The truth of the matter

CHAPTER EIGHT

Waylon I stood there, frozen. I didn’t even breathe. A thousand thoughts flashed through my head in a second.

Waterman’s words: The Homelanders are close. Very close… It’s only a matter of time before they find this place and strike and try to kill us all.

Had they done it? Had they broken in? Had they gotten Waterman and his friends? Or had he escaped? Where was he?

I knew I had to do something, had to move. It was like forcing myself to break free from a block of ice. But I did it. I made myself step forward, step back to the wall again. I made myself press my ear against the wall.

Once again, I heard that voice-now that I recognized it, I could distinguish it even though I couldn’t hear the words. Again, the face of that vicious killer seemed to rise up out of the darkness of my memory- come close to the surface-then sink back down again into obscurity.

Then-startling-another shout-another voice-this one speaking English: “There’s no one else in here either!”

The killer answered him with a shouted curse.

The other man shouted in English again: “There must be another way out.”

Then a third man shouted: “Waylon! No one here either. Maybe they snuck him out before we showed up.”

The killer-obviously their leader-shouted out another stream of Arabic.

I felt suddenly hollow inside. Hollow and weak and unsteady. I knew it was me they were looking for. And I knew that name too. The killer’s name: Waylon. This was something I did remember clearly, something that had happened when I woke up strapped to that metal chair with the Homelander goons working me over.

There had been voices outside the door. There had been a man with an American name but a thick accent: Waylon. He had been coming from the Homelanders’ leader, a man who called himself Prince. He had given the order to my torturers:

The West boy is useless to us now. Kill him.

I understood why Waterman had put me inside the Panic Room. The Homelanders had been following him. They’d breached some of his files. They might know about this bunker. They might even have the entry codes. But he must’ve felt the Panic Room was still secure. He must’ve felt he could keep me safe here while I was helpless under the influence of the drug.

I listened. Outside in the main bunker, there was a pause, silence. I could feel them out there, on the other side of that wall. I could sense them looking for me, listening for me. I felt that if I made even the slightest noise, they would hear it. They would find me. They would kill me. Waylon would finally kill me, as he’d wanted to do all this time.

Then, Waylon spoke. He was standing right next to me, directly on the other side of the wall. His voice seemed almost at my ear and, even through the thick wall, I heard every word he said with perfect clarity.

“All right. We’ll have a look around for him outside first. Then we blow this place to pieces. If he’s hiding here anywhere, he won’t survive.”

One of the others answered him: “But I thought we were supposed to question him about…”

“I know what we’re supposed to do!” Waylon shouted back. “But if he is here somewhere and we can’t find him-we can’t let him get away. Do what I tell you. Set the explosives! Make sure no one gets out of this hole alive!”

I heard them moving again, heard their wordless voices again, talking to one another, the sounds growing dimmer as they moved out of earshot, as they went to search for me in the ruins of the facility outside.

Then it was quiet.

I stepped back away from the wall again. I looked around. They were going to blow the bunker up. Just in case I was here. If they couldn’t find me, they were going to make sure they killed me.

And now the Panic Room-the place Waterman had intended to be my refuge-had become my trap-and would be my coffin.

Because there was no way out.