The Defectors (Defectors Trilogy) (37 page)

“We were all ambushed. Consider it an initiation.”

“You bastard,” I said, venom creeping into my voice. “Max was shot! Amory was captured!” I was yelling, unable to control the rage bursting forth in my chest. “They’ll probably kill him, too . . . or lock him up in prison to torture him for information!”

“Hey!” he barked. “We lost a lot of our people today, too. But they didn’t kill the Elwood boy. ”

My heart lurched. I couldn’t trust Godfrey — couldn’t trust his information — but I had to figure out what he meant.

“How could you possibly know that?” I spat.

“That last tank in the convoy . . . that was Captain Elwood’s vehicle.”

I stared.
What is Amory’s father doing here?
 

“Guess they had to call in reinforcements. Those new recruits are pretty green, but they’ll keep us busy for a while.”

I wanted to believe Godfrey, but I couldn’t let myself hope that Amory might be alive. I couldn’t stand the disappointment if he wasn’t.

“We have to go back,” I said. “If there’s any chance he’s still alive —”

“Now, hang on,” said Godfrey. “I might be able to help with that.”

I stared in disbelief. “How can we trust you now?”

“Looks like you don’t have much of a choice. You need my help either way, or you’ll freeze to death out here in those wet clothes.”

Greyson and I exchanged looks. His face mirrored my murderous expression.

I felt a wave of debilitating cold rattle my body. We had no other choice.
 

Reluctantly, we allowed Godfrey to lead us into the woods to a small clearing, where he had built a fire. We crowded around it instantly, unable to forget his betrayal but momentarily distracted by the warmth that spread from our fingertips to our cores.

I was still shaking uncontrollably, but I felt my desperate, gasping breaths return to normal, and my heart rate slowed.
 

“You setting up camp here?” I asked.

“Nah, we have an emergency rendezvous point about a mile out. We’ll move on soon enough to join the other survivors. You all need to get out of those wet clothes.”

Other survivors.
It didn’t feel like we had survived. Our party of three seemed so small considering there should have been six of us. Now that I was no longer occupied by the threat of imminent death, a sinking feeling of sadness, guilt, and hopelessness rolled over me.
 

Max.
 

How could Max be
gone
? I felt as if his laughter still wasn’t far behind me, but the image of the PMC filling his chest with bullets was too real and horrible to have been a dream. I carried that image with me, just as I would carry all the things I should have said to stop Amory from throwing me over that guardrail.

But what? What could I have said or done to make it different? If anything, we both would have been captured by the PMC. While that was hardly a better outcome, at least I would be with him.
 

Then again, maybe not. His father might save him, but the PMC had no use for me.

I didn’t know how I would face Amory now if we ever managed to rescue him. It was my fault we were in the city in the first place. Greyson, as it turned out, never needed rescuing.

As we sat there drying ourselves by the fire, I ran through every scenario in my mind that could have ended things differently. Maybe we would have made it if we had stayed in hiding in the city while the fighting died down. There were too many “what ifs” running through my mind.

I glanced at Logan. Tears streamed silently down her face as she stared into the fire.
How could she ever forgive me for Max’s death?
How was it fair that he was gone right on the cusp of their romance? They never even got to say goodbye. It seemed so long ago that he was cooking us dinner at Ida’s.

Greyson scooted over closer and put an arm around my shoulders. It was a simple act chock-full of meaning. For some people, it was an easy gesture. But coming from Greyson, who didn’t hug or give affection easily, it was the ultimate sign of solidarity and comfort. I leaned into him and breathed his familiar scent: clean laundry and summer days. I didn’t know how he still smelled that way after weeks of PMC imprisonment, but it was just Greyson. Maybe I was imagining it.

For a moment, it was as though we were kids again and he was telling me everything would be fine. Except now, we knew everything
wouldn’t
be fine. In a way, that kind of hopelessness made it even more meaningful.

“We’ll get him back,” he murmured.
 

I shook my head slightly, even though I wanted it to be true. “I don’t know how.”
 

My voice broke. It sounded dead and hollow.

“You got me back, didn’t you? One way or another . . .”

I wanted him to stop talking.
 

Of course I wanted to save Amory, but it seemed ugly and insensitive to talk about getting him back next to Logan. She would never
have Max back. She loved Amory, too, but not the way she loved Max. Getting Amory back wouldn’t undo her loss, and that was something I would have to live with.

“Come on, you three,” Godfrey barked, picking up his rucksack and kicking a log on the edge of the fire. It smothered the flames, and he stomped on the smoking embers to crush out the rest of the fire.

I looked around for my belongings and then remembered that my rifle was at the bottom of the river. The holster with my weapons was stolen by the rebels, and the rucksack I’d left Ida’s with was still in the back of the truck. Everything else I owned in the world was probably lost for good. I had nothing left to carry.

Not knowing what lay ahead but not knowing what else to do, we followed Godfrey into the woods, leaving the silver slivers of the city skyscrapers behind us.
 

There was no way of knowing what he was leading us to — a rebel camp or another trap — but I greeted the possibilities with grim resolve. There was no time left to consider our options. The only way we could go was forward into the unknown.

As we walked, something clicked into place, and I found my mind was made up. The solution came so quickly and clearly that I knew it had been there from the very beginning.
 

It came to me the way any solution does when your judgment has been bogged down by too much emotion and careful reason. I was done with reason because
reason
no longer had anything to do with the way the world worked.
 

There was only one way to get Amory back: I would have to join the fight against the PMC, and I would have to do it as a rebel. I was joining the resistance.

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