They don’t want to see. They want it all to happen without having to look.
Ava arrives at the top, grimacing as she adjusts her pants as though that will somehow give her leg some relief. She can imagine her doctor’s concerned expression, his warnings not to push it. Bone on bone in her knee, no cartilage there or in her ankle, more metal than bone in her foot. You don’t want to lose the whole thing, he’d caution, reminding her how fucking lucky she was. Lucky, lucky her.
“Okay,” she says, trying to distract herself from the agony pulsing through her ankle, spreading up her leg. “Now we have a decision. He came in on a four-wheeler like Linda’s. If we take that, it’ll be loud but faster. But we’ll also have to stay on the road. We’ll be vulnerable.”
“Going on foot would give us more time until they figure out we’re gone,” LeGrand says.
“Unless the guard changes again soon, in which case they’ll figure it out regardless.” Ava knows sneaking out is the best idea, but the pain is so bad she can’t keep it boxed up for much longer, and she knows she won’t be in fighting shape then.
Mack points to a sheet of paper tacked to the post of the guard tower. It’s a schedule, carefully written in blue ballpoint pen. Cursive, even. “No new guard until midnight.”
“Dammit,” Ava says, flinching. Daydreams of riding out, a roaring motor beneath her, her leg relieved of any weight, fade into nothing. They still have a shot at secrecy, so they have to take it. “Okay. We walk. Sneak into town. No way of knowing who’s in on it, so we treat everyone like they are. Steal a car and go. Car will draw less attention than a four-wheeler, anyway.” Even with the length of the bus ride in here, and her leg paining her, Ava knows they can make it to town and get a car well before midnight. It’s the safer bet.
The fucking agonizing safer bet. She grits her teeth. “Let’s get moving, then.”
When they climb down and head into the trees to walk parallel to the road, Ava doesn’t spare so much as a glance for the man she left dead. Her only regret is that she didn’t kill him fast enough to save Brandon. It seems unfair that they should both be dead, that she couldn’t trade one life for the other.
LeGrand feels lighter. He knows they escaped something terrible, but that’s not the main reason he feels like he could sprint, like he could fly. He’s going home, finally, at last. And he’s doing it with Ava, and Mack, and a gun.
Mack walks with Ava on her arm, and she knows they’re outside of the park, that they’re moving toward freedom, but she can’t shake the feeling that she’s going the wrong direction.
* * *
—
Late afternoon stretches infinite before them, the day loath to leave, lingering on their skin in the muggy heaviness and droning of insects, lingering on Mack’s soul and mind with the sheer enormity and impossibility of everything this day had contained.
All they can do is walk. LeGrand leads as Mack supports Ava to ease the burden on her leg. He keeps them parallel to the road, the asphalt in sight through the obscuring trees and undergrowth. It’s harder going than the road—which is not good for Ava—but it means they can see anyone coming and going. And no one has come or gone, which means their escape has still gone unnoticed.
“Smug bastards,” Ava mutters, slapping at the back of her neck in response to a biting insect. The aggressive movement shifts her balance, and Mack grunts under the increase of weight until Ava adjusts. “One electric fence and a few old men with guns. That’s it. That’s all they thought they needed.”
Mack doesn’t share the sentiment. It was more than enough to keep the rest of them inside. Just not Ava. The lure of the money and the fear of being embarrassed for being afraid kept them in to begin with. Then, after seeing the monster, what could they do but run and hide? The terror was too loud, too immediate, to leave room for anything resembling a plan.
Maybe that’s why Ava was able to function, to take charge. Why hadn’t she seen it? Mack feels almost lonely, knowing that Ava didn’t share that dread knowledge with her. Hadn’t been changed by it the way she had, LeGrand had, Brandon had.
Mack’s surprised to find that thinking of sweet Brandon, neck snapped, eyes opened to the heavens, doesn’t make her mind recoil. She wishes he had waited, that things had gone differently, but really, he chose. And he made his choice to save other people. Brandon was better than Mack, too. Everyone here is. Brandon, dying to give them a shot at living. LeGrand, banished for trying to save his sister. And Ava, with the chance to be free and clear, willingly climbing back into hell to get them out.