“You sure you want to do this? You can stay.” He told her quietly and he saw her face pinken.
“I want to get the fuck out of this place. I would rather be dead, than live in that place. Being watched and monitored. My every word listened to. Having to pretend to go along. No, I’m going with you.” Megan hissed in a low voice.
The bus began to slow down. Ian’s heart was beating like a kettle drum, vibrating its way through his whole body. It was late morning and they were pulling into a large open field. His eyes scanned the area, looking for the best place to hide. There were clusters of trees that bordered the fields and pastures. There were also small structures. The road that led to the fields was higher than the land itself and he saw a culvert, buried. They could go there and hide. The guards would more than likely assume that they made a run for it. If or when they noticed that he and Megan were missing. There were about one hundred people crammed on the bus.
The bus wove around and finally came to a stop. Someone opened the back door and jumped out. They would be pulling equipment out of the storage compartments beneath the bus. The people began to file out of the front, milling around. Ian kept Megan close to him and walked around back, where everyone was gathering. Several men pulled the large orange water dispensers out. Anthony, the man who would cause a diversion looked over at Ian. Ian nodded and took Megan’s hand. His heart was beating like crazy and all he could hear was his blood, whooshing through his ears. His eyes scanned; they were fairly close to the hidden culvert.
“God damnit! You stepped on my fucking toe, you asshole.” Anthony screamed in outrage and shoved one of the men, holding one side of the orange water container. The hapless man then staggered into another man and they dropped the water container, causing a geyser of water to gush into the air. Anthony was waving his arms like a mad man and everyone turned to gawk at the commotion. Ian turned.
NINE
Kansas City, MO
Trish’s breasts ached. They were engorged with milk and she felt mildly nauseated at the pain. She had to wake Caleb to feed him. Getting out of bed, she tried not to wake Hogan.
“You okay?” He asked in a drowsy whisper.
“Yes, I’ve got to go feed Caleb, or my freaking boobs are going to explode. No one ever told me how painful this is.” She whispered back, laughing softly.
“If I could help, I would.” He offered.
“Well, they say it is possible for a man to do it.” She grinned in the dark.
“Never mind. I retract that statement. Good luck honey, you’re on your own.” He laughed and she grinned.
“Chicken.” She sniggered and left the bedroom.
She made her way to Caleb’s room. They were using a dresser drawer as his bed. They’d tried having him in their room, but neither could sleep when the baby made a noise. Her milk had come three days ago, she’d been trying for three days and finally, the clear fluid, colostrum, came in. Then, the next day, milk. Now, when Caleb cried, her nipples would leak. Also, Hogan touching her on her breasts were now painful. As was sleeping on them. Christ, they were a pain in the ass.
She picked the sleeping child up. She could feel that he’d put on weight. Feeding him with the syringe did fine, but the child had been losing weight steadily, ounce by ounce. He just wasn’t getting enough. Trish had been afraid that he might starve to death before anything happened with her breasts. But he’d started putting on weight. He was due to be awake soon anyway. Every two hours, she woke to his cries. At least now, they didn’t have to go and milk the goats in the middle of the night. They couldn’t afford to let the goat milk set out for more than a couple hours.
Keeping it in the basement had helped, but then they had to in turn, heat it up on the stove. This way was much easier, and they didn’t have to keep sterilizing the syringe. It was more painful, but once Caleb started suckling, the pain went away, and she found relief. She pulled the baby from the makeshift crib and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning against the headboard. She didn’t sleep with clothing on, so it was a matter of setting him to her breast.
He latched on quickly and began to pull and Trish sighed in relief. One breast down, the other to go. Beside her on the bed was a stack of diapers. She and Hogan had gone up into the attic of the house. She’d only been up there a few times, but she knew there were boxes and boxes from the previous owners. The previous owners were supposed to have taken them out when they moved, but they hadn’t. She’d found this out, six months after she’d moved in. It was too big a pain in the ass to empty the attic, so, she’d just left the boxes and added her own junk to the mess.
While Caleb slept below, the two had methodically gone through every box. It had taken a few days, but they’d found a gold mine up there. They found cloth diapers and cute diaper pins. They found rubber pants, that went over the diaper. They did find an old crib, but Trish was afraid to put the baby in it. The space between the railings was a little wide. She’d have to make some kind of cloth padding, to keep
