“You’re with me today,” I say. “I’m not taking my eyes off you.”
“That’s fine.”
I wish I could take a break from the stress and worry of this place. Just an hour alone with Marcus at the pool. It’s seven a.m. and I’m already sweating through my clothes, just from standing still.
Ten pounds of dried beef is a lot. Meat and eggs are scarce right now. We’ve already cut rations down to less than half of what we were eating before. We’re going through shelf-stable food faster than we should be, hoping we can make up for it with produce when our garden returns.
It’s going to be tight; even tighter with what Theron stole.
“I can help search quarters,” I offer to Nova. “If you’ll keep an eye on Pax for me.”
She shakes her head. “I need you here. The Tiders don’t have anything, so searching the quarters will go quickly.”
Once our people are inside the Sub and it’s locked down, camp is eerily quiet. Adele and Breck are holding all the Tiders, other than Pax, in the Hub.
Pax is sitting on the ground in a patch of shade, his back to the wall of the Sub. Nova and I are standing back to back, both of us keeping watch over the camp for any movement.
Niran approaches from the direction of the housing block he was searching, a burlap bag in one hand.
“Found the dried beef,” he announces.
“Where?” I ask.
“Under a cot in one of the rooms.”
My mind races through possibilities. If Theron’s working with other Tiders, he may have asked them to siphon supplies to him slowly, thinking we wouldn’t notice.
“Whose room?” Pax stands up.
“Fuck if I know,” Niran says. “I don’t have the records.”
Adele made a written log of which Tiders were assigned to which rooms when they got here.
“You know the room number, though?” I ask.
He nods.
“Watch Pax,” I tell Nova.
Niran and I walk to the Hub, where we find Adele and Breck guarding the door from the inside, both with guns in hand. When Niran tells Adele he needs to match a room number with its occupants, she takes a small notebook from her pocket and gives it to him.
The Tiders are staring at us, some of them scowling.
“No talking!” Stella yells at someone. “Just sit quietly.”
“Got it,” Niran says, writing something on a piece of paper in the notebook and then ripping it out.
He passes me the paper.
“Dion Marquez and Grady Powell,” I call out. “We have something to discuss with the two of you.”
No one moves. I call out the names again and get no reaction.
“Anyone want to point them out to me?” I ask.
Still nothing.
“We’ll do it the hard way, then.” I move behind a seated Tider and aim my gun at his head. “For every ten seconds that no one gives those guys up, one of you dies. Three. Two?—”
