Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)(92)

I need to get the hell out of here.

“Go pray,” Caleb says, and pushes me away. “Thirty minutes to lights out.”

I don’t pray. I just sit there, pretending, watching the others. They seem to actually be doing it. The RV crew makes sure they do, I realize; they walk up and down the aisle, and they’re checking. I stop pretending and actually pray when Caleb pays attention to me. Dear God, please help Sam. Please make sure he’s okay. Please help us get out of here and keep Mom and Lanny safe. Please get rid of these people.

The time passes pretty fast. The last five minutes men start undressing, stripping down to their underwear. It’s all the same, white boxers. I take off my coat and fold it up on the trunk, and pretend to be untying my shoes. I take long enough that the lights go off, and I’ve still got my pants and shirt on. I get in bed and pull up the covers to my neck. I have to stay still and wait until I think most everybody is asleep. When a chorus of snoring starts, it’s time to go.

But I don’t go.

I lie there, afraid that I’m going to get caught. This seems way too easy; Father Tom had people watching me at dinner. And he’d probably have someone watching me here too. I’m afraid that if I try to sneak out, Sam might be punished even more. But I have to do something. Lying here won’t help.

Aria wants to meet me by the falls. Sister Harmony told me not to go there. I don’t know which of them I should believe. One of them has to be lying. I want to believe Aria; she’s pretty and my age, and she seems to like me. Sister Harmony just seems angry.

I finally make a decision. I slip out of my bed and move quietly to the door. No guards posted, everybody’s in bunks now, even Caleb; I can hear him snoring when I tiptoe past him. He’s closest to the exit. I’m afraid the hinges will creak, but they don’t. The door opens silently, and I slip out.

Outside. I feel my heart pounding, and I stop once I get the door shut and lean against the wall to breathe for a minute. I stay in the shadows. I pause to look around. The camp is loud with croaking frogs, and I can hear the snoring from the building out here too. There’s not very much moonlight. Clouds have moved in, thick masses of darkness showing thin silver at the edges. Something smells a little bad, like garbage, maybe the septic tanks.

I freeze and back up against the wall of the Quarters as I hear footsteps. There are Assembly men patrolling the camp at night, and one’s walking past me. I hold my breath and flatten myself back in the shadows. He’s going to see me. But he doesn’t even look toward the building. He seems tired. He yawns, scratches his head, cracks his neck, and moves on toward the other house, the one where the women sleep. The Garden.

I can also see, across the open space in the middle, the concrete building where they took Sam. I walked by it a few times earlier, trying to figure out where he was, and finally saw a metal shed, kind of like a box, at the end of the building. It’s shut with a padlock, the combination kind, not the key kind. I don’t know how to pick locks, and at least before there was a guard sitting right beside that door. Maybe not at night? I don’t know. But I’m pretty sure Father Tom would expect me to go there.

Sister Harmony’s probably telling me the truth. Aria’s probably lying. I shouldn’t have been able to get out of the Quarters that easily. The guard should have seen me.

They want me to go to Aria. So should I go? Maybe if I do, I can convince her to help me instead of Father Tom. Maybe I can find out things from her while she’s trying to make me do what she wants. Maybe I can even make her do what I want.

I don’t like how that makes me feel, but I need to get Sam and get out. That’s all that matters right now.

A path on the other side of the concrete building curves around by the big, wire-topped steel fence. It’s dark over on that side. I can distantly hear the waterfall; it’s the only sound out here, except the snoring and frogs. It’s weird how quiet it is.

I don’t have any way of telling how late it is; maybe these people can tell time from where the moon is in the sky, but I can’t. But since the roaming guard has walked on, now’s a good chance to leave the shadows and get moving. Maybe it wouldn’t matter. Probably not. If what I think is true, I can stroll right across the middle of the compound and nobody will stop me. For a second I think about testing that.

But if I’m wrong, if I really am sneaking around and get caught . . . Sam gets hurt. So I stick to being sneaky.

It takes a while; I end up hiding in the small stand of trees next to a big cabin that must belong to Father Tom; it’s way nicer than any of the other places here, and it still has lights on inside. Curfew’s for everybody else. Not for him.

My mom would go in there and make him let her and Sam go. For a second I imagine how that would feel, seeing him afraid. Making him do what I tell him. Feels really good in fantasy, but I feel kind of dirty when I stop thinking about it. I know I can’t make him do anything. Not when he’s got all the guns and power and people.

I work my way around to the back of the cabin and to the shadows of the trees.

Then I’m curving on the path. It’s not as easy as I thought; the gravel’s sharp and tricky, and in places it slopes down at a steep angle. I don’t fall, but it’d be real easy. The trees feel like they’re closing in. Wind hisses through branches, and it’s so cold that I wish I’d worn that stupid jacket.