The Escape (18 page)

Heading north on Interstate 95

BARKER, JENNA, AND CLARISSA

Jenna
couldn’t stop staring out of the back window as Barker drove her and Clarissa up the coast.

Clarissa had long since stopped asking Barker to go back.

“What if he wasn’t dead?” she’d kept saying. “What if Roy is alive, and needs our help?”

“He was dead,” Barker had to say, over and over.

Denial.
Poor Clarissa,
Jenna thought. Just when she’d finally allowed herself to open up to a man. To make love with him.

Fuck, poor Roy. Dead.

“It could have been any of us,” Jenna whispered. “It happened so quickly.”

Clarissa looked at her with a tear-stained face. “I couldn’t even kill the bastard who shot him. I just kept shooting, and shooting . . .”

“I winged him,” Barker reminded her. “He’s hurt. Hopefully he’ll get a fucking infection and die from it. Slowly.”

“Yeah.”

Anger seethed through Jenna’s body. “I don’t understand. Last time the three of us were able to shoot, to
kill
four soldiers. What the hell happened back there?”

“Battles don’t always go well,” Barker said, swerving to miss a stalled car. “People die. You knew that, going in. That this was real.”

“Of course it’s fucking real,” Jenna said. “I would never have left Grand Central in the first place if they didn’t kill Taryn. Who the fuck are you to tell me I don’t know it’s real?”

“Stop fighting,” Clarissa whispered. “All you guys have now is each other. What if Barker gets shot next time, huh, Jenna? Then what?”

Jenna closed her mouth and sat back. Clarissa was right. If Barker got shot, got killed—so quickly she might not even have time to hug his body, or bury him, or . . . hell. Then she’d feel terrible about fighting with him.

Because despite everything going on around them—or perhaps because of it—she’d come to really care about Barker. And not just as a man who could help protect her. Not just as a fuck-buddy, or a friend with benefits, whatever the hell that meant anymore.

He was the first man since the Pulse who treated her like a human, like a woman, instead of a thing. An object to be used and discarded.

What would she do if he died, too?

Don’t think about it. Don’t dwell.

“Where are we going?” Clarissa asked.

“As far as we can. We’ve got to find a place that’s not as bad as all the others. It has to be out there.”

“What if Evan was right, Barker,” Jenna said, “and there is no place left? What if every place is the same. FEMA camps, incompetent leaders or crazy dictators, martial law. Drafts for a war no one wants.”

“I don’t know. I refuse to believe that there is no place in all of America that hasn’t been able to get its shit together by now. It’s been a fucking year, someplace has to be okay.”

“Maybe we should be heading west,” Clarissa said. “You know, farming, that sort of thing. The kind of place where people know how to live off the land.”

“We could end up dying out there,” Barker said. “We don’t know what’s out there. This, we know. We know I-95, am I right?”

“And we can fish,” Jenna added. “That’s living off the land. Well, off the water. Surely there’s a place . . .”

“So we keep going. Until we’re stopped. Any town worth its salt will have the entrance barricaded, remember?”

“Why wasn’t Greenwich barricaded?” Clarissa asked.

“Because it was a ghost town,” Jenna said. “Except for the camp Evan escaped from. That’s why. Manhattan’s not barricaded. Just Grand Central.”

“And the crops at Central Park,” Barker reminded her. “Fucking Lanche. I want him dead.”

“I can’t believe we let Evan go with them,” Clarissa said, again. “Lanche is going to hurt that boy. We should have shot them.”

“We couldn’t, not with Evan as a hostage,” Barker repeated.

“We should have shot them anyway!” Clarissa screamed, bursting into tears.

“Shut the fuck up, Clarissa,” Barker yelled, shocking them both. “Don’t scream like that, like we didn’t try. Like we didn’t do the best we could with what we had. We
had
to leave, we had no choice. Just shut up and let me drive. We
will
get him back, I promise. We will.”

Jenna watched Barker’s knuckles turn white as he gripped the steering wheel.

She took Clarissa’s hand in hers, holding it in silent comfort.

“Hey Barker,” Jenna said after a few minutes.

“What.”

“When you curse at us, when you yell like that? You know who you sound like?”

Barker’s face tightened into a grimace. “I sound like him. Like Colonel Lanche.”

“Yeah,” Jenna whispered. “I know we’re in a war zone. I know you just lost Roy, we all did. But let’s keep it cool between us. We’re not the enemy.”

Barker pulled over and got out of the truck, opening the door on Jenna’s side.

She looked at him warily. What was he going to do? Make her walk?

“Why did you stop?” she asked defensively. “I’m sorry, okay? Just calm down. We’ll shut up so you can drive.”

“Come here,” he said softly, and pulled her into his arms on the side of the road. “You have nothing to be sorry about. You’re right. And . . . I am so sorry.”

Jenna fell into his embrace, and finally let herself cry. Tears for herself, for Roy,

(may he rest in peace)

. . . for Clarissa. And tears for Evan.

God, if you’re listening, we need you now. Give that kid the strength to get through this.

“We’ll get Evan back, and we’ll get all those women off the Tracks,” Barker whispered in her ear. “If I have to die to get them free, I swear I will.”

“Don’t die, Barker,” Jenna said, her voice muffled against his chest. “I couldn’t lose you too.”

Grand Central Terminal, the OCC

EVAN

Evan had never
been more terrified in his life. That was saying a lot, since those first few months after the Pulse hit had been scary. He hadn’t been used to living in a world where he couldn’t text his friends, Google any questions, or even know what was happening in the world.

If he could do it all over again, he’d have a library of paperback books filled with survival info. The simplest things he used to look up online, it was all information he now had to seek out. Like how to make his drinking water safe. Hell, he hadn’t even realized that his water would stop running out of the faucets after a couple of days. His kid brother was terrified of the dark, too. And they couldn’t waste candles by using them as nightlights.

Trying to be strong for his brother while he was scared as well had been hard.

But today, watching Roy get shot and killed—
bam
, just like that—his life was over. So quickly. One bullet and gone. It made Evan hate guns even more. No, he hated the soldiers behind the guns. The ones who followed orders like sheep.

No way Evan would ever be one of the government’s human drones, killing because they said so. Fuck that shit.

He was in a bad situation now, that much was easy to see. Colonel Lanche was clearly batshit crazy, and his men did whatever he said.

What would they do to him? What did they want him for, anyway? He was nothing. No one. Useless to them, especially if he refused to fight their battles. Evan was no soldier.

Be a lover, not a fighter. Practice peace.

Man, it was all so easy when it was just a theory. But like Jenna had said, when someone’s trying to kill you, suddenly being a pacifist doesn’t sound like a workable plan anymore.

“Keep up,” the man they called Scar said, dragging him by the scruff of his neck across the main terminal of Grand Central.

It looked so different now, so different from the last time he’d seen the place, before the Pulse. Armed guards were everywhere. People milled about, skinny, weak, scared-looking. There were a lot more men than women. Where were all the women? What happened to them?

Something about the Tracks. He’d heard Jenna and Clarissa talk about that, when they didn’t know he could hear them. The train tracks all around Grand Central might be where they kept the girls. But why?

“What are you looking at?” Scar asked.

Evan glared at him, and winced as the larger man backhanded him across the face.

He’d never been hit in the face before. Never actually been hit, period. The shock of it had him reeling.

“Keep moving.”

Evan walked as slowly as possible, not wanting to run to his own death. Would they actually kill him? Maybe not. If they wanted to kill him, they could have done it already. So why keep him alive?

Finally they arrived at a boarded-up room. Scar knocked on the door, and Colonel Lanche opened it.

“Where the hell have you been?” he asked.

“Pretty boy here had to take a leak. And Dobson’s at the infirmary for his shoulder.”

The Colonel looked at the fresh bruise Evan could feel forming on his right cheekbone. “What’d you do to him?”

Scar shrugged. “Nothing.”

“Don’t ask, don’t tell, soldier,” Lanche said, and laughed. “Had to take a leak, my ass.”

What?

Suddenly the reality of what they were talking about hit him. Lanche thought that Scar had . . . like, molested him or something. He hadn’t. He was creepy as fuck, but he hadn’t. What he had done was hit him for no reason.
Asshole.

Scar coughed. “No, sir, nothing like that.”

“Well, you can have him if you want. I don’t give a fuck. Maybe it’ll get him to talk.”

Evan felt faint. “I need to sit down.”

Scar let go of his shirt collar, and Evan crumpled to the floor, his hands still zip-tied behind his back.

“Uncuff him,” Lanche ordered. Then he went over to the door and locked it.

Scar pulled out a switchblade and hovered over Evan threateningly before reaching behind him and cutting the zip-ties. Evan brought his hands around to the front and rubbed his wrists.

“So,” Lanche said, sounding almost friendly. “What were you doing with a crew of known terrorists? Maybe they kidnapped you?”

Evan stared up at him but didn’t answer.

“You are a pretty little thing, aren’t you?” Lanche said, his voice light, teasing. “You look like one of those, whatcha call them, boy bands. Or like a little lesbian. You sure you’re a dude? Maybe we’ll even find a place for you on the Tracks, if you’re good.”

Evan looked away. He wasn’t going to let them intimidate him like that. Looked like a boy band? What a moron. That didn’t even make sense.

The Colonel nodded to Scar, who grabbed Evan’s hair, and pulled his head back so far his neck hurt.

“I don’t think you recognize the seriousness of the situation you’re in, Evan,” Lanche said softly. “I own you now. You have to do what I say.”

Evan tried not to let them see he was in pain, but Scar had a death grip on his hair. A whimper escaped his throat, and he cursed himself for it.

He wanted to be silent, be cool in the face of danger, like the guys in action movies were. Not like some whimpering kid.

Strands of Evan’s dark blond hair were in Scar’s hand now, and he dropped them to the floor in front of Evan’s eyes, to show him. Evan rubbed his scalp and dropped his head, wanting to ease the tension the soldier had put into his muscles.

“Tell me what you know about Barker,” Lanche said. “Everything.”

Evan kept his head down, focusing on looking at the floor, and on breathing.

The punch to the side of his head took him by surprise, and he fell over, a ringing sound in his ears. He tasted blood on his lip, a coppery taste that made him feel sick.

“We can do this the hard way, or the easy way,” Lanche said. “You choose.”

But he couldn’t betray Barker like that, or Jenna and Clarissa. If he told the Colonel what he knew, then what had Roy died for? Nothing. They had to get to freedom.

“Listen to me, boy. They left you. They left you behind, knowing that I would take you. That’d you’d be in my control. Why would they do that, if they were such wonderful people?”

“They had no choice,” Evan said, unable to keep silent any longer. “You gave them no choice.” He licked his dry lips, tasting his own blood once more. If only he could have some water . . .

“You don’t know the truth about these people you think are your friends. Allow me to enlighten you.” Lanche sat down on the edge of the large table that dominated the room. “First, Jenna helped murder one of our own soldiers, in cold blood. She did that right here, in Grand Central. After we’d been taking care of her, giving her shelter, and food. Just killed him, with her friend, as if it were a game.”

Evan didn’t believe him. Jenna didn’t seem like someone who thought killing was a game.

(don’t think of it as a person, just shoot the pocket.)

No. He wouldn’t let them turn him against Jenna, or any of them.

“Listen up, kid,” Lanche said. “Learn the truth. Barker was one of ours. A soldier. He was sent to bring Jenna back after she escaped. Instead he aided and abetted her, gave her a gun, a gun he stole from me. Then he kidnapped Clarissa.”

No way. Evan knew Clarissa hadn’t been kidnapped. And Barker told him that he wasn’t a soldier, too. It was all lies.