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“Hey!” Meeker poked his head in, his expression dark. “We got company,” he said, ignoring Bernsen as the kid climbed to his knees, “And it’s not good.”
Bernsen spit on the floor, blood and spittle splashed against the tiles.
Trent backed out of the room, then locked the door behind him.
“Who?”
“The followers,” Meeker said in frustration, his balding pate glinting under the fluorescent lights. “And they brought hostages.”
CHAPTER 44
Jules shivered in the night as she was marched across the silent campus, the muzzle end of a gun shoved tight against her spine, her captors urging her, Nell, and Shaylee onward. Jules couldn’t let whatever this bunch of deranged, fanatical maniacs had planned happen. She’d heard them talking and knew they’d hoped for some kind of exchange, their lives for the damned Leader’s, whoever the hell he was.
As she trudged through the snow, her hands cuffed behind her back, her boots making fresh tracks, she tried to think of some means of escape. She, Shay, and Nell were walking abreast just far enough apart as to not touch each other, the leader’s rabid followers armed and urging them forward in the moon-washed night, one step behind.
All those tales that Shay had told her, of rogue teachers’ assistants, the worries Shay had voiced and Jules had scoffed at were true. These kids were beyond troubled; they were a tiny army of trained, fearless fanatics, ready to give their lives for their leader and his “cause,” whatever the hell that was.
Think, Jules, think. Don’t give up! There has to be a way to escape; you have to make it happen.
Shivering, her soul numb, they plowed forward in the predawn hours, crossing the white landscape that surrounded the school’s clinic. The moon was still visible, a pale orb, while to the east, the first gray streaks of dawn were beginning to lighten the sky.
A tiny ray of hope, she thought fleetingly.
But deep in her heart she knew, this gray light of morning might be the last sunrise she would ever witness.
Trent’s guts turned to water. In his mind’s eye, he saw a vision of Jules on his bed the night before. “What do you mean, hostages?” he asked Meeker.
The deputy walked him to the darkened front of the clinic. “Take a look.”
Trent peered through the blinds.
His heart became stone.
Sure enough, standing knee-deep in the snow, Eric Rolfe was pointing a rifle right into the middle of Jules’s spine. She stood straight, looking at the door of the clinic. If she was afraid, she didn’t show it, her beautiful face was without emotion.
No! he thought, fear curdling through him, No, no, no!
Shay, her hands behind her back, stood to one side of Jules, Nell Cousineau on the other. Missy Albright was prodding Shay, whose lips were tight, her expression dark and rebellious. Nell was shaking uncontrollably as if she might pass out while Roberto Ortega goaded her with the nose of his weapon.
“Damn,” Trent whispered, his worst nightmare unfolding. Grabbing the pistol Meeker had given him, he didn’t think too hard about what he was going to do; just went into survival mode. Jamming the Glock into the back of his jeans, he started for the door.
Frank Meeker stepped in front of him. “Wait, Trent,” he ordered, his ruddy face dark and worried as he saw what Trent had in mind. “Hold up. You just can’t walk out there.”
“Like hell.”
“I mean it; those kids are more than insurgents, they’re rabid fanatics. For all we know they could be on a suicide mission. They’ll shoot you without thinking twice.”
“We’ll see.”
“I’m serious, Trent.”
“So am I. Call Flannagan on the walkie-talkie. Get him and Wade and whoever else out here. Then cover me!” Trent didn’t bother with a coat, just pulled out the tail of his flannel shirt, then, one hand in the air, the other at an angle because of the bandages, he walked outside into the bitter light of coming dawn.
He saw Jules gasp, her calm destroyed in an instant as she saw him. For a second she looked as if she might collapse. Don’t, he said silently. Hang tough. His gaze found Rolfe. “What the hell is going on here?”
“We want Spurrier.” Rolfe was all bluster and pride, menace radiating off of him as he stood behind Jules. A tough man with a gun pressed hard against a woman’s back. The new leader, now that Spurrier was out of commission.
All three of the hostages’ heads snapped at the mention of the pilot’s name. As if they hadn’t known.
