Glass nodded politely, though her mind had started whirring. Whatever Soren was keeping from her still, Glass had a bad, bad feeling about it. She had to warn Octavia, Anna, and the others. They had to find Wells and tell them the time had come. She’d find a way out, no matter what it took.

CHAPTER 20

Wells

Wells lined up with his fellow captives in the early-morning light. While the Protectors walked up and down the line, he stood at attention, chin raised proudly, his mouth set in a tepid smile, just like the others.

Eric, Graham, and Kit were still playing along, of course. As were the other seven recruits from their camp. But for all Wells knew, the other dozen male recruits were true converts. They were Earthborns, though not from Max’s village, or part of the group that’d split off. It made his mind spin, thinking about how many other hidden communities there could be… people who’d found different ways to survive the Cataclysm. Once this was all over, he was going to learn about them all.

Oak stepped forward to address the gathering. There seemed to be only a loose hierarchy among the Protectors, but Wells had gotten the sense of a pecking order among them, with Oak near the very top.

“Today, we’re doing something different,” Oak boomed. “Some of you will be leaving the Stone to go do Earth’s will.”

Oak turned away, taking something from one of the other Protectors. In one quick blink, he was in front of Wells, holding out a rifle. There was a strange intensity in his eyes. Wells knew even before he took the gun from Oak that it was loaded.

At the first touch of cool metal, his heart started pounding so loud he swore everyone around him could hear it. He nodded sharply and stood with his gun across his chest, the way they’d trained him to, as Oak continued down the line, arming the other recruits for whatever today’s mission would be.

Oak stopped three men down, at Graham, pausing with a squint before handing the gun over. Graham gave a nod and Oak stomped away, pointing to the others, who hadn’t been given weapons, including Eric and Kit.

“The rest of you will remain with me for further target training. Wish your brothers luck today on their mission.”

As the others murmured, “Luck be with you, if Earth wills it,” Wells realized what was happening in slow, gradual bursts.

He was going out on a mission.

He was going out… leaving this compound.

He was holding a loaded rifle.

Wells turned and saw Graham realizing the same thing. A trickle of sweat rolled down Graham’s forehead, despite the chilly air.

Graham’s finger twitched against the rifle’s trigger, his eyes traveling to Wells’s and holding there, pleading. Wells shook his head—this morning wasn’t the moment, their friends weren’t even heading out with them—but before he could mouth, not today, another Protector with eerie blue eyes stepped up and began to give orders.

“I’ll be leading today’s expedition,” the Protector called, crossing his arms over his chest. “This will be very simple. In and out. We don’t anticipate any altercations today. We’ll be heading out to a farm site we’ve discovered near here to bolster our food stores for the winter. One hour by wagon, one hour there, one hour back. Any questions?”

A farm site. Wells still couldn’t get over the fact that there were other people here on Earth, not too far from his own camp. People with farms. He knew he should keep his mouth shut, but the offer was out there, and he did have a question. A big one. He raised his hand.

The blue-eyed Protector nodded at him. “Yes?”

“How can you be sure there won’t be any altercations?” he asked.

“We can’t be sure of anything.” The Protector blinked. “But the farm is, as of now, unoccupied. There shouldn’t be anyone there to oppose us.”

How can they know that? Wells wondered, but he nodded once and kept that question to himself, as they shouldered their weapons and stepped into a new set of horse-drawn wagons. This time they sat on the Protectors’ benches instead of being tied up on the floor. They must have scouted this farm, Wells realized as he sat down, just like they spied on my camp before taking us.

But if that were the case, why wouldn’t the Protectors have just gone in and looted then? Something wasn’t adding up about this mission.

The wagons rolled down a dirt road carved out of the rubble-strewn landscape, and Wells looked out the high windows to try to get his bearings. The morning sun was behind him, so they must have been heading north.

Good, Wells thought, glancing anxiously at Graham. If they’d headed back west, instead of into brand-new territory, Graham might have been tempted to make a break for it. I might have been tempted myself.

But that would mean leaving Eric and Kit behind, along with Glass, Octavia, and the others. It would mean risking large-scale retaliation. It wouldn’t solve anything.

After what felt like far less than an hour, the wagon rolled into a low valley and creaked to a stop.

Wells could smell it the second he stepped out into the crisp autumn air: charred wood… and something worse. As he turned to face the clearing beyond the wagon, his throat clenched tight.

So this was why they’d called it a farm site, instead of a farm. It wasn’t just their odd Protector terminology, it was the truth. This was a place where a farm used to be. Now it was just a burned-out field. In the center, there was the smoldering wreckage of what was once a homestead.

Wells stared at the far side of the site, disgust pooling in his stomach. The dirt was overturned there, loose and choppy, forming a wide, messy hill. Wells didn’t need to ask what that mound covered. The answer was in the blood still staining the grass around him. It was a mass grave.

They knew no one was here because they’d made sure of it.

“We had to wait for the fire to go out to search further,” the Protector said from behind Wells, the man’s eerily soft voice making him jump. He pointed over Wells’s shoulder at the desiccated heap where the building once stood. “There’s a cellar in the center that should be well stocked. Take whatever the fire didn’t destroy and load it in the carts.”

Wells couldn’t quite get the words “yes, sir” out, but this Protector didn’t seem to require it. He had already turned away, directing the others toward the remnants of the farm.