The toilet wouldn’t flush.
I pressed my forehead against the cool bathroom wall. Resisted the urge to pound it with a fist. Then I reeled off a string of expletives that would’ve gotten me fifty laps back at basketball practice.
Great. Another thing that wasn’t working. The power had been out for weeks, and we’d run out of fuel for the generator three days ago. Now plumbing? This “luxury” chalet was slowly falling apart.
I straightened slowly, then walked out, closing the bathroom door. I’d probably never open it again. Just pack up my stuff and move to a different room. Yeah, we’d reached that point.
The room stank from dirty clothes, old linens, and the unfortunate bathroom issue I was preparing to kiss good-bye forever. I needed some air. Scratching my scalp, I stepped out onto the patio. Was immediately socked in the chest by an icy blast.
The weather had turned bitingly cold. Pale morning sunlight was spilling over the eastern mountains, sparkling the valley, but that didn’t make it warm. I could see icebergs forming in the center of the lake. My ears and nose quickly lost feeling as I stood there, shivering, tempting fate like an idiot in a T-shirt and gym shorts.
Downtown far below was silent and peaceful. No lights, no sounds. Everything seemed frozen in place under a suffocating white blanket, one that coated dozens of charred, burned-out buildings. But even a casual observer could see that the valley was in shambles.
The summer camp? Gone. The trailer park? Gone. Both had burned to the ground in the fighting and been abandoned. Tack was still in a rage about his crappy mobile home.
I knew I didn’t feel the cold quite like I should. I had the energy of two extra people now, at the very least. I’d fired the shot that eliminated Josh Atkins when he, Toby, and a handful of others attacked our base. On the rare nights I slept, I still dreamed about pulling the trigger, often waking up in a tangle of bedsheets, my body drenched in sweat.
That same day, Tack had X-ed out Cole Pritchard, a big brute of a kid who’d liked shooting squirrels growing up. Eliminations were coming fast and furious, as people got too close to the line. Everyone knew about the reset limit by now.
Josh. Cole. Gone and gone. I’d played sports with both of them growing up. Josh had started at center on the Fire Lake basketball team, used to set hard picks for me, roughing up any opponents who tried to play physical and throw me off my game. I tried not to think about things like that. If you thought of your enemies as people, they killed you first.
Excuses.
I grimaced, but didn’t let the notion linger. Doubts had been hounding me 24/7 lately. I’d even had another panic attack. Alone, thank God. Try as I might, I couldn’t isolate the weakness inside me and stamp it out for good. I had to accept that part of me would always be imperfect. I just couldn’t let the others see. Certainly not with Tack around.
Tack.
Thinking about the kid made me queasy. Over the last two months, some people had waded into the deep end, in terms of violence—I was no role model there—but Tack had taken a flying cannonball that left even me shocked. Nothing meant anything to him anymore, except revenge. He was like a tornado of violence.
Some of my team had begun to idolize him. It was getting to be a problem.
As if on cue, the music started up again despite the early hour. Someone had found an old iPod loaded with nineties music, most of it terrible. Who had ever liked the Macarena? But then Kyle found Rage Against the Machine and suddenly, my squad had theme music.
“Killin’ in the name of! . . . Killin’ in the name of! . . .”
Heavy guitar riffs echoed into the valley. They could probably hear it in the liberty camp across the lake. With a sigh, I went inside, dressed quickly in jeans, hoodie, a jacket, and my game face. Then I stepped back out and hustled over to the ski village.
“And now you do what they told ya . . . And now you do what they told ya . . .”
The wooden buildings beside the chalet were a tight cluster of shops, rental places, and cafés built for skiers taking a quick break from the slopes. The music was blaring from the main ski store, Moguls, an A-frame building in the center of the complex where Tack lived. He’d moved in a month ago, the day he first strolled up the mountainside, hands in his jeans, making no effort to disguise his approach. He’d been covered in frozen blood—said it wasn’t his own—and only wanted to know if Min was here. She wasn’t. No one had seen her in weeks.
Too long.
Tack and I had met eyes. We’d both feared the truth.
Min must’ve been eliminated.
The thought still made my breath catch, but the conclusion seemed inescapable. Min was impatient. I couldn’t imagine her hiding down there with the clones for two whole months, doing nothing, cut off from everything. She’d had a gun and a life to spare. She’d done it before.
But Min hadn’t made any attempt to contact us. Before joining me, rumor was that Tack had thrown himself against the silo over and over again, taking out Ethan’s guards but mainly getting himself repeatedly shot to hell. He never even got through the first blast door. I could’ve told him it was impossible—I’d tried three times myself.
Then, abruptly, he gave up. Something convinced him she wasn’t there anymore. So Tack had scoured the valley like an avenging god, calling her name, and taking on all comers who tried to mess with him about it. Finally he’d walked up to my base like he didn’t care what happened next.
I shared his misery. No one could stay hidden that long, and why would Min want to? She was gone. They must’ve gotten her at the silo somehow, or she’d pulled the trigger a second time to escape.
Acid scorched my throat. My breathing became labored.
They’d probably gotten her again at one of the zones. Min would’ve reset with no margin for error. I felt a wave of sickly heat in my gut, but shook it off. I couldn’t change it. I had to accept reality and move on.
So why did it still rip me open every time I thought about her? How come my mind tortured me with memories of how perfectly her body fit next to mine?
The nights we shared. The way her nose wriggled when she laughed.
Stop it. I couldn’t do this every damn day. I had to deal with the threat right in front of me, masquerading as help.
Since Tack had joined us, his fury against Ethan had been relentless. He went out every morning despite the miserable cold. Sometimes he got one of them, sometimes they got him. But he stalked Ethan’s gang with merciless determination, like an angel of death.
I did nothing to stop it. I knew I couldn’t, and didn’t want to look weak trying. Even our food was growing short, and with it my trump card over these people.
Sometimes it felt like failure drenched everything I tried. I’d already been worried my team could see through me, and was secretly questioning whether I should be the one giving orders. And then here comes Tack, with the single-minded obsession of killing everyone responsible for Min’s absence. His rage was simple, distilled, and all-consuming. Appealing, in its way. Kyle had moved in with Tack immediately. Jamie and Richie joined them a few days later.
“Killin’ in the name of! . . . Killin’ in the name of! . . .”
I took a deep breath. Jammed all my misgivings into a box, then dropped that box through a hole in the lake ice. But they refused to sink all the way.
With Min gone, I just couldn’t see things the same way I had before. It all seemed so pointless. Futile, just like she’d said. What did I care about “Phase Three,” whatever it was, if I turned into a monster to make it there. Seeing Tack so completely given over to his anger was jarring. I’d been headed that way since the beginning. Did I still want to go?
I was stronger than him—Tack had more kills than me by far, but he’d taken only a single elimination that I knew of, and lost a life for practically every one he took. He didn’t seem to care, making suicidal frontal assaults, blasting Ethan’s people until they rallied and gunned him down, sending him back to the reset zones.
I had no idea how he managed to elude Ethan’s capture teams, but he always did. Tack was a walking body count that had everyone in the valley quaking. And I was the one supposedly controlling him.
“And now you do what they told ya . . . And now you do what they told ya . . .”
I pushed into the ski shop. Sleeping bags and camp chairs were scattered across the hardwood floor, surrounding an outdoor space heater and a cooler filled with beer. Where they’d gotten it I had no idea—someone must’ve slipped some into the vans during the raid—but I chose not to make an issue of it. More than ever I had to pick my battles.
Tack was sitting in a canvas chair cleaning a Heckler & Koch MP5, a fully automatic submachine gun he’d taken off Chris Nolan after shooting him in the back. He glanced up when I entered, a caustic smile twisting his lips. Dark circles ringed his eyes, but his tongue was as sharp as ever. “Hey everybody, Fearless Leader is back.”
Jamie and Richie were lying together on an inflatable mattress. They sat up as I entered, pushing plastic cups out of sight. As if I wouldn’t notice. Kyle was asleep in a portable hammock, but was roused by a swift kick from Leah, who was huddled by the heater. He cursed loudly as he fell over backward.
The drinking didn’t bother me much—so long as they weren’t on watch—but I was more disturbed by the sweet-smelling smoke permeating the store. Still, I wasn’t their guidance counselor, and all that stuff would run out soon anyway. I knew better than anyone how stress could be a killer.
So. Everyone was present but Leighton and Cash, who were on guard duty.
Everyone but me.
“And now you do what they told ya . . . now you’re under control . . . And now you do what they told ya . . . now you’re under control . . . And now you do what they told ya . . .”
“Turn that off,” I said loudly.
Tack smirked for a moment, then snapped his fingers at Richie, who shut down the iPod. I didn’t miss Richie looking to Tack instead of me. My teeth ground together. Things were worse than I’d thought.
“Do you have any idea how far that sound carries?” I said quietly.
Tack was buffing the stock of his weapon. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows where we are, Noah.”
I struggled to hold my temper in check. “You’re broadcasting when we’re here and when we’re not. You’re giving Ethan information about us.”
Tack’s face reddened. He covered it by putting the gun aside and crossing his arms. “You afraid of Ethan’s people or something? I’ve shot them dozens of times, and will happily do so again if they come visit. They’re nothing.”
I bit back a scathing reply. This conversation was public. “Tell that to Morgan.”
Tack flinched, his eyes darkening. “She didn’t keep a good count. It’s not my fault she got eliminated.”
I kept my voice level. Glacial. “You took her down the mountain and she didn’t come back.” I spread my hands in mock curiosity. “Whose fault is it, Thumbtack?” Before he could reply, I barked out an order. “Everyone give me a status update.”
A short pause, then voices began sounding off.
“Even,” said Leah.
“Neg-three,” Jamie grumbled, and was immediately parroted by Richie. But when she slugged him in the arm, he rolled his eyes. “Or maybe neg-four. I took a lucky hit yesterday by the sanitation plant.”
I frowned. Both were down lives, and Richie was on the brink.
“Pos-four, up one,” Kyle said, with a smile that never touched his eyes. The “one” was for someone he’d eliminated. Kyle had knocked out Charlie Bell a few days ago and seemed hungry for more.
I’d been watching him to see if he’d absorbed Melissa Hemby’s elimination as well, all those days ago, after the explosion at the grocery store. But it didn’t appear so. I’d asked him point-blank, and Kyle wasn’t a good liar. It seemed that kills had to be direct for a transfer of power to occur.
Tack squinted at the ceiling, as if considering whether or not to answer. Then he met my eyes, and there was no friendliness there. “What’s your number, Noah? I’m curious about the status of our mighty captain. Can’t risk you, no sir.”
Our glares locked, and in that instant all my insecurities melted away. If Tack wanted to do this right now, I was ready. I’d bury him. “Pos-five, up two. And you, Thomas?”
Tack broke first. He looked away, rolling his eyes as if bored. “Pos-eight, up one. Looks like you’re still the elimination king.”
I barely suppressed a shudder. God, what had I become? But something Richie said demanded attention. I glanced at him. “The sanitation plant?” I’d never listed it as a target. With a sick feeling, I knew what was coming.
Tack smiled smugly, shooting a finger-gun at his companion. “Richie and I took care of it last night. Good luck flushing those toilets, Fire Lake.”
Heat crept up my chest, through my neck, and into my face. “My toilet didn’t flush, Tack. Did you think about that?”
“The woods are right—”
I strode forward and grabbed him by the shirt, lifting him from his chair. Then I held him there, kicking and squawking like a caught chicken. “You don’t get to decide things like that,” I growled. “Not while you’re living here. Do you understand that, Thomas?”
Tack stopped struggling, spat through gritted teeth. “Put me . . . the fuck . . . down.”
I dropped him and stepped back, watching his hands. I’d needed to make a point, but you could never push Tack too far. When his temper broke loose, reason was left by the wayside. I didn’t want to see what would happen if the room was forced to choose sides.
Tack straightened his shirt with an embarrassed jerk, red-faced, eyes blazing. Then he forced a nasty smile. “Whatever you say, boss. You’re the expert strategist. Look how well you defended the silo.”
Words like a slap. He was referring to Min, though he never said her name anymore. Tack blamed me for her loss, even though I’d given her my gun and had thought she was safely locked away.
Against my better judgment, I fired back. “I took out four of them with a hunting knife. By myself. In the dark.”
“Not enough!” he shouted harshly. Tack spun, cleared his throat. A beat later he dropped back into his camp chair and resumed a casual posture. When enough time had passed for him to feel like he’d defied me, he shook his head, looking up and adopting a condescending tone. “You let Sarah Harden ace you with a gun. Not ideal, sporto.”
I considered expelling him right then and there. He was too much of a wild card, and our feud ran deep. Tack would never forgive me for losing Min.
My eyes strayed to the rear wall. To a list of names inked in black marker.
The Dead List. Every eliminated person we knew about. Tack had scribbled Min’s name up there himself, even though we didn’t know for sure. It was the last time he’d spoken it out loud.
Tack followed my eyes. A vein in his neck started working, pumping in time to the grinding of his molars. When he looked back at me, his fury was directed elsewhere.
This was what bound us. Why he’d come here. Why I let him stay.
Tack wanted to destroy Ethan and Sarah, hurting them like they’d hurt him. My team was the best way to do that. And so, once again, our truce was cemented by mutual hatred. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
“I won’t go out again without telling you.” The words cost him, but he said them.
“I’ll make sure you have whatever you need when you do.”
He glared at me a moment longer, then nodded. I nodded back. Felt a collective release of tension in the room. Then I turned and walked out before things could go south again.
Tack was a problem, but it would hold for now. I needed to get my head straight and decide what to do next. My team craved action. I had to provide it.
As I walked away, the speakers started blasting once more.
“Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me! . . . Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me! . . .”