Page 1 of Empowereds

1

C harity Huntington had known for nearly a year that a book of matches would save her life. That’s how long it had been since her father had the vision of her mother hugging Charity—her mother’s words tumbling with relief—thanking whatever forces had turned him into a psychic for providing that detail to protect her.

Charity’s mother didn’t always thank Providence for her father’s gift so enthusiastically. On bad days, she spent a lot of time complaining about his ability. The government pursued, arrested, and killed anyone with illegal powers. Not many of the Empowereds were left.

That morning, when Charity got ready to climb into the Jeep and head to the trading post with her older brother and sister-in-law, she carried a large matchbook tucked into her jeans pocket and a candle stub in the other. Although the vision only mentioned matches, it stood to reason she’d need a candle too. Her father’s psychic visions didn’t show much. Not enough anyway, just a few vital moments from the future. The family was left to puzzle and guess about the rest.

Charity wandered up to the Jeep and the boxes stacked in the trailer. It contained broccoli, peas, and carrots that the last farm had given them in payment, along with bottles of moonshine, an assortment of shoes, quilts, and a roll of copper wiring. People bartered all sorts of things to farmers for food, and the farmers used it to pay the workers who came to pick the crops.

Her father led a harvesting crew that moved from place to place—farm or ranch, depending on the season—so it frequently fell to her and her brothers to take excess goods to markets to sell or trade.

Milo climbed into the driver’s seat. “I’m driving,” he announced.

“You drove last time,” Charity pointed out.

“Yeah, because I have more experience.”

A self-fulfilling proclamation. Charity was twenty-one and had been driving for years. But since Milo had married Zia seven months ago, the two of them had become inseparable, and it was easier to climb in the back and let them pretend they were alone.

He leaned over and whispered something to Zia that made her laugh. His blond hair was a contrast to her dark brown braid, but their smiles were the same. Teasing and tender. Obnoxiously in love.

Gregor, the middle child in the family, had claimed he was too busy working on one of the trucks to come to the market, but he may have just wanted to avoid the public displays of affection.

The group drove away from the farming compound, bumping along a road that was more potholes than pavement. The Jeep choked out black clouds from the exhaust. They’d been out of gasoline for too long, and the brew they used instead practically left a trail.

The walls surrounding the fields and orchards fell away, replaced by trees, weeds, and litter. Every once in a while, they passed piles of gray, jumbled concrete and rebar, remnants of destruction the government hadn’t bothered to clear away. No other vehicle chugged along the road. Most people lived in the cities and either didn’t have cars or didn’t have a reason to drive around in the wilderness.

Zia turned in her seat so Charity could hear her better. “What do you think we’ll be picking up at the market today?”

“Hopefully gasoline.” The other items on their list were antibiotics, cooking oil, canning lids, dish soap, spices, and hydrocortisone cream, in that order of importance.

Zia held back strands of hair that had blown free of her braid. “I mean the thing your father didn’t put on the list.”

Before they’d set off, Charity’s father had told them, a bit mystically, to pick up anything else that could be helpful.

“What sort of thing?” Milo asked him. Most everything could be helpful at some point.

“You’ll know when you see it,” her father said.

Which meant he knew more about this trip than he let on. He didn’t tell his children about all his visions. None of them bothered pressing him for details. If he didn’t give them up front, he’d remain silent regardless of questions or prodding.

Whatever the item was, Milo would probably be able to get it. He could barter with the best of them. His height and muscled build made people think twice about trying to cheat him.

“Maybe someone will be selling sugar,” Charity said. “Every time I see that, I know it should come home with me.” She glanced at the old plaid shirt she’d thrown on to keep her arms from becoming sunburned. “Or maybe we’ll come across a clothes booth with something I can’t resist. If we do, remember, we have Dad’s blessing to splurge.”

“Ammo,” Milo said. That was as good as money if people were willing to part with it.

Zia wrinkled her nose. “Wouldn’t your father have just put those items on the list if he wanted them?”

Yes, which was the frustrating thing. Really, he should’ve given them more information. What if they completely missed whatever they were supposed to buy?

Milo shrugged. “I guess we’ll know it when we see it.”

The GPS blinked out. Country roads were mostly dead spots. Zia took out the map to ensure they didn’t miss a turn.

Charity pulled a worn Agatha Christie novel from her backpack. She was nearly done with her second time through the book and ought to finish by the time they reached the market. With any luck, someone there would have paper books, and she’d be able to trade for a new story.

Technically, Charity went to the markets as the medical supplies expert. She helped her mother with any first aid the harvesters needed, so she knew how to tell the difference between antibiotics and pills like ibuprofen that dishonest vendors sometimes tried to pass off as more expensive medicine.

But those weren’t the items that usually drew her attention. She loved the obscure tents with things from the world before the Third World War: dishes made of glass and antique wooden furniture that had somehow survived those winters when people burned everything they could to stay warm. Once she’d seen a brass figure of a reindeer and asked the seller what it was used for.

“Just a decoration,” he told her.

She’d picked it up and held it cupped like a treasure. “A rich person must’ve owned it.”

He sniffed at her ignorance. “Back then, even poor people had money for decorations.” He took the reindeer from her hands and returned it to his table. “I should try to sell it the next time I go to the city. No one out in these parts has extra cash or credits.”

She had wanted to buy the reindeer then, just to prove that city folks weren’t the only ones who could afford luxuries, but instead, she’d stared at the figure with a mixture of longing and defiance. She hadn’t been able to get all the items on her parents’ list, let alone barter for a figurine. And besides, she didn’t have room in her packs to lug around useless objects.

But one day, she told herself, one day she’d live in a city where she could have pretty and pointless decorations.

Her father wouldn’t want anything like that today. Whatever he expected them to find would be practical and boring. Something they couldn’t purchase at the farmer’s overpriced compound store. Probably some old textbook that talked about city water systems or military strategy.

Charity silently flipped through the pages of her novel and wished the government had actually fixed the roads like they kept claiming on their broadcasts. Her harvesting co-op had traveled up and down Missouri and Kansas for months and hardly come upon a smooth road.

After some time, Zia and Milo’s voices dropped, which had the opposite effect they intended—Charity’s interest was pulled away from Hercule Poirot to find out what they didn’t want her to hear.

“I don’t think it’s fair,” Zia said. “Your father lets other people go to New Salem but not his own family.”

Charity’s father was not just a simple harvest leader. He gathered people. Once he deemed them to have sufficiently sterling characters, he sent them to a settlement tucked back in the breakaway states. It was far away from any of the established cities and protected by a reservoir to keep it safe from raiders.

“He needs our help,” Milo said simply.

“But what about when we have children?”

Milo’s head whirled in her direction. “Is that happening soon?”

“No.” She nudged his leg. “If I was making an announcement, this isn’t how I’d tell you. I just meant someday .”

He returned his attention to the road. “We’ll worry about someday when it happens. We won’t be out wandering around here forever. Before long, New Salem will have enough people to operate and defend itself, and then we’ll join them.”

Before long. Charity’s parents had been saying that phrase for years. She’d stopped believing it.

Zia lifted her chin. “How many people does the place need? It’s already got over two thousand.”

“Quantity isn’t the only important thing,” Milo said. “We need skilled people.”

Their father had been assembling those for nearly two decades. His gift helped him locate and pluck engineers, doctors, architects, plumbers, mechanics, teachers—and even those rare finds—computer programmers and developers, people who usually just worked for the government.

Zia made a waving gesture with her hand. “Who else does he need?”

“People who can build factories are high on his list. And people with some heavy weaponry would be nice.”

Little chance of the last happening. A lot of people had handguns. Fewer had bullets for them. Raiders and soldiers were among that group, but those sorts weren’t willing to give up their piracy in the former case or their devotion to the government in the latter.

The family’s Glock, which Zia had on her lap—riding shotgun had become a literal term again—only had three bullets. So far, the family had just used the gun for laser cartridge target practice, not for actual defense. Not many vehicles traveled the roads, and most people weren’t looking for trouble.

The group came to a spot in the road so broken and pitted, it hardly seemed to exist. Milo slowed the Jeep to a stop and checked the GPS. It worked again and showed a straight line leading to a nearby destination. “This doesn’t seem right.”

Charity looked around at the oaks, hickories, and beech trees that competed for sunshine. Several cracked branches draped across the foliage as though a windstorm had come through and knocked them off. “We’re not lost, are we?” If they’d gotten too far off track, they could run out of fuel.

“We’re on the right road,” Milo said. “It just wasn’t this messed up the last time I came.”

He’d been to the Sedalia market a couple of times while the co-op was in the area harvesting apricots and berries, so he ought to recognize the way.

Off to their left, ridges of fresh dirt lay along the side of the road. Something had hit it hard enough to make a hole. So not a windstorm. An assault by someone with serious firepower. The market was too far away from the border for the damage to be the result of an attack from the breakaway states.

“Why would the government attack this market?” Charity asked. Politicians occasionally complained that trading posts didn’t pay their fair share of taxes. And granted, most of the deals were unrecorded unless an official happened to be at the market that day. But she’d never heard of soldiers attacking one.

Charity’s question hung in the air. They all knew the obvious answer.

Zia gulped. “Do you think an Empowered was hiding at the market?”

Psychics weren’t the only ones the government hunted. Officials had identified three anti-human abilities: telekinetics, psychics, and fortes—people with extra strength.

If you believed the news reports, the special ops department had eradicated all but a few of the Empowereds and promised not to rest until the job was complete.

No one ever argued that Empowereds ought to have rights. They’d been to blame for the Third World War and therefore were also responsible for the civil war that followed. During World War III, groups of Western states had lost faith in DC’s ability to run the country or protect them and had declared their independence. The government hadn’t taken kindly to that. The civil war was still ongoing, although for the last six years, it had mostly settled down into political posturing and the occasional border skirmish.

Milo gripped the steering wheel, letting the Jeep idle. “If an Empowered turned up at the market, it’s nothing to us. We’re just here to trade. Same as everyone else.”

They were definitely not the same as everyone else.

“What if military people are still there?” Charity asked. “What if they got intel that an Empowered worked in the area, and they’re testing people?”

The government had truth serum they used to catch criminals. If an officer touched someone’s skin with it, the person would be compelled to honestly answer each question put to them for the next seven minutes. Not a long period of time but long enough to betray her father.

Milo shook his head. “The government wouldn’t have attacked the place just because they were suspicious of the area. And they wouldn’t waste truth serum on every passing shopper.”

One batch of the serum cost six thousand credits, more than a third of a year’s salary for a farm worker. But who knew how desperate the government was or what means they would employ?

“Whatever they did,” Milo said, “they finished doing it.”

And not long ago, judging by the ragged piles of dirt. Rain had stopped work on the farm four days ago, but no water had softened the edges here. “What if the market isn’t there anymore?” Charity asked.

Milo rechecked the GPS. “Then we’ll turn around and hope we can find someone selling gas who’s willing to barter for vegetables.”

Not a pleasant thought. Charity didn’t like that prospect or the idea of disappointing the harvesters about the supplies they’d come to barter for. Several of them had given her and Zia cash and lists of their own.

Milo still let the Jeep idle. He glanced at Zia, probably considering her safety. She’d have to lock their father’s gun in the glove box soon. Market rules stated if the officials saw customers with guns, security could confiscate them.

“We’ve come this far,” Zia said. “We ought to at least check to see if the market is still there. Your father would’ve warned us if we were in danger.”

Milo tapped the steering wheel, thinking. “It’s not as straightforward as that.” Zia had only recently been told about their father’s abilities. Their secret was too dangerous to let anyone outside the family know. “He doesn’t control his visions. They just come. And they don’t tell him about every hazard. If psychics could predict those, more of them would’ve avoided government executions.”

It was ironic that most of the psychics had been killed. Well, not ironic. Frightening, really. It meant the government excelled at finding people and hunting them down.

Milo took the Jeep out of gear, finally making up his mind. “Dad must have had some sort of premonition about today, though. He told us to pick up something not on the list, which means the market has to still be there.”

“And we’ll be safe,” Zia added, relieved.

Milo guided the Jeep off the road and around the worst of the holes. “We should be there in a few more minutes.”

Charity let her book sit on her lap, unfinished, and scanned the area for other signs of destruction. More branches had been torn from trees and lay in bits on the ground. Gunshots wouldn’t take those down. Had to be something bigger. That meant raiders probably weren’t responsible. Except for the rare cases when raiders managed to steal from the government, they only had guns.

In places next to the road, the plants had been crushed. People had come through here, so many that they didn’t all fit on the road. Charity pointed out these signs to Milo.

“Something happened,” Milo agreed. “But that doesn’t mean the market hasn’t popped back up, and if it has, it will be in the same place. Buyers know the location, so sellers will go there.”

He was right. Her nerves still stood on end, though, and she strained to hear anything out of the ordinary. The only sound was the engine thudding along and the birds squabbling in the trees.

The Jeep rounded a bend, and the entrance to the marketplace came into sight. The trees hid the bulk of it, but a row of tents peeked out, square in shape and big enough for a couple of stalls. Gasoline tanks would be waiting on one side of the market so customers could fill up before leaving.

Zia put the gun in the glove box, locked it, and slid the key and its chain over Milo’s neck. If the need for a weapon arose, he was the most practiced shot.

As they drove closer, more rows of tents became visible. Only a small crowd walked among them. All men. A few vehicles were scattered around—not in the dirt parking area, but in between the tents.

Was the trading post not opened after all? Or were these people setting up a new market? They seemed to be loading items onto trucks rather than unloading them.

Milo slowed the Jeep to a halt. “I don’t like this.”

“They have goods to trade,” Zia said. “We should at least talk to them.”

Without answering, he put the Jeep in reverse and slung his arm over the seat to back up.

Before he could, a pickup truck pulled out onto the road behind them. Driving around it was impossible. Strands of trees hemmed them in.

They were trapped.