Page 81

“What the fuck is happening here?” I spat, aiming at the unmasked man.

Claire sagged with relief on seeing me. The guys around her were less happy.

“Just helping the lady,” the unmasked guy said, sneering at me. “Mind your own—”

“They’re with the Or—!” Claire burst out, but the guy behind her clapped a hand over her mouth.

I shot the guy closest to me, and the group scattered. Claire got a hand around her gun and shot the man holding onto her. He fell, and she ran to me. I grabbed her hand and we ducked behind an overturned dumpster on the side of the road.

“You okay?” I asked, looking her up and down.

“Fine,” Claire replied, squeezing my fingers. “Glad to see you.”

A couple bullets hit the metal dumpster and on instinct, we both ducked lower. A second later, I peeked around the corner and shot another one of the impersonators. They didn’t return fire when I took cover again, and everything went quiet.

A minute passed. An engine rumbled, and a military truck pulled onto the street. For a brief moment, I hoped the Delta military had showed up. No such luck. Instead, the double doors on the back of the truck opened and masked Order initiates poured out—so many that I couldn’t easily count them all.

“The Day of Reckoning is here!”

I peeked around the corner and saw a masked man wearing a strange gold circlet. He was the one who’d spoken, and on his signal, the masked Order members swarmed around the dumpster.

I shot two men, and Claire shot another. They fell, but it didn’t matter. The others kept coming anyway. We were outnumbered and overwhelmed and pinned down. They surrounded us on all sides.

I was so busy watching everyone else that I didn’t notice the guy with the gold circlet approaching us from behind. At the last second, I turned, just in time to see him point his gun at us and fire. I braced myself for a bullet, but what came out was thin, surprisingly strong netting coated in a thin layer of something sticky that glued it to the ground. The net covered me and Claire, pinning us and bonding to our skin. Claire gave a horrified cry and we both struggled, but the more we moved, the more the net seemed to stick to us.

“Would you look at this?” Gold Circlet Guy said with a cackle, hovering over us like a spider that’d caught a fly in his web. “The Sole Survivor and the Wastelander, together again. The lovers. Jim J will be pleased to see both of you again.”

“Fuck you,” I spat out, but there was nothing I could do as a bunch of guys wearing gloves hauled us up and forced us into the back of the truck. We both fought, but it was useless.

“Ainsley!” a male voice called distantly, and Claire’s eyes widened in response. “Ainsley, where are you?”

“Hamilton,” she muttered, then yelled, as loud as she could, “Here! Andrew, I’m here! Please!”

“Shut the fuck up,” one of the masked guys snarled, and he kicked her. Automatically, I struck out and kicked him back, hitting him in the shin. It didn’t do shit except make him curse at me, but at least he hopped out of the truck and shut the doors without hurting her again.

Someone started the engine, and then we were on our way to whatever hell was waiting for us.

Chapter 28

John

We only drove for a few minutes before they opened the doors again and forced me and Claire out. We tumbled onto the ground, unable to stand up inside the net. One glance told me we were on the other side of the barricade I’d seen earlier, on the street they’d blockaded. Their territory, and we were tied up with no way of escaping.

This is fucking bad.

“You like this toy?” Gold Circlet Guy said with obvious glee, holding up the netting gun. Motherfucker was loving this. “Such an interesting weapon—from the arsenal of the Sire himself.”

“He gave it to you?” I asked, unable to help myself. “What a fucking idiot.”

To my surprise, he laughed. “Not wrong, Wastelander. But the Sire gives no gifts; he simply forgot that we have eyes everywhere, including among his own soldiers.”

“Where do you want them, Alastor?” another masked man asked him. “We still need to radio Jim J.”

I blew out a breath. The one silver lining in this situation: Jim J doesn’t know they’ve caught us yet.

“He might be a while,” another guy piped up. “With all the fighting, he still hasn’t managed to get ins—”

“Shut the fuck up!” Alastor snapped at him. “Get them to the vault. Now.”