He nodded mutely.
“Good boy,” she said, and left, slamming the door behind her.
He managed to get up and walk over to the window in his wet clothes. The pain seemed to be easing the more he moved, which was unexpected. Still, he unconsciously favored his left leg, but even when he put pressure on it, it didn’t really hurt that much. Josh couldn’t wrap his mind around that, but quickly decided he didn’t care enough to keep thinking about it.
He peered through the blinds at the men outside. They seemed to be waiting for something, sitting on open tail gates and leaning against trucks, talking quietly, almost nervously, among themselves. There were open cases of weapons around them and in the backs of the trucks. A dozen or so of the men seemed to be drinking beer. Warm beer, of course. The island probably had cold beers. But not out here. Out here, it was go warm or go home.
Thirty against seven.
They can’t win. How can they win against all those men with all those guns?
Josh looked up at the sky and right into the bright sun. What time was it? It had to be almost evening by now. He had left the island with Will in the afternoon, and God knew how long he had been asleep before Karen showed up.
The door opened behind him, and a short man with a bad haircut came in.
The man wore cargo jeans and Army boots. He had a gun belt and a rifle slung over his back. Despite that, he looked innocuous, especially since he was eating an apple when he gave Josh a bored look. “You hungry?”
“Yes,” Josh said quickly. He was famished. He hadn’t realized how famished until his stomach growled.
The man took another apple from a pouch around his waist and tossed it across the room. Josh clumsily caught it. “I found a whole tree on my way here. But don’t tell the others. They don’t know.”
“Thanks,” Josh said.
“I was the one who fished you out of the lake, you know,” the man said. He grinned at Josh, showing off a big gap where he was missing a front tooth. “Literally. There was this big pole—” he mimed it for Josh’s benefit “—with a hook at the end. I guess they used it to grab nets or some shit. I was never much of a fisherman. Never cared for the water, to be perfectly honest with you.”
“Thanks. For saving my life.”
“Sure. Happy to do it.”
“Was I…dead when you pulled me up? I don’t remember anything after I fell in.”
“Nah, you were still breathing. Mostly, anyway. I pumped on your chest a few times and you spat all the lake water out. Then you lost consciousness.”
“Thanks,” Josh said again.
“No biggie. Try the apple.”
Josh bit into the fruit. It was warm, but the juices tasted good just the same. He took another bite and savored the flavor.
“Not bad, right?” the man said. “I ate a dozen of them before I got to this place. The name’s Mason, by the way.”
“Josh.”
“Yeah, I know. The bitch told me.” Mason grinned at him. “Or, ahem, excuse me, Karen, as she likes to be called. But still a royal bitch, right?”
Josh grinned back. He couldn’t disagree with that assessment.
“Exactly,” Mason said. “I would totally still hit that, don’t get me wrong.”
Josh couldn’t imagine Mason “hitting” Karen. She had to have at least five inches on him. The last person who had “hit” it when it came to Karen was Tom, who had been a hulk of a man. Compared to Tom, Mason looked like someone’s kid trying to puff up his chest to look bigger than he really was.
But Josh didn’t say any of that out loud. The guy had given him an apple. Hell, he had even fished Josh out of the lake. That counted for something.
“She’s got a real mouth on her,” Mason was saying. “But hey, politicians, right? They can talk and talk and talk.”
“I guess.”
Mason turned to go. “Anyway, you stay in here. I’ll go outside and ‘guard’—” he made air quotes with his fingers “—you.”
“Thanks,” Josh said again. “For everything.”
“Don’t mention it, kid. Hey, we’re all in the same boat, right? Just trying to survive another day.”
Josh nodded. He couldn’t have put it better himself.
Josh finished off the apple but continued to spend his time at the window, peering out, careful not to be seen, as the men continued to get ready in the front yard. It didn’t take a genius to know what they were getting ready for. They were going to attack the island, except this time there were more men and more guns, and they weren’t going to be chased away by Danny shooting at them from the Tower.
It was going to be a massacre. People would die. He just hoped Gaby wasn’t one of them.
Every now and then, he saw Karen outside, sending one of the men here and there. They seemed to listen to her. Karen was tall and imposing, sure, but there were men out there who looked rough and dangerous. There were some big ones with no necks who filled out their camo pants and hunting vests like they were born to them. But they all obeyed Karen just the same. He wondered why.
Josh had seen trucks arriving with boats. First just two, then three, then four. From his vantage point inside the kid’s room, he tracked them heading down the driveway and toward the boathouse at the back, where he lost sight of them.
He glanced up at the sky. It was still bright, but it looked like the heat was letting up. He didn’t have his watch with him, and the clock on the wall had died a while back. But if he had to guess, it was probably evening. Six or seven o’clock. That meant darkness wasn’t too far away.
So was that it, then? Was Karen’s big plan to attack the island at night? He supposed that was probably better than driving their boats right up to the beach in daylight. The last time they had tried that, Danny had shot them up. And he was just one man. Now Will was back there, and he had three more guns with him in Blaine, Maddie, and the mute guy, Bobby.
Whatever Karen’s plans, Josh hoped Gaby stayed out of the way. He didn’t want to have done all this for nothing.
Just thinking about what he had done made him feel physically sick. He wanted to heave it out, that troubling, agitating feeling deep inside him, but when he opened his mouth, only breath that still smelled like filthy lake water puffed out.
I’m sorry, Carly. I’m sorry, Will. I’m sorry, Danny.
I’m sorry, everyone…
He wasn’t sure how long he stood at the window. Eventually he got bored and hobbled around the room, heavily favoring his left leg. He kicked at a yellow toy car and it went skating across the room and under the bed. Josh eventually ended back at the car bed, sitting down and staring at a giant poster of Optimus Prime.
That was when he noticed that the slits of sunlight coming into his room had started to taper off. He glanced toward the window and saw that it was darkening fast.
He stood back up, alarmed, his natural instincts reacting to the coming darkness. He moved quickly back to the window and looked out, and he could tell the men outside were getting a little nervous, too. They began collecting their things, picking up their weapons, as if preparing for something. Their eyes darted around and their voices became muted whispers, if they talked at all. Most of them pretended they weren’t looking around. All of them were, though.
Josh heard a generator start up. It was a low, rumbling noise at first, then got louder as tall spotlights strategically placed around the property began snapping to life. The men in the yard grimaced at the sudden brightness.
He glimpsed the first one from the corner of his right eye. It came out of nowhere, sliding around the trucks, moving into one of the spotlights, then quickly out again. He thought the men were going to start shooting it. A man in a camo hunting cap actually started to lift his rifle a bit.