Rage Within (26 page)

The stranger sat back down on the floor and began rummaging through his backpack. “I didn’t get your names,” he said as he pulled out a Snickers bar. “I’m Heath.”

“Heath?” Michael perked his head up. “As in, Heath White?”

The chocolate bar paused halfway between the stranger’s lips. “Yeah. How did you know that?”

An excited jolt tore through Michael’s stomach. “You’re Clementine’s brother.”

Heath’s eyes grew wide. “You know Clem? How is that possible?”

Michael jumped up; he couldn’t contain his excitement level sitting around. “Oh man, oh man, you have no idea how happy she’s going to be. We’ve been searching for you forever. We traveled from Montana, where I met her. We were at your dorm in Seattle. It was your letter that led us here.”

“She read my letter?” Heath jumped up to join him. “I
can’t believe it. I never expected . . . well, I hoped she was still alive, but I never expected her to come.”

Ryder stayed on the ground, slowly shaking his head in disbelief.

“This is amazing,” Michael said. He couldn’t help himself. The biggest grin grew on his face. He wanted to grab Heath and give him a bear hug. Then they could dance around the room together. He couldn’t wait to tell Clementine. Hell, he couldn’t wait to show her!

“What about my parents?” Heath’s eyes were excited and full of hope. “Did they make it too?”

“No.” Michael paused. “Sorry. They died back in Glenmore. Clementine will tell you more about it.”

Heath nodded, but the joyful expression never left his face. “Yeah, I can’t be greedy, can I? But I’ve got my sister and that’s really all that matters. When can we go see her?”

Michael glanced back at Ryder. The safe house was a long ways off for someone who couldn’t walk. But there had to be a way to get them home safely without being hunted down by the Baggers.

“I’ll get us back,” he said. “I’m just not sure how yet.”

“We can drive,” Heath said.

Michael shook his head. “Too risky. The Baggers are really set up around the area. Those crappy white vans. If we try to start a car, they’ll hear us and come running. We’d only end up leading them right back to our place. There has to be another way.”

Heath grinned, his eyes sparkling in the candlelight. “I think I know what we can do. I’ve got a great plan.”

*   *   *

They’d left Ryder back in the locked kitchen with the candles while he and Heath snuck out into the late night. It
was a crazy idea, but still a really good one the more Michael thought about it.

It amazed him how peaceful the campus looked at night. With all the shadows covering everything up, the damage the earthquakes had left behind seemed secondary. The broken glass wasn’t as depressing and the damaged buildings were more artistic than devastating.

They came across Clementine’s message scrawled in spray paint outside the library. Heath got down on his knees and touched the cement.

“It’s real,” he said. “I mean, I know you told me, but I don’t think it’s fully sunk in yet. To see this, though, her words, her writing, it’s real.”

Michael nodded. He wondered what he would have felt if he’d known his sister had traveled across the country to try and find him. Even though his sister and he didn’t get along well (she was three years younger and way too crazy about boys in his opinion), he knew that he’d still have felt an insane amount of joy and relief. It would have been beautiful. To discover that anyone loved you enough to travel thousands of miles to find you, in this new world, was incredible.

Could it be possible that Michael’s family was still out there and alive? Okay, Mom and Kathy, his sister, were in New York when the earthquakes hit. Dad had been in Colorado on business. His parents had divorced when Michael was eight, Mom leaving for the big city because of a job offer of all things. They’d tried to keep things going for a while, but it was too hard. As the years went by, the phone calls slowed and the holidays became more of a chore than a reunion.

He’d give anything to see them again now.

Michael had thought several times during his journey west with Clementine that his father might have actually made
it back to Whitefish, Montana, where they shared a small apartment. Mentally, he’d kicked himself repeatedly for not leaving behind a note to say he was okay and where he was going. He should have done it. Heath’s letter to Clementine had been the one thing that kept her going after they found his Seattle dorm empty. Why didn’t he think to do that for his own father?

“We’ve been searching the university for a while now,” Michael finally said. “Clementine never gave up hope. She kept pushing even though she knew the odds were not good. She really had faith in you being alive.”

“Amazing,” Heath said. “I don’t know if I could have done that. I can’t wait to see her. It’s going to be incredible.”

As dawn broke across the horizon, they found what they were looking for. A single white van, parked across from the psychology building. There were two Baggers outside the building, one of them drinking a can of Sprite while the other used a crowbar to smash open the glass doors.

“We’ll wait until they both go in,” Heath whispered. “Then we’ll take the van.”

“What if they have the keys?” Michael asked. “I don’t know about you, but they didn’t teach me hot-wiring in high school.”

Heath grinned. “They won’t take the keys. There’s no reason to. Do you really think they’ll expect us cowardly normals to steal their ride? They’re too arrogant for that.”

“They might have radios. They’ll be able to let the others know the van is gone.”

“Not a chance,” Heath said. “I’ve seen them up close. They’re not using anything of the sort. This is going to be like taking candy from a baby.”

Michael wished he had Heath’s confidence, but he knew
better than to expect things to be that easy. But it was still a good plan if they moved fast enough. Steal a white van, load up Ryder, and head back to the safe house. Drop everyone off and then go toss the van somewhere a few blocks away where the Baggers wouldn’t find it. Simple and easy. None of the Baggers would stop to chase down their own white van, especially if they could get that annoying message to start playing. It might give everyone at the safe house a bit of a scare when they heard the “WARNING, WARNING,” but all would be forgiven once they had the reunion.

Clementine was going to be so excited. Michael got goose bumps just thinking about it.

A loud shattering noise filled the morning air, and the Sprite-drinking Bagger went to help his partner remove the remaining glass from the door. A few moments later, both of them disappeared into the building and it was time to jump into action.

“Keep low,” Michael warned, and they dodged around the side of a Toyota and headed for the van.

The inside was empty. Relief poured over Michael, but it was momentary. They still had a long ways to go. He jumped into the driver’s seat with Heath right behind him.

Heath had been right. The keys were in the ignition.

“Unbelievable,” Michael muttered to himself.

The van started on the first try. Michael half expected the Baggers to come running out into the street, brought back by the sound of the engine. But as he put the vehicle into drive and pulled away, nothing chased after them. They made it to the end of the block and turned the corner without any problems.

“Done and done,” Heath said. “Let’s go get your friend. And then let’s go get my sister.”

“I can’t believe how easy that was,” Michael said. “If I had known, I would have done it ages ago. So much better than riding our bikes everywhere.”

Although he sounded happy on the outside, a nagging voice kept pushing its way up from the back of his mind. It was easy. Too easy. Michael knew from experience that nothing in this new world ever went that smoothly. But he forced the voice back down. It was always wise to be cautious but also to appreciate having a bit of good luck now and then.

Maybe finding Heath was the beginning of a long-overdue run and things were going to be easier for a bit now.

It was a good morning. No rain in the sky and Michael was about to reunite the girl he loved with her brother.

Things were looking up.

CLEMENTINE

This wasn’t the first time her temper had gotten her into trouble. Normally Clementine was easygoing; there were plenty of dead people back in Glenmore that could endorse that statement. She was the nicest, friendliest cheerleader that ever cheered the Goblins on to victory. But when she got mad, she lost control. Every logical bone in her body went into serious hibernation.

She never should have had the fight with Aries. It had been utterly unfair; she shouldn’t have allowed herself to take out her pain and frustration on her friend. She should have gone into a corner and counted to ten, or done anything that might have sent her blood pressure back down to a normal rate. Instead she allowed her anger to take control and behaved like an absolute jerk. Aries was her friend. She didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

And heartless, don’t forget heartless.

Clementine also knew everything she said had been a lie. Well, maybe not all of it, but she was wrong to say it the way she had. She’d been right when she said Aries had been
comparatively lucky, but that wasn’t fair. True, Aries didn’t wake in the middle of the night, sweating, from dreaming about the man she stabbed through the stomach with a letter opener. Unlike Clementine, she didn’t walk through a sea of hanging bodies in the small town she passed through just before she met Michael. But that didn’t make Aries less of a hero. It didn’t mean that her caution didn’t, in fact, make her the perfect leader for the group.

But there was no time to apologize.

She’d followed Aries and Nathan over to Graham’s house after Eve came running to find her.

“I couldn’t stop them,” Eve said. “Aries nearly took my head off when I said it was a bad idea. Do you think she’s mad at me? She didn’t tell me not to tell you.”

Clementine went to find Raj and told him to come with her.

The worst part was that Aries was right. Clementine had been enraged, beyond angry, ready to kill anyone who tried to contradict her. But she’d calmed down quickly, and once she thought it through logically, she’d realized going to Graham’s house when Brandi had specifically told them the Baggers were heading there was a bad idea. Child or no child, promise or no promise. Staying at the home and preparing for evacuation was the smarter thing to do.

There were sacrifices in war. The fewer casualties the better. But no matter how good their intentions, people were going to die and there wasn’t a damn thing anyone could do to stop it.

That sucked. Boy, did it suck. But no one ever said life was fair.

Aries was right. They couldn’t save them all. But now Aries was trying to because Clementine had opened her big mouth and said the wrong thing.

Dear Heath, I’ve screwed up yet again. They should put that on my grave. “Here lies Clementine—she screwed up a lot.” But I can fix this, right? Right?

She didn’t have an answer. All she could do was convince Raj to come with her to try and find Aries. Hopefully it wouldn’t be too late.

The worst part was that even after all that, a tiny voice in the back of her mind tried to convince her that Aries was doing this deliberately to steal her thunder. Aries was going to be the hero. She’d be the savior of Graham’s family, not Clementine.

Stop it. Look at me, Heath. I’m still that competitive. Remember how upset I was when I thought Imogene was going to make head cheerleader over me? I pouted for a week and you finally slapped me upside the head and told me to stop being so greedy. Give others a chance. Be the best I can be and give others a chance to do the same. Yada yada yada. Am I really this shallow?

They weren’t going to last long in this new world if they continued with all this petty bickering. No, they had to work together on everything. She knew this. Aries knew this. It was like Michael and Ryder too. She saw the way Michael both resented and admired the new guy’s leadership skills.

They were falling apart. Was Clementine the only one who saw this? With some of them missing and others bickering, it was only a matter of time before the Baggers managed to break them down.

But Clementine wasn’t going to go out without a bang.

She’d bring them all back together if it killed her.

*   *   *

Clementine froze at the kitchen door, unnoticed by both the Baggers and Aries. Raj was with her, his body pressed against hers, weapon poised and ready. She could feel the
tenseness of his muscles as he waited for her to react.

When the Bagger raised his gun, the bells on top of his filthy Santa Claus hat jingled. She wanted to grab that hat and shove it down his ugly throat.

“Merry Christmas,” he said. “Such a pretty present. Get up. I’m going to deliver you. I’ll wrap you up with lots of bows. Leon will be pleased.”

Aries lay on the ground, her eyes glazed and staring at the unmoving body beside her. A small scream nearly burst through Clementine’s gritted teeth when she realized who it was.

Nathan.

No time to mourn.

“So you’re the infamous Aries,” the Bagger said. He was grinning from ear to ear. He pointed with the gun to Nathan, lying on the floor. “That’s what he called you, right?”

“What do you mean?” Aries asked.

“Come on,” the Bagger said. He pressed the automatic weapon against Aries’s arm. “Get up. You’ll be joining your friends in no time. That ought to make a perfect Christmas for everyone.”

“Kill me,” Aries said. There were tears spilling from her eyes.

Clementine’s heart stopped. No, Aries couldn’t be giving up. Not after all she’d been through. Clementine wasn’t going to allow that. Without thinking, she jumped forward, raising the Taser she’d taken from Katarina.

She shoved past the female Bagger, knocking her into the wall, and thrust the tiny machine right up against Christmas Hat’s neck, pressing the button.