Chapter 15: Holly
COLD STARTED SETTING IN, and the wind was whipping through the entrance to the tunnel. Holly awoke with a shake and was surprised to find she was shivering. “Storm’s coming in. You have to take cover,” Michael told her urgently.
Jesse and Oliver were quickly by her side. They helped her up, and Michael nodded to the tunnel entrance. The guard at the gate stopped them and glanced down at the pistol strapped to her thigh.
“Let them through,” Michael said with authority.
“But sir …”
“I said let them through. I’ll take personal responsibility for the girl.”
He nodded and stepped aside for them to pass.
“Come this way,” he said, and they followed him down into the tunnel. It wasn’t long before they came to a door on the right. Michael opened it and ushered them inside.
“What is this place?” Jesse asked.
“Access tunnels. It allows you safe passage between the east and westbound tunnels. Workers used to use them to navigate around traffic. There are towers on both sides. You’re currently on the westbound side. Gunny’s quarters are this way. I’ll get you settled into one of the dorms and then he’d like to speak with you, if you’re up for it, Holly.”
“Not without me,” Jesse said. The two men were at a stubborn standoff.
“Jesse, I’ll be fine. He wants to know about the Endorians, right? Griffon grilled me on them, too. The AMAN already know everything that will be said.”
“But Holly …”
“No buts, Jesse. I’ll be fine.”
He grabbed her by the arms and stared into her eyes. “Look around, Holly. We don’t belong here. It’s my job to protect you. Where you go, I go.”
She took a moment to look around. She understood immediately what he meant. There were men, women, even children of every color present, but hardly any white people. African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, what looked like possible Native Americans, and biracial people, people of every variety of colors and ethnicity.
“It’s beautiful,” Holly whispered.
“What?”
“The people here. They’re so beautiful.”
Michael laughed and shook his head. “You are something, Wildflower.” Then he addressed Jesse. “If you insist on coming, I won’t stop you, but she’s safe here. We won’t hurt the Wildflower.” It did not go unnoticed by any of them that he emphasized she was safe, not them. It was clear Michael didn’t trust her AMAN shadows.
“It’s okay, Michael.” She turned to Jesse and spoke clearly. “I need to do this, Jesse. I need Gunny to trust me. I’ll give him the information he wants, and the sooner he gives me the information I need to take back to Griffon, the sooner I can go home. I just want to go home. So back off and let me do my job. Can you please just do that? For me?”
She had resisted him before. She had shown her strengths and even used her relationship with Major Maynor to get what she wanted, but she had never asked for his approval or permission before. And at the same time, she screamed authority.
“Fine,” he conceded.
“What?” Oliver demanded. “Have you lost your mind?”
“I said, fine. But if so much as a hair on her head is harmed, Michael, I will personally hunt you down and make you pay for it. Are we clear?”
“Crystal. Now, right this way, gentleman.” He led them to a guarded room down a nondescript hallway.
“What’s this?”
“Look, it’s just as much for your safety as it is ours. Dude, you’re AMAN. You’re the enemy. The only reason you’re here is because of her. Just trust me on this. She’ll be staying here, too, but first, she has a meeting with General Jackson. Then I swear to you I’ll have her right back here.”
Jesse looked frantic like he was about to do something stupid. Holly noted he looked like a caged beast. She wrapped her arms around his waist and rubbed his back until she felt him relax.
“Calm down, okay? I got this. Just have a little faith. This is what I do, Jesse. It’s what I do best. It’s why Griffon went to such lengths to get me here, so let me do my job and stop worrying so much.”
As she turned to walk away, she heard Oliver ask, “What? What does she do?”
“She reassures people that things are going to be okay.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s more than any of us have had in a very long time. It’s what makes her so contagious.”
“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard …” his voice drifted off as the door closed behind them.
“He’s right, you know. It’s a gift.” Michael said.
She snorted and nudged him with her shoulder. “I’m with Oliver, that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!”
As they walked through what she assumed was the cafeteria, or chow hall, as she had heard Michael call it, people stopped talking and started to whisper. Holly held her head tall and walked through without making eye contact.
“Is it really her?”
“That’s the Wildflower everyone’s been talking about.”
“Is she gonna save us all?”
The comments flowed all around her in hushed voices.
A small girl with caramel skin and big brown eyes tugged on her shirt. Holly knelt down to her level and the room quieted.
“I want to show you something,” the little girl whispered to her and took her hand.
Holly didn’t flinch or hesitate. She let the little girl lead her to a wall at the other end of the room. People stepped aside, clearing a path as they walked. The lower half of one wall was entirely decorated in pictures. There were buckets of markers, crayons, chalk, and paints in various states of use lining the floor. In the middle of wall was a beautiful picture of a field of wildflowers. In the middle stood one bright red flower.
Holly’s breath caught as she remembered her own wildflower field back home. “You are one of a kind that stands out above the wildflowers,” she whispered to herself remembering her first and only true date with Milo Weaver. He had planted a red rose bush in the middle of a wildflower field near their bunker.
The girl’s eyes widen. “You ARE the Wildflower,” she exclaimed loudly, setting off another round of murmurs throughout the room.
Holly didn’t respond, she just asked, “What’s your name, sweetie?”
“Adai,” she told her proudly. “A-D-A-I. That’s how you spell it. And I’m five years old.” She held up a hand with all five fingers spread widely to verify it.
“Thank you Adai, for showing me this. It’s beautiful.” Down on her knees at the child’s level she asked, “Can I have a hug before I go?”
Adai leapt into her arms and gave her the biggest bear hug she’d received in ages.
“My daddy tells me stories about you at bedtime,” she whispered.
“Adai, sweetie, go back to your mama. Holly’s got a meeting with the General.”
“Okay, Daddy. See you later, Miss Holly.”
She watched Michael affectionately ruffle the little girl’s hair and shoo her back to a table where a gorgeous, more grown up and sophisticated version of the little girl awaited.
He walked ahead, leading the way and Holly followed. When they were clear of the chaos they had walked through she couldn’t help but ask. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a family? A little girl?”
Michael looked sullen. “Simple. It’s because they are my biggest weakness, and I’m not in the habit of showing weakness.”
Holly understood, but she was a little disappointed in her new friend. She had spent hours pouring out her heart to this man, and he couldn’t even share the most important thing in his life.
“I know what you’re thinking, Wildflower. Please don’t. I may not have told you sooner, but you just held my most precious secret in your arms back there.”
She smiled. “She’s beautiful, and smart, and thankfully looks a lot like her mama.”
Michael laughed loudly, “You ain’t kidding there!”
They climbed some stairs upwards, heading for the surface. She could see daylight coming from the top. They didn’t make it up quite that far before Michael led the way through a thick metal door.
“This whole building, it used to be an emergency shelter for hurricanes. Big enough to house all essential personnel for the area, as well overflow areas for civilians, if needed. The rooms are smaller and darker on this level. Fortified, no windows. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.”
Holly snorted, “I was raised in an underground bunker, remember? I feel right at home.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Come on in and have a seat,” she recognized the kind voice of the General. Offering her hand, he looked at it and then smiled and shook it.
“Don’t see that every day,” Michael acknowledged.
“No, you don’t. Not even here, where we pride ourselves on keeping up some of the old formalities.”
Holly shrugged. “I can assure you, it’s making a comeback.”
Both men looked at her questioningly. “Shaking hands is making a comeback?”
“Absolutely. Sure, people look at us weird, but in the Compound, it was a sign of respect and negotiation. A greeting amongst men, just like hugging is amongst women. It didn’t take long to recognize it was those little things in life that set us apart from the others.”
“I can imagine. Will you tell me about it?” the General asked.
Holly looked confused. “I thought you wanted to hear of the Endorians. I even expected to be grilled on the AMAN. Those are the important things. The little oddities of my family are insignificant, and not worth your time discussing.”
“Oh, I beg to differ, young lady. It is those little ordinary, to you at least, and once to us all, things that inspires and instills hope in those around you. In just the few days you’ve stubbornly camped on my doorstep, you have awakened this place. It’s like a fire has been lit that cannot be extinguished. I’ve never seen such an extraordinary change … at least not for the good.”
He cleared his throat and continued. “Tell me, Holly, since the moment the doors to that bunker of yours opened, just how many people have you met?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just humor me and take a stab at it.”
She shrugged, “Hundreds at least. Maybe a couple thousand. It’s not like I keep count.”
“Briefly walk me through your journey over the last few years since the bunker door was opened. I know you’ve already told Michael, but please, humor me. People you’ve communicated with specifically.”
“Well, the first person I met was Griffon, then his family. Their friends, which led to, basically, the entire town of Wythel. That’s the town at the base of our mountain, and currently considered Compounder territory. My brother’s doing, not mine!” They both laughed. “I started a secret task force to monitor AMAN activity. We reached out to five nearby towns initially. I’m particularly well known in the town of Manning. We even picked up Joey, who joined my Squad, there. Kyla was found in the woods. Later met her captors in a not so pleasant exchange. I assure you they are no fans of mine. Little Endor, an LOP house in AMAN Headquarters that I infiltrated. Random people in route. The poor in the tent city with nowhere else to go. The AMAN sent to convince me to join them. I didn’t. The AMAN sent to kidnap me. The AMAN stationed on the ship I was held on before heading out with the team you found me with. Your men here, and currently a scene in your chow hall. That’s all I can think of. So, maybe a couple hundred?”
“Holly, you’ve infected a couple hundred just here since your arrival,” Michael informed her.
“Infected?” Holly tensed. “I’m not sick. I can’t infect anyone.”
“Oh, but you do, child,” the General assured her. He pulled down and raised the map of the area behind his desk. Behind it was a map of the United States. Much of the east coast was marked with red pins. Several areas were circled in marker. “I’m going to assume, you know what this is?”
“Yes sir, it’s a map of the United States of America.”
“Former United States, technically.”
Holly wanted to disagree but bit her tongue and nodded instead. She quickly began to study it. There was a lot depicted east of the Mississippi and very little beyond it. She also noted several circles to the right in what would be the Atlantic Ocean.
“How well do you know your geography?” the General asked her.
She snorted, “Well. Probably extremely well compared to people my age today. I didn’t have the luxury of skipping school from the war. Mine never burned down or disbanded. Everyday till the spring after my seventeenth birthday and even then, I was required to study college level courses on my own. My father was adamant about the importance of a solid education, and how living underground did not negate the need for it.”
“I’d like to meet your father someday. He sounds like a very intelligent man.”
She knew he meant it as a compliment, but Holly cringed all the same. “How I wish that were possible, Gunny. He died, last summer. It feels like another lifetime ago now.”
“I’m sorry. May I ask how he died?”
“AMAN,” she spit out in anger.
“I still do not understand something, Holly,” Michael interrupted. “These AMAN, they killed your father. They tortured your friend and kidnapped another. They threatened you and your family. They killed your husband, and yet here you are allowing them to just use you?”
“Michael, that’s enough.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I just don’t understand. This is the Wildflower we’re talking about. Holly, look at this map. There’s more red on here than any other color. Every dot of red is an area affected by the Wildflower, by YOU. You have more power than you even realize. Stop letting them use you.”
“Michael, I said that’s enough. I’ll ask you to leave if you can’t control your outbursts.”
“No, it’s okay. You’re right,” she said to Michael. “They are in control right now. They came in by helicopter. They killed my friend. They grabbed me and dragged me away from my home. I fought back, but I couldn’t stop it from happening. They shot Jared when he came for me. He’s dead because of me. I have to live with that now. But I’m really far away from home, and the only way I know how to get back home is to just do what they ask and pray they keep their word.”
“Have they given you any cause to believe they will?”
She shook her. “But it’s all I have left to hold on to.”
“Breaking her spirit won’t stop what she’s already started. They have to know that.”
Gunny nodded in agreement. “Holly, what exactly is it that the AMAN want from you? What is the mission of yours?”
She looked him dead in the eyes. “Find you. Get answers to their questions, or bring you back to be tortured for the answers, but you should know, I could never actually turn you over to them. Griffon, of all people, knows this. He has to. He may be lost to the AMAN in a lot of ways, but he still knows me.”
“Tracker?” Michael asked. Holly shook her head no. She was certain of it.
“We searched them all. No tracker. No radio. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It was staged,” Holly admitted.
“What?”
“Your release. It was staged. It was too easy. Jesse never took night watch. They knew I’d move on his time. I suspected right away, but before we ever hit the road, I noticed Oliver walking particularly hard. He was leaving tracks even those idiots could easily follow. Do you remember when I started to fall behind?”
Gunny told her he did.
“Sir, I’m in excellent shape. I walk the side of a mountain on a daily basis. Even the brief time spent in that tin can of a ship wasn’t enough to slow me down. I believe that was the thought though. So, I worked out every day, but only ever when Jesse was on break, so he couldn’t report it back to Griffon. This ground is flat and easy walking terrain. I was covering the tracks he was leaving to guide them to us. I watched them closely once we hit the road, close enough that they didn’t dare try again. I believe the rest of the unit allowed us to escape, knowing I wouldn’t be able to not rescue you. And I think they were following us in hopes that you would lead us to, well, you.”
“So, your men are traitors.”
“My escorts, or shadows as I like to call them, are no friends of mine. I may trust Jesse a little, at least to protect me if nothing else. I only just met Oliver a few days before we stumbled across you.”
“Then you know that what you’re saying means we cannot allow them to leave.”
“I know. You’d be idiots to. The AMAN may not have a huge presence here, but they have many capabilities and resources, and more men than you can imagine at their disposal, and they’ll lead them right to your front door.”
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