Dear Journal,

As you might have suspected by the fact that I’m writing this, I made it through the night. Rex did come to visit me last night, though. When he first walked through the door, I imagined the worst thing possible, so I of course grabbed the first thing I possibly could to try to defend myself with. There wasn’t a lot in the room, so all I could find was a glass that sat on the end table, but it was glass so I figured that, if I got really lucky, maybe I could break it and threaten him with a glass shard.

I didn’t end up having to do that, though. I don’t know if it was because he was as tired as we were from the long walk, or if he was just not wanting to have to fight someone again that day, but for whatever reason, instead of coming straight toward me, he just sat on the bed. He patted next to him like he wanted me to sit down next to him, but I sure as hell wasn’t doing that, so instead I leaned against the opposite wall and just watched him.

Eventually, Rex sighed and was like “why did you guys have to run away?” And I was like “we’re not going to let you control our entire lives and determine who we sleep with just because you’re a dude who lived through the bombs. Why did you even come get us anyway?” And he was like “you took my fucking son with you, did you really think I was just going to leave you alone?” And I was like “I mean, not really, but we were hoping,” and he was like “you weren’t hoping, you were being stupid, and this is what it got you,” which honestly, considering up until now, the worst part of this has been having to stay in this room by myself for so long, I really don’t think it was that big of a deal, but I wasn’t going to argue with him about that.

I think he was hoping that I was going to argue, though, because eventually he just stood up and was like “I’ll be back tomorrow and we can go to dinner,” which I totally don’t get, but the only thing I can think of is that maybe he’s trying to get onto my good side again? That seems like a really stupid way to go about it, though - if he would have just let us live in the peace in the desert, then I would have been way less mad at him! Granted, we wouldn’t be here either, so he wouldn’t know that we were less mad at him, but he probably could have guessed.

But since then, I’ve been just waiting until he comes back to take me to dinner. He said tomorrow, but like, I don’t know exactly what that means, because I don’t know when it was that he actually came in, and it’s not like there’s any windows in this room or anything. So far, judging by the alarms, I’m guessing it’s been a little over 12 hours, assuming I didn’t miss a set of alarms when I eventually fell asleep, which could totally have happened because oh my gosh, after that much stuff happening, I was so exhausted! I’m still so exhausted if we’re being honest, but my brain won’t let me sleep.

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I want to know who’s on the other side of that bathroom door and if we’re wasting a precious opportunity by not talking to each other. I haven’t heard any footsteps out in the hall for quite some time, but I don’t know if that means that there’s nobody patrolling or if they’re just really quiet. Or maybe it’s night, and everything always seems quieter at night.

I haven’t heard anyone else making any noise either, so maybe it’s not just me having these thoughts. I think, if my mom or Hansen or maybe even Ben thought that we would have the opportunity to talk to each other, they would have done it the first second that they could.

I hope my mom and Hansen are okay. My mom is probably fine - Rex just hit her stomach, after all, and even if she’s way weaker than he is, it probably wouldn’t kill her. Although I guess it could like break a rib or something, couldn’t it? But I’m more worried about Hansen - I know like the guys I’ve dated on the football team were always super concerned about any sort of head injury because they said that those were way more serious than anything else they’d deal with. And Hansen had been hit hard enough to be knocked out! He should be at the nurse’s office, not trapped in a room.

Alright, that got me worked up enough that I actually went to check the door so that I could peek to see if there was actually someone patrolling the hallway, but somebody locked it from the outside. I didn’t even know they could do that - was that something that they had in the power plant before the bombs? That seems unlikely to me, but if not, since when has this been a thing?

That bathroom door’s not locked, at least, and neither is the door to the other side, but there’s nobody in that one. I guess Rex must have thought ahead and realized that we’d try that eventually. It makes me wonder where everyone is staying, though - there weren’t enough beds when we were living here, and now there’s enough that there’s empty rooms attached to us? I wonder if there’s just like a giant slumber party happening in the living room or something.

No, I’ve got to stop getting distracted by that sort of stuff! We’ve got a job, journal, and that job is to try to figure out a way out of here. Yeah, my mom might be able to think of something first, but maybe she’d just try all the complicated things when actually something easy might work, right? If nothing else, I don’t think we can afford to just wait to see what Rex wants to do with us. I think I already know what he wants to do with me, and it’s nothing that I am at all interested in.

Maybe I can talk him out of it yet. Maybe, even though he seems like he kind of went off the deep end for a while, there’s something in him that we can still reason with, and I can talk to him and he’ll let us go. Or maybe at the very least he’d be willing to let Hansen and I go, and then we can figure out the rest from there.

Of course, there’s always the option that I really don’t want - I could actually do what he wants, and then maybe he’ll let the others go. But he’s so old and gross and I don’t know if I would actually be able to stand it if he tried to touch me, much less anything else. But maybe if it’s for my mom and Hansen and Bryce and maybe even Jared, I could live with myself afterward. That is absolutely the last resort, though.

Love,

Kayla