Quake Read Free Page A

clear.” Faith pressed into her sound ring. She looked at Dylan, saw what he was considering. “Don’t even think about it. You are not going back there for a hovercraft or a jet pack. Let it go.”
    â€œSorry, Hawk.” Dylan smiled. “I’d have done it for you, but Faith is a little more rational than me.”
    Dylan moved in close, wrapping an arm around Faith’s waste. They kissed and Faith felt Dylan smiling. She loved it when this happened. To touch his lips to hers when he was this happy, to feel his happiness and know it was because of how much he loved her—it was everything, all she needed, all she wanted.
    â€œMan, it would have been fun parting out one of those jet packs,” Hawk said, his voice all excited and bummed out at the same time.
    â€œIt was a search mission,” Clooger said. “Now that they’ve found you they’ll send more. You need to move fast and find some cover.”
    â€œHead for the Columbia Gorge,” Hawk pressed into the sound ring. “A million acres of trees along there. They’ll never be able to track you.”
    â€œStill two on your tail, but they’re falling back,” Clooger added.
    The HumGee turned suddenly to the left, barely missing a cliff wall as it continued down a winding forest-service road somewhere on the border of Oregon and Idaho. Hawk lowered his shoulder and used the gravity of the turn to slam Clooger as hard as he could, but his shoulder missed and Hawk face-planted into a wall of Cloog.
    â€œI almost feel sorry for you. Almost ,” Clooger said, laughing softly as Hawk felt around his head for missing parts.
    â€œI think you broke my face.”
    Clooger glanced at Hawk and gave him a playful shove.
    â€œAll in a day’s work for a military man, right, kid?”
    Hawk went right back to his Tablet, all business. “Let’s get these two out of harm’s way before another State armada shows up. It’s all clear for the moment.”
    But Hawk was about to find out how wrong he was.
    Faith and Dylan were far from in the clear.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................

    Both parties settled into their respective journeys for the next twenty minutes, covering a lot of ground fast. Faith and Dylan were especially quick, finding themselves flying low over the dense forest near the Columbia Gorge in no time.
    â€œSo you’re really not going to tell us where we’re going?” Dylan asked, pressing his sound ring.
    Clooger had been asked where the new hideout was more times than he could count. Everyone wanted to know. But it was secret in part for a very personal reason, and he didn’t want to take any chances until he absolutely had to.
    â€œYou’re heading in the right direction.”
    That was all Clooger would say as they kept on, deeper into the green and blue of the Northwest.
    Faith kept glancing back, wondering if the two jet-packed stragglers were still behind them, but she hadn’t seen anyone chasing for a while.
    â€œHawk, any reading on the two that were following us?” Faith pressed in.
    Hawk had been keeping an eye on the whole region for any signs of movement, but the task was complicated. He could easily track Faith and Dylan because they were locked into a sketchy GPS system he’d created. Spotting a large movement of troops or something big like a jetliner—those were things he could do. But small enemy objects, not that much bigger than a large bird? Almost impossible. The fact that the HumGee was at top speed, whirling through the empty world at over a hundred miles an hour, didn’t help matters.
    â€œI can only get a lock on you and Dylan within a few-mile radius,” Hawk said. “If I could latch onto the State grid it would help, but that’s risky. They might detect a signal coming in. I’m catching the