by Box Set
I looked up the road where it all began for me, to where it curved into the woods and disappeared in the trees. I thought about what Gallatin said about the others being safe. But safe where?
“What about your daddy? Dr. Green?” I said.
Jackson shook his head. “Don’t know. We’ve been exploring, hunting, getting closer to you, and then waiting. It’s possible they’re in one of the other two camps and we just didn’t see them.”
“They must be. Did you go in and look for them?”
“We’ve been looking for everybody. But we didn’t go into their camps. We didn’t want to be captured.”
“Have you seen any of them at the farm or in town?” D’Lo asked.
“Nah, but we’ve got spies watching from the trees. We’re keeping tabs on everything.”
He started off again with us following. Underground… I remembered Gallatin said they were underground, and I was just about to ask how much farther when he stopped at the top of a second hill. We were in an area I knew had a deer stand and was somewhat popular with the local hunters.
“We’re camped down there,” he said.
I squinted in the direction of his point, but I didn’t see anything. Then suddenly he charged down the hillside letting out a loud Whoop! Whoop!
I jumped at the noise, and then as if on cue, teenage boys started crawling out from behind logs and under shelters made of ropes and tarps and covered in leaves and branches. They were mostly shirtless with the same brown blood smeared on them, and the shelters they crawled out of reminded me of something from an old jungle or war movie. I counted eight, ten of them crawling out, hollering back at Jackson like Indians. Some had gone so far as to strap deer hides onto their backs. One had antlers. Behind them, I noticed Star’s little sister Eden walking up, and the last person I saw was Star.
She came out of a tent strung near the back of the camp. It was made from ropes hung between the trees with tarps flung over them, and it formed a roomy enclosure. I recognized Jackson’s handiwork, and the expression on Star’s face when she saw him. It was the expression I thought I’d be wearing when I saw him again. She smiled, and I could tell she was relieved.
Until she saw me.
Chapter 22
Russell was gone with his scouting party trying to locate Jackson. Dexter, his little brother, said he and two others had taken off at first light to try and retrieve their stolen leader. With Russell’s group and the group in Jackson’s bandit camp already, the total made twelve kids ranging in age from thirteen to twenty. There was really only one twenty year-old, a drifter named Clinton they said came in off the road. Dexter was the youngest, but even at thirteen, he was taller than me.
Dexter had been with Jackson in the woods near the prison camp, and he’d escaped undetected by Ovett’s men. He’d returned and told Russell what had happened, and from there Russell had set out to find us. He’d returned last night having lost the trail, but he set out again at dawn.
Star and Eden were the only girls in the camp. Eden was a year younger than Star and me, but she was just as obnoxious as her older sister. The two shared a shelter now, it looked like, but I was willing to bet it hadn’t been that way before five minutes ago when I’d walked into camp behind Jackson. As we made our way through the small settlement, he acted like we were all old friends, which wasn’t exactly true.
“Star and Eden’ll be glad to have some help around here,” he said. “They’ve been trying to keep up with the cooking and gathering while we’ve been hunting and scouting.”
I narrowed my eyes at Star in her brown shorts and tank top. “They’re doing all the cooking?” I asked.
“It seemed like the easiest way. Neither of them’s got any experience hunting or scouting,” Jackson said. “Every night we have a war council in my tent, but after that, you can bunk in with me.”
“Won’t it be crowded with all three of us in there?”
“What?” Jackson laughed and acted confused. “It’ll just be us two.”
Star didn’t say a word as we passed, but I caught her glaring daggers in my direction. Then she turned and went into her sister’s shelter.
“C’mon, Dee,” Jackson said, leading him into the back tent. “We’ve made some rough drawings of the paths to the different sites. Soon as Russell gets back, we’ll see what we can pull together. I say we strike at dusk tomorrow. That’ll give us all day to prep.”
At those words, Dexter’s friend with the deerskin on his back let out a yowl that made me jump forward.
“WAR PARTY TONIGHT!” he screeched, and the other boys started dancing around in a little circle.
“I found wild mushrooms under one of the old logs,” Dexter’s buddy Thomas said. “We can do a war dance, smoke ’em, and call on the spirits of the forest to help us drive out the invaders.”
Jackson shook his head, but I saw his eyes twinkling like he was enjoying their antics. “I’ll meet with Russell and Dee, and then we’ll announce our plan at campfire.”
“It’ll be a bonfire!” Dexter cried, taking off into the woods.
Another guy followed him, and Jackson led D’Lo into his tent. Thomas took off in the opposite direction with a skinny, shirtless boy on his heels. I was left standing alone in the center of it all, blazing hot and wondering what the heck was going on here. Another skinny boy who looked about twelve sat on a nearby log holding a line with a dead rabbit on it. The animal hung by its feet, and the boy pulled out a sharp stick.
“Fresh blood,” he said. “Want some? Good camo.”
I shook my head, and he slipped down from the log looking into the trees, past the deerskins, leaves, tarps, and branches. A low, twiddling whistle sounded above me, and I looked up to see a guy hiding in a forest-green, wooden deer-stand the same height as the tree branches.
“Russell’s back,” Rabbit-boy said, and he took off up the hill. “I’ll let him know Jackson’s here.”
It was like they were all playing roles in the same tribal game, something they’d read in a book or seen in a movie. None of them appeared too eager to get back to civilization or even to rescue our friends. They were all having too much fun playing “attack the aliens,” acting like Indians and living like savages. I wasn’t sure how I fit into this jungle ecology, but as I had the most knowledge of who they were calling The Enemy, I figured I’d better sit in on the war council, if only to know what would happen next.
Russell walked into camp leading two guys who looked about sixteen or seventeen. Russell was in our graduating class, and he was tall with a slim, muscularly built from being a wide receiver. My first thought was how happy Yolanda would be to see him, and my second was he didn’t seem too impressed by his fellow bandits, more like he was impatient with them. The thought crossed my mind that Russell might be the only one here with his head on straight.
He didn’t look at me, but his manner changed when he got inside Jackson’s tent. I heard laughter and carrying on like the three were long-lost brothers. It sounded like the beginning of a championship football game, and they were getting each other fired up to play with all their jostling and high-fiving.
“I thought you were gone for sure, Dee,” Russell laughed. “And look at you. Fat!”
I watched through the opening as the two clasped hands and bumped shoulders. Jackson sat back smiling at them, and Russell looked up.
“And you, crazy little white boy.”
“Dee carried me out of there, man.” Jackson’s voice was full of pride. “It was just like on the field. No man left behind.”
They went on talking, and I frowned waiting for D’Lo to set the record straight, to tell them Gallatin had helped us escape because I asked him to. He didn’t, and I peered through the crack in the tent trying to see what he was doing. He was laughing, but I could tell he was also watching their interaction, studying what was going on. He smiled and nodded, but he seemed to be on guard as much as I was.
“So we’ve found where they’re all hiding
, and I say we strike tomorrow at dusk,” Jackson said. “Molotov cocktails.”
D’Lo snorted. “Where we gonna get something like that? Bottles and gasoline.”
“Dexter and his guys are something,” Russell said. “They’re like raccoons or little monkeys. You say you want something, and the next morning, they’re handing it to you.”
Jackson nodded. “That’s the plan, then. I’ll tell them tonight at campfire.”
I almost burst in to argue for our friends, my brother, and Russell’s girlfriend. But D’Lo beat me to it.
“There’s other folks there. We should try to get them out first. Right?”
Jackson paused and rubbed his mouth. “I don’t know how we’ll do it. Not if we’re gonna use surprise to our advantage.”
“Yolanda’s there,” D’Lo said, looking at Russell.
That got his attention. “Is she okay? I haven’t seen her since—”
“She’s fine. And she’ll be glad to see you.”
“So what’s your plan?” Jackson asked Dee, changing his tone but still not completely onboard.
“Send Prentiss back.”
“Prentiss!” Jackson nearly shouted. “No way—”
“She knows her way around, and she can sneak them out like she did with us.”
They were quiet a few moments then Russell spoke slowly. “If Dee thinks it’ll work, I’m willing to give her a shot.”
Jackson didn’t answer, but my heart was racing now. I was ready to go back, ready to save our friends, and if I were honest, I was ready to see Gallatin again.
I also felt like I’d just learned something very important. No matter how it looked, D’Lo was still on my side.
Chapter 23
Once a plan was made, the war council devolved into a bragging match. I walked back to the other tents hoping to find something to eat and a place to cool off and wash up. A quiet boy gave me some cold venison, and as I ate it, he told me a smaller spring ran down a hill in the woods below the camp. I thanked him and slipped away after I’d finished.
The water was frigid, but I used my tank top to scrub. As I sat on the bank, drying in the hot sun, I thought about everything I’d heard and seen. I’d returned to my old life, and it was about the same, if you didn’t count the wild Indians. But I wasn’t the same. And me being different while everything else remained unchanged left me feeling restless and unhappy. Like I didn’t belong here anymore. At least not in the way I used to belong.
I thought about Star coming out of Jackson’s tent, and how the fact Jackson had always swore was fiction hit me right in the face. He’d always denied anything between him and Star, always dismissed my fears, but being with Gallatin had changed something in me. I didn’t ignore things anymore, especially when they were right in my face.
I rested my chin on my knees, watching the spring water trickle by and thinking about the past, about Yolanda’s criticisms and D’Lo’s comments. Everything had changed for Jackson and me, but instead of fast like a tornado that wrecked my life all at once, it was long and slow-moving like a hurricane. Only, I’d been one of those people who’d refused to evacuate, and I’d lost everything. I’d never wanted to believe Jackson was with Star, but now, having returned to the camp and seeing what I’d seen, I knew the truth.
When I got back to Jackson’s tent, all the guys were gone, and he was alone. It was the first time we’d been just the two of us since leaving the alien camp, and he looked up when I came in and smiled. It was the same smile that used to melt my heart, but now my insides stayed solid.
“I heard you guys talking,” I said. “Dee said I should go back and try to get the others out?”
Jackson’s smile faded. “Yeah. You up for something like that? It’d be dangerous, and you’d have to do it alone.”
I wondered if he even knew how he’d gotten out of the alien camp or the role I’d played in his escape.
“I’m not afraid.” I walked over to the box they’d used as a table and looked at the map they’d scratched on the back of a piece of cardboard. It looked like he’d used a charred twig.
“As long as they’re eating, nobody at the camp can help us,” I said. “I’m not even sure they’ll be able to run.”
“Why not?” Jackson asked.
“There’s drugs in the meat.”
It was a legitimate concern, and I was hoping it’d buy Gallatin’s party time to get out.
“How’d you figure that out?” Jackson reached for my waist and pulled me down beside him on the blankets he was using for a bed.
I leaned back on his arm, and he slid a flyaway piece of hair from my eyes. In the past, I might’ve kissed him, but now his affectionate gestures fell flat.
“Flora had that bad anemia, so I was giving her my meat,” I said, sitting up and slipping my arms into my coveralls. “I think it’s the only thing they’re drugging.”
He nodded, watching me. I felt the tears rising behind my eyes at the mention of her name.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said.
I sniffed and wiped my nose on my sleeve. “She died two days ago.”
“What?” He sat up fast. “How? Did those—”
“Overdose. It was my fault.” My voice was thick, my guilt heavy. “I thought I was helping her, giving her my meat, but I was… killing her.”
Jackson jumped up and pulled me to him. “It’s not your fault. It’s them. That’s why we’ve got to take them out. For what they’ve done, for Flora.”
I sniffed and shook my head. “You’re wrong about them.”
“I’m not, you’re just too kind-hearted to see the truth. It’s hard for you, being a girl and all.”
I almost laughed, but I didn’t. “And don’t forget how small I am.”
“No,” he shook his head. “You seem bigger now.”
“Like I gained weight or something?”
He smiled. “No. You’re still too skinny.”
I stood and walked over to the tarp-door. I was bigger, but it was all inside growth. And after what I’d seen and done, it was time to clear the air and stop living lies. Time to move on.
“When we got here, I noticed Star coming out of this tent.”
I heard him exhale and roll over behind me. “Did you?”
I turned and stared at his back. “How long have you two been getting together?”
“You’re not going to start with that again.”
“Jackson.” I walked to where he was lying and placed my hand on his lower back. “Don’t lie to me now. Not after all that’s happened.”
He rolled over and pulled me to him. “I love you,” he said, holding me down and pressing his mouth to mine, pushing my lips apart.
I tried to move away, but I couldn’t. He’d always been stronger than me. Finally I was able to turn my head.
“Stop,” I breathed.
In the past such a gesture might’ve excited me, but now it made me mad. I pushed against him hard and stood up. “Is this what you want? This type of life?”
“I want you. I’ve only ever wanted you.”
“Then why do you go to her?”
He exhaled loudly. “Come on, Pip. It’s not like I really slept with her, not for real. It was just… a release. That’s all. Like blowing off steam.”
All the air rushed out of me at once and no more was coming back in. My heart beat loudly in my silent head, and I felt the pressure grow behind my eyes. I thought I was ready to hear this, to know I’d been made a fool of, but now that he’d said it, that he’d confirmed my fears, I was having a physical reaction.
But it wasn’t the heartbreak, it was the loss. I’d been holding onto him since I was a kid, since I’d lost my mom. He’d taken her place as my comfort, my safety, and that rug had just been whipped out from under me so fast. I was stumbling, trying to find my new legs. And I was embarrassed.
I couldn’t believe I’d trusted him, and he’d taken advantage of my trust. That they’d all been righ
t, and I’d refused to listen. I was so angry—over how I’d looked up to him and how he’d abused that privilege. How because of him, I’d given up something that might’ve been real and beautiful to come back here.
“I never want to see you again,” I said and walked out of the tent, tears burning my eyes. I wouldn’t let him see me cry. I wouldn’t let him misinterpret my tears as being for him. I’d grieve losing my dream, but I wouldn’t let him think I grieved losing him.
I ran back to the spring where I’d cleaned up earlier. It was late afternoon, and I was alone in the twilight. I dropped weakly onto the bank to watch the sun disappear. Golden rays reflected off the rippling currents, and I remembered Gallatin and the time we’d spent together. In that moment, I longed with everything in me to have that back.
I remembered the prayer I’d made way back on our first day of captivity, when I’d strained all my muscles hoping to push my prayer to the front of God’s line. If ever there was a time any prayer deserved priority, this had to be it. There had to be a special line for broken dreams and missed chances. For those who’d worked so hard and tried to do everything right and still lost. A way to help them regain what had to be.
The sunlight glowed amber as it slipped behind the trees, and as my damp eyes closed, I saw golden ones in my memory.
Chapter 24
Yellow-orange flames cut into the dark sky as I slowly walked back to Jackson’s camp. My mind was distracted by thoughts of Gallatin, wondering if he was even still on this planet, when I saw the huge bonfire they had built in the center of the shelters. The closer I got, the louder the noises grew. It sounded like Mardi Gras in New Orleans—not that I’d ever been that far from home. I’d only seen it on television, like most things.
Shrieks and laughter, singing and the sound of sticks banging on hollow logs or makeshift drums filled the night. I slowed my pace and carefully picked my way back to where I could see the shirtless boys, their bodies striped with animal blood, dancing around the fire. Some yelled, some chanted, and in the flashes of firelight I could see their glazed eyes. Thomas must’ve harvested that patch of wild mushrooms, and they must’ve eaten them.
