“Fall back!” I shouted.
Then I scrambled from behind a snow-covered log and bombed into the woods. Leighton ran beside me, chest heaving, blue eyes wide with animalistic fear. Bullets zipped past overhead, slamming into trunks and blasting out tiny explosions of bark and slivers.
The bastards were trying to flank us, just as I’d warned. But had Tack listened? Of course not! He’d barreled straight downslope with half my people seconds after the first shots were fired. Just like they’d wanted him to do. Now he was pinned down and useless.
I didn’t know how many attackers were converging, but I suspected at least a dozen. They moved fast, too, ghosting through the snow-covered forest. Ethan’s guys must’ve taken on eliminations. And now we might be totally screwed because Tack had ignored the simple military advantage of higher ground.
Leighton and I crossed another slope, reaching a wide tree fall covered in icicles and white powder. I had to grab his arm to get him to stop. Leighton’s cheeks were flushed, his blond hair a frizzy, frozen mess, but he managed to get ahold of himself. We crouched behind the fallen pine trees, rifles trained on our back trail.
“Come on,” I muttered. “Be as dumb as Tack.”
An instant later five dark-hooded figures exploded from the bushes on the opposite side of the slope. They didn’t even break stride, charging right out onto open ground. I almost smiled, then felt disgusted by the impulse. But they’d created this situation, not me.
“Wait until they’re halfway across,” I whispered to Leighton. “You take the left side, I’ll take the right.”
He nodded, jaw clenched, nostrils flaring. Ready to pay these bastards back for the fear they’d placed inside him.
Three. Two. One.
“Now.”
I rose smoothly and pulled the trigger, dropping the lead attacker. The others skidded to a stop. They tried to swerve, take cover, get flat on the ground. But it did them no good. They were caught in no-man’s-land, with nowhere to go. Leighton was screaming at the top of his lungs, unloading his magazine long after they’d all fallen. Finally, the chamber clicked empty.
Then we watched, holding our breath. Four disappeared, but one didn’t. With a lump in my throat, I led Leighton out onto the run. We approached the crumpled form cautiously, but one look at the damage and it was clear the person had just been eliminated.
I was kneeling to see who it was when Leighton’s whole frame spasmed, eyes glazing as he sucked in his bottom lip. He dropped his weapon, hands finding his knees as he quivered from head to foot. “Oh, man. I feel . . . I feel amazing.”
His kill, then. Whoever was lying at our feet, their power had flowed to Leighton.
Leighton choked and gasped until his breathing finally slowed. Then his head popped up, his gaze over-bright in the midday sun. “Wow. I get it now, Noah. Before, I thought you were just kind of a psychopath, but now I . . . I understand. That was the best feeling I’ve ever had. The Program really does reward you.”
I looked at the broken body at our feet. Some reward.
I didn’t chase the thought away. There was nothing dishonest about it.
Then a voice cut across the slope, turning my blood to ice.
“Freeze, assholes! Turn around!”
I locked eyes with Leighton, a hand creeping toward the pistol in my belt. My rifle was slung over my shoulder and out of reach.
“Move another inch and I’ll blast you both. Don’t test me.”
I stopped. Rotated a slow three-sixty, raising my hands, silently cursing a blue streak for letting my guard down. Leighton mirrored my movements.
Someone in a blue jacket stepped from the bushes on the far side. He yanked down his scarf, revealing long red hair. Chris Nolan, one of Ethan’s top guys. This was a disaster.
Chris smirked, his mouth opening to say something clever, but then his lips rounded in surprise. He tumbled forward like a sack of potatoes, a knife protruding from the back of his neck. Moments later he shimmered and was gone.
“What the . . .” Leighton dove for his gun and brought it up as another figure stepped from the tree line. My hand shot out to stop him from firing. I’d know that red jacket anywhere.
“Wait!” I pushed down the nose of Leighton’s rifle. “That’s Akio. He’s with us.”
Akio trotted across the slope, his face devoid of expression. I hadn’t seen him in almost two months, and his absence had been eating at me. Min had seen Akio locked in one of Ethan’s cells, but that didn’t mean he was still with me.
“Good to see you again,” I said guardedly.
Akio nodded. “Had some trouble in town.” He glanced downslope at the main lodge, where the morning’s skirmish had begun. “Guess you did, too.”
Ethan and Toby had attacked the gate just after breakfast, luring Tack down and kicking off a fierce firefight. Sensing a trap, I’d stopped Leighton from following the others and taken him to scout our western flank. Sure enough, a second force had been sneaking through the woods. If they’d broken through Leighton and me, Tack and the others would’ve been surrounded, with a second force descending from above like an avalanche.
The chalet and ski village would’ve been lost. Our food. Supplies. Weapons. Everything. Gone in a snap of my fingers. I was furious at Tack for being so stupid, and at those idiots for getting swept up in it.
Something had to be done. Tack had almost cost me everything.
And then, suddenly, here comes Akio waltzing back up the hill.
The timing was a little too perfect. I watched him from the corner of my eye, but his face betrayed nothing. Then Leighton turned over the body at our feet and all other thoughts fled.
Leighton reared back, covering his mouth. “Oh, shit! It’s Vonda Clark!”
I blinked. Turned away. Didn’t need a new horror seared into my brain. Vonda was a big girl with deep brown skin and wide eyes. Her father had been deputy mayor, the guy who used to pardon a turkey every Thanksgiving. Vonda laughed a lot, had been addicted to Pokemon Go and pudding cups. Drove a sliver Ford F-150.
All in the past. She wasn’t even a sequence now.
Suddenly, I felt like crying. Weakness stole in from every corner, tried to cut me down at the knees. But Akio’s eyes were on me. So I squashed my feelings and hardened my face to granite.
Leighton was more transparent. He backpedaled away from Vonda, slipping and landing on his butt. Then he turned and threw up in the snow.
My sorrow turned to disgust. Leighton knew this was part of it, too. The power he’d absorbed required a corpse on the other end. How amazing was that feeling now?
Gunshots echoed up the slope. A male voice screamed.
I almost slapped myself. While I was sitting there twiddling my thumbs, a battle was hanging in the balance. “Leave her,” I said without feeling, diving back into character. “There’s still a fight on. We’ll come back and bury Vonda later.”
Leighton’s face was a sickly green, but he nodded, hands shaking as he wiped snow from his rifle. Akio said nothing, but made ready to follow as well. With a last glance at the body, I began stalking down the mountainside.
Ethan was responsible for this. He’d sent Vonda through the woods to attack an armed camp in broad daylight. That had killed her as much as Leighton.
Time to make him pay.
Two bodies, rolled in tarps, were lying side by side beneath the chairlift.
Everyone still breathing was gathered inside the ski shop. Me. Akio. Cash. Richie and Jamie. Leighton. Kyle and Tack had shown up last, having reset, Kyle red-faced and numb after trekking all the way across the valley—he’d caught a second death trying to evade one of Ethan’s reset zone teams. Tack had slipped them without trouble. He always did somehow.
No music this time. The speakers were mercifully silent.
I thought of those no longer able to attend.
Zach. Morgan. And now Leah, my best soldier, wrapped up in plastic outside.
The tension in the room was palpable, probably because I refused to sit like everyone else. Eyes studied me when they thought I wasn’t looking. Assessing. Judging. Worrying?
For once I didn’t obsess over it. Barely noticed. My anger was a boiling river of lava flowing directly at one Thomas Russo, who was sitting in his camp chair, doing everything he could to avoid my eye.
“Leah Halpern had been with us from the beginning,” I began, halting the whispered conversations midsentence. “She fought hard every day, and never complained. Always did her part. Leah was first-chair clarinet in the school orchestra.”
I don’t know why I added that last part. Something compelled me. A need to remember Leah as something human, a person rather than a pawn in a video game. But then Tack spoke and all other thoughts were scorched from my mind.
“We need to attack town,” he said darkly, digging his nails into his jeans. “Those bastards killed Leah. We should repay the favor. We owe it to her.”
I was striding forward before I knew it, reaching for him. Who knows what would’ve happened next. Except Tack had been expecting it. His left hand rose, pointing a gun directly at my chest. I halted, seething, barely able to control myself.
“You don’t touch me again,” Tack said, glowering. “Get that into your head.”
My finger shot out, impaling him where he sat. “Leah is gone because you’re an idiot. They fired a few rounds up a near vertical snow-covered slope, praying some moron would charge down into their trap, and you did exactly that. Tack Russo, the dumbest man in the valley!”
Tack’s face flushed. The knuckles gripping his Glock turned white. “I made a mistake,” he growled through gritted teeth. “But we beat them, so was it really?”
I laughed a little too loudly, emotions spiraling. “We? WE? I beat them, you jackass. Me and Leighton. If we hadn’t thought to protect our flank, you’d have been stuck down there with your ass hanging out while Chris and his buddies took turns napping in your sleeping bag.”
Tack went from red to scarlet. His gaze slid sideways, darting around the shop, and he obviously didn’t like what he saw there. I had the room, mostly because I was 100 percent right, and everyone knew it, including Tack.
The gun barrel lowered. Tack scowled at the floor, every word ashes in his mouth. “Fine. I was wrong. It won’t happen again.” Then his chin rocketed back up. “But they did attack us, and we did win. We won the firefight down by the lodge, and you X-ed out a whole squad. Now they’re vulnerable. We need to hit them hard as payback!”
“Yeah!” Kyle shouted. I saw tear-streaked nods from Richie and Jamie, Leah’s best friends. Leighton wore a sour expression but held his tongue. Akio also said nothing.
The room balanced on a tightrope. I spoke quickly. “This raid could’ve been a feint. They tried to trick us and almost took the chalet, but the whole thing might be a ploy to get us to come at them. Assault their positions. It’s easier to defend than attack, as we just proved, and there’s a lot of high ground in town.”
Tack looked at me like I was crazy. “You think Ethan and Toby are suddenly employing a multifaceted battle strategy designed to outwit us? Come on, Noah! Today’s attack was classic Ethan Fletcher. Brute force. He probably thought using two teams was genius.”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose. Spoke as calmly as possible, more to the rest of the group than Tack. “I don’t worry about Ethan’s plans. I worry about Sarah.” Then I shook my head at him. “And if you don’t, you’re a fool.” I couldn’t help myself. “But you proved that this morning.”
Tack shot to his feet. “You’re one to talk! Such a big man on his daddy’s mountain. But since I got here, all you’ve done is hide, anxious and uncertain, the Noah Livingston way.” Tack slammed a fist into his palm. “We need to take the fight to them! Decisive action.” Then he crossed his arm and met my gaze squarely. “Or maybe we just need better leadership.”
I closed the distance between us, skin tingling with tiny flames, a fluttery, empty feeling expanding in my stomach. “Are you saying you should lead?”
Tack straightened, pupils dilated. He tried to meet my glare nose to nose, but I had six inches and fifty pounds on him. The optics weren’t good, and he knew it. After holding his ground long enough to save face, Tack turned his back on me lazily and flopped back down into his chair. “I’m no leader, Noah. Never pretended to be.” He flashed a crooked smile. “And this is your father’s building, after all.”
I brushed off the dig, riding a rush of adrenaline. I’d seen this showdown coming and had won it. No one had taken his side. I could breathe a little easier. For a few moments, anyway. But then Tack spoke again, putting me back on the defensive.
“I do have a plan.”
My jaw clenched. I said nothing.
Tack leaned forward, speaking rapidly, pointedly not looking in my direction. “Like it or not, we have problems. Ammo is running short. So is food. Ethan’s a cancer and controls the town. Sarah controls the silo, which is bad news—we don’t know what’s in those crates. There could be RPGs, machine guns, grenades, anything. We. Don’t. Know.”
People were shifting uncomfortably. I felt a trickle of unease myself.
Tack took a deep breath and continued. “We’re protected up here, but we’re also kinda sitting ducks if they come at us with real firepower. Right now, they’re scattered and licking their wounds. It’s the perfect moment to hit town with everything we have.”
“He’s right,” Kyle said immediately, almost as if he’d rehearsed it. “They won’t suspect a counterattack so soon. We could cut right through ’em!”
I opened my mouth to speak, found I didn’t have a good rebuttal. Tack seized the opportunity and kept going.
“It’s not just this raid.” He was animated now, talking with his hands. “Ethan’s guys are still spread out all over the zones. Kyle and I ran from two different teams this afternoon. That means Ethan doesn’t have his fighters on Main Street. His lines are stretched.”
Tack looked at me then, and the animosity was shoved to the back burner. Tack really believed in what he was saying.
I rubbed a hand over my mouth. “What are you suggesting?”
“Ethan just moved his headquarters to Emerald Tower, right? Thick stone walls, eight stories, lobby with a bank. A good choice. So we go in heavy—one giant team stabbing straight for their heart. Ethan stores weapons in the vault, and everyone moved into the condos above it. If we destroyed that building, we’d cripple them! Then we take the jail cells, the stores, hell—we take everything. We could break them, Noah. Let’s have dinner by the water tonight.”
The energy in the room was rising. I could tell people liked the plan. But I was hesitant.
“We have seven people total,” I said. “They have, what, maybe twenty?”
“At least half that number are out at the reset zones,” Tack countered, and he was right. “And some of the rest aren’t fighters. Jessica Cale? Please. Plus, we’re better at this than they are. We’ve proven it again and again.”
“We can do it, Noah.” Jamie wiped tears from her cheeks. Leah’s loss had hit her the hardest. She was the only girl left in my camp. “I want to see Toby’s stupid face when his house burns down around him.” Richie held her hand, nodding, wearing an ugly sneer.
I was plagued by a sudden indecisiveness. Felt heat rising under my collar. Eyes were boring into me from all sides. I needed a moment to think. Get my head straight. I couldn’t let Tack bully me into a plan without testing it from every angle.
“I’ll consider it,” I said, firming my voice as best I could. “Everyone take five.”
I knew I shouldn’t leave them with him, but I was suddenly afraid my body might betray me. I had to be alone for a second, right that second.
I turned and headed for the door. Tack’s voice arrowed across the room, striking between my shoulder blades.
“Don’t take too long, Captain Livingston. Time is of the essence.”