Chapter 2 — The Price of Staying

Graham found me with the paper in my hand.

He looked at the cabinet, then at my bulging pockets.

“Put those back.”

I held up the list.

“What happens at six?”

He closed the washroom door behind him.

That frightened me more than shouting would have.

“It’s transport.”

“To where?”

“Mercy Ridge.”

Tess appeared at the end of the corridor. Behind her, Eli leaned against the wall on his good leg.

Graham looked annoyed to see him standing.

“You should be resting.”

Eli’s eyes went to the medicine in my hands.

“How much did we have?”

“Enough,” Graham said.

“Enough for what?” I asked. “Because apparently it wasn’t enough for him.”

Graham slipped his pistol into its holster.

A deliberate movement. A reminder that he could take it out again.

“Mercy Ridge has surgeons. Electricity. Real food. I’ve been negotiating places for us.”

“Then why is there a note about making me comply?”

He reached for the paper.

I stepped back.

“Because you argue with everything.”

Tess glanced at the list over my shoulder.

“Why are our old injuries on it?”

“They need medical information.”

“And the signatures?”

“Consent.”

“We haven’t consented.”

“You will when you understand the alternative.”

Eli gave a short, exhausted laugh.

“You mean dying down here?”

Graham’s face hardened.

“I kept you alive when your parents couldn’t.”

I heard Tess inhale.

My parents had died on a blocked highway while Graham’s convoy drove past them. For years, I had accepted his explanation that stopping would have killed everyone.

Maybe that was true.

I no longer knew which parts of him I could trust.

“The medicine,” I said. “We’re taking it.”

“You don’t decide that.”

“I just did.”

His hand moved toward the holster.

Tess lifted the wrench.

“Think about how much noise that’ll make in a concrete hallway.”

Graham looked at her, then at Eli, then back at me.

“You walk out of here, you lose your places.”

“Good.”

“The treatment offer goes with them.”

Eli straightened against the wall.

“Then I lose the treatment.”

I turned.

He was shaking, barely able to hold himself upright.

“Eli—”

“No.” He looked at Graham. “You don’t get to keep using me.”

For the first time that night, Graham seemed uncertain.

Then he reached past me and slapped the lockdown switch.

The corridor lights turned red.

Tess swore.

I drove my shoulder into Graham before he could draw. He hit the cabinet. Medicine rattled behind him.

“Tess, take Eli.”

She moved immediately.

Graham caught my sleeve.

“You have no idea what’s outside.”

“I saw what you invited inside.”

I twisted free and ran.

The common-room security door began descending.

Tess dragged Eli beneath it.

I threw myself after them and hit the floor hard enough to knock the breath from my chest.

The door slammed down behind my boots.

Through the steel came Graham’s fist.

“You come back right now.”

Tess helped me up.

“How long?”

“Until he resets from his office? Two minutes.”

“Can you stop him?”

I went to the control panel and pried off its cover.

Wires spilled out.

Graham had changed the access codes six times in the past year. He had never changed the relay I installed when the original one burned out.

I pulled it free.

The keypad died.

Tess grinned without humor.

“Buy us more than two minutes?”

“Until he figures out how to bypass it.”

We moved fast.

Food. Water. Dressings. Ammunition.

Eli insisted on taking the portable radio and its hand-crank charger.

I tried to carry his bag.

He held on to it.

“I can sit in a vehicle and turn a handle.”

“We don’t have a vehicle.”

“Tess does.”

I looked at her.

She was filling two bottles from the pump.

“There’s a maintenance van under the west shelter,” she said. “I’ve been working on it.”

“How long?”

“Long enough to get tired of asking permission.”

For months, she had returned from assigned repair trips with grease under her nails and very little to say.

Now I understood why.

We dressed Eli’s wound again. I gave him the medicine according to the directions on the package and wrote the time on the back of my hand.

Then we opened the outer door.

Cold air moved into the bunker.

I had imagined this moment for years: leaving freely, carrying everything I needed, walking toward something better.

Instead, there was blood on the concrete stairs.

At the top landing, the green coat lay empty.

Tess stopped beside it.

“Where’s the rest of it?”

I raised my rifle.

We listened.

Rain ticked through the leaves. Somewhere beyond the perimeter fence, a branch cracked.

“Keep moving,” I whispered.

The van waited beneath a collapsed metal shelter fifty yards from the entrance. Tess had covered it with camouflage netting and a layer of fallen branches.

Its tires were patched. The windshield had a long crack across the passenger side.

When she turned the key, the engine caught on the second try.

I almost cried at the sound.

Eli climbed into the rear seat with my help.

Tess handed me the passenger door.

“Check the shelter before we go. I left a fuel can there.”

I found the can beneath the workbench.

Beside it lay a fresh boot print.

Another led toward the bunker.

I followed them three steps and saw a black plastic box strapped to a drainage pipe.

A cable ran from it into the stairwell.

I crouched.

The box contained a compact speaker and a battery pack. Its indicator flashed weakly beneath a clear cover.

There were two buttons.

I pressed the smaller one.

Eli’s voice rose from the speaker.

“Please. I can’t feel my leg.”

I let go as if the button had burned me.

Footsteps sounded inside the bunker.

Graham had found another way around the security door.

“Rowan!”

I tore the cable loose, grabbed the box, and ran.

He appeared at the top of the stairs as I reached the van.

“Don’t take that.”

Of everything we had stolen, that was what made him draw his gun.

“Tess!” I shouted.

The van lurched forward.

A shot cracked behind us.

Glass burst from the rear window.

Eli ducked. I slammed my door and dragged the speaker box onto my lap.

Tess drove through the sagging perimeter fence.

The engine screamed as we hit the old service road.

Nobody spoke until the bunker disappeared behind the trees.

Then Eli said, “Are we all here?”

Tess checked the mirror.

“Yeah.”

He closed his eyes.

“Then keep going.”

We stopped beneath an overpass at first light.

Tess inspected the van while I examined the box. A small memory card sat inside a slot behind the battery.

There were dozens of recordings on it.

I played one.

My voice.

“Tess, open up. It’s me.”

Another.

Tess laughing.

Another.

Eli calling my name.

Some had been recorded in the common room. One included the water pump rattling in the background.

Graham had collected us in pieces.

Enough words to make us sound frightened.

Enough names to make us sound familiar.

Eli took the box from me and turned it over.

“There’s something underneath.”

A white inventory label covered the base.

Most of it had peeled away, but the printed emblem remained: a ridge beneath a rising sun.

Below it were two words.

MERCY RIDGE.