Immurement: The Undergrounders Series Book One (A Young Adult Science Fiction Dystopian Novel) by Norma Hinkens Page B

she can read my mind.
    “You shouldn’t have come after me.” Owen wets his cracked lips. I reach for the water, but he shakes his head. “The camp needs you now more than you realize.”
    I stare at him for a moment, the pain of everything I’ve lost radiating through me like a powerful, mind-altering drug. My voice cracks. “The Sweepers extracted Jakob.”
    Owen groans, scrunches his eyes shut. “I’m sorry.”
    “We’re going to attempt a rescue, if Mason can get us to the Hovermedes.”
    “You have to trust him,” Owen says. He twists his mouth in pain as Big Ed tapes a square of gauze beneath his chin. “He’s your only hope of finding Jakob before it's too late.”
    “Your brother needs some rest now.” Big Ed screws the top back on the tube of antibiotic cream. He pulls his jacket from his pack and fluffs it up under Owen's head.
    I take the pot of cold stew to a bench by the back wall of the cabin and sit down. “What is this anyway?” Big Ed asks, sniffing the pot warily when he joins me.
    “Some kind of fish,” I say. “Tastes great.”
    He raises the ladle to his puckered lips and sucks at the congealed broth. “Not half bad. For cold stew.”
    I lean back against the wall, shattered from the rollercoaster of emotions I’ve been through in the last few days. “Do you think Mason’s okay?”
    Big Ed looks at me sideways. “Seems to have a few lives up his sleeve. I wouldn’t worry about him.”
    “He’s setting Rummy up, isn’t he?”
    “Wouldn’t you?”
    I drop my gaze. I’d like to give Rummy a piece of what he did to my brother and me, but kill him? That’s what Diesel will do to him if he thinks Rummy’s double-crossing him. I pick at a shred of fish wedged in my teeth. I’ve learned firsthand that revenge is hard to live with. “You’re okay with Mason doing our dirty work for us?”
    Big Ed runs his fingers slowly over his mangled hand. “We’re all in this together. No one’s hands are clean, Derry. Never forget that.”
    I shiver. How can I ever forget? Do us all a favor, Mason, why don’t you?
    I gesture at his hand. “What happened to you? You never talk about it.”
    “It’s a long story.”
    “We’ve got time.”
    He grunts and appraises me for a moment. “Time and regret. Funny how those two go hand in hand." He lets out a heavy sigh. "I worked for a rancher named Wild Gulch when I was ‘bout your age. He was uglier than a rattler on steroids when he hit the bottle. One night, when I’d been there a year or so, he caught a ranch hand stealing liquor from him.” Big Ed shudders, as if a blast of cold air just went through the cabin. “Marched that ranch hand right out to the woodshed and shot him square in the chest. I was sleeping in the back, saw it all go down.”
    I widen my eyes and wait for him to continue. I don’t want to appear over eager now that he’s ready to talk.
    “I popped right up and told him I was going into town to fetch the sheriff. Gulch just stood there, hands on his hips and smiled wide at me. Then all of a sudden, he grabbed a pitchfork from a rack, and pinned my hand to the wall with it. Told me I weren’t going no place ever again if I didn’t swear we was hiding in the wood shed, fearing for our lives when that drunken ranch hand doggone attacked us.”
    My eyes dart to his mangled hand. I shudder at the thought of how much he must have suffered.
    “Gulch told everyone he killed the ranch hand in self-defense. I backed him up that night, never said nothin’ to nobody ’bout it after that. But I knew then what he was capable of and I kept my distance.” He breaks off and stares at the floor.
    I lean in toward him. “What is it? Did something else happen after that?”
    He throws me a startled look, scrubs his hand over his face. “Couple years go by and Gulch marries a young woman named Kitty March from the town o’ Riggins. Kindest-hearted woman I ever knowed. From the get go he beat on her something awful. I saw