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“Who the fuck areyou?” he mumbled.
“Nobody you know,” I said.
I yanked him out of the driver’s seat and hopped in.
By now the kid from the flipped ATV up front was struggling to his feet, and the other two drivers were sliding out of their seats. They both looked banged up and dazed. I put the ATV in reverse and cranked the throttle. The tires spun in the rocky sand, then bit. I shifted into low gear and did a full 360. The water was at my back. I had no idea who else might be coming down the trail. So I headed in the only direction I had left—straight up the hill.
In a few seconds, I was bouncing up the slope at a forty-five-degree angle. I heard a rattle behind me. I turned and saw a rifle fly off a rack on the ATV and slide down the hill. No way I could stop to pick it up. If I lost my momentum, I’d stall or flip over backward.
Suddenly, a bullet ricocheted off my front fender. The kids below had recovered enough to shoot. I ducked forward to make myself a smaller target. I hit a patch of loose rock. My rear tires started to spin. I cranked the wheel left and picked up traction again on the grass.
Another shot blasted into the metal frame. I felt hot fragments dig into my leg. The engine was whining and smoke was pouring out from underneath. The summit was just a few yards farther. But now the slope was even steeper. I gave the machine more gas.
Another shot grazed my roll bar just as I flew over the top of the hill. I landed hard on the other side, and started swerving down the slope, weaving through bushes and boulders.
I’d never driven an ATV before in my life. Turns out, I was damned good at it.
CHAPTER 93
KIRA DIPPED HER face into the clear mountain stream and wiped the sweat from her face and neck. She held her bad arm across her torso. The pain radiated from her shoulder to her collarbone and across her ribs. The fingers on her right hand were tingling, mostly numb.
She lifted her head, took a few deep breaths, and then bent down again to take a few short sips of the cold water. She sat back on the bank and looked around. The setting felt strangely familiar. The bend of the stream. The angle of the hill. Then it came to her. She realized that she’d crossed this stream before, close to the same spot, fifteen years ago, heading in the other direction.
She closed her eyes and thought back to that desperate morning. Her plan had been simple. Find the shore. Then find a port. Then find a ship. The destination didn’t matter. All she wanted was to forget everything she’d seen, and everything she’d learned, everything she’d turned into. It took her more than a decade to realize that shecouldn’tforget, couldn’t leave the past alone. She had to go back. The evil had to be stopped at its source. Even if she had to do it by herself.
Now that she’d figured out exactly where she was, the rest of the route unfolded in her head, as clear as a line on a GPS screen. She wiped the water off her face and waded through the stream to the other side.
An hour later, she huddled at the edge of the tree line and looked across the grass at the main wall of the school compound. She’d scaled that same wall the night before to reach the explosives shed. But now it was broad daylight, and she had only three working limbs.
She ran to the outside of the wall and crouched against it, then started moving around the perimeter, hugging the stone as she went. She still needed weapons. And she knew one more place to find them.
Moving a few feet at a time, it took her another ten long minutes to reach the firing range. It was located at the bottom of a wide depression, about twenty feet below the level of the school buildings. The range was empty and quiet. Nobody there. Probably because by now the whole school was out looking for her.
Kira slid down the slope on her back, cradling her bad arm. She crept toward the long metal weapons bin near the firing stations. The lock was new. Electronic. Kira plucked a spent cartridge clip from the ground and pulled the spring out. She used the sharp end of the thick wire to pry off the small LED screen. She cracked the lock in seconds and flipped the metal clasp. Then she used her left arm to raise the heavy metal lid. She looked inside.
The box was empty.
Then she heard the sound of metal clicking above her. Rifle bolts.
CHAPTER 94
KIRA LOOKED UP. The rim of the hill was lined with students in tac gear. All with high-powered weapons. All aiming directly at her. Another squad was rounding a wall on her right flank.
Kira dropped the lid on the weapons box. She turned and sprinted toward the closest mound on the target range. Shots rang out as she dove behind the huge earthen barrier. Dirt splattered up beside her.
Kira could hear the squad advancing toward her from two directions. She knew the students were angling for position, looking for the honor of blowing her head off. She wondered if being hit by a bullet could be any worse than the pain in her shoulder.
Suddenly, there was a crackle from the PA speakers mounted on poles overhead. A voice boomed out.
“All students! Weapons down! I repeat, weapons down!”
Kira hadn’t heard that voice in a very long time. Her whole body tightened at the sound. Kamenev! She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists. Her mind flashed again to the bodies of her parents in their bloody bed, and pure fury swelled inside her.
“The target is isolated!” the headmaster called out, his voice echoing across the range. “Your new assignment is to take her alive!”
Kira took a quick look around the side of the dirt mound. The students had lowered their rifles and pulled out their truncheons. They were advancing like machines, smiling as they came.
Kira braced herself against the back of the dirt pile, then made a run for the next mound, about ten yards away. Then the next. Her chest was heaving. Her arm was throbbing. She thought maybe—maybe—she could reach the trees beyond the perimeter. She had to try. As she ran, she spotted a horizontal ridge about twenty yards in front of her. Kira thought she knew every inch of the grounds. But this was new.
