Page 93 of Uriah's Orbit
“Yeah, no shit,” he answered.
“Carly has a gun?”
“Yes,” she answered, her voice strong but absolutely laced with terror.
I leaned into the wall. “Carly-girl. Can you shoot at the lock? We only have rifles out here and we don’t need that kind of fire power.”
“Austin?” Uriah’s voice was laced with disbelief.
“I can,” Carly called.
“Can you remember which door opens first?” Chase called. “Right or left?”
“Right,” Uriah said.
“Okay, when you shoot the lock, and the door opens, I want you to run to the left of the building. Stay close to it,” Chase said. “Marcus and I will be on the right side of the wall, and Aubrey will be on the left to cover you. Just run around the back.”
“Got it,” Carly said.
There was some rustling noise and a groggy protest from Devon—which finally released the last of the tension in Aubrey’s shoulders. Carly spoke clearly, “Cover your years, Devon. I’m firing on the count of three.”
Noah and I plugged our ears as well.
Gunfire was loud asfuck.
And things happened really, really fast once someone heard a gunshot.
Marcus and Chase stood on the right side of the shed, guns shouldered as the rapport echoed in the tin shack. Aubrey had her gun shouldered—for about two second after she saw her children.
She dropped and pulled Carly into a hug.
Noah and I leapt forward and jerked them all behind the shed—I grabbed Carly and Aubrey, and Noah had Uriah and Devon.
Devon dropped to the ground and wrapped his arms around his mother. I leaned down and gave both of them the biggest hug I could manage. Noah clapped Uriah on the back and pulled his twin in for a serious hug.
“Dude,” Noah said.
“Bro,” Uriah said.
Uriah turned and stared at me. I took two steps up to him, grabbed his face and kissed the hell out of him. “I amso fucking sorryyou got dragged into this.” I managed squeak out before he grabbed the back of my neck and jerked me into another hard kiss. I slipped my arms around him and leaned into the taste of his mouth.
He chuckled as he pulled back. “You’re going to need another NDA for that one.”
I shook my head. “No. No more NDAs. No more hiding. We have a lot to talk about, but not here and not now.”
Chase nodded, with the gun still shouldered and ready. “He’s right. Let’s go back the way we came and get to the Suburban—”
The generator gave a shuddering scream of mechanical failure and started making even more horrible, loud noises.
“Fuck,” Marcus said. “Run.Run.”
Marcus—the biggest of all of us—swung Devon up on his back and grabbed Carly’s hand. As we all started sprinting directly away from the generator into the heart of the camp, I grabbed Carly’s hand and made sure she kept running.
We’d only made it about a hundred feet when the sound of complete failure echoed through the compound as people poured out of their houses. They were confused about who we were, why we were running, and what that noise was.
It was a mystery for about ten more seconds, when the dying generator merrily chewed itself into a thousand different parts. They went flying everywhere, including straight into the diesel tanker it sat next to.
The thing about fuel was, it’s flammable, but generally not explosive. It’s the fumes that make the fuel go boom.
