Read Online Running Red by Jack Bates - Free Book Online Page B

it’s night and because the person is behind a screen, I can’t make out any features. I can only feel his eyes on me. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me.
    My tent is at the rear of the yard, nearest the wooden privacy fence. There’s a door panel in the fence. It’s a black, iron grasp with a thumb-latch release. On our side, two heavy-duty slide bar locks have been installed. A coil of razor wire has been fitted over the panel so that if the door is opened, it won’t pull down the rest of the coil running along the top.
    Aubrey continues to my tent. I stop a step or two behind him.
    “Aubrey,” I say. I keep my voice low. “What’s behind the fence?” He looks back at me, shines his flashlight in my eyes. I hold up my hand. He lowers the beam.
    “You should get inside your tent,” he says.
    “I will, but what about—”
    “Robbie. Really. You should come inside.” He holds the flap back for me. I get the impression he wants to talk to me privately. I’m not sure how much privacy a city of tents can provide.
    My backpack sits inside the tent. I already know my weapons have been confiscated, but I go through the pockets and insides anyhow. I sift through the odds and ends and think, “This is my life now. All I am is inside this backpack.”
    “They left everything else alone in it,” Aubrey says. He kneels in front of me.
    “Why did they take my belongings?”
    “It’s a precaution.”
    “I’m not the enemy. The runners are the enemy.”
    “We can’t be too sure,” Aubrey says.
    “Why not?”
    “Maybe you haven’t noticed it, Robbie, but it’s a dangerous world out there.”
    “Yeah, and apparently the biggest danger is me.”
    “You don’t understand what’s happening. You’ve been solitary too long.”
    “And you do understand?”
    “More than you.”
    “Why don’t you tell me?”
    But Aubrey says nothing. He just stares at me.
    “Who put up my tent?” I ask.
    “Matt and I did while you were sleeping.”
    “You mean after you drugged me?”
    Aubrey looks away from me again. “I didn’t have a choice. You saw what Auntie Alice did to Matt.” Aubrey can’t look at me. He turns to the flap. I stop him.
    “Where is Matt, anyhow?” I ask. “I haven’t seen him since he cut the hand out of my hair.”
    “What do you care?” Aubrey’s voice turns hostile. “We may be a bunch of people here, but we’re all basically alone.”
    So I try another approach to keep him in my tent. I grab his hand. It’s warm and calloused from hard work. “What’s on the other side of the wood fence?” I ask.
    Aubrey looks at our hands. His fingers fold over mine. “Don’t worry about it. You’re safe in the yard.”
    But I wonder just how true that is.

Seven
    Sleep eludes me.
    I worry about Yuki. I want to believe she’s still in that storeroom waiting for me, but then I remember she’s a dog and she’s probably wandered away. Does she even give me a second thought? I can’t imagine she’s lying behind those boxes wondering where I am.
    The boxes.
    There were quite a few there. Aubrey and Matt said they were out looking for supplies. I wonder how long the group has been camped at Freedom House. A week? A month? The tents would suggest this group is nomadic. I can’t imagine what would bring them to Kawkawlin. I have more questions than I do answers.
    I let it go and think of Matt and Aubrey.
    One of them is a punk, the kind of guy my dad said Lane was. “Nothing good ever comes from spending time with boys like him,” he told me. My dad didn’t understand Lane. Maybe if he’d taken the time to get to know him instead of judging him by the way he looked, there wouldn’t have been all the friction that there was between us. I’ve had time to wonder if I was only dating Lane because my dad didn’t want me to. I know he would have preferred a guy like Aubrey.
    But is Aubrey any different?
    As soon as I looked into those amazing blue eyes of his, I wanted to find out more about