The soldier who was holding her hauled her up onto her feet, letting her shirt fall back over her stinging flesh.
She had to escape—and if she got out of there, the radio was coming with her.
Mason pushed open the warehouse door in downtown Manhattan carefully. The rats crawled all over themselves, their tiny squeaks and scuffling feet filling the atmosphere. A pile of little pink rat puppies formed a squirming ball in the corner. Nice.
“Here, ratties,” he said, refilling several bowls with dry dog food and treated water. Returning his attention to the task at hand, Mason hefted the metal pail up and leaned over the barricade. The clanking caused most of the rats to clamber away, but there were too many for them all to escape.
He quickly scooped two thick black rats into his pail. The sound of their frantic little feet scratching against the side of the bucket didn’t faze him like it used to. They were food, not pets.
The hair on the back of his arms raised and he stopped himself before stepping out the door. Something was off. He thought he hadn’t been followed, but the rats were squeaking more than usual.
Men’s voices. Laughter.
Fuck.
Mason grabbed his AR-15 and aimed it at the door, ready to take out whoever the hell wanted to steal his crop of meat.
“Drop it.” The voice came from behind him, followed by the cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of his neck.
“Fuck.” Mason dropped his weapon, but it still hung around his chest in its sling. How did they do that?
A soldier came up to take his gun and Mason head-butted him. “Don’t take my gun, asshole,” Mason said, ignoring the bloom of pain in his own thick skull from the impact. The guy backed up, holding his nose, blood dripping over his fingers.
There were a bunch of them. Oh, fuck. This kept getting worse and worse. Mason scanned the room quickly.
Five soldiers, armed to the teeth. Gathering up his rats.
“This is private property,” Mason said. “And get your fucking gun off my neck. I promise not to shoot anyone. I know I wouldn’t make it out of here alive if I tried.”
“Smart man,” the voice behind him said.
He felt the pressure of the gun barrel go away. His neck tingled where the barrel had been.
“We’re commandeering these rats as food for the United States Army,” one of the soldiers said. “It’s no longer private property.”
“Wrap ’em up, men,” a soldier said.
“Like hell,” Mason said, lifting his gun.
Then something hit him, and he blacked out.
* * *
Mason wasn’t sure how much time had passed before he gained consciousness.
The floor was cool against his cheek. He listened carefully, not hearing any squeaking. His rats were all gone. Moaning, he reached up and touched his head. His hand came away bloody.
Fuck, his head hurt. They’d left him for dead, he realized, struggling to sit up. Did they know who he was? Did they know he was an escaped convict?
Mason gasped and lay back down on the cold hard floor. His eyes drifted shut and he wanted to nod off, to escape the pain that overwhelmed his senses.
But he didn’t have time to sleep this off. He had to get up, had to keep going. If he stopped for too long, they’d find him, and there was no way in hell he was going to let himself get executed by the soldiers. He’d come too far to let it all fall apart now because of a little head trauma.
Mason stood up on shaky knees and let himself back out into the sunlight, pausing to scan the area. The soldiers were gone. So was his gun. Fuck.
Without his gun, he was as good as dead. Well, if he didn’t die from whatever the assholes had done to his head first. He kept his head up, squinting in the sun, blood pounding in his ears as he walked.
He realized he was walking to the emergency room at Roosevelt Hospital. He laughed, then stopped abruptly when the pain washed over him again.
There would be no one to help him at the ER. It would be abandoned. When martial law was put in place after the EMP strike, the army took all the supplies in the city to the main FEMA camp at Grand Central—at least that was what it had looked like from his position on an upper floor of the Grand Hyatt, peering out the window at the movement below.
They shot convicts. He couldn’t be found.
Mason arrived at the entrance to the hospital and tentatively tried the door, surprised when it opened easily. Stepping inside, he looked around in dismay at the mess.
Med carts overturned, emptied out, windows broken, beds stripped of bedding. Mason wandered through the litter. There had to be a supply room somewhere.
Another wave of pain washed over him and he groaned. Gotta keep moving. A small plaque on a painted metal door said MEDICATION ROOM. He gripped the doorknob like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver. Locked.
Mason kicked it hard, but the door didn’t budge. Damn it, he had to get something for the pain before he passed out again. He kicked it once more. Nothing.
He’d need keys, but where would they be? Mason remembered the overturned med cart. He walked over to it, his temple feeling like a cracked egg, and righted the huge, heavy cart.
Keys on a lanyard stuck out of the door on the side of the cart. Mason knew from his trips to the prison infirmary that the keys usually hung around the nurse’s neck, but there were no nurses to be found. Probably lucky for them, Mason mused, considering his state of mind.
But the keys… He picked them up, looking once again at the med cart. It had been cleaned out.
How about the med room? The third key he tried worked and Mason gave a shout of jubilation. It echoed in the empty halls and made his headache worse.
He needed one pill. Just one.
But the med room had been cleaned out, too. The army must’ve taken everything. Cabinets were flung open and lay barren.
Mason felt like crying. At this point he would settle for a fucking bottle of aspirin. Anything.
He screamed in frustration, the pain overwhelming his senses. Leaving the empty med room, he stormed down the corridor, kicking the gurneys as he went. His vision swarmed.
Something clattered to the ground. Mason froze and instinctually went to heft his rifle, forgetting that it was gone. He had no weapon for protection.
“Show yourself!” he yelled.
He heard a muffled gasp. Someone was crying. Soft, high-pitched sobs. A child?
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” Mason said in the general direction of the sound. “I just want to know who’s there.”
No one showed themselves. Mason groaned as it felt like a knife was cutting into his skull from the head wound. He’d pass out soon.
He couldn’t risk being so vulnerable while unconscious… Finding the source of the crying was his priority now, more important even than finding something for his pain.
He moved slowly, quietly, looking under and behind hospital beds. There, huddled in the corner, was a girl, hiding her eyes as if he wouldn’t be able to see her if she couldn’t see him.
Mason stood over her. “What’s your name?”
The girl looked up at him with tearstained brown eyes. No, she wasn’t a girl; he could see that now. A young woman.
“Please,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“What’s your name?” he repeated. “I’m—Tell me who you are.” He had almost slipped, almost told her his name, but he couldn’t risk it.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she whimpered.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” Mason said, trying to make his voice soothing.
“I’m Emily Rosen. I can’t go back. Please don’t make me go back.”
“Go back where, Emily?” He held his pounding head in his hands. Emily seemed to flinch when he moved his arms.
“To Grand Central. I can’t go back to Grand Central.” She seemed panicked now, and she stood up, apparently in some sort of shock.
She cried out like a caged beast when he didn’t move o
ut of her way. “Emily, I won’t make you go back. I don’t give a fuck what you do,” Mason said, dropping to the nearest cot. That wasn’t quite true.
This girl was terrified, and terrified people did crazy things. If he passed out she might steal his gun and shoot him to make sure he didn’t take her back to the camp.
Then he remembered his gun was already gone. He couldn’t even think straight anymore and the pain was getting worse. Moaning, he touched his head.
“What—what’s wrong with you?” she whispered. “Are you injured?”
“The fucking scavengers left me for dead. Took my—” Mason stopped, interrupting himself. He didn’t want to tell her he had no gun, didn’t want her to think he… The pain washed over him again and he couldn’t think straight. “I feel like my skull is fractured or something. I need pain medicine.”
“You shouldn’t really have anything for pain yet, if you have a head injury,” Emily said softly.
“What are you, a doctor?” he asked wryly, his head throbbing.
“No. But I’m a nurse. I used to work here. Before.” Her sobs had quieted, and she was looking at him thoughtfully.
“I just need—” Mason broke off in a strangled cry.
“I can help you,” the girl said, her voice shaky, “but you have to promise to help me.”
“Okay, yes,” Mason said. He didn’t care what he was promising; he’d say anything to stop the pain. “But I need medicine. I don’t care if I shouldn’t, I need it.”
She started to walk away. Mason grabbed her forearm and she cried out, struggling to pull away from his grasp.
“No!” she cried.
“Where are you going?” he demanded, even as he had to shut his eyes against the pain building in his head.
“I know where they keep an extra stash of pills. The army never knew about them, so they didn’t take them.”
“You’re trying to get away,” Mason growled, but he knew it shouldn’t matter. He wanted her to leave, actually.
As long as she didn’t kill him.
“I swear, there’s a locked emergency box of narcotics, enough so if the pharmacy couldn’t get us a med in time there would be extra.” She gingerly took the keys from where he’d dropped them on the cot. “I’ll come back with some. And then I’ll clean up your wound.”
Mason released his grip on her and lay back on the cot. “Hurry.”
She scrambled away from him, the terror written all over her face making him wonder if she’d really return.
* * *
Emily took a deep breath and walked down the hall toward the supervisor’s office, holding the keys in her hand. Now was her chance. She could escape, and never see the terrifying man again.
But she couldn’t leave a man in pain like that. All of her years of nursing couldn’t be dissolved so easily. The skin on her back was killing her from the caning, and she slowed her pace. She was stupid to come back here, knowing Roosevelt was shut down.
But when she’d run from the camp, her legs had acted on instinct. They’d taken her on a familiar route, even though the city streets had never felt so sinister and frightening.
Fleeing Grand Central hadn’t been easy, but when everyone had been rounded up for evening rations she’d found the door to the room with the radio unguarded. Maybe if they fed the people more than starvation rations, the guard wouldn’t have had to leave his post to grab his food before it was gone. From what she heard, no one saved uneaten rations when their fellow soldiers missed getting them—instead they stole the food and used it to barter for sex on the Tracks.
She imagined the soldier who was supposed to be guarding the door would be punished for her actions, but if he was anything like the soldiers who visited the Tracks at night, then he deserved whatever he got.
The radio, a tiny, hand-cranked thing, sat on a table in the abandoned room. That was her chance.
The pain from the caning had motivated her into moving, suppressing her fear. At that point she just didn’t even care anymore. Didn’t care if they caught her and killed her.
Once she had the radio hidden in her bag, though, the fear came back. Running was the only option if she wanted to live to see another day. And for five stress-filled minutes during change of shift, the side exit was open. It had taken her three of those five minutes to work up the courage to escape. And then she just ran, ran blindly.
To the hospital.
Emily looked at the keys in her hand. She’d have to make a go of it on her own. It was the only way.
Unless… Her thoughts flew to the large man on the hospital cot. He said he wouldn’t make her go back to Grand Central.
Could she trust him?
Don’t trust anyone, she thought. Never again.
She reached the supervisor’s office and went into the locked cabinet to get the pills. Ten Percocet, which Emily shoved into the pocket of her jeans. She’d give the man two to take the edge off, even though she was worried about his head wound. If he was going to die at least this way he would die comfortably.
It still felt strange to her to take what she needed and not sign it out. Or pay for it. Scavenging whatever was left from a store shelf or a dead man’s house would never feel right.
It’s not like they need it anymore. She refused to let herself feel guilty about it. She turned back around and started walking toward the man. Why hadn’t he told her his name?
Oh God, he’s from the camp. He had to be. They had tracked her down; she knew they would. Looking longingly at the exit, Emily stopped walking.
Escape, now? Or help the man?
Damn it.
She kept walking down the hall, back to the man. She hoped it wasn’t the last thing she’d ever do.
* * *
Mason opened his eyes when he felt a cool hand touching his forehead. The Percocet had knocked him out, giving him some blessed relief.
Mason touched his head and breathed in sharply. It was still tender to the touch. Maybe the pain pills had worn off. The room swam in front of him and he moaned.
He felt something cool and wet on his forehead and he closed his eyes again. That felt nice, better at least.
“Oh good,” the woman’s voice said. Emily. “You’re awake. I was worried about you.”
Mason opened his eyes again and looked at her face, peering into his, her brow furrowed in concentration.
It was her. The woman he had seen that day, being carted off. “You—” he started, but then he blacked out again.
* * *
She shouldn’t have given him the narcotics. How could she evaluate him properly?
Oh, stop thinking like a nurse, she chided herself. There’s nothing you can do for him but keep him comfortable anyway, so stop acting like you’re prepping him for a CAT scan.
There was something comforting, she supposed, about falling back into old rhythms. Coming back to her old job, with a patient in a hospital bed and not on the floor of a dirty subway car. Being a nurse to this wounded man reminded her that she used to be a strong, capable woman. She could be that way again, no matter what those monsters at Grand Central did to her.
“What’s your name?” she asked softly.
The man looked at her with startlingly blue eyes. He had a handsome face, somewhere underneath the thick stubble that covered his sharp jawline and chin. “Christopher Mason. Call me Mason. Oh shit, I shouldn’t have told you that.”
The man held his head, then looked at his hands, closing his eyes when he saw the blood that came back on his fingers.
“It’s okay, Mason.” Instinct took over and she went into nurse mode. He knew who he was, so that was good. “Do you know where you are?”
“I can’t be here.” The man sat up again, obviously panicked. “They took my rats.”
Rats?
“Look at me,” she said soothingly. “I need to see your pupils.”
She peered into his eyes. In a perfect world, she’d shine a flashlight in them, but there were no flashlights.
The only light she had now streamed in through the dirty glass panes of the windows. Man, he was good-looking. Too good-looking. And large.
Mason leaned forward on the cot and grabbed her wrists. “It’s you,” he said groggily.
“I’m Emily, I’m taking care of you,” she said gently. “I’m going to clean your wound. It may hurt.”
“I remember you. I saw you that day, when they picked you up. When you got brought in.”
Emily looked at him in horror. He was from the camp, he had to be. She shrank away from him, feeling her heart race. The washrag hung limply from her hand. Focus, don’t be blinded by fear.
“I remember you. When they took you away, it was me, hiding behind the cab,” Mason said, staring intently into her eyes. “Are you okay?”
She remembered him now, the man who held his finger to his lips. At the time she had assumed he was hiding from the soldiers, just like she had been.
Like she was now.
“You—you’re not one of them?” she asked, hating how weak and scared she sounded.
“No. I’ve got my reasons to hide from the law. Like you, I imagine.”
She laughed, a dry barking sound. “Not like my reason.” Quickly, she quieted herself. The less he knew about her hidden radio, the safer for both of them.
“Are you… Why are you hiding, Mason?” She had to know, as much as she didn’t want to. He was the only man around she could possibly trust—if he truly had nothing to do with the soldiers. As much as she wanted to make it on her own, it didn’t hurt to know who her friends were—and her enemies.
Suddenly, he looked at her suspiciously. “I should never have told you my name.”
“I’m sorry,” Emily whispered. “I saw the tattoo, on your arm. I thought maybe you had been in prison.”
“Do you know what they do to prisoners now, Emily?”
Emily looked at him and cocked her head. “My understanding is they let all the petty criminals go. The ones who were murderers, rapists, pedophiles and psychos they… they shot them. Killed them all so they wouldn’t take up valuable resources.”
The Pulse: Book 1 in the Pulse Trilogy Page 2
