Malcolm nods. “Yes. Not those with guns. That seems pointless. There are times when I’ve stepped in and given someone else a little help to get away. Especially when they’re young. I have a couple scars for my thanks, and I’m not always successful. More than one has died anyway. One hunter came at me with a knife, thinking that was going to be enough to subdue me. They ended up with that knife in their neck, and I made it back here.”
“Wow. That’s…”
“Dangerous,” Malcolm says, nodding. “Also, a bit of luck. He was overly arrogant, thinking that because he had enough money to be here, he was stronger than those here fighting for their lives. Arrogance is always their weakness. That’s not the only hunter who’s died. He’s the only one I’ve killed. There was a guy here who made it his mission to kill as many hunters as he could. Every time he was let out, he came back with at least a single kill.”
“What happened to him?”
Malcolm shrugs. “I’m assuming he’s dead. Haven’t seen him in quite a while, though he could very well be at one of the other barracks. He hasn’t been back to this one in over a month.”
“A month,” someone murmurs. “I can’t help but wonder what’s become of the life I left behind. My wife, my son, my job, my car. Has my house been foreclosed on because my wife can’t make the mortgage on her own? My car repossessed? Has my cell phone number already been reassigned? What about my job—have I been replaced? Has my kid forgotten me?”
I shiver at his questions. They feel like they’re coming straight from me. I’ve only been gone for a couple days. I think. Who knows how long I was passed out in the back of the truck? Asif Malcolm read my mind and is speaking it out loud, he says, “Have they stopped looking for me?”
“At least someone was looking for you,” someone else says. “I worked at home. Self-employed, making shit and selling it online. I didn’t get along with my family, so I hadn’t spoken to them in years. I’m an introvert, so I never spoke to my neighbors. I didn’t have a girlfriend. Very few friends and none that I spoke to regularly. Has anyone even realized I’m missing?”
My chest tightens. Fuck.
“Wow, man.”
I close my eyes and listen to the voices around me as they ask a different version of these same questions. How has the life they left behind been rewritten? At what point does your debt get written off? When does your partner stop grieving and move on? When do the authorities label your case cold and stick it on a shelf, forgotten?
I think about Voss. He was the last person I sent a text to. How long before he got concerned that I didn’t arrive home? Did he call the police? Are they looking for me? What about my friends? Have my parents been notified? Do they care at all?
A stray thought that my parents would answer the report that I’m missing with an eye roll.“Always such a dramatic child. This isn’t how you get attention, Albrecht.”
It’s difficult coming to terms with the idea that I’ll never see my friends again. I’ll never see Briar’s kid grow up or Haze get married. Honey Bee become a mother. Levis get his chivalric happily ever after. I’ll never see Axl grow up.
My breath catches in my throat with that last thought. Axl. When did he become important to me? When did I decide I wanted to be around to see him grow up? For a minute, I can’t catch my breath as the knowledge that I’ll never see any of them again, and they’ll never know what happened to me, is the only thought.
This can’t be real! This isn’t fair. I haven’t done anything bad enough to have this be the end of my life!
“Brek?”
I inhale and open my eyes. Malcolm is watching me. “Yeah.”
“Everything okay?”
“I don’t know why you keep asking that. Nothing is okay. I don’t accept this as the new normal. No, I’m not okay.”
A beat passes before he asks, “What do you plan to do to change it?”
I snort and close my eyes again. “Nothing. I’m a spoiled rich boy, Malcolm. I don’t know the first thing about escaping something like this or staging a revolt or whatever. But for the record, every time you ask, know the answer is that I’m not okay.”
Malcolm chuckles quietly. I feel his hand rest on my head for a minute. “Sorry. I’m not really asking if you’re okay. This—whatever this level of existence is—is the new baseline. Not okay, obviously, but for the duration of our stay, it’s the new okay. When I ask if you’re okay, I mean beyond this hellscape.”
“You should have led with that. I’m fine,” I answer.
Several people around me laugh quietly. Honestly, it feels good to hear laughter. Even quiet. Even if it’s not real humor.
Minutes pass in silence.
“I keep trying to think of something to say, like,It’ll get betterorEverything will be fine. Something that’s hopeful, reassuring, and not a complete lie,” Malcolm says. “I can’t think of a thing.”
“Count your blessings doesn’t even apply to this situation,” the guy behind me says. “What fucking blessings do I have right now?”
“We’re alive,” someone volunteers. “Is that a blessing?”
“No, that’s fucking luck. I wasn’t spotted and shot from a hundred yards away.”
