"Will you let us know what you find out from her?"

Jerry almost smiled at the way it was said: her. As in, that despicable piece of s.h.i.t. He managed to maintain his gravity. "Yes. As soon as we know more, I will have that information disseminated out to all of you. I think that at this point we all need to be on the same page, working together."

"We got your back, Jerry!"

"We're here for you!"

"Anything you need, you just let us know!"

Jerry smiled graciously but grimly at the outpouring of solidarity. Good people, he thought. Good people.

Marie stood in the back edge of the gathering, rooted to the ground, all her muscles frozen as though if she moved, Jerry might see her and just know. He would see the truth in her eyes, written as clear as a billboard on her face. She had the odd, intense, even thrilling sensation of hiding in plain sight. Jerry and his thugs were looking for her, and she was standing right in front of them. They were looking for her, but they just didn't know it yet.

Oh, s.h.i.t...what if Angela tells them?

Her mind began to catch up to her heart.

Maybe they already know, but he just isn't showing his hand yet. Maybe right now Greg and Arnie are trying to figure out a way to sneak up and drag me off to their gulag...make me disappear.

Jerry had apparently finished speaking, and now was going back inside the Camp Ryder building. Everyone around Marie was moving, beginning to mill, their movements a little edgy, a little nervous, their heads up on a swivel even as they whispered and murmured to each other. Eyes scanning the woods beyond the fences, looking for the mysterious attackers.

The lying sack of s.h.i.t.

Marie needed to start moving. She would only draw attention standing there in the same spot like a deer caught in headlights. She turned and started walking, woodenly at first, like she'd forgotten how to use her own limbs. Her footfalls felt clumsy and drunken, but she kept putting one in front of the other and eventually it began to feel natural again.

She made her way back to her shanty, a million imagined eyes tracking her every move, judging her, weighing her, determining where her loyalties were. But in reality, n.o.body looked at her, n.o.body scrutinized her. n.o.body cared. Because Jerry hadn't told them about Angela having compatriots. Which meant that Angela hadn't said anything yet.

Hopefully.

She swept her "door" closed tight behind her then stood in the middle of the little shelter silently a.s.sessing her thoughts, trying to organize them into rank and file. Angela had been taken. Abby and Sam had been taken. Because Jerry had mentioned the attack planned for tomorrow night, Marie had to a.s.sume that they'd found the note that Marie had pa.s.sed to Angela earlier. Not good, not good, not good.

Could the plan still work? Could Lee and Old Man Hughes still take Camp Ryder with Jerry and his goons waiting on them to do it? She was no strategist, but she knew the all-importance of the element of surprise, and she couldn't just expect Lee to lose that essential part of his plan and everything still be hunky-dory. She wouldn't just sit around on her hands and watch Lee walk into a trap.

And once she knew that, it seemed everything else became clearer. Not easier, or less terrifying, but clearer. A dark, dangerous path that she didn't like, but the only one that was available to her. She couldn't simply stand around Camp Ryder, cross her fingers, and hope that Jerry didn't find out that she was part of the plot, and hope that Lee came riding in on a white horse to save the day.

She had to do something about it.

Marie emerged from her shanty. Trying not to look like she was guilty. Trying to look like everyone else-concerned, loyal, p.i.s.sed off at the "threat" to their safety and security. She started walking again, felt things begin to loosen up even as her stomach continued to tighten, and tighten, and tighten, like someone was pulling a ratchet winch inside of her.

What's the plan, Marie? She spoke silently to herself.

I don't have a plan.

That's a pretty s.h.i.tty plan.

She wasn't being fair to herself. She did have a plan. Kind of. It just wasn't well thought out. Not completely formed. A spur of the moment decision, and depending on how successful it was, she might make another spur of the moment decision and maybe it would all work out in the end.

So you're just gonna wing it?

Yeah, I'm just gonna wing it. Sometimes that's the best way.

She found herself in front of the Camp Ryder building, two of the men that considered themselves part of Jerry's "crew" stood by the doors, rifles slung on their shoulders, eyeing her up and down as she approached. Was that suspicion in their eyes? She couldn't be sure.

She thought she heard her name, whispered somewhere behind her.

She reached the bottom of the steps, feeling stiff. Legs locked. Hands stuffed inside of her jacket.

One of the men lifted his chin slightly. "What's up, Marie?"

"I need to speak to Arnie," she blurted.

The two guards exchanged a glance.

"What about?"

She shook her head. "I've got information for him."

"Alright." Hesitation. "Come on in."

"No," she pulled a hand out of her pocket. Held it up. "I...uh...need to speak to him...privately."

"It's private in there."

She glared. "I need it to be more private."

An exasperated sigh. "Fine. Lemme get him."

Heart starting to beat hard again. Hoping it didn't show.

She nodded as one of the guards ducked inside the building. She lowered her gaze, kicked at a rock in an attempt to look natural, felt ridiculous and decided to sit still while she waited. This is a bad idea. This is such a f.u.c.king bad idea. I need to figure out how to extricate myself from this situation. There's no way that this ends well. I don't know what the h.e.l.l I was thinking. What do I do now? Dammit, what the h.e.l.l do I do?

The door opened and Arnie emerged, scowling. "Marie?" he said in a bit of disbelief. "What the h.e.l.l do you want?"

Too late. She was committed.

She plunged forward. "Hey...Arnie. Can we talk?"

"Sure," he said, crossing his arms. "Talk."

Marie felt her face flush with anger. "I'm not gonna deal with this, Arnie. If you want my information, you can come talk to me in private. Otherwise, go f.u.c.k yourself."

She turned away and for a split second she almost hoped that he would let her go, let her walk away. Nothing in the last minute or so had changed this from being the horrible idea it was into some brilliant plan. She was still treading deep waters here. Dangerous waters.

"Whoa, now," Arnie barked.

Marie stopped where she was. Closed her eyes. Of course.

"You didn't say anything about information." She could hear his voice jiggling along with that strange, loose, satchel of skin that hung around his waist, and she pictured him waddling down the stairs. Then she heard his boots on the gravel behind her. "Where you wanna talk, sweetheart?"

Biting her tongue, she turned to face him again, eyeing him up and down like, maybe you lost your chance.

He smiled, and she was sure that in his mind it was a nice smile, but she found it feral and disturbing because she knew the mind behind it. He reached out and touched her gingerly on the shoulder, like you might try to carefully navigate a briar bush in an attempt to pluck fruit from the branches. "Come on. Let's talk."

She gestured with her head back behind the Camp Ryder building. "I can show you where they've been exchanging notes...or at least where I think they're exchanging notes. I saw Angela creeping over here the other night. Wasn't sure what was up."

Arnie began walking with her, but he eyed her carefully. "I thought you and Angela were tight."

Marie gave him a warning glance. "We are. And if you hurt her, I'll f.u.c.king cut you up. But I heard Jerry talking about this group of people, and I don't know who the h.e.l.l they are and I don't want them in here." She snorted. "I'll even take Jerry over that."

They walked behind the building.

Arnie kept a close eye on her. She could feel his gaze wandering over her, suspicious and lecherous at once. She let it happen because-well, she didn't have much of a choice. She just kept walking, putting those feet down one in front of the other, until they were at the back corner of the building.

She pointed towards the fence. "There. Where that big piece of steel is hanging. You see that hole in the fence?"

Arnie stepped forward just slightly, beady eyes focused where Marie had pointed. "Where?"

"Right there," she stepped a little closer to him so that he could aim down her outstretched arm.

He bent down just slightly, trying to see what she saw.

Maybe he heard the sound of metal sliding out of leather, or maybe it completely escaped him. He seemed to twitch, ever so slightly, when the sound reached him, but before he could truly react, Marie grabbed him by his greasy hair, yanking down as tight as her fists could go. His head jerked up, a look of pain coming over his face and he followed as she thrust all of her 130-pound frame into him and slammed him against the back wall of the Camp Ryder building.

For a split second, the shock of the attack burst like a bubble and he began to reach for her throat with one hand, the other balling into a ham-hock fist. And if that was all there had been to it-her versus him-he would have pummeled her, possibly to death. But he had the presence of mind to feel the cold pressure of the knife point poking through the crotch of his jeans, just underneath his satchel-belly and pressing into his genitals.

And he froze.

Head pulled back by his hair, hands suspended in mid-counterattack. His eyes locked onto her, wide and scared, his mouth hanging open in a snapshot of terror.

Marie had to rise on her tiptoes to whisper into his ear. "You feel that, Arnie?"

"Don't-don't-don't-don't..." he started to squeal.

She pressed harder. "Shut up!"

His face strained against it. A silent scream.

She pulled the pressure a bit. "I asked you if you feel that knife against your d.i.c.k."

"Uh-huh."

She nodded her head. "I won't stand here and tell you that I'm gonna cut it off, because, let's be honest, it won't happen like that. What I will do is stab this knife straight into your groin. Maybe sever the head off. Maybe pop one or both of your t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. I don't really know what will happen. All I know is that it's going to hurt you a lot. It will hurt now, and it will hurt every time you have to take a p.i.s.s, and it will hurt every time you see a pair of t.i.tties and your sad little mangled c.o.c.k tries to get an erection."

"Please don't..."

"So you're willing to work with me?"

"Okay. Yeah. Fine. Whatever."

"Real slow, real careful, I want you to slide that rifle off your shoulder."

He did. Real slow, and real careful.

"Just drop it right there. Good. Now I need your keys."

"You're never gonna get away with..."

She pulled the knife away just enough to give him a quick punch to the groin. He doubled over with a groan. She straightened him up again by pulling his hair back once more and reapplying the knife to his crotch.

She could feel her own breath, hot and moist as she hissed into the side of his face. "Try me again, Arnie. f.u.c.king try me again, you little b.i.t.c.h." She couldn't help herself, she jabbed the knife a little. A falsetto yelp came out of him, but he managed to strangle it down. "If you knew how f.u.c.king p.i.s.sed I am right now you'd be worried about your c.o.c.k and b.a.l.l.s and not what I want to do with your car. I'm two seconds away from just doing it for the sheer fun of it. Keys! Now!"

He fumbled into his pockets and produced a key ring with a single pair of keys attached. She plucked it from his hands.

Marie just shook her head at him. "Were you really gonna rape Angela if Jerry told you to?"

He glanced at her, then looked away.

"You sick f.u.c.k."

And he knew what came next.

The sound of it turned every head in Camp Ryder. They could tell it was a scream, but no one could tell whether it was a woman or a man. At first, some thought it might be an infected, somewhere close by the fence, but it was not the sound of their screeching. This was a sound of agony.

Everyone stood frozen by it, until Marie tore around the corner of the Camp Ryder building, yelling and pointing, "Help! Help! They got Arnie! Somebody help him!"

People began to jog, then run, no one quite sure what the h.e.l.l was going on.

Marie kept pointing and yelling, but she was heading in the opposite direction. No one seemed to notice. They were all racing to see what had happened to Arnie. The guards that had stood at the front door of the Camp Ryder building bolted off the stairs and around the corner, rifles in hand. They glanced at Marie but seemed not to give her a second thought.

The screaming seemed to die away into a strange conglomeration of animal noises. Shouts began to emanate from behind the building now, the kind of shouting that goes along with the empathy you might feel for a man with a knife in his crotch. Some of the people ran around, trying to help Arnie, while the guards raised their rifles and tried to figure out who had hurt Arnie, still not quite piecing it together.

Not until Arnie's little red Geo sputtered to life and kicked gravel as it lurched through The Square, stirring up a cloud of dust while the tires spun violently, did anyone make the connection. Everyone that had a view of it simply stood and stared, their minds gone black with confusion.

In the driver's seat, Marie watched them, as if she were in a dream. She watched their faces, flash-frozen as she hauled by, and then she redirected her attention up front, towards the front gate, keeping her foot mashed on the accelerator. The big reinforced gates hurtled towards her and she had the recurring thought, once again, that this was a bad idea. She actually had it several times in the span of the one or two seconds before she hit the gate.

It was reinforced, but it was still chain link fencing, and the parts they had reinforced had only made it a little ballistically safe, not so much structurally strong. At least, that's what she fervently hoped for as she glanced down at the speedometer and watched it climb to forty. She tried to aim for what she thought was the weakest spot, where the gate connected to the rollers.

Then she closed her eyes and ducked her head.

The impact was tremendous and jarring.

But she was still moving.

She opened her eyes, saw a lot of paint missing from the mangled hood, a lot of spiderweb cracks in the windshield, but she was on the other side of the gate, tearing down the dirt road that led away from Camp Ryder, and she still had power in the accelerator.

It wasn't until she reached the turn for Highway 55 that everything hit her, almost stopped her just as surely as she thought the gate was going to. During the moment her heart had been racing but she hadn't felt that real, tangible fear. Just anger. Now, she could see every way that things could have gone horribly wrong for her and suddenly she couldn't catch her breath.