Page 68 of Dissent

BOOM!

The sound of an explosion, followed by a shockwave that hit my chest like a kick to the sternum, caused me to inhale sharply in awe. Orange and red overwhelmed my eyes as the far right of the building erupted in flames and plumes of smoke. Debris flew out, scattering in different directions—chunks of concrete flung out into the night. I hit the ground instinctively, feeling my ears ringing from the sound of the blast. Fear gripped my soul. I didn’t know what was happening, and the scariest thought I could have in that moment gripped the edges of my sanity.

Matias was dead. They were all dead.

And then movement exploded from everywhere. Soldiers were spewing out of the bunkhouses, some half-dressed, some in nothing but their underwear. They were clearly not expecting such a rude wake-up call.

Damn it! What do I do?I tried to assess the situation. I knew I should turn around now and run, but I couldn’t. I felt paralyzed, and the thought that Matias was dead just kept cycling through my mind. He was dead…just like Chase, and I never got the chance to tell him how I really felt. I was in shock, and I could hardly hear a thing from all the ringing in my ears. But I didn’t care. None of it mattered anymore.

Suddenly, bursting through the single door of the building, came Wes, followed by Chelsea, and then Matias. And they made a beeline for me.Crap!I jumped to my feet, feeling adrenaline pumping through me. But before they could even make it a few steps, all the soldiers that had been standing around, gawking at the flames, jumped into action. Wes pulled out his stunner and started firing while Matias did the same, shooting the soldiers coming from the opposite direction. Chelsea went to fire her own stunner, but before she could pull the trigger, a guard was on her, tackling her to the ground.

Matias turned to assist, yanking on the man’s shirt and hoisting him off her before landing a solid punch with his right hook into the guy’s jaw, causing him to whip around and stagger forward. Chelsea was on her feet, appearing a little dazed from her attack, but then she was at it again, aiming her stunner and firing away.

Fear anchored my feet in place while a voice inside me kept screaming,run!I wanted to. I wanted to so badly. At any other point in my life, I would have taken off in the other direction, doing anything and everything to preserve myself—to survive. But I couldn’t. I’d like to think it was because I didn’t want to abandon my friends, and there was truth in that. But deep down inside, the instinct to survive was more overpowering. But I couldn’t move. I was frozen, watching them pushing, kicking, firing, punching their way through the onslaught of soldiers funneling out of the bunkhouses.

And then I saw them…coming from around either side of the processing facility. I saw the soldiers—the ones that had been armed on the other side of the building guarding the workers. And the knowledge hit me all at once—they had guns. Not stunners, butguns.

I went to warn them, but I was too late. I heard it before I knew what was happening; the blast coming from gunpowder igniting, forcing a projectile through the barrel of an assault weapon, flying through the air, and into human flesh. Then I screamed.

Wes cried out as his body whipped around from the force of the bullet burying itself into his shoulder. Before I could comprehend what was happening, I found my legs moving, rushing across the compacted dirt into the fray. I yanked at the stunner in the holster on my hip and started firing away as I raced past, closing the distance. My scream must have drawn attention, because I was suddenly aware that the soldiers had shifted their focus to me. I slid to a stop, and time stood still. Everyone stared at me for the tick of a few seconds—one, two, three—and then I heard his voice.

Matias cried out, “Mara,run!”

Recognition registered on the face of every soldier. The daughter of the presidential family—the one soon to be buried—was alive. And then everything came rushing at me. Every single soldier made a beeline straight for me.

Oh god!I fired my stunner at the man closest to me and turned to run. There was no way I was going to outrun all of them. But if I could make it back to the tree line, I might lose them. My heart pounded, a drum of war sending a thrill of fear and barbaric excitement zipping throughout my system. More gunfire—loud and piercing. I whipped my head over my shoulder to see, but the gesture pulled my attention away from my destination. I tripped, losing my footing, and then fruitlessly tried to regain my balance. My weakened ankle rolled, and before I knew it, I was tumbling, rolling on the ground, and landing on my back. I didn’t waste time. I scrambled to get back on my feet, but before I did, someone slammed into me, sending us both flying and falling back to the ground,hard.

I screamed as I did, and then found the man on top of me, grabbing at me as I pushed back, kicked, scratched. I did anything I could, clawing at his hands as he grabbed me by the hair. But then the man grunted as he fell over limp. I didn’t waste time, doing my best to shove him off me. And then Matias was there, helping me, offering me a hand as he pulled me to my feet. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t have to because I already knew exactly what he would say—we were totally screwed.

34: Hurry

Wewereoffagain,racing toward the tree line, Chelsea and Wes quick on our heels. Things were not looking good for us because we had what felt like an entire army battalion on our heels. As we made it into the forest pines, we didn’t stop. We kept running hard, hearts pounding in our chests and the genuine fear that this might be the end for us all pushing us to go faster than we had ever been. As we raced through the forest, I could hear the soldiers behind us, and I could tell they were gaining on us.

My chest ached from the exertion, and I could feel my legs burn as the continued push for more speed propelled them past their limits. I didn’t know how much longer I could go, but I kept going, racing on, because I knew that my life depended on it.

“Watch out!” It was Chelsea, and as I turned to see what she was talking about, I saw one soldier, hot on my heels, with a gun in his hand, firing… right at me.

I had a second of clear thought, and all I could think about was how I never got the chance to tell Matias how I felt about him. I prepared for the blast to hit me, but it never did. Chelsea jumped into the line of fire, grunted, and collapsed to the ground.

I screamed.

Matias was on me, grabbing my wrist, and yanking me onward. “No!” I shrieked. “We can’t leave her!” But there was no time, and I was too weak to fight him. We kept running, everything moving past me in a blur, and the whole time, I just kept thinking that we left her.

Over fallen trees, leaping over shrubs and forest debris, we ran. I lost track of the time, and I couldn’t tell how long we had been racing through the woods. At some point, however, I noticed I no longer heard the feet pounding behind us. I no longer sensed the bodies of soldiers closing in, and my survival instincts seemed to relax. But we didn’t stop. We kept running until we came onto familiar ground, and then finally broke through onto the path where the truck stood alone. Wes wasted no time barking orders.

“Get in the truck!” He held onto his shoulder, his jumpsuit glistening from the moisture of his blood. Matias opened the driver-side door and pushed me to get in. I slid across the bench seat toward the middle. Wes opened the passenger-side door and slipped in as he clutched his shoulder and gritted his teeth in pain. Matias slid in right next to me, fired up the engine, slammed his foot on the accelerator, and we were off into the night.

***

My hands were covered in the slick, thick liquid that was Wes’s blood as we drove. Cramped up, sitting in his lap, I firmly pressed down on the gunshot wound in his left shoulder. For a while, he grumbled about the pain, but then he went quiet. And that was when Matias got worried.

“He’s lost too much blood,” he told me. He instructed me to apply pressure, which required me to climb onto Wes’s lap to get the right angle. We were driving for what felt like hours, but I knew the trip had been less than that. As we drove, I just kept putting all my weight on Wes’s shoulder, trying my best to slow the bleeding. But it just kept oozing out.

Matias’s white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel told me he was stressed. His face set with hard lines as he focused on the road ahead of us, twisting us to the left, then another turn to the right. I just kept fighting back tears that I so badly wanted to cry.

Welefther.

Chelsea and I may not have been friends, but I was hoping we would get there. Slowly, of course, but it felt like maybe—just maybe—we could be there one day. And now she was gone, and I couldn’t help but feel like it was my fault. The thought placed a kink in my mental reserves, causing the knot in my throat to swell up.

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