I grabbed his arm. “Keep going,” I said. “There’s a truck three miles south where the road ends. I’ll meet you there.”
He looked like he would object, but when I pushed him, he turned and stumbled away.
“Come on, Chase,” I whispered. Gripping the gun I ducked behind an overturned refrigerator someone had left out here years ago. Chase was back inside the building now; I could see his shadow move across the room.
Ten seconds, I told myself. I would give him ten seconds to get out, then I was going back after him.
Nine.
Eight.
Seven.
Six.
Chase sprinted through the exit, head down. Someone rounded the side of the building and began firing, and Chase dropped, rolling across the ground.
I jumped to my feet. Just before I crossed into the open, Tucker broke through the door and ran to Chase. He bent and grabbed his shirt, pulling him up.
Another shot, only this one from around the side of the building. Automatically, I ducked low, but my mouth fell open in shock when I saw Jesse firing toward Chase and Tucker.
No! I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t find my voice. Jesse was making a mistake. Tucker was with us, he’d been imprisoned.
Tucker fell to his side with a blunted cry. He gripped his thigh and drew his knee to his chest.
Jesse disappeared around the side of the building again.
Chase looked down at Tucker for one instant, but that was all it took.
“Freeze!” shouted a soldier from the opposite side of the building. “Drop your weapon!”
I raised my gun, willing my arms to stop shaking. A noise in the bushes behind me startled me, and I glanced back, but saw nothing. When I turned back around, Chase had lowered his gun, and dropped it on the ground. Two soldiers faced him now, and another emerged from where Jesse had been hiding just seconds ago. The guard on the roof aimed down his sights at both he and Tucker.
Chase raised his hands in surrender.
A soldier approached and kicked Chase’s gun across the dirt in my direction.
“Lucky I don’t kill you right now,” he spat. “On the ground. Hands behind your head. The chief’s got some questions for you.”
The chief was in Charlotte for the celebration. They meant for Chase to join the other prisoners there.
I lifted my gun again, blinking through the sweat dripping in my eyes, ignoring the whispering in the grass behind me.
I aimed.
I never saw the rope slip around my neck.
CHAPTER
20
THE boat rocked gently from side to side. The water below was silent, slick and black as oil, coating the metal siding and dripping over the rim with the sway. Overhead, the sun beat down, cold and unmerciful. I shivered.
Chase stood on the shore ten feet away. He dragged his toe in the water, jolting back when it burned the bottom of his boot with a harsh hiss. I searched the hull desperately for a paddle, but found only splintered pieces of wood.
“It’s broken,” I called, holding them up. The waves dragged me away, inch by inch. They thrashed harder, and I gripped the wooden bench I sat upon, fearful the boat would capsize.
I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t get home.
He was no more than a tiny speck now, on a shore far away, and his voice came to me as a whisper.
“I’ll find you,” he said. “And I’ll bring you back.”
A LOW groan came from my raw throat, magnifying the pounding in my head. I blinked, but was confused by the sight that greeted me: thick ropes, branches and leaves, and through them, the clear night sky.
Side to side I swayed, as if I was lying in a hammock.
Not a hammock—a net, strapped to a tree. I tried to twist, but my legs were tangled up, and I only managed to tighten the ropes around my knees. The ground below was six feet away, and as I stared at it my temple throbbed, and the patches of grass wavered in my vision.
I grasped my neck, feeling the heat from the rope that had cut off my air supply, and the spike of panic when I realized my necklace was no longer around my neck.
The memories cropped up, fuzzy at first, then sharper, driving my pulse like the beat of a drum. Tucker outside the mini-mart. The bodies within. The soldiers surrounding us. Sean—had he made it?
Chase.
My heart clenched so hard I grit my teeth so I didn’t cry out.
He’d been taken. Tucker as well, and maybe even Jesse.
I’d been taken. Though … not by the same people.
Voices came from my right, and I pretended to be unconscious as several sets of footsteps crunched over the dead leaves.
“Watch this,” said a boy excitedly. I held still but tracked them through my lashes as they approached. I recognized the speaker; I’d met him in the grove weeks ago, before we’d been brought to Endurance, where he’d told me to shut up and kicked me in the side. A dirty blanket was wrapped around his shoulders, but the mean, hungry look on his bony face was still the same.
He grabbed my ankles and spun me in a circle. I went faster and faster until my stomach heaved and I had to swallow the bile. The net dug into my arms and my chest and my face. And then I paused, and the boy hollered in glee as I began to unwind, whipping around with greater speed than before. The branch above groaned and I braced for the fall that never came.
“What’re you gonna do with her?” asked another.
“Don’t know,” the boy answered. “Maybe we’ll cut off her fingers an’ feed ’em to the dog.”
Chills raced over my skin.
“Shuddup.” This voice was farther removed from the others, and higher pitched. When I followed the sound I recognized the younger one that I’d been foolish enough to follow in the grove. He was still shirtless despite the cold, and covered in mud.
“What’s that, dog?”
The boy who’d spun me disappeared from my view and I heard the familiar thump of a solid hit, and a high whine that followed.
“Bad dog! Bad dog doesn’t get a bone!” shouted the boy. Several others laughed. While they were distracted I freed my arms completely, feeling for any break in the net. The branch above me groaned again.
I glanced at the boys, my body still. There were more of them now, maybe fifteen, standing by a large campfire, surrounding a child who crawled around on his hands and knees. Every few seconds someone kicked him. He began to bark and howl, and they clapped their hands and laughed.
I went to work on the net again, but the boys suddenly grew quiet. From behind them came the sound of scraping metal, and I squinted through the darkness to where a series of torches sticking out of the ground surrounded an old trailer home. A fat man wearing only a stained undershirt stumbled down the steps and belched loudly. Several of the boys laughed.
“Quit all that racket!” he yelled. They silenced.
He walked among them, pushing a few out of his way. “Charlie, I think I owe you somethin’, don’t I?”
The mean boy stepped forward timidly, hands clasped down low in front of him. With more dexterity than I would’ve thought possible, the man swung his fist toward Charlie’s face, but stopped an inch away. Charlie flinched, and when the man began to laugh, smiled weakly.
“Naw, I owe you better’n that. I take care of my boys, don’t I?”
“Yes, sir,” said several of them.
“What’s that?”