The Insurgent (The Colony Series Book 2) by Teri Polen

Author:Teri Polen [Polen, Teri]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Black Rose Writing
Published: 2022-05-18T16:00:00+00:00

14-DECLAN

As I walked down to the shooting range to meet with A36, my focus was on coming up with some way to divert him from the next mission and get him in the same room with Brynn. All without making him suspicious. If she couldn’t pull Asher up from the sunken depths of the vessel he shared with A36, no one could. If she failed, then my goal, my sworn promise of returning Ash to his family, would be unreachable. What A36 might do to us when he realized what was happening was a scenario that fueled my nightmares.

But I was stubborn. Ask anyone who knew me as Oz. Or as Declan now. Stubbornness had helped me survive the frigid nights, near starvation, and cabin fire after Colony soldiers dumped me at the side of the road. It took me back to my home where I waited weeks for my parents before laying them to rest in my mind. Then it carried me to the Insurgents where I could help make a difference in this screwed up world. When the odds were against me and the chips were down, I never gave up.

Okay, taking recent history into consideration, I’d concede maybe I didn’t make the best decisions sometimes, but I was under duress and hoped a new genetic panel would achieve my dream of being with Paige. Stupidity wasn’t a crime. Poor choices were an unfortunate side effect.

But I digress. I had to keep the goal front and center.

The shooting range was located several hundred yards behind the Tower. It wasn’t in the middle of a forest, but there were plenty of trees and shrubs surrounding it to make it aesthetically pleasing. Which was, of course, a priority within these cursed gates. Heaven forbid Colony residents be exposed to any dead trees or straggly bushes. Such disturbing trauma could cause unhappiness, which might lead to frown lines. What a tragedy that would be.

Creatively designed, the open gun range lay at the bottom of a bowl-shaped crater in the earth. It was an expansive facility, and operatives and soldiers were free to come practice at any time. Unless A36 was there. Not that he requested sole use of the range, but I’d noticed the others were uncomfortable around him and did their best to steer clear. He worked—and practiced—alone. And the other operatives and soldiers breathed a collective sigh of relief over that preference.

In his early missions, certain soldiers chomped at the bit to work with him. They’d volunteered to assist him when rounding up donors and eliminating obstacles—namely parents, spouses, or anyone else who got in the way. His extreme methods were effective, but abhorrent enough that one mission was enough for them. Word quickly spread, and after A36’s first two missions requests to accompany him came to a grinding halt. That suited him just fine.

After brutal storms the night before, the sun shone bright on this cloudless, fall morning. I inhaled the mossy smell of damp earth as the ground squished beneath my feet.

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