Silence, then Louise stifled a laugh. “Don’t count either one of those. The third one will be the guy you’re really in love with.”
A brief smile faded quickly. Where did the game of deception stop and the reality of her life begin? Her head sank deeper into her pillow and her memory fought to recover something familiar. It wasn’t far away, but it was buried under layers of dust. Something unimportant or more important than everything else.
Sighing, she pressed her face against the cold pillow. What did it mean to be home? Was it Oak Creek where she had a roof over her head and a routine, the house that she must have once shared with her parents, or a place like Maibe where she had friends? At least she believed them to be friends, people who cared about her, but they had only been children. In the rest of her world, people were incapable of love. They might form alliances for protection, but no one wanted to carry extra weight or slow down for someone who couldn’t keep up. She wondered whether Nick or Aaron could add insight to her question, but she realized she had no time for testing theories. Only three things mattered: escaping Oak Creek with Nick, protecting the pendant, and finding a family—people who would take care of her, people she didn’t have to lie to, people who would never abandon her.
Chapter 27
The next night, Louise spread out a hand-drawn map of Oak Creek on Lareina’s bed. She pointed at a building near the center. “That’s where everyone will be gathered for the engagement party.”
Lareina peered over Louise’s hand to read the label above a little square sketched out in pencil. “Really? The cafeteria?”
Louise raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t think we had some kind of fancy banquet hall you’d never seen?”
“No, I guess not.” She glanced out the window but only darkness greeted her. All day she had waited for a tickle in her throat or that first chill to indicate an oncoming fever, but she felt normal, physically anyway. At work or in conversations, she could barely focus long enough to make sense of anything. Nick had entirely replaced any thoughts of Whitley that had preoccupied her mind only a day earlier, but what she had felt for Whitley and what she was feeling for Nick now weren’t the same. She had been drawn to Whitley because she had confused the possibility of a stable life with falling in love. She thought about Nick because she knew he was sick and she had promised to get him out of Oak Creek. She told herself she didn’t care about him more than anyone else, but felt guilty imagining him shivering in his cell, hungry and miserable.
“If prisoners in the barracks can cause enough confusion to keep half of the guards busy, the rest of us can take care of the guards at the party.” Louise waved a hand in front of Lareina’s face. “Hey, Rochelle, are you listening?”
“Yes, yes we have to keep the guards busy.”
“Do you think Nick can handle getting the message to everyone?”
“Yes.” If he’s well enough to move, she thought, but didn’t allow herself to put that thought into words.
“And you can get the key to the barracks? We have less than a week now.”
“I’ll get it before Saturday.” She didn’t even know what the key looked like or where President Whitley kept it, but she wanted to hug Nick and she couldn’t do that with bars between them. Rubbing her forehead, she tried to remember how much he annoyed her.
“Good, you should probably get going to see Nick then. But first, I have a surprise.” Louise walked over to the closet, pulled out two backpacks, and held them up. “I packed enough clothes from the supply closet for you and Nick. Plus a few extra just in case you can convince the doctor to come with you.”
Lareina thanked Louise before she left on her nightly trek to the barracks. Those backpacks brought a slight relief to her anxious thoughts. Preparations made the escape plan feel concrete instead of something she just imagined in a hopeful dream.
Taking a deep breath, she whispered Nick’s name into the dark space beyond thick, cold window bars. His face appeared almost instantly.
“Hey, are you feeling better?” Any solace from his quick response to her voice didn’t last long.
Nick glared at her with an intensity of expression she’d never witnessed. “The big news around here is that the president is engaged to a Rochelle Aumont. What’s wrong with you?” He spat the words at her.
She felt the question like a slap and took a step backward. I’m not Rochelle Aumont, she wanted to scream, so technically I’m not engaged to anyone. Instead she closed her eyes and squeezed her hands around the bars until her knuckles ached. “I’m doing what I have to in order to get us out of here. I need you to trust me.” Her voice remained even and calm, as she fought back the instinct to admonish Nick for his inability to see the big picture.
Nick’s eyes rolled dramatically as he slowly shook his head back and forth. “Since when does dating the evil dictator help us get out of here?”
“I don’t know, Nick, let’s think about this.” Her patience dissolved. “He has the key you need to get out, he has the power to imprison me if he gets suspicious at all, knowing when he’s away gives me the opportunity to prepare supplies . . .”
“You mean to steal supplies,” Nick scoffed.
“Do you want my help? Because I could have been out of here a month ago if I didn’t have to find a way to get you out of jail,” she snapped.
He didn’t answer. She leaned against the building and looked at silhouettes of trees trimmed in moonlight. All of the secrets she’d kept from Nick danced through her head. How could she blame him for not trusting her?
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, “but I don’t know what you want me to do.”
“I want you to say you’ll stop lying and stealing the minute we get out of this place. I want you to try being honest for once in your life.” He took a breath then bent over coughing before he could continue speaking.
Lareina brought her face close to the bars and waited for the wheezing to stop. “Nick, are you okay?”
His face reappeared. Shadows darkened the contours beneath his eyes. She grasped his hand and he didn’t attempt to pull it away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I never wanted to leave you behind.” Her words came out rushed and pleading. “I’ll do better. I’ll stop lying once we’re out of this place.”
Nick nodded. His expression softened with regret. “I’m sorry too.”
She took a breath, relaxed her white knuckles, and took a minute to organize her thoughts. “Nick, if I get you the key would you be able to unlock your door?”
He nodded. “The window’s broken out, so yeah, I could unlock it, but I couldn’t get past the guards at the exit.”
Tilting her head back, she let her eyes sweep over rows of windows covering three stories of the monstrous building. “Once you unlock your door, you’re going to unlock the other doors too.”
Nick sucked in a nervous breath. “You want me to start a riot?”
“I’m counting on it. For the plan to work, the guards have to stay busy. Saturday night is my engagement party. It’s going to be a big event and most of the community will be distracted. Any additional security will be there. Can you let everyone out of their cells?”
For a minute Nick didn’t move or respond, then he nodded. “Yes, I can do that.”
“It’s settled then.” She smiled. “Saturday night, we’re getting out of this place.”
After coughing into the crook of his elbow, Nick groaned. He tried to smile, but hope drained inch by inch from his dull eyes.
“I’m packing. Anything you want me to bring?”
“Soap,” Nick answered immediately. “All I want is a warm shower.”
“You’ve got it,” she promised in an overly cheery voice, then raised her eyes to Nick’s. In the moonlight she could see every gaunt, tired feature of his face. The dusty grime across his forehead and under his eyes stood out against his pale skin. “We’re friends again, right?”
“Of course.” Cold stars shivered in the sky and h
is hand gripped hers tightly. “Do you remember when I chose flying as my superpower?”
Leaning closer, Lareina searched for hope in his eyes, but she couldn’t find it. “I remember.” The warmth of a rainy summer day in the olive-green house brought her fifteen seconds of peace. She would trade anything, even her pendant, to travel back to that moment and remain there forever.
“I changed my mind.” He grinned and closed his eyes. His grip slackened. “I’d rather have the ability to walk through walls.”
Hold on a little while longer. She pushed the thought at him, knowing she had to leave but unable to pull herself away. What if he wasn’t there the next night? What if these were the last words she ever said to him?
She squeezed his hand and he let go. “Just hold on for a few more days and you’ll be able to walk right through the door.” Reluctantly, she returned to the sidewalks of Oak Creek and turned her feet toward the unguarded cafeteria to steal some food for the upcoming journey.
Chapter 28
Blank white walls surrounded Lareina as she waited for Aaron. She swallowed a few times, trying to relieve the scratchy feeling in her throat without coughing. It had only taken forty-eight hours for the kiss to have its desired effect, and now, after one day with a fever, she was so exhausted she couldn’t imagine how Nick could be working.
She had to focus on doing her job. If Nick could dig tunnels, she could steal a key. It was Wednesday—the day Whitley said he would be back for lunch, but what if his travels delayed him? What if he decided she was too sick for lunch and took her back to her room to rest instead?
She coughed into her elbow and rubbed her warm forehead. Almost a month had passed since she first arrived at Oak Creek. Despite its miniscule perimeter, compared to the wide prairie she’d been walking, she had stumbled right into its wall. Her life continued to put her on a collision course with Nick and Aaron, and now she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving either one of them behind.
“You’re not leaving much of a mystery for me,” Aaron announced on his way through the door. “I can hear you coughing from the end of the hall.”
“I think it’s getting worse.” She studied Aaron, looking for some sign of unhappiness as he checked her heart, lungs, and temperature. From all observable signs, he seemed as content as he had been the last time she saw him.
Arms folded in front of him, he studied her the way she’d been studying him. “You have the flu, but you’re only the second case I’ve had.”
“It’s just the flu and not the fever or something even worse?”
Watching her suspiciously, Aaron pressed the back of his hand against her forehead. “Yeah, but I don’t need a thermometer to tell me you’re burning up. How did you get so sick?”
She turned away to cough and avoid answering his question.
Aaron looked down at his hand. “You’re still visiting Nick over at the barracks, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “The only other case of the flu, so far, was a guy who works security over there. I’ve been investigating what you told me the last time you were here. About the barracks being a prison. Is Nick just as sick as you are?”
Lareina opened her mouth to answer, but that relentless cough returned. She waited a long while for her chest to stop burning while Aaron brought her a glass of water. “I can guarantee we have the exact same thing.”
His eyebrows furrowed and a deep wrinkle formed across his forehead. “I was actually planning to come and find you today. I want to help you get Nick out of here. You’re still doing that, right? Even though you’re engaged to the president?”
“You didn’t really believe I’d be engaged to someone I just met?”
“I doubted it, but I worried maybe you really did . . . you know . . . fall in love.”
A shiver passed through her body. She didn’t know if it was her fever or the memory of a day she really did think she fell in love. “We’re leaving on Saturday night.”
Aaron nodded and studied her expression. “I should be pretty worried about Nick, shouldn’t I?”
“I know I am.”
Looking around the room, slowly, inch by inch, he seemed to be memorizing every detail. “I’m coming with you then.”
“You’re what?” She stifled a cough. “But all you want is to be a doctor . . .”
“And as long as I stay here, I won’t be a real doctor.” Aaron looked down at his white shoes. “I haven’t had any of the training they promised. They just send me to the patients that they don’t want to deal with. I’m not really practicing medicine.” He took a long breath and forced a smile. “You and Nick are real and this is all just a fraud. I’m sorry I couldn’t admit that earlier.”
Lareina could see the struggle trembling in his hands and pulling his eyes to the floor. “You’re not a fake doctor, but you can definitely do better than this place.”
Aaron nodded and finally lifted his head revealing blue eyes dulled by regret and the loss of a position too good to be true. “And I will. But if you’re going to be well by Saturday, you need to get back to your room and get plenty of rest.”
“But what about Nick? I need medicine.”
He nodded. “The best advice I can give you is to get plenty of rest and eat some chicken noodle soup—”
“No, that can’t be it.” She couldn’t tell Nick to rest more and eat soup. He didn’t have those options any more than he had the right to see a doctor. Frustrated and exhausted, she pressed her face against the palms of her hands.
Aaron’s hand rested warm and heavy on her shoulder. “I don’t have anything that will magically cure either of you, but I can get you something to bring your fevers down, so you’ll feel a little better.” His voice held a comforting tone of authority and the confidence that he could solve any problem. He left the room and returned with a tiny box that rattled when he shook it. “Tell him to take one every six hours. Do you need me to do anything to get us out of here on Saturday?”
“Bring more medicine that’ll help Nick after we escape.”
“Done. Come back on Friday for a follow-up and we’ll talk to make sure I’m clear on the plan.” The unsettling cheeriness Aaron had displayed during her earlier visits had vanished as if he’d been jolted from a trance. His eyes met hers with the familiar gentle concern she missed.
Lareina threw her arms around Aaron and hugged him tight. She felt as if she’d just met a friend she hadn’t talked to in years.
“Thank you” was all she could think to say, but she never meant it more in her life.
Aaron smiled, helped her down from the exam table, and walked her to the end of the hall, where they parted as if they’d never met. In the waiting room, a woman with a cough sat in one corner, a younger boy read a magazine in the other, and President Whitley jumped up from his seat the minute he saw Lareina.
He watched her as she approached. His eyes darted in all directions as if he feared some unseen enemy would come and carry her away, and he wrung his hands as he spoke. “Are you all right? Louise told me you’re really sick.”
She decided if any part of his concern was an act, she would give him an award. “It’s just the flu,” she groaned as miserably as she could. “I’ll feel better after I get back to my room and get some sleep.”
“Is it a good idea for you to be alone? What if you need something? You shouldn’t be walking out in the cold to get lunch.”
“I’m not all that hungry anyway . . .”
“Nonsense,” the president interrupted. “You can rest on the couch in my office until Louise is off work.”
Holding her sleeve up to her face, she tried to stifle a cough and squeezed her eyes shut against the wildfire in her throat. “Are you sure I won’t be in the way?”
The president put his arm around her. “Of course not. You’re never in the way.”
Leaning into him with her eyes half closed, she let him lead her the short distance back to his house. The gray sky and threatening cold rain had become
so common she barely noticed as they followed silent sidewalks.
Whitley guided her into his house and down the hall to his office. He helped her to sit down on the couch and kissed her forehead. “I’ll be back in just a minute.”
Resting her head against the couch, she closed her eyes and listened to a murmur of voices in the hallway.
A few minutes passed in the quiet office before Whitley’s footsteps padded back into the room. “All right, I have everything you need to get some rest.” He carried a pillow and a pile of folded blankets.
Forcing a smile, she sat up and shivered.
Whitley sighed sympathetically. “Here, let’s get you comfortable.” He helped Lareina out of her jacket and tossed it over the back of the couch, fluffed the pillow before she laid down, and tucked four blankets over her.
He kissed her forehead again. “Are you warm enough?”
“Mmmhmm.” She didn’t open her eyes.
During the next fifteen minutes, she heard Whitley moving around the room.
Finally, the sound of crinkling paper and sliding pen indicated that the president had settled in at his desk.
Keeping her eyes closed, she pretended to be asleep, but forced her foggy mind to stay awake. Any visitors met with Whitley in the hallway. Their muffled conversations came through the thick door as indecipherable as a code scrawled on paper. The hallway meetings gave her an opportunity to inspect the room from where she lay. Shelves filled with books covered one entire wall. File cabinets stood near the door. Behind the president’s desk, a large bulletin board displayed family photos, notes and flyers—and, in the bottom left quarter, keys. So many, in fact, that it tilted slightly to accommodate the extra weight.
All morning she waited for an opportunity to investigate, but Whitley never traveled beyond the hallway. Some meetings lasted for minutes and some much longer, but she didn’t want to risk getting up with the president close enough to hear her footsteps. Papers ruffled, letters opened with a clean slice, and his chair squeaked with the slightest shift of weight. Each time she coughed, he asked if she was all right. Soup and orange juice arrived for lunch.
Hope for the Best Page 21