It was hard to believe, and Carlee just hoped that if Jeff recovered, he was as dedicated to her as she was to him.
“All right, everyone, wait here,” Ross said. “Until we get the signal from Coach.”
The young man had done a remarkable job of claiming seniority over the other new recruits even though he was younger and had only been a vagrant for a few hours longer than them.
“I told you not to call me that,” Carlee said as she walked down the steps of the fortress.
“Sure thing, Coach. Won’t happen again.”
Carlee laughed as a village guard tried to stop Stefani but shortly realized how impossible that task would be. Jeff was alive. The impression drifted to her from another reality, and she smiled. Stefani would be happy, and Carlee would have the chance to kill Jeff for what he had done without her permission.
“You’re back sooner than I thought . . . and . . . with quite the ride,” Heather said.
“We hope to take a more active role in rebuilding humanity from now on, and we needed some room to grow.”
Heather eyed the fortress, but she didn’t comment on it further. It was an intimidating transport. It was the biggest thing Carlee had ever pressed, and it had almost reunited her with Bobby for good.
“Jeff is stable,” Heather reported. “No changes since you left.”
It wasn’t the best news, but it would do for now. If he had survived this long, Carlee assumed he would eventually pull through—especially if she were able to press in more advanced medicine in the future. Stable wasn’t dead, and that’s what mattered.
“Thank you for caring for him while I was away. I appreciate it. We owe you a debt.”
“Nonsense,” Heather said. “But I have other news for you. News that I don’t quite understand.”
“What is it?”
“The beacons we activated . . . they brought something here, a leech of some kind. It just floats next to Jeff’s chamber. It doesn’t do anything, though. I’m not sure what it means.”