“Yup. It was fucking crazy, man. I was out in the yard when the event happened. The guards started scrambling to herd us inside. Only a few generators powered up, and so we were all ushered into one area. To make a long story short, fights broke out. Two guards were killed, and things got really ugly. We could hear men yelling from their cells where they were locked inside in other sections of the prison that had no power. After about twenty-four hours, it became clear this was bigger than it seemed at first and that no one was coming, not even to pick up the bodies. The rest of the guards had already started deserting their posts. After that, finding a way out wasn’t too difficult.”

A shiver crept over my skin. I thought of the prisoners in those locked cells. Had anyone helped them to get out? Or were some of them still there, sitting in the frigid dark, slowly dying of starvation? They were inmates, there because they’d hurt and victimized others, but they were also human and it was a very cruel way to go.

“Anyway,” Hosea went on. “I switched out my clothes at a Walmart that was already practically stripped bare, and then ended up hitching a ride with a couple of the men who set this operation up when they realized emergency services were down. They figured out pretty quickly which vehicles were running and sent crews out to hotwire cars sitting on streets or in dealerships or wherever they could be found. They told me about what they were doing and said they needed muscle.” He smiled and flexed his massive bicep, his teeth extra white in the midst of his deep brown skin.

“You do have those in spades,” Tuck said.

“I’m sure they’d find a place for you too. We need people with special skills, somewhat outside the norm,” Hosea said with a wink.

Tuck’s gaze flicked to us, then away, and though my stomach was currently being filled by blessed bread, it dropped slightly. “Can’t. I have responsibilities at the moment,” he said. “But…maybe once that’s done…”

Responsibilities.

Hosea nodded and then smiled. “Tucker Mattice. I never imagined I’d see you again. What happened to you three to bring you here?”

“Our plane crashed when the grid went down.”

“Well shit.”

“That’s about right.”

Hosea looked at Charlie and me and put his hand on Tuck’s shoulder. “This is a good man right here. Taught me to read. Taught plenty of others how to read too. Changed some lives for the better.”

I swallowed. Oh.