Ballistic: Icarus Series, Book Two (2 page)

“No, sir. I swear,” Lucas said, holding up the Chicago Cubs pennant he had torn down from the wall. “I was just getting this. You know, to bring to the camp.”

“Stupid kid,” the soldier scoffed.

He dragged Lucas from the room and tossed him into Layla’s open arms. He ripped the small pennant from Lucas’s hands, dropped it to the floor, and then wiped his gloves off on his uniform. Lucas bent to pick it up, but Mayfield stepped on it, barely missing the boy’s fingertips.

“Don’t bother,” Mayfield said grinding the pennant with his boot. “The whole city was overrun by gammas.”

“What is a gamma?” Lucas asked, clutching at his inhaler through his pocket.

“You hear that, Lane?” Mayfield nudged the soldier next to him. “Kid wants to know what a gamma is.”

“Rich people.” Lane shook his head, glaring at them over his white mask. “Hiding in their pretty little castles while the world falls apart. Don’t worry about it. We took care of the Chicago problem. You won’t have to get your hands dirty.”

“I—I don’t understand,” Layla said, her voice shaky and barely above a whisper. “Chicago problem? Took care of it…how?”

“We fragged it, lady,” Lane clapped his hands together. “Kaboom. Problem solved.”

“Fragged?” Lucas glared at him and then turned to Mayfield. “What is he talking about?”

“Ain’t nothing left of Chicago, kid.” The soldier shrugged as if a city full of living, breathing human beings had been little more than a bug on his windshield. He nudged Lane’s shoulder with the butt of his gun, and leaned back against the wall, lazily. “Go and see if he’s ready to go, would you? This place is depressing.”

Lane nodded, then turned on his heel and stomped off down the hallway and out of sight. They could hear the soldiers moving about on the floors above them, digging through drawers, and rifling through closets. Their heavy footfalls echoed like thunder through the stout corridors of the Foster’s basement. Every once in a while, something would crash to the floor, a family treasure of some sort being cast aside as useless garbage.

The soldiers had been pillaging since they had arrived, taking food and medicine, clothing and shoes, and even the fifty-year-old, unopened bottle of scotch Mr. Foster kept hidden in his workbench in the garage. It was all for the refugees, they insisted, though Lucas had a hard time seeing what use the booze would be to them.

“
Brian
,” Layla choked out as her hand flew to her mouth, and her eyes filled with tears as she pulled Jazz tightly against her side. “Oh God, no. He’s—.”

“Mommy?” Jazz tugged on her mother’s shirt. “Mommy, why are you crying?”

“You’re wrong.” Lucas glared defiantly at Mayfield as he rubbed Layla’s back. “God wouldn’t let that happen. He got out, Layla. He had to.”

“Right,” Mayfield rolled his eyes, buffing a spot on his gun absently with his sleeve. “Or he didn’t. This isn’t a fairy tale, kid. In case you hadn’t heard, the world is pretty much in the crapper and your precious God left
us
here to clean it up.”

In fact, they hadn’t heard much of anything since this whole insane mess had begun. At first, they had all gathered outside to watch the solar flare, just like the rest of the world. After the flash, however, Layla had gone into a panic and rushed them all down into the basement, locking the doors behind them. They had been holed up there, all this time, living off the secret stash of sugary snacks that Bo had covertly been hoarding in his room.

There were two laptops, three cell phones, and a tablet computer in that basement. None of them worked. Layla and the kids had not had any contact with the outside world until the moment those soldiers busted down their door to “rescue” them. All they knew was that the solar storm (
Icarus
, one of the soldiers had called it) had been bad…like, really bad. There was a small backup generator for the house’s special air filtration system. Thankfully, it hadn’t failed them.

According to Mayfield and the others, Lucas and his foster family were lucky to be alive. Layla’s husband had likely not been so fortunate.

Silent sobs wracked her body. She clung tightly to her daughter, muttering Brian’s name repeatedly. A few minutes later, a high-pitched whistle rang out through the hallway as Lane swung around the corner of the stairwell and into the basement. He nodded at Mayfield, twirled his finger in the air, and jerked his head to the side before disappearing again.

“Look, lady, we really don’t have time for you to have a breakdown right now,” Mayfield stood square and shouldered his weapon. “Either get these kids into the truck, or we will leave them here. What’s it going to be?”

“I— of course,” Layla croaked, numbly ushering Lucas and the others along. “Come along, children.”

“No.” Jazz resisted trying desperately to free her hand from Layla’s.

“Come on, Jazzy,” Layla pressed. “We have to go with the nice man now, okay?”

“He’s not nice, mommy,” Jazz whispered mutinously, “and I don’t want to go. I
want
to wait for Daddy.”

“Hush, Jasmine,” Layla gritted, pulling her daughter close with one hand and wiping her eyes with the other.

“Mommy, please. I don’t want to,” Jazz whined, crossing her arms.

“I know, honey, but it’s not safe here,” Layla said smearing the last of her mascara across her cheek. “Mommy needs to make sure you are protected, okay? I can’t do that without their help. It’s time to go.”

“If Daddy comes and we are not here, he will be scared,” Jazz pleaded, her voice less resolute. “We have to wait for him.”

“We need to
go
, damn it. I don’t have time or energy to argue with you about this,” Layla snapped, dismissing her daughter’s pleas. “Where is Boh-nwa, Lucas?”

Lucas shrugged, his brows knitting in confusion at her. He had never heard Layla speak to anyone this way before, let alone her own flesh and blood.

“Mommy, please.” Jazz threw her stuffed Wookie to the floor in protest.

“No, Jazz,” Layla said, scowling down at her. Her mouth tightened, and she rubbed her eyes again. The blackened smudges spread farther across her cheek, highlighting the gauntness that had settled there. “Quit arguing with me, and pick Chewy up off the floor so we can go. Bo? Bo, it’s time to leave!”

“But, what if Daddy—?” Jazz’s lip quivered.

“That’s enough!” Layla screeched, her eyes wild as she grabbed her daughter by the shoulders and jerked her hard. “He’s not coming, Jasmine. He’s never coming. You have got to stop this foolishness.”

“
Layla
!” Lucas said, shocked.

“What?” Layla shot him a look. “You heard what the soldiers said. The world is gone. It’s been overrun by monsters. We can’t stay here, or we’ll die. Do you hear me? We. Will. Die.”

Jazz’s mouth hung open and her eyes filled with tears. She stared up at her mother in disbelief. The hallway fell eerily silent. Layla looked up as if in a trance. She was barely aware that all eyes were trained on her. Finally, she peeled her fingers away from her daughter’s shoulders and gripped the girl’s hand. A single tear rolled down Layla’s cheek, slicing the darkness in half to reveal a tiny shred of who she was beneath it. Jazz began sobbing. Layla’s shoulders drooped, her face fell, and the light left her eyes.

It’s like watching someone die
, Lucas thought to himself.

“Daddy will be fine, Jazz. He—he is just running a little late, that’s all,” Layla said. Her voice was hollow, robotic. Dead. “I am sure he will come and find us at the camp as soon as he can. Everything is going to be okay, baby. We are going to be just fine. You’ll see. It’s time to go, now.”

“
E chu ta
,” Jazz glared up at her mother. Her deep-set, brown eyes narrowed dramatically as she tried to yank her hand away. “
Lurdo E chu ta
!”

“Language, Jasmine Elaine Foster,” Layla said pulling her daughter down the hall and toward the stairs.

Jazz always swore in Huttese or the language of the Ewok’s when she was upset (as many times as she had seen Star Wars, it was no surprise she had picked up a thing or two). Under normal circumstances, her inexplicable proficiency in alien profanities would have Lucas on the floor clutching at his belly. These were anything but. Jazz was clearly devastated by her mother’s betrayal, and the hurt was bone-deep. Unfortunately, Layla didn’t seem nearly as interested in her daughter’s tears as she was in leaving.

Bo stepped from his room into the hallway, closing the door tightly behind him as a soldier passed by. Jazz tore her little hand free of her mother’s grasp, scooped Chewy into her arms, and ran to Lucas’s side. She wrapped her slender arms around his waist. Lucas hugged her back without hesitation, and Bo fell into step beside them. Jazz’s shoulders shook in silent mourning as they walked together down the hallway, Layla pressing them on with the soldiers at her back. His heart ached for the girl’s loss and reminded him, suddenly, of his own.

“I’m scared, Skywalker,” Jazz whispered, her hands trembling as she clung to Lucas’s shirt.

Lucas was shaking too, but he wasn’t scared anymore.

Fear had given way to frustration. Frustration to anger. And anger to pure determination. Lucas was tired of being pushed around, tired of being a victim. He was sick of being
broken
. He had been bullied his entire life for things beyond his own control, and there was little he could do about that, but everything had changed in the last two days—
Lucas
had changed.

Despite his small stature, his physical limitations, and a freshly acquired black eye, the boy felt strong. There was a fire in his gut that had been brewing for a while, now. While he did not truly understand what was happening to him, the persistent and undeniable weight of it grounded him and gave him courage.

His foster brother, Bo, nodded curtly and walked next to them with his head held high, a scowl plastered on his face. He nudged Lucas lightly with his elbow and cleared his throat. His dark, almond-shaped eyes flicked downward, willing Lucas to follow and understand. Lucas looked over his shoulder to be sure the soldiers had not seen the exchange, and then quickly turned back at Bo. The older boy slid the bottom of his t-shirt up just far enough for Lucas to see the end of a small pocketknife (the same one Brian had confiscated from his room weeks ago) sticking up past the edge of his boxers.

“Do I get a lightsaber, too?” Jazz whispered, looking up at the two boys through tear-filled eyes.

“I got your back,” Bo said, lowering his shirt back over the hilt and grabbing Lucas’s hand. “You don’t have to be scared.”

“I’m not.” Lucas glared at the masked soldier that shoved them up the stairs. “Not anymore.”

Chapter 1

Oregon Trail

“Hang on, guys,” Zander grumbled, gripping the wheel tight as he wove around a clump of abandoned vehicles.

The street was completely blocked. So many of them had been. This left us no other option but to cut through someone’s front yard. Thankfully, the truck we had stolen was not graceful, but it easily handled rough terrain. It lumbered over the curb, crushing a small pink bicycle and obliterating what was left of the mailbox out front. Shards of the wooden post flew up into the windshield and ricocheted in all directions.

“Jesus, Z,” Jake complained as he bounced around in the back seat. “You mind going easy? I’m getting tossed around like a rag doll back here.”

“How much farther?” Falisha asked, her voice shaking from the vibrations as we bounced down from the curb and back onto the street.

“Maybe ten miles,” I said clutching my little brother’s file tight to my chest.

It had not left my hands since we had liberated it from the social services office back in Sterling. Tucked within the faded green folder were the only remnants I had left of my family; a faded old picture of my parents, a few odd documents from our caseworker, and an address.

The address belonged to my little brother’s new family.

“Liv, breathe,” Zander whispered, peeling one of my hands away from the file and squeezing it tightly in his. “It’s going to be okay.
He’s
going to be okay.”

I wanted more than anything to believe that, but after everything we had seen the last few days, I chose not to extend my hopes too far into the future. Minute by minute was the new way of existing. Time may as well have been moving backward, at this point. We’d left the Social Services office in Sterling nearly three hours ago. Under normal circumstances, that would have been more than enough time to travel the forty miles to where my brother’s foster family lived. Unfortunately, we were a few days past anything remotely resembling normal.

Solar Storm Icarus had seen to that.

What had started as a small flare had quickly erupted into an atmospheric event the likes of which even the global scientific community had not been fully prepared for. Icarus had completely crippled the world. The primary flares brought with them destructive solar winds, scorching temperatures, and dangerous levels of radiation. The electromagnetic storm and fires that followed soon wiped out what was left of the world’s primary power grid. The collapse of the infrastructure eliminated all traditional forms of communication.

Icarus had been the
killshot
, the last news report had said. From what we had seen so far, that was pretty spot-on. According to the emergency census numbers scrawled onto each of the houses in the last two towns, nearly ninety percent of the people were gone.

Whether they had died in the storm, the fires that raged after, or from the virus that Icarus had dragged to Earth in its wake, Icarus had effectively wiped out the last visages of our modern society.

In less than five days, the world had gone almost completely silent.

Metal tombs with shredded tires and blackened windows lay scattered throughout the neighborhood, clogging the once quiet streets with the stench of decay and the tangled remains of failed exodus. Downed trees and power lines sliced across yards and alleyways making it nearly impossible to pass. We were forced to backtrack several times, losing miles in the process. Then, a new obstacle would lash out at us farther down the road. Without fail, for every step forward we fell two more back. The end of the world was a tango we were being forced to dance.