The Escape (22 page)

“That’s another thing,” Jenna said quietly as they walked. “Why rename a town?”

Clarissa smiled at them. “To start over.”

Grand Central Terminal, the OCC

EVAN

Evan
had spent the night wide awake, waiting for Scar to come into his cell. Every noise, every step outside the door made adrenaline rush through him.

When would he come? What would he do?

(You know what he’ll do)

Evan spent the first part of the evening trying to push those thoughts away. To not think about it . . . about what would happen to him. But as the night went on, his imagination took over, and finally he stopped trying to not think about it, and focused on preparing for it so he could survive.

He wanted to kill Scar. To wrap his hands around his neck and choke the life out of him, pacifism be damned. Would he have his chance?

Or maybe fighting back would just get him killed. Maybe it would be better to be silent, to just take it. Maybe it would be better to pretend to be asleep through the whole thing. Just lie there like a rock so that Scar would lose interest.

Would it hurt?

Fuck yeah. It was going to hurt, if Scar actually did what he was implying he wanted to do. It would fucking hurt.

What if Scar wanted him to suck his cock? The thought made Evan gag. He wasn’t sure what would be worse, or more humiliating—to be forced to suck a dude’s cock or to get fucked in the ass. Both options rolled in his mind as equally horrifying.

The night would never be over, it would never end. His body ached, he was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. So Evan just waited.

He waited in fear, all night long. But Scar never came.

When Scar arrived in the morning, Evan was huddled against the wall, trying to protect as much of his body as he could with his ankles still chained up.

“Did you miss me last night, pretty boy?” Scar asked, and laughed.

Evan closed his eyes against the blinding light that streamed in through the open cell door and didn’t answer.

“You look disappointed,” Scar said, uncuffing his ankles and pulling him up to standing. “You were probably all ready to take it up the ass for me, too, weren’t you.”

Evan blinked and looked at the ground, refusing to look at the man.

Fuck you.

“Let’s go,” Scar said, and pushed him out of the cell.

What now? Where was he being taken?

They’d done it on purpose, Evan realized. Made him stay up all night, terrified, waiting to be raped. Maybe Scar never intended to do it in the first place. Maybe it was all just another torture tactic.

“Well, since I got you all hot and bothered last night and didn’t let you bust a nut, you’re in for a surprise,” Scar said.

Evan’s stomach flipped, and he stumbled.

“Keep going. We’ve got a girl for you.”

Scar pushed him into the OCC, where the Colonel stood next to a girl in a chair with her leg in a splint, which she had propped up on another chair. She didn’t look happy to be there.

“Well, hello there, son,” the Colonel said. “This is Annie. Annie was friends with Clarissa, so you two have something in common.”

Evan looked at her warily but didn’t say anything. Scar’s freaky talk about busting a nut was still replaying in his head.

Please, God, don’t let them make me rape this girl. I won’t do it. I can’t. They’ll have to shoot me.

“Evan, say hi to Annie,” Lanche said, as if he were introducing two ten-year-olds to each other. “Isn’t she pretty?”

Annie turned her face away when Evan looked up at her.

Lanche sighed, and out of nowhere, his open hand came down on Evan’s face, making the bruises that were already there explode with renewed pain.

“Don’t!” Annie cried.

“Shut up,” Scar said, and she did.

“Now,” Lanche said. “I hear you have blue balls after waiting all night for the visit you were promised.”

“You son of a bitch,” Evan said, not caring what happened to him.

But then Lanche kicked Annie’s splinted leg off of the chair, and she howled in pain.

Evan covered his mouth in shock. They couldn’t do that. How could they do that? Hurt the girl for something he’d said? It wasn’t fair.

“Oh, Evan, that wasn’t nice,” Lanche tsked. “Look what you made me do.”

Evan wanted to shout at him, but he kept silent, fearing that the Colonel would hurt the girl again.

“Take off your clothes, boy.” Lanche hovered his hand over Annie’s injured leg threateningly.

Evan did as he was told, stripping once again, holding his hands in front of his crotch. “Please, sir, please don’t do this.”

“Drop your hands.”

His penis still hurt from Lanche’s whipping. Evan couldn’t bring himself to expose his body any more.

Scar shoved Evan between the shoulder blades, pushing him to his knees, making him drop his hands to catch himself.

“Don’t worry about Annie. I bet Annie loves looking at your little teenage cock, don’t you, sweetie?”

Annie shook her head. “Sir. I’ve told you everything I know, please. Let me go.”

“But Evan here hasn’t. Let’s soften him up a bit, shall we?”

Evan dropped his head in shame and stared at the cement floor. He couldn’t do this. Wouldn’t. But was he prepared to die right now?

He was so exhausted. Done. If he were dead, all of this would be over.

“Just shoot me and be done with it,” Evan whispered.

The Colonel unholstered his handgun from his hip and cocked it, pressing the muzzle against Evan’s temple.

Evan closed his eyes, tried to think about his family, and about his dog. About his friends at school, back when there was a school.

“Really?” Colonel Lanche laughed. “Really, you want me to shoot you, right here, in front of Annie?”

“I won’t rape her, sir. So kill me if you have to.”

“You have a twisted mind, young man. Who said anything about raping her?” The Colonel lowered his gun and grinned.

That sick fuck.
Messing with his head again.

Evan looked up at him confusion.

“You don’t have to fuck the invalid,” Lanche said, still laughing. “You can just masturbate in front of her.”

“What is wrong with you people?” Evan yelled.

Lanche hit Annie’s leg again, and she screamed.

“This is how some prisoners need to be put into the appropriate mind frame for an interrogation,” Lanche said. “Trust me, we’ve done this before. And it’s a nice, gentle way to get you in the mood to talk. So much more fun than waterboarding. Well, for you at least.”

Evan swallowed hard. He didn’t want to do anything that would make Lanche hit the girl again.

“I have nothing to tell you,” Evan whispered.

“Stand up and play with yourself. We’ll talk more after you’ve finished.”

The humiliation, the shame, filled him. How could he do that, standing naked in front of the Colonel, that evil fuck Scar, and an innocent girl?

Evan shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Well, either you’re going to do it, or Annie will have to do it. You don’t want me to make Annie touch your willy, or do you? Your choice.”

“My choice is neither,” Evan spat.

“That’s not a choice. Annie, be a doll—help us warm up our boy over here.”

Annie looked at Evan, her eyes filled with tears. “He’s just a kid.”

“No, he’s eighteen. Totally legal. Besides, I don’t think you’ll get in any trouble with the law,” Lanche said, laughing. “Go on now.”

Annie shook her head. “Please don’t make me do this.”

“I’m not making you,” Lanche said. “Evan here is. Because he won’t do it himself.”

Evan looked around the room wildly. How could he escape? How could he get out of this horrific situation?

But he was naked, and unarmed, and the girl’s leg was broken. The door was locked, and the Colonel and Scar had guns.

Lanche started to lift Annie out of her chair, making her yelp in pain.

“Stop,” Evan pleaded. “I’ll do it. Stop hurting her.”

“Go ahead.” Lanche set her back down and stared at Evan’s naked body, not with any obvious sexual desire. Only a sadistic gleam in his eyes.

But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t even give a halfhearted attempt.

Scar came up behind him, and the hairs on the back of Evan’s neck stood up.

The blow to his head took him by surprise, and he fell.

Everything went black.

Emily and Mason, upstate New York

Emily was glad
Mason had agreed to be reasonable about letting Samuel continue to camp on their land. Well, what they considered their land.

“I’m going to give Samuel a tomato and some seeds from the garden, so he can start his own,” Emily told Mason.

Mason looked like he was about to tell her not to, but thought better of it. She could tell by the expression on his face.

“I’m coming with you,” he said finally. “Guess it couldn’t hurt to have some more crops growing.”

“That’s right.”

They headed over to Samuel’s campsite.

“Samuel?” she called. “It’s Emily and Mason.”

The man came out from behind a tree. “Sorry. Heard people coming and I hid,” he said. “Don’t like trouble if I can avoid it.”

“We have seeds for you,” she said. “Do you know how to plant a garden? You can grow your own vegetables. You’ll have to water them.”

He smiled at her, taking the tomato and the tiny cloth bags of seeds. “Thank you, neighbor. That’s really nice of you. I’ll get these bags back to you when I finish planting.”

“Thank you,” Emily smiled. It was nice to have someone who knew the value of even a little thing like scraps of cloth.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something,” he said.

Mason frowned. “What?”

“Here, you can listen for yourself.” Samuel went into his tent and pulled out a bag, and out of the bag, he pulled . . . a radio.

“Does it work?” Emily asked.

“Yup. It was still in the box from the store, and the box was in my metal filing cabinet. I was using it as a big junk drawer instead of an actual filing cabinet, you know how it goes.” He laughed. “But after the Pulse, it was the only thing that worked in my house. I’d bought it for blackouts and forgotten about it until I was scrounging everywhere for food.”

He cranked the handle fast, and a tinny, far-away-sounding voice came out of the small black radio.

Mason stared at it in shock. “You were right, Em.”

“I know. I never thought I’d hear it again, though,” she whispered. “American Victory Radio?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Samuel asked.

“That’s a story for another time. What’s it say?”

“Well, same recorded message for the past year, mainly, but the interesting thing is that every now and then I get something coming through on this other channel, here.”

He moved the dial carefully, but only static came out. “Well, it usually comes at nightfall.”

“What comes?” Mason asked.

“Some guy,” Samuel said vaguely.

“What’s he say, though? What’s the message?” Emily asked.

“Well, he says there are a bunch of them. Survivors. That they’re doing well. Eating, fishing. And he always signs off with, um . . . live and let live.”

“Live and let live,” Mason repeated. “What does that mean?”

“Doesn’t sound like the army,” Emily said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Samuel said slowly. “Maybe that’s his point. His way of saying that they’re not under government control.”

Emily gasped. “How?”

“I don’t know. But if you’d like to help me plant these seeds, we can wait here until the transmission comes through. When the sun starts to set.”

“Mason?” she turned to her husband to see if he was on board. His gaze was still plastered to the radio.

“Of course. Can we listen to the other station? The one Em knew about?” he asked.

“Sure.” Samuel turned the dial back until the familiar strains of
The Star-Spangled Banner
played from the radio. “This is it. The end of the recording. Should start over soon.”

A short burst of static was followed by the very same message Emily had heard once before.

“This is American Victory Radio,
” a man’s voice said. “
Check in daily for news from around the country as we rebuild, better and stronger than ever.

“President Powers has declined, amidst much controversy, help from United Nations officials to rebuild,
” the voice on the radio continued. “
American Victory Radio supports our new president’s decision, as America must not cede control to outside forces.

“
If you are in need of food, shelter, or medical care, there are state-sanctioned shelters in every state across the US,
” the voice continued
.

“
If you wish to take federal food rations, any food you have on hand will be taken and added to the federal food bank.

“
We at American Victory Radio do not advise, repeat do not advise, taking federal rations unless absolutely necessary for survival.

“
And please, on that note, Americans, don’t loot from your neighbors. Don’t steal. Don’t let the terrorists who destroyed us with the Pulse destroy our integrity as well.

“
We are still, after all, America.
”