Revolution (Collide, #4)(22)

"Oh, I'll tell you, but I don't think you'll believe me." He laughed. "We were walking down the road toward this place. Well not toward it, just walking. They were more of us then," he said sadly and then went on. "We had just about used every resource we had. No food was left and we were basically looking for a place to die peacefully. And then there they were. They were sitting smack dab in the middle of the road."

Merrick frowned, a deep groove in his forehead that meant he was really thinking about something. Everybody else had stopped to listen. "In the middle of the road? Weren't you suspicious that it was too easy?"

"Sure we were. But you know what they say about a gift horse."

Rylee butted in, "That you don't leave it in the middle of the freaking road."

Pastor went on. "We cracked them open and it was exactly what it looked like." He smiled and lifted his dirty hands. "Manna from Heaven."

"Can we cut all the religious mumble?" Billings said and crossed his arms. "Let's get back to what's in the crates."

Pastor took his hand and ran it under the word "Canned Goods" on one crate. "Canned goods," he said sarcastically. I wanted to laugh.

"Ha. Ha. What about the rest of them? You mean to say that you found crates in the middle of the road that really had guns and explosives in them?"

"That's what I'm saying."

"Well then!" he yelled and laughed. "Let's go door to door to the enforcement facilities and give them a little 'Hey, how you doing'."

"We can't do that. There are innocent people in there!" I said and found my chest heaving a little with anger. I knew what he was saying, I understood, but I had been one of those people just days ago.

He sighed and twisted his lips. "Sorry. You're right. I'm just shooting in the dark to find a solution here."

"I know," I answered back and waved off Merrick's look of concern. "I know."

"Sherry's right, of course," Pastor continued. "We can't do that. The reason I kept it was because I knew there would be a right time. That one day, there would be a moment of weakness or bloated egos on their part and we would be able to take advantage of it."

"You got a TV in here?" Cain asked. "We need to see if our little blip at the hospital and then the store and all made the news. Hadn't thought about that until now." He looked at Jeff and Marissa. "I bet they've got all kinds of people looking for us."

"Sure," Pastor said. "It's small, but it works." He went to a small cabinet on the wall and opened the doors. The nine inch TV sat there, dusty and beautiful. He flipped it on and we watched as the non-stop news played us a story about Malachi's recent 'good work' - even though he was dead as dead could be - at the new enforcement facility near there. They'd taken over someone's house to use as headquarters since we'd demolished the jail there.

And then a man came to the podium at some sort of press conference, and he looked pretty irritated. He coughed dramatically and then explained that they were now upping the ante on the rewards.

"Due to the circumstances that have risen in the past few days, we have decided to increase the reward for anyone who catches and brings a rebel to us or gives us information regarding their whereabouts. The reward is now twenty thousand dollars for the capture…"

The rest of his words were lost on us. I sat in disbelief. Well it explained why the town was in disarray. Everyone was looking for rebels. Miguel bolted and turned off the offensive TV. Billings started laughing hysterically. "Twenty thousand! Twenty thousand! For twenty thousand I'll turn my own self in!"

"Billings," Cain warned, but he was on a roll.

"We don't stand a chance now. It was bad before, but now we've lost the store, we've lost our privacy, we're losing people left and right, ambushed every time we turn around, we've got no way to gain the upper hand now, and on top of all that? We're being hunted by money hungry desperate people." He laughed once more, bitterly and angrily. "We're gonna die."

I took a deep breath and looked over at Lily, who had woken in my arms. She was looking at Billings like he was some sort of alien.

"You have to bewieve in it, Mister Biwwings," she spouted.

He looked at her. He sighed, his chest deflating with sadness. "I'm sorry, Lily. I shouldn't have said that, ok?"

"Why you so sad?"

He smiled. "Cause I feel like everyday it's raining on us."

Calvin busted through Ryan and his mom and started belting out, "If you walk away, everyday it'll rain, rain, raaaai-a-a-ain! Ooooooh!"

We all stared a little before laughing at him. It was obvious what he was trying to do, so when Franklin joined him and they continued singing as Lily squealed and ran to dance with them, I was pretty proud of the kid.

"Don't you say goodbye! I'll pick up these broken pieces 'til I'm bleeding if that'll make it right! 'Cause they'll be no sun light, if I lose you, baby! And they'll be no clear skies, if I lose you, baby!"

Calvin held Lily's hands and danced with her as they sang. She didn’t know the words, but twisted her legs and hips to his tune. Cain grabbed Lillian and started dancing with her, too. It reminded me so, so, so much of the bunker.