“Oh, she’s deaf,” said Levi cheerfully, and I’d stared at him. Then at her.
“What?” I said.
“She’s deaf,” Levi repeated. “She can’t hear anything.”
“Then why is she an em-effing soldier?” I exclaimed.
Angrily, Jolie grabbed my hand, palm up, and spelled into it, B-E-C-A-U-S-E-I-C-A-N-K-I-C-K-Y-O-U-R-A-S-S.
Which was how I found out that she could read lips. Then she spelled her name into my palm, and I nodded, trying not to worry that she could be a liability for the team.
Finally there was Nate. He’d been the leader of the kids’ resistance long before Cassie had gotten involved with him. I knew he was loyal, brave, and a good fighter. But he was no Tim. At least he wasn’t actively trying to get us all killed. So, yay?
19
IT WAS A HUGE RELIEF to reach hard, rocky ground on the other side of the hill. Snow makes it impossible to leave no trace; it provides an extremely clear map of where you’ve been and where you’re going. We’d tried to obliterate our trail as much as possible, so instead of six soldiers carefully picking their way through the woods, it looked like a large drunken bear had careened his way down to a lower altitude.
When we reached an outcropping, I agreed to a fifteen-minute rest. Catching Jolie’s eye, I mimicked sitting down, then flashed my five fingers three times. She nodded and swung her rifle off her shoulder. I felt a little bitter about being saddled with someone I had to take care of.
Nate scanned the area ahead of us with his binoculars. The trees at this altitude hid us well. Soon we’d have only tall valley grass with the occasional woody copse to camouflage us.
Silently Nate handed me the binoculars and pointed. I looked.
“That’s a cell,” I whispered. “In that valley, between those two little mountains.”
“Maybe five, six miles away?” Nate said softly.
I calculated the distance. “Yeah,” I said. “We can get there by sundown if there’s a way through to the valley.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. Jolie pointed downward. “Yes, we have to go down,” I said. She shook her head, then took my hand, pointed my finger, and aimed it. I squinted, seeing nothing and feeling impatient. Jolie lifted the binoculars to my eyes and guided them.
As I peered through the lenses, Jolie took my hand and spelled, R-O-A-D.
“Road?” I moved the binoculars in tiny increments, and suddenly it came into view. I looked up. “An old road!” I said, and she nodded without smiling.
“Nate, look. There’s a road and it looks like it isn’t used anymore. If we stick to one side it’ll speed us up without too much risk.”
“Let’s do it,” he said, and I turned and held up my hand for a high five. Jolie smacked it maybe a little too hard.
As we headed single file down the rocky face, I wondered if Jolie being deaf meant her other senses were better—like better vision because she relied on it, or maybe she was really sensitive to vibrations or something.
Occasionally we slid downward when we lost our foothold, leaving a fairly visible path, but at least no one could tell there were six of us.
Hiking along the road was a thousand times easier than going up or coming down the mountain, and though we felt a bit exposed, someone would have to be almost directly overhead before they saw us. I turned around and saw Jolie looking at me. I gave her a thumbs-up and motioned at the road, and again she nodded without smiling.
After a few minutes we saw some old, rusted train tracks that ran by the side of the road. From back when cells were connected? Had cells ever been connected? Is this something I should report back to Strepp? It’s hard to know what was important enough to relay back to camp. Mostly, our mission was to scout east and report back on any and all United troops, resources, movements, blah, blah, blah. Know your enemy, I guess.
“Oh, whoa,” Bunny said, and I almost bumped into her when she slowed. We’d just come around a bend and now saw an opening in the side of the mountain. The train tracks disappeared into a dark so black it’s like where light went to die.
Cautiously we walked toward it, our hands on our guns. As we approached, bats flew out of the dense darkness, and my skin crawled when several small shapes raced out of the tunnel along the metal tracks: rats.
Oh, God, I thought, looking around. To our left the road wound uphill, probably curling around the mountain on one side and then weaving down on the other side. I’d assumed there was a direct route to the cell we’d seen. I’d been wrong.
“If this is a tunnel going all the way through the mountain,” I said, making sure that Jolie could see me, “it will save us several hours of hiking.”
“If it’s a mine shaft, we could all die,” said Mills flatly.
“Yes, thank you, Mills,” I said.