“Soneschen? Is he at the compound?” Kevin asks.
Striker nods.
“You mean the guy who used to be the governor of the walled city?”
“Yep,” Striker says, beaming with pride.
“What does Hastings think about that?” Kevin asks.
“Hastings hasn’t killed the guy, so that’s something. Believe it or not, Hastings has been less violent since the women got away. He’s only beat one guy to death this week.”
I shudder.
“In fact, Hastings and Soneschen have been working together. You know Hastings’s little science experiments?”
Kevin nods.
“Soneschen figures it’s time we started training them for better things. He also says we need something to take our minds off the missing women. This kid is just perfect.” Striker grabs the scruff of my neck and yanks me out of Kevin’s hands. “We left your supplies on the porch. Catch ya next week, Kevman, if we don’t see you sooner.”
I am being herded out of the house. Striker is squeezing the back of my neck like he’s trying to make my head pop off. The dog growls at me and snaps when I walk by, but the leash-wielding raider yanks it away.
Striker opens the front door and a gust of wind whips Kevin’s sweatshirt against my chest, making all the bulky pockets of my vest bulge against it. Please don’t take my vest! I think. Because for now these guys think I am a boy. I duck my head, letting the brim of Kevin’s hat hide my face even more, and walk down a cracked and crumbling cement driveway.
Earlier, when I got to the water tank, I thought I didn’t know what to do. I was wrong. Then, I had choices. Now I don’t know what to do. I am completely defeated.
“Wait,” Kevin’s calls. A burst of hope fills me. In my mind’s eye I can see what he’s about to do—pull my gun from his belt, knock off the raiders and their dog with four perfect shots, run to me and untie my hands, and then tell me he did all of this because it was the only way he knew to save my life. I turn and watch him, his head held high, his hand on my gun as he strides out of the house. The wind blows loose strands of his dark-copper hair across his face so he whips his head to the side. He opens his mouth to speak, and I tense for the boom of gunfire.
“I’m coming with you guys. I want to see what neck-tearing practice is.”
My hope shatters, leaving me filled with so much despair I can hardly lift my feet, but somehow I do. I make my feet walk in a straight line down the middle of the street. The wind lashes dust and sand against the side of my face, so I turn my head away. Something hard crashes into my cheek, forcing my face back into the wind.
“Eyes forward.” Striker lowers his rifle.
Kevin steps up beside me. “Listen to him,” he says, voice rock hard. But I don’t want to. And I really don’t want to listen to Kevin. I grit my teeth and taste blood and kick the side of Kevin’s knee as hard as I can, sending him sprawling.
The ground leaps at me. I am on my stomach and someone is smashing my face against pavement, grinding loose gravel into my cheek. “First rule of the raiders: you never lay a finger on one of us,” Striker says. “You touch one of us again and I will shoot you in the leg and leave you to die.” He pushes my face harder and then drags me to my feet. I blink sand from my eyelashes, stare straight forward, and walk.
We come to a fork in the road and turn left, but instead of continuing forward, we turn left again, onto a driveway that is covered with the dark shadow of tire marks.
I peer up at a two-story house covered with fractured tan stucco. Armed men are staring down at me from second-story windows, so I look away. The dead grass in the yard has trails worn into it, and, where it isn’t covered with dog crap, is filled with shallow holes. The man with the dog goes into the yard and hooks the dog’s chain to a spike in the ground.
“Yo! Open up!” Striker bangs the butt of his rifle on the garage door. A motor hums and the door rises, exposing two four-wheelers and a side-by-side in front of a wall lined with red plastic gas cans. We walk between two of the vehicles and up some steps that lead into a small mudroom.
The first thing I notice are the glaring electrical lights. Next, I notice the purr of a generator. And then the smell hits me—man smell—and not a good soap/cologne/aftershave type of man smell. Something more along the lines of sweaty armpits, greasy hair, athlete’s foot, dirty butt, and teeth that haven’t seen a toothbrush in years.
I am shoved through a doorway, into the next room, and I forget about the smell. I have stepped into raider central.
Chapter 28
Raiders are everywhere, packed into the house like sardines—eating, cleaning weapons, sleeping on the filthy carpet, standing at windows with binoculars. I want to run and never look back. I want to faint. I want to pee my pants.
In a corner of the room, beside a cold, ash-filled fireplace, sit Bowen and Jonah, their hands tied behind their backs. Jonah’s face is bleeding, his blind eye swollen shut. Bowen’s eyes meet mine, and I can hear him curse clear across the room. The raiders, all greasy and burly and armed, turn and look at me and the room goes silent.
Someone starts laughing. “Is that scrawny-assed kid the person Morrison saw running down the foothills?” Other raiders laugh. “Why don’t we set him loose and use him for target practice?”
Striker puts his hot, damp palm on my shoulder and towers over me like he owns me. “I have a better idea.” He cups my chin in his hand and slowly tips my head back. I’m too scared to protest, to fight back. And I hope and pray they can’t tell that I’m female. His fingers caress my neck and I squeeze my eyes shut. “Let’s bring him back to the compound and volunteer him for neck-tearing practice.”
The raiders explode with conversation, ignoring me so completely I might as well have just died. Their eyes gloss over as they start betting food, clothing, and weapons on how long I’ll last.
One man steps up to me and puts his beefy hands around my neck. I flinch and wait for him to tear it, but all he does is measure it, and then hold his fingers up in a small circle. He frowns. “I don’t see how he’s even worth betting over. Look how tiny his neck is!”
I think I’m going to be sick, barfing up all the food I ate at Kevin’s house over the past two days—not that I wouldn’t mind getting it out of my body.
An icy hand clamps my elbow and Kevin is at my side, yanking me a little too roughly toward the corner where Jonah and Bowen sit. I glance at Kevin. He’s pale, even his lips, and a thin sheen of sweat covers his face. A couple of feet from the fireplace, Kevin shoves me. I trip and slam into Jonah. He feels like a pile of bricks.
Bowen leans forward and glares at me, his green eyes like daggers. “Of all the stupid things you’ll ever do in your life, this one will top them all! Why are you here?” he asks through gritted teeth.
“Give Jack a break.” Jonah shifts his body so my head is against a slightly softer spot on his chest, and I’m so limp with terror, I can’t help but press all my weight against him. “Are you all right?” he asks.
I nod and sniffle.
“Don’t cry!” Bowen whispers, which makes me want to cry even more. His face softens a tiny bit, and he looks right into my eyes. “Calm down, okay? We’ve got time to think of a way to get you out of here.”
I take a deep, shaky breath and nod.
“Good boy. Now, tell me why you’re here. Is Fo all right?” Fear darkens his eyes when he says Fo’s name.
It takes me a minute to compose myself enough to speak without bursting into tears. “Fo is fine. I came to warn you that you were about to intercept the raiders.” I wipe my nose on my shoulder. “I was too late. I didn’t know you’d been caught!”
Bowen hangs his head forward and groans. I want to scream. I want to fight. So many emotions are pent up inside me, I want to explode and take everyone in the house with me.
“It’s going to be okay, Jack.” Jonah’s voice is a gentle rumble barely audible above the sound of the raiders. And even though I don’t belie
ve him, I relax a bit and look around.
Aside from a dining table and eight mismatched chairs, the house is empty of furniture. A glance through the window shows why—all of the furniture has been chucked into the backyard and chopped into a pile of firewood. In the kitchen, the gray-bearded man who came when Kevin captured me is pouring cans of something into a massive cast-iron pot. As if he can feel my stare, he glances over his shoulder and our eyes lock.
“Why does he keep looking at you?” Bowen whispers. “All of the other raiders seem to have forgotten us. Except him.”
He’s right. It is as if the raiders are so confident in their invincibility, they’ve forgotten we are here. Even Kevin is standing with his shoulder against a wall, spitting on a whetstone and dragging a knife across it—my knife. He doesn’t so much as glance in our direction.
“I can’t believe he did this to us!” I whisper, trying to kill him with my glare.
“Who?” Bowen follows my gaze. “Kevin? What are you talking about?”
“Turning us over to the raiders! That’s got to be where he got all of his food.”
Bowen and Jonah share a meaningful glance. “Don’t be too hard on him,” Jonah says. “He probably wouldn’t have let them take you if he had a choice, but a raider spotted you running down the foothills. They sent him to intercept you. I don’t think he could have done anything differently.”
As if he can hear us, Kevin glances in our direction. I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to look at him. If I never see him again, it will be too soon.
“Grub!”
The lone word has the power of a vortex, sucking every single raider into the kitchen—eighteen in all. They’re each given a bowl of food—chili by the smell of it. Most of the raiders don’t bother with spoons, instead opting to scoop the chili into their mouths with their filthy fingers. Within less than three minutes, the food has been devoured and the raiders are throwing their dirty dishes into the sink and wiping their hands on their clothes or the walls. Except Kevin. He’s still standing with his shoulder against the wall, dragging the knife across the whetstone. I suppose, since he’s a raider, he needs a really sharp knife. I stare at his profile, the way his nose leads to his lips, and my blood speeds up a bit—which makes me want to slap him, and then slap myself twice as hard. He betrayed you, I tell my body. Stop liking him!
Striker lifts both his hands above his head, and the raiders fall silent. “Anyone not stationed here, let’s get back to the compound!” He struts over to us and kicks at me until, with Jonah’s help, I stand. “Go.” He nods toward the garage and I go.
The door leading into the garage is open, and the exterior garage door is still up. Wind stirs the air, gusting into the garage and erasing the man smell. I gulp clean air into my lungs, then something hits the back of my knees hard enough to send me toppling down the garage stairs. At the bottom, I smack my head on the cement floor and the world goes fuzzy. Someone laughs, but only for a second. Even in my dazed, hurting state I recognize the sound of fists contacting flesh. I can’t help but wonder if Kevin is standing up for me, so I look up.
Striker is punching someone in the face, over and over. I can’t tell who the other person is because his face is already covered with blood. “Don’t hurt the kid!” Striker yells as he punches. “He’s my contribution to the neck-tearing pool!” No one moves to stop Striker—not even the guy who’s being punched to a pulp. When the guy falls to his knees, Striker stops and wipes his bloody knuckles on the battered man’s shirt. “Let’s go.” He steps past me without a backward glance.
Cold, clammy hands ease my head up off the floor, and I am staring into eyes the color of the morning sky. Kevin’s fingers probe my skull for a brief moment, and then he lifts me to my feet, drags me to the closest four-wheeler, and takes my—his—hat off of me. He pulls a black wool beanie onto my head and down over my face, and the world goes dark. I’m hoisted up onto the back of a four-wheeler and strapped down. More people climb on, making the vehicle sink and bounce. The engine revs and we speed away.
Direction is meaningless. The belt strapping me to the four-wheeler digs into my hips as the driver of the vehicle takes turns too fast. With each turn my stomach becomes more and more unsettled. Finally, after what feels like hours, the driver slams on the brakes and the four-wheeler skids to a stop.
“Hastings is in charge of the animals. Bring the dog treat to him,” someone says.
Still blinded by the beanie, I feel the strap holding me to the four-wheeler—the only reason I stayed on it—being removed from my hips.
Hands wrap around my waist and I’m thrown over someone’s shoulder, my head the lowest point on my body. My throbbing head and motion-sick body can’t handle the shoulder pressing into my stomach. Vomit shoots out of me with enough force to make my entire body recoil, and then it gets trapped in my beanie and I can’t breathe. My entire body goes taut as I try to lurch away from the beanie, try to spit vomit out of my mouth and blow it out of my nostrils, so that I can suck air into my lungs before I suffocate.
The shoulder no longer presses into my stomach. For half a second I seem to be floating, and then something hard collides with my head, making an audible crunch. Whatever hit my head slams into my body, and I am conscious just long enough to realize I’ve been dropped.
Chapter 29
Sounds come first. Muffled voices, a barking dog, my pulse slowly throbbing in my ears. Pain comes next. My brain is trying to burst out of my skull, pushing my eyeballs against their sockets so hard they feel like they are going to pop. And then emotions—betrayal, sorrow, fear—but I can’t remember why I am feeling any of them. And finally sight.
Darkness. A square window slotted with bars shows me the silhouette of a charcoal sky. A bolt of lightning flashes outside the window, giving me a glimpse of pale rectangles covering the floor of my room—mattresses with barely enough space between them to walk. I squeeze my eyes shut and see the jagged slash of light that has been seared into my vision.
And then I wonder where I am.
Memories slam into me, memories that correspond with my emotions. Betrayal caused by Kevin. Sorrow caused by Kevin. Fear caused by Kevin … and the raiders. I have been caught.
My eyes pop open, and my hand goes to my belt, but I have no weapons. I jolt up from the mattress I’ve been sleeping on, groan, and cradle my head. The pain is so bad that I want to vomit again, but my stomach is empty. I take a deep breath and wobble across the room, my feet unstable on the mattresses, and peer out of the window.
Droplets of water speckle the glass, making the world outside a blur. Everything is dark, even the sky. Lightning flashes again, turning the sky pale gray and illuminating a large expanse of dead grass with a giant tree skeleton in the middle, enclosed on all sides by a brick wall.
Stumbling through the dark, I go to the other side of the room, to a door with a window barely bigger than my hand, and peer out. The room on the other side of the window is even darker than my room. Wrapping my hand around the doorknob, I twist, but the door is locked.
I go back to the window showing the tree and dead grass. Lightning flashes again, illuminating a window latch. I undo the latch and slide the window up, and wrap my hand around rain-wet prison bars. Pressing my face between two bars, I take a deep breath. The world smells clean and fresh. It is neither of those things.
Cool air seeps into the room and down to my feet. I wiggle my toes and a wave of panic hits me. Where are my shoes?
Another flash of lightning lights up my clothes. Kevin’s red hoodie is gone. I am wearing my vest—a really good thing—but the shirt underneath it is an oversize black T-shirt, not my regular dingy white T-shirt. Someone took my shirt off of me. My knees tremble and I fall onto my butt, bouncing on a mattress. The jolt sends a shock of pain through my head and a surge of nausea into my empty stomach.
Another rush of memory assails me—vomit being held tight against my face by a black beanie. I gasp a breath of rain-scented air.
My hands go to my clean face, to my clean hair. Someone washed my hair. Someone changed my shirt but left my sports bra on, then put my vest back on me. I pat the pockets. They’re full. Even fuller than normal. I unzip the bottom pocket—the biggest—and something crackles.
Lightning flashes again, revealing the whole room, and I scream the very second it goes back to dark. Seared into my eyes is the pattern of the lightning broken by the shape of a huge man walking toward me.
I turn to run and trip on a mattress, falling to my hands and knees. Pressure zings my head and I groan, letting my neck wobble so my head dangles between my shoulders. A big hand grabs my shoulder and pulls me up to sitting. I curl my fingers into claws and start lashing out at the shadow. My short nails scrape against metal.
“Jack, it’s me, Jonah.”
My hands drop to my sides, and I stare at the massive shadow crouched beside me. And then I throw my arms around him. I don’t think I have ever been happier to see someone in my life. He doesn’t hug me back, not with his hands restrained in front of him with metal cuffs that go from his wrists to his elbows. “How’s your head?” he asks.
I let go of him and groan. “It hurts. I can hardly stand it.”
“I think there’s something in your vest that might help with that.”
I reach into the pocket I unzipped before Jonah scared me almost to death and pull out a plastic-wrapped rectangle. I open the wrapper and the smell of oats and cinnamon hit me like a burst of optimism. My stomach jumps and flips and tries to sail away with joy. I bite the granola bar and almost forget my pounding head. At least until I chew, because every time my teeth crunch, my head throbs.
“Give me a piece,” Jonah says. I break a big chunk off and hand it to him. He holds it to his mouth and then gives it back to me.
“You don’t like granola bars?” I mumble through my half-chewed food.
“I’m not hungry,” he says.
“Suit yourself.” I swallow and put the piece I handed to him into my mouth, chew twice, and stop. There’s something wet and warm on top of it. “Wat did you put on dis,” I mumble, mouth full.