The Escape Read online

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.”

  She was rail thin from the near-starvation rations, and the blue circles under her eyes made it clear she was losing steam.

  “Let’s sleep. We can take watch for two hours each,” Barker suggested. “I’ll stand watch first while you girls rest.”

  They waited until they found a truck, stalled on the highway. Barker grunted as he opened the back of the huge metal container. It had already been pried open, the contents stolen—most likely confiscated by the army for the FEMA camps. It was bare inside.

  “You can sleep in the back here. I’ll lie on my stomach with my rifle pointed out. We’ll keep the back door slightly open so I can see. If I see anyone coming, I’ll close it, or shoot. Depending.”

  “Fuck. Would you really kill someone like that?” Clarissa asked, fear in her voice.

  “Yes. I would have killed that guard earlier if he hadn’t let us leave.”

  Jenna could see that the information didn’t sit well with Clarissa, but they were on their own now. The government, the soldiers—they were not their friends.

  “Clarissa—unless you can shoot to kill, I don’t know if you should even bother taking watch when it’s your turn,” Jenna said softly.

  “You both need sleep too,” Clarissa said. “I’ll just wake you up if I see anything, okay? So you can sleep.”

  “Fine.”

  She curled up with Clarissa, her rifle next to her, wrapping her arms around the girl so that they both had something—someone—soft to sleep next to.

  It felt like only a moment had passed before it was time for her watch, although it had been two hours. She woke with a start, unsure if Barker was waking her up because he heard something.

  “Everything’s fine,” he whispered. “Mind if I get some shut-eye?”

  Jenna carefully disentangled herself from Clarissa, who slept on. “Sure.”

  Was he going to cuddle up to her friend now, too? That would be so weird.

  Even weirder was that tinge of jealousy. She didn’t own Barker. And she certainly had never been the jealous type before.

  “I can sleep in the other corner,” Barker said, as if he could read her mind.

  Jenna winked at him and grabbed her rifle, ready for her turn to keep watch.

  Lying on her belly, with her rifle pointing out of the open bottom of the truck back, she watched the horizon silently. Moonlight glinted off the car windows, but no shadows moved.

  Here, in the truck, with Clarissa and Barker behind her, she had no fear of ghosts.

  * * *

  Barker heard footsteps walking toward him, and he sat up, grabbing his gun.

  “It’s just me,” Jenna whispered. “Clarissa’s keeping watch now.”

  “I’m so glad I found you,” he murmured, and pulled her down next to him. They lay together, wrapped in each other’s arms in the dark.

  God, having her so near to him, all he could think about was their night together, the night they spent pretending everything was going to be okay.

  The night before she betrayed him.

  Stop, that’s over. She saved your life.

  His body reacted to her nearness, to her lush sensuality, even in his sleep-fogged state.

  Jenna must have felt his erection pushing against her thigh, because she turned her head to him and kissed his lips tenderly.

  “We’ll have to be very quiet,” she whispered in his ear, nibbling on his lobe until he moaned.

  “Fuck yes,” he said, and slid on top of her, pulling her pants down around
her thighs, position himself between her legs.

  She thrust her hips up to meet him, taking his length inside of her, gasping as he entered her fully.

  Barker groaned at the sheer pleasure of it, tangling his hands in her hair, moving faster now, using his mouth to tug her shirt low enough so that he latch on to her tight nipple.

  “Oww,” Jenna gasped, when he gave her a little love bite.

  “Shh,” he smiled, and lightened up.

  “I didn’t say st—” She broke off her sentence, looking past him in horror.

  “Don’t move, asshole.” It was Clarissa, above him. Holding Jenna’s rifle, the rifle she was borrowing for the watch.

  Barker froze.

  “I knew it, you fucking rapist, get the fuck off her,” Clarissa said.

  Barker rolled off of Jenna, who was shaking her head.

  “No,” Jenna said, “no, Clarissa, it’s okay.”

  “It’s not okay, he can’t do that to you.”

  “You don’t understand, Clarissa, this is consensual. I wanted to.”

  “Consensual? Like how it was always consensual on the Tracks?” Clarissa spat. “You don’t have to do this anymore, Jenna! That part of your life, waking up to a soldier having his way with you, that’s over.”

  “I woke him up to have my way with him, damn it. Clarissa, put the gun down, you don’t even know how to use it, please,” Jenna said. “Lower the gun. Take your finger out of the trigger guard slowly.”

  But Clarissa didn’t listen. Her finger was dangerously close to the trigger, where even a light touch could mean the end of Barker’s life.

  “Just lower the gun—you can still hold it,” Barker said softly.

  “I’m through taking orders from soldiers,” Clarissa said. “I saw what you were doing to her. Is that how you like it? When she’s hurting?”

  “That was an accident,” Jenna said. “I’m fine. Stop this.”

  “I knew he was like the others, I knew from the moment we escaped Grand Central.” She looked at Barker, her gaze steely. “When you hurt me, when you pulled my hair in your fist, just like you did to Jenna. I saw you. When you invited the other soldier to fuck me too. I knew.”

  “Oh my God,” Barker breathed. “It was the only way to get you out, I thought you understood. You agreed to it.”

  “I was panicking. I didn’t realize that you weren’t acting at all. That those words would just roll off your tongue like you . . . like you’ve said them before. Like you’ve done it before.”

  “Never, I swear to God,” Barker said. Realization dawned on him. “When you ran from me, you were running for real, weren’t you?”

  “Yes,” Clarissa whispered. “And when you caught up with me, I knew I couldn’t run anymore. And since you didn’t try anything, I thought—I hoped—that it really had been all an act.”

  “But then you saw me with Jenna, just now,” Barker whispered.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m okay,” Jenna said again. “I wanted to have sex with him, really I did. I do. I . . . I like him, Clarissa. And if you shoot him, I’ll be really fucking pissed off at you.”

  Clarissa finally lowered her gun.

  Barker exhaled the breath he’d been holding. “Holy fuck.”

  * * *

  Jenna stood and gently took the rifle from Clarissa’s hands. “Thank you. And thank you for trying to help me, I appreciate it.”

  Clarissa looked at Barker warily. “You don’t understand, Jenna. He could be dangerous. I really thought he was going to rape me back at the camp, when we escaped.”

  Jenna looked at Barker. “What the hell did you do, exactly?”

  “I got us out safely, the only way I knew how,” he said. “And apparently I scared the shit out of her in the process.” He looked at Clarissa. “I’m very sorry about that. I really am. I guess I assumed you’d know it was all for show.”

  “Barker,” Jenna said softly, “Clarissa hasn’t met a single soldier she could trust. Not one man has ever threatened her and not made good on it. Why would you think she’d trust you to be the first?”

  Barker shook his head. “Are you going to shoot me? Because I’m sick of almost getting killed. I really am.”

  “She’s not going to shoot you, not if she wants to stay with us,” Jenna said resolutely. “Okay, Clarissa? I vouch for him. He’s safe. He won’t hurt you. He let me go, don’t you see? He could have taken me back to Grand Central, but he listened to reason. And then he saved you.”

  Clarissa sat down heavily. “I’m sorry, Jenna. Barker. I thought—I thought he was raping you.”

  “He wasn’t,” Jenna said. “All the sex I’ve ever had has been consensual. There are a lot of reasons to have sex. Not all of them involve love. I chose to fuck those soldiers on the Tracks. My choice. And I’m . . . I’m sorry you didn’t feel the same.”

  Barker winced when she mentioned fucking the other men at the camp. Well, fuck him, because she wasn’t some cowering virgin, afraid of his big bad cock.

  “I don’t think I can sleep now,” Barker said. “Maybe we should get back on the road. We’ll hit the marina before noon.”

  He looked at Clarissa carefully. “I can’t be part of a team if I think the team might try to kill me. The next time you point a gun at me, you better shoot.”

  Grand Central Terminal, the Tracks

  ANNIE

  After Clarissa and Barker escaped, Annie spent the night alone for the first time since the Pulse.

  It was hard to tell day from night down on the Tracks, since the only light came from burning garbage fires. But the general bustle when it came time for morning rations alerted her that the sun was up, somewhere at least.

  She knew she shouldn’t walk on her broken leg, not when it was still healing and she didn’t have a proper cast or crutches. Just a splint, and the pain that sometimes woke her in the night.

  No one checked on her. No one brought over her morning ration.

  A soldier walked by a couple of hours later and peeked his head into her subway car.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  Oh hell.

  “Annie, sir. Please forgive me for not standing, my leg is broken.”

  “Got one,” he said to someone outside her sight range, to his right. Another soldier came up and they both stepped inside, uninvited.

  “You didn’t report for morning rations,” he said.

  “My leg is broken, sir. I can’t walk.” Annie’s palms were sweaty. Would they ask how she’d been getting her rations this whole time? Did they know about Clarissa?

  “Tell us where Clarissa is.”

  They’d realized even quicker than she’d expected. “I don’t know. She was here when I fell asleep,” she lied.

  “Let’s get her to Colonel Lanche,” the other man said. “See if she’ll talk to him.”

  “Please don’t move me, sir, my leg is very unstable,” she begged. “Can he come talk to me here? I don’t know anything.”

  But the soldier ignored her and pulled her up off the plastic orange seats, a bolt of pain zapping through her as her leg was jangled.

  She screamed, but the soldier just sighed and pushed her forward, as if he could make her walk by willing it so. Instead, she fell.

  “I can’t walk on a broken leg, why don’t you get that, you animal?” she yelled, then shut her mouth abruptly. Talking back, yelling in frustration, neither was a good idea.

  “I’ll show you animal, you cunt,” the soldier growled.

  “The Colonel’s expecting her. We gotta go,” the other soldier said, putting his hand on the man’s shoulder before he could do anything. “She’s little, I’ll carry her.”

  He picked her easily off the floor, throwing her body over his shoulder in a fireman-carry.

  Her leg hurt like crazy,
but at least they weren’t making her walk. As soon as she could, she’d lie back down with her leg up. Maybe someone would be willing to find her some of the homemade alcohol the soldiers made.

  Hell, maybe one of these soldiers would have some. Anything to numb the pain.

  The women on the Tracks watched her be carried away with nothing more than mild interest. Josephine, her neighbor on the Tracks, caught her eyes and shook her head, as if to say she was sorry she couldn’t do anything.

  No one could do anything.

  And the worst part was, they were all so used to being helpless that helplessness had become second nature. Not standing up to injustice was the status quo.

  Annie tried to swallow hard, a trick she’d learned long ago that helped to keep her from crying when she didn’t want to cry. Every step the soldier took jostled her leg.

  Finally, they reached the OCC and she was set down into a chair, her leg throbbing. Colonel Lanche stood above her.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Annie,” he said, as if she hadn’t been carried there against her will. “How’s your injury?”

  “Healing, thank you. How can I help you, Colonel?” she asked quietly. Lanche fed on his own power. If she pretended to already be submissive to him, he’d have no reason to try and prove his dominance over her. Hopefully.

  “I have some bad news, Annie,” he said. “It appears your roommate Clarissa was kidnapped last night by a man named Private Barker.”

  “A soldier?” she asked, as if amazed one of their helpful soldiers could ever do anything wrong.

  “I had just discovered for myself that he was dangerous. We think he aided and abetted a domestic terrorist. I was going to have a trial for him,” the Colonel said somberly. “But he escaped, with a hostage. That hostage is Clarissa.”

  “Oh my God,” Annie said, and finally let herself cry.

  Not because she thought that Clarissa had really been taken hostage, or that she believed any of his bullshit about Barker being a bad man. She cried because her leg hurt, and she was scared that somehow, someway, they would implicate her in this whole thing.

  “I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,” Lanche said. “I promise I will do everything in my power to get Clarissa back home to safety.”