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Garnet obeyed, her dark head disappearing again as she curled into a ball. I crashed headlong into the two Guardians. They flew over the hood of the vehicle and into the air, limbs crunching under the impact.
Garnet’s ear-piercing screams cut through me while Tyler cowered under cover of the backseat.
Reckless and determined, I crashed the gate. Shards of wood and metal exploded when the dune buggy blasted through. We hurtled into the open desert ahead. I glanced back. One of the Guardians fired, but with its limbs mangled and my erratic driving, the neutrino rays missed their mark.
“Stop screaming, Garnet. It’s over. We made it.” I let out a slow breath and loosened my grip on the wheel while I checked the rearview. The crippled Guardians disappeared in the growing distance. Dust rose up around us as we hit the open road.
Garnet popped her head up and brushed strands of long dark hair out of her face, her brown eyes wide and her skin pale even beneath her tan. She gripped the roll bar overhead.
The old Border Patrol dune buggy we had picked up at our last stop outside of Vegas proved its worth as it shot down the highway. Solar cells woven into the fabric of the canvas made it perfect for the journey across the southern route, eliminating the need for bio-fuel. The additional pontoon feature would be a bonus if we ran into swamplands, but the open-sided construction left little protection from the elements—or the bullets. I rubbed a finger along the dashboard, outlining a hole from a bullet which had barely missed my head.
Garnet eyed me with apprehension, the two of us obviously wondering the same thing—just what it would take to mortally wound me, and how close we’d just come to finding out. Then her gaze darted from me to Tyler Johnson, who stared out the back, his breath still coming in gulps.
“You okay, Tyler?” I asked, peering in the mirror. Even his mocha-colored skin was ashen. At fourteen, he’d already seen enough violence in the past few days to last a lifetime. The scene from the previous night’s events came back in vivid clarity. Tyler’s oldest brother, Josh, dying in his arms on the floor of the Sky Loft suite in the MGM Grand Hotel. Thanks to our shared DNA—a fact which explained our strange connection but opened the door to a million new questions—my healing abilities were useless on Josh. It seemed I couldn’t heal anyone related by blood, and since I’d learned Josh and I shared DNA from the same “batch,” he was one of the people I’d had to stand by and watch die. I glanced back at Tyler, waiting for a reply and for my all-consuming guilt to ease.
“I’m fine.” The muscles in Tyler’s jaw twitched as he checked over his shoulder one last time. His face was a blank mask when he turned to the front.
I drove the desert buggy at top speed away from the vast waters of Lake Mead and the Hoover Dam, my only focus the stretch of highway before us. As we crossed the state line a few minutes later, a battered sign reading Welcome to Arizona flashed past, filling me with both relief and dread. Our chances of finding water and shelter, now that we were out of the city and heading into the desert, were slim to none. We had enough food and water for the day, but what then? If the past few days were any indication of what was to come, we were far from out of danger.
“What now?” Garnet’s voice echoed the uncertainty infiltrating my mind. As we careened along the empty highway heading southeast, our plan seemed sketchy at best. Without our friend Will’s tracking abilities and his keen sense of direction, we were on our own to make it back to Stanton, our tiny hometown in the Northeast Sector some 2500 miles away.
A brilliant sun filled the midmorning sky, its heat and deadly solar rays already burning my skin. We only had a few hours before the sun would become too hot to tolerate and the air would be stifling. In the desert, temps would easily reach 140 degrees by noon.
“Let’s shoot for Flagstaff,” I said. “If we head east through the desert, try to bypass the Southern Swamps, and make our way north until we reach the Northeast Hills, we could make it back home in less than a week.” My attempt to sound sure of myself was lame at best.
“Barring any unforeseen obstacles.” Garnet’s critical gaze landed on me. “Without Will, it’ll probably take us a month.” She turned her head away as we passed a stand of cactus, the silence between us shouting that it was my fault he’d gone.
Will’s absence weighed heavily on my heart for several reasons, but Garnet was right. Without him, our chances of making it home were seriously compromised. I cringed, reminded of our painful good-bye outside of Vegas where we’d parted ways.
Will Callahan had spent the past two years searching for his father after the storms in the Midwest destroyed his town and killed his mother and sister. And since I had just blown our one chance to rescue his father from the clutches of Victor Malevich, the country’s powerfully connected Vice President, Will insisted on heading north and going after him—leaving me, Garnet, and Tyler on our own. I couldn’t blame him, but I also couldn’t follow him when I knew he was playing right into Malevich’s hands.
Vice President Malevich, the psycho leader of the Industry—a shadow branch of the New Government that had taken over the science and tech trades—had proven he would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. Including torturing President Callahan’s brother to gain her cooperation.
My first responsibility was to Garnet and Tyler, and to their safe return home. Garnet’s father was probably out of his mind with worry since she’d stowed away in Josh’s truck the week before, the two venturing to the Western Desert to rescue Tyler from the Industry research facility beneath Las Vegas. She wanted only to get out from under her father’s overprotective control, prove herself useful in the rebellion against the Industry, and help recover the youngest of the three Johnson boys.
Luke, the middle brother, was the closest thing to a boyfriend Garnet had back in Stanton. Luke had stayed behind to take care of Joe, the Johnson patriarch, who had been seriously injured in his attempt to keep Industry agents from taking Tyler and my younger brother Zeph in the first place.
For reasons of her own, Garnet wanted to show Luke she was more than a pretty face. How she thought taking off with his brother without a word to anyone would send a message of devotion was a mystery to me. But that was Garnet—no thought for consequences or how her actions affected anyone but her. Josh never would have agreed to her going along. He was smart enough to know what was at stake.
But none of us had any idea the mission would lead to Josh’s death. I could only imagine the look on Joe Johnson’s face when we arrived with the news that his eldest son was dead.
As we flew past the remains of a horse carcass and its rider—who had undoubtedly been pinned beneath the fallen animal and died there—my instinct to stop was overridden by the sight of vultures feasting.
Tyler laid a hand on my shoulder, leaning forward from the backseat. “You have to stop beating yourself up, Lily.”
Giving his hand a squeeze, I cringed at the sight in the rearview and flashed a sad smile at the sweet kid, who until recently, I’d only known as my brother’s best friend. Zeph’s ability to take life with a touch and Tyler’s mind reading ability had made them Industry targets, along with me and other genetically enhanced kids like us. Questions about those others would have to wait until Tyler was in a better frame of mind. He leaned back and melted into the seat, his eyes shadowed with grief and fatigue. The aged expression on his young face seemed both hard and fragile at the same time—like glass that could shatter at any moment.
A sign for Kingman and Flagstaff lay ahead. I veered around two dusty, abandoned vehicles, and wondered how long they’d been there and what fate had befallen the people who’d left them behind when fuel and water had run out.
“I’m only sorry my attempt to rescue Zeph came at such a high cost,” I said softly. My apology fell flat considering all that Tyler had lost. My failure to rescue my brother hung over me like a storm cloud. Some rescue attempt. Trying to save Zeph had proven useless. A spark of anger and frustration mingled with regret. His refusal to leave the Industry facility had led me to take too many risks with other people’s lives. My throat closed as I held back a flood of tears. My mother, my father...now Josh. How many more people had to die protecting me?
“You aren’t responsible for Josh’s death,” said Tyler climbing into my thoughts again and making me wish I could shut him out. Anger flared on Tyler’s face as his dark brows drew together and our gazes met in the mirror. “It’s not Zeph’s fault either. The only person I want punished for killing my brother is that animal, Graves. He pulled the trigger.”
My jaw clenched tight. “Graves will get what’s coming to him. When we reach Stanton and Sam mobilizes his Network friends, Malevich, Graves, and those Assembly crooks will have a serious rebellion to contend with.”
Garnet chimed in. “Now that we know President Callahan is on our side, I’m sure the people will work together to take back government control from the Industry. And with the Network ready for a fight, I don’t think Malevich and Graves stand a chance.”
“You have no idea what kind of influence the Industry has.” Tyler’s face in the rearview contorted with disgust.
“They can’t be everywhere,” Garnet argued.
Tyler shook his head and didn’t respond, but I sensed him stewing on the subject.
Passing the remnants of what was once a small town—now nothing but broken-down, abandoned buildings and rubble—I slowed to see if there were any signs of life or a place for us to stop and find shelter and supplies. A boarded-up general store and a feed and grain depot had long gone under. An old petrol station signified that the town had probably folded back during the viral plague. Most cities and towns had lost three-quarters of their population before a cure came along. Some towns had been completely wiped out. Others had become minefields of danger—either from natural predators, or grifters willing to do anything to survive—desperate criminals who lay in wait for their next victim.
A shadow moved in a window above a storefront. My pulse raced and I sped up as I dodged an old pickup truck, its hood not dusty enough to have been there very long. My senses told me stopping wasn’t an option.
Tyler’s stewing came to a boil. “No one’s going to stand against Malevich. Not when he’s threatening their survival. The Industry owns most of the water rights in the north and west, and they’re just getting started. Next thing will be all the major cities. We’re doomed.” Tyler’s pessimism wasn’t unjustified. Malevich would gain control of the major cities by one of two ways—the promise of solar barriers or the threat of taking over water rights.
“Have a little faith, Ty,” said Garnet with a quick smile over her shoulder. “If we can convince the city dwellers that standing up to the Industry doesn’t mean the end of the solar barriers, but the return of their freedom, they have to help us.”
Tyler shook his head. “With Malevich’s army of Guardians in every city, taking control away from him won’t be so easy.”
Garnet glanced at me with a grim expression. “We have to try.” She ducked her head to check out the position of the sun. “We need to find a place to lay low for the zenith.”
“We’re still too close to Vegas, and there’s no point in stopping here. The place has probably been picked clean and I don’t trust that it’s safe.”
After the viral plague, when the old government had collapsed along with the economy, the power grid, and any semblance of social order, the New Government took to scavenging goods and supplies, wiping out any town, city, or suburb in its path that wouldn’t be controlled or couldn’t survive on its own. Either way, finding a safe haven in the desert was unlikely. With the road ahead desolate and brown, it seemed life on planet Earth had taken a hostile turn toward human extinction.
“We keep going,” I replied to Garnet’s unspoken question of what we were going to do next. We only had limited food and water. If we couldn’t find a town willing to help us, we’d be dead or captured within days.
With the navigation system blown, Garnet opened an old faded map she found in what was left of the console, and glanced out the back one more time. “I miss Will already.” Her voice cracked. I held my own in check with a clenched jaw before I responded.
“We’re just going to have to do this on our own.”
“Honestly, Lily. Without Will around, this trip is going to be miserable.” She plastered on her best pout, silently asking the question of what I’d done to ruin things. With her full lips and silky, long black hair, I could understand why boys might find her irresistible. Although her recent pursuit of Luke Johnson had occupied most of her time back home, since Will had come on the scene, Garnet’s change in disposition whenever he was around made me almost glad he wasn’t here.
With his profession of love for me and the sheer volume of steamy kisses Will and I had exchanged in the past few months, he obviously didn’t share her feelings. But since I’d messed things up so badly that I might never see him again, I wondered if he wouldn’t be better off with someone like her—someone carefree and impulsive—someone willing to set aside her principles for a friend. My doubts made our separation even more confusing and painful.
“We don’t need Will,” I said, trying as much to convince myself as her. “We have a car. We have money. And hopefully, we’ll find shelter and food in Flagstaff. Then we’ll be back on the road. If we can make it as far as Nashville, we’ll contact one of my Uncle Sam’s Network connections who can help us get home safely.”
Assurances aside, I had serious doubts about Flagstaff. If there was a price on our heads or the town was under government control, we’d be caught again for sure. Biting my lip, I kept my concerns to myself, unwilling to admit how much I truly missed Will’s steady presence.
Garnet’s shoulders relaxed and she sighed, a small smile curving her lips. “I was thinking more about Will’s company than him being leader of our little pack.” Will’s wolf DNA made him a free spirit and a loner in some ways, and a loyal friend and good leader at the same time—a conflict Garnet had understood in him from the start.
As I took in the long road ahead, images of Will Callahan filled my mind, clouding my thoughts with worry. Each mile brought us farther apart, and the vastness of the cracked desert before me appeared as desolate and as broken as my heart.
