Summer Lane - Day One

They were sitting on the ground, taking a brief break from the long walk out of Los Angeles. Flash and Pix sat together, silent. Elle stood apart from the group, watching and listening .

Georgia made a face .

“Hey, at least I have ambitions,” she snapped. “What would you do if you had another chance to climb the social ladder, Dr. Phil?”

Jay shrugged .

“Oh, come on,” Georgia prodded. “Enlighten us.”

Elle watched Jay’s face. It was veiled in shadow, difficult to read .

“I don’t know,” he said .

Lie. Elle knew he was avoiding the truth .

“You’re a total bore, Jay,” Georgia commented, blowing smoke into the air. “Remind me not to get stuck with you again when the apocalypse hits next time.”

Jay shrugged again .

Georgia was smiling .

Elle said nothing .

“What about you, shortstack?” Georgia asked, turning to Elle. “What would you do in an ideal world?”

“There is no ideal world,” Elle deadpanned .

“Come on, use your imagination for once in your life.”

Elle stared at her feet .

“I would have stayed in Los Angeles after the EMP,” she said. “I would have saved my family.” Georgia balanced her cigarette between her fingers .

“You’re morbid, kid,” she said, but there was sadness in her words .

Then, in a soft voice, Jay replied .

“I would have done the same thing.”

Elle slipped through the trees. She was a dark flash, and Bravo was her shadow. She had pulled far enough away from the Slaver encampment to avoid being seen, but remained close enough so that she could hear the rumble of their trucks and the garble of their voices echoing off the mountains.

“We’ve got to get to the top of that rock cliff,” Elle breathed, stopping behind a tree. Bravo panted next to her, following her line of sight. “I think they’re keeping prisoners up there. If Jay and the others are here, that’s where they’ll be.”

At least, that’s what Elle was hoping.

She could be wrong. Jay, Georgia and Flash could be dead.

Hey . Bravo nudged her with the tip of his nose. Focus, lady. We’re on a mission, remember?

Elle nodded.

The road that led up the cliff embankment was too exposed for Elle and Bravo to use. They would have to come up behind the road, sifting through the thick brush and the cover of the trees. If they were careful, they could at least take a peek at what was up there…

“Okay, let’s go,” Elle whispered.

She crept forward, keeping a close watch on everything around her. They got close to the dirt road. Elle paused. There were no trucks coming, no men. She tensed and darted across the road, vanishing into the other side of the pathway. Bravo followed her, staying close. She grinned and rubbed his head.

“We make a good team,” she said.

The growl of an engine echoed through the forest. Elle dropped to her hands and knees and pulled on Bravo’s collar. “Down,” she commanded. “Stay down!”

A diesel pickup truck blundered by on the road. It was going slow. The pickup bed was packed with a dozen or so prisoners. There were men and women — even a couple of children. Elle swallowed her disgust, peering at the men inside the cab. The windows were rolled down. A Slaver with long dreadlocks was driving, hanging one arm out the window. Two armed men sat beside him, and four or five guards trailed behind the pickup on foot, toting rifles and what looked like AK-47s.

Elle frowned.

This was not an encouraging sight.

She waited until the truck and the guards had passed them to get up and walk. The thought occurred to Elle that the Slavers were going to monumental pains to set up their encampment in the heart of the mountains, and they were bringing in dozens upon dozens of new prisoners every day.

What were they using them for? What purpose could the Slavers possibly have for prisoners? Why did they need so many of them?

There’s a rumor going around , Sienna had said. There’s something big in the desert. Something the militias can’t stop .

Elle pushed back the cloud of worry gathering at the edges of her mind and focused on the task at hand. She knew from personal experience that staying alive in hostile territory required concentration.

One wrong move and you could be dead.

Elle and Bravo followed the basic direction of the dirt road, staying hidden in the cover of the underbrush and darting from tree to tree. The hill became steeper, and Elle had to use rocks and bushes to pull herself up. Bravo’s progress was slow but sure. They both fought gravity and exhaustion as they struggled up the hill, pausing only to catch their breaths.

They rounded the right side of the rock cliff, coming close to the clearing at the top. Elle stopped. She stayed low. The road curved around the corner here, opening to a wide space that was hidden behind the large granite face. There were four large, makeshift corrals here. Each corral was built of wood and topped with sharp barbed wire. People were packed into each corral, some of them standing, some of them sitting on the ground. Some of them looked like they had passed out and were lying in the dirt, strewn at odd angles.

Slavers were walking between the corrals, armed to the teeth, dressed in black clothes, scarves tied around their faces. They looked like pirates — like mercenaries. There were guards everywhere — except on the rock. No one was guarding the rock. It was a sheer drop-off on the other side, at least four hundred feet to the bottom. A long fall to a quick death.

The guards were armed with more than just AKs. They had swords strapped across their backs, resembling medieval warriors.

“We are so dead,” Elle muttered.

She searched the corrals for the familiar faces of Jay, Georgia and Flash, but she couldn’t spot them. There was no way to see everyone. They could be anywhere.

They could be dead .

Elle shook herself.

If the kids weren’t here, at least she would have closure. At least she’d know that she had tried to do the right thing. She could live with that.

She could live with try .

At the farthest edge of the clearing, a corral was filled with younger prisoners. Elle saw a flash of dark skin and hair, faded cargo pants and a red shirt. Jay? It certainly looked like him, but from this distance, she couldn’t be sure. Near him, there was a girl with a matted tangle of blond curls. Georgia? God, the resemblance was striking. She was wearing a denim jacket, exactly what Georgia had been wearing the morning they had been taken by the Slavers.

But where was Flash?

She didn’t see him, and her heart sank. Maybe he didn’t survive the journey here. Maybe the Slavers killed him. Maybe, maybe, maybe… Elle’s heart hammered against her ribcage. She knew what she needed to do; it was simply a matter of how to get it done. Elle turned her gaze to the guards — there were too many. She couldn’t possibly sneak past them without being spotted.

“There’s only one way we’re getting out of this alive,” Elle whispered to Bravo, keeping one hand on his collar.

Bravo looked at her. You don’t say?

Yes.

She did.

The night was freezing. Elle had left her backpack with Bravo at the edge of the forest. No moon. No stars. Only a canopy of thick, dark clouds. Elle shed her coat, wearing a tee with a thermal. Her hands were wrapped with strips of tape. She touched the cold granite of the rock cliff, barely able to see the outline of the rock against the night sky.