“Maybe not, but at least your brother’s college years gave your mother and I more time to try and talk him out of his crazy plan. We were supposed to have at least four more years to coerce you into a career of our choosing. You’re barely eighteen!”
I couldn’t help but smile and lean my cheek against my dad’s shoulder. We both knew my parents never would have tried to push me into a career of their choosing. They were too proud of how independent they were raising both of their kids. “Well, think of it this way. You’ll be saving gobs of money on student loans for me.”
“Like I care. I’d pay it all three times over just to know you were safe.”
“I know, Dad. But sooner or later you have to let me go out into the world on my own.”
He went silent for a long moment. Finally he muttered, “What am I supposed to tell your mother?”
I cringed. Now that was one scene I was glad I wouldn’t be around to have to witness.
Sunday, December 13th
Hayden
Quiet. Warmth. Soft hands stroking my right hand.
I peeled open my eyelids, then wished I hadn’t as a thin line of daylight stabbed at my eyeballs. I groaned.
“Shh,” Tarah whispered against my ear. “Don’t talk now.”
I took a few seconds to open my eyes, letting them adjust to the light. Finally, I could see a little.
Metal floor beneath us. Dark greenish brown canvas roof and walls. We must be in the back of one of the camp’s military trucks. Which meant at least a few of us had made it out after all.
I used my stomach muscles to help me sit up. The movement made the several layers of scratchy wool blankets fall away from my chest and my left shoulder twinge in protest. I remembered Tarah’s voice at the camp telling me I’d been shot. My shoulder continued to burn and throb with a low pulse of pain in rhythm with my heartbeat. But for a bullet wound, it didn’t hurt nearly as much as I’d always imagined one would. I wanted to see what it looked like, but my entire left shoulder had been wrapped in gauze under the white T-shirt I wore now. The shirt fit looser than normal. Probably swiped from the camp’s guard building by someone to replace my other shirt and hoodie. If not for the blankets, I would have been freezing.
Then the blood rushed away from my head. My upper body swayed out of my control, and nausea hit me so hard and fast I feared I would puke right then and there. While I saw dots and little squiggly lines dancing over a dark and blurry field of vision, Tarah helped me scoot backwards till I could rest upright against the metal side of the truck. I closed my eyes and clamped my teeth shut till both the sensations passed.
Her shoulder brushed my good one, tempting me to open my eyes again and watch her as she twisted to peek outside the truck through a tear in the canvas.
After a minute, I heard a car start up a few feet from us and drive away.
Tarah sighed. “Okay, now we can talk. How do you feel?”
I grunted.
Whispers and rustling as bodies shifted all around us, and for the first time I noticed we weren’t alone. The truck bed was full of outcasts I recognized from the internment camp. And all of them were watching us.
“How many made it out?” I muttered to Tarah and braced myself for her answer, knowing whatever she said, ultimately it would be my fault and everyone in this truck would blame me for it.
She grinned. “Everyone.”
What? What about the fight at the end? “How many were wounded?”
“Just one. You. And Pamela said you should be pretty close to healed by now. The healers are really good. They took turns fixing you up. Though they said you might still end up with a scar. The bullet went right through your shoulder. You might also feel a little woozy for a while since you lost a lot of blood.”
I blinked, unsure how to react. On the one hand, I hadn’t gotten anyone killed or seriously hurt, other than myself.
On the other hand, I was the only one who’d gotten hurt at all. Now that was just plain embarrassing. “Guess I should’ve ducked, huh?”
Tarah stared at me without a hint of a smile now. “You saved everyone’s lives, Hayden. Because of you, no one else was hurt, and everyone’s free of that place.”
“Yeah, well, still, no one else ended up being carried out of there. I bet they had a good laugh about it.”
“Uh, no one’s laughing about it. In fact…” She leaned in closer and whispered, “I think you’re developing quite a fan club. You’re a real life hero.”
She made a point of raising her eyebrows and looking around.
That’s why everyone was staring at us? I thought they were blaming me for not getting everyone out of the camp.
I looked again at all the faces surrounding us, this time daring to make eye contact. While I didn’t see any glares of hatred and blame as expected, what I did find made me almost as uncomfortable. Their eyes shone with something like gratitude mixed with hope and a whole lot of questions I couldn’t answer for them.
I cleared my throat then whispered, “How many’s in the group? And where are we headed now?”
“Well, some of the families already had their own plans for what to do next. So we dropped them off at a bus station along the way. Including my dad.” Tightness crept into her voice on that last part, and I looked at her. Her chin rose a bit as she continued. “The rest of us decided to stick together. Now we’ve stopped for gas. I think we’re somewhere in Oklahoma?”
She still hadn’t told me where we were headed.
“Where are we going?” I leaned over to peek out through the tear in the canvas at what looked like a dusty gas station.
“I…um, found that name and address in your pocket. I called her, and she said she’s your grandma? She said we should bring everyone to her house, and we could figure out the rest from there.”
I froze, hoping I’d heard her wrong. “We’re all going to my grandma’s? In South Dakota? Tarah, that’s over a thousand miles from the camp.”
She rolled her lips in and pressed them together then shrugged. “It’s a safe haven. Besides, you weren’t exactly available for consultation. But if you want to change your mind about South Dakota and take us all somewhere better, no one’s gonna argue with you.”
This felt like a really bad idea. “Why is everyone sticking together anyway? Don’t they realize they can hide better if all these families split off on their own? A group this big is too noticeable. We’re going to attract too much attention.”