His gramma had been frickin’ right all along.
At first, no one moved. The scene seemed frozen in time. Sara, bending down for the gun. Almost twenty feral people, watching her with a mixture of curiosity and hostility.
Then one of them said, “Get her.”
That broke the spell. Sara snatched up the gun and ran.
The adrenalin spiking through Sara’s system made her leg injury all but disappear. She moved fast and fleet-footed, dodging around trees, hurdling thicket, zig-zagging sharply to throw her attackers off.
I didn’t come this far to die now. Not now.
The sounds of pursuit clung to Sara’s heels. It was as if the forest had come alive around her, foliage shaking, blurry figures weaving in and out peripherally, whoops and hollers used to tighten the circle around her, to cinch the noose.
Sara had no idea where she was going, no idea how she was going to get away. Eventually she would tire, or hit the island’s edge. There were too many of them, and they were coordinating their hunt. She was tired and hurt and had never fired a gun before. This was futile.
But then, for the first time in a really long time, Sara got lucky.
Ahead, tied to a tree trunk, was an orange ribbon.
Orange ribbons led to the prison.
A tiny beacon of hope flashed in Sara’s mind. Maybe she wasn’t going to die now after all. She poured on the speed, finding a second ribbon, and a third, distancing herself from her pursuers now that she had a goal.
Then the trees parted, the sun shining on the giant gray mounds of the bone yard. Sara ran into it, the piles taller than she was, darting left, then right, then right again, catching a glimpse of the prison and heading toward it in a roundabout, serpentine way.
There, on the side of the prison, tied to poles…
Cindy. Tyrone. Tom.
Sara didn’t think she had any reserves left, but the sight of her kids prompted a burst of speed and she sprinted toward them like she was running on air.
As Tyrone watched Georgia work the knife, he remembered a conversation he had with his moms, who told him if he kept up his gangbanging he was going to be dead in an alley with two bullets in him by the time he was eighteen.
Tyrone hadn’t believed her, but he had recognized the possibility of it happening.
Neither he nor his moms could have predicted he was going to be done in by a crazy white chick on some cannibal island next to a secret Civil War prison.
“Can I burn her?” Georgia asked the Chinese man. She was looking at Cindy when she said it.
“Yes,” he replied.
Georgia, hands red with poor Tom’s blood, reached into a pouch on her tool belt. Lester and Martin also had tool belts, with various items dangling from them. Tyrone figured they weren’t going to use them to build anything.
Georgia removed a plastic baggie, filled with powder.
“I made this myself, back at the Center. I’ve been itching to try it.”
With her other hand, Georgia pulled a cylinder from her belt, the size of a soda bottle. It said PROPANE and a torch was fitted onto the top.
Cindy’s eyes got wide. Tyrone knew she was afraid of fire. Knew there wasn’t anything worse for her.
He couldn’t let her go out like that.
Tyrone screamed, loud as he could, kicking out at Georgia even though she was out of reach. He pulled against the dog collar until his vision went red, thrashing and moaning, knowing he wasn’t going to stop her.
But this display wasn’t for Georgia.
“The boy seems to want to go first,” Kong said. “Give him his wish.”
Tyrone relaxed. Mission accomplished. He could feel Cindy’s eyes on him, but he didn’t trust that he could look at her without completely breaking down.
Then he realized, fuck it.
Thug life was all about frontin’, and representin’, and bein’ some bullshit stereotype just like Martin said. Tyrone wasn’t no thug no more. He was just a man. Men didn’t need to be strong 24/7. Not in front of the woman they loved.
So as Georgia approached him with the torch, he dropped his guard and let Cindy look at him as he really was. And in her eyes—the last thing he was ever going to see before he burned to death—Tyrone Morrow found acceptance.
Then a gunshot broke the silence, like the handclap of an angry god.
“Back the fuck away, Georgia.”
Tyrone turned.
Sara.
Kong wasn’t easily impressed, but the chubby’s girl’s zeal in mutilating the boy was something he’d never seen before. He hadn’t thought women could be so delightfully cruel. If he could use the serum to create an army of likeminded women, the possibilities were limitless.
Then some other woman, obviously far less in control, ran up to the children and fired a gun into the air.
What an interesting turn of events.
Chow reached into his jacket for his gun, but Kong held up a finger, stopping him. This new woman was obviously not a threat. She was haggard and bleeding and out of breath, and she held the gun like it was a cobra she wished to throw away. Kong wanted to see how this played out. Wanted to see how the chubby girl reacted to this new threat.
The chubby girl fulfilled Kong’s expectations. She lunged at the woman.
The woman twisted to the side and kicked her in the face, knocking her onto the ground.
A pity. All that sadistic rage, but no skill.
“I apologize for this,” Dr. Plincer said. “I’ll have Lester and Martin take care of it.”
Plincer nodded at his men. They advanced on the woman.
Fascinating.
The woman was armed. The men only had hand weapons. But they approached her without fear.
Kong was liking this serum more and more.
Rather than try to shoot them like she should have, the woman instead ducked around the boy’s pole. There was another shot, and then the boy’s hands were free.
Stupid. She should have taken care of the threat first, then released her compatriots. This woman was no warrior. She was an idiot.
The men closed the gap on her, and she wasted even more time freeing the girl by firing at her bonds.
Then a handful of dirty people rushed out of the woods. These must have been the mistakes the doctor had mentioned. Wild people, for whom the procedure didn’t go as planned. They threw themselves at Lester and Martin, snarling and slobbering and brandishing…was that silverwear?
What these dirty people lacked in technique, they apparently made up for in savagery. Kong became concerned.
Lester and Martin had much better skills than the pudgy girl. They dispatched several of those dirty people with precise, almost eloquent, strokes of their knives.
But when a dozen more dirty people came screaming into the area, Lester and Martin fled. So did Dr. Plincer.
Chow had his gun out, shooting two of the dirty people who ran at him. They fell, but were quickly followed by five more.
That’s when Kong’s concern became fear.
He ran, briefcase in hand, back the way he’d come. Chow fired twice more, and it sounded like the woman was shooting as well.
Then a man cried out, “Jiu ming!” Save me.
The bodyguard assigned to protect Kong was calling for help, but Kong found no amusement in the irony, and he certainly didn’t offer assistance of any kind. Kong didn’t even turn around to see what had happened. He was too intent on running for the helicopter.
Kong rounded the corner and saw the chopper in the distance. That idiot, Lau, was probably napping. He’d better wake up immediately and start the engine, because Kong could sense he had several of those dirty people chasing him. He chanced a look.