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His gaze darkens. “I don’t have to. I want to, because I’m sorry, and I care about you.”
“Let’s hear it, then,” I say bitterly.
His eyes plead with mine. “My ILF assignment before Island Three was on the Deadmen task force, based out of a hub near Chicago. I spent more than a year looking at the photos we have of the Deadmen and the support people who travel with them. You were one of them.”
I recoil. “So you’ve known since ...?”
“I suspected it on the island.”
It’s all I can do to force myself to keep breathing. “That’s why they kept questioning me. They didn’t tell you about me; it was you who told them.”
His face is lined with regret as he says, “Yes.”
Tears prick at my eyes and I whisper, “He’ll kill me. The leader. Did you ever think to ask me why I didn’t want anyone to know I was with them? If you think the Deadmen can be cruel to strangers, you have no idea what they’ll do to me.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
I step back from him, dumbstruck that he managed to make me even angrier with him than I already was. “You can’t stop them. They have bombs and rocket grenade launchers, and not a shred of decency. I’m stronger than you are, and I can’t stop them.”
“I’m a SEAL. It’s not a fucking easy job to get, and my team did the black ops shit. I know how to slit people’s throats without them knowing I’m there.”
I sigh softly, tears streaking down my cheeks.
“Hey, you okay?” a man passing with a shower caddy in hand asks me.
“Mind your own fucking business,” Evander snaps.
The guy looks from him to me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Thanks.” I wait until he’s in the bathroom and we’re alone again to say, “I know you’re very capable of many things. But every day I’m trapped here is another day someone could say something to someone else that leads them here. They’d blow up this entire place just to kill me.”
“We control the airspace.”
His gaze is intense, his body taut with tension. He reaches out to cup my cheek, the way I showed him when he kissed me, but then he withdraws his hand, returning it to his side.
“I don’t know what happened with you and Donovan, but I know you were in a bad situation. You’re nothing like the Deadmen. You’re feeling as helpless as you did back then, when you had no one to turn to, but you’re not alone this time. Help the ILF end them for good.”
The truth in his words stings. But there’s nothing he can say that will change my mind.
“I won’t be pressured into doing anything ever again,” I say. “Now leave me alone.”
I move around him, convinced he’s going to follow me as I walk toward my room. But he stays exactly where he is.
I unlock the door and go inside, closing and locking it behind me. Then I lean against the back of the door and finally let myself crumble.
33
“The Secretary of Homeland Security is dead. That’s it. There’s no one left in the line of succession. I think it’s time to gather every military member we can find and figure out what comes next. We can’t lose our government.” – Petty Officer First Class Evander Holt, reporting to a group of FBI and CIA officers
Briar
I grip a smooth metal handrail, staring down at the tops of tall pine trees, the glow of massive artificial lights so bright it almost feels like the sun. There are four stories to the ILF’s underground bunker beneath Marta’s store, the middle of the space wide open and ringed with circular walkways. Marcus and I have a room on the highest level, and even after a full day here, I still can’t believe what the Idaho Liberation Front is pulling off.
While Soren Whitman was preoccupied with seizing power from the government and making Carson City his new capital after the virus, Marta Smythe, a successful fashion designer, was having a fortress built beneath his feet.
It’s genius. The store is legitimate; designers, seamstresses, and assistants work around the clock creating the finest clothing, shoes, and accessories money can buy for New America’s elite. But beneath the hustle and bustle of the store is the beating heart of the ILF.
Hundreds of people live here. Supplies and weapons are stockpiled. It was even built with air filtration, so there’s no sign of wildfire smoke or ashes.
