Boom!
I jumped to my feet, sword drawn, whirling to glance in every direction. “What is it?” I blinked the sleep from my eyes.
“Thunder.” Fawke grinned. “Relax, no rain yet, but it’s coming. We haven’t seen sign of anything in days other than those infernal black birds. They make enough racket to wake all of Soriah.”
“We’ve never seen them outside the forest before.” I sheathed my sword and headed to the small campfire where Kira brewed the last of our coffee. We needed to spot a drop soon…if there was anyone in the city to drop supplies for. Another day’s walk would take us to the city center. I much preferred the outskirts we’d stuck to so far.
“I guess the birds followed us. Maybe the Malignants will eat them instead of us.” Kira handed me a dented metal cup. “You know, like they do the rats.”
“Not unless those monsters grow wings they won’t get the birds.” Dante accepted a cup of his own.
“No breakfast?” Gage frowned.
Kira shook her head. “Supplies are running low. We need to ration.”
“Someone will have to go into the city and find scavengers, scouts, hunters, anything,” Ezra said. “We’ve another two days before we reach the first possible site for an arsenal.” He stood and grabbed his pack from the wagon.
“No, I’ll go.” I sighed. “You’re the best person to read that map. Find shelter out of the rain.” I donned my leather suit, Fawke doing the same. I’d known without asking that he’d accompany me.
“Into the belly of the beast we go.” He squared his shoulders.
“It’s nothing new.” Nor less terrifying. I checked all my weapons, hoping we wouldn’t have to use them. Firing the gun would alert anyone around to our location. I preferred to remain anonymous. Right now, Soriah thought us all dead. Just the way I wanted it.
We headed across a field of concrete and dried weeds as the first raindrops fell. Since the rain acted like acid on skin, hence our rubber suits, we didn’t worry about Malignants. They stayed inside. We hadn’t seen them since leaving Rebel City, but once we entered the city ahead of us, we’d hear and smell them. My blood chilled at the thought.
After an hour of walking, we passed the first toppled building. Gas fires still burned, filling the air with an acrid odor. “I hadn’t missed those.”
“Me either,” Fawke said. “They’re good for nothing but lighting our way and keeping the chill at bay.”
“I prefer the trees we left behind.” I mourned leaving Rebel City more than I had Soriah, which was strange since my mother still resided in Soriah. How had she taken the news of my death? Someday, I’d see her face again and the joy reflected in her eyes.
We slipped through an opening in an iron fence and into a courtyard. A fountain, empty of water, rose from the center. Skyscrapers, windows long gone, towered over us. From my right came the shriek of a malignant. I shuddered, grateful for the rain.
“What day is it?” I glanced over my shoulder at Fawke.
“Sunday, I think.”
“Then, if Soriah sent others, they’ll be getting a drop.” The question was where? The city sprawled in every direction. We could be close or very far away. At least seeing a chopper would let us know whether we were alone out there. I’d fight for those supplies. We’d never accomplish our mission without food. I hoped whoever might be in the city would know enough to stay away from the center. It was safer on the outskirts and made a supply drop easier.
My stomach growled, and I fished inside my suit for the protein bar inside. I bit into it, the taste of sawdust filling my mouth. It wasn’t much, but it would give me energy. Sitting on a low wall, I surveyed the gray sky for signs of a white parachute.
Something moved, but not what I expected. If I hadn’t been looking, I’d have missed the slate gray chute floating down. I hadn’t heard the chopper over the occasional rumble of thunder. “They changed the color.” To make it harder for scouts and thieves?
“Let’s go.” Fawke led the way at a run.
The drop wasn’t close, but we could make it in half an hour if we ran without stopping. We stopped at the edge of a pothole filled parking lot. No Malignants shrieked from nearby buildings, still safely out of the rain. Normally, they waited for a human to venture out for the crate.
Not seeing anyone, we headed across the lot and gripped the handles of the crate. Not as large as we were used to, which led me to believe whatever Stalkers the drop was intended for weren’t as large as the seven of us. Still, anything would help.
We carried it under an alcove and used a bar Fawke picked up from the ground to pry open the lid. A bit of coffee, water purification tablets, silver packets of dried meals. It was something.
“That’s ours.” A voice cracked, then the speaker cleared his throat.
I turned to stare into the faces of three young men around my age. “We got to it first.”
“Only because it’s raining.” The one with black stripes on his face glared, shoving a wool hood away from his face. “Step back, and we won’t have to fight you.”
I laughed. “That’s a fight you’d lose. How many of you are there?”
“Twenty.” His gaze flickered toward his comrades.
He lied. The crate would barely feed the three of them.
“Have you seen any scouts?”
“What?” His brow furrowed. “Who are you?”
“Crynn Dayholt. Former Stalker.”
“Former? You can’t quit this job.” He snorted. “You’re in it for the long haul or until death claims you.”
“Nope.” I reached for the handle again. “This is Fawke. Come with us or stay, it doesn’t matter to me.” I started walking, my shoulders tense, expecting an attack.
“Wait.” Footsteps pounded behind us. “Let us join you. We can’t fight those things ourselves, and we need what’s in that crate. Come back to our camp and let’s talk.”
I arched a brow at Fawke. “What do you think?”
He shrugged. “Not sure we can trust them, but I don’t mind slitting a throat if I have to.”
The leader paled. “You can trust us. We have shelter.”
I nodded. “Lead the way.”
“Awesome. I’m Jay, this is Ryan and Lark. I’ve been here a month, those two only a matter of a few weeks.” He pulled his hood back over his head.
Green behind the ears. I shook my head, remembering my first month of being a Stalker. Hell was the only word to describe what I’d jumped into. Luckily, my group had experienced fighters.
We followed them to the sorriest shelter I’d ever seen. Blankets lay strewn around a gas fire under a fallen building that lay propped on a concrete wall. They could be attacked from at least two directions at any given time. How were they still alive? They were either the luckiest people I knew or the dumbest. Maybe both.
“Why aren’t you inside?” I dropped my end of the crate.
“Those things live in the buildings.” Jay sat on one of the folded blankets. “We’ve managed not to have to fight them so far.”
“You find a place with only one entrance. Put a dead malignant out front. They can’t smell you that way. Not over that stench.” I perched on the crate, laying my sword across my knees. “You’ve not fought once? What do you do all day?”
“Stay here.” He leaned on his elbow. “We weren’t really given orders other than to kill Malignants. I’d rather not risk my life.”
We didn’t need inexperienced fighters, but we did need the supplies. I glanced around the makeshift shelter. Three blankets, three swords, two daggers, a canteen… “You didn’t take much from the supply room.”
He shrugged. “Food mostly. It’s gone now.”
“You weren’t told at all what to expect out here?”
“I had no idea what a malignant was,” Dirk said. “I thought maybe it was a rodent. We’ve seen rats, eaten a few, but those pale fleshed monsters were a surprise.”
I glanced at Fawke who frowned. He wasn’t any more impressed than I was. These three were lucky to be alive.
“How many is in your group?” Jay asked.
“Seven. We’re camped outside the city. No Malignants there. We came in looking for supplies. You haven’t seen any other humans?”
“Found evidence, but no sightings.” Jay put a pot of water over the fire. “We only leave this place for the drop.”
“You don’t help newcomers when they arrive?” Fawke sat cross-legged on the ground.
“Why? Nobody helped me. Either they find us or they perish, not that anyone has come in over a week.”
“Only criminals and newly eighteen-year-olds will arrive.” I exhaled heavily trying to decide if taking them with us would have any advantage.
“Tell them about the noise,” Ryan said, purifying the water over the fire.
“What noise?” Fawke’s lips pressed together.
“Sounds like trucks,” Jay said, “but I haven’t seen anything like that since leaving Soriah. Only the military has vehicles of that type. Besides, the city is so crowded with debris, how would they get military vehicles in here?”
Worry creased Fawke’s face. He motioned his head for me to join him away from the others. “What if Soriah never bought that we were killed?”
“You think they’re out here looking for us?”
“Maybe.”
“We aren’t that important.”
“No, but Rebel City is a real threat. If we located them, joined them, that makes us a threat.”
My blood chilled. Would Soriah really start a war? Did they expect these three young men to clear the path of Malignants so others could finish what my group had started? Seemed too far-fetched for me. “It doesn’t make sense. Something else is going on.”
“But what? We cut out our trackers.” He glanced at the scar on his forearm. “No one can know that we found the rebels.”
“Unless the choppers spotted them.” My mouth dried up. “If they did, the army could be going there. We need to warn them.”
“Don’t you think Soriah would have dropped a bomb and saved themselves the trouble of sending the army?” He shook his head. “Wanna bet they’re looking for the arsenals? Wanna bet more that they knew we’d find the survivors, find out about the arsenals? Since we’re supposedly dead, they’ve come looking for the weapons.”
My head hurt from the whiplash of all the possibilities of why Soriah would be here.
The familiar sound of the radio monitor clicking on froze me in place.