| |
THEIR HEADLIGHTS STABBED through the pre-dawn twilight, illuminating the little-used road shadowing the Enclave. Clouds hovered low, the threat of a storm adding to the gloom. Aubrey couldn’t see the Enclave’s wall, but she could sense its oppressive presence.
It’s better than risking one of the gates. She strained to see what lay beyond the headlights’ range. There were no stars, no moon, only the humid reminder of the gathering storm clouds.
Sneaking in the back door doesn’t sound as dangerous. She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat. Who am I kidding? It’s the Enclave, and Darcy the devil will be waiting.
The road was little more than a roughened set of tracks, rising and falling in concert with the uneven terrain. It ran parallel to the Enclave, at a consistent distance of just over a half kilometer.
Amos drove with caution, in deference to the poor road conditions. They were pressed for time, but driving recklessly this close to the Enclave would attract the very attention they wanted to avoid.
Megan curled up in the rear seat. Aubrey couldn’t tell if she was sleeping or not. She envied the former Tracker’s ability to remain unaffected by the anxiety plaguing the rest of them.
Little had been said after dropping Garr’s team off in the Old City. Amos focused on driving. Aubrey sat with her knees drawn up as she gazed unseeing into the murky gloom.
They crested a steep incline, jolting over the ridge, and started an abrupt descent down the other side. Aubrey caught her lower lip between her teeth as the truck slalomed down the embankment.
A muffled cry sounded behind her. She felt the impact as Megan caught herself against the back of Aubrey’s chair.
“Sorry about that.” Amos down-shifted, braking cautiously. The instrument panel gave his worried face a strange greenish glow. “We’ve got to be there by sunrise. It’s a short window of time between low tide and the start of the day shift.”
“I was at the briefing.” Aubrey braced one foot against the dashboard for good measure, regretting her sarcastic comment as soon as she’d said it. That’s not helping, I’ll bet.
Megan poked her head between the front seats, her wavy hair a disheveled cloud around her head. “Don would probably say something funny to relieve the tension.”
She sighed, brushing her hair back with one hand. “But I’m not Don, and I can’t think of anything.”
The dashboard lights painted Megan’s face with the same otherworldly glow, but to Aubrey it seemed somehow even more alien. She’s still a blank canvas. Now that she can talk, it’s like I have to get to know her all over again.
Megan glanced at her, and Aubrey averted her eyes. She stared out the windshield, and realized the sky was changing color. She stole a look in the side mirror, and saw the sun lightening the sullen storm clouds.
“Do you want me to thank you, Aubrey, or forgive you?” Megan leaned further forward, her good eye fixed on Aubrey. “Which would you prefer?”
Aubrey twisted in her seat to face the former Tracker, too close for comfort in the truck’s cramped interior. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
Megan placed her elbow on the console between the seats, leaning her weight on it as she edged further into the front seat. “It’s pretty simple, actually. Do you want me to thank you for freeing me from the Givers? Or forgive you for blinding me with your prod?”
Aubrey recoiled from her frank stare.
“I don’t expect anything from you,” she said, fumbling for the right words. Uh oh, that came out wrong. “What I meant is . . . you don’t owe me anything.”
You’re digging the hole deeper, Aubs. She forced herself to not flinch away as she struggled to marshal her arguments, her justifications, her rationale. After a brief internal battle, she gave up. “Megan, I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what you want from me.”
Megan gestured at Aubrey’s arm, hidden in the folds of her hoodie. “Roll up your sleeve.”
Aubrey obeyed without hesitation. Megan evaluated the scars running up her arm with a distant, clinical expression.
Aubrey was aware, in a peripheral way, of the rocky terrain they sped through. But for the moment, Megan held her full and undivided attention. She waited, spellbound.
Amos was abnormally quiet as the kilometers sped by. He appeared content to allow the drama to unfold in the seat beside him.
Megan pointed at Aubrey’s scars with her chin. “You weren’t yourself when you got those, were you?”
It was a rhetorical question—Aubrey caught Megan’s point.
“No, I wasn’t,” she replied anyway. “Any more than you were when . . .”
Aubrey paused for a moment, at a loss for the right words. “When we first met.”
The Implant turned me into one of Darcy’s assassins. The Givers turned Megan into a Tracker. We were both forced to do another’s bidding against our will. Aubrey was shaken. She’d never noticed the similarities before.
Megan nodded, not breaking eye contact. “Then will you please just relax?”
She gestured at Aubrey’s arm, and reached up to trace the outside edge of her eyepatch. “Guilt is a distraction. We can’t afford it once we’re inside the Enclave.”
“You sound like Mateo.” Amos broke his self-imposed silence. “But you’re not wrong. We’ve got to function as a team. That means no second-guessing each other. We need to have each other’s backs.”
“And you sound like Colonel Rucker.” Megan laughed, sliding back into her seat once more. Aubrey saw Amos’s slight smile, but he said nothing.
The road remained little more than a wide stretch of packed earth, barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass each other. The trees on either side towered over them, masking the Enclave’s massive walls, now less than one hundred meters to their right.
Amos rolled his window down, and Aubrey caught a salty whiff of ocean air. The lowering clouds were dark gray, and the distant rumble of thunder provided an aura of angry menace.
Aubrey opened her window, invigorated as the chill breeze rushed in. Let’s keep that overactive imagination in check, Aubs. The weather is the least of your worries.
Amos slowed as they rounded another curve, angling the truck off the road to halt behind a copse of thick underbrush.
“End of the road,” he said, climbing out of the truck. Aubrey and Megan followed. Aubrey pulled her jacket tighter in the damp air. She couldn’t see the ocean, but she heard the unmistakable sound of waves breaking on the shore.
Amos shrugged into his rucksack, eyeing the threatening storm clouds above them. “Let’s move. We’ve got another half hour of hiking yet, and the tide won’t wait.”