“You don’t have to do this,” Keo said for the third time since they left the YMCA behind and began the trek back to T18. That was almost an hour ago.
“Shut up,” she said.
“I’m serious. I can do this on my own. I have the ring of power. Its gaudiness will be more than enough to strike down the bad guys.”
She smirked. “You don’t even know if it’s going to work.”
“Tobias seemed to think it will.”
“It’s been months since he talked to Miller. People can change a lot these days. You, of all people, should know that.”
They walked in silence for another few minutes, passing parts of the woods that he didn’t recognize from yesterday. Jordan was leading the way because she was more familiar with the area, and according to her, just as it didn’t pay to stay in the same place for too long, it wasn’t smart to travel the same path more than once if they could help it. She knew better, so he deferred to her experience.
“So what’s the plan?” Jordan asked. “You’re just going to walk up and hand the ring to Miller and ask him to pretty please give you Gillian?”
“You act like that’s a bad plan.”
“It’s a stupid plan. He didn’t expect you to survive yesterday. He practically dangled you so we’d expose ourselves.”
Jordan had a point, but Keo knew men like Miller. They were cunning and dangerous, but also vain. When presented with the opportunity to take a prize like Tobias’s state championship ring and lose nothing in return, would Miller really turn it down? Keo didn’t think so. Which was good, because he was going to put his life on the line for that belief.
Solid plan, pal. You just forgot the part where everything turns to shitburgers and you get killed.
“About Gillian,” Keo said. “You never told me what happened.”
“What do you mean?”
“T18. You left and she didn’t. You never told me why.”
“We talked about it more times than I could count, and I thought she was going to leave with me.” She looked momentarily lost in thought, maybe reliving all those conversations with Gillian. “But when the time came, I left and she stayed behind.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her when you see her again.”
“And she hasn’t tried to leave since?”
Jordan shook her head. “I sent her messages using one of our inside guys, but she never answered. The only thing left would have been to get our guy to approach her, and I didn’t want to risk exposing him like that in case-”
She didn’t finish.
“In case of what?” Keo asked. When she still didn’t say anything, “Jordan.”
“You’ll have to ask her when you see her again,” was all she would say.
“Jordan…”
“She was different in the weeks leading up to the escape. To this day I don’t know what happened, but when the time came, I was the only one who left. Only she can say why.”
He thought about pressing the issue, but one look at her and he knew he wasn’t going to get far. If anything, it would probably piss her off.
So he asked instead, “How long have you been running around out there with Tobias’s gang?”
“Three months. It feels like three years. Time has a way of slipping by out here.”
They walked on, moving as quickly as they could without making too much noise. Keo caught a couple of squirrels sitting on a branch nearby watching them pass, and he grinned. He had a long and glorious history with squirrels.
“So, these people on Song Island,” Jordan said after a while. “They sound like good people.”
“Sure, if you don’t mind all the crazy shit they do.”
“Hunh.”
He gave her a curious look. “Meaning?”
She had walked on in front of him, but he pictured her smiling to herself when she said, “You calling someone else crazy. That’s a good one.”
He grunted. “You haven’t met these people. They’re all nuts.”
“I’d still like to meet them one of these days. Especially Lara.”
“Maybe you will.”
“You think he found them by now? Her boyfriend Will?”
“He’d have to be alive first to do that.”
“You don’t think he is?”
“We were out there for a month and never heard a peep from him. If he was still alive, he would have already made contact.” He shrugged. “But what do I know. From what everyone keeps telling me, he’s too stubborn to die, so anything’s possible, I guess.”
“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”
“What’s that?”
“People finding each other out here. Like you and Gillian.”
“Happily ever after?”
“Maybe just a happily for now-”
Clop-clop-clop!
Jordan froze and started lifting her rifle, but Keo grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down to the ground first. They ended up behind a thick bush on their stomachs, faces pressed into the soft earth just as two men on horseback galloped past them.
Soldiers in black uniforms, M4s thumping against their backs.
They were heading off in the same direction Keo and Jordan had just come from: toward the YMCA building. It had to have been the cars firing up at the same time. Tobias’s people had made a hell of a ruckus, but they could afford to, because they were abandoning the base.
He was hoping one of the soldiers might be Jack Miller, who would have made for an even better bargaining chip than Tobias’s ring. But that turned out not to be the case. Even though he only saw the two men from the back as they were riding away, one was too thin and the other was too tall to be Jack.
Next to him, Jordan had eased her carbine forward and was gripping it perhaps just a little too tightly. He could tell she wanted to fight.
He shook his head and they exchanged a brief look, then waited for the clop-clop-clop to slowly fade into the background.
When they couldn’t hear the soldiers anymore, they picked themselves up and brushed the dirt off their clothes.
“They’re heading for the YMCA,” Jordan said.
“If we move farther back into the woods, away from the road, can you still find T18?”
“I’ve been walking and running and fighting around here for months now. I could find T18 with a blindfold on.”
“So that’s a yes?”
“Yes, smartass.”
They continued on, but also moved deeper into the woods. It wasn’t a guarantee they wouldn’t run into more soldiers, but Keo didn’t feel like taking any chances now. He’d already taken too many unnecessary risks on his way here, and having found Gillian, he wanted to play it as safe as possible.
“Kill Steve. Save Gillian. Live happily ever after.”
*
His head had started bothering him as soon as they left the YMCA behind, and it only continued to get worse during the long walk back to T18. The quick spurt of adrenaline from the near-miss with the mounted soldiers hadn’t helped, either.
“You okay?” Jordan asked when she saw the way he was touching his head.
“A little dizzy,” he said, stopping momentarily and leaning against a tree. “I guess I’m still not over getting my head bashed in by your friends.”
She looked at him worriedly for a moment. “You need to rest. Get off your feet.” She glanced around them, then bit her lips for a moment. Finally, she said, “Come on. I know a place around here.”
They headed off again, Jordan taking him deeper into the woods.
“So everyone’s gone?” Keo asked when they had been walking for a few minutes.
“Gone?”
“Tobias’s people.”
“Except for the ones still in town, yeah.”
“How many inside agents do you have?”
“Two that I know of for sure, more that only Tobias knows about. They’re risking a lot to help us, and he doesn’t want to unnecessarily endanger them. The more people know, the greater their chances of being discovered.”
“So except for the undercovers in T18 and you, that’s it. Tobias has officially thrown up the white flag.”
“You heard him. He said he was just going to rest, to let the others heal up.”