Chapter 2
Wendy's body and mind drifted through oblivion. She was content in the nothingness. Here, alone, she knew she was safe. She couldn’t even think of what she needed to stay safe from, and it didn’t matter. The drifting continued—had there ever been anything before this? She wondered if it would always go on, thinking it might not be too bad to linger here forever, until she heard a low, persistent noise. She tried to ignore it, but it poked at her mind like a determined insect. As her mind digested the possible implications of the noise, the black curtain of the void parted.
A soft buzzing, like a nearby swarm of bees, invaded her conscious. The curtain retreated, and the drifting abruptly stopped. A fist grabbed her insides and squeezed. Pain shot from her middle, through every nerve in her body and out into the dark. Like wet clothes, the agony weighed her down, and instead of floating, she plummeted back into life.
Her eyes fluttered once, but refused to stay open. A thousand needles poked at her from inside, causing her to gasp. The shaky breath she took did nothing to ease the agony.
Where was she?
Instead of cool, moist air, she found herself breathing in warm, dry air. Moving air. It brushed her face, her neck, and her eyelashes. Not the gusting winds of outside, but a slow, steady breeze. A breeze that only caressed her face and neck. The rest of her lay warm and protected. Under a blanket? Beneath her lay a soft surface. Not outside then. Maybe a bed.
The buzzing that had pulled her out of oblivion still hummed in her ears. The tone hung in the air like sunshine on a hot day. She wondered what it could be, then it stopped.
She tensed. What had happened?
Someone muttered a curse.
Who was with her?
Fear began to worm its way into her mind. She couldn’t think clearly, like a blanket had been placed over her thoughts. She shoved the fear back and focused on opening her eyes, but there may as well have been boulders sitting on her eyelids. The first attempt resulted in a spiral of pain that cascaded through her entire head.
A succession of dull thuds sounded, followed by a clink. The person she was with uttered more words she didn’t catch.
Was she in her bunk? Had she been injured? Had Pelton spiked her drink again?
She would not be the butt of yet another of Pelton's practical jokes. Wendy forced her eyes open.
A set of pipes ran along the length of the ceiling. Flickering, yellow light tried, but failed, to reach to the corners of the room. Above her, an electric bulb hung, now dark.
Humming filled her ears. A song.
No one in her family sang.
Wendy sent all the energy she could muster into her neck muscles. Slowly—slower than she thought humanly possible—she turned her head to the side. It could have taken a minute, or it could have been an hour. Each tiny movement shot daggers of misery through her neck and shoulders, and her skull began to throb like it might explode.
The room was small. It held the bed Wendy lay in, two chairs—one on each side of the bed—a sink and a toilet. A shelf was on the wall above her. A small window in the door opposite the bed gave her the only view outside of the room.
When her head almost rested on her ear, she saw the reason for the noises.
A woman, tall, broad and dark, wearing a long, thin pink coat, stood fussing over a basin in the corner of the small room.
Wendy didn’t recognize the woman’s silhouette.
Where was she? Who was she with? What the hell had happened? The last thing she remembered was...
Going over the rosters. Had she fallen asleep? Where was she now?
Wendy's fingers twitched for a weapon, which is when she noticed that she was tied to the bed.
The urge to panic rose, but Wendy forced it back. Pelton always said to wait to panic until you knew it was going to help.
What would happen if she spoke to this woman?
She could go back to sleep—that would be easy, but information was key to any situation—so she prepared herself, and chose her first question carefully. Keep it personal and act as innocent as possible.
The breath it took to fill her lungs caused black spots to blink behind her eyes. The rasping whisper that came from Wendy's lips surprised the woman. She jerked around, a hand flying to her chest. Their eyes met, and the woman’s dark orbs turned from fright to warmth in a heartbeat. “Goodness, child, you scared me.”
Wendy tried again. This time actual words made it out. “Who are you?”
“My name is Elle.” The woman stepped to the side of the bed and laid a hand on Wendy's forehead.
A knee jerk reaction pushed Wendy's head back from the woman's touch and deeper into the pillow.
Which hurt.
Elle removed her hand. Concern etched into the lines on her face. “Are you in pain?”
Better stick with the truth. “Yes.”
“Poor thing, they brought you in here all beat up,” Elle said.
The words and the woman's expression felt and looked sincere, but Wendy knew any of those things could be faked.
“Let me go get Doc.” Elle turned to leave, and Wendy’s hand tried to shoot out from under the blankets and grab Elle's coat. She seemed kind, but what if Doc wasn't?
The metal restraints clicked on the bed frame and kept her from reaching Elle's arm.
“No!” Wendy said. “Please. Just...my name is Wendy.” She poured on as much innocence as she could muster. “How did I get here?” Wendy couldn't tell this woman that she had no recollection of getting injured or the fight that surely accompanied the story. “I don't remember arriving.”
Elle's eyes softened again. “Dear, you were out cold when you got here. Doc said you'd been that way for three days. You're lucky you survived at all. The Skinnies almost killed you.”
Skinnies? Wendy did her best not to let the fear or dread that was starting to set in show on her face. “How long have I been here?”
“Four days.”
A week. Wendy had lost a week of her life.
She had to figure out what had happened. “Everything is a little fuzzy. Am I the only one they found?”
This time pity etched into Elle's dark face. Her hand moved to Wendy's and squeezed. “I'm sorry, you were the only survivor. But don't worry, you're safe here.”
It didn't take any acting skills for the blood to drain from Wendy's face. Her hands trembled. Pelton. Kenzie. Her dad. All gone?
How had the Skinnies gotten into the compound? The outer wall could hold back a thousand of them. She searched, but a black curtain stood between Wendy and any memory she might have of the day.
“Goodness, you're shaking like a leaf.” Elle disentangled herself from Wendy. “Let me go get Doc. He can help you.”
Wendy's mind whirled. Should she try to get out of here right now, or should she wait and see what happened?
Or should she break down and cry?
Could everyone really be gone? How could that be? They had evacuation plans, they had back-up plans to those plans.
Everyone?
No words came as Elle looked over her shoulder one last time before she slipped out the door and into the hallway.
A cold ball of ice had settled in Wendy's stomach. There was no way any group had killed everyone. Others may have gotten out, but Wendy wouldn't know for sure until she got out of here and made it to the rendezvous point.
But she didn't even know where she was. What did these people want from her?
It had been a long time since Wendy had been truly frightened. Her mouth went dry. She couldn't swallow.
Voices sounded from the hallway, and a moment later the door swung open.
Elle came first, followed by a short, stocky man with white hair and bushy eyebrows. Behind him trailed a tall thin man with wireframe glasses perched on the edge of his slender nose and a dark skinned man who immediately put Wendy on edge. The lines in the dark man's face spoke volumes of what he had seen in his life, and the large white bandage across one cheek meant that h
e was still in the thick of the fray.
“She just woke up. Be nice,” Elle said.
Doc snorted and moved past Elle. His blue eyes were firm, but not unkind. For now.
“Elle said you were in pain. Where?”
Apparently his bedside manner wasn't the most gentle.
Wendy took a shallow breath. Being tied down to a bed with serious injuries didn't give her many options. For now, she would play the victim.
“It really hurts to breathe.” Wendy put a little bit of Kenzie's whining in her voice.
Doc grunted. He pulled a stethoscope out of his white lab coat and put the pronged end in his ears while he pressed the flat disc at the other end gently into Wendy's chest. “Breathe in.”
Wendy did so, trying not to cringe. She had never known just how much ribs could hurt. She'd cracked one or two before, but nothing a good wrap for a few weeks didn't fix. This felt like someone had rolled a tree over her middle.
“Sorry about the restraints, you were thrashing around. “ Doc stopped listening and undid her arms. “Can you sit up?” He moved one hand behind her back to help.
It hurt enough to turn her stomach, but she did it.
The stethoscope moved to Wendy's shoulder blades—she realized that she was wearing a thin gown that opened in the back. “Breathe.”
It took Wendy a few seconds before she could comply without crying out. She balled her fists and took the breath and prayed that he wouldn't make her do it more than twice.
Doc's eyebrows had at some point moved together. After the second breath they went back to their separate sides, and Doc let out a grunt. “Sit back.”
Wendy did so, feeling as if she'd been running uphill all day.
Doc draped the stethoscope around his neck and looked at Wendy. “No fluid in your lungs. That's good.”
Wendy nodded.
“How's your arm?” Doc asked. “Can you flex your fingers?”
This action brought more pain—a dull roar down her arm rather than knives in her stomach—but her fingers did move.
“Good. Good.” Doc's hand went to Wendy's stomach and began to press gently but persistently. “Tell me when it really hurts.”
It all hurt, but when he got to her floating ribs, she hissed and tried to press herself away and into the bed.
Doc moved his hands and kept probing.
Wendy tried to ignore most of the pain and get a reading on the other two men. The man with the dark skin and bandage on his face looked at her as if he wanted to strangle her. With his bare hands. Multiple times. The tall, thin man kept his face neutral, almost serene. His eyes held the cold look of someone who had seen too much but had dealt with it.
The dark man was dangerous, but the other guy was the one who worried her.
Doc hit another sore spot and Wendy let out a little squeak of pain.
“Sorry,” Doc said. “I sewed a lot of things back together down there. We gave you a healer. If it all holds, you should be good as new in a few weeks.”
Healers? Wendy had heard of them. Supposedly they were super drugs that sped up the healing process of the body tenfold.
Why had they used one on her? What did they want?
Doc pulled a flashlight from his pocket and shined it in Wendy's eyes. “How's your head?”
“It hurts,” Wendy said. “Did I get hit there?”
Doc stopped with the light and frowned. “Yes, why?”
“Everything feels a little fuzzy.” Wendy was taking a chance here, but if they were after information it might give her a few days to get a plan worked out.
“I'm not surprised,” Doc said. He took a step away from the bed. “What do you remember?”
Wendy didn't miss the way the other two in the room leaned in to hear her answer. She shook her head and prayed she wasn't about to give herself away. “I remember being at the Den. I remember the attack. Skinnies were everywhere. There was a lot of fighting. A lot of bodies.” Wendy allowed her voice to break. “So many dead...” She broke off.
No one seemed to object to this recollection.
“You've been through a lot,” Doc said. “Your mind will clear with some rest.”
Another chance, but Wendy had to know where she stood. And she needed to do it fast, because she could feel oblivion pulling at her. “I...I remember being alone. Am I really the last person? Am I really the only survivor?”
That got the others’ attention. The tall, thin man stepped forward. He smiled in a fatherly way Wendy didn't quite believe. “I'm Mike. What's your name?”
“Wendy.”
“Wendy,” Mike said, “when we found you, you were alone. We hoped you could tell us if anyone else got away.”
He was probing. “I don't know. I was...I was in the tunnels.” That had to be right. Her assignment was to make sure the kids got out of the evacuation tunnel and into the woods.
“How did you survive?”
That was a good question. Wendy used her small stature, her innocent face and the most logical thing she could think of and said, “I hid.”
Mike's expression didn't change, but the other man shifted his weight.
He didn't believe her.
Wendy tried to save it. “I fought, and then I had to hide. There were too many of them.”
Elle, who had been standing to the side, let out a gasp and put hand over her mouth. “You poor thing.”
Wendy turned her best pleading face to Mike. “You didn't find anyone else?”
He shook his head. “Only you. We were supposed to make an exchange. Good food for information about the region. Do you know anything about that?”
The cold ball of ice in Wendy's stomach started to churn. These people could have been the ones to attack the compound. Information about the region? They wanted her dad's map. But why? And why bring her back here? What else did they want?
Wendy didn't have the strength to face this now, so she closed her eyes. “No, I don't know anything about that.”
Doc cleared his throat. “Get some more rest. We'll get you up and moving tomorrow. It will help.”
Panic tried to rise to the surface of Wendy's mind. She took a breath in, and then pushed it out. It hurt, but the pain kept her focused on something besides the fear that she had been captured by the people who had attacked her compound.
What did they want, and what would they do to her to get it?