Dear Journal,

I was so happy last time I wrote in you. And then Rex found us.

I don’t know how he even did it! Like yeah, one of the power plant workers was kind of by the house we stayed in the night before, but we went so far that day, and we’d made sure to check that we weren’t spotted while we ran! The only thing I can think of is that maybe they saw us leaving the house anyway, and then followed us here? I honestly don’t know.

All I do know is that I stayed up way too late (the house had had some instant coffee in it, which was like super gross, but I still chugged enough of it to make sure that I was going to be awake for long enough to actually talk to Hansen, which I did get to do plenty of! At least I got that one last good thing), and then I woke up to a door slamming. I don’t know who was supposed to be keeping watch - I’d done it every day since we’d originally left the power plant, but I was way too tired to do it that night - but whoever did it had apparently fallen asleep on the job because they didn’t notice that there were like ten people surrounding the house. I don’t know how anyone else even slept through that! If I hadn’t been so tired from staying up the night before, I know I would have woken up from the footsteps of the first person - when there’s nothing around to make noise anymore, it’s weird how loud everything seems. But, I’d been super tired, and I guess everyone else was deep sleepers, so none of us woke up until Rex broke open the front door.

I don’t remember much, honestly - I was still kind of half asleep, and my brain wasn’t fully processing what was happening, but everyone around me was grabbing their stuff to run. There wasn’t anywhere to run, though - if we had tried to leave through the windows, we would have just been caught by one of the people waiting around the house.

So anyway, Rex came into the room and was like “well, that was a great game of hide and seek, but it looks like you’re all found,” which was honestly such a super lame thing to say that I momentarily forgot that he was a pretty dangerous dude, so I rolled my eyes at him. He frowned at me, but he didn’t say anything because Hansen cut in and was like “why couldn’t you just let us leave?” And Rex was like “because you’re my son and I don’t let people take what’s mine,” like we were like inanimate objects or something, which was really pretty creepy.

Hansen apparently didn’t think that was creepy, because he walked up to his dad to say something else, but he didn’t get a chance to before his dad straight up punched him in the face! I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone’s head whip to the side that fast before, and then in a half second, Hansen was on the ground in front of me. I leaned over to check to see if he was okay, but I never was very good at first aid. He was still breathing, and that was about as much as I could tell.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

Anyway, Rex was like “and now I’m going to take you all back, and if any of you resist, you’ll wind up like him,” and I for some reason was like “but we don’t want to go back with you,” which was a really stupid thing to say, because obviously we didn’t want to go back with him. If we wanted to go back with him, we wouldn’t have been out there in the first place. But Rex just laughed at me and was like “it doesn’t matter what you want, sweetheart, you can either come back on your own or you can come back hogtied. Either way sounds good to me,” which totally made my skin crawl.

Then my mom stepped forward and was like “you don’t talk to my daughter that way!” which would have been a really cool moment if Rex hadn’t punched her too. He only punched her in the stomach, though, and she let out a long whoosh of air before doubling over. Ben went to check on her, and he seemed to think she was okay, but he didn’t do anything to actually stand up to Rex at all. Neither did Jared, Bryce, or Garrett. The first two were understandable - I don’t think they really understood what Rex was capable of before then, and I think they were more just along because they didn’t want to be the two people from our original group who got left behind, so they weren’t like super invested in us leaving. Garrett, though, I was kind of surprised by. After all the talk of hating Rex and hating the power plant, he just stood there silently as Rex talked, like he wasn’t sure he could control himself if he got started.

Anyway, Rex whistled, which called all the people who were standing outside into the house. For those of us who were able to walk, he had them tie our hands up with some sort of a cord, so even if we wanted to fight back, we couldn’t. Then he had two people pick up my mom and Hansen, and they started marching us back through the town.

They didn’t let us stop walking, even through the dark, until we got back to the power plant. I don’t know how we managed to stay on our feet, but I don’t think any of us wanted to complain. I know I certainly didn’t, especially when it took my mom and Hansen quite a while before they were able to really walk on their own. I don’t know if Rex was just really strong or if he put everything he had into those punches, but they apparently were nearly deadly. Or, I guess, had been deadly, if you think about what he did to Daniel. At least that didn’t happen to us.

But anyway, when they got us back, they locked us all in individual bedrooms, probably so we wouldn’t be able to talk to each other, and then they patrolled outside the bedrooms. I don’t know how they were able to stay awake either, or if they switched off and someone else was patrolling the hallway. But I thought about trying to go through the bathroom to see who was on the other side, in case it was somebody like Hansen, so I could see if he needed any additional help. Or maybe just to be together. I might need that right now.

I’m so glad that I tucked you into my waistband last night, journal, because it’s not like they frisked us or anything, but I’m glad that you didn’t get lost at that house, because I don’t honestly know if I’m ever going to be allowed to go back. Or if I’m ever going to be allowed out of this room. But at least I have one thing that’s not completely crazy in this world, right? Thank god I was so paranoid about my mom trying to read you again.

If I live through the night, I’ll let you know what happened.

Love,

Kayla