Then he waved his hand, signaling them to follow. He ran, and they ran after him, their boots and water shoes splashing the puddles and smacking the asphalt. Gavin turned a corner, down a long and narrow alleyway. They ran down the alley about halfway before Gavin stopped and turned around. He ran right past Summer, going back the way they came.
Summer turned to follow, but three men walking from the far end of the alleyway toward them stopped Gavin in his tracks. Two of the men had rifles pointed in their direction. Summer turned from those men and saw four more men at the opposite end of the alley, two of them with machetes and two of them with rifles. They were stuck between the proverbial rock and the hard place. Summer searched the crumbling buildings for an opening. A broken window offered a way in with no guarantee of a way out.
“In here,” Summer hissed, climbing through the window frame.
Her friends followed her into the dark building, at least she thought they did, but the rain was noisy, and time was of the essence. The inside of the building was decimated. Three floors of debris and furniture and appliances had collapsed in a heap on the bottom floor. Two of the upper walls had collapsed inward, creating a haphazard roof—or maybe a generously sized coffin.
Summer climbed over and ducked under debris. She crawled through tight spaces, moving what she could, squeezing around what she couldn’t, all in complete darkness. She heard rustling and voices behind her, but she didn’t look back, adrenaline pushing her forward. Summer finally crawled from the building, into the street, her poncho covered in dust and drywall, the rain immediately washing her.
Summer peered into the hole she’d just come from and said tentatively, “Javier? Eliza? Gavin?”
A pale hand reached from the hole. Summer grabbed Gavin’s hand, and he squeezed from the building, coughing. Javier came through immediately afterward.
Summer stuck her head in the hole and called out for Eliza, careful not to be too loud. She cocked her head, listening, but heard nothing but the constant drumbeat of the rain. Summer turned to the guys and asked, “Where’s Eliza?”
“I thought she was with you,” Gavin said to Javier.
“I thought she was with you,” Javier replied.
Summer put her index finger to her lips. Male voices could be heard in the distance, maybe a block away.
“It’s them. You two stay here,” Gavin whispered, then ran toward the voices.
Javier and Summer followed despite his command. They followed the raucous voices and laughter, the celebratory sounds getting louder. They peered around the corner of a building, and there they were. Seven men and Eliza.
One of the men looked familiar to Summer. The one wearing a plastic bag as a poncho. Maybe her mind was playing tricks on her. It was dark and rainy, and the men were walking away from them, but something about the man’s walk, and the way he held his machete, reminded her of Derek. The man who had killed her fiancé.
“What are we gonna do?” Summer whispered.
Gavin shook his head. “What can we do? It’s one gun against five.”
84
Naomi and Politically Motivated
Naomi pressed her fingertips into his muscular back. She watched his face as he reached his climax, hoping for eye contact. But he didn’t look in her eyes. Instead, he looked at her naked body as he grunted and satisfied himself. Vernon rolled off Naomi, a thin sheen of sweat along his hairline.
He sighed. “I needed that.”
Naomi wondered what she needed.
They lay in the king-size bed of their hotel room at the Mandarin Oriental. Naomi snuggled close, her head on his chest.
“Are you happy with Katherine?” Vernon asked, referring to Naomi’s campaign manager.
“Are you interested in a threesome?” Naomi replied with a smirk.
He laughed and said, “You know what I meant.”
“Are you happy with her?” Naomi asked.
“I think we can do better. I think we’ll have to do better if we’re gonna win.”
“You have someone in mind?”
“Fletcher McClure.”
“Corrinne’s campaign manager?”
“He’s a winner.”
“Why would he leave Corrinne? She’s the front runner.”
“We need to find a way to change that.” He grabbed the remote from the bedside table and flipped on the OLED television. The translucent screen came to life with breaking news.
The coiffed man said, “The shooter has been identified as Davis Sedgewick, a twenty-year-old University of Oregon student. Sedgewick interrupted a summer session history course, fatally shooting two professors and nine students, while injuring eight other students.”
“This is awful,” Naomi said, sitting up in bed.
The newscaster continued. “Minutes before the shooting he posted the following message on You Share.” The message appeared on the screen. The newscaster read it aloud and skipped the swear words.
“America. The home of the brave, the land of the free, what a ****ing joke. We’re not free. We don’t deserve to be free. We’d rather have a ****ing nanny state. These ****ing Marxist professors and their socialist agenda are destroying this country. They’re leeches on hardworking Americans. Most of my classmates are socialists too. They make me sick. They’ve never worked for anything. That’s why they want socialism. They don’t know what it’s like to work for something, to create something, only to have someone take it from you. They’ve been brainwashed to think that the rich owes them, that the government owes them. To be free, we must be able to stand on our own. These socialists must be destroyed before they destroy the world.”
They cut back to the newscaster. A picture of an AR-15 carbine appeared over his shoulder. “Davis Sedgewick used this assault rifle, capable of firing thirty rounds without reloading. Over the past forty years, law makers have tried to ban these weapons of war. When we return, Washington insider, Grant Jackson, joins us to discuss the possibility of sensible gun control.”
The news went to a commercial break.
Vernon muted the television and turned to Naomi. “I’m not sure if this is good or bad for us. Gun control’s positive, and the targeting of socialists is bound to garner sympathy for our cause, but I worry that this violence is a harbinger of things to come.” He paused, gazing into her eyes. “I worry about you.”
Naomi couldn’t help but beam, her stomach fluttering at his sentiment. She kissed him on the lips.
They disengaged and Vernon said, “This has to be the first school shooting we’ve had in years.”
“They’ve been able to control the populace with the Social Credit System and the island prisons,” Naomi said.
“And the surveillance.”
Naomi nodded. “This school shooting is different. He’s not some bullied kid looking for revenge. This is politically motivated.”
“We need to go to Oregon and talk about gun control.”
85
Derek and the Prize
It had been a long trek back from Old San Juan. At least five miles. Derek wore a plastic trash bag as a poncho, but he was still soaked to the bone. They’d stopped for breaks every mile or so—not so much to take a rest break but so the Aryans could rape and fondle the woman. The first time she had screamed bloody murder, but she was subdued now, passive and broken, the men still taking her with the same excitement. Derek wasn’t sure which was more horrific, her screams or her broken acceptance.
The other men looked at him sideways because he hadn’t participated. They weren’t sure if Derek was really one of them, which was why he carried a machete and not a rifle, even though he knew how to shoot. Thor had been the most suspicious of Derek. He was the highest ranking Aryan in their group and looked exactly like you’d expect him to look, based on his nickname. The perfect Aryan specimen: tall and built and blond.