Chapter Thirty-nine

The bullet grazed my shoulder and shattered the passenger side window. I sat confounded, my eyes widened in disbelief as blood discolored the parka. Knowing my only hope was in escaping the truck, I scooted towards the door.

“Would you stay still?” Timmy asked, his voice laced with inconvenience. “I’m not trying to kill you.”

“You could have fooled me.” I didn’t want to argue with him, especially since he had control of the rifle, but I wasn’t going to go down without a fight, either.

“I don’t kill anything. That doesn’t mean I’m not a good shot. Matter of fact, I’m one of the best in the state.” He seemed to look at me for affirmation.

“Well, if you aren’t trying to kill me, you could at least stop the bleeding.”

He brought his hand to my shoulder and wiped the blood onto his jeans. “I’ll help you in a minute, but you’ve got to spill some blood in here, make them think you’re dead so they won’t kill me for letting you go.”

I brushed the shoulder against the door and cursed under my breath as the wound smarted. “Has it occurred to you that maybe your group isn’t much better than the greenies?”

“There’s nowhere else for me to go. I don’t think I’d last long on my own.” He seemed resigned to the life he was living. “That’s good on the door. Can you get some on the seat, too?”

He wasn’t making this easy for me, but I cooperated, turning my back to him and pressing my shoulder against the gray leather. The bleeding had slowed and only a smudge remained. If Timmy’s life depended on the blood left in the truck, he was a goner. I wasn’t about to take another bullet for him, though. He needed an alternative.

“It wouldn’t be hard for you to leave. They obviously trust you enough with a vehicle and a gun. All it would take is acquiring a few supplies and a full tank of gas. My family is in West Virginia and there are two teens probably close to the same age as you. If you can link up with them, you’ll be safe. I’ll bet that some of the prisoners would even go with you. The only thing I know is that if you keep killing the good guys, the greenies are going to win.” I gave him directions to the mountain and the stone cottage, knowing that Edgar and Caleb would investigate his arrival immediately and offer him sanctuary once they determined his intentions.

“And if I use this information to hunt them down?” His eyes narrowed to slits as he waited for my reply.

“Then you’ll have to live with it. I’ve given you a way out, and you have the ability to atone for your group’s murdering of innocents by freeing the prisoners and taking them with you. I’m certain, though, that if you go into that cottage with your guns blazing, you won’t walk away. Edgar and Caleb have lived there all their lives.”

Timmy’s expression softened. “I’ll think about it. Put your hands on the seat and spread them as far apart as you can get them.” He must have noted my perplexity because he added, “I don’t have keys, but I can break the chain.”

A moment later, the bullet split apart the handcuffs. I wished that my hands could be free, but my arms were fully mobile. It was as much as I could ask for under the circumstance. I thanked Timmy.

He opened his door and walked to the back of the truck, lifting my boots from the bed and shaking the snow from their interior. As he opened the passenger side, a gust of wind caught the door and swung it to the hinges. Timmy handed me the boots. I shivered after slipping into them, unsure if it was the result of the lurking snow, the thought of walking two more miles, or what lay in wait for me at the checkpoint.

Timmy extended a hand and helped me out of the cab.

“I can’t go with you the whole way, but I’ll walk with you until the Interstate if that’s all right.”

I nodded. It was probably better for me to have company in the next few minutes. We seemed to step in unison, the crunches of snow the only sound to pass between us for minutes. I hugged the parka tighter as snowflakes stung my face and the wind pushed me forward, her friendliness at the cottage replaced by a worthy adversary.

“You’re really brave, Miss,” Timmy said as I jumped at the interruption of silence.

“Brave? I don’t think so. I’m just hoping I can take out the colonel and buy time for everyone else.” I slid on a patch of ice and felt Timmy block my fall.

“Will they let you close enough to her to do any damage?”

Steam from my sigh danced in front of me. “It’s possible they’ll kill me on the spot, but she’s made it clear she wants me alive. I don’t understand the reason for the special treatment, other than me having something they want. I think that she wants to interrogate me, maybe even kill me herself. So, yeah, I’ll get close enough, provided I don’t get myself killed first.”

He seemed to deliberate for a minute then reached into his pocket. “Can you find a way to conceal this?” He took out a switchblade and pressed it into my hand. “I’d give you the rifle, but there’s no way to hide that.”

“Thank you, Timmy, but you keep it. You might need it and I’d rather not have the greenies confiscate another weapon they can use against us.”

He pocketed the knife and sidestepped a frozen puddle. “Do you think your family will accept me,” Timmy asked with a little hesitation before he added, “if I go, that is?”

“They will as long as they don’t perceive you to be a threat. Us survivors need to start organizing so we can fight back. I refuse to believe we’re the only ones out here, but everyone’s hiding with good reason. It’s become a “shoot first, ask questions later” world, and the greenies are capitalizing on it. I just wish there were a way to know if what they’ve put out on television is either truth or propaganda.” I had a feeling I’d know soon enough, but I couldn’t count on being able to relay that information to anyone whom it might help.

“But what if your family shoots first?” His stride slowed and he brought the binoculars to his eyes.

“Don’t wear green and you’ll be fine. Tell them I sent you. From that point, you’ll have to trust they won’t shoot, just like I’m trusting you not to harm them. Caleb might not be too keen on having competition when it comes to Jessa, but I can’t see him targeting you purely for being a male.”

“So there’s a girl.” The binoculars swung down to his chest. “I can walk a little longer. Is she pretty?”

I laughed. “Why am I not surprised? Yes, she’s very pretty – pretty stubborn, pretty impatient, and pretty smart.”

“That didn’t really answer my question.” He grinned, but remained silent.

I wasn’t going to answer him. He’d have to find out for himself. Curiosity about his people struck me but I wasn’t sure how to proceed without the appearance of prying for information. I couldn’t make it too obvious. “Do you think any of your group will go with you if you head to West Virginia?”

“I doubt it. A couple of the prisoners might, but there’s safety in numbers and right now, we’re almost sixty. I can’t imagine them leaving food, shelter, and protection. I’m foolish for even considering it.” He stopped in his tracks and said, “Well, Miss, I think this is where I have to turn around.”

I smiled at him, but was saddened that my time with anyone friendly had come to an end. “Thank you for bringing me here. You take care of yourself.”

“You, too, Miss. Get in a punch for me.”

And with that, he turned around.

A part of me wanted to dart after him, but the memory of my sweet, sweet Maggie gnawed at my conscience and refused to allow my cowardice to prevail. I brushed my sleeve to stanch the tears. I owed it to her memory not to run this time. I owed it to all of them. I was going to face the Order and do everything in my power to stop them, even if I failed. A lump formed in my throat as the realization that each step forward would bring me closer to my death. The only way out was to run, and that hadn’t ended well for my loved ones. It hadn’t ended well for anyone, really. I trudged on, praying that somehow, in some way, I’d be able to hit the Order where it hurt, and that it would make a difference for every survivor.

The line of green soldiers came into sight, stretching across both sides of the Interstate. Their tanks and Humvees formed an intimidating barrier behind them as gunners stood atop the turrets, searching for any threat across the horizon. All-terrain vehicles littered the median. I counted twenty soldiers on this side of the road, and figured another ten or so waited inside the armor.

If the bulk of America was under green control, why was there a need for this much man- and firepower? Certainly they were protecting the city, but there were enough soldiers and equipment here to supply five checkpoints and still maintain the intimidation.

“Put your hands in the air,” a gravelly voice commanded through a megaphone.

I wasted no time in complying with the order as I stepped onto the Interstate. My heart raced with the knowledge that the showdown was upon me.

As I approached the soldiers, the same voice boomed, “Get on the ground.”

The snow nipped at my chin as I crawled onto my belly. Five soldiers surrounded me, one jerking my arms upward with such force that I wondered if he’d pulled them out of socket. A new set of handcuffs snapped around my wrists.

“She’s already cuffed, but they’re broken. Tells me that she had a captor and she had help in escaping. Have Captain Hernandez radio in Blackhawks to secure the perimeter.”

“How far of a perimeter, sir?” one of the men asked.

“Ten miles to be safe. ATVs know the drill, fan three miles out. Should be easy to retrace her tracks.”

I felt weight on my back pressing me deeper into the snow. I gulped. Timmy was probably just now arriving back to his truck. He wasn’t going to have time to lead them on a wild goose chase to cover his tracks. And his group a few miles ahead were sitting ducks. Hopefully they’d spot the men and forget about Timmy. This would also afford the men their chance to take out these greenies. If they weren’t killed first.

The soldiers jerked me to my feet and began patting me down, as if I were capable of harming them. They removed the notebook from my coat pocket and moved on to the rest of my body.

“She’s clear, except for this,” one of the soldiers said as the journal tumbled to the ground.

“I’d be careful with that,” I said with a stretch of my chin to point at the journal. “Colonel Bradley will be upset if any harm comes to it.”

The soldier scoffed, lifting his boot in a way that made it look like he was going to stamp the journal into the ground.

“No. Seriously,” I screamed, “my name is Lily Clay Goodwyn. A warrant has been issued for my live capture and I have come to surrender.”

The soldier nearly tripped as he shifted the path of his foot and hastily stooped to retrieve the journal.

In a matter of seconds, I was being forced into a humvee, three green soldiers with AK-47s trained on me in tow. The man with the gravelly voice slid onto the seat beside me.

“Take her to headquarters,” he said with a smile, every bit the cat that’d caught the canary.