He feels an unexpected sense of despair. How did this happen? When did Michael lose his way? He understands how it could happen, given the terrible work they do. Live long enough in a madhouse, and you risk going mad yourself.
But he had always believed Michael could rise above it. Michael is the penultimate warrior, hardened to everything, strong enough to withstand the horrors they encountered no matter how often or how terrible. Even losing Fresh shouldn’t have been enough to change him.
Yet something did. Somewhere along the way he failed to recognize that he was slipping away, that an erosion of his soul was taking place.
Logan looks down at the Scattershot he has carried since Michael gave it to him on his first raid. If it can happen to Michael, it can happen to him.
Will he recognize it if it does? Will he know enough to do something about it?
He realizes suddenly that Michael is talking to him, and his gaze shifts quickly. “Boy, are you with us or should I find someone to take your place?”
Michael snaps. “You look like you’ve got your head in the clouds.
Pay attention when I am talking to you!”
“I’m listening,” he says quickly.
Michael sneers. “Then there is no need for me to repeat myself, is there?
You know what to do. So be sure and do it. Don’t run from it if things get tough. I hate cowards, Logan.”
He turns away dismissively, and Logan says nothing. A year ago, Michael would never have spoken to him like this. I should have seen it coming, he thinks. I should have done something to stop it. His eyes close, and he vows that as soon as the opportunity presents itself, he will.
“All right, let’s go,” Michael says suddenly, and they are off.
They spread out through the trees toward the waiting vehicles, trucks modified with snowplow rams and thick protective shields to get them safely through the gates. The trucks are modified four-tons, big and heavy, and not even gates as strong as those of Midline Slave Camp will stop them once they gain sufficient momentum. Heavy automatic weapons are mounted on the cabs and in the truck beds, each capable of firing hundreds of rounds in seconds.
They are better prepared than they have ever been, and Logan feels a rush of excitement at the prospect of what it will mean to destroy this camp.
He climbs into the cab through the passenger’s door and sits next to Jena.
She is tight-faced and focused, ten years older than he, more experienced and better trained. By rights, she should be the one leading and he the one driving.
But she doesn’t say anything. She just looks straight ahead, waiting for the signal.
When it comes, a flare from the middle truck, she engages the clutch and the truck lurches forward through the trees and onto the flats. She whips the heavy vehicle left and right, dodging the pits and the traps, closing quickly on the fence. Weapons fire sounds from the walls ahead, and bullets ricochet off the shields. He peers through the spiderwebbed windshield to find dozens of once-men lining the fences, all of them with weapons, all of them firing.
All we need is a little luck, he thinks.
Then everything goes wrong at once. To his left, past Jena’s tense face and the hurtling bulk of Michael’s vehicle, the truck driven by Wilson misjudges and runs into one of the ditches. Its front wheels catch, its momentum flips it end-over-end, and it explodes. Shards of twisted metal and shattered glass rain down everywhere. Bodies tumble from the truck onto the ground, but only a few.
The rest remain trapped inside.
There is no time for him to think about it because they have reached the fence and are tearing through the heavy wire. The once-men scatter, but only far enough to turn and try to shoot at them through the cab windows. The men hunkered down in the truck bed shoot back, and bodies fall all across the compound yard.
“Logan!” Jena yells in warning.
An explosion rocks their truck, sending Logan sliding into her with such force that she cries out. The gates of the south building loom directly in front of them, and they struggle frantically to untangle as they careen toward a collision. Locked together, they steer the truck into the gap between the heavy doors, and as the ram strikes them the doors explode inward with a shriek of metal tearing free. The truck lurches to a stop, and the attackers tumble out, firing into the defenders that come at them.