The Escape (7 page)

“You know what, Private Barker? If I had to choose, I would have chosen the gun and the gear over your life. Because you are one of many, and weapons—weapons are priceless. Without guns we can’t control the people. It would be anarchy.”

“It’s a good thing the people don’t have their own guns, then, sir.”
Stop talking.

“Get the fuck out.”

Barker saluted and turned to leave.

“Wait. Barker. Go tell whoever’s on guard in storage to give you another gun. But if you lose this one . . .”

The Colonel didn’t finish his sentence. He didn’t have to. Whatever the Colonel planned to do to punish him for losing another weapon, it wasn’t going to be good.

“Sir.”

Barker walked out of the OCC, holding in his sigh of relief until he was out of earshot.

“Excuse me,” a woman whispered.

The soft female voice behind him startled him, and he spun around. It was the redhead, Clarissa something-or-other. Her pretty hair made her almost as easy to see in a crowd as Jenna had been.

Her hands flew to the necklace around her pale neck, as if checking to make sure it was still there.

“Sir?” she whispered again, looking back at the OCC door. “I need to talk to you.”

“Go ahead, ma’am,” he said, immediately returning to his soldier demeanor.

“No.” She looked behind her again, fear crossing her face. “In private. On the Tracks. Please.”

She reached out her hand to him, and to his surprise, he took it. She led him down to the subway entrance, down the stairs, where the only light came from burning garbage fires.

The subway cars had their doors open, women milling about everywhere. One was naked, lazily washing herself with an old rag and a bucket of gray-looking water. He averted his eyes.

“I shouldn’t be down here,” he said. “Men aren’t allowed in the women’s sleeping quarters.”

Clarissa laughed, a light tinkling sound. “Yeah, okay. Come on.” She tugged his hand, urging him to follow her.

When they got to her subway car, she pulled him inside.

“This is Annie,” she said, pointing to a girl lying across the orange plastic seats, with her leg elevated. It appeared to be wrapped in a makeshift splint.

“Hello, Annie. Are you injured?” He stepped toward the girl and she cowered. “Hey, hey,” he said soothingly. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He looked at Clarissa. “What happened?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Some asshole pushed her out of his way, and she fell down onto the Tracks. Broke her leg. That was over a month ago, though.”

“It’s still not healed,” Annie said. Her voice was older than he expected, and when he looked closer he realized that she was, in fact, a grown woman, albeit a small one.

“Do you need me to take you to the infirmary?” he asked. “I can carry you.”

“They didn’t do much there the first time,” Clarissa said, anger flashing in her eyes. “I had to take her back here to make sure she got all of her rations. People kept stealing hers when they knew she couldn’t fight back.”

Barker cursed under his breath.

“I don’t think I even want to know why she was scared of me,” he muttered.

“Because you know why,
soldier
.” Clarissa shook her head, saying the word like it was a curse. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not like the others. And I know . . . I know you went after our friend.”

“You’re friends with Jenna?” he asked.

Annie nodded, so did Clarissa.

“We weren’t there that night,” Clarissa said quickly. “We didn’t see anything.”

Barker doubted that was true. But he nodded.

“Please, Private Barker . . .” Clarissa took his hand again. “What happened?”

“Jenna was wanted for questioning regarding her part in Private Andrews’s murder. She ran away, and I was sent to find her.”

“We know,” Clarissa said. “Everyone knows that. But I didn’t see you come back with her. Is she gone?”

“I’m sorry, she’s dead. Drowned in the Hudson.” He said the lines without emotion, played his part.

Annie sobbed softly. “Poor Jenna. She never should have left.”

“She’d be dead either way, you know that,” Clarissa said softly. “I guess I hoped—after what Taryn said about a radio . . . about America rebuilding—that maybe Jenna knew somewhere else to go.”

“Don’t mention that radio,” Barker said quietly. “Ever. The Colonel has all the men listening for talk about the radio. It’s a death sentence.”

Clarissa gasped. “So it’s true.”

Barker shook his head. “I don’t know that. I’ve never heard the radio. Neither had Jenna. It was just a message she got from her friend, Emily.”

At Emily’s name, the girls looked at each other.

“Emily escaped.”

“Yeah. After murdering the other Private Andrews,” Barker said.

“We don’t know anything about that either,” Annie said.

Barker laughed. Fucking hell. These women were tougher than they looked. If they ever got weapons, all of the soldiers would be shit out of luck.

Barker turned to go, but Clarissa grabbed his arm. “Sir. Wait.”

It still felt strange to have people call him sir. He looked at her.

“How did you know all of that? About Emily’s message to Jenna. You spoke to her, didn’t you?”

“Um . . .” He looked around, and saw no one watching them, so he nodded. Out loud, he said, “As I told the Colonel, I found Jenna dead. Lost in the river, with my gun and my gear. Gone forever. No point in even searching for them.”

He smiled slightly, and Clarissa surprised him by hugging him fiercely around the neck.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much.”

“Please don’t say anything. About
anything
, okay?”

“I wish we could get out of here too,” Annie whispered.

“You’re in no shape for running,” Barker said, looking at her leg. “Anyone who left would have to do so on foot. Evade anyone who’s still left out there, people who will kill you for your supplies.”

“Yeah. That’s what they tell us, isn’t it,” Clarissa said, sitting down next to Annie. “Interesting how every story about the world outside Grand Central is about how dangerous it is, how terrible the people must be. Cannibals and whatnot.”

“What do you mean?” Barker peered outside the door again, checking.

“She means that maybe the people outside of the camp are people like . . . like Emily, and Jenna,” Annie said. “People who are just searching for a better life.”

“I was out there, and I didn’t see anything better,” Barker admitted.

“If we could just grow our own food,” Clarissa said, “that’s all we need. They’re barely keeping us alive as it is. If you call this”—she gestured to their subway car, to the darkness on the Tracks, to the smells and the sounds and the women—“
living
.”

Emily and Mason’s cabin, upstate New York

Emily held one
of the fat bunnies on her chest, petting it, lying back on the soft grass and watching the sunlight filter through the trees above their heads.

“I love it here,” she whispered.

Mason rolled over and kissed her temple. “And I love you.”

“I love you too,” she said. “But don’t squish Mr. Rabbit.”

“Emily,” he sighed. “Please don’t name them. They’re not pets, they’re food.”

“This one’s a pet. Mr. Rabbit.”

Mason shook his head, but he gave the rabbit a soothing stroke with his fingers on its little head. “He’s so soft. Rabbit fur would make good mittens, come winter.”

“Shhh. You’ll upset him.” She pretended to cover the bunny’s long, soft ears. “Don’t worry, Mistuh Wabbit, you’re safe from the big bad man.”

Mason laughed. “What am I going to do with you?”

“You know what I want.” She ran her hand over her flat stomach. “Wanna put the bunny away and get it on?”

“We’ve talked about this. How can we bring a child into this world? We can barely feed ourselves.”

“That’s not true,” she argued. “We’ve got a thriving vegetable garden, and now we’ve got enough venison to keep us fed for a year.”

“Would you be willing to sacrifice a rabbit or two to make warm clothes for a baby?”

“Of course. Babies outweigh bunnies any day, in my book. Just not this bunny. Okay? Let’s do it.”

“Where would you give birth? What if something went wrong? You could die, Emily.”

“I’ll teach you everything you need to know ahead of time. Women have been giving birth since the dawn of man. I can do it too.”

“I couldn’t lose you, Emily. If you died, I’d . . . I’d die too.”

She sat up, cradling the soft bundle of fur in her arms. “It makes me so sad every time we have sex and you pull out. I want you to come inside me, please, Mason. Let’s not worry about babies, just stop pulling out. And whatever happens, it’s in God’s hands.”

Mason lifted the rabbit out of her hands and set in down in the rabbit pen. “I’m not ready to take a risk like that. The only reason you haven’t gotten pregnant already is you’ve been so underweight. But now that you’re actually eating, getting healthy—it’s a risk, Em. A huge risk.”

“Don’t you want a baby? What’s the point of living if we can’t really live, can’t have a family to enjoy our freedom with? Imagine a cute little boy running around after you, learning to trap rabbits with his daddy. You could teach him so much.”

“This is no life for a child. No schools, no other kids to play with, no toys.”

Emily lay back down and looked up at the birds in the treetops high above her. “I think it’s the perfect life for a child. He’ll have us, and we’ll have him. Our own family.”

Mason looked at her but didn’t say anything.

“Just think about it, Mason.”

Mason strode over to her and straddled her legs, still standing.

She smiled. “That was quick.”

“I’m not done thinking about babies. But you did get me thinking about fucking you.”

He pulled his shirt off, revealing his lean, muscular torso, and knelt down, pulling her shirt off over her head, her long dark hair spilling around her shoulders.

The late-afternoon sun warmed her, the grass tickled her naked flesh. Mason tugged at her pants, getting them off easily.

“I need you,” she whispered, her hands fumbling with his pants.

Finally he lowered them, not taking them off all the way. The thick, knotted scar that ran along his thigh stood out across the muscle, from where he’d escaped the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the jail he’d been in before the Pulse.

Yes, he was an ex-con. A murderer. But everything changed with the Pulse, and Mason had proved to her beyond a shadow of a doubt that she could trust him with her very life. God knows he’d saved it enough times when they fled New York City together.

His lips trailed across her breasts, hardening her nipples in the breeze.

“I used to fantasize about this, you know,” he said softly, running his large, calloused hands down her body, caressing her curves. “Lying alone at night in my cell at Rikers. No windows. Imagining being free, seeing the stars at night, having a beautiful woman lying underneath me, ready for me.”

“Yes, Mason, I’m so ready for you,” she said, pushing her hips up to meet his thrust, gasping as she took him deep inside her. She wrapped her legs around his hips, drawing her in as close as she could. “I don’t ever want to let go.”

“Neither do I.” He kissed her deeply, moving within her, rocking together until her climax crested.

“Come for me, Emily,” he breathed, and slid his hand down between their bodies, finding her clit, capturing it with his fingers. Rubbing. The sensation overwhelmed her body, and she came hard, her hips bucking so hard she was amazed she hadn’t thrown him off with the strength of her orgasm.

But he stayed on her, riding her through the waves, and when he came, finally, he groaned, his face twisting in an expression of pure lust and desire and need.

At the last moment, he pulled out, his precious semen splattering hotly across her belly.

And to Emily’s horror, despite the beautiful moment they had just shared together, she started to cry.

Please, Mason . . . I want a baby.

New York City, heading north on the FDR

JENNA

With
the gear on her back and the rifle slung across her shoulder, Jenna was slow. Much slower than usual, which was saying something. At least she wasn’t hungry, since the pack had food supplies. With her energy up, she was able to keep walking for hours without stopping to rest.

She really hoped Barker was okay at Grand Central. If only she could leave him a note, telling him which direction she was heading in. But that would be death to her if they did send out a search crew. So she just had to go on alone.

She’d miss him. Hell, she already did. The rifle offered her some protection, at least, but a woman alone with a pack full of supplies was an easy target in the empty city streets.

Yeah, right. Like you miss him just for the protection. It has nothing at all to do with the hot sex.
Nothing at all . . .

The FDR Drive was filled with empty stalled vehicles. She glanced in them as she walked, hoping to see more supplies, perhaps an old water bottle to add to her kit. But they’d all been scavenged and cleaned out long ago.

She was going to find that boat Barker told her about. The one at Locust Point Marina. He’d told her it was in the Bronx, off the Throgs Neck Bridge. That couldn’t be a coincidence, that they both knew now of a place they wanted to go to. It was fate.

(Or God. Maybe it’s God.)

No, she’d leave God out of it, for now. But—she’d head that way. And if she was lucky, maybe Barker would remember that they had a date to go sailing. . . .

Didn’t ultimately matter if he joined her or not—she still had to get the hell out of Dodge.

All she knew was that if she kept moving away from the city, maybe she’d eventually get far enough away to be safe.

Grand Central Terminal, the Tracks

BARKER

Barker couldn’t stay
here, not another moment. Not when Jenna was getting farther and farther away, and not when he was finally awake to the atrocities within the camp.

But how could he leave women like Annie and Clarissa behind? Worse, how could he take them with him, when it could mean their deaths?

Barker walked silently down the Tracks for the second time that night. If he was going to leave, it would be now, at night, when most people were sleeping. He quietly entered Clarissa and Annie’s subway car.

Annie gasped. “Clarissa, help.”

“Shh,” he whispered. “It’s just me.”

Clarissa rolled over on the thin, dirty mattress on the floor, her red hair flowing across the bed. She had no pillow. “Barker?” she asked softly. “What are you doing?”

“I’m leaving. I . . . I wanted to tell you. In case you needed to leave too.”

Clarissa sat up. “I can’t. Who will take care of Annie?”

“Go, Clarissa,” Annie said. “I’ll be okay. There are other women here who will help me when they find out you’re gone. Don’t tell me where you’re going. It’s better I not know.”

“I can’t. I want to get out of here, I want all of us to get out of here. But I can’t leave you, Annie,” Clarissa said. “Who will bring you your rations? What will happen if a soldier comes in—one who’s not Barker?”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve survived this long,” Annie said resolutely. “Go. Go now. Please. And then if you can, you can get help, maybe. And come back for me. For all of us.”

Clarissa stood, looking between Annie and Barker, confusion etched on her pretty face.

“I have a gun,” Barker said. “I’ll protect you.”

“Why me?”

“I’d take all of you if I could. But I can’t. So I’m asking you. If you don’t want to go, then I can’t waste time. I have to get out of here now. Change of shift is happening soon, and I know which exit won’t be manned for at least five minutes. We have to go now, or never.”

“Go.” Annie said the word firmly, leaving no room for more discussion.

“I love you, Annie. Be safe.”

Barker took Clarissa’s hand, and led her out of the car. They walked side by side, quickly, but not quickly enough to draw attention.

They walked by the OCC, his heart beating so loudly he feared someone would hear the thump in his chest.

The exit was manned by a guard. Fuck.

“We missed it,” he whispered, unbelieving. “We missed the window.”

“We can still go out,” Clarissa said. “Just pretend you’re doing something that’s secret but condoned. And you’ll be able to get out.”

“Like what?” he asked, although a sick idea had already formed in his head. An idea inspired by the stories he heard some guys brag about.

“Pretend we’re going to have sex. That we need privacy, off the Tracks.”

So they were on the same page. And fuck it all to hell, that was exactly why they had to get out of there.

At the door, the soldier stood with his rifle, leaning against the wall. He straightened when he saw Barker coming with Clarissa.

“Curfew is in effect, Private,” the guard said.

Barker twisted Clarissa’s hair roughly in his fist and pushed her forward. “This little bitch is too loud for the Tracks. We need some privacy if she’s gonna keep screaming like she does. You can have her after, if you want.”

Clarissa whimpered and tried to pull away, but Barker held her close. He knew he was probably hurting her, but hopefully the charade would end soon.

The soldier leered at her. “Likes to scream, huh? Wish I could, but if I’m caught off my post again I’ll be up shit creek without a paddle. Just get back before change of shift.”

“No problem, man.”

Barker pushed Clarissa out the door, the cool air hitting his face, a welcome relief after the stench inside the Tracks.

“Hey,” the guard said, and Barker looked back, one hand on his rifle.

Please, God, don’t make me kill this guy.

“What’s in the pack?” The guard pointed toward the supply pack Barker had stolen.

“Sleeping bag for the princess.” Barker laughed.

“Lucky girl.”

“Come on, you cock-tease,” Barker said, pushing Clarissa between the shoulder blades, making her cry out. He was trying his best to sound like the tough-talking assholes he hated so much. “You and me. Let’s go.”

Clarissa stumbled forward, and the door shut behind them.

“Run from me, and I’m going to chase you,” Barker whispered in her ear. He let her go and she ran, ran blindly in the dark, so fast he almost lost his footing going after her.

She dodged to the left down a side street and he followed. When they were out of sight of Grand Central, she paused, falling to her haunches on the dirty pavement.

“I’m so sorry, Clarissa,” Barker said when he reached her. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” She looked up at him, panting, fear in her eyes. “I knew it was an act, but fuck, you scared me there for a minute.”

“I’m sorry. But now we need to move. I told Jenna about my father’s boat at a marina in the Bronx. I just hope she remembers it. That’s where we’re headed.”

“It’s so scary out here,” Clarissa said.

“Yeah . . . Jenna said she could feel the ghosts.”

“Well, if they’re the ghosts of people who died at the hands of men like Lanche, then they’ll be on our side. Let’s go.”

They’d been walking
for hours until they reached the FDR. He wanted to call out Jenna’s name, to try and find her, but it was useless in the dark.

That night that he and Jenna had spent together, when he told her about the boat, she’d said, “It’s a date.” With nowhere else to go, was it possible that she’d remember, and that she’d go there?

Yes.

After all, Jenna didn’t have a lot of options. She’d go to the one place she considered safe. So if he and Clarissa kept heading up the main roadways toward the Bronx, they’d catch up with her. Especially if she stopped to sleep in some car while they kept walking. Every step lessened the distance between him and Jenna.

It became a habit to glance into every car they passed, hoping to see Jenna.

“Barker!” Clarissa said, pointing to a huddled figure inside the back seat of a car. “Someone’s in there. Think it’s Jenna?”

Please, please be Jenna.

“She’s got a gun, so if it is, let’s not wake her too suddenly,” he said, and went to the car door.

He knocked softly on it, but the figure didn’t stir.

“Maybe you should knock,” he suggested. “If she sees my uniform she might shoot first and ask questions later. She’ll recognize your hair.”

Clarissa grinned. “All right. How chivalrous of you to use me as bait.” She winked at him and rapped on the window, louder. No response.

Then Clarissa pulled open the car door, and jumped back from the terrible smell. “Oh my God. It’s not her. It’s just a corpse.”

“Let’s keep moving.”

Clarissa closed the car door and wiped her hand on her thigh. “I really thought it might be her.”

A shot fired into the air, the muzzle flash lighting up several cars down from where they were. “Hands in the air! Don’t move, motherfuckers,” a woman’s voice shouted.

Barker and Clarissa both raised their hands.

“It’s Clarissa and Barker!” Clarissa yelled. “Jenna, is that you?”

Jenna stepped out from behind the car door where she’d hidden. “It’s me. I can’t believe it’s you!”

She ran toward them and embraced Clarissa.

Barker wanted to pull Jenna into his arms, to tell her how glad he was to have found her, but he hung back, not wanting to upset the delicate balance of their relationship. He wasn’t even sure if Jenna had wanted to be found.

“I purposefully slept in that car over there, not far from the car with the corpse,” Jenna admitted. “I figured if people were looking for me the dead body would give me time to hide.”

“That was good thinking,” Barker said. “But you didn’t hide.”

“I heard a woman’s voice. You’re lucky you had Clarissa with you,” Jenna said. “Not sure what I would have done if it was just one man and a gun, in the dark like this.”

“Thank you for not shooting me—again.” Barker grinned at her, and she threw her arms around his neck.

Whoa. So she
was
happy to see him.

“I’m glad you remembered we have a date to go sailing,” she said.

“How could I forget?” He wanted to kiss her, right then, but refrained.

“Where’s Annie?” Jenna asked, and Clarissa looked down, tears in her eyes.

“She insisted we go without her. We didn’t tell her where, so if Lanche tries to find out he won’t get anything from her.”

“The guard at the door probably won’t say anything for fear of reprisal,” Barker said. “So we should be okay there. But in the morning, they’ll know we’re both missing when we don’t show up for morning rations.”

“Think they’ll come after you guys?” Jenna asked.

“I stole their gun. So maybe,” Barker said. “We need to keep walking, put as much distance between us and the camp as possible.”

“They have those old trucks, though,” Clarissa said thoughtfully. “The ones that don’t have computer chips in them.”

The ones the EMP didn’t put out of commission. The ones that were confiscated from citizens all over the tri-state area after the Pulse.

“She’s right, Barker,” Jenna said, cursing under her breath. “They can drive faster than we can walk. What do we do?”

The adrenaline rush
that had overwhelmed Jenna’s fight-or-flight response when she’d first woken up to the sound of voices was slowly fading, but her hands still trembled.

Thank God they found her. Thank God “they” happened to be Barker and Clarissa, and not someone worse.

“I think we should consider hiding,” Clarissa said.

“We have to keep moving,” Barker argued. “The farther away we are, the safer we are.”

“Let’s walk,” Jenna said. “If they come after us . . . well, we have two guns. We’ll fight.”

“You can’t fight them,” Barker said. “They’ll just shoot us in the back before we even know they’re there.”

Clarissa shrugged. “Then we have nothing to lose.”

The three walked, Jenna stopping quickly back at the car she’d been sleeping in to grab her pack.

“Let’s stay close to the cars. If we hear anything, we can duck inside one, and it’ll provide some semblance of protection, right?” Jenna suggested.

“Right.” But Barker didn’t seem happy about it.

The night was long, and after a full day of walking and barely any sleep, Jenna’s feet hurt. But she wouldn’t complain. They walked single file, with Barker in the front to lead the way, and Jenna in the rear since she also had a gun.

She was thrilled he’d saved Clarissa, but why her? And what would happen to Annie with her friend gone—would she really be okay?

The only thing that gave Jenna comfort was knowing that Emily had done the same thing before. Escaped Grand Central and never looked back.

That’s what they would do.

And if the morning came and they were found, well, they were dead if they stayed at the camp anyway. She’d rather die fighting.

“The marina is only about ten more miles,” Barker said. “I can’t be certain, but I think we’re going about two miles an hour. Five more hours and we’ll be there.”

Clarissa inhaled deeply. “I’m sorry—I don’t think I can walk for five more hours straight. I haven’t had any exercise in a year. I’m out of shape.”