“I need to find Tack,” I repeated stubbornly.
“You’re nuts,” Derrick said. “He’s not the same dude, Min.”
He was lying on a ratty three-seat couch, cocooned in a quilted blanket. The five of us had gathered around a wide brick hearth in Hector’s house, the only feature in the building that looked well crafted. A crackling fire burned in its rugged iron grate.
I sat cross-legged in a rocking chair pulled close to the flames, soaking in the heat. It was pitch black outside. The temperature kept dropping, high winds tossing sheets of stinging sleet at the fogged windows.
Derrick sat halfway up, adjusting a borrowed Gonzaga Bulldogs toboggan on his head. “The valley is a nightmare factory right now.” He pointed to several massive storage bins stacked in the corner of the single-room building. “That’s the most food I’ve seen in one place since the supermarket exploded. Enough for weeks. Thank God these liberty dudes were hoarders. Min and I would make five in this camp, which is enough to set decent watches.”
“You’re welcome to stay,” Hector said, just as Aiken said, “Who invited you?”
Anna elbowed her boyfriend in the chest. They were wrapped in a blanket on the couch opposite Derrick. Hector sat on the floor between them, zipped into two fleeces, elbows on the wagon wheel coffee table.
“Stop being an idiot,” Anna scolded Aiken. “Min and Derrick have guns with actual bullets in them. You were just saying how we need more people to protect ourselves. Well, they walked in the front door!”
“Kicked it in.” Aiken sat forward abruptly and glared at Derrick. “Were you part of that summer camp raid, Derrick? Tell us now.”
Derrick met his eye. Shook his head firmly. “I ran a snatch-and-bag crew at the southern reset point, Min knows that firsthand. But I’ve never gone out shooting. That’s a promise.” He looked at me then, and I could tell he was desperate for me to believe him. “Not once, on my life. Hell, that’s why I’m stuck out here with you guys now.”
“I believe you,” I said. I did. I’d seen his face in the clone room.
Aiken was still scowling, but he nodded finally, slumping back into Anna’s arm.
Derrick smiled brightly. “It’s settled then. Are any of the other shacks livable, or am I bunking in with Hector?”
“It is not settled.” My feet dropped to the floor and I rocked forward. “Hiding is a temporary solution at best. Right this minute Sarah is locked inside the silo, doing whatever she wants to the whole Program. Meanwhile, Ethan could decide to come burn this place down at any time. We need to stop the insanity.”
“You could do it,” Hector said. “You just have to show the others a way.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Um, not likely.”
“It’s true.” Hector’s brown eyes glowed with reflected firelight. “Everyone heard the Guardian mention you by name. Plus, you’ve opposed Ethan and Sarah from the beginning. If you stood up to them, I think people would rally around you. I know I would.”
“Whoa, whoa.” I rocked back in my chair and crossed my arms, shrinking into the fleece Hector had given me. “Most kids never gave me the time of day back in school—the ones who didn’t actively pick on Tack and me, that is. I’m not trying to replace Ethan. I just want . . . We just have to . . .” I trailed off, unable to finish the sentence.
I didn’t know what to do. Less than anyone, probably. I’d been hiding underground for the last two months, doing nothing. The idea that I’d lead a revolt against the most dangerous people in Fire Lake was laughable. Devin would’ve stood a better chance.
Devin’s gone. Eliminated by Ethan for dropping a Hot Pocket.
How many more will join him?
For a few heavy eyeblinks, I just wanted to go home. To curl up in my old bed and sleep for days. But my trailer was gone. Burned to the ground. I’d never have a home again.
“Someone has to lead,” Hector pressed, unwilling to take the hint. “You’re a fighter, Min. You don’t give up. Everyone’s seen it. Ethan’s thrown you in jail twice, and you escaped both times. Who else can say that? If you don’t step up against the other betas, who will?”
I barked an uneasy laugh, pulled my knees up to my chest. “Take it easy, Braveheart. I’m just trying to avoid being deleted.”
I’d already told them everything. Reset limits. How the count worked. Eliminations. About Ethan’s plan to jail everyone, and Sarah adding wild animals to the valley. Their eyes had grown wide as they’d listened to my misadventures around the lake with Tack, screwing up time and time again. Yet Hector suddenly wanted to knight me? Please.
Derrick had chipped in as well, describing the chaotic breakdown back in town. Toby and Ethan had grown secretive and unruly, no longer content to merely cage people. They’d unleashed a string of murders that had finally driven him away.
“The Nolan brothers burned down the whole marina on a dare.” Derrick rubbed his face with both hands, eyes fixed on the wooden plank floor. “I screamed at them about it—Mike and I even scrapped a little bit. After that, they all stopped telling me things. That’s why I didn’t know about the raids. Toby and some others hit the summer camp, wiped it out, then tried to do the same at the quarry. The cousins are tough, though. Toby and the twins surprised them at first, and burned down that warehouse they had, but Carl and Sam pulled back into a mineshaft or something. They mowed attackers down for three straight days. Toby must’ve gotten killed seven, eight times at least. Just kept coming back at them until eventually even he gave up. Word is the cousins lost some folks and most of their supplies. They’re starving now. That’s when I left.”
It was shocking. Appalling. These were just stupid boys. We’d had lockers in the same hall. Taken Spanish together. Chris Nolan and I once built a balsa wood tower for a project in seventh grade.
“What about Town Hall?” Aiken asked. “Did the Guardian ever come back out?”
Derrick sighed long and loud. “Nope. And the building is still pristine. Even fire won’t touch it—Toby’s tried everything you can imagine.” His gaze slid to me. “Someone went in, though.”
I sat up straight, eyes popping. “What?”
Derrick seemed to relish his little surprise. “The same day he blew up the grocery store, your boy Noah walked right up to the front door and stepped inside.”
I stared, open-mouthed. Derrick giggled darkly. “Saw it myself. Noah was dragging one of his injured guys, and we cornered him on the steps. He retreated in past the columns. But when we charged, no Mr. Livingston.”
I relaxed. “Then you hit him. They reset. Or maybe he slipped around you.”
Derrick shook his head. “Nope. I saw the door. The keypad was blinking green for a hot second, then turned red again. I’ve been by there dozens of times and it’s always just red, even when you fiddle with it. Someone went inside. But there was a gun battle going on behind me, so I had to book.”
I was speechless. Began chewing on a fist, one foot dropping to the floor and tapping furiously. Why hadn’t Noah told me? How’d he get inside? What happened in there?
Facts coalesced in my head. I’d somehow opened the blast door to the lab complex. Noah had gotten into Town Hall when no one else could. Were those things connected?
Then I nearly gasped. Sarah had accessed the Program by using our shared birthday.
Me. Noah. Sarah.
Beta. Beta. Beta.
Test patients chosen by the Guardian, in a program he designed.
If Noah got inside, maybe I can, too.
The Guardian. He was the only one who knew everything. If I could get to him, maybe I could stop all this. Shut the madness down all by myself.
“Yo, Min?” Derrick was waving a hand to catch my attention. “Where’d you go?”
I took a deep breath. Glanced from face to face. All eyes were on me.
“Actually, we need to talk about where I’m going.”
“I’ll never forgive you for this,” Derrick grumbled, pulling his scarf tighter.
My teeth were chattering so badly, I could barely answer. “No one made you come.”
He harrumphed, but said nothing. It was true he’d volunteered, and I was extremely grateful for it. I didn’t want to be out in the dark alone.
We’d dressed in the warmest clothes Hector could scrounge. Jeans. Sweaters. Two ugly fleece-lined ski jackets—mine was a disturbingly bright shade of pink—and an unstylish assortment of mismatched gloves and hats. A flurry had kicked up, and the temperature was dropping off a cliff. Our path took us west along the lakefront, headed for the swanky docks below the southwestern neighborhoods. We walked past the charred remains of the summer camp, a stern reminder of what was at stake.
My plan was simple. Steal a boat, cross the lake, and sneak into Town Hall.
I didn’t think beyond that point. Not yet. I had no idea what I’d say to the Guardian, or whether he’d listen to me. Or if he’d even be there. Or if I could really get inside. But I had to try. He was the only one who could reverse what the Program had become.
“It’s gotta be ten below zero,” Derrick moaned. “Coldest night of the year, by far. And hailing! How is that even possible?”
I stopped short, slapping my forehead. Of course. Derrick glanced back at me curiously, then sucked in a breath. We spoke in unison. “Sarah.”
All the more reason I had to try this. Ethan and Toby had turned the valley into a war zone, but Sarah could make the environment itself a threat. We’d heard wolves howling as we set out, which quickened our steps in a way the weather never could. What else could she input to plague us?
We reached a long, sturdy pier capped by a tidy boathouse. Derrick and I scurried down its length as quickly as possible, a full moon lighting up the night sky and reflecting off the lake’s icy surface. The boathouse had a large sliding door sealed with a padlock. We’d prepared for this—Derrick removed a set of bolt cutters from his jacket. He cracked the lock and we slipped inside, breathing twin sighs of relief.
Too soon.
Lights flicked on all along the ceiling.
Small boats were stacked four-high in racks to both sides of a central aisle. I glanced up, saw a rifle pointing down at me from a dinghy. Derrick grunted, eyes rounding. Another gun barrel was covering us from a canoe on the right.
“Don’t fucking move!”
“Nobody’s moving!” Derrick blurted, hands slowly rising. “Just chill.”
Two heads appeared. Boys have said Casey Beam has the best smile in school, but it was nowhere in sight at the moment. She blew blond tendrils from her mouth, one eye squeezed shut as she aimed at my head. Lauren Decker glared down from Derrick’s side, pug nose sneering, her brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail. Soccer players both, they’d been inseparable since first grade, along with a third girl named Dakota Sargent. This wasn’t a worst-case scenario, I didn’t think, but their guns were screaming something different.
Lauren sat upright in the canoe, her gun trained on Derrick’s chest. “Both of you drop everything you’re carrying, strip down to your underwear, and then leave. One funny wiggle and you catch a bullet.”
Derrick blinked at her, pressing fingertips to forehead. “Do you have any idea how cold it is outside? You might as well just shoot us.”
“Suit yourself.” Lauren flipped off the safety and worked the action on her rifle. “Tell Ethan to burn in hell.”
“Wait!” I shouted, inching a very small step forward with my hands up. “He’s not with Ethan anymore. He flipped.”
“I need to put out a newsletter or something,” Derrick mumbled, a ring of sweat dampening his brow.
Casey swung her legs over the dinghy’s rail and dropped to the floor, as lithe as you’d expect from Fire Lake’s all-state striker. “Why should we believe that?”
I snorted a mildly hysterical laugh. “Well, he’s with me, for one. You think I’m palling around with Ethan these days?”
Lauren climbed down with considerably less grace to stand shoulder to shoulder with her friend. “Fine,” she said, red-faced and puffing. “You can keep your clothes on, but everything else stays. Guns especially.”
Derrick made a face like he’d smelled something rotten. “What, you guys are just robbing people?”
“It’s a living,” Casey said, and the megawatt smile emerged. “If it makes you feel better, we’ve done this a dozen times. You’re the first to come to us, though.”
Something clicked. “The fishermen,” I muttered.
“Fisherwomen,” Lauren corrected. “Did we mug you once already?”
I crossed my arms. “Tack and I avoided you. You looked like two ducks waiting to get plucked. We assumed no one could actually be that stupid, and went around.”
“These ducks have claws,” Lauren said with a smirk. “Others haven’t been as smart.”
I glanced deeper into the boathouse. “I assume Dakota is here somewhere?” Tack had never pinned those three down on his map. He’d be giddy for this new information. Then I remembered his masterpiece was likely burned to cinders along with the rest of the trailer park, and my mood went further south.
A shadow crossed Casey’s face. Lauren’s bottom lip began to tremble, one hand leaving her rifle to wipe her eyes.
“Dakota’s gone,” Casey said, in a voice as bitter as chalk. “Ethan has a lot to answer for.”
I took another small step forward. “I agree. Let us help.”
Lauren’s gun barrel swung to face me. “Help how?” Casey asked coolly.
I told them everything. What we’d learned. Where I was going. What I hoped to do. By the time I finished, their rifles were sagging in their hands, forgotten.
“You really think you’ll reach the Guardian?” Casey asked. “No bullshit, Min.”
I shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. But if I can, maybe I can do . . .” I spread my hands helplessly. “ . . . something.”
“Min might be the only person who can make a difference,” Derrick said curtly, “so you’ve got to stand aside. We need our clothes, our guns, and”—he rapped his knuckles against a rowboat—“one of these bad boys.”
“Not we.”
I’d made a decision as Derrick spoke. This mission was incredibly dangerous, with no reasonable expectation of success. “You’re staying with them.” Derrick opened his mouth to protest, but I didn’t give him an opening. “This is on me alone. I doubt you can get inside Town Hall anyway, so there’s no point. You can’t change that.”
He stared down at me for a long moment. “Fine. But at least let me row you over.”
“So . . .” Casey interrupted drily, “Lauren and I have decided to let you go. In case that’s important to you.”
I gave her a crooked smile. “Thanks.”
Lauren snorted. “Frankly, you guys need our help pretty bad. I’d love to see this row-across-the-lake plan in action.”
Derrick bristled at her rebuke. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The girls set their guns down, Casey slipping past us to resecure the door. Lauren crossed her arms and smirked. “Look outside, genius. The temperature’s been dropping all day.”
It hit me in a flash. “Ice.”
Lauren graced me with a condescending nod. “You don’t need a boat, kids. Just some Yaktrax. Those boots were made for walking.”
She jabbed a thumb over her shoulder toward the end of the pier.
“Town Hall is thataway.”
The marble steps were covered in snow.
I climbed quickly, ruing the deep footprints I was leaving behind. Then I darted behind a column and expelled a relieved breath. Crossing the lake had been the worst hike of my life. I desperately hoped it hadn’t been for nothing.
The blizzard had intensified the second I stepped onto the ice. After carefully testing my weight, I’d mouthed a quick prayer to the laws of thermodynamics and crossed at a near trot, heart pounding with every creak beneath my feet. But the surface held—I’d scrambled up a ladder at the downtown waterfront and slunk into an alley. Up a block, around the corner, and I was there.
The building was dark and ghostly, yet undamaged, in sharp contrast to the many other trashed and ruined structures along Main Street. A red light glowed beside the door. Since the moment Phase Two engaged, Town Hall had been impregnable. No matter what was tried, nothing marred the alabaster perfection of the Guardian’s lair.
At least, I thought the Guardian was in there. No one knew for sure.
Noah does. He went inside and didn’t tell me.
That stung my pride, even as it frightened me. I’d hoped something had shifted between us back at the silo. I’d been surprised to discover my anger leaking away, even as I fought to hold it. But I’d been wrong again. Noah still kept secrets. I didn’t know him anymore. Maybe I never did.
I shivered, rubbing my gloved hands together as I crept between the marble pillars. I blamed Sarah for the vicious turn of weather, but that could be paranoia—December in Idaho meant heavy snowstorms were always possible.
But we’re not in Idaho, and this isn’t December.
Derrick was out in this mess, too, driving Casey’s SUV back to the liberty camp. The soccer girls weren’t actually living in the boathouse, they’d just been waiting out the storm there when we came stomping up the dock. The girls had taken over two small houses on a secluded driveway in the southwestern hills and grudgingly invited us to join them there, mainly because we had food and they were out.
Derrick’s job was to convince Anna, Aiken, and Hector that seven was better than five, that real houses were superior to shacks, and then load up the liberty camp stores and get back undetected. He was in for a long night, same as me, though at least he’d spend it in a warm vehicle. I’d just walked across the Arctic Circle to get here, and still didn’t know if I’d wasted my time.
A whirlwind of doubts spun through me as I approached the entrance. Perhaps Noah had found a key. Maybe the door only opened at certain times. My theory about betas having access could be me grasping at straws, forcing a pattern where none existed.
I’ll know in seconds. Gritting my teeth, I reached for the handle. But before I laid a finger on it, the keypad flashed green, there was an audible click, and the door swung open.
I blinked. That was easy.
Warmth and light flowed through the opening, hooking me like a siren’s song. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.