“Very good,” he went on. “Now, we don’t have to watch what happens to the others. I mainly wanted you to see your friend and the first man. He’s today’s highlight.”
He strode off the stage and headed for the same doors they’d used to come in. The young men in the crowd reached out to him and slapped his hand as if congratulating a winning coach. She trailed behind, anxious to stay close to him, lest she get swallowed by the sea of black. At one point, she had trouble scooting by a thick gathering, and one of the young men slapped her hard on the butt.
David didn’t see it happen, and she wondered if the culprit was risking death by being so brazen with her. If so, it meant the guys around her were only putting on a show for their leader…
She fought to get right on David’s heels, though by the time she’d made it, the audience had thinned out.
“This way,” he advised her, sounding like he didn’t have a care in the world.
As they went through the door, Charity stood at attention in the hallway. The redhead still wore her hip-hugging white spacesuit, leaving zero to the imagination. David gave her a nod, and she went through the doors back into the auditorium.
It left her alone with David. “You’ve passed the first, and only, test. I’ve shown you most of our secrets in this fortress. The technology you’ve seen is unknown to practically everyone remaining in the world outside. As you can see, your war is over. Now is the time to embrace what comes next…”
She knew better than to argue. After a short pause, Charity came through the doors again, trailed by one of the young men from inside the gathering. The woman in white halted, brushed the shoulders of the guy’s white-striped jumpsuit, then patted him gently on the side of his face. “This is Victor.”
If she’d met him in real life, he’d fit in as a junior or senior in college, putting him a couple years older than her. His square shoulders and tall height were traits she didn’t mind at all on normal boys. His face wasn’t unattractive, either, and he actually had kind blue eyes. However, he was part of the invasion force. She clamped her teeth together to avoid revealing any expression.
When Victor held out his hand, she glanced over to David. His smile suggested he knew she was going to take it.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said dryly.
“You, too,” Victor said anxiously. “I’m glad you picked me to be your betrothed.”
Oh, God. Please, no.
Despite spending years of her life inside the mines under Bonne Terre, the earth around her suddenly didn’t seem so friendly. The weight of the rock was smothering and claustrophobic in a way she had never experienced in similar corridors back home. It saddened her further to know she was probably never going back.
While everyone stood around and waited for her next words, she juggled life and death from side to side in her head. Suicide or rebellion?
Suicide would be easy. She’d only have to piss off David with a snarky response...
Fighting back would be a lot harder.
CHAPTER 10
Glendo, WY
Kyla and Meechum had more supplies than they could carry. Uncle Ted had left some of the food as well as four different rifles and shotguns, plus two pistols and plentiful ammo for each. The plan was to carry what they could on the hike to find a car, then come back to the cabin to pick up the rest. The pair found a medium-sized backpack inside the wood home, which Kyla offered to carry.
“You carry the guns. I’ll carry the ammo,” she mused.
“I’ll take this nice AR your uncle left for me. I recommend the other AR, not the shotgun. If we run into trouble, you’re more likely going to need the ability to reach out and touch the bad guys. A shotgun won’t have the range. Plus, we’ll both be using the same ammo. It saves us the confusion of working in different calibers.”
An hour and change after Uncle Ted and Emily had driven away, she and Meechum walked down the hill in front of the cabin. Once out of the trees, they had a clear view all the way to Glendo, which was about five miles away. The lake was surrounded by tall trees, pines mostly, as was the town, but there was nothing but rolling grass and a few dirt driveways between the two points.
“Should we take some of these side roads to see if there are other cabins or other vehicles?” she asked.
“No time,” Meechum answered. “There could be a car a mile down one of these other roads, but maybe there isn’t, and we’d have wasted our time looking. We know with certainty there are lots of cars in that town we drove through. It’s a bit farther away, but it’s a sure thing. When in a military operation, never pass on a sure thing.”
“I’m sold,” she replied, before the conversation faded.
They walked in silence for a good distance, but a mile or two in, Kyla had to unload what was on her mind. “I never saw it coming. Did you?”
Meechum glanced over. “See them leaving you? No, I have to admit I didn’t. But when POTUS told me it was an option, I realized I should have seen it. Your uncle has been torn to shreds about putting you in so much danger. I could tell from the minute we got together with him.”
She sighed. “It’s my fault for assuming we were all going to save the country, you know? After surviving on the JFK with you, I felt like I’d seen the worst of the danger. Now it seems like we’ve driven half the way across the country and haven’t seen boo from the bad guys. Maybe they’re all up in North Dakota, picking up the pieces from our sneaky attack.”
“Maybe,” Meechum allowed. “But we
