The Gender War Read online

  One shot hit close enough to her that she recoiled and lost her footing, going down in a tumble and barely managing to roll to her knees—with her gun still on the ground. I fired wildly toward her attacker, cursing my left hand, as the guard sighted in on her—and then Henrik was standing over her, his legs splayed as he fired with straight and true aim.

  The guard’s body jerked with the impact of the bullets, and he dropped to the ground.

  “MOVE!” I heard Viggo’s voice bellowing from across the tunnel. Amidst all the chaos, I was glad to hear Samuel barking from where we’d left him in the cab, confirming that Viggo, at least, had made it to the truck.

  I scrambled to my feet and unloaded round after round, expending the magazine as I crossed the empty lane and entered the construction zone the truck was in. I crouched behind a piece of debris to reload. It was awkward—a spike of pain pulsed through my right hand when I tried to slap the cartridge in, so I wound up pressing the gun down on my knee until I felt it click, locking into place.

  I silently thanked Ms. Dale and Henrik, who had moved closer and were firing round after round in the direction of two guards who were hiding behind their partially constructed barricade. Under their cover, I vaulted the short concrete barrier between us and the truck, pulled my gun back up, and angled fire toward the attackers. Quinn, Amber, and Owen ran across the pavement, flanking Jay and Tim—the king still thrown limply over Jay’s shoulder. I heard Maxen grunt, and flinched when I heard what I could only presume to be the king’s body landing hard in the back of the truck.

  “Into the truck!” I shouted as I unloaded a few more rounds, my left wrist starting to ache from the gun’s recoil. I stepped out farther, allowing Henrik and Ms. Dale to move past me and climb into the truck, then followed as they gave me covering fire.

  Jay was leaning out of the tarp toward me, his hand held out for me to grab. Without thinking I slapped my right hand into his, and then screamed as it exploded in pain as he hauled me up, dragging me over the tailgate. He gave me an alarmed look, but, thankfully, didn’t let go.

  Darkness engulfed my eyes under the shade of the tarp. Jay let me go as soon as I was through, and I crawled toward the front of the truck’s bed, clutching my forearm and trying not to vomit on the floor as the pain shot up my arm. It took me a minute to realize my eyes were watering from the pain, and I sucked in a deep breath, trying to stop my body’s physical reactions and turn my mind toward the battle in which we were still embroiled.

  Bullets were pinging off the tailgate and intermittently ripping through the tarp, and the back of the truck seemed filled with crouching bodies. As if from far away, I heard Ms. Dale taking a head count, then Henrik shouting at Viggo, “We’re all in! Let’s go!” Next to me, the unconscious king’s head lolled and bumped up and down as the truck roared into gear.

  A dizzy thought spun through my mind. Have we really just kidnapped the king of Patrus?

  By the time I slowly returned to my senses, we were careening down the tunnel, apparently having outstripped any pursuit. There had been several loud bangs early on, and I suspected these had been attacks against any vehicles that had tried to follow us. Beginning to get used to the dimness under the tarp, I noticed Owen, Amber, and Ms. Dale crouched behind the tailgate and Quinn, Tim, and Jay sitting in the middle of the bed. Quinn was digging through a backpack he’d been carrying. In a smaller truck it would have been a crowd, but this thing was so huge we had plenty of space.

  I sucked in another deep breath, and then lurched upright, taking extra care to use my left hand to brace myself.

  “You okay?” asked Jay from the middle of the bed, and I nodded weakly, still in too much pain to say anything. Viggo, at the wheel, was shouting at Henrik through the tiny back window that connected the cab with the bed. Since Henrik sat next to me, I tuned in, trying to get a handle on our situation.

  “…the only way in or out? Didn’t you get the blueprints for your mission?”

  “No! We don’t know this area. We followed a tracker that was installed on… oh… hmm.” He trailed off, his face pensive.

  There was a pause from the cabin. “A tracker on what?”

  I was glad Viggo couldn’t see the expression on Henrik’s face, a weird mixture of amusement and regret. “On you, Viggo.”

  From the cabin came one of the longest explosions of swearing that I had yet heard from Viggo. The truck seemed to accelerate madly, the engine’s roar echoing loudly in the tunnel.

  “So Desmond could be following us right now?” he shouted furiously, once his speech had become intelligible again. “When did that happen? How do we get it off? And, uh… where the hell is it?”

  Henrik put his face in his hands and answered the questions one after another. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, I was sure he would have been laughing. I didn’t find it funny at all—had our whole escape been yet another ruse?

  “They would have attached it while you were unconscious,” Henrik said. “I don’t think it was one of the ingestible ones. It’s either a skin-colored patch with a very strong adhesive… or a chip inserted underneath your skin. They’ve probably put it in a difficult-to-notice position on your body, like the middle of your back. Getting it out could be difficult, depending on the method they used to attach it…”

  “Well, it can’t wait!” Viggo’s voice was grim. I couldn’t see his face through the window because he faced forward, but I knew he was furious. I was furious. I thought of the tracker I’d once slipped Viggo in his flask of water—then thought of somebody cutting him while he was down and sliding another such device into him. My left hand curled into a clumsy fist.

  “While you’re driving?” Henrik asked. “If you think you can handle it…”

  “I don’t have much choice, do I?” Viggo thundered, and the truck jerked underneath us as his foot, presumably, punched the gas again.

  “All right,” Henrik said. “Well, we can switch drivers, and…”

  “Don’t have time!” Viggo hollered.

  “Fair,” Henrik said. “Then maybe I can come up there and…” His eyes fell on me. “Violet,” he said, quieter now, “could you fit through that window? It had probably better be you.”

  I shook the last of the dizziness from my head, or at least tried to. “I can do it,” I said.

  Henrik smiled at me as though he’d known I would say yes. He dug around in his pockets and held out a small folding knife, his eyes serious again. “I hope you don’t need this. Check the middle of his back first. If it’s not there… Well, check anywhere you can think of. It’s most likely there, though.” I pocketed the knife and climbed forward.

  With his eyes on the road, Viggo growled as I struggled to fit myself through the small back window. “Henrik, I will blame you if I crash and we all die—” He turned his head and saw me, then cracked a dark smile. “Oh, Violet, it’s you. Well, at least I get a beautiful nurse.”

  I could feel myself blushing. “Don’t distract me, patient,” I said, with more bravery than I felt.

  He made to reply, then swore and swerved as an overturned sand barrel appeared in the truck’s headlights. As we skidded around it into the other lane, I seized the headrest of the passenger’s side with my left hand and hung on for dear life, trying not to crush poor Samuel.

  “Sorry,” Viggo said, although the swerve wasn’t his fault at all. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  “Okay… I need you to lean forward. And… take off your shirt.”

  Taking off the filthy t-shirt while he was driving took effort from both of us. I hiked up the back and arranged it so that it was easy for Viggo to yank one hand, then the other, through the short sleeves, then pulled the collar up over his head until the whole thing was bunched around his face and he could pull it off, only blocking his eyes for a second. Then I was peering at the broad, taut muscles of Viggo’s back in the tunnel’s yellow light, running my hands over him gently, trying to find a patch… or an injury.

/>   My fingers found a bump. It wasn’t a patch—just a little lump in the skin, smaller than my thumbnail, with a tiny puckered red mark on one side that had to be the insertion wound. Fury curled tight in my stomach, warring with nerves. I touched the spot, and Viggo growled.

  “Viggo,” I said, trying to sound calm and efficient, “it’s under your skin. Henrik gave me a knife. I’m going to have to cut it out.” I didn’t say, With my left hand. In a moving vehicle. While you’re driving it.

  He stared straight ahead at the road. “Just make it quick, Violet,” he said tightly. “I’ll be fine.”

  I fumbled uselessly with the knife for several seconds, my left hand shaking not only from the unfamiliar motions, but from the thought that I was going to have to cut Viggo’s skin to get the tracker out. I couldn’t avoid hurting him. It was a whole new kind of torture, and I hated it with every fiber of my being.

  “How’s it going in there?” Henrik shouted, and I yelled back, “Fine!”

  With the bumping of the truck, I had to brace myself against Viggo’s body with my knees, wrapping my right arm under his armpit and hooking it around his shoulder, my left arm crossing his back. I positioned the knife across his skin by the entry wound, but didn’t cut in.

  “Violet,” he almost groaned. “There’s trouble up ahead. You have to do it now!”

  Adrenaline surging through my veins, I pressed the little knife against Viggo’s skin, wincing as red blossomed there and he sucked in a breath. The truck jolted, and the knife jounced against something hard—I yanked it away from his skin, afraid of slipping, threw the knife on the seat and dug back into the bleeding injury with my fingers, finally pressing out the tiny, blood-covered bead of the tracker.

  Viggo made no noises during the whole thing but I could hear him breathing through his teeth. “It’s out!” I cried, and Viggo let out a curse. “Warn the others in the back! There’s the rest of the king’s guard!”

  I took one look out the windshield and saw that we were careening toward another set of portable barricade shields. Guardsmen were dragging sand barrels to block off the lanes, a set of gun barrels pointed our way. City lights glowed from the end of the tunnel behind their vehicles… if we could just get past them.

  I stuck my head through the small window of the back of the truck, shouting, “They blockaded the other end of the tunnel! Everybody down!” Then I dropped to the passenger’s seat, curling up into a ball as Viggo, shirtless and bleeding, began whipping back and forth to avoid the hail of bullets that showered down on us as we approached. The truck bounced, making a horrifying clunking noise, and I curved my body around my hand in mid-air, landing hard on my side as bullets crashed into the passenger’s door. Thankfully, none had breached the truck’s outer shell. Samuel’s barking was frenzied, and I was still curled up in pain when the sounds of my companions returning fire blasted my ears.

  Through the racket, I fervently wished I hadn’t dropped my gun in the back of the truck. Thoughts of Viggo being taken out in the driver’s seat flashed through my mind—but before I could move, the gunfire became unbearably loud, and a wrenching, lurching crunch sent me crashing against the glove compartment. There were shouts and roars, and the engine’s growling grew higher. But it never stopped, and then we were picking up speed again. “Hah!” I heard Viggo grunt from the driver’s seat. Firing stopped for a moment.

  Clearly, he’d simply driven through the entire barricade, not caring what was in the way. Clawing my way upright and back to the seat, I looked out the window. I saw that the light outside wasn’t the sickly yellow of the tunnel anymore, but the expanse of the night sky. Streetlights flickered past us on either side, and close-set apartment buildings loomed over the narrow road we’d emerged onto. I pressed my face to the window, trying to look back around the tarp. I could just see the three sleek vehicles that were currently pulling out into the road from the area around the broken blockade to pursue us.

  The breath of relief I’d been about to exhale caught in my throat. “Looks like they’re still after us. There are three trucks coming our way.”

  Viggo’s response was to gas it, his hands tightening on the wheel. “Where’s that damn tracker?” he demanded, and I realized I was still holding it. I handed it to him, and he rolled down the window a crack, enough to viciously toss the little device out. “Good riddance!” he bellowed.

  I looked around, found Henrik’s knife and tucked it into my pocket, then found Viggo’s shirt and used it to wipe the blood streaming from the small cut in his back. “Thank you,” he murmured. “You did good.”

  I dropped a kiss on his bare shoulder. “I hope we never have to do that again.”

  “Me too. You should go back and check on the others. I’ll be fine.”

  “That’s what I was about to suggest,” I said. “Stay safe. We’ll keep them off our tail.”

  “I’ll do my best. You too.”

  I struggled back through the tiny window, my aching body protesting, in time to catch a continued conversation among the rest of the crew.

  “Who has the nearest safe room?” Owen was asking, clearly addressing Amber’s team.

  “I have a safe room in Father’s Park,” shouted Quinn, sitting in the center of the truck, reloading his pistol.

  “Why is this important?” I cried to them, and it was Owen who answered.

  “Amber’s group was able to track the wardens’ handhelds. It’s only a matter of time before they think to check the Matrian ones we’re using now. We need a better, more secure handheld—you guys had to leave yours behind, so that means they’ll be with your bug-out bags, right?”

  The last part was directed at Amber, Henrik, and Quinn, who all nodded, then ducked simultaneously as Ms. Dale shouted “Down!” and bullets riddled the tarp again.

  I ducked too, then continued our conversation. “We can’t exactly stop for it, Owen!”

  Owen looked grimly at me, seeing the problem. “Maybe if we can ditch the pursuit—” Quinn made a face, then crawled back toward Jay’s position, letting Amber take his place again.

  I peered out around the tarp, finally having found my own weapon. The king’s vehicles were gaining on us quickly—they were smaller and faster than the huge old truck. The black tarp fluttered and flapped in my way as I tried to rest my left hand on the tailgate to aim. I grimaced, remembering Henrik’s pocketknife.

  It was just as hard to click open this time, even though I’d wiped the blood off on my pants before closing it earlier. When I finally got the blade to slide free, I lunged forward and slashed a big hole through the tarp flaps, finally giving us an unobstructed view of the road behind us.

  “Finally somebody’s thinking back here!” Ms. Dale said appreciatively, and we both fired at the windshield of the nearest truck, which was now clearly visible through the hole. But the rounds bounced harmlessly off. “New tech,” Ms. Dale said enviously. “Of course.” The nearest truck surged closer to us, and though I couldn’t see the driver in the dark, I could see the light glinting off the shotgun pointing at us out the passenger’s side window. This time I was the one to shout “Down!” and make us all duck as the guard fired. “How are we going to take them down?”

  Before Ms. Dale could answer my question, Quinn and Jay bolted past me—Quinn clinging to Jay’s back in a cheery parody of the king’s earlier attack, his legs around Jay’s waist and one arm around his neck, the other hand holding a pistol.

  “We’re going to get that handheld! Meet you at Father’s Park!” Quinn shouted to Owen as Jay put his foot on the tailgate and grabbed one of the metal frame’s supports. Then, ducking so as to not hit Quinn’s head on the frame, he pushed through the remains of the tarp and leapt from the back of the truck.

  They seemed suspended in the air for a moment, and my eyes bulged as I watched Quinn grinning and firing his pistol down at the oncoming wardens’ trucks as they flew over. Everybody in the truck seemed just as stunned as me when Jay managed to grab onto a ladder han
ging from a nearby building, his body slamming hard on the brick wall.

  As our vehicle hurtled away, I barely had a chance to see the two scramble up the ladder—apparently Jay’s grip had held. Ms. Dale and I exchanged looks. “What did he say?” she asked, aiming for the passenger’s side window and missing.

  I ran it through in my head, keeping myself low. “Father’s Park?” I was suddenly doubtful. “Is that some kind of code name?”

  Amber came up beside me, fired a few more rounds, and gave a cheer when one of them struck the driver’s hand—which he’d stuck out the window to fire at us. The lead vehicle swerved wildly into the car just behind it, the two of them spinning out and crashing hard into the corner of a building, tires screaming and smoke billowing.

  “No, it’s just an old city park,” Henrik called back to us, overhearing the conversation. “We were using it as a landmark for where we stashed our things. I recognize this area now that we’re out of that blasted tunnel. It’s maybe ten minutes away.”

  I considered this for a moment while bullets continued to ring out around us. Then I nodded, hoping the boys could pull off this crazy stunt. “We’re going to have to get this vehicle off of us, and hope that we can avoid their backups for long enough.”

  “Wait… I thought I saw…” Ms. Dale shuffled to the back of the truck and began pawing through several weapons left by the Porteque gang members. “I knew it!” She came back hefting a huge gun that could be only described as an assault rifle. “Those Patrian scumbags had a .50 caliber.”

  “Looks like those ‘Patrian scumbags’,” Henrik muttered from behind her, “are saving our skins right now.”

  I’d never had the opportunity to see Ms. Dale flush while holding an enormous gun, but she carried it off well, her lips only twitching slightly as she swung into position. The rest of us scooted back as she knelt at the tailgate, waiting for her moment. The guards drifted closer, firing at us; Ms. Dale waited until they were almost on our tail before unloading the gun’s clip into the hood of the truck following us.