“Put the tile back in place,” Bailey hissed.
“Can’t reach it, I’m not flexible enough—”
“Hop down then, I got this, Rob.”
He hopped down to the other side where the rest were waiting for him. He stood up, brushing the dust off his ass, and then it hit him. The woman had used his name. His blood ran cold as he looked up. The woman dropped down to the floor with them just as there was a crash on the other side of the wall and confused voices. How did she know his name?
“I think they just found out we weren’t in there,” Angelica said with a grin.
“Unless we left footprints on the seat, it’ll give us a few minutes until they figure out the ceiling is how we got out of there.”
“They have to break that door down too.” Angelica grinned. “Now let's go.”
Bailey and the governor both grabbed tools that were hanging on the wall. Bailey went with a crowbar, the governor a big 1” wrench, probably something they used in maintaining the hi-lo’s. Angelica smiled prettily as she grabbed a set of large handled bolt cutters. She grinned, then handed them to Rob. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t need to do anything, he could have waited outside of the fence for them.
That’s when there was cursing and a crunching sound from the other side of the wall.
“Let’s go,” Rob whispered.
“Where the fuck are they?”
“They don’t all fit in here,” another voice said.
“Are you sure this is where they were going?”
“I fucking watched them walk in here,” another voice shouted.
They hurried out of the tool crib into an open area where floor lifts and other tools were spread around. A half-assembled forklift was being worked on. Nobody paid them any mind as they slipped out of the overhead door on the opposite side of the building to where the trucks came in. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the bright lunchtime sunlight.
The area looked to be outdoor storage. It was littered with pallets, errant scraps of old shrink wrap, plastic debris and hi-lo parts that were slowly being oxidized by sitting in the elements. The fence behind them was the same construction as the fence in the front. They had found the boundary fence after all.
“I can toss you guys over,” Rob said simply.
“You couldn’t get over,” Angelica said. “We have to cut through it.”
“It’s electrified, even stronger than we have at the farm,” Rob said. “I can cut it, but it might trip something, it might blow a spark, it might shoot lightning out of my ass. There has to be another way.”
“I’ll do it,” the big woman said, trading him the crowbar.
He was about to protest, but she yanked hard at first her left sleeve, then her right. Both tore off after a few moments of effort. She wrapped her hands and then gripped the rubber handles of the bolt cutters. She checked her shoes, moving gravel out from under her feet so she wouldn’t accidentally slip. Then she started cutting.
Rob almost panicked when she cut the chain link. He was certain there was enough current there to make his hair stand up from five feet away, but she kept cutting as the screams from the rioters and guards got louder. A loud siren went off as Bailey cut the final strand and then pushed the chain apart with the bolt cutters, keeping it from touching her, and arcing.
“Go, one at a time. I’ll come through last. Angel, you and your hubs go first so you can help us out afterwards.”
One by one, they went through the fence, being as careful as they could be. When all were through, Bailey tossed the bolt cutters through, then her sleeves. The governor wrapped one sleeve around his wrench and pushed the chain link back with the tool. Angelica did the same with the bolt cutters.
Twenty-Seven
Rob couldn’t believe they’d got out of there without a shot fired. He had prepared mentally to wage a war of blood and death, wading through one or both to get to his wife. Instead, he’d found himself blessed by fortune every step of the way, scoring the easiest extraction in the history of ever, and then fleeing the area with his wife, the former governor and a woman named Bailey. But he couldn’t leave behind the gear he’d stashed. Not with the riot happening at the gate. He had wanted to leave everyone somewhere safe, and crawl in and get his gear. He didn’t want to leave some of what he’d brought with him out there to be found.
Angelica had flat out refused to leave his side. The governor wanted to stay outside of the fence hiding near an old structure overgrown with weeds, but when Bailey said she wasn’t leaving Angel’s side, he’d lost his nerve. Now all of them were making their way back to the overgrown field edge. Rob crawled to his ghillie blanket and pulled it back. He’d dug a small depression in the soft dirt and had tried to make the resulting hump underneath natural looking, but hiding his pack.
“We got it; can we call for help now?” Christian asked.
“Not yet,” Rob said. “We got out of there, but it won’t take them long to figure out how we got out. We need to move, but slow enough that we don’t attract any more attention. They’ve got drone support from somewhere.”
“Hun,” Angelica said softly, pulling some binoculars from the top pouch where she knew her husband kept them, “not everybody who works there wants to be there. They’re forcing people to work. Taking their kids and using them. They must have them all in one building, because I’ve never seen them, just heard about them.”
“What are
