The Undesirable (Undesirable Series) (14 page)

“You’ll need to be careful about the roads you drive on,” Thompson adds. He sits down now on the opposite twin bed in the room. “And if you get pulled over, you must play along and play the part. You’ll have to convince people you’re a Party member.”

“I don’t own Party member clothes.”

“We’ll fix that, too,” he says.

“So, who goes with me?” I ask Trina.

“Me,” says a strong voice, once again from the doorway.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“We’d be gettin’ your hair dyed now.” Glenn chews on a toothpick. “So we can get on our way.”

“Why are
you
going?” I ask, incredulous.

“Lady Luck has it in for me.” He shrugs. Then he smiles. “And maybe I want a little adventure, Duchess.”

Trina stands up from the bed and I follow her. We all walk down to the bathroom to open up the brown hair dye.

*

Six hours later, past 9:00 PM, twilight has settled on the shoreline. Thompson, Glenn, Willa, Trina, and I stand on the sandbar at Lake Erie. The lake’s water is still and reminds me of a huge black pearl in the moonlight. A small speedboat waits on the shoreline behind us.

Every step I take, I tell myself, brings me closer to Fostino and his family.

I pull my tan jacket closer around me to block the unexpected breeze. I am dressed like a consummate woman of The Party in a pair of green-cropped pants, a black shirt, slip on tan shoes, and the Party jacket. It’s a sexless outfit, topped off with a patch of white, black and red stripes on the right arm of the jacket. My dyed brown hair hangs in a ponytail down my neck, and I topped the look with creamy blush and pale pink lipstick.

Glenn’s outfit matches mine; he holds the two black backpacks we will take with us. Each has three energy bars, a canteen of water, a change of clothes, a small tarp, a small first aid kit, some rope, a knife, ammunition, a pistol, and some cyanide.

“When you get across the lake, you’ll find an intercom phone in the car,” Thompson says, referring to the razor thin, credit card size phone we will have with us in case of an emergency. The phone has a GPS, a message system, and a hologram assistant built right into it. My stomach churns a little bit.

This is it. Who knows what lies ahead?

“So. Ready to do this?” asks Trina.

“Yes. More ready than I have ever been to do anything.” I hope my words fake my confidence.

Trina frowns and looks down at the ground. “Did anyone ever tell you how I got the scar on my face?” She puts one of her hands in her back pocket and bites her lip once she looks back up at me. “Thompson, or Willa, or anyone?”

“No.” Instinct tells me to focus all my attention on what she says next.

“One of the soldiers cut my face about a year ago, during a fight. It’s a—” She breaks off and looks away. “I don’t really talk about it, but anyway… my husband tried to get food for our family, and the soldiers came. They thought he’d joined the SSR, since he wasn’t home during the hourly checks. He had just gone to find food. And when they came back, they were so angry…” She wipes one tear away from her face. She doesn’t continue.

“Jesus,” I whisper.

“I’m just saying I know what it means to put love above everything. And I know what it means to lose the person you love the most.” She gives me a quick nod and then opens her arms to hug me. “I know you can do this; I know you can find him and fight for him.” She says her next words into my hair. “You’ll get there.”

“You’ve been so nice to me, Trina. Thanks,” I say against her shoulder. I repeat my gratitude to the rest of the group, but Thompson is last.

At first, I don’t know what to say, but he fills the silence. “You’re pretty determined, aren’t you?” he whispers.

“This is the right thing to do. It just is.”

“Then do it.” He hugs me, and his grip is tight. “You just better come back,” he says into my hair.

After a few seconds, it’s time to leave. Glenn and I make sure to be careful when we step into the metal speedboat. He balances it, and then pushes the button to start the motor on low.

“Take the wheel,” he orders. I grab the chrome and settle into the small leather chair at the helm of the boat.

We are the only ones in the water, the only ones on this desolate, dirty lake. Thompson, Trina, and Willa fade away. Within a few minutes, they are nothing more than specks in the distance. 

“Chocolate?” Glenn reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small square. He holds it out to me.

“No.” I laugh.

“Suit yourself, Duchess.” He pops one piece in his mouth and follows it up with another. I watch him savor each chew.

“Not much fazes you, does it?” I ask.

“No, not much,” he replies as he gazes at the dark water. “Why waste time and worry on things we ain’t changin’?”

I shrug because I can’t think of any way to reply. This is one of the longest rides of my life. I can’t convince myself our plan will work. Somewhere close to the Michigan shoreline, it hits me how little I know Glenn. I size him up and wonder if I can trust him as we slide across the water.

“It’s so much faster this way,” he mutters under his breath. “It’d take us at least two hours to get to this part by road if we went through Detroit. The Party has every main road blocked to traffic.”

“Good thing The Party’s lax here,” I agree. Then I shudder. We don’t have time to waste.

“They’re not just lax, Duchess. We recruited people on the inside. All over the place. And they make sure the shoreline stays pretty clear of patrols.” Glenn’s left eyebrow rises up on his leathery face. “We still need to be careful. Spies. Everywhere. You should take your gun out, too. Cooper’s government likes to change the game.” He pulls one of the guns out of the backpack and keeps watch as we approach the Michigan coast.

I comply with his suggestion. 

Once we reach the shore, we hop out and tie the speedboat to a large rock we find along the jagged coast of East Lead. Just a few trees grow along the water where we plan to leave the boat. It brought us to a three-way fork in the road along the water.

“We’ll walk from here,” Glenn orders. I don’t have anything to add; I’d never heard of East Lead until this afternoon. “That’s Siegler Road,” he adds, and points west. “Car should be over there.”

Glenn takes a few steps. I follow. Seconds later, he stops and turns back to me.

“Hey, check your watch.” He pulls his own Hologram Watch off and flips it over. “Make sure it’s on. Wouldn’t want them to think anything’s wrong. Just good for our cover.”

I take it off and hold it with disdain. “But won’t they… well, if it’s turned on, won’t they know that I’m back?”

Glenn shakes his head. “You ain’t got that one on. We took your old watch off and threw it into Lake Erie back when we drugged you before.”

I frown at him.

Glenn grunts. “Just make sure it’s on.”

“It is.”

He motions for us to walk again. I fall into step next to him. We’re silent again and I notice how little the border is protected. We don’t walk fast. Each step might be our last. The Party is careless around here — or, maybe the people we’ve got on our side are as good as he says. A long moment passes before I ask what’s on my mind.

“Why haven’t more people escaped this way?”

“Fear,” he asserts. The darkness clouds Glenn’s expression, but I guess from the tone of his voice that my question made him smile. “Cooper terrifies people. He does a pretty good job, don’t you think?”

Not going to argue about that.

“People don’t do things out of the ordinary when they’re afraid,” he adds. “They’ve to be pushed. Like Willa.”

As we walk, I sling my backpack on both shoulders. I keep my gun in my right hand. I don’t know if I’ll be able to shoot it if I need to, but I plan to be ready. All I hear for a half-mile or so is the crunch of gravel and twigs under our shoes. After another mile’s walk or so, I see a cluster of small woods on my right. The trees line the pathway and jut up against the shoreline of the lake as if they want to escape, too.

“We’re outside of a small town here,” Glenn says as he takes a few steps off the road. He peers at his Hologram Watch as he does this. “It’s almost midnight now,” he says. “We should rest. Car should be over here.”

We walk further into the groove. Glenn stays ahead of me through a few feet of heavy brush.

“I don’t see it,” I whisper as my eyes search through the trees. “It’s not here.”

“Yeah it is. It’s here, darlin’.” Glenn puts his left hand up to silence my protest. Then he takes a few more steps and stops. He kneels down and pulls something up from the ground. A large camouflage cover blends in with the trees.  His hands pull it with one swift movement that reveals the familiar Humvee covered in evening dew and waiting for us to find it. I walk closer to it but Glenn raises his left hand to stop me.

“Wait right here,” he instructs. “I’ll check inside.” He cocks his gun and slides up to the driver’s side of the black vehicle. I glance behind me to see if anyone watches us. No one does, thank God. Glenn takes a key out of his pocket. He unlocks the door. Then he hits the button and unlocks the other three.

For some reason I can’t place, my stomach plunges when he pulls open the passenger door on the right-hand side of the armored Humvee.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

A black bag falls out of the car and opens up on the ground. Someone packed it full of medicine, water, granola bars, and two more credit card size phones. I jump back a half foot.

“That’s what I like to see.” Glenn laughs at me and at the backpack. He picks up the bag and stuffs what fell out back inside the armored vehicle. I stand there for a few moments because I don’t know what to do next. He looks up once he notices I haven’t moved.

“We’ll sleep inside the car, here,” he says and then throws his backpack in the front seat.

My Hologram Watch tells me it’s after midnight now. Time passes so fast. For the first time, my muscles scream from the stress of the day.

“You take the back,” Glenn orders. I climb into the spacious backseat of the Humvee and shut the door. Bunching my coat around my head to make a pillow, I watch as Glenn folds his long body into the front seat. He arranges his backpack and the black bag into the passenger seat before he puts his gun on his left thigh and places a hand on it.

We don’t speak. After a few minutes, Glenn begins to snore. I close my eyes and sleep covers me like a mudslide.

*

Glenn turns the key and forces the ignition to start. The noise wakes me up. My eyelids don’t want to lift and my back cracks. I glance down at my black watch as I sit up. 7:00 AM on the dot. 

“Long night,” Glenn remarks as he backs the Humvee out from under the trees. We slide the car out to the vacant road. It’s so quiet outside I hear the large tires of the Humvee crunch the gravel. I sit in the middle of the backseat and watch a small town come into view.

“Freshen up,” Glenn says as he turns onto a main road. I trust he knows where to head. “Stay in the back seat,” he continues. “Fix your hair, your makeup, straighten your shirt. You need to play the part of Anna Anderson, princess of The Party.”

I snort at the irony of his reminder before I pull out a small mirror to straighten my stringy chocolate brown locks and flatten the turned up, coarse collar of my shirt. Glenn reaches into one of the backpacks and pulls out a wrapped energy bar.

“One thousand calories, Princess,” he says as he tosses it my way. “Eat up. We need the fuel.”

A short time later, we pass through a sleepy town with no name. I don’t see any other Humvees on the road and it’s eerie. This town is so much like Harrison Corners I almost get sick. Abandoned storefronts and restaurants line the road, as perfect as crayons in a new box. All over the brick, I see Party propaganda and more peeling posters of Patricia and Maxwell’s faces. After we’re a mile or so out of town, Glenn tells me more of his plan.

“We ain’t takin’ main roads, but you know that.” He keeps his voice even and methodical. “We have to go through the townships and the farmland, keep away from The Party checkpoints.” He checks the fuel tank of the Humvee. “We’re about half full on the gas,” he says. “Should be enough for a little while.”

Rural Michigan creeps by through the tint of the Humvee’s glass. I chew my nails to their quick beds as I watch the cows and the soybeans pass. All I think about is Fostino.

Is he alive? Is he hurt? What’s happened since I left him? What about his parents? What about Farrah?

The towns of South Rookwood and then Carleton pass outside my window. We see a few other Humvees around 7:30 AM, as the towns begin to wake up and the population heads to whatever government-mandated work The Party assigned to them. I see the same vacant faces and the same scared eyes I used to find in my hometown.

Glenn doesn’t need to warn me when the Humvees of other Party members come into view. I’ve already adopted the stick straight back and stone-faced expression of The Party officials. I practiced it all in front of the mirror before we left Ontario.

I give a deep exhale every time one of the cars drive by and no one turns around to arrest us.

Will we really get away with this?

Glenn seems agitated once the press of the sun and our watches tell us its noon. I pull the GPS out of my backpack and check the mileage to Harrison. Twenty-three miles to go. Twenty minutes away if we drove as fast as I’d like.