Forged(7)

I keep wishing my buzzing head would warm to the merriment surrounding me, but when I look around, all I see are faces that might not make it. The odds have never been good. Not in anything the Rebels have faced.

I don’t want to lose any of them, and what stings most of all is the very real possibility—a deep, unyielding fear—that I won’t possibly be so lucky.





THREE


DESPITE THE FACT THAT ADAM is missing and Sammy can barely keep his eyes open, the meeting begins promptly at 0700.

With the exception of Blaine and Jules, who disappeared from the bar well before midnight, the rest of us didn’t retire until closer to two. By that time, Clipper was dozing off on a shabby couch, Riley out cold with her head on his shoulder. After a lot of nudging he grumpily followed us to bed. When I collapsed on my bunk, I couldn’t help but notice that Blaine’s was empty.

He sits beside me now, looking a lot more agreeable than he has the last few weeks. His hair is wet from a shower he didn’t take in our bathroom. I raise an eyebrow at him and he just smiles. Good for him. Maybe he’ll be carefree enough to finally side with me in these meetings.

Vik kicks things off unceremoniously, announcing that there still hasn’t been any word from Ryder. He promises more details as soon as Elijah is able to survey things and contact us.

The doors bang open, and Adam walks in, looking a bit disheveled. “Sorry I’m late. Did you tell them yet?”

Why are we constantly a step behind?

“You’re well aware that we have forces gathering in various areas,” Vik says to us, completely ignoring Adam’s entrance. “And if your group is still anxious to play a part, we’ve got an operation you can help with.”

Vik glances at me, waiting. I realize I’m somehow in charge again.

“I’ve made it clear we’re ready.”

He slides a glossy piece of paper across the table: a bird’s-eye view of the New Gulf. I saw maps bearing the same visuals aboard Isaac’s ship. AmEast and AmWest are divided by a blue chunk of water, which spreads north through two-thirds of the land before splitting into two thin bays. Vik touches an island in the dead center of the Gulf.

“You know what this is?”

“The Compound,” I say automatically. Isaac told me, my father, and Bo about it. I can feel the group’s surprised eyes on me. “It’s a water treatment plant.”

“Wrong,” Vik says. “About its purpose, not its name.”

“They’re working to purify salt water there,” I say. “I’m sure of it.”

“That’s just what they want everyone to think. We’ve got reason to believe this place is far more important.”


“What could be more important than water purification?” Sammy asks.

Adam grins from where he’s standing, slouched against the far wall. “Frank’s got enough water. He’s always had enough.”

Sammy shakes his head. “But it’s rationed. You need water ration cards. And my father . . .” He swallows, letting the statement fade out. His father died—was executed—for forging them in Taem.

“There was a time, right after the Continental Quake, when water was in short supply,” Adam says. “But our numbers are fewer than they were before the War, and this country is rich in forests and streams and lakes. There is water—plenty of it—if you venture beyond a dome to seek it out.

“The truth is that Frank’s convinced his people they need his protection. He controls what they know and what they read. He fabricates stories and with the right delivery, they are accepted as fact. Remember what we discussed when you first arrived here?”

I think back to the moment. Adam introduced us to Vik, who immediately assigned us greenhouse duties. Only Elijah and Clipper would be working directly with the Expats. I’d been furious, yelling about how the Expats were using us for their own needs, how I shouldn’t have been surprised given that they’d attacked Taem—a city filled with thousands of innocent citizens—just months earlier.

It was then that Adam had laughed.

“We live beneath a dome of the same exact strength,” he said. “If we were going to use precious resources to flatten Taem, don’t you think we would have known exactly what to drop?”

The attack as I witnessed it flashed through my head: planes flying in formation, the sirens blaring through town and inducing panic.

“Was it staged?” I muttered, barely believing my own words.

“Not quite,” Adam said.

“We act only when we have a chance for success,” Vik explained. “That’s meant small things. Along the border, on the Gulf. We’ve got some spies in Haven. But the last time the West truly attacked the East, it was our distant relatives, ages ago, with an engineered virus. And we will do everything in our power to not watch so many innocent lives fall again.

“We knew the attack last fall wouldn’t breach the dome, but I had to send Frank a message. He was tossing threats our way, growing land hungry along the border, and I needed him to know that I wouldn’t stand for it. I wasn’t going to submit or crawl back under his rule. The only united country I want to see is one without him in it. I should have known how he’d twist everything—broadcasting that the Order barely held us off, that Taem had been just moments away from annihilation at our hands.”