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The plane bounced a hundred ways till Sunday before the earth stood still.
When I opened my eyes, everything looked blurry and sounded distant, as if I were underwater. Garnet was screaming and Tyler was trying to calm her down. I lifted my hand to my head where blood trickled from my hairline. I pressed my hand over the wound and assessed the situation. The scene became clearer and Garnet’s screaming pierced my fuzzy wall. I peered around the cabin.
Anything not stowed away or clamped down had been tossed, including, I noticed, a briefcase which had fallen out of an overhead compartment—the obvious culprit for my throbbing headache.
“Stop screeching!” Dalton’s voice cut through my haze and Garnet stopped immediately, her head coming up from between her knees. Tears stained her face and her wide, dark eyes gaped in shock as Dalton checked first on Garnet and Tyler. Neither of the other two had sustained any visible injuries, so he turned back to me, coming to one knee and wiping the blood from my face with a cloth. “You must have a nasty gash.” As he cleared the blood from my eyes, my vision returned and I took my hand away from the wound. He stared, fascinated, as the cut began to close. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He raised a brow and addressed all three of us.
“Sorry for the rough landing, but I had to make it look real.”
Garnet found her voice, a venomous rage narrowing her eyes to slits. “You crashed the plane on purpose? You could have killed us all!” She was about to tear into the man, but he cut her off.
“We want the Industry to think you’re all dead.”
“We almost were,” Garnet snapped as she unbuckled her seat belt and turned to Tyler, who had as yet not spoken a word, his face ashen. “Are you hurt, Ty?”
“I’m...I’m all right.” Tyler curled his shaking hands into fists.
“Do you think you’re ready to travel?” Dalton asked. He ran a finger along my still tender hairline where the gash was now scabbed over and would disappear completely within minutes.
“Where are we going?” I stood, wobbling, the adrenaline surge making my head pound harder. I couldn’t quite put all my trust in him. Especially after he’d just risked all of our lives and landed us in the middle of... “Do you even know where we are?”
“Sure I do.” Dalton zipped off the pilot’s suit he had donned to hijack the plane, revealing a faded green T-shirt with the words U.S. Army across the front, and a slick pair of camo pants. “At least, I know the general vicinity...within a hundred-mile radius.”
Garnet had collected herself fine until that moment. “Do you mean we’re lost in some jungle a stone’s throw from the swamps, and it could be a hundred miles to the nearest sign of civilization?”
“I wouldn’t put it that way, but...yeah. That about sums it up.” Dalton’s lips curved into a half smile. “No worries, kid. Just do what you’re told, and everything’ll be fine.”
Before Garnet could retort that she wasn’t a “kid,” or any of us could question him further, the sound of a familiar motor broke the eerie silence outside the plane and brought us all to stillness. “Is that...?”
“How do you think Maia and I got onto the plane?” My heart leapt when I saw Maia parked outside with the desert buggy. “When we came across you at the convenience station and saw Graves take you into custody, we...well let’s just say we exchanged places with two of the agents and commandeered your vehicle. We followed along as if we belonged in the convoy and loaded it into the cargo hold, set up a little diversion at just the right time...and here we are.”
Maia exchanged a nod with Dalton, who took over at the wheel as she slipped into the backseat with Garnet and Tyler. I climbed into the front and gave Dalton a grateful thumbs-up. Garnet grabbed her pack on the floor and rummaged through it, pulling out a hairbrush and mirror, the first smile I’d seen on her face all day.
The vehicle lurched forward, the big tires rolling over debris and finally leveling out when we hit the narrow, rutted dirt road snaking through the tall pines—Dalton’s best estimate of a landing strip in the middle of a forest. He explained that it was an old logging road and that we were somewhere in Louisiana. Our goal before nightfall was to make it to the Mississippi River in hopes of finding a riverboat to take us north. The larger plan was to reach Memphis by morning. I bumped along without argument, relieved to have someone else in charge and to be going in the right direction.
I reached in my bag to check on my water supply. Relief washed over me when my hand found the container full and then brushed my mother’s book. Admittedly, I was glad to see the return of my belongings—as few as they were. Especially since Graves had taken my locket and Will’s whistle. A slow burn crept into my gut, but I wasn’t willing to contemplate what it would take to get the items back or the possibility of ever seeing Graves again.
Dalton glanced over. “Sam said you were on a mission to rescue your brother from Industry headquarters in Vegas.”
“I couldn’t convince my brother to leave the others behind. He seems to think his being there will protect them somehow and that the project the Industry is working on is worth his sacrifice. He says he’s found his purpose in life.”
I stared at my hands, the failure of my mission resting like a ball of ice in my gut. If only I could stand under a hot shower for about a day... exhaustion set in and my lack of food after healing myself was making me nauseous and dizzy. I wasn’t sure how much to confide in Dalton. He had rescued us from Graves and seemed to be working with Sam, but until I talked to my uncle, I wasn’t going to put all my trust in this stranger.
His gray eyes flashed, sensing me shut down. “If you’ve got any food in that bag, you should eat and drink something. I don’t need you passing out on me. Or does your healing ability make you immune to starvation and water deprivation too?” If his tone wasn’t serious, I would have thought he was being sarcastic, but he sounded sincerely curious.
“I don’t know all the limitations of my abilities, but I do need food and water, especially after a...healing.” I pulled out the water, a small bag of nuts, and a protein bar I’d picked up at the convenience station. It wasn’t exactly a meal, but it would do.
“Eat up,” said Dalton. “We’ll find some food before long. I just want to get us as far away from the crash site as possible. They’ll be sending out drones and trackers by morning, but once we’re on the river, we should be able to lose them.”
Sucking down several swallows of water and feasting on the protein bar, I felt improved. I passed the bag of nuts into the backseat and turned my attention to Dalton, able to focus more clearly. “So, you talked to Sam?”
Dalton stiffened slightly. “A few days ago, yeah.”
His tone was even but I caught the tension in it. My pulse tripped. “Tell me,” I said. Visions of my dream screamed in my head—the smoke rising above Stanton and ash falling from the sky. “Is he okay?”
The muscle in Dalton’s jaw twitched. He kept his attention focused on the winding road ahead, which had opened up and smoothed out some, but still had nothing but tall trees lining each side. Darkness quickly closed in around us.
“Sam hadn’t heard from you so he wanted me to head toward Vegas to find you. He also said that if I didn’t hear from him again, I was to get you to Nashville and make sure you made it into Network protection.”
With the prophetic dream still playing solidly in my mind, I knew better than to ignore the truth of the situation. Sam must have figured that if I didn’t contact him, something had gone wrong. A sudden sickening realization hit me. Whether I had succeeded or failed in my mission, Sam and all of Stanton were probably doomed. Even if I’d been captured or killed in the process of trying to free Zeph and Tyler from the research facility, Malevich would send drones to Stanton in retaliation for our rebellion. How could I have been so foolish as to let my need to protect my brother put so many lives in danger? Tears stung my eyes as I stared out the window, the silence unbearable.
Tyler’s voice broke through, small and uncertain. “Do you really think Stanton has been attacked, Lily?” I shook my head, trying to keep him out of my thoughts.
“I don’t know for sure, but if Sam hasn’t checked in, something isn’t right.”
Dalton took over. “Don’t jump to any conclusions. There could be a hundred reasons why Sam hasn’t contacted me. Not the least of which is that I’ve been a little busy tracking you down and I’ve been out of communication all day. When we get where we’re going, I’ll get in touch with him and find out what’s going on.”
But I already knew that something was terribly wrong. I felt it in my bones, and as the headlights bounced along the darkening road, the chill of night set in.
