Jessie must have understood exactly what Brenna thought, and Jessie shook her head. “Don’t.”
“We have to get out of here,” Brenna said.
“Where will we go?”
Brenna gave no answer to that question because she didn’t know. They were on a hillside, overlooking the water. Boats were down below, but no way could the women get on them and get away fast enough. Even if they did, the boats weren’t speedy and didn’t appear to have big engines. And, even if they did board a boat, Brenna assumed the vehicles had been disabled in some way, so they couldn’t be stolen, but often people forgot about the simple things in life because they were so sure that they were safe where they were.
Brenna glanced around, trying to see where they were, looking for any distinct landmarks. Outside of the fact that they were in the highest point of land in these several pens full of women, if Brenna went through the fence or over, all she could do was get up onto that rise where they were being taken for bathroom breaks. But it was open ground before and after that. Even if she did try to run, a bullet would take her out fast. She sagged in place. “We have to do something,” she said, her gaze frantic, as she looked around.
“You think that boat is a big-enough distraction to actually get out of here?”
“If we could find a way to a safer place, yes,” she said, “but, as it is, we’re just hamstrung right now.”
The two women stared, studying the clumps of bushes all around them. “Even if we got to one of the bushes,” Jessie asked, “what could we do?”
At that moment one of the guards turned and looked at her and Jessie directly. Brenna immediately bowed her head in a submissive posture, hoping that he wouldn’t realize just how awake they were and where their minds were at.
As it was, he walked over and nudged them through the fence. She looked at him, her arms wrapped around her chest, and pointed up at the hill. The guard glared and shook his head. She frowned and sank back down again. The guard kept walking all the way around.
“So, no,” Jessie whispered to Brenna. “Can’t get out that way.”
“The only reason he’d do that,” Brenna whispered, “is because something’s going on, and they can’t take a chance.”
“I want whatever it is going on,” Jessie said, “to go on a whole lot worse. Because this is possibly our break.”
“And it could be nothing.”
As they watched, several men swam toward the bullet-riddled boat and boarded it. When they popped out on deck again several tense minutes later, more shouting ensued.
“I don’t understand anything they’re saying,” Brenna said.
“I can barely even hear to make out any of the words, but it’s obvious either they didn’t find anything or whatever they found is already dead,” Jessie murmured.
“And then you have to wonder if they were dead already or dead after all the gunfire.”
“Out here? Who knows? It seems like every man is for himself, and you can only have what you can keep, and everybody out here is willing to take it from you.”
“How can they live like this?” Brenna murmured.
“There’s a code,” she said. “We’re just not privy to it. But even then,” she murmured, “just think about it, how raw and rough it is.”
“I worry about the women,” Brenna said. “They don’t have any hope of getting free of this. And they are from all over the place.”
“It boggles the mind. You’d think they take them from closer by.”
“But then it’s easier to get caught, and you would have pissed-off males in the family added in the mix too.”
“If anybody cares,” Jessie said, bitterness overflowing her voice.
Brenna reached out and squeezed her friend’s hand. “We’ll get out of this,” she said.
Jessie just looked at her, but that glint of defeat was in her eyes.
“Stand strong,” Brenna said.
But Jessie was already too far depressed about it. She sagged back down again, wrapping her hands around her knees, her face resting on top.
“I’m sorry,” Brenna said.
“It’s not your fault,” Jessie murmured. “I just want out of here. And I want out of here fast.”
“Any particular reason?”
“For one, I’m hoping to get married when I get home,” she said in a broken tone.
“Oh, that would be wonderful,” she said. “That’s great news.”
“Not so much while I’m here,” she said, with that same bitterness again. “And there’s another reason why I want to get married.”
Brenna looked at her friend in surprise. “What? What’s going on?”
“I’m pregnant,” she said in the softest of voices.
At that, Brenna looked at her friend in horror.
She nodded slowly. “And I don’t know how to get out of here,” she said, with a motion directed at the mess they were in. “If they find out, what will they do?” she asked.
Brenna had no answer because she didn’t know. But it was obvious it wouldn’t be anything good. “I’m so sorry. It should be one of the happiest times of your life.”
“I knew before I left,” she said, “but we weren’t staying long. It would be a five-day trip to celebrate. He has been asking to start a family for a long time. I’m the one who held back, and, now that I’m pregnant, look at us.”
“Do you know how far along?”
“No,” she said, “not very far at all. Matter of fact, it may not even survive the stress of this.”
“Let’s not even think about that right now,” she said. “That would be just a little more than we could all handle.”
“I don’t have any choice,” she said. “I can hardly breathe sometimes, as … as panic sets in about what they would do to my child.”
And, for that, Brenna had absolutely no words of encouragement—outside of what she had already said, which was that they would get out of here and to stay strong and to have hope. She couldn’t imagine being in that situation. She had wanted a family so desperately a long time ago and then had pretty well parked that dream. It was not that she didn’t still want it, but she just never had anybody to want a child with.
She’d had a lot of relationships, and then she stopped having any, when she realized just what a terrible person she’d been. She’d gone through a couple years of heavy counseling, a couple years of doing various workshops, trying to work on herself. But now she was who she was, and she liked who she was, but she wasn’t sure who she was when it related to other people anymore.
And she was a hell of a long way away from wanting a family and hadn’t considered—and didn’t want to consider—that maybe being a single parent would be one of those avenues in her future. That would just suck. Big-time. But she didn’t have a whole lot of choice. So she had pushed off those thoughts.
As she sat here, she thought she heard an odd sound off to the side. What the hell was it? An animal would know enough to stay away from this many humans. Frowning, she turned to look around, twisting as much as she could to see behind her. But then she would turn back and make sure that the guard wasn’t watching her. She didn’t know what was out there, and, when she didn’t hear it again, she relaxed once more.