Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)(98)

Harmony doesn’t miss the exchange, fast as it is. “Didn’t they search you at the gate?”

“Ain’t no Bible-thumper going to search a lady’s butt crack,” Vee whispers, and grins.

Gross. I wipe my hands on my pants.

“We can’t stay here,” Harmony whispers. “Someone will come soon. I can’t trust some of the women, or any of the girls.”

Vee says, “Is there anybody here who would fight to get out? Whatever it takes?”

“Yes,” Harmony says. “I can count on five of the women. We have some weapons. We knew it might come down to something like this in the end, and we aren’t going to go quietly. Not this time.” She blinks, and I see tears forming in her eyes. They shine in the lamplight. “How did you find us? Really?”

“There was a girl named Carol,” Vee says.

Harmony puts her hand to her mouth. “Carol’s still alive?”

Vee nods.

Harmony whispers something I don’t catch. It might be a prayer.

I say, “Your five, plus you, plus the two of us . . . that’s just eight against a whole bunch of armed men. I know you want to fight, but do you maybe have a plan?”

She opens her mouth to tell us, but two things happen in quick succession.

Aria walks into the bathroom and says, “What are you doing in here?”

And just a second later, I hear the sound of men shouting outside.

And a rattle of gunfire.

Something’s just gone very, very wrong.





25

SAM

It’s time for the final E in SERE. I know I came damn close to dying at the pond this time; I nearly choked myself on that chain trying to stop Connor from going into the water. He didn’t know what was going to happen, and I would have done anything, anything, to stop it. Killing myself seemed a small price to pay, if they wanted a dead saint.

This last-second reprieve doesn’t feel like victory. Our time’s run out. He’s going to kill my son. He wants to.

I’m not going to be in better shape for escape than I am now. I have to gamble everything on one throw of the dice.

Being half-dead has its privileges, and one of them is that the man assigned to take me back to my box has to help me up the hill. It’s not easy moving someone who’s stumbling and uncoordinated, and I accentuate it to the point that he gives up and lets me fall. I grab on to him on the way down. He’s got keys clipped to his belt, and since I’m falling anyway, and distracting him with trying to take him down, too, he doesn’t feel them slip away.

He’s one of the guys from the RV, and I hope that means the ring has an ignition key for the vehicle, plus the keys to my handcuffs. He won’t be looking for his keys to open my cell; it’s a combination padlock. So I’ll get a little time before he realizes they’re missing.

He tosses me into the dirt inside the shed and slams the door. I hear the lock being slotted back in and clamped shut.

I hear him leave.

I try the keys on my cuffs with unsteady fingers. Hypothermia’s really setting in now; I’m shaking like a tree in a hurricane as my body tries to spin up enough heat to protect my core. I’m not worried about that; it’s when I stop shuddering that I’m in real trouble. But it makes trying the keys extra difficult, along with numbed fingers and exhaustion and doing it in the dark.

One of the keys finally slides into the cuffs on my ankle, and at a twist the left one is free. My side is burning where I was bandaged. I have to rest for a few seconds before attempting the right. My hands are going to be tricky, but I try to keep calm and keep at it, and after way too long I finally manage to unlock one wrist. The other’s a piece of cake.

The chain’s a damn good weapon, provided I can use it properly. It’s heavy. I double it up and test using the closed loops of the cuffs as a handhold. Makes a hell of a flail.

Now I need to get the damn door open. I already inspected the hinges; they’re outside, so no help there. But I’ve been methodically digging up the dirt under the doorway and putting it back in the same hole, whenever there wasn’t a guard on duty. Digging a little deeper each time. I have loose-packed dirt in a hole about six inches deep, and now that I need it, I can scrape it out deep enough that I may be able to slide under.

It’s not quite enough. I use the handcuffs as entrenchment tools and deepen the trough another three inches, all the way across. It’s hard work, and painful. I try to ignore the ticking clock getting louder with every second that passes, and the liquid sound of the breaths I’m taking, and the pain in my shoulder and side and my throat. Sooner or later, the guy I took the keys from will notice their absence, and he’ll know exactly where to look. I need to be gone.

The inky darkness is my friend as I slither under the heavy door. For a horrible few seconds, I can’t summon the strength to push myself out when I’m halfway through; I have to lie still and gasp for breath and fight against the pulsing red pain. I’m bleeding again. It’s a slow leak. Shut up, you can make it. I push and swallow the groan as my wound presses and scrapes against the edge. Sweat burns my eyes. One more.

I push, and my hips slide under and I roll over and crawl to my hands and knees, then to my feet. I’d been so focused I forgot there was normally a guard patrolling around, but he’s gone, drawn off by the orders that Father Tom gave out at the lake. Day of reckoning. It’s coming for all of us, I think. Me especially if I screw this up.