The Last Revenant (Book 1): The Crash (36 page)

One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

I let my eyes drain from the inside of another shop to the top of Nick's back, his shoulder blades subtly flexing and releasing at a moment's notice as he guided his rifle to scan the environment in front of him.

Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

I turned around to see the same stores that we had passed. Nothing had changed. As far as I could see down the road, everything was still its empty, still self. It made the webs in my stomach twang uncomfortably.

It felt like eternity until the group stopped just short of the opening that I had seen earlier. I watched the line gently fall down into a crouch, but I couldn't see anything else past the side of the shop that I was using for cover. I waited until I couldn't possibly take it any longer. I got closer to Nick and tapped him on the shoulder, careful to keep my voice down to a whisper. “What's goin' on? Why aren't we moving?”

“No idea.” He tapped Murphy on the back only to get the same thing.

I absentmindedly bit the inside of my cheek and checked behind us again, but I wasn't paying the sights any attention. I hated being in the dark on the matter at hand. I was too impatient. I knew I wouldn't even do any good, otherwise I would already know what was going on. I would only be getting in the way.

I rocked back and forth on my heels, frustrated that I had no way of knowing what was going on in front of me. I glanced around again until a bright-red sign just behind the glass in the shop to my side caught my attention. Whoever had owned it was having a two for one sale for ice cream cones. Mix and match three scoops of any flavor. It set me over the edge. If I was going to die for any reason, I didn't want the last bit of knowledge imparted onto my being to be that I could save ninety-nine cents on ice cream and still feel just as guilty afterwards. After all, I
was
supposed to stay close to Olivia. I would only be following directions.

I tapped Nick on the shoulder again. “Watch our back.” He opened his mouth to say something, but I was already gone. I held my crouch and passed him by. I walked past Murphy and got a strange “
What are you doing?”
kind of glance from Isabel. If she had actually asked me, I wouldn't have known what to say.

I stuck my knee to the ground and craned my neck passed the corner of her shop to see the opening I had been looking for. I had been right. We had reached the town square of Maryville, but it wasn't quite what I had been expecting. As far as I could tell, six taller, multistory buildings skirted the vague circle in front of us and made it appear as if it were almost encased in a short bubble. One building looked like it could have been the town hall. Another a library. Another a church. The rest I couldn't quite make out from my vantage point.

In the middle—in what should have been relatively empty space—was the biggest surprise of all. Dozens of vehicles dotted the once relatively luxurious layout. They were all different sizes and colors, and seemingly randomly placed in orientation and space from one another. The diminishing rays of light sparked across the hoods to make it all look like a flood of twinkling, stretched out jelly beans. It may have explained where all the cars had gone, but it had done shit to uncover the mystery that was Maryville. We were stopped in front of a maze—a man-made one at that. Something was wrong.

Again.

A little movement caught my attention and I spotted Olivia and Jeremy crouched behind the side of the nearest sedan, the shade of a building nearby making them easy to overlook next to the contrasting colors in front of them. I watched Jeremy stick his head just above the rear window and steal a peek at the view in front of them. He said something to Olivia and her lips moved inaudibly in response.

I flexed the grip on my gun and went through the reasoning again. They didn't need me there. I would only be getting in the way. Yet no sooner had the thoughts passed through my mind had I told Isabel to cover me and dropped down onto my belly. I shifted my rifle so that it was perpendicular to my body in front of my face and starting crawling just as Chris had taught me.

I put one arm in front of the other, the gun always a few inches from my chin, and pushed off with the accompanying leg as quiet as I could make it, though it never seemed silent enough. I winced as my chest rubbed up against the concrete and my arms quickly began to burn from the underused muscles. I caught Olivia's attention halfway there and was confused to see her stare at me blankly, until I realized she must have been listening to her radio. I was surprised that she didn't tell me to turn back around. Then again, if anything happened, I would at least be another gun in a fight.

I finally reached the front of the car and leaned up against the side to take a moment to try and collect myself. I fought the urge to lean over the hood and get a view for myself. Jeremy was obviously taking care of that already. Anything else would be me acting selfishly and increasing the risk of our group being spotted by unseen eyes.

I kept my dome of a head lower than I thought it had to be, the inescapable reflex resurfacing again as Chris had spent hours mulling the practice into my brain. He would order me to find cover from a hypothetical attack and then politely inform me whether or not I would survive it by either throwing pebbles at my forehead or poking my exposed limbs with a stick. It had seemed unnecessarily painful at the time, but the small welts and bruised ego I had to endure would be nothing compared to a bullet finding vulnerable flesh. I figured the lessons had worked reasonably well considering I would choose to hide behind the engine block of a car and stare at the ground only a few days since his death. The memories of him would live in on ways I hadn't even imagined.

Jeremy brought his nose up to the window again, his voice low and succinct. “Still nothing.”

Olivia brought a finger up to her ear, but thought better of it when she glanced at me. She reached down to pull out a cord from a small radio attached to her belt and adjusted a knob before speaking softly. “We got nothing on our end. What about you?”

A small click and a brief static from her radio told me that she had gone unplugged so that I could listen in on the conversation. Badger's voice came in soft amidst the quiet static of interference, but I could still tell that he was eerily calm. In addition to the words that he was actually saying, I realized I should have respected him a lot more than I had allowed myself to before.

“Nothin'.” Another brief beat of static. Then: “It's definitely a trap.”

Olivia nodded in agreement as if he were right in front of her. “Use the cars to slow us down. Pull us into the middle and then open up in a crossfire. Multiples points of contact and different elevation...” She looked around at the buildings around us, the unnamed idea solidifying itself in my brain as I imagined how it might unfold through numerous windows. “It's a kill zone.”

The radio clicked back in response. “It's what I would do,” said Badger. “So what's our move?”

She thought about it for a moment, and the very real possibility of her leading us all through four square blocks of something that she had just designated a
kill zone
suddenly made me intensely depressed. How far would she take eight other people just for the
chance
to help hundreds? Even if there was no trap, even if she was being overly cautious, we were still running out of time.

I forced myself to take a steady breathe as she stuffed her earpiece into a pocket and held the radio up to her mouth. “We know we're not alone. We can't risk it. And we don't have enough time to go around...” She met my gaze. I was the priority again. “We're falling back to the truck. Cover our backs and get out the same way you got in. If you find a—”

“There's someone out there,” said Jeremy.

“Hold your pos,” Olivia spat into the radio. She turned around and joined Jeremy's face against the window. “What do you mean?”

Jeremy plastered a finger against the glass. “I mean
there's someone there
. Right there. Right in the middle. Something's wrong with his leg.” He barely finished saying it before a worn voice begged for help from within the square. The pain fell on deaf ears and it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up like electrified quills.

I brought my eyes up over the hood of the car to see a ragged shape stumble past an SUV and leave a trail of blood against its white exterior. The man shouted for help again, a sharp rasp to his voice. It sounded like he had already been stabbed and someone was twisting the knife lodged firmly in his lung.

Badger chimed in on the radio. “I think we just found our mystery gunshot.”

“Roger that,” said Olivia. “Watch him.”

“Son of bitch...” said Jeremy. He wiped his section of the window with a sweaty palm while the wailing man stepped out of my sight. “Goddammit. I know him...” He took a step back and I could see how suddenly pale his face had gotten. He stood up on shaky legs and Olivia immediately grabbed his chest to bring him back down.

She shoved his back against the car door with enough force to make the whole vehicle shake. “What the hell do you think you're doing?”

“I
know
who he is. We can't just leave him out there—”

“If you go out there, you're both dead.” Her words were hushed, yet pointed like a pin. It was a trap and she knew it. All her fears had been realized. All the elements were there. The bait was set. All it needed was someone vulnerable enough to spring it.

Jeremy only stared at her for a moment, the visible look of pain on his face matching the sounds bouncing over the cars in front of us. I had never seen him shutdown like that. I almost couldn't believe it.

I crawled over and grabbed his arm. I had no idea who Jeremy saw or why he was important to him, but I wanted to help. I didn't want to see him hurt. “We'll come back for him.”

He eyed me for a second that felt like forever. I had given him a lie based on an uncertain truth. There was no telling what would happen once we left. He must have known it. He gently peeled my fingers off and slowly shook his head. “I can't... I'm sorry...”

Sorry for what?

He apologized again and unclipped the strap on my rifle to connect it to Olivia's before springing up and running out into the open.

Olivia tried to follow, only to painfully yank me forward by our connection and we both hit the ground in a single heaping mess. She swore and broke the straps apart while Badger tried reaching her on the radio.

“Who the hell's moving out there?”

She brought the hand-held up to her face. “Get back to the truck.
Now.
” She pushed me away from the car and I fell again. “Get back, Tess.”

I watched her run out of sight to chase after Jeremy, my own body hung on indecision. It was a peculiar feeling to lay on the ground and feel the earth stop spinning. My mind was blank. I could only get up and run forward or back. The more I tried to think about it, the harder the decision was to make, so I got up. I ran forward.

Olivia was almost faster than I could keep track. I followed her through the maze of parked cars and slid over a hood to run into an opening. Her gun was already up. She was yelling at somebody else to drop theirs. I joined a few feet from her side and pointed my rifle at Jeremy's back without even realizing what was going on. His hands were up and he was trying to be heard over the yelling. It still took a good second to process the sight when I took another step to the side to see the wounded man holding a revolver up underneath his own chin. He was holding himself hostage. He was crying.

He screamed at us. “You shouldn't be here!”

Jeremy tried to talk him down. “Listen to me! You don't have to—”

“Get back!” the man cried. He cocked the hammer on his gun, instantly turning it into a hairline trigger. One of his legs was covered in blood and held out an awkward angle. He took a shallow breath and it looked to pain him more than anything else. He shook his head and started again with a shaky voice as streams ran down from puffy eyes. “I'm so sorry... They have my kids...”

I kept my sights trained on his chest. If the gun underneath the man's chin even came forward an inch...

Jeremy didn't care. He took a step closer. “Then don't do this. Help
them
.”

The man closed his eyes and seemed to bite his tongue. When he opened them back up again, he appeared sure of everything. “I am.”

The reasoning behind his words hit the three of us before anything else, even surpassing the pull of a finger and the accompanying bullet that cracked through the air to scramble his brain right in front of us. I flinched at the sudden explosiveness of the sound, yet could only stare as his body hit the ground in a lifeless heap.

“D-Dan,” Jeremy whimpered. He put a hand to his forehead and paced forward hesitantly before dropping to the ground and lifting the body up onto his knees. “Please, don't...”

I couldn't tear my eyes off the sight. Jeremy kept mumbling like his words would be able to put the bullet back where it belonged. He leaned over the fresh corpse and I could feel my eyes start to blister to match his own.

Nobody moved until Olivia turned around to see something else to guide her gun on to, and the accompanying hesitation in her voice would prove to be yet another notch in a long line of firsts that I would soon come to meet. “Tess...”