The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) (17 page)

“That’s when one of the others Roman was fighting stabbed me. I killed the female I was fighting, but two of them got away.”

“And that’s why Roman was angry,” I finished.

He nodded. “Roman hates carriers. Did you know about his family?”

I shook my head. It was hard to imagine Roman as anything other than the surly lone wolf.
 

“Before the Collapse, Roman used to live in St. Louis with his mom and his little sister. His sister had special needs, and Roman worked all kinds of odd jobs to help out with the bills. One night, he came home to find a carrier ransacking his kitchen. There was a whole gang of them holed up in the apartment next door, but they were starving. They killed Roman’s mom and his little sister — all he had left in the world. Gone. Just like that.”

It all made sense now. I had seen the virus through my mother’s illness, but Roman had only experienced carriers as killers. They weren’t human to him. How could a human do something like that?

Amory sighed. “So now you know why he hates carriers so much.”

I nodded.
 

“And you know why he was so angry. I acted like an idiot. I shouldn’t have hesitated. I let one get to me, and that almost got me killed.”

“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” I said. “I don’t see compassion as a weakness. They were humans, too, once. They were someone’s family.”

“I didn’t want to do it,” he murmured.

“I know.”

“Do you think killing them makes us bad people?”

I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t stand the thought of my mom being shot just because she was infected, but I understood the danger better than anyone. “It’s not that simple.”

Amory looked at me, sensing there was something I wasn’t saying.

“My mom was infected,” I said.
 

He looked taken aback. “Shit. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

I shook my head. “I know. It’s fine, I just . . . I know I should see them as people, but I don’t anymore. Is that wrong?”
 

I broke off, wondering how much I should tell him. “In the end, my dad had to lock her up to keep her from killing him. He didn’t talk about it, but I know she changed toward the end. She wasn’t my mom anymore.”
 

My voice shook as I said what I had been too ashamed to think. “Maybe Roman . . . Maybe his way is kinder.”

Amory stared at me as if he were seeing me for the first time. We didn’t say anything, but the silence that passed between us was empathetic, not judgmental.

I felt exhausted but relieved at the same time. I had not realized the burden I had been carrying, and voicing aloud the thing that had plagued me for weeks felt liberating.
 

Saying it opened up a floodgate of new emotions: grief that my parents were gone, anger at the PMC for killing them, anger at my father for throwing away his life to preserve the life of someone who wasn’t really my mother anymore, and a horrible choking guilt that I was betraying my mom’s memory.
 

Guilt. I hadn’t felt the full weight of it until I let it go. It served no purpose; feeling it wouldn’t bring her back.
 

Amory was looking at me as if he understood. I didn’t know how he possibly could, but it was comforting just the same.

I cleared my throat, got up from the bed, and turned to go, but Amory caught my hand, pressing his thumb into my wrist. “Hey. Thanks, by the way.”

I didn’t really know what he was thanking me for — maybe helping him up the stairs. I should have thanked him. Telling someone about my mom had lifted an enormous, suffocating weight off my chest, but of course he couldn’t know that.

“It’s nothing,” I said with a shrug. “You would have done the same for me.”

He grinned. “I definitely would.”

I nodded and started to pull away, but he didn’t let go when he should have.

“Why, though?” he asked.

My thoughts screamed. I should have taken the time to form a more coherent response, but my words tumbled out before I had a chance to censor myself. “I just like you, I guess.”

I tried to distance myself from Amory after that night. He had seen right through me, and I liked him — I liked him a lot. But I couldn’t let myself be distracted. The rebels would arrive in a few days, and I needed to prepare myself as much as possible.

The main problem was that, since I only had a few days left on the farm, I didn’t have time to learn the skills the rest of them had been perfecting for months. I knew I wouldn’t be able to become a master marksman with just two weeks of training, but I didn’t want to run away with the rebels without being able to protect myself.
 

Logan agreed to teach me some basic hand-to-hand combat skills for self-defense. Before the Collapse, she had studied Krav Maga and mixed martial arts, and she had taught all the rest of them the basics of close-quarters combat.

We went out to the field in the morning. I was nervous, but Logan looked excited. Just like when she was shooting, anyone could see she was in her element. She was wearing slim-fitting black pants, combat boots, and a long-sleeve athletic shirt. Her long hair was pulled back in a fishtail braid, and her eyes were bright with anticipation.

“Why did you bring your gun?” I asked, staring down at the rifle in her hands with apprehension.
 

“The PMC aren’t going to go all kung fu master on you,” she said. “They’ll be armed, and you won’t have much of a chance to escape.”

She stepped to my side, pointing the gun at me.

“How am I supposed to defend myself against a rifle?”

“You get one chance,” she said. “You can’t hesitate. It has to be fast.”

I breathed deeply, trying not to think about the gun pointed at my heart. “That’s not loaded, right?” I asked.

She ignored me. “Put your hands up.”

I raised my hands like a hostage.

“Now, throw out your right hand.”

I reached over and around, the side of my hand making contact with the cold, smooth barrel. I pushed it over.

“Grab the handle.”

I did, and she snapped the gun back, training it on me again. I sighed. This was already proving to be just as difficult as Logan’s shooting lessons.

“Too slow,” she said. “And you forgot to grab it from the other end. You want to take it away.”

“You didn’t tell me —”

“It doesn’t matter,” she snapped. “You’ve gotta think.”

She raised the gun, and I moved back into position to try again. This time, I wrapped both my hands around the gun and pulled it away from her.

“You finish him off with a kick to the groin.”

I looked at her in disbelief, but her expression was serious — a complete poker face. I drew back my leg and feigned a kick below the belt, stepped backward, and held the gun on her.

“That was good,” she said. “But it’s got to be faster. Like this.”

I wasn’t prepared for what happened next.
 

She knocked the rifle sideways in my hands, grabbed it, and aimed a kick at me. I was ready for the fake kick, but the heel of her boot caught me in the stomach, and I fell backward with a grunt. Logan stood over me, pointing the rifle at my face.

I lay on the ground, curled up and writhing with pain. I’d never been beaten up before, unless you counted the carrier attack. I wasn’t prepared for the pain.

“What — the — hell?” I gasped.

“Get back up!” she yelled. “The PMC won’t hesitate to hurt you.”

I scrambled to my feet, still doubled over. Logan grabbed my wrist tightly. I pulled away.

“No!” she said. “They’re bigger than you. Do you really think you can win that way?”

I stopped.

“Step in and use the strength of your whole body.”

She showed me how to bend my arm into a triangle and use my back and hips to wind up and strike the attacker with my elbow.

“Now you finish them with a swing to the side of the head.”

We ran through that move several dozen times, Logan constantly adding in new variables. It got to the point where the moves were muscle memory, but I was always a step behind. Just when I seemed to get something, she added something new and berated me for letting my guard down.

After my third kick to the stomach, I felt the hot tears welling up in my eyes. I felt ridiculous, like a bawling baby who’d fallen down, but there was no stopping them. It was awful taking a beating when you were trying to learn.
 

“What is your problem?” I yelled from the ground.
 

“I’m trying to help you. We don’t have much time, and the PMC officers have had training.”

“I asked you to teach me,” I stammered between labored, teary breaths. “I’m — not —
learning
anything.”

She sighed, holding out her hand to help me up. Just as I got to my feet, she shifted her grip to my wrist, and I instinctively stepped into her and knocked her on the side of the head with my bent elbow — hard.

I felt a pang of guilt ripple through my stomach, but I was also secretly satisfied.

Logan rubbed her head where I’d struck her. “Yes, you have.”
 

She grinned, and I had the off-putting feeling — not for the first time — that Logan was not like the rest of us.

The night before the rebels were scheduled to arrive, Ida told Max to prepare a special dinner. I knew Max had been scrounging together some ingredients from the cellar and Logan’s private stash of herbs to make a roasted turkey with stuffing, but instead, he decided to make everyone’s favorites: eggplant parmesan for Logan, mashed potatoes for me, lasagna for Amory, rhubarb pie for Ida, and even extra-toasty grilled cheese for Roman.
 

I felt a wave of anxiousness and desperate sadness wash over me as I sat down at the table. If the rebels came, I would be leaving soon. This was what I had been waiting for: my chance to get to Sector X and rescue Greyson. But leaving the farm also meant leaving the people who had opened their home and made me feel safe. It felt like leaving family.

Ida blew into the room, skirts billowing around her, and sat down heavily at the head of the table. She looked uncharacteristically grave, angry even. Silence fell all around the table.

“I hate to do this,” she said. “I hate to cast a shadow on Haven’s farewell supper. But I received some upsetting news today.”

We all held our breath, and possibilities raced through my mind. Had we been discovered by the PMC?
 

“While being documented has its advantages, it has made my situation here precarious at best. I’ve known for a while I would be asked to migrate north with the rest of the students at the end of the semester.”
 

My heart sank. She was leaving us.

“However, I received notice today that the PMC will be handing over the management of the farm to World Corp International to combat the food shortage.”

A chilling silence hung in the air. Finally, Roman spoke.

“That’s bullshit! The government can’t just hand over your land.”

Logan sighed. “With the mandate, legally they can.”

“Legally? There’s nothing ‘legal’ about this totalitarianism! The law is whatever they want it to be.”

“Where will we go?” Max asked.

“They’ve given me some time to . . . get my affairs in order,” said Ida. “I will make arrangements for all of you at the nearest safe houses. Temporary solutions, of course, but no one is being turned out in the cold.” Her voice faltered. “I . . . don’t want you to think I’m turning my back on you. You kids are my family.”

“I’m sorry they’re doing this,” I said.
 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Amory broke in. “The food they produce will be trucked out east to the PMC bases and prisons, but we don’t have the fuel for that.”

“They’re not acquiring the farm so they can grow food,” snarled Roman. “That’s just their cover. It’s probably going to be another base or a warheads manufacturing plant.”

“Warheads?”

I was confused. The pushback from the Canadian federal government had been stifled months ago.

“The United States is on its own,” said Roman, as though it were obvious. “No fuel, not enough food . . . no other country wants to align itself with a sinking ship.” His words fell heavy across the table. “The PMC is preparing for the next World War.”

We all fell silent. Nobody ate much of Max’s celebratory dinner spread. Even Ida’s rhubarb pie went untouched. I knew I should fill my belly with as many nutrients as possible since I would soon be traveling again — and would likely be short on food — but I couldn’t bring myself to feast happily knowing that everything I loved about the farm would soon be destroyed by the same monsters who ran me out of my city.

After dinner, I dragged my weary body up the stairs to take a bath before the others came up to bed. The rebels were scheduled to arrive early the next morning, and Ida had pulled everyone off carrier watch so we would be well rested.

The freezing cold water lapped at my hand as it poured into the bathtub. Normally on a cold night like this, I just took a quick dip in the tub, rinsed my hair, and soaped my underarms and feet. But I knew tonight could be one of my last chances for a real bath, so I shivered through a proper scrubbing and even gave Logan’s homemade shampoo bar a try.

By the time I dried myself and drained the tub, my legs were covered in goose bumps and my teeth were chattering like a cartoon. The candle on the sink was burning low in its dish, so I wrapped myself in one of Ida’s thick towels and scooped up my dirty clothes.

I nipped up the stairs quickly, hoping Max wouldn’t poke his head out of his room wanting to chitchat. Passing the rooms on the first landing without incident, I quickened my pace on the tiny staircase that led up to my room and nearly collided with Amory.

His hair was mussed and his eyes were ringed with purple shadows, but he looked handsome in an off-putting way. He blinked several times, covertly taking in the sight of me shivering in my now too-small towel.

“Sorry.” I clutched the towel tighter, feeling self-conscious.
 

“Oh, no,” he said, averting his eyes. “I was looking for you, actually.”