Very soon…
6
KEO
W ELL , this didn’t quite go as planned.
Or maybe that wasn’t entirely true. The fact of the matter was, he was (somehow, some way) still alive, and more importantly, there was a good chance he was being taken to Mercer. Of course, that was the best-case scenario, and he had a feeling he knew what Danny would say if he ever caught wind of Keo’s presently overflowing optimism.
Not that he had much of a choice. It was either focus on the positive or wallow in the pain. Because there was a lot of pain.
His face was on fire, and moving even just a little bit sent jolts of electricity coursing through his body. But it wasn’t the type of pain that signaled a broken rib (or two), so that was the good news. The bad was that his captors hadn’t bothered to clean up his face, which explained the feeling of sandpaper scraping at his eyeballs. He still had a mouthful of blood, most of it coming from his broken nose. His forehead might have been slightly cut, though that was currently taking a backseat to the pounding originating from between his eyes.
The pain should have been worse with the helicopter pulsing continuously through him as it traveled over the state of Texas, the whup-whup-whup of its rotors like sledgehammers pounding nails into his skull. He had no idea where they were or where they were going, only that they were already in the air and moving when he opened his eyes and (discreetly) took stock of his situation.
He was surrounded by the same people he had seen back at the barn—three of them sat across from him while two more flanked him. A sixth, sporting aviator shades, was perched behind a machine gun mounted along the open starboard-side hatch. The weapon looked like an older model M240 with a box magazine; the man behind it pointed the weapon playfully at a flock of birds outside and mimed shooting them. The port-side door was closed and the only thing Keo could see out the windows were empty skies.
Six men and one woman, and two in the cockpit. It wasn’t even close to being manageable numbers; not that he had any ideas about escaping anyway, especially with his wrists and ankles duct taped together. Never mind the fact that he had never learned to fly, because going out one of the open doors was probably his only real option at the moment. They had removed everything he had on him, leaving just his clothes and the blood on his face.
He wasn’t sure how long the woman had known he was awake; she was watching him with a curious expression on her face. She looked tall even sitting down—maybe just a shade under five-ten, and like most women he had encountered since The Purge, carried very few if any excess pounds on her. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and that made the bags under her eyes more apparent.
Someone hasn’t been getting their beauty sleep lately.
She looked tired but was trying to power through the fatigue. He’d seen plenty of guys do that on jobs either with caffeine or pill-sized stimulants. She had short black hair, but he could imagine her with a long, flowing mane just a year ago. The obvious Parisian genes were easy to spot and she reminded him a little of Bonnie, the ex-model with whom he had spent a lot of time with back on the Trident. Like the men around her, the woman wasn’t wearing anything that looked like a uniform or a name tag, which made perfect sense if they were indeed Mercer’s men and were out here launching guerilla-style hit-and-run attacks on collaborator positions.
His ruse exposed, Keo gave up pretending to still be asleep and straightened up, or as much as he could manage while restrained. His nose felt as if there were cotton balls jammed into both nostrils, and the hard floor was sticky with fresh mud and dirt and (no doubt his contribution to the mess) blood.
“Where we going?” Keo asked, directing his question at the woman. He had to shout to be heard over the turbine engine that made every inch of
6
KEO
W ELL , this didn’t quite go as planned.
Or maybe that wasn’t entirely true. The fact of the matter was, he was (somehow, some way) still alive, and more importantly, there was a good chance he was being taken to Mercer. Of course, that was the best-case scenario, and he had a feeling he knew what Danny would say if he ever caught wind of Keo’s presently overflowing optimism.
Not that he had much of a choice. It was either focus on the positive or wallow in the pain. Because there was a lot of pain.
His face was on fire, and moving even just a little bit sent jolts of electricity coursing through his body. But it wasn’t the type of pain that signaled a broken rib (or two), so that was the good news. The bad was that his captors hadn’t bothered to clean up his face, which explained the feeling of sandpaper scraping at his eyeballs. He still had a mouthful of blood, most of it coming from his broken nose. His forehead might have been slightly cut, though that was currently taking a backseat to the pounding originating from between his eyes.
The pain should have been worse with the helicopter pulsing continuously through him as it traveled over the state of Texas, the whup-whup-whup of its rotors like sledgehammers pounding nails into his skull. He had no idea where they were or where they were going, only that they were already in the air and moving when he opened his eyes and (discreetly) took stock of his situation.
He was surrounded by the same people he had seen back at the barn—three of them sat across from him while two more flanked him. A sixth, sporting aviator shades, was perched behind a machine gun mounted along the open starboard-side hatch. The weapon looked like an older model M240 with a box magazine; the man behind it pointed the weapon playfully at a flock of birds outside and mimed shooting them. The port-side door was closed and the only thing Keo could see out the windows were empty skies.
Six men and one woman, and two in the cockpit. It wasn’t even close to being manageable numbers; not that he had any ideas about escaping anyway, especially with his wrists and ankles duct taped together. Never mind the fact that he had never learned to fly, because going out one of the open doors was probably his only real option at the moment. They had removed everything he had on him, leaving just his clothes and the blood on his face.
He wasn’t sure how long the woman had known he was awake; she was watching him with a curious expression on her face. She looked tall even sitting down—maybe just a shade under five-ten, and like most women he had encountered since The Purge, carried very few if any excess pounds on her. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and that made the bags under her eyes more apparent.
Someone hasn’t been getting their beauty sleep lately.
She looked tired but was trying to power through the fatigue. He’d seen plenty of guys do that on jobs either with caffeine or pill-sized stimulants. She had short black hair, but he could imagine her with a long, flowing mane just a year ago. The obvious Parisian genes were easy to spot and she reminded him a little of Bonnie, the ex-model with whom he had spent a lot of time with back on the Trident. Like the men around her, the woman wasn’t wearing anything that looked like a uniform or a name tag, which made perfect sense if they were indeed Mercer’s men and were out here launching guerilla-style hit-and-run attacks on collaborator positions.
His ruse exposed, Keo gave up pretending to still be asleep and straightened up, or as much as he could manage while restrained. His nose felt as if there were cotton balls jammed into both nostrils, and the hard floor was sticky with fresh mud and dirt and (no doubt his contribution to the mess) blood.
“Where we going?” Keo asked, directing his question at the woman. He had to shout to be heard over the turbine engine that made every inch of
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