In a world of raiders, indent gangs, and acid rain, A hidden secret means confronting the past…
Kip Hollister has made a tactical error. Which is normal. SubUnit C has been disbanded. In the process, he has managed, yet again, to piss off the other members of the new SubUnit as they are being sent to the backside of the Front Lines. His combat skills suck as much as his verbal ones. He’s even managed to anger normally soft-spoken Sardichuck. It never goes right… Speaking.
He says what he thinks are the right words. All the time. No one listens. He’s sick to death of dealing with people who read into every single little thing that is said. Sick of assumptions. Sick of the bragging rights as to who has it worse. Sick of… He’s just… plain… sick.
Hollyn has been running from the attentions of her sadistic cousin Mihall for years. Ever since her mother passed away. Mihall and his three brothers– Brett, Justin, and Samael– have been in charge of the pig farm, the family business, since her G-pa died in an influenza outbreak.
A hot-shot Lieutenant uses the war with Eli as cover to make a name for himself and decides, without authorization, since he is an LT after all, to start taking on the lower level cases of those who are in prison, awaiting trial. Without bothering to read through all the new laws or speak to the newly forming Ridge Lake Town Council, Nesui lets Mihall out of prison, where he has been since the last time he attacked Hollyn. Nesui dismissed the assault charges, not fully realizing the potential disaster he has released into the populace at large. Mihall returns to his home and his first stop is to locate his errant, way-ward, female cousin…
Hollister is ordered to take Hollyn, the girl he has been drooling over for weeks, north, to the front, where she will man one of the abandoned fire towers, as training for her new position in the Fire Department. He has no idea what to say. What to do. And he is… sick.
He is sick. The words repeat inside him as he struggles with the news that he may, in fact, turn into one of the rainbow bloods as he is sent north to prepare for incoming units. A rainbow blood. Mutant. If his father ever finds out, the man might actually beat him to death this time…