Sam Sisavath - The Isles of Elysium

Tobias was looking at Keo closely.

“What’s on your mind?” Keo said.

“The Steve I used to know was a good man. We wanted to do what was right for people, but somewhere along the way he went astray. The Steve that sent you out there as bait is the one you’re facing now. If you get the chance, pull the trigger. Not for me or for my people, but for your own sake.”

“I’ve never had much trouble pulling the trigger when it needs to be pulled.”

“I don’t doubt that at all. He sent you out there for a reason. Steve, for all his faults-and God knows he has many-was always a very good judge of character. He always knew how to manipulate people, how to make them do things that would benefit him.”

“I don’t think that was a compliment. To him or to me.”

“Maybe not,” Tobias said. “But I’m guessing it’s pretty accurate.”

Keo shrugged.

Tobias turned to Jordan. “I’m taking everyone to the backup location. You remember where that is?”

Jordan nodded. “I remember.”

“When you get tired of this guy, come find us.”

“No promises.”

“No promises,” he repeated.

Tobias turned around and whirled his hand in the air, and the vehicles fired up. The sudden loud blast of machines scattered birds in nearby trees, and more than a few creatures in the overgrown yards around them, on both sides of the streets, scampered away. Keo wondered how long it would take Steve’s people to track them down to this location by just the noise alone.

Reese pulled up in the truck and Tobias hobbled into the front passenger seat before leaning back out and nodding at the two of them. “Good hunting.”

Then they were gone, the caravan turning into the street and heading toward the interstate. Keo and Jordan watched them go, bright sun shimmering against the roofs of their vehicles, the smell of exhaust filling his nostrils for the first time in a long time.

“Well, that was easy,” Keo said. “I was expecting more screaming and gunplay.”

“There’s a reason we followed him for this long,” Jordan said. “Tobias is a good man.”

Keo held up the gaudy ring. “He’s got bad taste in jewelry though.”

“We better get going. That much noise is going to attract attention, even this far from T18. Just like we have scouts around the woods, Miller does, too.”

Keo put the ring away and looked at her. “What are you still doing here, Jordan?”

“Gillian’s my friend, too,” she said, walking off, “and I’m tired of losing friends. That includes you, Keo.”

“You don’t have to do this,” Keo said for the third time since they left the YMCA behind and began the trek back to T18. That was almost an hour ago.

“Shut up,” she said.

“I’m serious. I can do this on my own. I have the ring of power. Its gaudiness will be more than enough to strike down the bad guys.”

She smirked. “You don’t even know if it’s going to work.”

“Tobias seemed to think it will.”

“It’s been months since he talked to Miller. People can change a lot these days. You, of all people, should know that.”

They walked in silence for another few minutes, passing parts of the woods that he didn’t recognize from yesterday. Jordan was leading the way because she was more familiar with the area, and according to her, just as it didn’t pay to stay in the same place for too long, it wasn’t smart to travel the same path more than once if they could help it. She knew better, so he deferred to her experience.

“So what’s the plan?” Jordan asked. “You’re just going to walk up and hand the ring to Miller and ask him to pretty please give you Gillian?”

“You act like that’s a bad plan.”

“It’s a stupid plan. He didn’t expect you to survive yesterday. He practically dangled you so we’d expose ourselves.”

Jordan had a point, but Keo knew men like Miller. They were cunning and dangerous, but also vain. When presented with the opportunity to take a prize like Tobias’s state championship ring and lose nothing in return, would Miller really turn it down? Keo didn’t think so. Which was good, because he was going to put his life on the line for that belief.

Solid plan, pal. You just forgot the part where everything turns to shitburgers and you get killed.

“About Gillian,” Keo said. “You never told me what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“T18. You left and she didn’t. You never told me why.”

“We talked about it more times than I could count, and I thought she was going to leave with me.” She looked momentarily lost in thought, maybe reliving all those conversations with Gillian. “But when the time came, I left and she stayed behind.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. You’ll have to ask her when you see her again.”

“And she hasn’t tried to leave since?”

Jordan shook her head. “I sent her messages using one of our inside guys, but she never answered. The only thing left would have been to get our guy to approach her, and I didn’t want to risk exposing him like that in case-”

She didn’t finish.

“In case of what?” Keo asked. When she still didn’t say anything, “Jordan.”

“You’ll have to ask her when you see her again,” was all she would say.

“Jordan…”

“She was different in the weeks leading up to the escape. To this day I don’t know what happened, but when the time came, I was the only one who left. Only she can say why.”

He thought about pressing the issue, but one look at her and he knew he wasn’t going to get far. If anything, it would probably piss her off.

So he asked instead, “How long have you been running around out there with Tobias’s gang?”

“Three months. It feels like three years. Time has a way of slipping by out here.”

They walked on, moving as quickly as they could without making too much noise. Keo caught a couple of squirrels sitting on a branch nearby watching them pass, and he grinned. He had a long and glorious history with squirrels.

“So, these people on Song Island,” Jordan said after a while. “They sound like good people.”

“Sure, if you don’t mind all the crazy shit they do.”

“Hunh.”

He gave her a curious look. “Meaning?”

She had walked on in front of him, but he pictured her smiling to herself when she said, “You calling someone else crazy. That’s a good one.”

He grunted. “You haven’t met these people. They’re all nuts.”

“I’d still like to meet them one of these days. Especially Lara.”

“Maybe you will.”

“You think he found them by now? Her boyfriend Will?”

“He’d have to be alive first to do that.”

“You don’t think he is?”

“We were out there for a month and never heard a peep from him. If he was still alive, he would have already made contact.” He shrugged. “But what do I know. From what everyone keeps telling me, he’s too stubborn to die, so anything’s possible, I guess.”

“That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?”

“What’s that?”

“People finding each other out here. Like you and Gillian.”

“Happily ever after?”

“Maybe just a happily for now-”

Clop-clop-clop!

Jordan froze and started lifting her rifle, but Keo grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down to the ground first. They ended up behind a thick bush on their stomachs, faces pressed into the soft earth just as two men on horseback galloped past them.

Soldiers in black uniforms, M4s thumping against their backs.

They were heading off in the same direction Keo and Jordan had just come from: toward the YMCA building. It had to have been the cars firing up at the same time. Tobias’s people had made a hell of a ruckus, but they could afford to, because they were abandoning the base.