Read Online The Escape by Shoshanna Evers - Free Book Online Page B

“That could work. They won’t try to retrieve a gun from the river. It would be a waste of time.”
    “Great.” She leaned back, her beautiful blonde hair cascading around her shoulders.
    “But what was I doing in the river?”
    “You saw my dead body floating by. You weren’t sure I was dead, so you waded in to save me and lost your gear, lost your gun, and almost drowned yourself.”
    “But I got out, minus the gun and gear, and realized you were completely dead . . . and floating away.”
    Jenna smiled. “No Jenna, no gear, no gun. Just you, safe and sound back at the camp, with your report.”
    He took a deep breath and exhaled. “All right. I can do that. I’ll tell Lanche.”
    “Or . . .” She took his hand in hers, and looked him in the eye. “Or you could forget about them. Stay with me. Leave with me.”
    He wanted to. He did. The Jenna he’d come to know was nothing like the murdering whore Lanche had convinced him she was. And if the camp was as bad as she believed
    (as bad as it was)
    if things were so terrible there . . . did he even want to go back and be part of the system that had broken her, and all those civilians, down?
    “I have to go back, Jenna. If I don’t, they’ll look for me. For us. I have to tell them you’re dead, like you said.”
    Jenna made a face, as if she’d tasted something disgusting. “And then you’re just going to get a new gun and follow orders and eat your rations and pretend the women on the Tracks aren’t being used on a nightly basis.”
    “Fuck, Jenna. I don’t know how I can do that now. But no matter what, I have to go back there.”
    “I’m leaving now,” she said. “You better start walking, and don’t look back. I don’t want you knowing where I’m headed, in case they try to ‘question’ it out of you.”
    “You think they’d torture me for information, one of their own soldiers? This is still America, damn it.”
    “You can’t be as dumb as you pretend to be, Barker.” She sighed. “Or maybe you are. Dumb and cute.”
    “Bye, Jenna.” He got out of the car and started the trek back to Grand Central.
    Grand Central Terminal, New York City
    Barker stood silently in the Operations Control Center, or the OCC, as everyone called it, where the Colonel paced in front of him.
    The Colonel looked different to him than he had even a few days earlier. Leaner, more unkempt. A day’s worth of stubble covered his cheeks.
    And he didn’t look happy.
    “Tell me again,” Lanche ordered. “Tell me what you saw. How do you know she was dead? Why did you go after her in the Hudson if she was definitely dead?”
    Keep it simple, keep it straight. The only way to tell a lie was to not compound it with details.
    Barker took a deep breath and tried to tell the story the same way he had told it before, the last two times. “I saw a woman with blonde hair in the water, so I went in after her. At that point I couldn’t confirm or deny it was Jenna, or that the woman was dead.”
    “How did Jenna get in the water? What was she doing that she got herself drowned?” Lanche interrupted.
    “There’s no way of having that intel, sir.” Barker paused. “I miscalculated the strength of the current, and I had to voluntarily lose the gear or risk drowning. The blonde woman floated by, clearly deceased, clearly Jenna. And when I got out of the water, the gun was gone. I looked up and down the river for it, but it’s gone, sir.”
    “You know what, Private Barker? If I had to choose, I would have chosen the gun and the gear over your life. Because you are one of many, and weapons—weapons are priceless. Without guns we can’t control the people. It would be anarchy.”
    “It’s a good thing the people don’t have their own guns, then, sir.” Stop talking.
    “Get the fuck out.”
    Barker saluted and turned to leave.
    “Wait. Barker. Go tell whoever’s on guard in storage to give you another gun. But if you lose this one . . .”
    The