Chapter 22

“Drop the rifle!” one of the men screamed at me. At that moment, I didn’t even feel fear. All the adrenaline blocked it out entirely. I simply put my rifle on the floor and raised my hands above my head.

The other man walked around me, still keeping his pistol point blank at my head. “Who the hell are you?” he asked, sounding more confused than angry. “You’re not one of our troops.” Troops? That’s what they called them?

My captive, leaning against the wall ten feet away from me, spoke up. “He mentioned Josh, the kid in The Font. Guess they must be friends or something.”

“What’s your name, son?” the one in front of me asked. I didn’t say anything. He took a step forward and hit me across the face with his weapon. “I asked you your name.”

“Jesus Christ,” I seethed, my body hunched over and my hands grabbing my face. It had taken more than a few hits so far today and now I was really starting to feel it. “My name is—” Anything but Trent. “—Travis.”

He chuckled. “ Travis, you are very much in the wrong place right now, and that is very unfortunate for you. Now come. And I swear, if you try to make a run for it, I will put a bullet between your eyes. Even if the back of your head is facing me.”

“Fine.” With Pistol McWhippy in front and his partner behind me, we walked back down the stairs and out of the Admin Building. Then we headed right, away from the group of buildings, towards an open field, a few hundred feet from the fence. McWhippy stopped abruptly and turned to me.

“Well Travis, I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that you’ll be joining your boyfriend in The Font.” A shiver went down my spine as he mentioned being Josh’s boyfriend. Did he know, or was he just trying to be insulting? “The bad news is, it’s only gonna be your corpse. I’ll make sure it’s still warm when you’re thrown in there, so maybe he can have one last go at you.”

Both my hands clenched into fists. “You’re going to kill me?” I asked through gritted teeth. “People know I’m here. There’s no possible way they won’t find me.”

Now he was laughing. “And yet it will happen. I hate to break it to you, but your parents are never gonna know what happened to their faggot-ass son.” He raised his gun at my head once again. “Now, as I said, if you wanna run, I’m fine with that. Will let me work on my target practice. Hell, maybe I’ll deliberately miss, just to make you think you stand a chance of getting out alive.”

Oh, I wanted to run, but not from him. If he was going to shoot me, it would be with me attacking him with all my might. I stared in his eyes. “There is no fucking way I’m…” There was movement behind him. In the sky. Getting closer. “No, fine. I’ll run. But just tell me—how many others have you done this to?”

He grinned. “Less than I can count on one hand, but I promise you’re not the first. You might be the oldest, though.”

Next to me, the other staff member coughed. My executioner gave him a look, and he turned away. I could hear a low buzzing noise. “So, what, do I get a five second head start?” I asked loudly.

“Sure, but you’ve already used it up.” His arm tensed, as the buzzing grew louder.

“Well then,” I said, slurring my words together loudly. “Let my last words to you be these: Fuck. You.”

“That’s cute. Everyone else has just begged for mercy. So let the last words you hear—” He adjusted the gun. “—be these: Fuck— yah!”

The drone hit him in the back of the head, sending him stumbling forward. I pounced, meeting his head with the hardest punch I’d ever thrown. I felt cartilage crack under my knuckles, but I had no time to enjoy it. His friend had turned around, pistol aimed at the two of us. I rolled against his leaned-over back, trying to put him between me and the second shooter, and then crouched down and grabbed the gun that had fallen from his hand. It was another weapon I’d never used, but my instincts took over. I stood up and fired multiple times, hitting the guy in the gut at least once. I dropped the gun and grabbed my hand in pain. The punch followed by the recoiling pistol had really fucked up my wrist.

But I still had two good legs, and I used them to kick Whippy McAsshole’s side multiple times, until he was on the ground, his body curled up in the fetal position. I gave him one last stomp, and then, confident that he wasn’t getting up any time soon, turned my attention to the drone.

Despite plowing into the soldier at full speed, it was still hovering right over to me. “Trent? Trent, can you hear me?”

There was a small walkie-talkie taped onto the drone’s base. I grabbed it. “Cam?”

“Yeah man. Glad to see their cell-jamming device doesn’t work on these wavelengths. But what the hell is going on there? Was that guy about to shoot you?”

“He was. Your timing couldn't have been better. I don’t suppose you have an army of drones that you could bring in to help me, huh?”

“Just the one, and it's going to run out of batteries soon. Have you managed to find Josh?”

“No. I think I know where Josh is—or, really, I know where he is but I'm not sure how to get there.” My captive's directions flowed through my mind. Has he been lying to buy time? “I'm going to head back to the Admin Building and see if I can get him.”

“I'd advise against that,” Cameron said. “There's about five or so guys near the place, and they look armed. It's hard to tell, though. I really should have brought my binoculars.”

“They must have heard the gunshots. Course, they might have assumed they were meant for me. Which means I have all of two minutes to get out of here before they start wondering why their buddies haven’t returned with their recent kill.”

“Can you find a way under, or maybe through, the fence? If you can find a way out, I can run off to where there’s reception and call the police.”

I remembered what Whippy had said to me. The camp clearly had a way to literally get away with murder. “No, we can't get the cops involved.”

“What?” His voice crackled over the radio. “Are you crazy? They tried to kill you! Caitlyn’s not here to confirm this, but I'm pretty damn sure that's a fucking crime.”

I sighed and grimaced. “It's not that simple. I think there's someone pulling the strings that keeps the camp out of trouble.” My free hand clenched into a fist. “Plus, they know I'm after Josh. It could take the cops hours to get here, and by then Josh could be long gone. And even more plus, I want to take these fuckers down myself.”

Cameron was silent for a few seconds. Just as I was about to ask if he was still there, the radio cracked back to life. “Maybe you could make a distraction?”

“That's the sort of thinking I like.” I knew exactly what kind of distraction I wanted to make. “How close are any of them from the mess hall?”

“From what I can see, they’re all kinda far from it. I don't see anyone near the hall. What are you planning on doing, pulling the fire alarm or something like that?”

“Yep, definitely something like that. Over and out.” I put the walkie talkie in my pocket and ran back to the mess hall, curving around so that anyone standing near the admin building would not be able to see me. Half of my body was in some serious pain, but the adrenaline, combined with my sheer determination to get Josh and get back at the people who ran this camp, kept me moving. I could deal with the pain when Josh was safe and the camp in ruins.

For the second time, I ducked in through the kitchen’s back door. This time I found myself facing a boy, maybe a year or two younger than Josh, mopping up the hot water I had spilled my first time through. He saw me—and the gun I was holding—and clenched the mop handle tightly. “Easy there,” I said. I jammed the gun into my belt. Just like in the movies. “I'm not here to hurt you.”

“I was told to do this.” His voice was shaking. “I swear. You can ask Commander Ramshaw.”

I resisted smiling. He thought I was staff. This was going to make my life a lot easier. “I know, uh, son,” I said, dropping my voice. “I'm sure you've heard what’s been going on here in Camp Freedom today, and I've been given a very important task to protect the camp from further damage.” He looked at me expectantly but didn't say anything. “The gas lines are becoming clogged, due to, uh, oversupply. We need to break them in here so they can escape and not cause the entire place to blow up.”

He nodded. Good for him for pretending he understood what I said. It was like me in most of my classes. “What do we need to do?”

“Grab a knife,” I said, pointing to the rack. “We need to cut each of the gas lines in here.”

“Really? Isn't that dangerous?”

“Are you questioning an order?” I took two steps toward him, and he nearly jumped back. “Well, are you?”

“No sir.” He leaned the mop against the counter and grabbed a thick butcher knife. “Tell me what to cut.”

I moved around the kitchen, gingerly stepping over the still hot puddles of water, looking for each of the gas lines. They weren’t hard to spot—they were located along the walls next to the stoves and ovens and were clearly labelled as DANGER: GAS. I pointed each one out and told him to cut them very carefully. Grabbing a knife, I showed him how to drag it slowly across the small pipes to create a rift, instead of sawing back and forth. My incision worked, and he followed suit. A minute later, the kitchen was filled with the stench of natural gas, and the pain in my body was replaced with a mild wooziness.

“Okay, best to get out of here now.” He looked at me, swaying back and forth, and then nodded and headed toward the mess hall door. “Um, no. Go outside. That’s the best idea.” He slowly turned and walked the other way.

My vision was blurring slightly—or maybe it was just the thickness of the gas in the air. I stopped at one of the ovens and set its pilot light timer to one minute. Then I grabbed one of the knives, just in case, and walked out the back door.

My mind felt refreshed as soon as I stepped into the clear air. The boy was waiting just a few feet away. “Well done, son,” I said. “Now, I want you to run around the pond and then go back to Chapel.”

“But what about—”

“That’s an order! Go! Now!” He took off running, while I went the other way, heading towards the back of the admin building. I’d gone about thirty seconds when an incredible blast sounded behind me, like being right next to the lightning strike of the worst thunderstorm of the season. It was followed by a wave of heat against my back. I turned and looked back at the destruction. A massive fireball exploded upwards from the destroyed kitchen, with debris flying everywhere. A pan landed about twenty feet behind me. I ran even faster.

“What the hell did you do?” Cameron screamed from my pocket. “It’s like the climax of a Michael Bay film!”

I pulled the walkie-talkie out. “You said I needed a distraction,” I said. “Now I have one.”

“Seriously, Trent? That’s your idea of a distraction?”

“Is it working?”

“Ugh, yes. They’re all running over to the blast site. And I bet you’re smirking right now, aren’t you?” I was. “Well wipe it off your face and go save your boyfriend. And by the way, you two better get fucking married or something, after all you’ve done today.”

“Copy that.” I reached the back of the admin building. There were no doors, but a window leading into an office was slightly opened. I pulled it all the way up and climbed through.

I hadn’t stopped grinning since I was in the kitchen, and it wasn’t just because of the gas fumes. Blowing the place to smithereens had felt good. Way too good. And now I was going to find Josh. And if not, I was going to blow the whole damn camp to Hell.