Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132491 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 662(@200wpm)___ 530(@250wpm)___ 442(@300wpm)
Others are coming into the circle now, too. I only see threes and fours. Some of them don’t even get their clothes all the way off before they start rutting.
Yelena straightens and leans back, taking Pax’s bloody mouth in a passionate kiss. He returns it, still pounding himself into her.
I swallow hard, my mind spinning. I have to get out of here. I’m about to say screw it and start running when Olin catches my eye. He tips his chin slightly.
When he reaches me, he gestures for me to walk in front of him, heading toward the entrance to the circle. A few other people are starting to leave.
He’s offering me cover. Letting me walk out unseen. I slip in front of him, forcing myself not to move too quickly. We need to look like people casually leaving now that the murder is over and the orgy is starting.
I hardly breathe in the two minutes it takes us to get out to the beach, the moaning and grunting getting louder now.
My heart rate slows. Olin is a steady presence beside me. There’s so much I want to say to him, but I can’t risk it with other people around.
“Thank you,” I say softly when we walk back into camp.
He nods and goes the other direction. I walk to my room as fast as I can, sagging against the back of the door once it’s closed and locked.
I get it now. Why the choices are this or execution. They’re the same, really. It’s either a quick death or a slow one. This beautiful, evil, tropical hell somehow makes people lose their free will.
It’s the death of who you really are. And for the first time since I got here, I’m not sure I have a chance of escaping it.
14
Plants are too commonly underestimated by science. They are not the passive nonstarters many think them to be. In fact, plants speak their own highly evolved language, a complex dialogue with their microbial partners, herbivore enemies and neighboring plants. This multispecies communication and coordination is a scientific wonder.
– Excerpt from a lecture given by Dr. Lucinda Hollis in her Introduction to Plant Biology course
My food bowl has a lump of algae and two thick, curled-up grubs in it. The sudden stab I feel in my stomach isn’t hunger, but protest.
I consider passing it back to Billy, but only for a split second. Instead, I smile, though it’s admittedly pretty weak.
“Thanks, Billy.”
“Just pretend it’s one of them fancy places from before the virus. They charged people hundreds of bucks for meals like this.”
My smile widens. “True. You’ll add this to my tab?”
“You know it.”
Without tables to sit at, I walk around slowly instead. Before I have time to give it too much thought, I pop one of the grubs into my mouth, chewing it quickly. The gush of its foul-tasting guts in my mouth makes me cringe.
My time with Lochlan made me harder in some ways, and softer in others. Before the virus, I had to eat things I didn’t want to. Once Whitman took over, he had crews raiding homes and taking everything. There was a lot of nonperishable food left, and very few people, but he hoarded it all.
I scavenged through trash for food sometimes. Ate bugs. And I wasn’t as bothered by it as I am by the slippery, briny algae I swallow with my eyes closed.
When I was twelve, my dad took our family on a weeklong camping trip in northern Minnesota. He had weapons but told us he’d only use them in an emergency. We foraged for food, my mom showing us how to figure out what plants are safe to eat. We ate grasshoppers, grubs, even worms.
The meals served by Lochlan’s chef were always lavish. Having more food on the table than the two of us could possibly eat was expected. I ate robotically, my skin crawling over being just a few feet from the man I hated with my entire being.
But I still ate. Tender steaks, fresh vegetables, fluffy dinner rolls, fruit tarts. I got used to that kind of food—came to expect it, even. And I hate myself a little for it.
Other people starved and dug through garbage, while I ate like royalty. Lochlan probably has a new wife locked up and guarded in his home, eating those meals and enduring her life.
I should’ve fought harder to escape. I tried sneaking out and bribing guards, and the punishment every time was severe. I would have taken the worst of beatings over Lochlan’s sexual punishments, but it was never an option.
I hate it here, but it’s still a better life than that was. For me, anyway. But not for the Rising Tide children. How many lives will they take one day, in the name of a power-hungry maniac who wants to rule every inch of the planet?