Snow-mantled and silent in the valley below.
White roofs.
Twinkling lights.
He thought of all the people down there.
Those dreaming of their lives before.
Those still awake in the wee hours in their private prisons, wondering what their lives had become, not knowing if they were alive or dead.
The men and women trudging home from the cavern in wet clothes back to a world they knew was wrong.
His wife.
His son.
Kate said, “Ethan, I have to know.”
“Know what?”
“How bad was it? What they did to Alyssa. Did she suffer?”
Ethan reached for the cable and took that first, stomach-churning step onto the plank. He told himself not to look down, but he couldn’t resist the urge. The forest was three hundred feet below the soles of his boots, the pine trees crowned with snow.
“She died quickly,” he lied.
“Please don’t do that,” Kate said. “I want the truth. How much did they hurt her?”
It had been heady in the cavern, but now the questions came in a rush of mounting heat…
Had Alyssa been tortured by Pilcher’s people to name the members of Kate’s group?
Or killed by Kate’s people to stop her from naming them?
“Ethan?”
Where had it happened?
“Ethan.”
Who had cut her?
Pilcher didn’t murder his daughter.
Was Kate playing him?
“What did they do to my friend?” she asked. “I have to know.”
He glanced back at the woman he had once loved. She and her husband were standing on the edge of the cliff.
He’d assumed he would come out of this night with a better understanding of what had happened to Alyssa, but he only felt more uncertain.
Plagued with more questions.
Pilcher’s words beginning to echo through his head.
You have no idea…
What she’s capable of.
“They tore her up, Kate,” Ethan said. “They tore her up bad.”
19
The exhaustion hit him at the intersection of Eighth and Main.
He was alone now, had split off from Kate and Harold several blocks back.
The sky wasn’t that deep blue-black anymore.
Stars fading.
Dawn coming.He felt like he’d been awake forever, couldn’t remember the last good night of sleep he’d logged.
His legs ached. His stitches had ripped again. He was cold and thirsty, and just four blocks away, his house beckoned. He would strip out of his wet, freezing clothes, climb under as many blankets as he could amass, and just recharge. Get his head right for—
The noise of an approaching car turned his head.
He stared south toward the hospital.
Headlights raced in his direction.
The sight of them stopped him in the crosswalk under the traffic light.
It was something you hardly ever saw in Wayward Pines—a car actually driving through town. There were plenty of vehicles parked along the streets, and most of them ran. There was even a filling station at the edge of town with a mechanic next door. But people rarely drove. It was mainly set decoration.
For a moment, he imagined the impossible—that it was a minivan heading toward him. Dad behind the wheel. Mom asleep beside him in the front seat, kids in dreamland in the back. Maybe they’d been driving all night from Spokane or Missoula. Maybe they were coming here on vacation. Maybe just passing through.
It wasn’t real.
He knew that.
But for a half second, standing in the predawn stillness in the middle of town, it felt possible.
The approaching car was hauling ass down the middle of Main, tires straddling the white line, RPMs in the red. It must have been doing sixty or seventy, the racket of the engine reverberating between the dark buildings, high beams flooding his eyes.
It had just occurred to Ethan that he might want to get out of the road when he heard the RPMs fall off.
The Jeep Wrangler that had taken him up into the mountain so many times before slid to a stop in the crosswalk in front of him.
No doors, no soft top.
Ethan heard the emergency brake engage.
Marcus stared at Ethan from behind the wheel, a grogginess in his eyes hinting that he hadn’t been awake for long.
Over the idling engine, he said, “You gotta come with me, Mr. Burke.”
Ethan put his hand on the padded roll bar.
“Pilcher sent you to get me at five in the morning?”
“He called your house. No one answered.”
“Because I’ve been out all night doing what he asked me to do.”
“Well, he wants to see you right away.”
“Marcus, I’m tired, cold, and wet. You tell him I’m going home, taking a shower, and getting some sleep. Then—”
“I’m sorry, but that’s not going to work, Mr. Burke.”
“Excuse me?”
“Mr. Pilcher said now.”
“Mr. Pilcher can f**k right off.”
The traffic signal above them threw alternating colors on the Jeep, on Marcus’s face, on the gun he was suddenly pointing at Ethan’s chest. It looked like a Glock but Ethan couldn’t be sure in the twilight.
He studied Marcus—anger, fear, nerves.
The shake in the gun was barely perceptible.
“Get in the Jeep, Mr. Burke. I’m sorry to have to do this, but I got my orders, and they’re to take you to Mr. Pilcher’s office. You were a soldier, right? You understand that sometimes you gotta do what you’re told, and whether or not you like it doesn’t matter.”
“I was a soldier,” Ethan said. “I flew the Black Hawk. Carried men into battles I knew they wouldn’t return from. Unleashed hell on insurgents. And yeah, I took orders.” Ethan climbed into the passenger seat and stared down the barrel of the pistol into Marcus’s stormy eyes. “But I took them from men who had my total trust and respect.”
“Mr. Pilcher’s got mine.”
“Good for him.”
“Your seat belt, Mr. Burke.”
Ethan buckled his seat belt. Guess he wasn’t going to get that recharge after all.
Marcus holstered his weapon, released the emergency brake, and shifted into first.
Popping the clutch, he whipped the Jeep around on the snowy pavement, and floored it up Main Street, the back of the Wrangler fishtailing as the tires sought out traction.