Page 52 of Sawyer’s Mistake

“Where is she? Is that a race track?” Eva asked. She was still looking pale but hadn’t asked to stop in the two hours they’d been driving.

“Seems plausible,” Prado said. “The signal’s close and hasn’t moved for a while.”

Sawyer tried not to think about the potential implications of that fact. Hopefully she’d just parked it somewhere.

“It’s worth stopping to check. Can you send a message to the van and let Storme know?”

“Slow down, man. Here, take the exit!”

“Where to now, J?”

“Head towards the stables.”

Sawyer maneuvered the vehicle skillfully around a half dozen vehicles covered in dust and mud that had piled onto each other, probably early on during the Remur attack. The closest vehicle had an old-fashioned baby-on-board sign on the back window. Sawyer’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. People had lost so much since the Remur landed, were still losing so much, every single day, but he would not lose Saoirse. He’d find her and somehow make her understand that she wasn’t alone anymore.

“Stop here, Jake. The bike’s in there,” Prado said, pointing.

The doors to the stables were open, as if the horses had bolted. Sawyer hoped some of them had and that they were living their lives out in the wild. The Remur didn’t seem to have any use for animals, so there was a chance they’d escaped, as long as no surviving humans had eaten them.

Sawyer got out of the vehicle, stretching his long legs. He could see his breath with every exhale. The fog was so thick, it was hard to see far beyond his own breath.

“Hold on, something’s not right,” Prado said. “Can you hear that?”

“I can’t hear anything,” Sawyer said. His ears were ringing, thinking about Saoirse.

“I do. I hear it,” Eva said. Her expression was serious, but her voice was very quiet. “I think it’s a Remur patrol.”

Sawyer strained his hearing, listening for the telltale scratching noise made by the fork-shaped vehicles the Remur rode.

“Shit, you’re right. It’s a Fork. Get in the barn, everyone!” As he ran Sawyer raised his watch to his mouth and pressed the button. “Storme, we’re at the race track. The solar cycle is here but we’ve stumbled upon a Remur patrol. We’re looking for a spot to hide!”

Sawyer lifted his laser gun and did a 360-degree turn. The fog was too thick for him to see anything, but the Remur were close enough now that he could hear their grunts on top of the scratching sound of metal on tarmac.

He caught up easily with Eva and Alix and kept pace with them.

“Come on!” he ordered. “We need to get inside.” His words seemed to squeeze an extra burst of speed from the women.

Sawyer turned around every so often, looking through the fog for the huge lumbering shapes of the aliens, knowing that they needed to be as far away as possible by the time they appeared.

Prado and Zander stood by the barn door, which was hanging off its hinges.

“We’re not going to be able to close this,” Zander said. “Our best bet is to hide inside and hope they don’t see us.”

Sawyer nodded. “Do that,” he said quietly. “I’ll find Saoirse.”

He sped in past the group and into the barn, avoiding the chunks of roof that had fallen through and were littering the ground.

Something metallic glinted in a corner, behind a teetering tower of hay bales. He reached it in a few long strides. It was a solar cycle, and it hadn’t been there long. He felt his heart soar. Saoirse was somewhere close by.

Three Remur shapes darkened the door. It was too dark to see the plating they wore on their back, but the Remur in the lead was too large to be one of their regular soldiers.

Fuck. That’s a Grim Reaper.

The aliens advanced into the barn, moving counterclockwise around the room. Sawyer crouched next to the bike, peeking at the Remur from a gap between bales of hay. From his position, he couldn’t see anybody else, but he knew Prado, Zander, Eva, Alix, and—if he was right—Saoirse as well were all hiding somewhere nearby. It was only a matter of time until the Remur found one of them.

The Grim Reaper in the lead grunted menacingly. He carried a large bazooka-like weapon that Sawyer knew from experience could reduce the derelict building to cinders in just a press of a button. The two aliens walking behind carried dark, glistening laser weapons. Sawyer looked enviously at the weapons, though he knew they were coded to Remur DNA and wouldn’t respond to human hands.

He fingered the hand grenade in his jacket. He could smoke the three aliens right now, and do the world a favor, but risked hitting one of his friends, or Saoirse, in the process.