Okay.
Emily picked up the chair, feeling its heft, and gave a practice swing. The chair was heavy and she felt her shoulder protest. She needed to just go for it.
The idea of swinging the chair through the window was much less scary than throwing herself against the door, so she didn’t need a countdown. Emily swung the chair with all her strength, whooping with joy when the painted glass window cracked, then shattered.
Shards of glass rained to the floor.
The guard outside yelled in surprise, and Emily went to step through the hole she’d made in the window. She had to be more careful than she’d originally anticipated because glass covered the floor, with huge stalagmite-looking glass shards poking up from the bottom of the window.
Her hesitation ruined everything.
The guard opened the door, stepped in, and pushed her onto the ground with a shove so hard it took her breath away. At least he hadn’t punched her in the face.
Maybe chivalry wasn’t dead after all.
“What the fuck did you do?” he screamed.
Emily didn’t answer. Her blood pounded in her ears so loudly she thought she might faint from fear.
He had handcuffs, large metal ones that looked scary and uncomfortable. He didn’t bother threatening her or reading Miranda rights or anything like that—there were no Miranda rights under martial law—he just picked her up by the wrists and slapped the cuffs on her.
He didn’t take the time to turn her around, so her hands were cuffed in front. Not that she was going to complain. If he intended to keep her cuffed, she’d be much better off with her hands in the front. Especially since her shoulder throbbed already.
With Emily secured, the guard stepped outside and brought back in the metal chair, shaking his head. “Colonel Lanche is going to be so pissed off.”
“Sorry,” Emily said, finally finding her voice. “But I had to. They’re going to kill me. Please, please let me go.”
“I’m going to be in deep shit for this,” the guard said, pointing at the shattered window. “If I let you go, I don’t even want to know what they’d do.” He looked around the room. “I can’t risk you doing anything like this again.”
Setting the metal chair down in the back of the room, he gestured for her to sit.
She almost protested that the chair was still covered in glass shards, but the look of pure anger and fear in the guard’s eyes made her bite her tongue. Sitting cautiously, Emily tried to look as innocent as possible, which wasn’t easy considering the damage she’d done.
The guard surveyed the room before leaning down, grabbing her wrists, and unlocking the cuffs.
“Thank you,” she said, but then she realized what he was doing. Shoving her back down on the seat, he cuffed her right ankle to the base of the chair. There was no way she’d be able to get free from the chair without a handcuff key.
“Stay put.” The guard scowled and grabbed a large metal filing cabinet. Lugging it in front of the broken window, blocking out the view of the corridor, he surveyed his work. Then he stepped back out the door.
Emily heard a lock click. Fuck.
She looked down at her ankle. It was handcuffed to a piece of metal attached perpendicularly on both sides, making a capital “I” shape where the chair legs joined.
If she could figure out a way to dismantle the chair, she might be able to get free. She shifted in the chair, trying to get a better view of her situation, and a huge piece of glass pierced her lower thigh.
She shrieked. The guard, assuming he heard her, ignored her.
She looked at her thigh cautiously. It wasn’t too bad—it hurt worse than it looked. The glass had nicked her, and a little rivulet of blood stained her already dirty jeans. The shard of glass still lay on the seat of the chair.
She lifted her hand to toss the glass away, where it couldn’t cut her anymore—but then she realized something. This glass that cut her could cut other people too. People like Andrews, when he came back from Mason’s apartment.
The thought of Andrews killing Mason steeled her against any possible reservations she may have had. Fuck it—there was no reason for her to worry about hurting Andrews. He was going to rape and kill her—that she knew.
But not if she killed him first.
* * *
Mason took a deep breath and shouldered his rifle. His best bet was to enter the Forty-Second Street entrance to the Grand Central Terminal FEMA camp in plain sight, preferably with a group of other soldiers.
But the other soldiers would surely recognize he wasn’t one of them—wouldn’t they? Several groups of soldiers were out, some patrolling, some appearing to be scavenging, and some hanging out, shooting the shit.
How could he convince several of those men to walk with him into the camp, without arousing suspicion?
Mason needed to find something heavy, something useful. Then he could ask for help carrying it inside. No one would stop them, hopefully. He looked around. Everything that may have been of value had long been taken already.
Emily was in there—possibly hurt or being tortured as he sat there like an asshole trying to figure out how to get to her. He had to act now. There was no time to fuck around.
Meandering up to the entrance as if he entered the camp ten times a day, Mason nodded to the guard at the door. The guard took a casual glance at Mason’s camo shirt and huge rifle, and nodded back, stepping out of his way.
It was almost too easy.
Once inside, Mason looked around, overwhelmed by the number of people he saw.
He was used to the streets being empty. In Grand Central, though, thousands of survivors were milling about, dirty, unwashed, and sickly thin.
It looked like the pictures he had seen of concentration camps. This is America—it shouldn’t be like this, he thought angrily.
But it was.
He scanned the main terminal. Even if Emily was nearby, the chances of him finding her in this sea of bodies were practically nil. But if she had been captured, she might be disciplined for stealing whatever she had stolen and maybe even for running away.
Remembering the red cane marks on her back, Mason seethed with anger. If those soldiers touched so much as a hair on her head, he’d lose his mind. But of course they would. And the sick fucks who did it before probably looked forward to doing it again.
Mason had promised her she’d never have to go back to Grand Central. The fact that she was here made him so upset he almost couldn’t think straight.
Where would they keep her?
He went up to a young woman with beautiful auburn hair and tapped her shoulder. “Excuse me, miss, can you tell me who’s in charge here?”
She laughed in apparent disbelief. “Are you joking?”
Shit. Now she’d realize he wasn’t really a soldier. What if she ratted him out? He kept his expression stern. “This is no laughing matter. I’ve been watching your behavior, and I don’t think you know who’s in charge.”
The woman shrank back from him and Mason felt his gut clench, but he had to do what he had to do. She touched her necklace self-consciously, as if to gather courage, her fingers grazing her slender, pale neck.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Clarissa.” She paused, as if reassessing her situation. “I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her entire demeanor changing. “You’re in charge, I know. Just—I wanted to stretch my legs for a bit before going back—”
Mason struggled to keep the horror he felt from showing. The rumors were true—the women here were being used as the camp’s own harem. But Clarissa still hadn’t told him what he needed to know. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. Who makes the rules? What’s his name.”
“Colonel Lanche, sir,” she said. “Do I have to go with you now?” she asked softly, sweetly, but Mason could feel the undercurrent of fear in Clarissa’s voice. It made him want to save her too. To save them all.
“No,” he said, turning away. He had to find Colonel Lanche. Lo
oking back at Clarissa, who watched him with trepidation, he said, “I need to speak to the Colonel. Where can I find him?”
“You know,” she said, gesturing halfheartedly in the general direction of the shops. “His room. Or the OCC. If not there, the dining court. Or at night, the Tracks.”
Clarissa blushed as though she had personal knowledge of his visits to the Tracks. She probably did. Mason imagined her beautiful red hair made her stand out amongst the other women, making her more of a target for scum like Lanche.
“Thanks,” Mason said. He walked off, following Clarissa’s gesture. He’d find Lanche if it was the last thing he did.
Because it might very well be.
EMILY heard a man outside Lanche’s door say something to the guard. Something like, You can go now.
Oh God—he was back. Andrews was back.
The smell of her own fear rose off her body. Her breath came fast and shallow and the room started to spin.
“Wake up, bitch,” a sharp voice said. She looked up. Andrews stared down at her with a horrifying gleam in his eye.
“Is—” Please God, don’t let Mason be dead. “What did you do?” she asked.
Andrews shrugged. If he’d killed Mason, he’d definitely be bragging about it, even if just to upset her. Mason was still alive, she could feel it.
Andrews ran his large, calloused hands over her throat and she couldn’t breathe—not because he exerted any pressure on her neck, but out of fear so strong her throat constricted.
“I won’t waste a bullet on you, you know,” he said. “I’m going to strangle you instead.”
“You don’t want to kill me yet,” she whispered. “I could show you a really good time.”
She waited for a twinge of guilt to wash over her for trying to seduce her killer, but none came. She’d do what she had to do to save her life, and that was that.
Standing, she stumbled as her handcuffed leg caught on the chair. The cool glass shard that cut her before still gripped in her hand, hidden from Andrews’s sight.
Andrews laughed and shook his head as he unlocked her handcuffs. “Bob said you gave him a hard time. Did he fuck you too?”
Suddenly self-conscious, she stood before him, thrusting her breasts out, hoping to entice him into wanting to keep her around. Anything so he wouldn’t end the evening by killing her.
He looked her up and down critically. “You smell disgusting.”
“I can bathe,” she said. “Right now. You can watch if you want.”
“I don’t need your permission.” Andrews unzipped his pants. “You’re too dirty to fuck, slut,” he said. “But if you suck me off good, I’ll make your death painless. If you try to bite me or some shit like that, I’ll kill you my favorite way—slowly.”
Her stomach clenched painfully at his words. Emily nodded, and slowly dropped to her knees in front of Andrews. She had to buy time.
His pulled his pants down, his erect cock protruding obscenely. The glass shard in her hand felt warm, almost as if the cold glass had come to life. Almost as if that glass were as angry as she was.
She’d only have one chance. If she fucked this up, she’d die the way Andrews promised her—painfully and slowly.
But if she did it right she might be able to escape.
An image of the femoral artery, which ran between the groin and the crease of the leg, flashed through her mind like it did when she was in nursing school about to take a test.
Femoral artery was the answer here.
Emily opened her mouth and sucked the head of Andrews’s cock past her lips, gagging as he immediately thrust forward, bruising the back of her throat with his length. Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed, making him groan.
“That’s good, swallow me, bitch,” he said, tangling his hands in her hair, forcing her head in place.
As swiftly and fearlessly as she’d thrown that chair through the glass window, she swung her hand upward and sliced, hard and long and deep.
“What the—” Andrews dropped his hands from her hair and slapped her hard across the face when he saw the blood dripping down his leg at an alarmingly fast rate. “What did you do to me?”
His penis wilted and fell limply out of her mouth. He touched his groin and looked at his hand, his fingers covered in blood. Red—warm red blood rushed everywhere.
Emily jumped up. “Put pressure on it,” she told him, “if you want to live more than sixty seconds.”
Andrews looked at her blankly, already altered from the blood loss.
Gasping, he grabbed her arm, but his grasp was slippery with blood and she easily slid away.
Get to the door.
Andrews fell to the floor, not even trying to staunch the spurting blood flow at this point. He closed his eyes. He’d be dead soon.
She wasn’t sorry.
Still, she couldn’t look at him, even though it had been self-defense and she had nothing to be sorry for. She had to leave or everything she’d done would be in vain, and they would still kill her.
Rushing to the door, she turned the knob. Oh no no no. It was locked.
She looked back over at Andrews desperately. He had to have a key on him somewhere under all that blood.
A loud knock pounded on the door. Emily shrieked in surprise, her hand flying to her lips to muffle the sound. If someone came in now and saw her with a soldier lying in a pool of blood she’d be dead. Deader than she already was.
“Emily, are you in there?” a voice shouted through the door. Mason’s voice. But… how?
“The door is locked,” she cried.
“Stand back.”
She stepped far back, almost tripping over Andrews, slipping a little in his blood.
The door crashed open.
Mason had rammed into it with his shoulder like she tried to do earlier. Only this time, it worked. She’d never been so happy to see a person in her life. She ran up to him, wanting him to wrap her in his arms, but he stared at the scene behind her. Turning slowly, Emily saw the room through new eyes.
Broken glass lay everywhere. And Andrews lay in a large pool of his own blood. His lips blue, his eyes open and staring glassily at the ceiling, unblinking. She didn’t have to check his pulse to know he was dead.
She was a murderer now too.
Mason walked over to the body and Emily tried to pull him back. “No,” she said. “He’s dead.”
“I know that.” Mason reached down and picked up the soldier’s gun, wiping the blood off it on a dirty sheet before handing it to Emily. “Be careful. It’s loaded.”
Emily took it from him as if it were a snake. “Where’s the safety on this thing?”
He pointed to the little switch and said, “Keep your finger outside the trigger guard unless you’re ready to shoot. Don’t aim it at anything you don’t want dead.”
Emily nodded and stuck the gun in the back of her jeans, pulling her shirt over it to cover the butt of the gun. She felt safer, knowing she had some protection.
But no amount of firepower could help her if they didn’t get the hell out of there immediately.
Mason looked at her. “Are you okay?”
She thought about it for a second. No, she really wasn’t… She’d killed a man. “Let’s get out of here.”
“We’re not too far from the main exit. Follow me out—hopefully they’ll let you since I’m dressed like one of them.”
That was his plan? Just waltz out of there in plain sight? He must have sensed her skepticism. “I’m open to other ideas,” he said.
“No, no other ideas.”
“Let’s go, before they realize something’s going on. If we go now we’ll only have the one guard at the exit to deal with. I hope.”
“I can’t believe I killed him,” she whispered, following close behind Mason as they stepped out the ruined door, looking up and down the empty hall before walking toward the exit.
“Forget about it,” Mason said. “Besides, if you hadn’t done it, I would have. Hi
s number was up.”
The guard at the door stopped them. Emily realized her hands trembled, and she shoved them into her pockets to hide them.
“Be back before curfew or you’ll be locked out all night,” the guard said. “Ten P.M. and we go on lockdown.”
Mason nodded. “I know.”
Scrambling behind him, Emily didn’t dare look back. Freedom—finally, blessed freedom. She wanted to kiss the dirty New York City sidewalk. If she never went back to Grand Central again in her life, it would be too soon.
“We can’t go back to my apartment,” Mason said.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, walking faster to keep up with his long strides.
He didn’t stop walking until they were several blocks from the camp. The fast pace had left her panting, unused to the exercise.
“Did he hurt you, Emily? Did any of them hurt you?”
“Well, let’s see,” she said. “I’ve been slapped, shoved, and cuffed to a chair, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re getting at. Oh, and I cut my thigh on some broken glass.”
He kept looking at her, a strange expression on his face.
“Why?” she demanded. “Maybe that’s why you haven’t touched me since you came and got me—you can smell him on me, and I disgust you.”
On a purely rational, intellectual level, Emily was aware she probably projected her own feelings onto Mason—but there was nothing rational about her emotions.
God, I practically threw myself at Andrews. Begged him to fuck me. No one needed to know about that. Ever.
Mason shook his head angrily. “You don’t disgust me, don’t be ridiculous. I just have to know. Were you raped?”
The image of Andrews forcing his cock into her mouth flashed through her mind unbidden. But she didn’t need to burden Mason with that visual too, especially after what happened with his sister. She didn’t want him acting all weird around her.
“No,” she said. “No one touched me.”
“That’s good.” He looked visibly relieved. “Then why’d you cut him… there?” He pointed to his groin.
“Because I’m a nurse.”
He nodded. “Okay.”
The Pulse: Book 1 in the Pulse Trilogy Page 9
