Silas (12 page)

“
Why don’t you just let us
have the girl?” said Ross, leering. “If we’re all going to die,
then maybe it’d be nice to have some of that sweet ass before we
go.”

Christa moved away from me,
still shaking. “Shut up,” she said. “You don’t get to talk about me
like I’m not here.”

“
No one touches Silas’
woman,” said Emmett, looking at the others pointedly. “Got
it?”

“
Who died and made you
king?” said Brandon.

“
Just listen to him,” said
Ken. “He’s right, anyway.”

Christa opened her mouth,
undoubtedly to tell everyone that she didn’t belong to
me.

I nudged her, shaking my head. It was
easier this way. Cleaner.

She glared at me for a
minute, but then she seemed to acquiesce. She looked down at the
floor.

“
So, you have a plan,
Silas?” said Emmett. “Some way to get us all out alive?”

“
Not a plan exactly,” I
said. “We need to outrun them. We need to get away from them. I
don’t know how we’re going to do that, but we’ll need to work
together. We’re going to have as many as half a dozen men out there
with guns trying to kill us. They’ll be well fed, happy, and having
fun. We can’t afford to be squabbling amongst
ourselves.”

Emmett inclined his head.
“The man has a point.”

“
Yeah,” said Ken.

“
Anyone not on board?” I
asked, glaring out at them.

No one said a word.

* * *

They came by and opened a grate in the
door. They passed in trays of food for us. Huge portions of meat,
potatoes, and vegetables, probably meant to give us as much energy
as possible for the hunt tomorrow.

They yelled in to us that
this was our last meal, and that we should do our best to enjoy
it.

Ross got up and went to the door. He
banged on it and yelled back.

They only laughed at him.

After a while the voices outside went
away.

We could see the light outside only
under the door. It slowly faded.

It was night.

The others began to fall asleep,
clearly used to the routine.

I was afraid to sleep, even
though I knew I was going to need my strength tomorrow. I didn’t
want to leave Christa unprotected. Ross might have given lip
service to the idea of leaving her alone, but I didn’t trust
that.

I told her to stay close to
me, and I wrapped a protective arm around her, holding her against
my body. “I won’t let them touch you,” I whispered to
her.

She looked at me with wide,
frightened eyes. But she lay her head down on my chest, and she
closed her eyes.

I found myself enjoying the
heft of her body next to mine. She was soft and small, and I wasn’t
made of stone, even though we were stuck in a prison underground. I
did my best to ignore what I was feeling, but that only seemed to
make it worse. I couldn’t seem to stop being aware of all of her
curves. Of the fact that my hand was resting against the swell of
her hip. That her tits were pressed against me. That I was holding
her.

I worked so hard at trying
to keep my mind off it, that I managed to distract myself from my
attempt to stay awake.

I slipped into sleep, Christa snug
against me.

I woke up some time later because she
was moving, extricating herself from my grasp.

I grabbed her. “What are you
doing?” I whispered.

“
I have to pee,” she said.
“I was waiting until everyone was asleep.”

“
Oh,” I said, letting go.
“Okay.”

She moved away from me and went to the
corner, where the toilet was.

It was still and silent in the
room.

“
Are you watching?” she
whispered, her soft voice carrying across the room.

I forced myself not to turn
in the direction of her voice. “No.”

“
But you’re
listening.”

“
I can’t help it,” I said. I
felt for her. If the situation were reversed, and I was in a room
with a bunch of women, and I had to take a piss, well…

“
Hold your ears,” she
said.

“
Christa—”

“
Please.” There was a note
of desperation in her voice.

I plugged my ears.

I could hear her anyway, but
I didn’t take my fingers out until she touched me on the shoulder
to let me know she was back.

“
Of course there’s no toilet
paper,” she said.

“
Human beings survived
without toilet paper for thousands of years,” I told
her.

“
Easy for you to say,” she
said.

Maybe she was right. “Sorry.
You been holding it all that time?”

“
I thought I was going to
burst,” she said. She lay back down against my chest. “Thanks. For
not listening.”

I put my arm around her
again. “Sure.”

“
Silas?”

“
Yeah?”

“
What the hell is going
on?”

I sighed. “I’m sorry you’re
mixed up in this.”

“
Are they really going to
kill us?”

“
I’m not going to let them,”
I said. “Griffin would never forgive me if I let something happen
to you.”

“
Well, that won’t matter if
you’re dead, will it?”

“
I won’t be,” I said.
“Neither of us will be.”

“
You owe me answers, Silas.
Who is this guy? What does he want with us?”

“
His name’s Rolf. He’s
a rich fuckwad who thinks that the rules don’t apply to him and
that he can do whatever he wants. He bought up a lot of land in
West Virginia, supposedly to preserve it, and to keep it from being
developed or mined or anything like that. But he really just wanted
it to make his own private hunting grounds. People know that he
hunts here. They just don’t know
what
he hunts.”

“
So, he gets people who are
on Death Row and hunts them for sport?”

“
Yeah,” I said. “He’s got a
lot of friends in high places. He pays people off. He does what he
wants.”

“
And how do you know all of
this about him?”

“
My path has crossed Rolf’s
before. And when I found out what he was doing, I told his wife. He
didn’t want her to know.”

“
So that’s why he wants to
kill you? Because you know his secrets?”

“
No,” I said. “He wants to
kill me because I slept with his wife.”

She pulled away from me.
“What?”

I didn’t say
anything.

“
I’m here, and some guy is
trying to shoot me, because you couldn’t keep it in your pants?”
Her voice was rising.

“
Shh!” I cast a glance
around at the other men. They still seemed to be
sleeping.

“
You fucking
asshole.”

“
Christa—”

“
Did you follow her around
too? Did you tell her that you couldn’t stop thinking about
her?”

“
Quiet,” I said. She was
going to wake everyone up. “No, it wasn’t actually my idea to sleep
with her. It was hers.”

“
Did you know she was
married?”

“
Well, yes, but you’re not
exactly understanding the situation—”

“
I don’t
believe
you.” She scooted
several feet away, leaning up against the concrete wall and hugging
herself. “I’m in this mess because of your damned
cock.”

I rest my head against the
wall. The hell of it was, she was right. “I’m sorry.”

“
I hate you, Silas
Drake.”

I ran a hand over my face.
“I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

“
Sure you aren’t,” she said.
“Because you’ve done such a great job so far of keeping me
safe.”

I cringed.

“
Just shut up and leave me
alone, okay?”

“
Look, I—”

“
Don’t
.”

* * *

When I woke up, the door was
open.

Emmett was crouching at the top of the
steps, peering outside.

Ken was awake too, standing
at the bottom, looking up at Emmett. “You see anyone?” he asked in
a hoarse voice.

Emmett shook his head.

I got up and went to stand
next to Ken. “They’re probably out there waiting for
us.”

“
That’s what I’m thinking,”
said Emmett. “An ambush.”

“
Kick everything off with a
little bit of bloodshed, right?” I said. I moved past Ken and
walked up the stairs. I was wearing a long-sleeved button up shirt
over my shirt-shirt. I took off the button-up shirt and tossed it
out the door.

The response was immediate.
Gunfire bursting out like the drum section of a marching band. My
shirt was riddled with holes in the air. It fluttered to the ground
in pieces.

“
Shit,” said Ken.

Everyone else was awake now. Christa,
Milo, Brandon, and Ross were all sitting straight up, their eyes
wide in fear.

“
What the fuck was that?”
said Ross.

“
That was us finding out
that they’re covering the door,” I said. “The first person out of
that door is dead. First step he makes.”

Emmett stroked his chin.
“Well, we don’t leave then. We stay here.”

“
You kidding?” said Brandon.
“We’re trapped rats in here. In here, they know where we are. They
can come shoot us anytime.”

“
But it’s not about shooting
us, is it?” Emmett asked me. “At least, it’s not only about
shooting us. They want to hunt us down first.”

I looked at the others.
“He’s right. This a sport for them. If we don’t play, that’s going
to force them to make another move.”

“
What do you think that move
will be?” asked Milo.

“
I have no idea,” I
said.

“
What if that move is to
come in here and start shooting us?” said Christa.

I considered. “They might do
that. They probably wouldn’t shoot all of us, but they might kill
one of us in an attempt to get the rest of us to run.”

Emmett sucked in air through
his nose. “So, if we run, someone dies. If we stay, someone
dies.”

Everyone was quiet.

“
If we run,” said Emmett,
“then we stand a better chance in the woods. We could stay out of
their sight. And if we stay, they’re probably just going to force
us to go.”

“
The door’s narrow,” I said.
“We’d have to go single file. And the first man to go is going to
get shot.” I considered. “So, that should probably be
me.”

“
What?” said Christa. “No. I
don’t think you should—”

“
Trust me,” I said. I looked
at the others. “You guys see this?” I pointed at the blood all over
me. “This is from the last time I had a bullet in my
skull.”

Emmett narrowed his eyes.
“This isn’t a time to make jokes, boy.”

“
Not a joke. I’m hard to
kill.” I took a deep breath. “I’ll go out first. I’ll draw their
fire.”

“
I think it’s a bad idea,”
said Christa.

I turned to Ken. He’d made a
few comments that led me to believe he was a decent guy. “Can you
take Christa?

He nodded. “Yeah.” He turned
to her. “You run behind me, and it’ll be okay.”

She shook her head. “No. I
don’t like this plan.”

I turned to Emmett. “They’ve
been watching us, and you’ve emerged as a bit of a leader. They’ll
gun for you because of that. They’ll figure that we’ll lose
cohesion without you.”

Emmett shrugged. “It’s like
you said last night. I’m a dead man walking.”

I looked back at Ken. The
truth was that all of these men had been sentenced to death. They
were most likely all guilty of some kind of heinous crime. Could I
trust Christa with any of them?

On the flip side, it wasn’t
as if I hadn’t done the kinds of things that earned people the
death penalty myself. Maybe it was better not to worry about
it.

“
There’s a clearing out
there,” said Emmett. “Woods in all directions. We go east, towards
the rising sun. Out there, it’s every man for himself. Those of us
that can will meet up in the woods once we’re clear. Got
it?”

“
What if we don’t want to
meet up?” said Ross.

“
Then don’t,” said
Emmett.

I looked around at the
circle of guys. At Christa’s wide, frightened eyes. I took a deep
breath. “Well, guess there’s no reason delaying the
inevitable.”

Emmett furrowed his brow.
“Are you sure about this?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

* * *

I hurled myself out the open
door, screaming at the top of my lungs. Something about yelling
made it easier. I knew that I
’d be okay,
that the bullets weren’t going to cause any permanent damage, but
it was still a hell of thing to rush out into what you knew was
going to be an ambush.