Текст книги "The Release"

Автор книги: Shelbi Wescott

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

Grant sighed.

He waited a few more minutes and then sighed again.

“Are you sure?” he asked. He ran a hand over his stubble. “Why me?”

Lucy rolled her eyes.

“Fine, fine. Close the door after me. Four short knocks to get back in.”

“I know the drill.”

Lucy sat and waited for their return. It was nice to have a small moment of total aloneness. She thought back and tried to think if she had been fully alone since the first night at the school and she realized that she hadn’t. But after fifteen minutes, Lucy wondered what would be taking so long. She slid off her couch and walked over to the door and as she neared it, she realized that there were voices in the hall, hushed and whispering. Opening the door a fraction of an inch, Lucy spotted Grant and Salem standing in the small alcove outside the journalism lab. Salem’s foot was holding the door open and Grant held the keys. She could barely make out their conversation, but Lucy realized that they were oblivious to her and there was something about their body language and tone that suggested to Lucy she shouldn’t be privy to their dialogue. Yet she couldn’t turn away.

“How long will we stay here?” Salem had asked in a whisper. “I’m going crazy.”

“Is this the moment I remind you that this was your idea? To stay.”

“It can be my idea and I can still hate living like an animal in a cage.”

“A very big cage with a lot of peanut butter and jelly.”

“Are you going to make a joke of everything I say?” Salem complained, but she didn’t sound too angry with him.

Lucy’s heart quickened. And even though she knew that tone, that mischievousness, and the mechanics of Salem’s flirting, she couldn’t turn away. She wanted to interrupt them, shout at them to get back into hiding, but she knew that it would be pointless; Salem would only get more persistent and obvious.

“I’m diffusing,” was Grant’s reply and he must have smiled. Salem smiled back.

“You did a good job. It’s not that I don’t love Lucy,” Salem started and Lucy felt suddenly sick, she closed her eyes tightly, not wanting to hear what came next, but unable to shut the door and turn away, “but she can be so self-absorbed. It’ll be great if Ethan is alive…but this entire thing is not about her. We have big decisions to make.”

That attack wasn’t even true. But she just breathed deeply. It was so plotting, so transparently manipulative, an attempt to damage her character as a precaution against Grant ever liking her instead. She was not a threat to their blossoming love affair and she wanted to yell at them to just get back inside already. Lucy wasn’t even angry, she saw the gears working and knew that in many ways Salem wasn’t capable of stopping herself.

“Like what?” Grant asked and Lucy felt so sorry for him in that moment. He was so oblivious to her scheming.

Salem tucked her dark hair behind her ear and leaned in. “I like you,” she whispered. “So, now I’ve said it.”

From her vantage point, Lucy couldn’t see Grant’s face. He hadn’t moved away or said anything in return. Instead, it looked like he was frozen, waiting for her to continue, but Salem didn’t say anything else. She leaned in and kissed Grant gently on the mouth and then she coyly pulled back, biting the corner of her lip.

Lucy’s heart sank.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” Grant replied, his voice nervous. “I didn’t know…you felt that way.”

“Confining spaces,” Salem giggled.

Grant cleared his throat. “Or maybe you just realized I might be one of only a few teenage boys left in the world.”

Salem found the comment funny and she hit Grant playfully on the arm. “It’s not like that.”

“It could be a little like that.”

“Then you got me. You’re the last one left and I want you.”

Lucy grimaced at Salem’s boldness. She wished and hoped Grant could see through the shtick.

“You’re fun,” Grant mumbled. But Lucy wasn’t convinced that was a ringing-endorsement for dating. “I’m surprised…and wow, I guess. Just wow, Salem. Wow.”

She had heard enough. As she watched Salem position herself to go in for another kiss, she shut the door again without a sound and retreated backward.

It wasn’t too many minutes longer until they both entered, knocking to announce their impending arrival. Lucy searched them for sheepishness or embarrassment, but if they were feeling awkward about their interactions, they gave no indication. They didn’t act particularly starry-eyed either and if Lucy hadn’t spied on them, she would’ve never guessed that they had shared a kiss in the doorway. But she had seen them and now she wondered what happened next. Would they attempt a clandestine relationship right under her nose?

Salem hugged herself as she walked into the room and walked past Lucy to the corner, where she pulled up a blanket and fluffed it into a pillow. Grant closed the door shut and stood next to it.

“It’s raining outside,” he said. “You can hear it in the other room and it’s dripping through the wood over the skylight.”

Salem sniffed and looked to Lucy. “I’m sorry. For storming off. Sometimes it’s just too much…”

“We all feel that way,” Grant said and he smiled at them both. Lucy looked down to the ground.

“Maybe it’s asking too much,” Lucy started, “but maybe we shouldn’t be mad at each other for things that we have control over.” She had a speech planned in her head, a series of plans and procedures—places to go if they needed a break from their claustrophobic living situation, code words for expressing a desire for someone else to be quiet. But as she opened her mouth to continue, the long dormant intercom switched on with its telltale two-toned ding ding.

Lucy scrambled off the couch and Salem jumped up from the floor and Grant swung the door to the hallway open wide as they poured outward toward the speakers.

“Well, well, well,” Spencer’s raspy voice called outward. “It has come to my attention that a certain Lucy Larkspur King is a stowaway in my building.”

At the mention of her name, Lucy jumped and took a gulp of air. She reached out and grabbed Salem’s arm, her eyes wide.

“Naughty. Naughty,” Spencer continued, the slow drawl of his voice apparent as he clipped the end syllables.

None of them dared to speak. They held their collective breaths.

“If it were up to me, I’d shoot you on site for your insolence, and for wasting my precious air and resources. But it appears,” he paused, cleared in throat with a hack, “someone has purchased your freedom. And who am I to turn that offer down?”

Lucy finally let out a breath. Ethan. It was Ethan. The use of her middle name was a giveaway, a hint, because only her family and Salem knew of her flowery moniker. Her older brother had arrived at last. His text was not an accident and not irrelevant. She turned and hugged Salem and then turned to hug Grant, uncaring about any potential jealousies or complications.

“Don’t think I didn’t know about you,” Spencer spat. “And your little friends—” he trailed off. “You have five minutes, Lu-cy.” The breathy quality of her name on his tongue made her shiver. “And your friends, if they’re alive and still here, should come forward too. I offer up a onetime cease-fire and guarantee of safe passage. After that, should you choose to trespass…I will hunt you down like the dogs you are.”

Then they heard the rumble of the gates, rising up into the ceiling, beckoning them.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Salem shook her head. “What if it’s a trap?”

Grant walked back up to the hideout and opened the door and he ducked inside, leaving Salem and Lucy alone in the hallway.

“He knew my name, so it has to be Ethan…but you’re right. I wouldn’t put anything past him.” She and Salem locked eyes. And they both recognized each other’s fear and worry.

Salem nodded. “We have to go, I guess. He’s right. He knows we’re here now. Staying isn’t safe. It would only be a matter of time before he sniffed us out.”

“Maybe we don’t go. Maybe we find another way out and meet up with Ethan on the outside. My brother’s smart. He’d find us.”

Grant came back out into the hallway. He was carrying Lucy’s black backpack and two other small bags, filled with supplies. In many ways the call to the front office made Grant look relieved. He handed Lucy her bag and she swung it over her shoulder. They took a moment to regard each other all disheveled and tired. Lucy was still barefoot. They each wore some article of clothing pilfered from a student’s locker and they were worse for wear and drained, but still they mustered up the courage to face the man they had been hiding from for nearly a week.

“We’re going,” Lucy stated. She took a deep breath. “Is it weird that I might miss our little room?”

“Nah,” Salem smiled. “I think I might miss it too.”

Their five minutes were ticking down and they were conscious that they were running out of time.

“Where’s the gun?” Lucy thought to ask.

Grant patted the waistband of his jeans.

“Good. Let’s go.”

Lucy walked with purpose down the English hall and around the corner. The bottoms of her feet slapped against the floor. Grant and Salem kept pace with her in a straight line, and they were silent as they moved forward.

Spencer was waiting for them. He had changed out of his trademark suit coats, and even from afar Lucy could see that he had replaced his button-shirt with an oversized athletic pullover. He had a gun trained on them. It was a long-barreled rifle and he kept the butt of it flush against his shoulder.

“Hands up!” Spencer called to them. In unison, they each raised their hands in the air.

He didn’t move as they reached him. They stood regarding each other with his narrowed eyes never leaving Lucy and barely acknowledging Grant and Salem.

“So. My trespassers,” Spencer finally said after a beat. “A little predicament…what to do with the two of you who have not been mentioned by name or desired.”

Lucy cringed. If her friend’s jealousies over Ethan’s survival were already fragile, Spencer’s blatant announcement that they had no one out there fighting for them was too painful a reminder. Her heart pounded. She shot a glance over to Grant’s waistband, hoping that his raised hands did not expose their one and only weapon against Spencer.

“We’re not leaving Lucy,” Salem called out. She sounded strong and brave. Lucy felt a swell of admiration for her friend. Whenever her relationship with Salem became tenuous, she did have a way of making it all better with a single declaration of friendship and support.

Spencer shook his head, barely, and cocked the rifle. “You will do exactly as I say.”

He nodded over to the front doors.

“The doors are unlocked. Go. You two…the non-Lucys…go.”

Grant hesitated. His bag slipped from his shoulder a bit and he moved to grab it. Spencer pivoted the rifle straight at him.

“Hands back up or I shoot! I have a huge cement pool down the hall filled with the bodies of your former friends, enemies and teachers. I will not hesitate to add one more to the pile.”

Lucy shuddered. So, her dream had been true.

“Toss your backpack to me.”

She balked at his request. “I’m not doing anything you say unless you let my friends stay.”

“Slide it over.” He repeated. “I am not negotiating.”

“I want my friends—”

Spencer raised the rifle and fired a warning shot into the ceiling. Tiny bits of sheetrock and plaster fell to the floor. Then he fired again, this time aiming at the window that led to the athletic office. The window burst and glass shot out in every direction. Tiny shards made their way to where Lucy was standing and she looked at her bare feet.

She shed the backpack and put it on the floor, then gave it a gentle toss in his direction, it hit the ground and the sound of it echoed back down the hall.

“Lucy,” Spencer said her name again, quietly drawing out the syllables. “Tell your friends to go.”

Lucy turned to Grant and Salem and when she registered the fear in their faces, she started to cry.

“Where’s my brother? I want to see Ethan!”

She recognized the glimmer of confusion as Spencer tried to process her request. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know your brother.”

“You said that someone bought my freedom. That I’m free to go! Right? Right?” She began to feel panicky and weak and her head was spinning. It had been a trap; Ethan was not here, they were not going to walk out of the school and into the daylight, laughing together, leaving the small room and a gun-wielding principal behind them.

Spencer fired the rifle a third time and this time he shot at a display case a mere foot away from where Salem was standing. Salem shrieked and covered her ears and shut her eyes tight as the glass fell around pennants and trophies from athletes and teams from years gone by. When the sound from the shot died away, Salem looked up Lucy, her eyes wide.

Grant took a breath. “I can’t.” He nodded toward the gun. “He’ll kill me before I can reach it.”

“We’ll go,” Salem said loudly. Then she turned to Lucy, her eyes wet. “We’re going.”

“No!” Lucy cried out. “No!” She turned to Spencer, raising her hands out toward him in supplication. “There has to be another way!”

Spencer took two long strides forward. “There is no other way,” he replied. “They have ten seconds or you can pick which one I shoot first.”

Letting out a gulping sob, Lucy spun back to her friends. “Find Ethan!” she cried out. “Stay safe and hidden. And don’t—”

“Five…four…”

Grant and Salem began to run. When they reached the front doors, they grabbed the metal door handle and pushed the door swung open, a gust of spring air blew into the foyer of the school. It was the first breath of fresh air, full of moisture and wet earth, that they had experienced in days. Grant pushed Salem forward over the threshold and then turned to look back at Lucy.

“Three…two…”

Grant opened his mouth to say something, but then watched as Spencer moved the gun on him. And before he could even wave goodbye, Grant was out the door. The heavy door closed quickly with a bang. And Lucy was alone.

Spencer reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of handcuffs. He tossed them over to Lucy and nodded. “Put one end around your wrist.”

“Why?” Lucy asked, her voice shaking. “My friends are gone. When do I get to leave too? I thought you said—”

He aimed the gun at her and took a step forward. Lucy trembled. “Handcuffs. One wrist.”

Breathless, Lucy obeyed. The unattached end of the handcuff dangled at her side. Then Spencer lowered the gun, his finger dropping off the trigger. He marched over to her and wrapped his hand around her upper-arm.

He tugged her over with him to the door, where he inserted a key into a plastic covered security box, lifted the lid, and then entered a seven-digit code. Metal bars and locks slid back into place over the front doors of the school; the high-tech automated system, which cost taxpayers millions of dollars, had not gone to protect the students from any real threat. The locks and bars and bulletproof glass had not kept the virus out. Instead all the bells and whistles continued to facilitate the supreme rule of a maniacal madman.

“Tell me what’s going on. Why are you keeping me?” Lucy asked as Spencer began pulling her toward the office. Terror rose in her throat like bile and she wondered if she screamed if he would shoot her or if he would ignore her. He pushed her to the floor and then hooked the other end of the handcuffs to the underbelly of a table in the middle of the room. Gravity pulled her hand and arm toward the floor, and her wrist went limp against the metal.

“I don’t owe you an explanation.”

Lucy yanked her hand and rattled the handcuff. “You said. You said! Why am I here? Let me go!”

Spencer placed the rifle flat on a desk in the corner. He walked over to a filing cabinet and poured himself a drink out of a tall clear bottle with a brown label. Tipping his head back, he downed the drink in one gulp.

“You…Lucy…are a commodity to me.” Raising his drink in a toast, he took another sip and then took a step forward. “I will not let you go.”

“A commodity. What the hell does that mean?” Lucy adjusted her body. She slumped against the table leg. He turned his back and walked back over to the cabinet; he took a new glass and poured another, then he walked it over to her and tried to hand it to her, but Lucy turned her head away.

“Drink,” he instructed.

“I don’t want to drink anything you give me.” Lucy pushed the drink away. But he shoved the glass closer to her face and leaned down, his rancid breath spilling over her face. She inhaled deeply and then held her breath.

“Drink,” he said again, slower, his mouth leaning closer.

Taking the glass in her hand, Lucy noticed the liquid sloshing against the sides, dangerously close to spilling over. She shook her head and tried to set the drink down on the floor, but Spencer pushed her hand to her face. Then he pinched her cheeks and took the glass back and poured the burning alcohol into her mouth. She tried to let as much dribble down her chin and to her shirt as she could before she spit the rest on the floor. It burned her tongue.

“You wasted it, you little bitch,” he seethed. “Do you know what this cost me? This,” he gestured to the bottle, “was two Tasers. And twenty bottled waters.”

For a second, Lucy couldn’t process what that meant. Then she turned her head sharply to him, her mouth dropping open. “You’re trading the school’s supplies…for alcohol?”

Spencer laughed, a grotesque, throaty laugh, his unbrushed teeth bared. “And weapons. And pills. And other food. But that doesn’t have much to do with you, now does it?”

“It does when you think you can trade me!” Lucy said, practically screaming.

He dropped to her level and grabbed her chin. “The moment you chose to stay in my school, you became my property. It’s just my luck that someone seems to think you’re worth trading for.”

“Who?” Lucy asked while Spencer’s hand still gripped her. “If it’s not my brother, then who?”

“Doesn’t matter to you.” He let her go violently and Lucy’s head snapped backward and hit against the metal edge of the table. Her head burned and a shooting pain traveled down into her neck. She took her free hand to rub the spot and realized that the back of her head was wet and when she looked down at her fingers, they were smeared with blood.

Spencer frowned. “Oopsie,” he glowered, “accidental damage to the goods. Such a shame. I hope it doesn’t hurt your value.”

“Who are you?” Lucy asked. She was too shocked and scared to cry, but her whole body trembled.

“I am a man. A fighter.”

“An opportunist,” Lucy spat.

“You see,” he smiled, “yes. And you say it like it’s a bad thing. But I’m alive. You and me…we aren’t supposed to be alive. And yet, here we are. I realized…quickly…all those people.” He stopped to drink and then he walked back over to Lucy, squatted down, his eyes were bright and wild. “All those people…they wanted into our building. For food and water and shelter. The limited survivors need me.”

“You made yourself important.”

“I am important. I am needed.”

“So you abuse that need?” Lucy’s head felt thick and achy. “What about your own family?”

Spencer broke into a sinister smile. He rose and waltzed over to his office. Lucy could only see only a corner of the room. He leaned over and swiped a picture off of his desk, walked back out, and tossed it to her. In a fancy metal frame, was a wide-smiled and white-toothed brunette, the ocean in the background, wind whipping her hair into her face.

“Fake. My girlfriend, I’d say.” He shook his head and laughed. “Some picture off the Internet. But teachers are kinder to you when you have a family. Paint yourself as a family man; tell people how eager you are to start a family. I was always this close to marrying her, settling down. Do you know how eager all the young female teachers are when they think they get to offer up some dating advice for their boss?”

“You’re a sociopath.”

“Opportunistic.”

“You lied about having a family?”

Lucy noticed the flash, however brief and fleeting, of self-awareness passing over Spencer. She wished he would drop the act, but the drinking wasn’t helping anything.

“Please.” He drank. Then added, “I’d say I’m lucky.” He stared off at one of the office walls, his eyes glazing over. “Who did I have to mourn?” And even though it was a fact that was supposed to have spared him pain, Lucy watched as Spencer closed his eyes and took a shaky breath.

“The world,” Lucy answered in a whisper. “We have the entire world to mourn.”

This did not even garner a response. Spencer went and drank another tumbler—his back to her. Then he slammed the empty glass down and grabbed his rifle, taking an exaggerated step over Lucy’s legs, and walking five feet away to a small table. Sitting on top was the head of the school’s mascot, Spartan Joe. Without an owner, the head took on a freaky vacant quality. Grabbing Joe by his foamy crown, Spencer walked out of office. Lucy could see from her vantage point the front windows, still taped over with black construction paper.

First, Spencer loosened some tape around the edges and then he kicked over a black crate to the window. He placed the mascot head on top of the crate, its empty eyes staring outward. Then he let the black paper fall around it, creating an obscured view back into the school. Onlookers from the outside would just see a giant head in front of a black background. Then Spencer yanked up on his long sleeved shirt and checked a wristwatch.

After several minutes, Lucy heard a knock on the front door. Four short knocks right in a row, then knock followed by a beat and two more knocks. Spencer raised his gun and walked forward. He unlocked the plastic covering the security panel and punched in his code again. The large mechanical bolts slid open; then Spencer hit a second key code and one of the front doors starting to swing forward automatically.

Lucy hoped that Salem and Grant would be the ones to enter the school. That somehow in that short amount of time they would have planned a rescue.

Instead, a single body ducked through the doorframe.

It was a tall, slender young woman with raven hair. A large single stripe of faded pink framed her face. Spencer pointed his gun at her as she entered with one hand and typed in a key code that slid the metal back over the doors.

The woman had a gun of her own in a holster around her hips; her hand hovered over it like she was about to engage in a duel. She wore black lace-up combat boots over black leggings and a white long sleeve t-shirt—a clear mixture of every video-game heroine Lucy had ever seen. If the new visitor was trying to adhere to some cliché of a badass female, she was succeeding in the category of costuming. She held a bulging messenger bag across her body and her eyes shifted as she watched Spencer’s every move.

“Afternoon,” Spencer mumbled to his guest, he lowered his gun and then walked over and kicked the Spartan head away from the door, the paper flapping back into place.

The new visitor did not return his greeting. She looked at him with nothing but suspicion and potential loathing, her big bright eyes moving quickly from Spencer to the office and ultimately to Lucy.

“You got the girl,” she said. Her voice was smooth and deep.

“Just like you asked. I can see her appeal,” Spencer grumbled as if Lucy couldn’t hear.

The woman slid the messenger bag off and strode with wide, far-reaching, steps into the office, where she tossed it on to the desk where Lucy was handcuffed. Without even a single word to Lucy, she began to pull out various items from the bag: A bottle of whiskey, bottles of pills, a stack of magazines, a box of bullets, and other sundry items.

“Everything on your list, plus some extras thrown in for good measure,” she said as Spencer examined everything piece by piece.

“And what do you want?” Spencer asked.

She snapped her head at him, annoyed. “The girl. And two water bottles for the road. That’s all. Per our discussions and negotiations. That was the deal.”

Lucy saw the girl’s hand itch above her gun, then she slid her hands to her hips, standing there looking at him squarely, her mouth drawn into a thin, tight, frown.

“We didn’t have a deal,” Spencer said. He picked up the whiskey bottle and palmed it, then he tossed it up and down, the brown liquid splashing around inside. “We were in talks. And now that Lucy Larkspur King…that was the name you gave me, right? Well, now that she’s here, in the flesh, in my office, I feel like perhaps she’s more valuable than all of this.”

The woman’s eyes flashed with unmistakable rage. She let out a small huff and then gracefully recovered. Taking a breath, she then gave Spencer a tight-lipped smile. “I see. You want to play a game.” She said it as a statement. And then she nodded, as if giving Spencer credit for his using Lucy as a pawn. “What could you possibly want? Try me.”

Spencer narrowed his eyes. “No, my creativity is limited. I want this to be challenging. I want to be surprised.”

The girl in the black leggings laughed. “I could pull out my gun and shoot you before you even knew I had moved a muscle,” she said with a smile. “Let’s remember something and be real clear about it. I’d much rather kill you and get on with my life.”

“Is that a threat?”

The girl dropped her voice down to a whisper. “A threat? Oh no, Spencer…it’s a promise.”

She even spoke in clichés and sound bites. Lucy watched wide-eyed.

Spencer was quick and he swung the rifle he had been holding a few minutes before off the table and into his hands—but the girl didn’t move and she didn’t reach for her gun, didn’t aim it at his head, and didn’t do anything. Instead, she took her right hand and lowered the gun to the floor.

“You want to keep her?” She asked.

“No. But you want her and that makes her worth more than my usual assortment of loot.”

“Your lack of imagination is hindering my ability to fully comprehend what you think I can get for you…”

He took a step forward, his breath, hot and reeking of alcohol. Lucy watched as he extended his hand and swiftly tucked a long lock of the girl’s hair behind her ear.

“I do have an active imagination after all,” he whispered. “I can think of a few things.”

The woman took a deep breath, but she remained frozen and unfazed by his closeness. “Don’t touch me ever again,” she whispered in a soothing voice. Then she leaned in, her lips a half an inch away from Spencer’s scruffy cheek. “Or I will blow your brains out.” She made the sound of a gun exploding.

Lucy rattled her handcuff against the table, annoyed and frustrated from being ignored, bartered, and a witness to their sick tête-à-tête.

“It doesn’t matter what you give this man because I’m not for sale,” Lucy interjected, but she sounded insecure and frightened. The woman turned her gaze downward and narrowed her eyes as if she was noticing this human for the first time. She looked disgusted at Lucy’s timidity.

“Do me a favor,” the woman said, turning her attention back to Spencer. “Give me another day. Same time. I think I have something that might interest you.”

She then bent down and examined Lucy, pulling on the handcuffs, patting her down for weapons. When she saw the gash on Lucy’s head, she shot Spencer a frustrated look.

“I need her compliant. And in good condition. Handcuffs, good, fine, whatever. Violence, bad. Are we clear?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Spencer pointed to the door. “Tomorrow. And I better not be disappointed.”

“That’s entirely up to you,” she replied. “But what I’m prepared to offer you is so rare it has no value. It might be the single most important item left on our Godforsaken earth. And you’ll take it. Eagerly. Then I get the girl in excellent condition. I mean…for the love Spencer…fix her a decent breakfast, share your deodorant.” Then she turned to Lucy, looked her up and down one last time. “Tomorrow.” She started to walk away.

Spencer followed her back out to the doors, his rifle raised again. He started to punch in the code to slide the metal locks apart.

“Who are you?” Lucy cried out after the stranger, her voice full of anguish and fear.

The girl spun. She paused as if debating whether or not she would answer. “I’m Darla,” she called and then disappeared back outside.