Chapter 2 #3
Too tired to argue, I gave it to him. He rewrapped the bandage as I shivered.
Lana seemed to be ignoring me today. I wished I could do the same, but I didn’t trust her.
I watched her help load up the rovers and nearly jumped out of my skin when someone draped a jacket across my shoulders.
Trey kept moving past and climbed into the rover to start it.
I wanted to throw the jacket at him, but I knew better than to give up warmth out of spite.
I pulled it on, checking the pockets and scowling when I found them empty.
Too soon, Griz took me by the elbow and brought me back to the rover, where I found myself sandwiched between Griz and Trey again. I ignored them both.
“On your go, Alpha,” a female voice that I realized must be Raven crackled on the radio, and the rovers moved out.
Like the previous day, exhaustion tugged at my eyelids. I fought it as long as I could, but it wasn’t long before I blinked, and the sun jumped to the middle of the sky. I squinted at the unending sea of trees, trying to get my bearings. My shivering had eased, and I was slouched over on—
Whatever momentary calm I’d woken with evaporated as I realized I was curled into Trey’s side, my head on his shoulder.
I jerked upright, but there was nowhere to go to get some space.
Trey glanced at me, but I folded myself in half again despite the pain in my shoulder from the movement.
I stayed that way for a long time, dozing until the rover slowed.
I sat upright to see we’d driven up to a brown metal gate blocking the dirt road.
Jax hopped out with a ring of keys, unlocking the gate and shoving it open.
An ancient metal sign was nailed to the tree next to it.
It looked like a warning, but it was so covered in bullet holes and rust, it was impossible to read.
The only thing I could make out was the small circle at the bottom with the words “Montana Fish, Wildlife, and Parks.”
The rovers drove through, and Jax locked it behind us before clambering back in. We drove through three more gates like that, and I started feeling queasy. Wherever we were going was well protected, but I couldn’t help feeling like they were locking us in.
We climbed steadily up, and the trees thinned. When we crested a ridge, I caught my first glimpse of the hold nestled in the trees, and my breath caught.
I noticed the walls first. They were not the hastily built, rough walls I’d seen around most holds. The giant iron slabs rose from the ground like an extension of the mountain itself. The lines were clean, deliberate, designed.
At the center, a massive round watchtower loomed.
The sides were smooth, a handful of windows the only blemish on the concrete.
A circular walkway wrapped around the top, and figures moved around it, rifles resting against the rails as they scanned the tree line.
I couldn’t tell if they’d noticed us yet or if they’d clocked us hours ago.
The gates we’d gone through suddenly made more sense. This place hadn’t been built by people scrambling to survive. It had been built in the Before as a damn fortress.
“Home sweet home,” Griz said. “Welcome to the Vault.”
I barely heard him, watching Jax hold up his fingers in a V shape aimed at the hold. With his other hand, he angled a small mirror, catching the sun’s reflection and bouncing it toward the tower. The figures on the walkway moved, and a bright light flashed in answer.
“You ready?” Trey asked.
I stole a glance at him, but he was looking at Mac, whose gaze landed on me in the rear mirror.
A muscle jumped in his jaw. My stomach sank at the tension filling the air.
Whatever waited for us at the Vault, it wasn’t going to be good.
I knew I should give Trey his jacket back, but I found myself clutching it tighter.
“Let’s do this,” Mac replied.
As we approached, the gate opened with a metallic groan that vibrated through the rover’s frame. I stared at it as we passed through. I’d never seen anything like it. It looked thick enough to stop a tank.
Behind us, the gate began to close with a slow grinding of iron on iron. My body went very still as I listened to any hope of escape disappear. When the gate finally shut, the deafening sound echoed off the watchtower and the walls and the mountains beyond them.
I didn’t look back.
The first building inside was clearly from the old world—smooth concrete walls, thick steel bars—but the oversized sliding doors were ugly things made of scavenged planks bolted over warped metal. It looked more like a barricade than an entry.
Straight ahead, half buried in weeds, rested the skeleton of an enormous structure.
Broken rebar poked up from the concrete like ribs picked clean by scavengers.
Chickens wandered through the tangled growth, pecking where walls once stood.
The two-lane dirt road curved carefully around it and continued straight for the watchtower.
The closer we got, the more ridiculous the houses became.
They were weathered and worn, but still far more elegant than any building I’d seen.
The massive logs that made up the walls were stripped of bark and fitted perfectly together.
The stone chimneys were the same, each rock deliberately cut and placed by someone who had the time to care about how things looked.
They’d designed these houses with entire walls of glass windows to look out through at the mountains.
Glass. Clearly, they hadn’t been too concerned about security.
Now most of those windows were spiderwebbed with age or patched with mismatched panes, cloudy plastic sheets, or boarded up completely.
The rovers came to a halt in the shadow of the watchtower.
A few people approached, a tall older woman leading the way.
She had a leather belt over one shoulder that holstered two pistols in the front and a giant knife at her hip.
Faded tattoos covered her white, wrinkled skin, and her long grey hair hung in dreads secured back by a scarf.
Her calculating eyes studied me, devoid of emotion.
My stomach twisted at how much that look reminded me of Juck.
Three men with impressive-looking guns stalked behind her.
Most holds I’d encountered had some sort of council of leadership, but this show of force felt more like the desert garrisons run by the violent warlords Juck often worked with.
Mac stepped out and approached the woman, tipping his head.
Trey climbed down and Griz followed, pulling me with him.
His grip tightened on my arm like a warning.
Mac spoke to the woman in low tones, and she replied.
I couldn’t hear what they said, but the energy seemed to shift toward something ugly.
I stared at my feet, waiting, and tried to prepare myself as best I could.
“Bring her,” the woman finally called in a clear, cold voice.
Griz jerked me into motion. We filed up to the watchtower and passed through a fortified door. Guards watched us, holding automatic weapons that would’ve made Juck—
No. I clenched my teeth. I didn’t have to waste my thoughts on him. Not anymore.
We descended a long circular flight of stone stairs that led to a dingy hallway underground.
The woman and her guards entered a dim room with straw on the floor, but Griz and Trey stopped.
Mac took my arm from Griz, and the three of them exchanged a look heavy with significance.
My heart stumbled into overdrive, but then Mac yanked me forward, leaving Trey and Griz in the hallway as the door swung shut.
The small room smelled of blood and vomit and fear, and my hands started trembling. A single chair stood in the center of the room, covered with straps and buckles capable of holding someone down no matter how much they screamed and strained to get free.
“So, Mac,” the woman said, smiling in a way that made my skin crawl, “you promised me your informant was trustworthy. You swore this trip would be worth the cost.”
She paused, but Mac didn’t say a word, standing rigidly like a soldier. I stole a glance at his face. He stared at the woman with an expressionless mask. But as he gripped my arm, I could feel both our hearts racing.
“A quiet, covert operation to retrieve Juck’s secret weapon.
” Her sharp gaze swung to me, and I fought the urge to shrink back.
“And what have you brought me? A fortune of gasoline gone, half our supply of ammunition used up in a rooftop firefight, one of my men dead, and a scrawny girl with ‘magic healing powers’?” Her voice dripped with scorn.
“Bones could be a powerful asset,” Mac said. “There’s a reason Juck called her his secret weapon.”
“How about a demonstration?” The woman clapped, her smile growing wide again.
My stomach lurched.
“You can give us that, right, Bones?” The calmness of Mac’s tone clashed with the hardness in his eyes.
I knew it wasn’t a question.
C’mon, Wolf roared in my head. You’re not helpless, dammit!
“Yes,” I whispered hoarsely, fumbling to unwrap my bandaged hands.
The woman’s smile showed all teeth now. She beckoned us forward.
I dropped the bandages into the hay and prayed the queasy feeling in my gut wasn’t showing on my face.
The woman drew a wicked-looking knife from the holster on her belt.
Two of her men stepped forward to grab Mac, holding him still, and my lungs turned to stone.
A memory flashed of the baking-hot desert, the glint of Juck’s pistol, and the smell of Grip’s blood.
The woman continued smiling ear to ear as she raised her arm and slashed Mac’s stomach clean open.