Mendez's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Mendez stood by the jeep and stared at the empty seat. Riley came around the hood with her rifle low. He could see her thinking the same thing he was. "We can't leave without her," Riley said. "I know." "Thomas will kill us. The fortress will kill us." "I know, Riley." He wiped his mouth. "She wants her camp. The people who made it out. That's why she stowed away. That's where she's going." Riley looked past the ruin, at the row of broken buildings across the lot. A shape moved between two doorways. Small. Black and blue hair, dirty shirt. Then gone. "There," Riley said. Mendez was already in the driver's seat. He turned the key. The engine caught. Riley swung in beside him and braced the rifle on the frame. He drove hard across the lot and cut between the buildings where Emmy had vanished. The jeep bounced over rubble. He caught another flash of her, two blocks ahead, ducking under a leaning wall. He gunned it. When he cleared the wall she was gone again. He stopped. He listened. Nothing but the tick of the engine. "She's faster than she looks," Riley said. "She knows we're behind her. She doesn't want to be found." He put his hands on the wheel and breathed out. "We're burning fuel chasing a ghost." "So what do we do?" He didn't answer. He drove another slow loop, checking every doorway. The sun was high. His shirt stuck to his back. After the third pass he knew. She had gone underground, or into a basement, or through some crack a twelve-year-old could fit through and he couldn't. Then the windshield chimed. A small dark bead hit the glass and stuck. It hummed. A soft, steady sound, like a wasp trapped in a jar. Riley went still. "Mendez." He knew what it was. He'd heard Virginia describe them. A tracker. A Vael scout had painted them. He scanned the roofs. Nothing. That was the point. The scout didn't need to fight. It only needed to mark them and step back and wait for the others to come. "Drive," Riley said. "Drive, drive, drive." He threw the jeep into gear and swung it hard around. The bead hummed on the glass. He clawed at it with his thumbnail. It didn't budge. Riley leaned across and pried at it with her knife. It popped loose and stuck to the blade. She flung the knife out the window into the bed of a rusted pickup rolling past on their left. The humming went with it. Mendez didn't slow. He drove east, away from the buildings, away from Emmy, back toward open ground. His hands shook on the wheel. "We lost her," Riley said. "They saw us," he said. "They know the jeep now. They'll come for the fortress next." He kept driving.