“Hold on a second,” she called out. “It’s like a maze in here!” she lied. She kicked some stuff around, making noise to hide what she was really doing. The back door opened easily. Regan picked up an empty pill bottle and tossed it inside behind her, keeping the men distracted. “I’m trying!” she yelled. “The shelves are heavy.”
Regan found herself looking out at an alley, run-down privacy fences barring each end of it from the street and offering some privacy. There was an old van sitting there right in front of her. Regan smiled. This was too good to be true, she thought to herself. But maybe not. Nobody could have seen it with that fencing. She rushed to the driver’s side door and pulled it open. Keys lay in the center console and she quickly found the square one and inserted it into the ignition. She turned the key slightly and nearly screamed with excitement when all the dash lights came on. It looked like it had a half tank of gas.
“Hey!” she heard a deep male voice yelling out.
Immediately upon hearing the call, she stashed the keys out of sight under the floor mat and jumped out of the van. She quietly closed the door then, and ran back inside.
“I got it!” she yelled out, her heart racing as she used all her strength to push a couple of shelves out of the way. She slid another one in front of the back door, hiding it from sight, and then shoved at the last shelf that had kept the two goons from following her inside.
Moments later, the two men used their brute strength to shove the door the rest of the way open.
“What took you so long?” Dylan yelled in her face as his partner glared around suspiciously.
“The shelves are heavy,” Regan said with a shrug, playing up her small stature.
“Start throwing everything in the bag,” Dylan said, handing her a reusable grocery bag.
Regan grabbed the bag and got busy. She was soon tossing bottles into the bag without reading labels. Toward the back of one of the aisles, she found a sealed box. She pried it open and froze when she saw the contents. It was a case of EpiPens. Clearly, whoever had looted the place hadn’t known what they were passing up, or else they’d gotten interrupted early.
She slid a couple of the EpiPens into her pants pocket before tossing a couple in the cloth bag. She then tossed some empty boxes over the half-full box of pens. She planned on returning for them later.
“Let’s go,” Dylan said. “We got everything. We need to report in.”
Regan maneuvered around the shelves and made her way out the door. She was more confident than ever now after this find. She was going to escape the cooperative and come back for the van, and then she would go back to the hotel and see if Wolf and the others were still in town. If they were, she would ask to rejoin them. She had learned a hard lesson, but the van had given her some new hope for the future. And maybe giving the group a vehicle and hopefully some of the meds she planned to slip into her pocket would be her way back into the group. After the last few days, she couldn’t help thinking about how much she missed them and the comfort of having them at her side; another night in her closet had set the thought into her brain, and she hadn’t been able to let go of it.
Stepping out into the street, the trio encountered a family on the street before they’d gone a block. They were holding a box of goods, and had begun moving to intercept them as soon as they’d seen them coming out of the Urgent Care.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” the woman said, stepping in front of them as they walked down the sidewalk.
“What do you want?” Dylan asked in a menacing tone.
“We’re looking to trade. Our daughter has a severe allergy to peanuts. We used our last EpiPen and need another,” the woman explained. “Do you know where we could get one, or have one? I saw you come out of the clinic down there. We’ll take Benadryl or whatever antihistamine you have, honestly,” the woman begged. “We were going to check there, but…. Please, if you can help us, it would mean everything.”
Regan looked at the little girl who was gripping her mother’s hand. Dylan and Craig appeared uninterested at first, until the father mentioned he had some firearms he was willing to trade. The three men walked to a car and the father popped open his trunk.
With their attention focused elsewhere, Regan turned back to the mother and daughter. She reached into the bag she was carrying, her back to Dylan and Craig.
“Take these,” she whispered. “Please, don’t say anything. Hide them. Those men don’t know I have them.”
Her eyes wide, the mother took the pens and slid them into the box of goods. “Thank you,” she whispered, tears in her eyes. “You don’t know what this means.”
Regan smiled. “Actually, I do. Please, don’t say anything. I’ll get in trouble if they know.”
The woman studied Regan’s face, and her eyes softened as understanding dawned. Regan knew the bruises were still very evident. It wasn’t like she could have slapped on some makeup to hide the damage.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a soft voice. “This world is a dangerous place. Can I help you at all?”
Regan smiled. “I’ll be okay. This is a temporary situation.”
The men were walking back now, having traded some allergy medicine for a few handguns, though Regan guessed that they knew as well as she did that it wouldn’t do much against a real allergic reaction. Craig grabbed Regan’s arm. “We’re leaving.”
Regan gave the woman and little girl a forced smile before walking away with Dylan and Craig. She would lose them soon enough. For now, she would be the dutiful slave to the cooperative. Her immediate goal was to snag some of the medicine that would be coming into the co-op after today’s runs.
She needed to prove to the other group she was worthy of their company after all. Getting medicine that could help Geno get better would be her ticket to redemption—she hoped. Craig’s grip tightened on her arm as they walked. Regan refused to let him know he was hurting her. She suspected it was his sole purpose in life. The bruises from the beating were still fresh, and he had to know he was adding to them.
“Stop yanking on me!” she finally said, jerking her arm in his grip after a few more steps.
His response was to hold on tighter.
“You’re a feisty one,” he grunted.
She bit back another retort. No need to give him more reason to hurt her.
The other teams were already back when they arrived. Dylan and Craig dragged her through the courtyard toward Carla’s office.
“We’re back,” Craig announced in a loud voice, as if Carla couldn’t see the obvious.
“And?”
“We got some stuff,” Craig said, jiggling the bag in his arm and holding up the guns proudly.
“Guns? Nice.” She held out her hands and Craig handed them over dutifully. Carla nodded, hefting them and eyeing the bag of meds. “Good, take everything, and her, to the supply room. Your job isn’t done yet,” she added, meeting Regan’s eyes. “You need to help with the sorting.”
“Fine,” Regan said, putting up no fight at all.
Carla’s brow furrowed, and there was a look of suspicion in her eye. Regan realized she’d gone along with the additional chore too easily.
“I mean, it’s not like you’re going to let me sit on my ass or something, right?” she asked. “Even though I’m the one who did most of the grunt work to get all those meds,” she spit out, her voice laden with disgust.
Carla sneered. “Oh, you poor thing. You must be exhausted. Store room, now!” she ordered.
Craig yanked her arm and dragged her down to the basement, shoving her inside the room.
“Got you a helper,” Craig hollered at the man who looked to be the overseer.
“Reporting for duty, sir,” Regan added.
Upon his gesture, she walked over to where two other women were busy reading labels and placing bottles in different piles.
“Over-the-counter painkillers, here. Prescription painkillers, here,” the grumpy old overseer pointed at the piles. “Prescription med
s for everything else here, and then put all the other crap in that box,” he said, pointing to a box on the ground.
“Got it,” she said as she stepped up to the long table.
The other two sorters didn’t bother looking at her. Friendly bunch, she mused. Regan began sorting the various amber bottles with people’s names on the labels. It was hard to imagine that every name she was touching likely belonged to someone who was now dead, and hadn’t gotten this life-saving medicine. There were a lot of bottles. The crew leader walked away for a brief second. Regan debated whether she could sneak a bottle of what she knew was an antibiotic into her pocket. She couldn’t risk it.
“Have you guys been here long?” she asked instead, hoping to relax the guards of her sorting team.
They didn’t reply, but they did look at each other for a second, which was all Regan needed. She pressed on the lid of the bottle in her palm before giving it a quick turn. With a flick of her hand, she knocked a couple prescription bottles on the floor, one of them spilling out little colorful capsules as it fell.
“Crap,” she muttered, and immediately she dropped to her knees to retrieve the bottles that had rolled under the table.
She made a big show of putting the capsules back into the open bottle. Not all, of course. She managed to get quite a few into her pocket. It wasn’t exactly a full course of antibiotics, but she was hoping it would be enough to get Geno over the hump.
“Done,” one of the older women called out when the sorting was finished.
“Good,” the crew leader said, studying the piles. “Get Craig and let him know she’s finished.”
Regan didn’t have to wonder who she was. It was her. She was going to be escorted back to her prison cell, yet again. On the walk back, Regan steeled her nerves for another dark night spent alone. The familiar fear wasn’t as strong as it had been at first. She had new confidence she would escape. When the opportunity arose, she’d get out and she’d never look back.
23
A commotion beyond the thin walls of Regan’s prison cell woke her. She blinked several times before turning her face to the grate and sucking in a few breaths of the putrid air beyond. Today was a new day. Today, there was a chance for escape. That’s what Regan was holding onto. She did a few stretches to ease her tired muscles. The beatdown she endured coupled with the lack of nutrition had done a number on her body and she knew she’d have to be careful. She couldn’t afford to get a cramp or be easily winded when she found her opportunity to escape. There was no way she’d be a cliché and twist her ankle or bend over to catch her breath and get snatched by her captors. No way. She was going to run like hell and never look back, and her body wasn’t going to let her down. She wouldn’t allow it.
She paced her small room, waiting for someone to let her out. Voices and activity beyond the walls of her confines were making her a little crazy. Others were out there, moving around, breathing fresher air.
After what felt like forever, she heard shuffling feet and the low murmur of voices.
Thank God!
When the door opened, light flooded in. Regan blinked several times, convinced her eyes deceived her.
“Tabitha?” she squeaked out.
“Hi, Regan,” she greeted her, a forced smile moving her lips.
“You’ve got five minutes,” the man who’d delivered her to the cell barked out.
“What’s wrong?” Regan asked a little frantically. “Is everyone okay? What are you doing here?” she peppered her visitor with rapid-fire questions.
Tabitha smiled, taking a few steps into the small space. “Nothing’s wrong. I wanted to see you before we left. We’re leaving, moving on. I wanted to say goodbye…” she paused, looking around the cell, and then back to Regan. “Actually, that’s not true.”
“Why are you here?” Regan asked, perhaps a little too abruptly. She needed Tabitha to leave before anything happened to her. She couldn’t let Tabitha of all people get sucked into this place. Her kindness and need to help others would get her killed.
“Come with us,” Tabitha whispered.
Regan looked down at her feet. It was her chance to tell Tabitha she was sorry for leaving. For everything. But the words were lodged in her throat.
“Tabitha, I—”
“We’re going up!” the guard barked. “You’re coming.”
Regan nodded at the man, eager to get out of the basement. Tabitha and Regan walked together, up the stairs to the ground floor. The air was sticky and hot, reminding them of the summer to come, and Regan realized that this building would soon be even more of a furnace. She had to get out soon, but first she had to get Tabitha out. Still, they didn’t say a word as they walked, Regan knowing the guard would hear anything said aloud.
Once in the courtyard, Regan managed to separate herself and Tabitha from the bulk of the crowd, sticking to the brick wall of the building. She was hoping to casually slide along the wall and make it to the gate on the far side of the courtyard that would lead to freedom. If nothing else, maybe she could get Tabitha out of earshot of everyone else and convince her to leave as quickly as possible.
“Regan, this place isn’t for you. Look at you. I can still see the bruises,” Tabitha said gently. “Fred told us you were being abused in here. Let’s go. Right now. You and me. We’ll walk out of here and never look back.”
Regan glanced around, looking to see if anyone had heard Tabitha. “It isn’t that easy,” she muttered.
Tabitha shook her head. “Fred said they told him you were free to go at any time.”
Regan scoffed. “Yeah, I’m sure they did.”
“Look around you. These people are sick, malnourished, and judging by the number of injuries, they’re all being roughed up.”
Tabitha’s eyes fell on one of the orphaned kids. The little boy was holding his left arm close to his body. There was a small cut bleeding on his forehead. With terrifying clarity, Regan knew exactly what was going to happen next.
“Don’t—” Regan began warning Tabitha, but it was too late.
Tabitha had already begun making her way to the two kids huddled against the courtyard’s side wall. Regan followed reluctantly, and then watched as she dropped to her knees in front of the kids and began to talk in a low, soothing voice. Her hands moved over the boy’s face and then to his arm.
Regan moved in closer attempting to shield Tabitha from sight, hoping no one else in the co-op would see her checking out the boy’s injuries, but she knew it was a fool’s errand if this lasted too long. This wasn’t that big of a space, and everyone kept an eye on everyone else.
“Tabitha, this isn’t a good idea,” Regan hissed, noticing one of Carla’s team leaders watching the scene.
When he began stalking toward them, Regan felt a primal need to protect her friend from what was coming. She raised her chin and crossed her arms over her chest, staring down the approaching man.
“What now?” she snapped, hoping to distract him with her crappy attitude.
“What’s she doing?” he barked.
“Nothing.”
Tabitha had stood and moved in beside Regan. Regan looked at her, her eyes wide trying to communicate silently that she shouldn’t say anything. Tabitha ignored her.
“The boy has a cut that needs to be cleaned and closed,” Tabitha said, one hand on her hip. “How did he get that injury?” she asked the burly man who stood staring the women down. Regan bit back a grin despite knowing how dangerous this was. Tabitha was a fierce guardian of her patients, and anyone who was injured instantly became her patient.
“He’s fine,” the gruff man said simply, eyeing the boy behind them.
Tabitha shook her head, dismissing the claim in a moment. “He is not fine. I need to take care of his injury,” she insisted. “Or if not me, someone does. Now.”
“Tabitha, someone else can do it. You should go. Now,” Regan said firmly.
Regan’s heart had begun pounding in her chest. A few more members of the co
operative had come over to see what was happening. They were going to cause a scene if they weren’t careful. Right now, it looked as if most of the co-op was missing, which was the one thing working in their favor. There were the usual big brutes on guard duty, but other than that, it was mostly women and a few of the children in the courtyard.
“I’m not going anywhere until I can take care of that cut. And then, Regan, we’re leaving this place, together,” she said with finality, her eyes still on the guard.
Carla’s voice cut through the air then, and Regan cringed. She hadn’t noticed her approaching in the mix of women and guards.
“Let her take care of the boy,” Carla rasped. “We don’t want him suffering or getting sick,” she said, in a voice that reminded Regan of a wicked witch depicted in cartoons.
“Thank you,” Tabitha said with a small smile toward the woman. “Do you have a first aid kit?”
“Of course, we do.” Carla’s smile was reminiscent of a snake’s, but Tabitha didn’t seem to notice.
Carla snapped her fingers and one of her minions took off running, returning a minute later with a stocked first aid kit. Tabitha took it, thanking Carla and the retriever casually.
Regan watched with trepidation as Tabitha expertly cleaned the injury and then used a butterfly bandage to hold the cut closed. It was like watching a train wreck. Tabitha had no idea what she was doing to herself. Regan knew the co-op was in desperate need of a doctor or medical professional. While Cameron had mentioned a dentist, Regan had never seen him and doubted he knew much about first aid let alone treating any illnesses. She could see the way they were all watching Tabitha work—as if she were a brilliant diamond waiting to be snatched.
Tabitha stood and rubbed the boy’s head; he looked as uncomfortable as Regan felt. “There you are,” she said. “Good as new. Why don’t you and your sister get some breakfast?”
She turned to look at Carla. “They need to eat. I trust you have something to feed them?”
“Of course. We take care of our people,” Carla said with a sneer.
“Yes, I can see that,” Tabitha replied, not hiding her sarcasm.
Surviving the Swamp (Survivalist Reality Show Book 1) Page 23
