The Last Revenant (Book 1): The Crash (32 page)

I lost myself in the sensations and couldn't help but let out a stupid grin as he turned us around and plopped me onto the table in front of him. I pressed into him with the inside of my thighs and he got to work on unbuttoning my shirt. I closed my eyes and relished the feeling of the warmth from his breath on my neck as he grabbed and kissed my skin. It was mesmerizing to just give in to the desire and let it happen, but even then I should have known that it would have to come to an end.

A distant argument immediately grew louder until it crashed into our tent, only to instantly cut itself off with a new-found discovery. “Jesus, Jeremy!”

I recognized the accent and turned around to see Isabel, Jeremy pulling himself off of me so that I could jump off and re-button my shirt in an embarrassing flurry.

He tried to buy us some time. “Hey—can you give us a minute?”

“Yeah,” Isabel retorted. “You got seven-hundred-twenty minutes... like it'll even goddamn matter.”

What?

She put a hand up to her face and tried to avert her gaze, but her demeanor quickly betrayed the importance of the matter while Olivia stepped inside a split second later. “You were right... That bitch fucked us over—we are so FUCKED!”

I glanced at Olivia to see she didn't know what was going on either, though it was quickly becoming obvious that the smart, pretty blonde that I had been jealous of was having a full on meltdown.

Jeremy's brow collapsed down over his eyes. “What are you talking about?” He got closer as Isabel continued to babble historically and he put his hands on her shoulders. “Izz—Hey. Slow down. Take it easy. Breathe. Look at me... And breathe.”

She did as she was told and managed to calm down enough for Jeremy to continue.

“What's going on?”

I took a step closer to see glassy eyes and she lifted her familiar notebook up, the pages bent and ruffled at odd angles.

“I did the math. I triple checked the numbers. You were right.” She sniffled and pushed the next bit out with new dread. “We never had the gas to make it out. She lied to us. They're not coming back to pick us up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hayes left us! She took everything and they're all gone!” She pushed him back by the chest and slowly shook her head, the despair steadily creeping along the timbre of her voice.  “They're not coming back...”

Jeremy struggled to cope. I could see the clockwork behind his head catch and tear itself up as he stumbled along to process the information. In the end, the only response he could muster up was one made of denial. “Someone must have screwed up or something...”

Isabel flashed to anger. “You saw me do the inventory myself!” She tried punching him in the chest and Olivia quickly got in the way.

“Hold on a second.” She carefully pushed Isabel back towards a corner but ultimately gave her space, holding up her empty palms to either side. “Isabel, hold on. Nobody's saying that you're lying, but we need to think this through. I've worked with Hayes before. She wouldn't just leave everyone behind.”

“No...” Isabel shook her head, her tears still fresh on rosy cheeks. She wiped them off to redouble her efforts. “Not everyone... just Florence and Arrino.”

Jeremy took a step forward. “Yeah, she told us we got picked last. If they run out of time—”

“No, you don't get it!”

Olivia held her back again. “Then explain it to us.”

Isabel forced another breath and brought her papers up. “Hayes already took every bus that we have, but I ran the numbers. For every group that they come back for, they have to use at least three times as much gas. Even if we measured everything wrong—even if they were carrying extra tanks that we didn't know about—it's physically
impossible
for them to be carrying enough fuel to bring everyone back. There's not a
chance
we're gonna get left behind. It's
going to happen
. They can't come back for us.” She dropped her arms and gave up to the realization. “She lied.”

Nobody said anything for a moment. I didn't even believe it, myself. “Where is she?”

Isabel shook her head, the point already mute. “Gone. The first group just left.”

Jeremy edged towards the entrance and shirked away from Olivia's grasp when she reached out for him.

“Where are you going?”

“I have to talk to her.” He walked out without bothering to add anything else and Olivia made way to follow only after prompting me to stay put.

“Stay here, Tess”

I took one look at Isabel and felt bad for having already made up my mind. There was no way in hell I wasn't following them. I stepped outside to get a face full of sun and squinted past a dwindling Tent City that was quickly turning into spotty rows of half packed down tents. I managed to spot a ray of light bounce off of what had to be one of Olivia's swords and watched it bob out of sight.

I walked into the correct tent soon after, surprised to see Badger and his men look up from equipping combat vests full of gear and even more so to see Jeremy force his way into the middle of the group and start rummaging through their supplies.

“Oi. Can I help you, mate?”

Olivia tried to pull Jeremy away, but she was too late.

Jeremy got a hold of a portable radio and started transmitting only to get a sharp squeal of feedback more piercing than the point of a knife pressed against my eardrums.

She quickly swiped it back and I took my hands off my head to hear constant static until it stopped with a sudden
click.
She had turned the radio off and stared Jeremy down, her words soft yet direct. “You can't reach her.”

I watched him take heavy breathes and I couldn't help but feel bad for him. I had never seen him look so helpless before. He pointed at the walkie talkie, or more specifically, the unnatural sound that had managed to come out of it.

“What the hell was that?”

The closest man to him spoke for the rest. “Radio blackout. It's been like that for weeks.”

“Bullshit,” said Jeremy. “We just tried it a few—”

“We know,” Olivia cut him off. “But it's getting worse, whatever
it
is. As far as anyone else is concerned, there's a black hole above the middle of the continental United States and there's nothing coming in or out. Brass set up an NFZ as soon as they could.”

NFZ?

Jeremy glanced around and another one gave him the answer.

“No Fly Zone.”

No planes...

So that was why it had been so quiet. And it explained why Hayes had to do her job on foot.

Olivia handed Jeremy the radio back, and he only looked down at it as if it had killed his dog and kept the truth hidden. “This doesn't change anything, Jeremy, and you know that. If Hayes is gone, then we're alone.” She waited a moment, and the shouting of random strangers outside only reinforced her next point. “I'm invoking martial law. I need your men to get ready. Have everyone else start moving on foot as soon as possible.”

He didn't budge. I wanted nothing more than to give him a hug.

“Sheriff...”

He finally glanced up at that, though I could tell he would still have a hard time accepting the truth.

“The plan stays the same, but I'm in charge. Is that gonna be a problem?”

He thought about it for a moment, the air tense and finally unraveling as he answered. “No—sir.” He handed off the radio and walked right through me like a ghost, as defeated as can be.

Badger spoke up as soon as he left. “Did we miss anything?”

“No,” Olivia sighed. “We're Oscar Mike in ten.”

“Yes, 'mam.”

Olivia turned around and stopped as soon as she saw me. I had known the truth of the new world thanks to her, though watching Jeremy come across the revelations for himself reopened old wounds, except that now I knew better. With the knowledge of everything that was going on—the lack of communication, the hate, all the death—I could only feel that Knox had to be behind it
somehow.
The idea permeated my gut. Emma might have been devious enough to think further ahead than the rest of us, but was she really that powerful? Could a Paranormal that was supposed to be dead be responsible for so much?

Olivia must have gone through the same reasoning before. I couldn't think of a better reason why she would want others to hear my testimony.  I knew that she would be more than up for the task of being in charge. It was what I had wanted, though the circumstances leading up to it could have been better. I was sure nobody wanted to lead a group when the odds were increasingly being stacked against them, even a Knight such as herself.

I couldn't help but blame Hayes. “Why'd she do it?” Why hadn't she just moved the rendezvous a few miles closer? Why was she leaving us behind?

Why'd she lie to all of us?

I could see a faint ripple of tension pass through Olivia at the thought of an answer, but it ended there. She kept her own anger hidden pretty damn well.

“I don't know.” She walked past me just like Jeremy had and left me alone to gaze at the special operators as they prepped their equipment in silence.

I absentmindedly turned to follow until something caught my eye. I wandered towards the side of the tent and didn't notice I had been inside of a makeshift staging area until I practically tripped over a row of rifles leaning up against metal tins filled with bullets. One color especially stuck out among the rest. I grabbed a hold of Zach's familiar M4 assault rifle, the now faded blue ribbon still tied around the butt stock, and wondered what the odds were of me finding it in a literal city made up of identical tents after someone had found it in Arrino. Then again, the odds of our survival in light of our new situation were probably just as small.

I held the length of the rifle out in front of me and pulled the charging handle back to gauge the health of the resistance as my past mentors had taught me when I spotted something that I shouldn't have: blood—small, dry spatters on the receiver that led all the way down to the magazine-well. I froze at the sight, yet immediately all of my unforgiving reservations boiled away in an instant. To hell with thinking ahead; I wasn't going to just let people I gave a damn about get hurt without a fight.

Not again.

I slung the gun over my shoulder and reached into a pile to pull out a drop-leg magazine pouch that would suit me much better than a full vest any day; I wouldn't have known what to do with all that space. Instead, I hung the small piece of tac-gear from a loop around my belt and kept it in place by tightening the accompanying straps around my thigh. Satisfied with the little amount of play it gave away with a good tug, I moved on to filling empty magazines one bullet at a time, not caring to remember how difficult the process was while my thumb strained against the strength of a simple spring.

Badger must have noticed after I was well off into the process. “Hey, kid... you know what you're doing?”

I didn't bother saying anything, rather opting to slam a full magazine into my gun and run the handle back to give it a full, hearty
smack
that loaded the first bullet into the chamber at the front of the barrel, ready to fire at the push of a finger.

He came by soon after and kept his voice low, but for whose benefit I wasn't sure. He scratched his neck. “Listen... you know you don't have to do this, right?”

I stopped mid-load, a bullet in-between my fingertips, and I suddenly got angry. Of course I knew. In fact, it was one of the few things in my life at the time that I was still able to act on. Hayes fucking the rest of us over, Knox putting in motion whatever the hell she was trying to do—those events I could only react to, but everything else I could still try to make a difference in advance when it mattered most.

I looked up at Badger and only saw the spitting image of the soldiers that I had seen in movies, though all I could think about was the one that mattered most to me at the moment. “Chris tried to teach me how to kill.” The words had come out louder than I had been expecting and I knew that the rest of his men would be listening. I thought back to how he had instructed me
how
and
when
to kill, but it didn't dawn on me until now that I finally came up with an answer to the most important question of
why.
It made me sad to think that he had to die and set an example first for me to realize it. “He saved my life...”

I let my eyes glaze over. I was done talking. I got back to work packing another magazine and was surprised to see Badger reach into my tin and help me along. His men eventually followed suit and I took a second to watch them all grab the small cases of metal and fill them with bullets. They didn't even say anything. I was betting if it was even possible for me to win their approval, that was probably the closest I was ever going to get to it.

I heard some voices and glanced around the tent to see that others had joined in on getting ready while I had been preoccupied, even Isabel.

She stuck her head through the strap of a rifle and struggled to get it to rest comfortably on her neck and I immediately recognized the discomfort. I had been fortunate enough to have dealt with it before. A phantom pain met my hand as I rolled it against my shoulder. As reluctant as I was to talk to her, I knew that she would need to be able to focus just as much as anyone else.

I thanked the boys in front of me and stuffed the fresh magazines into the pouch on my leg before improvising and grabbing a bandana from nearby. I walked up to Isabel with a silent stare until she looked over at me. “You're still going...” It was a simple observation, though I had not meant it to come out as an insult.

She blinked the tone away and shrugged, the strap still tugging on a soft patch of pink. “It was my idea, anyway.”

I hadn't known. I let that sink in and wondered what else Hayes had lied about. And what could she have possibly gained from it? I put the thought aside when Isabel didn't say anything else and I gestured towards her rifle sling and problem area with the bandana in hand. “It's better if you have something under it, that way the strap isn't always riding on your neck.”

She merely eyed the piece of green cotton as if it would attack her, so I motioned to offer putting it on for her. She nodded after a moment and I got close enough to reach my arms around her neck and tie a loose knot. “You probably think I'm crazy, huh?”

I glanced up to see a genuine frown along with red, puffy eyes. “No.” I refocused on the task at hand only because I didn't know what else to say. The sun had just risen, yet I felt like I was already out of my social interaction playing cards for the day. Isabel was obviously smart and productive. I was pretty sure the only reason I had not been upset as her upon the revelation of Hayes' bullshit was because I had been expecting someone to try and take advantage of me again. I still wasn't sure if that was good yet.

I finished my work and took a step back to see her test the padding with the weight of her gun.

“Thanks.” She seemed to hesitate for a moment, and I couldn't help but kick myself for not running away when I had the chance. “I'm sorry about earlier—I mean, the whole snogging thing... I didn't know you and Jer—”

“We're not.” I awkwardly checked around like a little girl to see if anyone had overheard. I wasn't sure how to explain the situation. I had never found myself in one like it before. The desire I had felt for him had sprung into existence nearly as fast as it had dissipated. I would be surprised if it didn't resurface again, though the idea of sucking face and then some in light of the threat of burning to death was getting easier to ignore by the minute. I cleared my throat. “It's complicated, I guess.”