Chapter Thirteen #2
He had to reach her, had to make her understand this wasn’t the way. Shepherd wanted them to be divided for some reason, and they were playing right into his hands.
Eli ran after them, desperate to get to her before they disappeared.
The snapping of twigs under his feet was the only sound besides his ragged breathing.
He pushed through the undergrowth, weaving around trees.
Protecting Olivia was the only thing that mattered, even if it meant defying whatever twisted game Shepherd was playing.
“Can you see her, Tak?” Eli asked. “Do you still have eyes on her?”
“Yeah, I do,” Takoda said. “Oh, no. We’ve got movement.”
“What?” Movement. What did that mean? He didn’t have the breath to finish the question.
“A lot of movement.”
“Where?” Then Eli saw it. Up ahead. Everywhere.
Tristan blew the whistle again. “Protocol Sunburst! Sunburst!” He turned to Olivia. “Take off the poncho.”
Doing as he asked, the rustling in the woods around them grew louder.
The forest seemed to come alive, with the wilderness stirring and shifting.
Branches, shrubbery, pieces of moss, and wood moved.
The back of her neck prickled with chilling awareness.
Woodland camo netting was shoved aside. Then silver glinted in the sunlight.
Beneath the concealment were people wrapped in foil blankets.
The body emitted heat as infrared radiation that thermal imaging could detect. Materials such as Mylar, used to make foil blankets, reflected infrared radiation. This whole time these people were hidden in the woods, lying in wait, imperceptible to the team’s drones.
They rose from the ground, ten, maybe fifteen of them, and they put on yellow ponchos like the one she’d just removed.
Tristan reached into the backpack and took out two grenades.
“You said no violence.” She placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder, prepared to put him in a choke hold, applying enough pressure to restrict blood flow to the brain to render him unconscious, before she let him hurt Eli or any of the others.
“None will be used. Not by us.” Tristan yanked the pins and chucked the devices in different directions.
The grenades landed several feet away and exploded in thick, billowing yellow clouds. The effect was immediate and completely obscured everything in the area, including the drones’ view.
All she could think about was Eli, the worry and fear that must’ve been consuming him now over her safety.
She’d given him a clue when they spoke on the phone and hoped it’d be enough for him to piece it together.
Whether or not it was, she had to push the thought of him from her mind. It was the only way she could go forward with this.
As soon as the visibility was sufficiently impaired, Tristan took out a compass and wrapped foil blankets around them both, covering their heads. “Come on,” he said. “We need to hurry.”
“I count thirteen heat signatures,” Takoda said in his ear. “All moving around slowly.”
“We’re repositioning the rest of the drones, closing in around your area,” Chance said.
The sight of the smoke obscuring so many figures that had been hidden in the woods triggered a primal fear, a scorching surge of adrenaline through his veins.
Eli charged into the ominous yellow cloud.
The smoke swirled, acrid, obscuring everything, choking the air.
His heart pounded in his chest, a painful thud against his ribs.
Each passing second amplified his fear, painting vivid, terrifying scenarios in his mind of what might be happening to Olivia.
Shapes shifted in the cloud. A figure crossed his path. He reached out and grabbed the person. The slender individual was wearing a yellow poncho.
“Liv?” He shoved the hood back.
It was a girl. Young. Seventeen, possibly eighteen.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
“Who?”
“Olivia.”
The girl shrugged. “I don’t know any Olivia.”
He held the girl by her arms. “What’s going on?”
“I was paid to hide in the woods. If we were given the signal, Protocol Sunburst, then we were supposed to get rid of the camouflage, drop the foil blankets, put on the yellow ponchos we were given, and walk around until the smoke cleared.”
“Who paid you?” Eli asked, shaking her. “Who gave you the poncho?”
“Tristan.”
Growling his frustration, Eli let her go and moved on to the next poncho-clad figure. He yanked back the hood. Another teenager.
The rest of the figures moved around in a silent slow dance throughout the yellow haze, like zombies from some apocalyptic nightmare.
They were all decoys. Distractions.
This was nothing more than a well-crafted smoke screen—both literally and figuratively.
“Takoda, there’s no sign of her. She’s not in the smoke,” Eli said. “Everyone moving slowly is a decoy. A bunch of teens in yellow ponchos. You need to find her.” Time was running out. “Where could they be headed?”