rebel-heart by Rakhibul hasan (best contemporary novels txt) 📖

safer for Tim.”

“I’ve known you were my Guardian for a few days. I didn’t know about all this.” She waved at the screen.

“You knew about me before you slept with me?” he asked.

“Of course. You think I’d sleep with someone I didn’t care about?” Brady squatted in front of her.

“My heart broke when I thought you’d died!” she said with more emotion than she intended. “And all you’ve done is lie to me. Is any part of you capable of caring for me, or was everything about the Guardian a lie?”

“I am who I am,” Brady said. “You fell for the Guardian. You fell for me. And yes, I do care for you, more than I want to.”

“It didn’t stop you from betraying me. What was your plan?” Tears of anger and hurt spilled down her cheeks. “To let me think the Guardian was dead forever?”

He was quiet for a moment, before saying, “Your Guardian is here with you now.”

“I don’t know what to think. I don’t know him. I don’t know you. I can’t trust anyone.” “You’re angry,” he countered. “You know you can trust me.”

The viewer beeped, and she wiped her face again.

“I’m ready,” she said, refusing to meet his gaze. “Let’s get this over with.” “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry I hurt you,” Brady said quietly.

Lana blinked back more tears. When she said nothing in response, Brady opened the channel. Mr. Tim appeared, gaze moving from her to Brady. She saw the considering look he gave Brady

before he looked again to her. She straightened in her seat, not sure if she was about to do the right thing or not. With a deep breath, she started speaking.

“I found encrypted correspondence from Greene and your orders to Brady to find me, before the nuke attacks. Greene was in contact with different people in the West Coast Center. Arnie found out about Greene and sent out a few messages to the Peace Command Center to warn people. Greene gassed everyone in the mountain and intended to take over the Peak and use it as a base of operations for his people to use as they took over the eastern half of the US.” She looked down at her hands again.

“What are you trying to take west?” Brady prodded at her silence. “Are you familiar with the Horsemen?” she asked

Mr. Tim paled. “No one should know about that program.”

“You got me access to everything,” she reminded him with some bitterness. “Greene was pulling in the Horsemen. I don’t know how he did it; he’d have to have people at each of the sites worldwide.”

“What are the Horsemen?” Brady asked.

She gazed at Mr. Tim, waiting for him to explain. He shifted in his seat and rubbed his mouth, a rare sign of his nervousness.

“The Horsemen was the tongue in cheek name given to the government program that placed a series of devices across the world, both in enemy and friendly countries. You could say they were used for leverage if the country trounced too far on our generosity or refused to take into account our national interest when they acted up. The joke in fed circles was that the government could activate the Horsemen at will and bring about the destruction of the planet itself.”

“We were holding the world hostage?” Brady asked.

“We call it diplomacy,” Mr. Tim explained. “The capability was emplaced but never utilized.” “Until Greene’s allies took out the East Coast,” Lana added. “After the War, the government created

seven protected sites around the world with only one person at the site knowing what was there and security measures that were beyond anything the Peak had.”

“Does he have the others?” Mr. Tim prodded.

“He did. I thought something was wrong when Brady’s men stumbled across one of the devices and returned it to the mountain. The device you found was coded as biowarfare, but when I ran it in the system, I found the serials had been switched. One of the Horsemen devices was recoded. It can only be done at the presidential level and was done by one of his staff members.”

Brady’s gaze was riveted to her.

“Arnie Smith had another one,” she continued. “I don’t know what happened with him, if he was really crazy or he found something. I looked at the rest of the keypads in the command center. Only three of us had access to them. Greene, Arnie, and me, as the VP’s representative on the surface. There were infrastructure keypads and a few of the nuke, bio, electromagnetic, and chem keypads for the East Coast weapons systems. When I ran the serials, I found several of them had been recoded,” she continued.

“How many Horsemen does Greene have?” Mr. Tim demanded. “He’d gathered all twenty at the Peak.”

Mr. Tim uttered a choked curse.

“It’s okay, sir,” Lana said quickly. “I took them all.”

Silence followed her words. Mr. Tim was staring at her in surprise, Brady in intense interest. “You have the Horsemen?” Mr. Tim repeated.

She nodded.

“That information does not leave this room,” Mr. Tim said resolutely. “Talk about insanity breaking out if anyone knew …”

“I was going to take them to the Peace Command Center,” she said. “I hoped … I don’t know what I hoped. That maybe everything would be all right and someone could disable them.”

“No one will disable them, even if they could,” he said. “Hon, the difference between you and the rest of us is that you see the keypads as a threat. Anyone else with have a grain of ambition would see them as a tool. They’d kill half the planet to obtain the apocalyptic collection you have.”

“I know that now,” Lana said in a hushed tone.

“Brady, I don’t need to tell you how important it is that her vault doesn’t fall into anyone’s hands,” Mr. Tim said. “Take her and the Horsemen to Colorado. I’ll reassign the Appalachia militia temporarily under someone else. Lana, I need all the info you have on Greene and who he was talking to.”

“Roger,” Brady acknowledged.

“Yes, sir,” she said quietly. Though troubled, she felt somewhat relieved at not having to keep the secrets alone anymore.

“Can you still monitor the eastern infrastructure?” Mr. Tim asked. “Yes. I rerouted the ops to my micro.”

“Don’t mess with anything for a while. You’re safer if Greene thinks you’re dead.” She nodded.

“I’ll go to those I trust and warn them. With Lana, you’ll have access to all the emerops depots the feds have east of the Mississippi.”

Lana listened, chilled at the coldness and precision of his directions. She knew without a doubt Brady would follow Mr. Tim’s orders.

“Check in again in two days,” Mr. Tim directed. He appeared pensive before speaking again. “Lana, I need to tell you something else.”

I can’t handle anything else, she wanted to shout at him.

“I didn’t train and educate you because your grandfather or someone called me. You’re my daughter by blood. I took you in when your mother died. I intended to make you the companion of some powerful politician at some point, but you showed an incredible aptitude for learning when you were quite young,”

he explained. “I decided to use that and keep you close. I told no one the truth, because I feared what that would mean. No one wants my boys. I see them once a year at most, but you had access to me and the government’s secrets that would’ve put you in danger had anyone found out.”

She listened. She’d always known she was closer to him than even his companions. That he’d hidden their relationship from her made her angrier at him.

“Someday, maybe I’ll forgive you for all of this,” she managed, hearing the hurt in her voice. “But not today.”

“I understand. Brady, take care of my girl.” “Done,” Brady said.

Mr. Tim gave her a small smile before the viewer flashed off. Brady motioned her to follow him. She obeyed. He disappeared into a small room off the entrance and returned, PMF grays in his hand.

“These cancel out your thermal signature,” he said, holding them out.

She looked at the grays, the clothing she’d seen for years on the people she thought were the country’s enemies, then back at Brady. He was too hard to offer the type of empathy she wanted, but he was the man who’d been with her since the beginning of the end.

“You’ll have to trust me,” he said. “I’m the only person who can get you and the Horsemen to safety. “I trusted the Guardian,” she replied, taking the clothes from him.

“I haven’t changed. The circumstances have.”

Lana drew a deep breath. Elise had said to survive, and Lana had no doubt Brady was the only one who could help her. He had the support of his rebel army and now, the feds. They would need it, if Greenie found her. He’d throw everything he had after her.

And Brady would always protect her. She knew it, and it made her angrier at him for betraying her. Even his kisses, his hot touch, felt like lies. She’d truly cared for someone for the first time in her life, and he’d used her.

She ducked into the small room and changed clothes. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, there was no way of knowing who the bad guys were, not with Mr. Tim’s information about the shadow government.

“I’m ready,” she said and returned to the hall. Brady looked her over and drew a laser gun.

Lana crossed her arms, feeling very alone. The discovery of her true father did nothing to comfort her, not when she realized how much Mr. Tim had betrayed her. Brady motioned her towards the door and hung back, pressing his thumb to a keypad on the wall. She watched him enter a code and a countdown begin, and guessed he was destroying the comms center.

Stepping onto the ledge outside, Lana heard the sounds of gun and laser fire too close for her comfort, along with the beat of helicopters in the dark skies. Brady joined her and pulled the door closed behind them. He reached into his pocket and withdrew the micro and Horsemen, holding them out to her. Lana hesitated and then took them.

“You keep those safe, and I’ll keep you safe,” Brady said. “Deal?”

She nodded, understanding it was his way of showing he trusted her, even if she was too furious to trust him. She hurt too much right now. Lana unlocked her micro and forwarded everything to Mr. Tim that he requested.

Brady started down the trail towards the darkness of the forest. Instead of retreating into the forest— the way they’d come—he walked behind a boulder and started up a set of long, shallow steps leading up the mountain. Lana looked over her shoulder at an explosion that seemed far too close. Brady didn’t so much as flinch, and she hurried after him.

The stairs ascended to a plateau, and Brady strode into the center. He lifted his micro, which pulsed red for a fraction of a moment. He stepped back beside her, and she soon heard one of the helicopters grow nearer.

Lana hunkered against the mountain as the helicopter drew nearer. The plateau was too small for it to land, but it hovered near the edge. A set of stairs unfolded from the helicopter to the plateau, and Brady rushed her forward. Lana took one look at the thin metal stairs and looked away quickly. They looked

barely able to hold her, let alone Brady! Hands over her ears, she took a deep breath and hurried up them, all but flinging herself into the arms of an awaiting rebel soldier.

The helicopter lifted away before Brady had two feet in its belly, and the soldier holding her strapped her securely into a seat in the rear while the two of them stood with nonchalance in the center.

The helicopter dropped suddenly, and she thought