Three (Article 5 #3)(24)

“Please tell me you still have a gun,” said Sean.

Some of the boys had gathered between us, gasping in delight and exchanging high fives. Based on Chase’s expression, the firearm had made it into the wrong hands.

A shot rang out, a deep boom that echoed off the trees. It wasn’t the sharp clap of a handgun, but something larger and more powerful, coming from the direction where we’d entered the grove—where the others in our party had stopped to rest.

I didn’t remember any of the survivors having a rifle.

Around us the boys had frozen, scarcely breathing, all facing the origin of the sound. At the second shot, they ran, their steps almost silent as if they’d taken flight.

The four of us were left alone in the grove.

“That doesn’t sound good,” said Sean.

My ears rang as I struggled to get free of the net. Whatever had spooked the boys was still here. In the distance, shouts of confusion filtered between the trees, a haunting warning of the danger just beyond our sight.

Chase reached me, untangling my legs. I winced when the thin strings tightened around my upper body. He bared his teeth and ripped the net, until finally I was able to wriggle out. I scratched the tattered pieces from my skin as if they’d been part of a giant spiderweb and stared down the alley for signs of who had fired those shots.

“That was the survivors, right?” Rebecca asked nervously.

Chase gave me a grim look. Someone else.

Sean had been in the midst of helping Rebecca up, but stopped suddenly and let her slide to the ground. She gripped his calves as he stood over her, struggling to see what had caught his attention.

I followed his gaze. Over Chase’s shoulder, something black and metallic glinted off a slice of sunlight peeking through the trees.

The barrel of a rifle.

“Chase,” I whispered.

As he turned, I stood slowly, shoulder to shoulder with Sean. Chase rose on my other side, his back to me. His waistband, where he’d held a standard issue FBR gun, was empty. I cursed the boys under my breath.

The leaves to my left rustled, and a man wearing a loose tan tunic and cropped pants stepped out into the light. He was cleaner than the boys, with neatly trimmed ginger hair, and old enough to be their father. A shotgun was wedged against his shoulder, aimed at the four of us.

And then they were everywhere. Men. Women. A dozen. Two dozen. More. Some were on horseback. They formed a circle around us and tightened rank, until Chase, Sean, and I were locked in a triangle over Rebecca.

“We should have stayed in reform school,” Sean muttered behind me.





CHAPTER


7


WE were ushered up the lane behind the man with the orange hair. He didn’t say anything. None of our captors did, but their guns spoke for them, and soon we had rejoined the rest of our party.

More men and women, dressed in the same uniform outfits, had surrounded the others. There was no evidence of the boys—no nets on the ground or pointed sticks. These people were definitely from a different group, and judging by the way they’d rounded up our people, we didn’t concern them in the least.

It looked as if we were the last to arrive. Sarah stood behind Billy. Both of them appeared unharmed. Jack was railing a woman for confiscating a set of knives he’d collected. Beside me, Chase craned his neck, probably looking for his uncle. I couldn’t see Jesse, but the group was packed so densely it was difficult to tell who was there.

“If you could lay down any other weapons you might have, that would be appreciated.”

A man stood before us wearing the same strange, loose clothing—a baggy beige shirt and straight, cropped pants that looked like they’d been hand-patched from someone’s old sheets. On his feet were boots, their laces held together by black electrical tape. He spoke without any sense of urgency, as if he had all the time in the world.

As we drew closer, I could see that his chocolate-colored hair was streaked white around the temples, and that his blue eyes were both intense and somehow familiar. At first I thought his face was dirty, but as Chase and I pulled to the front of the pack I could see the scars: a smattering of pink scratches and hooks across both cheeks.

He watched Chase and me, drawing us out of the crowd, and though I wanted to sink back into the others, I stood my ground.

Several men stepped forward, looking exceedingly more dangerous than their leader. Billy reluctantly gave up the gun we’d found at the house and slowly placed it on the ground.

“You won’t need those weapons,” Jesse bellowed from the center of the group. “We got refugees and children. A pregnant girl and a lame one, too. We’re not here to stir trouble.”

I huffed at Jesse’s assessment of Rebecca, and Sean muttered something I couldn’t make out. Beside me, Chase exhaled, out of relief or disappointment, I didn’t know.

The man froze, then reanimated as Jesse, previously hidden within the folds of the group, emerged. They appraised each other with a strange kind of challenge in their gazes—Jesse’s brows raised as if amused while the leader of the strangers pulled absently at his bottom lip.

“I find that most folks who tell me that usually intend the opposite.” The scars on his jaw flexed as he spoke.

Jesse scratched a hand over his chest. “Guess you’ll have to take my word for it.”

The man turned to where Chase and I stood. His head tilted in curiosity.