Page 11

John

T o my relief, Claire nodded like she knew where to go.

She grabbed four boxes of PNCs while I gathered Holly’s sidearm, which seemed to be her only weapon.

Claire took off in the direction of the back door we came from.

I followed, dragging Holly along with me.

She was semi-conscious, mumbling nonsense, but still stunned for now.

Claire led us through the winding hallways of the school, down a flight of stairs, and into a dank basement.

We headed to a heavy-looking metal door that blended in with the walls.

A keypad was concealed in the wall next to it.

Claire punched in a number code, and with a click, several deadbolts disengaged.

She threw her weight against the door, pushing it open with effort, and gestured for me to follow.

I dragged Holly ahead of me before tossing her to the floor and drawing my pistol.

Claire let the door close behind us, and the deadbolts clicked again.

A brief look around told me we were inside some kind of bunker.

It was small, with cement walls and floors, and a small passage that led to another room.

There were shelves of boxes lining the walls, and a small desk with a computer terminal in the corner.

It seemed as safe as it could be in the circumstances.

I let out a breath, relieved, but it didn’t last long, because in my life, nothing could ever just go smoothly.

There was the click of a gun being cocked, and I was suddenly on the business end of a pistol.

A beautiful woman with smooth, coppery skin and sleek black hair stood in the doorway to the other room.

Her deep brown eyes looked wild, and her jaw was hard with tension.

But somehow, her beauty was strange. She didn’t have a mark anywhere on her. Too perfect. Almost uncanny.

“That’s far enough, Wastelander,” she said, but her voice shook. “Hands where I can see them.”

Wastelander . Only compound people used that word.

“A-Asha?” Claire stammered from behind me, stepping forward.

The woman’s eyes went wide, looking from Claire to me, and then to Holly on the floor, who suddenly groaned and rubbed her head.

“Claire?” she replied, slowly lowering her weapon.

“Oh my God,” Claire cried, and before I could object, she’d hurled herself at Asha, grabbing her in a crushing hug.

Asha didn’t hug back. She looked stunned.

“I thought you were dead,” she said. “How the hell did you get here?”

“It’s a long story,” Claire said, sighing as she set the PNC boxes on the floor. “We found Holly.”

“I see that,” Asha said with a snort, gesturing at the dazed woman on the floor. “What are you doing with her?”

“Haven’t gotten that far yet,” Claire admitted. “We were looking for something, and she was there. Didn’t want her to raise the alarm. The place is crawling with cultists.”

Asha suddenly remembered I was there and looked me up and down.

“Who exactly is ‘we’?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. I didn’t love her tone.

“This is John,” Claire answered, putting a hand on my shoulder and squeezing lightly. “He’s my…well, my boyfriend.”

The word didn’t totally fit somehow, but it made me feel a little warm inside anyway. It was the first time she’d introduced me to anyone .

Asha reacted like someone had slapped her. Her expression changed and she took a step back. I raised my gun instinctively, and we stared each other down. There was a long moment of tense silence, broken by Holly groaning again and sitting up.

I pointed my pistol at the woman on the floor.

“Don’t move,” I growled. “Don’t scream. Don’t do anything that’s gonna make me kill you.”

Holly looked up at me, wide-eyed. “Who the fuck are you, Wastelander? How dare you touch me! How dare you even look at me! Filthy scum, I—”

“Oh, shut up, Holly,” Asha interrupted, her weapon also pointed at Holly now. “I know they’ve ramped up that whole cult bullshit to eleven here, but to me, you’ll always be my best friend’s dipshit little sister.”

Holly opened and closed her mouth over and over, like she wasn’t sure what to be more outraged and surprised by—me or Asha.

Her weird, cropped hair looked even stupider after being mussed up.

Even so, she also had that ethereal, perfect vibe that Claire and Asha both had from their implants.

Seeing the three women side-by-side made the whole effect even stranger, like meeting a group of mythical elves or some shit.

Holly tensed, then sprang up and lunged for Asha, but never made it. I caught her upper arm with my free hand and threw her down onto the concrete floor, making her moan with pain.

“Try that bullshit again,” I said, “and I won’t be so gentle next time.”

“This what you’ve hitched yourself to, Claire?” Holly spat, though she stayed on the floor. “A Wastelander with even worse manners than your degenerate best friend? Who’d hit your sister?”

Frankly, I was surprised she’d have the balls to say that to the guy who literally had a gun to her head, but I guessed she didn’t join a cult because she was smart.

Claire looked a little lost, like she didn’t know what to do.

“Claire,” I said, exhaling slowly. “What is this place, and how safe is it?”

She cleared her throat. “It’s the staff panic room. Only teachers knew the door code. We were told to come here in case of a Wastelander attack. Never happened, of course, but we did a few drills. ”

She exchanged a look with Asha, who gave a nod of acknowledgement.

“I’ve been hiding out here for a few days,” Asha said. “It seemed like the safest spot, given that the place is fortified and locked. I snuck in on one of their supply trucks. I haven’t seen any other teachers among the cult.”

“So are you…” Claire said, then trailed off awkwardly. “Are you looking for a way out, too?”

“Yep,” Asha replied with a sigh.

Holly gave a small, slightly hysterical-sounding giggle.

“Out?” she said, staring at Asha. “None of you are getting out. There are patrols everywhere, and the Gathering will be over soon. Everyone will be out in force. And it’s only a matter of time until they notice your tracking beacons anyway.”

I exchanged a glance with Claire, who looked horrified. My worst fear about this situation had been right.

“Tracking beacons?” she asked Holly, sounding breathless with fear. “How?”

Holly gave a weird little laugh again, and I rolled my eyes.

“Talk,” I said, and when she laughed again at me, I hauled her to her feet. I smashed her back against the solid stone wall, and she yelped as her head smacked the concrete.

I didn’t want to hurt Holly, but I wasn’t going to pick her survival over ours, no matter how hard it was for Claire. I grabbed my hunting knife from my belt and held it at Holly’s throat.

“Here’s the deal,” I said, my voice low. “Tell us what you know and how to get out of here, and I’ll be a nice guy and not slit your throat on my way out like I did your friend back there.”

Holly paled a little.

“Help your sister,” I hissed, “since it’s your goddamn fault she’s in this mess to begin with.”

I backed up and glanced at Claire, who looked pissed off. About damn time.

“So, they know where to find me,” Claire said. “If they can track me, how do they do it?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Holly said with a shrug. “Your implant. We’ve all got them. How else could we have found you at your little camp in the woods, hmm?”

Claire’s lip curled, and my stomach twisted. They hadn’t found her by accident. They’d followed her.

What if I couldn’t take her back to the Valley now? I swallowed hard.

“You sent them after me?” Claire asked, murder in her voice. “After everything that happened?”

Holly gave an ironic chuckle. “Jim J sent them after you, not me. I couldn’t’ve cared less what happened to you after you left.

I assumed you and Asha would both die off within a few days.

What a surprise, then, when Mom told me that we’d finally hacked into the Cave’s security systems after months of work, and who should still be alive, but you? ”

At the mention of their mother, Claire flinched. I wanted to end this shitty conversation, but we needed the info too badly. Asha folded her arms over her chest, looking tense.

“Why do they care about bringing me back?” Claire demanded. “I’m not this Vessel thing they keep talking about—I’m nobody.”

Holly’s weird bravado suddenly faltered. When she spoke again, she sounded like a different person: serious and guarded.

“It all started a couple months ago,” Holly said. “When they discovered you were alive. Jim J delivered his Message one evening and said that he’d had a Vision. A powerful one. About you.”

Her eyes glazed over and took on a dreamy quality.

“He’d seen you before,” Holly continued. “Just in passing, not long before the Cleansing happened.”

“The Cleansing?” Asha said sharply, speaking for the first time. “I’ve heard them use that term here. Is that what you call the mass murder of everyone we knew?”

Holly smiled. “Not murder. It was a ritual in blood, a Cleansing of all those unworthy to join our cause, who would not follow us into freedom from our bondage here in the compound. It was a mercy.”

“A mercy,” Claire repeated, and her voice shook, a muscle in her jaw twitching.

“Jim J was taken with you before the Cleansing,” Holly said. “Mom told him you wouldn’t join, that you were your father’s daughter—a lost cause. But he wanted us to try. When it failed, he was resigned to killing you. ”

Fuck . I remembered Claire’s story about them drugging her without her knowledge. Seemed like she was right that it was some fucked up initiation ritual. It took a lot of effort not to execute Holly right then.

“But when we learned you were alive, he had a Vision that told him the reason the Cleansing hadn’t worked—why he hadn’t Ascended and gained his full powers. It was incomplete because you escaped him. He realized why he’d been so taken with you; you were the Vessel.”

“The Vessel?”