Exchange Rate

by Bonnie R. Paulson

  One of them closer to me thrust her hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, what’s it to you?” Hostility rolled off her in waves. “You already have Bodey. You don’t need the new guys, too.”

  “New guys? What new guys?” I hadn’t seen Bodey when he returned from work. Would he remember Shane? Would he even be told about him? Would Bodey get to see the new guys so we would know? He’d mentioned new guys yesterday, but was he aware of what that meant?

  Wait. Just wait. Bodey wasn’t stupid or mean. He would tell John and I immediately. I breathed slowly through my nose to calm down. There had to be some coincidence. Just because the women mentioned the name Shane didn’t mean it was actually the Shane hunting us. There could be any number of men out there with that exact name.

  “Yes. The new guys. We just got a batch of about six.” She rolled her eyes and smirked at her friends, but I didn’t care.

  Shane. I had to see for myself. My body didn’t want to. No, instead my body wanted to throw up first. I ran to the bathroom before I spewed everything onto the floor. Not a mess I wanted to have Cammie or myself clean up.

  Our shift ended too soon. I didn’t want to leave the protection of the clinic.

  What if Shane had found us? He’d recognize me. Or he wouldn’t. I couldn’t be sure, but if it wasn’t him, then I was being reminded why I needed to stay in the community.

  I waved at Cammie and clenched my fists at my side. What was worse? Being out in the wild and running from people like Shane or being in Freedom Pass where I could be picked off at any moment?

  Crossing my arms against the chill, I ducked my head and waded through the piles of snow. An older man shoveled snow from the pathways two bunkers down. I pulled my ponytail over my shoulder and turned toward our place and ran smack into a chest.

  Strong hands steadied me at my arms. I glanced up and nausea returned, but I bit it back.

  Shane... the same Shane I’d been running from for who knows how long had me in his grasp. He grinned.

  He’d found me.

  Rowan and five guys stood around Shane. I was surrounded.

  “You alright?” Shane’s gruff politeness startled me more than being in his hands. “Gotta watch where you’re going out here.”

  Had he not recognized me? I glanced at Rowan and the other men. Rowan watched me, waiting for my response.

  “Excuse me. Yes, I’m fine, thank you.” I tried a tremulous smile, blinking. “Hello, Rowan.” Never a bad idea to establish myself as known rather than insignificant. I withdrew from Shane’s grasp, his fingers clingy as if he wanted to make sure I was safe.

  “Hello, Kelly. This is our newest group of members. I can see you’ve met Shane.” He motioned to the other men and ran through their names.

  “I haven’t met Shane. What are you talking about?” I ignored the other men. I didn’t care. What did Rowan mean? Did he know about Shane? Did they all know Shane had been following after me, seeking revenge?

  Rowan lifted his eyebrow. “You just ran into him, Kelly. That was a joke. What’s wrong with you?” He narrowed his eyes my way.

  I laughed nervously. “Oh, right. Yes.” I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, I’m very cold. Cammie and I were restocking today.” I waved my hand. “Well, it was nice to meet you. Please, excuse me.”

  “It was a pleasure. Run into me anytime.” Shane patted my back. I winced and glanced at his face. He and the rest of the guys laughed like he’d told the funniest joke they’d ever heard.

  He focused on me, while the rest of the men chortled and made matching comments back and forth. Then the creep winked.

  Winked. Did that mean he remembered me? He touched the corner of his eye with his finger and then shot into the air with his hand bent like a gun. His eyelids lowered half-mast and he lifted the corners of his lips enough so I knew that he knew.

  And he knew I did.

  They walked around me, returning to their tour. I remembered the tour. The vastness of the compound, the protection in the three perimeter fences, the men in the towers with guns, the fact that there was a place to sleep and eat and stay warm.

  Shane’s presence shrunk the entire site to the most minute of places.

  The fences became worthless. The men in the towers became my captors. Who cared about eating and sleeping and staying warm when safety was no longer a factor?

  I slipped over the icy path, falling to my knee. Struggling to my feet, I ignored the revolt my body wanted to wage right there. No way would I throw up where Shane or Rowan would see my weakness.

  A frantic Cammie slammed into my side, reducing me to a hunkered-over mass on the ice. She wiggled off me, sobs shaking her shoulders and chest. Tears smeared down her cheeks and she glared toward Rowan and the group as they turned the corner of the clinic. She pushed to get up and run after them, but we were in too tight of a pile.

  “Let me up.” She sobbed, pushing at me.

  “I’m trying, stop moving.” Her boot hooked under my leg and my foot was under her butt. I couldn’t lift her up and she couldn’t move me. She stopped and I slid myself from under her weight.

  She stood, pulling her coat back on. Panic shook her hands and she clenched and unclenched her fingers as she worked the zipper.

  I grabbed her arm. “What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

  Shaking her head, Cammie’s face screwed up into a twisted visage of grief. “They took him. Roger. My husband is gone. He was the head of the guards, Rowan’s right hand. I thought we were safe.” She whimpered, tears coursing her cheeks and spotting the front of her jacket.

  I softened my grasp, looking behind us for eavesdroppers. We needed to get out of the open where our voices carried. “Come on, come to my place. We can’t be out here. We can talk there.”

  She shook me off. “No, I might be able to get Rowan to give Roger back before they kill him. I need him. I can’t live here by myself. We’ve been together too long.” She pushed me away and ran into the snow, chasing after a group of men who would delight in her sadness and loss.

  Could they really have gotten rid of Roger? Cammie said they’d been there since the beginning. Rowan’s head guard. How could Rowan be so insensitive? So cruel?

  Why couldn’t we handle more people in the compound?

  Why hadn’t Shane and his men been killed?

  Or at least died from exposure or something?

  Anger warred with fear. They’d entered my quasi-safe place. A place where I wasn’t allowed to escape. The one thing the compound had going for it was the safe distance between us and Shane’s group. Even trading people’s lives could have been coped with, or dealt with at some point.

  I couldn’t do anything about Shane. I had no recourse. His need for vengeance on me went further than what I’d done to Charlie. It went all the way back to when I’d rescued Mom from Shane and his friend. I’d shot his friend in the leg and taken Mom back from them.

  His eyes then had promised they’d find me, even as alcohol dulled his senses. When had it clicked that I was the same person in both instances?

  With Ethan watching me every chance he got and John and Bodey removed from my life as much as possible, fatigue dragged at me. Shane’s arrival sapped at my lagging strength, my resolve to hang in there.

  I made it home, collapsing to the couch with my coat still on. I tried thinking, forcing ideas around like moving peanut butter with a paintbrush. I inhaled slow and exhaled on a whoosh. Just calm down, Kelly. Shane can’t touch you with so many witnesses.

  But Rowan killed all the time, a small voice in the back of my mind had to point that fact out.

  A plan started to form. I could ask Rowan to let me and the guys out. Tell him about my past with Shane. He would have to let us out, wouldn’t he? He wouldn’t kill any of us with no one to replace us.

  Would he?

  The rules of his game had no reason, no end-goal. It didn’t make sense to only have a set number of people in his compound. It didn’t make sense to kill
perfectly valuable people just to stay within a number.

  Would he really kill a child? A baby?

  I’d heard of worse things.

  But had I heard the worst?

  Chapter 16

  Dinner came and went. John never showed. Eating chowder and biscuits by myself wasn’t fun. Chunks of corn and potatoes mixed together, making a sick mockery of being alone. I needed to talk to someone, run my plans past them.

  I paced the floor. Where was John? Had he been replaced? Was he, right at that moment, heading toward execution? My dinner threatened to come up but I held it down.

  What if Shane had gotten to him already? Killed him for revenge for Charlie? How would Shane even know about John? Bodey was always with me.

  He’d go after Bodey next. All of them before he finished me off. I bit my lip.

  The baseboard heaters turned on with a thunk. I jumped.

  Opening the door, John walked through, stomping his feet and glancing at me and the half-set table. “Hey, Kelly.”

  So calm like I hadn’t been going slowly insane. “Hey? Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick.” I rushed to him, searching his face as he removed his coat.

  He avoided my eyes, hanging his jacket on the hook by the door. His cheeks had a ruddier color than normal from the cold. “Getting information and dealing with some neighbors.”

  “Like what? Who? John, Shane’s here. His group. They’re here. Inside. I just heard from Cammie that Roger is gone now, too.” Saying the words didn’t make them easier to believe, or easier to understand. I crossed my arms at my waist, chilled by the sudden reality of Freedom Pass.

  “I’ll look into it.” He rubbed his face with his full hands, wiping from his eyes to his chins like erasing something that wouldn’t go away. “Let’s stay inside tonight. This place isn’t safer with Shane walking around.”

  Safer? The place had lost all appeal in that department.

  ~~~

  At the medical clinic the next morning, I paced back and forth in front of the door. Cammie usually arrived there a good three or four hours before me for the early morning shift, but she hadn’t shown up yet and three people waited in line for treatment.

  She was my sounding board. She knew about the baby, so I could trust her about Shane. We weren’t friends exactly, but we were something like confidants.

  Where was she?

  She didn’t show up.

  Stored in a box beside the door, the key unlocked the front door easily.

  I let the people in and treated them and anyone else who came that morning the best I could. In one instance, I used a poultice of coffee grounds over a bruise. No idea if it would work, but it made the man feel better to leave with something on his wound.

  Cammie never showed.

  At the end of my shift, I closed up the clinic and trudged over the packed snow to the kitchens. Maybe she had been needed there for the extra meals required for new members.

  But she wasn’t there and the other workers left me a list of basic menial cleaning I finished after only an hour. I sat on the counter and watched the door, kicking my feet while I worried about my friend.

  Her husband had been taken. Had she reached Rowan and convinced him to let Roger go? Had she just stayed in bed to grieve his loss? Visiting people outside the normal routine wasn’t really done, but I needed to see if she was alright. Rowan didn’t like extra-curricular visiting.

  After my shift, I gathered my coat around me and walked to her bunker. Down the few steps to her doorway, I listened for any crying or other talking so I could avoid interrupting.

  Knocking on the door, I glanced over my shoulder for anyone who might be watching me. The door opened.

  A man in a flannel shirt faced me. “Yes?” He eyed me head to toe.

  “Is Cammie here?” I must have gotten the wrong door. It wasn’t like the addresses were clearly marked.

  “Not anymore.” He smirked and closed the door.

  Not anymore. Who was that guy and why did I have the sickening feeling to get out of there before he decided to open the door and explain his comment?

  I returned to my bunker and waited, leaving the lights off.

  Where was my friend?

  ~~~

  Amazing how fast a month can pass when you’re watching over your shoulder for a creepy-stalker-wanna-be boyfriend and a man who had chased you in the woods, intent on killing you.

  While trying to protect my back, I listened for information on Cammie and her husband as well as tried to do jobs I didn’t have enough training in.

  My value needed to be maintained. I couldn’t let anything slip. So I did what I could with the people and their ailments. Most of them were headaches, stomachaches, and splinters. And for no reason, I was removed from the kitchen work and my shift in medical extended to a full eight hours.

  I was alone. No one came to relieve me. Being potentially vulnerable should Shane or Ethan show up stole my appetite and I worked to eat my rations. But anything left over went to Bodey.

  Returning to my bunker every evening was a welcome respite, and I breathed a little easier when I crossed the threshold.

  On one such occasion I collapsed onto the couch and didn’t look up from my knees. With my exhaustion, mood swings, and achiness, I had to be pregnant. What else could it be? I pressed my balled fist against the small of my back and rolled it back and forth, digging for the pain spot.

  “Kelly, Bodey made it home for dinner tonight.” John sat at the table across from Bodey – my husband.

  I glanced up, tears in my eyes. I was so tired. The stress from the last few weeks wore on me. I struggled to smile, be delighted, but I bordered on collapse.

  Bodey saw something in my face. He hurried from the table, his chair scraping on the floor. Sitting beside me, he pulled my hand into his lap and tucked me into his side. “Hey, it’s okay. Don’t cry.”

  But it wasn’t okay. I shook my head, not willing or able to move away from his strength. “I can’t help it.”

  “Why not? Are you that sad to see me?” He joked, but his words had a strong impact.

  “Because I’m pregnant.” I sobbed, curling my fingers into his shirt. And I’ve been lying to you. And I can’t protect all of us. I can’t hide from the fear anymore.

  My spoken words slammed in my chest and I realized the truth. Yes, I was pregnant. I didn’t have any friends or even any women who could help me – that I could trust to help me. I was the medic and I hadn’t helped with a delivery. Well, not there anywhere. I had seen it done with my mom but that had been with medication and other medical supplies more advanced at the ready. Nothing could prepare me for delivery on my own. How would I accomplish that feat?

  The waters were deep and about to swallow me whole.

  John sat back on his seat, leaning his head away from the table and looking at the ceiling.

  Bodey’s body stiffened under me and I lifted my head. “Not good? No excitement or anything?” A little bit of anger wended its way through my heart. I needed someone else to feel more than fear and worry about the baby. I wanted to be happy, wanted to be excited, but how when I didn’t know what it meant to be having a child?

  He cradled my face in his palms. “Are you sure? How?”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. “Really? You don’t know how?” I nodded, my eyebrows quirked. “I’m pretty sure. I don’t have any tests or anything, but the symptoms are all there. I’m about four months, maybe?” I wasn’t showing, which was a good thing. Someone a long time ago had said the first pregnancy didn’t show quite as soon as any others, but I can’t remember who and where I’d heard that from.

  Bodey glanced at John, flushing. “I do, but it’s not like...”

  No, we hadn’t had a lot of time to practice together in bed, but it didn’t take more than once – even with the pull out method.

  “I thought you guys looked for some condoms.” John watched us, expressionless. His fingers tapped on the edge of the table
.

  Bodey clenched my hand. “We did, but we never found any. We, um, well, we used the pull-out method. And I didn’t think Kelly could without her period. We don’t do, ahem, we don’t do anything very often. I mean, we try to, but we don’t have a lot time.” We were both so tired all the time or just not present. How did you make love to an absent husband or wife?

  John nodded, still without a real emotional reaction. “Okay, well, we need to discuss the implications of this. I’ve been poking around and asking questions and I’ve got answers... I don’t think you’re going to like.” He shrugged, tipping his fingers away from the table then allowing them to fall back to the surface. “I know I don’t.”

  “Before you tell us and kill the mood, Dad...” Bodey turned toward me, pulling his other arm from around my shoulders to encase my hands in his. “Kelly, this is so exciting. I haven’t been around because of work and being so busy, but I’m going to ask Rowan for a shift switch so I can see you more. He’ll understand why. He has a son.” Bodey pushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch soft and loving.

  My body warmed with his nearness. If I was already pregnant, there wasn’t any danger in spending some more time together in bed. I’d missed him so much.

  John cleared his throat, his voice gruff. “That’s not a good idea, Bodey.”

  Bodey tore his gaze from my face. “What? Why not?”

  “I don’t think you should tell anyone.” John stood and crossed to the door, checking to make sure it was locked as well as the windows securely closed. He moved to sit on the other side of me, facing us with his hands folded in his lap as he leaned closer to us. “Look, this isn’t a joke. We can’t tell anyone. No one can know.”

  “Dad, quit saying that. This is my child we’re talking about. I want the world to know.” Bodey stroked the skin between my forefinger and thumb, making things hum inside me.

  I turned to face John, aligning my body with Bodey’s but I couldn’t look up. I knew why John wanted it to stay a secret, why I had done what Cammie had said and kept the secret to myself for so long.