The Survival Code, page 24
Breathe.
I prepare to surrender.
MacKenna grabs my hand.
And then I almost fall over when the canvas flap covering the back of the truck’s cargo area is thrown open.
Navarro’s head pops out.
“Ah...oh...crap...” I gasp as I fall backward onto the hard ground.
“Real happy to see me, I guess,” Navarro says.
I scramble up and can’t fight off a grin. “You came back.”
All the tension suddenly releases from my body and I’m light as air.
Oh and.
Navarro’s eyes really are a gorgeous shade of brown. Like new copper pennies.
“Obviously,” he says. It’s meant to be brisk, but he’s smiling too.
Another voice comes from the front of the truck. “Yeah, yeah. We’re all thrilled. We can have a big party when we’re far, far away from here.”
Dad.
It’s Dad’s voice.
Dad came back for us.
Navarro holds the canvas flap open and I can see Dad’s arm waving and pointing to the troops in fatigues coming toward us, emerging from every building. “My guys can’t hold them off forever. We have to go. Now.”
Dad has guys.
Some kind of resistance.
MacKenna reaches for Navarro’s hand. She disappears behind the canvas flap.
Navarro pulls me in. I wish I could count the dark brown freckles on his nose.
He draws me forward toward the cab of the truck. Most of the inside is filled with plastic containers, but a series of oversize backpacks line one side. MacKenna crouches, looking more disgruntled than scared.
Mom and Jay get in next.
I spot Charles wedged between a large bin and the truck’s side wall.
I turn to see Toby pushing himself up and over the gate. He’s probably reaching for the girl when the doors to the comm building are thrown open.
“Go,” Navarro screams. He jerks me and MacKenna down so that we’re sitting in the bed of the truck and then he hits the metal sidewall.
“No. No!” Toby says. He’s still got his arms outside the truck.
Three shots.
High-pitched pops.
Navarro crawls over toward Toby. Charles tries to do the same but I force him down. Dad is taking the terrain at top speed, and we’re knocked back as we run over bushes and brush. Through a gap where the tarp covering is attached to the truck, I see military grade vehicles leaving in all directions.
The attack on the airfield is our escape.
Navarro and Toby finally succeed in tugging the girl into the back. From the looks of her now-dusty and filthy boots, she’s been dragged along for the past minute or so. Toby places her down very gently so that she lies on the only stretch of the truck not covered with containers.
And then the blood.
Red. Running. Blood everywhere.
The girl’s leg is covered in it, and she’s heaving and crying. Taking shallow, asthmatic breaths and groaning in pain.
And.
The.
Blood.
“Mom! Mom!” I shout. Mom has tucked Charles onto her lap. Her mouth has fallen open and it looks like she’s in some kind of shock.
“Help!” Toby almost screams this at me. “Jinx. Help!”
I glance from side to side helplessly. I don’t know what Toby expects me to do. I’m not a doctor, and I have nothing to work with.
MacKenna gets onto her knees. “Oh hell no. Toby Oscar Novak. We are tossing her snotty blonde ass right out the back!”
“Jinx!” he screams again.
“Toby, I’m talking to you!”
“Mac! Now is not the time for this.”
Jay gets up and makes his way to his children. “Calm down. Both of you,” he says.
Charles tries to get up too, but we’re all thrown down by what feels like the truck going over a huge speedbump.
“Charles! No!” Mom shouts over all the noise. She pulls him into a tighter hug.
I make another attempt to crawl over to the center of the truck where Toby is bracing himself. MacKenna reaches out and grabs my shirt.
The expression on her face is almost deranged. “Do you know who that is? Do you even know?”
It’s hard to stay calm. I shake my head.
We roll over another bump, and I crash into MacKenna.
“It’s Annika! Fucking! Carver!” she screams.
DR. DOOMSDAY SAYS:
IF YOU’RE GOING THROUGH HELL, KEEP GOING.
Annika Carver.
Of course, MacKenna would recognize her before I would. She reads more news than I do and follows all the coolest celebrities online.
Annika Carver. Ammon’s teenage daughter from his brief marriage to supermodel Paulina Hertzogovitch. She’s a National Merit Scholar, a championship tennis player and has her own line of skin care products. She’s a living dream doll who might have been created in a lab and is designed to show us the perfect future that awaits with Ammon Carver as our savior.
“Stop the truck,” MacKenna tells Navarro. “Miss America is getting off.”
“We’re not stopping,” Navarro says. He’s already busy moving the packs away from the pool of Annika’s blood. “If you wanna toss her, why don’t you do it before she bleeds all over the food?”
For some reason, the two of them finally agreeing on something scares the crap out of me.
Mom moves Charles closer to where Dad is driving the truck.
“MacKenna. She helped me. I’m not sure I would have found Dad without her help.” Toby is on the verge of breaking into tears.
“She would know her way around. Because she’s one of them,” MacKenna says.
“That’s why they shot her?” Toby demands.
We go over another large bump and Annika screams.
“It’s okay, Charles,” Mom consoles my brother.
MacKenna uses one of the bins to steady herself. “They were shooting at you, stupid!”
“Jinx! Don’t just sit there,” Toby yells.
I crawl forward toward where Toby kneels alongside Annika. The kneecaps of his jeans are stained with dark red blood. The truth is that MacKenna is right. We don’t know Annika Carver or know what her agenda is. Plus, traveling with an injured person makes our situation worse. “I... I don’t know, Toby. Even if we can dress the wound—”
“Jinx!” Toby shrieks. “Don’t try to tell me that your nutcase dad taught you to use every kind of gun, drive every kind of vehicle, and fight soldiers twice your size, but didn’t teach you first aid. I know you know what to do. Get over here and help me.”
The motion of the truck has calmed down somewhat. Jay stands and assumes control of the situation. “Enough. All of you. We’re not tossing anyone, and we won’t let a human being bleed to death if we can help it. Jinx, we’ll do this together.”
MacKenna folds her arms over her chest.
I exchange a look with Navarro. He places a metal box with a handle in my arms.
A first-aid kit.
Okay. Okay. Okay.
It’s a real mess over where Toby is, and I can’t even tell where Annika was shot. “Where?”
He points to her right calf, which I guess makes sense considering she was shot as Toby was dragging her into the truck.
Okay. Leg wound. Right.
I open up the first-aid kit. There are some gauze sponges and a few bleedstop bandages but not nearly enough to stop the bleeding and dress the wound. There are two pairs of latex gloves. I squeeze my hands into one of the sets.
“I need a—” Before I can finish with the word shirt, Navarro has opened a bin and tossed a white undershirt onto my hand.
“MacKenna,” I say. “Find a bottle of water.”
Okay. Step one. Triage the wound.
Breathe.
I spot small entrance and exit wounds. So no need to worry about the bullet.
Taking the shirt in my hand, I press hard on the spot Toby pointed to. Annika’s eyes open for the first time as she writhes and screams.
“Here,” I tell Toby. “Keep the pressure on. And stop her from moving.”
I’m so grossed out. I want to throw up. Or maybe jump out of the back of the truck myself. My blue gloves are already covered with red blood. And Navarro is watching me with a vacant expression. I can’t tell whether he approves of this plan of action or not.
Okay. Step two. Stop the bleeding.
I need to elevate Annika’s leg.
“Have you...uh...done this before?” Toby asks. He looks like he’s about to pass out.
“Yes,” I say.
Turning to Toby, I add, “More pressure. If you’re doing it right, she should be screaming her head off.” I move one of the plastic bins underneath Annika’s perfectly shaped leg. “Um. Yeah. The weirdo at the How to Suture Your Own Wounds seminar actually had someone shoot him in the arm. We had to dress the wound.”
Toby doesn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing. Luckily, Jay is there and kneels down alongside us. I should have thought of that anyway. Jay was in the army before doing security. Between the two jobs, he must’ve had some first-aid training.
I fall back onto my butt as the truck goes over what feels like a dune. This would be a whole lot easier if Dad wasn’t trying to turn the ride into a rip-roaring theme park attraction.
Jay applies more pressure to the wound. “Hang on, sweetheart.”
Annika whimpers.
“MacKenna,” I call. Her arm reaches out from behind a bin with a water bottle in her palm.
Okay. Step three. Bandage the wound.
“Yeah. Okay,” I say. “There’s only one package of QuikClot in the kit. Jay, we’re going to have to do this fast.” I open up the gauze pads and bandage tape. “You remove the pressure. I’ll pour water on the wound. Clean it with the alcohol pad. Then the QuikClot. Then I need you to press hard with the gauze pads while I do the tape.”
“Got it,” Jay says.
Toby fidgets with his shirt.
“What’s QuikClot?” MacKenna asks Navarro.
“It’s in first-aid kits,” Navarro says. “Some kind of mineral that makes the blood clot faster. Stops bleeding quicker than it might stop on its own.”
“Now!” I say. I don’t have time to repeat myself and the longer I wait the more likely it gets that I’ll chicken out or give up.
Jay moves the shirt to reveal a bullet hole in the fleshy part of Annika’s calf. I pour water on it. “This is going to hurt,” I say as I put the alcohol swab in place. She’s still yelling as I pour the QuikClot.
Toby has a horrified expression on his face and doesn’t reach for the gauze. He’s scooted back and looks one heartbeat away from retching. If anyone gets to puke, it should be me.
“Okay. The bandage.”
Jay places it on the wound. By some minor miracle, things stay calm in the truck long enough for me to wrap Annika’s leg tight with tape.
Navarro tosses me another shirt to put over the blood on the floor of the truck. “Relatively clean entry and exit wounds,” he says. “That’s a break.”
“Yeah,” I say with a confidence I don’t really feel. “And a nine mil. Could be worse.”
Navarro nods. “Looked like a Beretta M9.”
“That would make sense.” The government probably has a ton of old guns, like Berettas, in surplus.
Okay. Focus. Keep calm. Keep calm. I remove the gloves and toss them on a bloody shirt. “She...uh...needs stitches though. Unless you have some Steri-Strips or glue...”
He glances at the suture supplies. “Unless I have Steri-Strips? You’re hoping to push this off on me?”
“No.” My face heats up. “Um...no. I’m only saying...the exit wound is still bleeding... And anyway...um... I can’t do it now. While we’re driving...the bumps...and...”
Navarro purses his lips into a thin line. “Well, you can do it when we stop.” He waves his hand in Annika’s direction. “Because this is not my problem.”
Great. Just great.
MacKenna nods. “We shouldn’t be doing this at all. What happened to this is a democracy?”
At this, some color returns to Toby’s face. “You know what, Mac? We’re not gonna vote on whether or not we murder people, okay?”
“You know what, Toby? We weren’t gonna murder her. Just leave her where her friends could come and pick her up.”
“No...” Annika pants. “Not friends...no.”
Toby glares at his sister. “They were holding her prisoner too. She helped us escape.”
Jay draws in a deep breath. This is the first opportunity I’ve had to really get a good look at him. He’s wearing a pair of army-green sweats and a T-shirt. In the last couple of days, he’s grown a short, scraggly beard. “Excuse me, son, but I will be in charge of the important decisions from here on out. Mac, Toby is right. We couldn’t just leave her there.”
Annika has settled down and Toby moves closer to her. He picks up her hand but quickly drops it at the glares of MacKenna and Navarro.
Jay squeezes my hand as I move toward the back of the truck to sit alongside Charles and Mom, resting my head back so I get a glimpse of the scenery through the narrow gap between the tarp and the truck. Yellow brush blurs by under the blue, cloudless sky. The ride gets slightly less bumpy and our speed evens out. Dad must have gotten us safely away from the airfield.
Jay, Toby and MacKenna continue to talk.
Mom smiles at me. A sense of calm fills me. Mom’s here. She’ll take care of Charles. And me. And everything. Still, a bit of awkwardness eats at me. A little bit of unease, I can’t quite get rid of. Yes, here we all are. My mom, dad and brother, just like we used to be. But everything is different now.
Oh, Mom. How does her hair always look so neat and smooth and flawless? “Not the way you thought you’d be spending your afternoon, huh?” she asks.
I manage a small smile.
Her brown eyes, which are the exact same color as mine, darken as her face settles into a more serious expression. “I’m proud of you. You kept Charles safe. You found your father like I asked. You even rescued us.”
I want to tell her about everything that’s happened, but I can’t. I can’t relive it or make it more real.
Mom pats my leg and tries to be reassuring. “We’ll be all right.”
Charles puts his head on her shoulder.
As I relax, I realize that I’m beat. I stand up to find the first-aid kit, bouncing up and down as we hit the occasional rough spot of terrain. I sit on the side opposite Mom and Charles on a large supply bin.
Navarro takes a seat next to me. My stomach does a somersault.
I’m sure that’s because of Dad’s driving.
“You look like hell,” Navarro says.
“Thanks,” I say as I open the kit.
He glances at my feet. “What happened to your shoes?”
“They took them. Maybe they thought I’d hidden something in them. I stole these.”
Navarro’s eyebrows arch. “Ah. Hiding something in our shoes. I wish I’d thought of that.”
Me too.
“Your dad stashed some of your spare clothes.” He opens a bin and returns with a pair of Cons and some clean socks.
I take a few alcohol wipes from the first-aid kit. My feet burn and sting as I dab them with the wipes. And then, it’s like I feel everything. The marks on my hands where the plastic cord cut into them as I choked Terminus. My puffy swollen nose. I can tell without checking that a bruise is forming on my left side where the guard checked me with his elbow.
Navarro shifts on the bin. “Look. About earlier. I should have... It was stupid to...”
“I understand,” I tell him. “Thank you for coming back for us.”
He smiles and a warmth rushes through my chest. My dad always says Trust no one. But what if Navarro is someone I can trust?
I put my own shoes on and make my way into the cab, which is separated from the rest of the truck by a beige canvas partition, and slide into the passenger seat. We’re in some kind of hilly desert area. Mostly low brush and cholla. Once in a while, Dad has to steer around a tall saguaro or a lonely mesquite tree. I can see the horizon, and there’s nothing but rolling hills in front of us—no buildings or telephone lines or even anything that looks like a road anywhere. I have no idea how Dad even knows where we’re going.
I wonder if it’s weird for him to be traveling in a band of fugitives with his ex-wife and her new husband.
“You came back for us,” I say. I want to stay detached, cool, calm. Like him.
But I find myself smiling.
Dad continues to watch the road, but he smiles too. “Your brother and Gustavo were quite persuasive.”
“We couldn’t have escaped without you.” I’m feeling better. Even more relieved. We can follow the Evac plan. Maybe our old lives are gone, but we can start new ones on the other side of the border.
“Jinx,” my father says. “You have to understand. I haven’t always done what’s right. But I’ve always done what I thought was right for you. And Charles. I wish I’d done some things differently. But what I did was for you.”
We’re quiet as we come to a butte.
As we near the large mound, a cloud of dust builds up behind it. My pulse quickens, but I notice my dad isn’t at all alarmed. A few seconds later, a large truck emerges from behind the hill. Dad brings our army surplus truck to a stop.
The sun has shifted to the west, beginning its descent into night.
The other truck stops in front of us. A man who would be right at home on the cover of one of Dad’s old Western paperbacks unfolds from the driver’s side door. He’s clad in a paisley printed Western shirt that was probably red right around the time I was born but has since faded to a salmon pink. Coarse gray hair pokes out from under a weathered, beige Stetson.
