“We need cooler weapons,” Dylan said, pressing his sound ring so Hawk could hear. “You gotta see this, Hawk.”
“You do realize it’s killing me not seeing this stuff up close?” Hawk said as he turned toward Clooger. He pressed his sound ring. “Grab whatever you can!”
Dylan nodded to himself, but he knew it would be a fool’s errand trying to separate a Western State flyer from his equipment. He looked down and uprooted an entire house with his mind, raising it into the air from below as dirt and debris crashed to the ground. All six hovercrafts fired net bombs, surrounding Dylan as they exploded in a circle around him. Dylan shot into the air, raising the house as he went. The nets were beyond sticky, covered in something that adhered to whatever they touched. Dylan heard the pilots screaming, “Release! Release!” But they weren’t fast enough. Dylan pushed the house back toward the ground, pulling the hovercrafts down with it. By the time the lines were all cut, it was too late and all six pilots had to abandon ship, taking to their emergency parachutes and brandishing sidearms.
“Let’s make a run for it,” Faith said. “Stay low to the ground, out of sight.”
The jet-pack troopers were barely getting their bearings again, and the hovercraft pilots were totally out of the fight. Only two troopers followed Faith and Dylan into the trees.
“A couple of stragglers and we should be clear.” Faith pressed into her sound ring. She looked at Dylan, saw what he was considering. “Don’t even think about it. You are not going back there for a hovercraft or a jet pack. Let it go.”
“Sorry, Hawk.” Dylan smiled. “I’d have done it for you, but Faith is a little more rational than me.”
Dylan moved in close, wrapping an arm around Faith’s waist. They kissed and Faith felt Dylan smiling. She loved it when this happened. To touch his lips to hers when he was this happy, to feel his happiness and know it was because of how much he loved her—it was everything, all she needed, all she wanted.
“Man, it would have been fun parting out one of those jet packs,” Hawk said, his voice all excited and bummed out at the same time.
“It was a search mission,” Clooger said. “Now that they’ve found you they’ll send more. You need to move fast and find some cover.”
“Head for the Columbia Gorge,” Hawk pressed into the sound ring. “A million acres of trees along there. They’ll never be able to track you.”
“Still two on your tail, but they’re falling back,” Clooger added.
The HumGee turned suddenly to the left, barely missing a cliff wall as it continued down a winding forest-service road somewhere on the border of Oregon and Idaho. Hawk lowered his shoulder and used the gravity of the turn to slam Clooger as hard as he could, but his shoulder missed and Hawk face-planted into a wall of Cloog.
“I almost feel sorry for you. Almost,” Clooger said, laughing softly as Hawk felt around his head for missing parts.
“I think you broke my face.”
Clooger glanced at Hawk and gave him a playful shove.
“All in a day’s work for a military man, right, kid?”
Hawk went right back to his Tablet, all business. “Let’s get these two out of harm’s way before another State armada shows up. It’s all clear for the moment.”
But Hawk was about to find out how wrong he was.
Faith and Dylan were far from in the clear.
Chapter 2
Gun Smoke
Both parties settled into their respective journeys for the next twenty minutes, covering a lot of ground fast. Faith and Dylan were especially quick, finding themselves flying low over the dense forest near the Columbia Gorge in no time.
“So you’re really not going to tell us where we’re going?” Dylan asked, pressing his sound ring.
Clooger had been asked where the new hideout was more times than he could count. Everyone wanted to know. But it was secret in part for a very personal reason, and he didn’t want to take any chances until he absolutely had to.
“You’re heading in the right direction.”
That was all Clooger would say as they kept on, deeper into the green and blue of the Northwest.
Faith kept glancing back, wondering if the two jet-packed stragglers were still behind them, but she hadn’t seen anyone chasing for a while.
“Hawk, any reading on the two that were following us?” Faith pressed in.
Hawk had been keeping an eye on the whole region for any signs of movement, but the task was complicated. He could easily track Faith and Dylan because they were locked into a sketchy GPS system he’d created. Spotting a large movement of troops or something big like a jetliner—those were things he could do. But small enemy objects, not that much bigger than a large bird? Almost impossible. The fact that the HumGee was at top speed, whirling through the empty world at over a hundred miles an hour, didn’t help matters.
“I can only get a lock on you and Dylan within a few-mile radius,” Hawk said. “If I could latch onto the State grid it would help, but that’s risky. They might detect a signal coming in. I’m catching the network where I can, looping through old Wi-Fi zones. It’s a mess out here.”
As they broke through the trees and Dylan saw the wide expanse of the Columbia River, he decided it was time to let loose a little. They were free of the Western State, the Quinns, the weight of responsibility that had gotten so heavy. It might all return without warning, and Dylan wanted to remember this moment.
He turned out of the forested hills and over an abandoned road that wound along the edge of the broad river. Faith followed close behind, tailing Dylan’s every move. When they reached the water it was unusually calm, like a sheet of reflective glass. Dylan flew low, a foot off the surface, bending the face of the river into a soft ripple.
“It’s beautiful,” Faith said from behind him. “There’s a heaviness, like it’s a thousand feet deep.”
The Columbia was so wide and slow moving that on a rare, windless day it could look as if it weren’t moving at all. Dylan put a hand down and touched the cool water. It sprayed Faith head-on before she could move out of the way.
“Oops,” Dylan said, but he knew what he was doing. “I thought you were faster than that.”
Faith wiped the liquid out of her eyes and, with a determined look, blasted past Dylan and returned the favor. Dylan did a somersault over Faith’s head and cannon-balled hard, soaking Faith all over again. He surfaced like a dolphin, made some weird porpoise noises, and dove back in.
Faith laughed and circled the water, waiting for Dylan to return, but he stayed under.
“Come on, Merman. Get what’s coming to you.”
Faith flew quickly back and forth, then rose higher into the air for a better look. Her field of vision widened to include a dam several miles off to her right and the looming presence of Mount Hood to her left. She glanced back over the road and into the forest, and that was when Faith saw something moving on the tree line: two people, gliding effortlessly along the tops of the cedars.
“Dylan,” Faith said, moving closer to the water once more. She pressed her sound ring. “Dylan! Get up here. We have company.”
Dylan erupted out of the river, not like a dolphin this time. Like a killer whale, straight up and full of purpose. He came alongside Faith and ran his hands through soaked hair.
Hawk pressed his sound ring and spoke. “Wait, something’s not right. These two aren’t presenting like they’ve got jet packs. The heat signatures are all wrong.”
“But they’re wearing Western State military uniforms,” Dylan said, wiping the water from his face and eyes. Even with the distance between them there was no mistaking the white shirts, the red pants.
“It’s them,” Faith said. She knew it before anyone else did. She just knew. “It’s Wade and Clara. They’ve found us.”
“Hawk? You agree?” Dylan asked. He wasn’t ready to believe the Quinns had somehow tracked them down.
“It’s possible they’re tapped into the Western State secu
rity protocols. If they’re monitoring intel, they’d know about the raid at the safe house.”
“Or maybe they were there all along,” Faith said, inching toward the tree line. Her eyes narrowed and her look went ice-cold. A lock of blond hair tumbled in front of her eyes and she pushed it back.
“Take it easy, Faith,” Dylan said. He knew that look, had seen it a hundred times before. “This is not the time for all-out war with the Quinns. We need to regroup, heal up. We need to run.”
Faith retied her hair in a ponytail with a rubber band she’d found at the safe house and looked at Dylan. “There’s never a good time to run.”
“Follow the river until you reach the dam,” Clooger yelled into his sound ring. “There’s a lot of debris along the way: boulders and abandoned cars along the road. You can use those to keep them back. Stay on the water; it’s the safest place right now. At least if you crash you’ll hit the river.”
“Is it just me, or did he forget about drowning?” Faith asked as she watched Dylan arch his back, stretching his chest and arm muscles.
“Captain of the swim team in middle school. I can hold my breath for like ten minutes.”
They both knew Dylan hadn’t even gone to middle school. He’d been too busy preparing for situations exactly like this one his entire life.
“Don’t underestimate these two,” Faith said. “They’re State Games athletes, remember?”
Dylan could see what Faith was thinking as he came closer, water dripping down his neck and arms. He moved closer still, within a few inches of her face, and saw the old rage in her eyes.
“Let’s at least keep some distance between us,” Dylan said. “Come on. You’re not ready to rock and roll just yet.”
“You underestimate me,” Faith said, still staring off toward the line of trees at the oncoming threat. Wade and Clara Quinn seemed to understand they’d been seen. The two of them were now moving fast toward Dylan and Faith.
“Rage is like rocket fuel, Dylan. Those two subhumans flying toward us? They killed my parents. They killed your mom. They would have taken out a million people in the Western State. They’re not just criminals, Dylan. They’re mass murderers. They’re a plague.”
Dylan took her by the shoulders. Another thirty seconds and the Quinns would be on them. Then it would be all-out war.
“We’re going to get this done, Faith. I promise. No one is more focused on that than I am. But this isn’t the time, and they’re not the target.”
“They are the target. They always have been.”
“But they’re not the primary target,” Dylan said, taking her hand and pulling her in the direction of the distant dam. “Hotspur Chance. He’s the one who has to go. If we don’t get rid of him he’ll spawn more Wades and Claras. We have to cut the head off this thing, and we can’t do that if one of us doesn’t live through a war with Wade and Quinn out here in the open. It’s going to take both of us, Faith. You know that. And you know this is too risky.”
“Why aren’t you guys moving?” Hawk asked, pressing into the sound ring.
Clooger was less patient. “MOVE!”
Clooger’s authoritative voice had the effect of snapping Faith out of her dark thoughts and she began to follow Dylan’s lead. Within a few seconds they were traveling at over a hundred miles an hour over the smooth surface of the river.
The Quinns had already gotten close enough to start some trouble. A line of graffiti-riddled freight cars lay on their sides in a ravine on the far side of the river. They rose into the air like a clanging necklace of pendants attached on a chain.
“Always with the trains, these two,” Faith said.
“Be ready to do some dodging,” Dylan said as he and Faith both picked up every abandoned car they saw and hurled them in the direction of the Quinns. There was metal flying everywhere. Cars, vans, and semitrucks flew over the water, forcing the Quinns to dodge and spin. It slowed them down, but Dylan and Faith were also thrown up and down and back and forth as the train cars swirled in the shape of a twister.
“That is the nastiest shit storm I have ever seen,” Faith yelled over the sound of metal crashing into metal. The Quinns were aiming the twister of train cars back and forth, forcing Dylan and Faith to move out of its way and pushing them toward the Quinns.
“Let’s get on the other side of this thing,” Dylan said. “See if we can outrun them!”
Even Faith was starting to see that a full-scale battle out in the open was going to be hard to win against these two foes. She turned back and watched as Wade Quinn didn’t bother moving out of the way of a Greyhound bus flying right at him. Instead he took it head-on, punching through the middle and leaving a four-foot hole from roof to carriage. The bus crashed into the water, rolled over a few times on the surface, and sank into the river. The look on Wade’s face was a hybrid dance of power and pleasure. Faith felt sure he lived for this kind of thing, the hunting down and killing of his enemies.
“See the downed power lines running off the dam?” Hawk asked into the sound ring. “Those might prove useful.”
As they approached the wide expanse of the dam, Faith saw what Hawk was talking about: cables as long as a football field slithered back and forth on the surface of the water, black and lithe and empty of life.
“They attach to generators along the wall of the dam, distributing electricity when the turbines run,” Hawk continued. “This power source hasn’t been operational for a long time, but see if you can open the turbine gates with your mind. If you can, water will begin flowing through and that should send an electric current through the cables.”
“And that would send a million volts of electricity into the water,” Clooger said into his sound ring.
“Why the hell would we want to do that?” Dylan asked. He looked at Faith, wondering if she thought the idea was as crazy as he did.
“Because they won’t know the water is juiced,” Faith said. “But we will. We just need to make sure we’re either far enough downstream or out of the water in time.”
Dylan nodded and smiled. “You distract them, I’ll see if I can fire these things up.”
“Be careful, Dylan,” Faith said as she started toward the train-car twister charging angrily in her direction. “Remember, concrete is not your friend.”
“Watch out for titanium darts,” Dylan yelled back. “I can handle myself.”
Faith’s one and only weakness was titanium. Any titanium weapon could get through her defenses—a dart, an arrow, a titanium-covered bullet; it was her Achilles’ heel. Rock and stone were Dylan’s, and for the Quinns it was earth and living things. It didn’t matter how many cars or buses Faith Daniels threw at Clara and Wade Quinn. The only thing it would do was slow them down. None of that kind of weaponry could harm them. She’d have a better chance of injuring them with a dozen roses.
When Faith and Dylan split up, Wade pushed the train-car twister directly toward Dylan and the dam. Clara went straight for Faith and abandoned all other effort. Faith pulled away from the water and toward the line of trees, where she could put Clara at risk of coming into contact with a living thing from the earth. Trees were Faith’s friends when Clara was after her. As she approached the tree line she heard a distinct sound—a gunshot—and looking back saw that Clara Quinn had pulled out a handheld weapon.
She’s got a gun, Faith thought. And if she’s smart she’s got titanium bullets.
There was no doubt about Clara’s intelligence. She was an Intel just like Hawk, smarter than Faith and Dylan put together. Faith increased her speed and passed the first of many tall fir trees, dodging back and forth. She heard a series of shots fired and felt a bullet barely miss its target as it traveled past her ear. Faith took an extremely hard right before Clara entered the forest, turning back in the direction of the river, and came in behind Clara. She pushed herself to top speed, slamming into Clara’s back as she was starting to turn. The gun fired off three more rounds, sending titanium bullets pinging off of tree trun
ks.
Faith held Clara’s arms at her side. She’d never been this close with a person who had caused her so much pain. It wasn’t what Faith thought it would be. She could smell a light, flowery perfume on Clara’s skin. She could imagine Clara’s striking eyes, her nose flaring with anger. It was harder to hurt someone when you were holding on to her, feeling her skin against your own.
Faith aimed for the side of the biggest tree she could find and tried not to think of what she was about to do. When Clara’s face and body hit the side of the tree, it was as if she was crashing into pavement. The impact took Faith’s breath away but she held on, sliding Clara up the side of the trunk, shearing off tree limbs as Clara’s face did the work of a bark remover in a lumberyard. Faith held on to Clara’s close-cropped blond hair, pushing her face harder into the tree as they traveled upward.
“Drop the gun!” Faith said, because that was the real objective here: get the weapon out of Clara’s hand.
Clara screamed as the tree burned her face, the bark scraping off skin like sandpaper. Clara reeled around on Faith, slapping her across the face with the gun. The gun slipped free and tumbled end over end through the trees, landing in thick underbrush.
Faith saw that she’d marred Clara’s perfect face—the whole left side was covered in deep gashes, blood pouring out. Her stomach lurched—Did I really do this to another human being?—but she pushed on, holding Clara against the tree and sliding her upward along the trunk, tearing long, whiplike scratches into her back. Faith could feel herself beginning to lose her resolve. It didn’t matter how much pain Clara had caused her. She watched Clara breathe deeply, saw her tongue lash at the blood on her face, and wasn’t sure she could keep going.
“Faith! Where are you?”
It was Hawk in the sound ring, and he sounded alarmed.