by Alyssa Cole
Chapter Twenty-Six
The next night, I tried to pay attention to the movie playing on the small screen of Edwin’s laptop, despite his constant interruptions. “Just watch the movie!” I snapped with an incredulous laugh after he asked me why a character was doing what they were doing for the tenth time. This particular annoying habit was still endearing...for now. Outside, wind howled past the window, and thick clumps of snow fell and accumulated fast.
I smacked Edwin’s hand away as it crept up under my shirt, but only in jest. The movie we were watching was a superhero flick I’d already seen several times over. It was fun, but cuddling under the covers with Edwin beat out the triumphant defeat of aliens. I reached over and closed the laptop screen, and then crawled on top of him. My underwear was hanging from his desk chair after the greeting he’d given me a few hours earlier, and his teasing over the last half hour meant I was already slick and ready for him.
His cock was hard, but it still swelled in my palm as I grasped and pumped. I moved so I was hovering just above him, slowly started lowering myself down—and then stopped before I made contact. “You’re not the only one who can tease,” I said.
He smirked. “That may be true, but I’m much more patient. Military training, remember?” His body went stiff as he pulled his hand to his forehead and drew himself up into a horizontal version of standing at attention.
“We’ll see about that,” I said. He was right, though—I was too impatient for this kind of game. I grabbed a condom from his bedside table and rolled it onto him before lowering myself onto his hardness. I gasped at the sensation of his head pushing into me, spreading me. Edwin swallowed a hiss but didn’t move from his position, a silent goad. He was well aware that I couldn’t resist a challenge.
I splayed my hands on his chest and held his gaze as I began moving. His lips were pressed into a thin line and his gaze was hard and hot as I fucked him. I sank and rose, circling my hips on the downswing to take him deeper into me. I closed my eyes and dug my fingers into his chest, not even caring whether he came along with me because he felt so good. I’d gotten into my own rhythm, an unbearably good friction as I rose on his shaft and my clit pleasantly smacked his groin when I bottomed out, when he thrust up to meet me. His sudden motion caught me by surprise and in the best possible way. Just that one movement brought me close to the edge, the unexpected friction detonating through me.
“Holy fuck.” I placed a hand on his chest to steady myself.
“You were having a little too much fun without my participation,” he said. His hands came to my hips and now he met me thrust for thrust, pulsing up into me in a barrage so intense that my entire body shook from the force of him. It had been great doing all the work myself, but with him helping it was even better. Like everything was.
I’d thought I’d take him for a long, languorous ride, but I came apart before I knew what hit me. He bucked beneath me and was still shuddering from his own orgasmic bliss when I collapsed on top of him.
“Do you hear that, or is that a side effect of having your brains fucked out?” I asked as my breath came back to me.
He cursed, and not in the “shit, that feels good” kind of way. The sirens were blaring again, after a relatively peaceful week. Each flare-up of neo-Luddite activity had been put down, but they hadn’t decreased. The biggest saving grace had been the DIY-ness of the efforts thus far, mostly carried out by people who’d read outdated manuals.
Edwin turned his face into his pillow and growled loudly, then rolled to face me. “You know what this means.”
“You have to go investigate,” I said. The first couple of times it’d happened, I’d mock-pouted, but as time went on, I realized how serious this really was. After the trashing of the plant, there hadn’t been any attacks in Oswego proper, but a group of armed men had been intercepted on their way to Burnell only the week before. They’d been hell-bent on taking out the telecommunications group, and it chilled me to the bone that John, Mykhail and other people I knew were in danger for simply trying to help.
A transformer refurbishing center in Pennsylvania had nearly burned to the ground in a suspicious fire that would set production in the Northeast back for months and affect projected electrical output increases for the next couple of years. Places that had looked forward to finally being done with rolling blackouts now had to hold off on moving forward with plans for electricity intensive rebuilding projects.
So whereas before the thought of Edwin going to look into these incidents had kind of freaked me out, now it scared the shit out of me. He quickly pulled on his clothes, and I tried to act like a supportive girlfriend, which I supposed I was even though we hadn’t made anything official.
He grinned up at me while he finished tying his boots. “You can watch the end of the movie in peace now,” he joked, but the words triggered the fear I’d been trying to suppress. A strangled sound escaped my throat and suddenly tears were flowing down my face. “Aw, don’t worry—”
Everything went silent just as he pulled me into his arms. The sirens cut off abruptly, and the lights went out right after. Judging from the commotion in the hall, it wasn’t a blown fuse in the room. I stumbled over to the window, and he followed, still holding my hand. Outside was complete darkness except for the halos from flashlights and cell phones beginning to pop up across campus.
I, probably like everyone else, was already thinking back to those first minutes after the Flare. I was already thinking of an escape plan and what I would need to survive the next few days, but I forced myself to take a deep breath. Not every blackout was permanent, even if some people wanted it that way.
“Shouldn’t the generators be kicking in right now?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
Edwin squeezed my hand and then moved away from me, only to be illuminated by his cell phone a moment later. “Nothing,” he muttered.
I ran to check mine and my breath caught. He gave me a quizzical look, and I handed him the phone, the message from Danielle still showing.
greg falling leaf pow
“Shit. Danielle sent me a text and I know this isn’t good.” I’d mostly forgotten about my interactions with Greg, focusing instead on what had happened with Danielle and everything that had occurred between Edwin and me afterward. But now I remembered the weird way Greg had let me know that he knew where I lived. Before, it seemed like he was just being a jerk.
“Her parents were two of the Falling Leaf Five, right? Maybe the message has something to do with that?” he asked.
“But then what does Greg have to do with any of it?” I shot back. I started pulling on my clothes too, trying to remain calm but knowing in my bones that Danielle was in trouble and Devon had something to do with it.
“Hey.” Edwin stood. “It was after everyone had that assignment when Devon decided Danielle didn’t annoy him anymore, right? Aw, fuck.” Now Edwin was pacing too, running a hand over his freshly cut hair. “So remember I told you I had a bad feeling about Devon’s little club? This week they popped up in one of the debriefing memos. Listed as having possible neo-Luddite sympathies. I don’t want to freak you out, but one of the latest plans they’ve discussed on social media is taking high-profile hostages.”
I should have been outraged, but numbness stole through my body, buffering me from the way what Edwin was suggesting matched up with reality. I’d warned Danielle away, but I should have been more insistent. I should have made a kitten-themed slideshow or whatever it took to get the point across that Devon was bad news. But I’d let that last little scrap of hope I had in his humanity distract me.
“Devon is a little shit, but he wouldn’t be mixed up in that. Would he?”
There was a pounding at the door, and Edwin went into that alert military stance I’d seen a few times before. He put a finger to his mouth to signal I should be quiet. I nodded and pulled on my
leggings. He tiptoed to the door and peered through the hole, and his shoulders dropped in relief. I released the breath I’d been holding. It was a friend.
Edwin swung open the door and slapped hands with someone. “Felix, man. I’m glad you’re here. Can you stay with Maggie? I have a bad feeling about those sirens.”
Felix frowned. “You’re right, man. Unfortunately you’re right.” That was when I noticed the gun in his hand, the gun he pointed at Edwin’s torso. “Maggie is going to have to come with me.”
Edwin’s guns were still locked away in his closet. I already saw what was going to happen next: Edwin lunging for the gun, Felix shooting, Edwin gone forever. I yelled as Edwin was readjusting his footing to a fighting stance. “Okay! I’ll come. Just don’t hurt him.”
“No way. No fucking way.” Edwin glared at me, but Felix reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a set of handcuffs.
“Put these on him and attach him to that pipe. Try anything funny, and I’ll shoot him.” He sounded remorseful about it, but not enough that I would test his loyalties.
My lungs felt like two blown speakers, unable to function. A few minutes ago, I’d been in post-coital bliss, and now I couldn’t even process what was going on. My hands shook as I took the cuffs, like I was already outside in the cold. A memory of being tackled into the hard-packed snow resurfaced. I dropped the handcuffs and then picked them back up.
“I’m sorry.” My voice was almost gone from the strain of not crying as I loosely cuffed him. It hurt to see his face twisted in disbelief, to know that the only thing holding him back from attacking Felix was me. I didn’t want to become just another woman he hadn’t been able to protect, but I wouldn’t let him get hurt when the end result would be the same.
Felix pushed past me and tightened the cuffs, and Edwin lunged at him, only to be yoked back by the handcuffs catching against the pipe with a metallic scrape. He turned his tortured gaze to Felix. “How can you calmly do this shit? Like we’re not friends?”
Felix looked sad. “I didn’t want to do this part, but if someone else came to get her they probably would have ended up killing you.”
Edwin’s nostrils flared and his eyes were wide with rage. “Why are you doing this? Money?”
Felix shook his head. “Money isn’t worth anything right now, and it should stay that way. Keeping the peace has a cost. You should know that.” He pulled a second set of handcuffs from his pocket. “Now you.” Once my hands were cuffed in front of me, he grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the dark hallway outside the door. “Your brother is a bigwig, and we need good hostages for maximum exposure.” He pressed the gun into my side, and every self-defense move I’d ever learned evaporated from my mind. I was sixteen and being attacked by a crazed man in the woods. I was eighteen, and a guy was shoving his hand up my skirt. I was a victim, again, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Edwin. I—Thank you. Don’t worry, everything will be all right.” I hadn’t taken statistics this semester, but it seemed that my third time being held against my will substantially lowered my chances of getting off scot-free. I hoped this was one of those math things I was wrong about.
“Maggie!” Edwin’s voice reverberated down the hall. The hot tears that had been pressing against my eyelids spilled out as I was buffeted by Edwin’s anguish. Felix tried not to be rough as he pulled me after him and into the stairwell, but as shock set in, it became harder for me to keep coordinated. He pushed me out the front door and into the cold, where a car sat idling. A familiar, much-too-fancy muscle car.
Felix opened the back door and pushed me in beside Danielle, then climbed in next to me.
“Aw, Margaret. You don’t look happy to see me,” Greg said from behind the wheel.
I ignored him and glared at Devon, who sat ramrod-straight in the passenger seat and refused to look back. Danielle shivered beside me, unspeaking, and I snuggled close to her.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” Greg said. He slapped Devon on the thigh like they were two buds heading out on a road trip, and then turned the ignition. “Next stop, Falling Leaf!”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I hated sitting in the middle seat during car rides, but that was the least of my worries.
“Devon, what’s going on?” My voice sounded like someone else’s, a woman who was angry and not one who was shaking so violently she had to hold her knees together to still them. I could trust him as far as I could throw him, but he was the only one who had even the slightest reason to be honest with me.
“A revolution is what’s going on,” Greg answered, and he smacked the wheel a couple of times like he was pumping himself up for a night at the club instead of an act of terrorism.
“Led by you? And what exactly is the point of this revolution? You don’t want to pay taxes?”
“I can’t expect someone like you to understand, since you’ve already proven yourself a sheep, but think about it for a minute. Over the last few years, people learned to do for themselves. They survived without government intervention. They thrived, even.”
“You are aware that millions of people died, right?” I asked, but he was already speaking over me.
“You know how half of the casualties died? Police shootings when people scavenged for food. There’s your government intervention. And now the sheeple are happy to sit back and let the restructuring begin. Notice I didn’t say rebuilding. They want to take away everything that was good about this country and turn it into a haven for the rich.” He was working himself into a froth, his voice loud like he was projecting to the back of a theater and not a car. “Now it’s a return to destroying the environment with fracking and pipelines and offshore drilling. Constitutional amendments. Martial law. And for what? Plenty of people have lived off the grid for years. We don’t need anyone telling us what to do to survive.”
I looked at Felix, who was nodding along like he was at church. He believed in Greg and what he was saying. I leaned toward the front of the car. “Before the revolution begins, can you give some citations for where you’re getting this information from? Because if I’m going to give credence to anything you’re saying, which all sounds like conspiracy theory bullshit, I’m gonna need to see the receipts.”
“I don’t need you to support what I’m doing. You’re a hostage, so all you have to do is look pretty and be absorbent enough to take a bullet or ten.”
His words pierced the thin armor that had been my protection from panic. Breathing became something I had to think about to do correctly, and the front seat of the car looked far away as tunnel vision messed with my perception. I wanted to slump back in my seat, give up and let fate unfurl as it saw fit. But then I thought of all the people who would be affected by their actions, and by non-action, and I had to keep pressing, even if the only thing I achieved was annoying them to death.
“So, you’re fighting against something that the majority of society wants because you don’t think it’s the right choice,” I said.
“That’s right,” he said proudly. He pulled a little bottle of liquor out of his pocket and took a swig. That was the thing that pushed me over the edge. He had kidnapped us and was driving us to the nuclear plant for reasons that obviously weren’t good, and he couldn’t even take his actions seriously enough to be sober. It was like this was a game for him, and my life and Danielle’s life were pawns in it.
“You think it’s okay for you to make decisions for an entire country’s worth of people,” I said. “Why is it not tyranny when you decide what happens? Or are you just so up your own ass that it never occurred to you what a hypocrite you are?”
“Maggie, be quiet, okay?” Devon said. He wasn’t angry, like the last few times I’d spoken to him. His voice was hoarse with fatigue and tinged with sadness. “You think you know everything because of your brother’s job, but I grew up arou
nd government people. I know they’re nothing but liars.”
The disconnect between the situation and the words coming out of his mouth were enough to send me into a rage that blotted out any common sense. I smacked the back of his headrest, my hand grazing the top of his head. “You selfish, useless, pathetic asshole! You’re the biggest liar I know, and you dare try to lecture me about my own brother?” Felix grabbed my arms and pulled me down into my seat, but I was still railing. “The people I know working on the reconstruction bust their asses every day because they want to make the world a better place. For us. They give zero fucks about corporations or governments. Meanwhile, you’re willing to follow some guy who has to hang out with people ten years younger than him and plans a revolution while drinking shitty home brew and drugging women.”
Greg was unfazed. “I told you this chick was a bitch. She’s lucky we need her. Until we get inside, that is. Unless there’s some other reason to keep her around.” And there it was. Of course he’d try to threaten me with that.
I laughed, mostly to hide the way I was shaking. My heart was beating too fast and my breath came in shallow little pants. “How do you think you’re going to get past the soldiers blocking the place, dickhead?”
“Tell her, Devon,” Greg said.
“Why don’t we all shut up until we get there?” Devon muttered.
“I said tell her.”
Devon sighed, as if he’d been chastised by a professor instead of a pathetic turd half his size. “There are a lot of useful things in trash, which is why I asked to be transferred to the farm. Working in the compost room gave me access to materials for making improvised explosive devices, paired with the stuff Felix could snag from maintenance.”
