Finding Home - A Post Apocalyptic Novel (The Ravaged Land Series Book 2) (12 page)

“Maybe… I wish we had a TV in our room.”

“Yeah, me too,” Penn said, but I didn’t think he really cared one way or the other. He just didn’t have the same feelings about HOME I did. “Well if you want to it starts at seven. I think it could be fun. And at the very least a good distraction.”

After a couple hours had gone by, Penn asked me again about the movie. I took a deep breath and reluctantly agreed to go. I had to try to at least look like I wanted to fit in. The more normal I acted the less likely they were to be suspicious of me, or so I hoped.

Penn found two empty chairs side by side and gestured for me to sit down next to him. I looked around the room. My eyes stopped when I spotted Dean sitting next to Sienna. Penn looked at me as if he was going to say something but when he saw who I was looking at, he changed his mind. Someone flickered the lights on and off to indicate the movie was about to begin and Penn leisurely stretched his arm out behind me.

I glanced to Dean again and our eyes met. He nodded and turned towards the TV. My heart pulsed in my throat because I wanted to be sitting with them. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy Penn’s company, I did, but he wasn’t Dean. Or Sienna. Or Owen. I wished we both could be sitting over there with them.

“It’s starting,” Penn said, his lips curling upward. I liked seeing him relaxed and happy. He had a great smile, in fact, Penn was, just, well, hot. And I guessed there were plenty of girls here who would throw themselves at him. They’d throw me off my seat just to be next to him. He was my friend, nothing more. I wondered what Dean thought of him. He had to have noticed me with him all the time by now. And even just now, sitting next to him with his arm draped across the back of my chair.

The whole room watched the movie in almost an eerie silence. It was a comedy and there were small snickers here and there but nothing more. Was everyone afraid to laugh? Or was nothing funny any more because of everything that had happened?

When the movie ended, I kept my eyes on Dean. I wanted to time things just right so I could hand him my note.

“Ready?” Penn said looking at me as he tapped my shoulder. He didn’t know I was trying to time our exit just right.

“Umm… ahhh… yes,” I said holding the words as long as I could until I saw Dean get up and make his way towards the door. Since we had publically went to lunch together I figured it would be safe to communicate with him. It wouldn’t look suspicious because now we knew each other.

“Ooook,” Penn said looking at me strangely when my steps were slow, slow, quick.

As Dean got closer I quickened my pace. I was trying to time it perfectly so I’d meet up with him at the precise moment I wanted to. As I inched closer, I pretended to bump into him accidentally. “Oh! Excuse me!” I said as I slipped him the note.

“Oh, hey!” he said not missing a beat. “How are you?” he asked and passed me a note as well. He must have been carrying it along hoping to run into me too. I wondered if he had been sitting there watching the movie wishing he was sitting with me.

“I’m good. Umm, this is my friend Penn,” I said rubbing my palms on my thighs.

Dean reached his hand out and Penn took it. They shook hands and eyed each other suspiciously. I could feel the thickness of the air between them and I was sure I would have needed a knife to cut through it.

“Hello Penn, welcome to HOME,” Dean said with an odd tone I’d never heard before, but I knew Penn wouldn’t pick up on it. I raised my eyebrow at him. “I’m Dean,” he said quickly, and I was glad he had in case that could have been construed as being suspicious.

“Nice to meet you,” Penn said still shaking his hand. I elbowed Penn, and he dropped Dean’s hand as if it had weighed twenty pounds. He also stopped measuring him up, or whatever it was he was doing with his eyes.

“Well, I should probably catch up to my sister. See you tomorrow, Mel?” he asked, already knowing my answer.

“Yeah, great, tomorrow. See you then,” I said with a smile so big I could feel the muscles in my cheeks stretching. I was the only person in the vicinity, probably the whole building, with an authentic smile. But it faded away just as quickly as it had arrived.

Dean waved at us and walked off in the direction Sienna had gone with Owen. Penn put his arm around my shoulders and maneuvered me towards the door.

“Tomorrow? Again?” he asked.

“Of course. You know the plan,” I said hoping he remembered and understood that I wanted nothing more than to get out of here with my friends and with Ryan. Penn could come along if he wanted, at least as far as I cared. Hopefully Dean, Owen and Sienna would be able to adjust. But who knew if he’d even want to leave.

When we got back to the room I read the note under my blanket when Penn went to use the bathroom. I didn’t feel great keeping secrets from Penn when it related to the big plan, but it wasn’t like I was keeping it from him. It was more like I was keeping it from the potential cameras and or microphones in the room.

The note was a map with a star on it. All it said was to meet there for lunch. He must have hoped he would run into me before then. Or maybe he knew which room I was staying in and would have dropped it off. Although that seemed unlikely. He could have just been carrying it around for the next time we ran into one another. I tucked his note into the pocket of my jumpsuit since I would need the map to find him. Although I couldn’t help but wonder if he would have wanted me to memorize it and destroy it like I had the first note. I was sitting upright on my bed when Penn came out of the bathroom.

“Tired?” he said glancing in my direction, but I knew what he was really asking. He wanted to know if I’d be sleeping in his bed again tonight.

I nodded and went into the bathroom. When I came back out the lights were off. I slid into his bed trying not to move too much in case he had fallen asleep.

“What’s up with that Dean guy anyway?” he whispered.

“I don’t know what you mean?” I said quietly, “I just met him… seems nice enough to me.”

He coughed and turned on his other side. I could feel his breath against the back of my neck. “I thought you had a boyfriend?” he said keeping his voice so low I almost hadn’t heard it. It was as if I felt the words more than anything.

“I do,” I said through my clenched teeth. “Good night.”

Penn sighed and the whole bed shook and creaked as he flipped back to his other side. “Night,” he muttered.

I wasn’t sure what he had been implying. He knew Ryan was my boyfriend. I stared at the wall angrily unable to fall asleep. That was only for several minutes until my anger diminished. Penn was wrong. He was acting like an overprotective parent, or maybe like a jealous boyfriend… which he wasn’t.

I sighed and forced my body and mind to relax. Not even my annoyance with Penn nor my excitement for tomorrow could keep me awake any longer.

Chapter eleven.

I had a little trouble following the hand drawn map but eventually I saw Dean peeking around a corner watching for me. He made a small wave when he saw me. I didn’t run to him even though I wanted to.

“Where are—”

“Just me today. Hope that’s OK,” he said with a smirk. “It’s just I didn’t want to draw too much attention. I thought if we all came out here it would be too weird having only just met,” he explained as he pulled me deeper between two buildings that had been built close together. “I’m almost one-hundred percent positive there isn’t a camera near here. But I don’t know how much time we have… if there are cameras on the other buildings as I suspect, they’ll know we are out here. They might send someone by to check on us.”

I took a deep breath of the cool, fresh air and filled my lungs. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that you guys don’t like it here,” I said wrapping my arms around him tightly. But then I let go abruptly as Penn’s words from last night echoed through my mind. “Do you know where Ryan is?”

Dean shook his head and frowned. My stomach twisted and I swallowed down the hard lump of sadness that formed. If he had been here, they would have seen him by now. The place was big but they would have run into one another, I was sure of it.

“Sorry Mel,” he said using my fake name just to be safe. It sounded strange, and I just wanted to hear him say my real name.

“We have to get out of here, but I don’t know if I can until I find out where he is and if he’s still… you know….”

“We haven’t stopped trying to find him since we got here, but it hasn’t been easy trying to gather information,” he said. Dean pulled me into his arms, “I still can’t believe you’re alive. I want to hold on to you just to make sure you are real. I’ve been in this place so long I’m afraid I might be imagining all of this.”

A tear leaked out of my eye. I knew exactly how he felt since I felt the same way. I looked up at him at the same time he looked down at me. The moment seemed to freeze. Our eyes locked, and I could see all the feelings he’s had for me since forever swimming around inside them. It had been true all along, he really did have feelings for me and they appeared to be as strong as ever.

He inched carefully down towards me and I slowly moved towards him. Our lips drifted towards one another… until I remembered. I was with Ryan. And until I knew for certain where he was, Dean’s feelings for me didn’t matter. Not in that way.

The weirdness I was feeling towards Dean was probably just because I was all mixed up. I had been away from them for so long and was lonely… isolated. The solitary life hadn’t been an easy one. I would have to be careful not to send him the wrong message. I turned my head and pressed it into his chest and he pressed his face down against the top of my head. We both wanted that kiss, but we knew it couldn’t happen. I loved Ryan. Although I couldn’t help but wonder, if he was out there somewhere, still alive, would he have given up on me a long time ago? There was no way he would wait forever for me to come back to him. He probably thought I had abandoned him. If he was even still alive to have thoughts.

“In our mission to find Ryan we’ve made a friend on the inside,” he said with a cough.

“Slade,” I said already knowing.

“Yes, but how do you know him?” he said, his face scrunched up with a look of confusion.

“I saw him with you. But you can’t trust him. He’s the one that sent me away that day we first got here,” I said with a frown.

“We don’t. But he’s the only key to the inside we have. He told us he doesn’t know what happens to people in the infirmary. He said that once people are sent there they never come back here. Never.” Dean grabbed my shoulders and looked into my eyes, “We have to get out of here as soon as we possibly can.”

“I can’t. Not without Ryan. You guys can go. I’d totally understand, but I have to find out. He’d do it for me. He’d do it for any of us.”

Dean chuckled, “Not in a million years. I’m not leaving you. We are in this together. Now that I, we, have you back we aren’t going to separate again. No matter what.” He made it sound as if it were a promise. Dean paused for a minute and then everything about him changed, his expression, his posture, “Who is that guy you are with? Where does he come from?” He looked away as if checking to make sure we were still safely hidden.

“It’s a long story. But he seems OK.”

“Do you trust him?”

“Enough, but I don’t really trust anyone but you,” I said looking down at my feet and then back up at him. “He helped me get here, to find you guys. Now we just all need a plan that ends with us
all
getting out of here.”

Dean put his arm around me again and placed his lips close to my ear, “Here is what I came up with so far. Slade tells us there are administrative offices in the back in a different building and they are empty all night. The doors are guarded but only from the outside. He works one of those night shifts and I think we could convince him to let us in… but it’s a risk.”

“What here isn’t a risk?” I said shaking my head.

“Right.”

“Are there any other ideas?”

“We’ve exhausted them all. I think this can work, but I don’t even know if the answers to what happened to him are in there,” Dean said as he crossed his arms and leaned back against the building. He almost instantly pulled away as if it had been covered with a thousand roaches.

It was a risk. There wasn’t a single plan we’d be able to come up with that didn’t involve some amount of risk. We’d be doing something HOME would not be OK with. Spying. Trespassing. Reconnaissance. If we sat around never making a move we’d end up living and dying in here never finding any answers. “Put it in motion,” I said sounding surer of it than I actually felt.

“I’ll update you when I know more,” he said as he gave me another quick hug.

“As soon as possible. I can’t wait to get out of here,” I said squeezing him. He gestured for me to go. I stood on my tip-toes, kissed him on the cheek and walked away from him. Something was going on inside me and I couldn’t help it. I was twenty steps away and already, I missed him.

* * *

During the two days that passed, we secretly worked on organizing our plan. It was hard to do with note passing and cryptic sentences. One of them had convinced Slade, and he agreed to help without any persuasion. The plan was for him to distract his co-guard so that Dean and I could sneak inside. Everything was set and even though I didn’t trust Slade, I trusted Dean. And it seemed as though we didn’t have a whole lot of options anyway. If this was our only chance to find some answers, we had to take it.