Isolation , Jones, Nathan [top 20 books to read TXT] 📗

your hands to yourselves . . . there'll be no contact of any sort with other prisoners. And it goes without saying that if you try to lay hands on any of my people, it will be viewed as an aggressive move and you'll be lucky to get off with a broken nose.”

The officer paused, giving the huddle of prisoners a baleful glare. “Break any of these rules, and we'll have a problem. I do not want to have a problem, and you really don't want to have a problem. Questions?”

If anyone had any, they were smart enough to keep them to themselves after that speech. Nick felt another surge of pity for Chet, Ben, Chase, Larry, Liza, and everyone else in that small group of people.

He was well aware of how easily he could've been there with them.

While Tullis began organizing the prisoners, Gorstrom and her aides returned to the convoy, which was all loaded up and ready to go. The vehicles all rumbled into life, and with no more ceremony than that they took the road that circled Stanberry to the west and disappeared.

On to the next town.

That left Nick and the others feeling a bit abandoned, twiddling their thumbs as they waited for their own rides.

Thankfully it was only a few minutes before a distant rumbling resolved into a line of buses making their way towards Stanberry. Nick counted thirty, which was enough to hold a thousand people and then some, assuming each held forty people. In case more people volunteered at the last minute?

Nick turned and gave Ellie and the kids one last round of goodbye hugs, feeling his heart ache at the sight of the tears in Tallie's eyes and her refusal to let him go.

Oddly enough, his daughter had always been mostly fine with Ellie going on trips because it happened so often, but when Nick had to leave for a trip she always took it hard. Although that had changed a bit during his and Ellie's separation, when shared visitation meant Tallie was constantly having to say goodbye to either him or Ellie depending on who she was going to stay with.

It had given her a chance to get more used to it, and he thought she over taking farewells this hard.

His and Ellie's attempts to explain him leaving to their daughter in the best possible light must've been less than completely successful. Ricky certainly knew that things weren't all the rosy story of rebuilding the country like Gorstrom talked about.

But he was confident that, painful as their separation would be, his kids would weather it bravely. Both of them had needed to grow up quickly during this disaster, and they'd adapted well to the new circumstances.

Even so, he was worried they wouldn't be able to slip so easily back into a normal childhood as things got back to the way they'd been. Zolos had left its scars on all of them, even those it hadn't directly touched.

The buses all laboriously turned around to face back southward, then parked far enough away from the crowd of waiting volunteers to allow for organized loading. Relief workers quickly emerged to begin separating everyone into groups and assigning them to buses, and everything became about as chaotic as you'd expect for the task of loading over a thousand people onto thirty buses.

Meanwhile two more buses, painted differently from the others, stopped in front of Tullis and the prisoners. Guards armed with crowd control gear emerged from these ones and began loading up everyone in that group, not roughly but definitely without the patient tones and cheerful demeanors of the relief workers.

With a last regretful look at his children, Nick loaded himself up with his and Gen's meager possessions, while she carried a suitcase with Billy's things in one hand and held her son's hand with the other. Together, they allowed themselves to be directed to one of the buses, and boarded it in an orderly fashion with the other volunteers.

For good or ill, they were part of the rebuilding efforts now. He just hoped Gorstrom hadn't painted a rosy picture of what things were actually like.

The workers insisted on two people per bench, so Nick got Gen and Billy settled on one and took the seat across the aisle from them, next to an older man he didn't recognize. And after that they just waited; in spite of the relief workers' cheerful requests for everyone to get settled quickly so they could leave, it was another half hour or so before the entire line of buses was filled, all the last minute problems were sorted out, and they were ready to leave.

Nick spent that time staring out the window at his friends and family, who spent most of the time waving goodbye. He wasn't alone in that; pretty much everyone on the bus was also craning to keep their loved ones in sight for as long as possible.

But finally, the bus lurched beneath him and joined the line headed south, towards the Gulf Coast.

After about fifteen minutes of driving, the people on the bus with them began singing songs to pass the time. Billy was quick to sing along, Gen joining him, and Nick followed suit even though he didn't sing often and felt a bit self-conscious about his voice.

That lasted about a half hour, singing the usual music people were happy to sing along to, and then the general consensus of the crowd shifted to patriotic songs.

Nick enjoyed those songs and didn't hesitate to join in, but considering his own circumstances and that of the other prisoners, he thought his neighbors wanting to sing them now was some kind of bizarre zealotry on their part.

Then he remembered that the 4th of July was only a few days away. In fact, before Gorstrom went on her justice rampage Ellie and Gen and some of the others in their group had been discussing how they were going to celebrate the holiday, especially since with the vaccine and