Wayward: Wayward Pines: 2 (The Wayward Pines Trilogy)

by Blake Crouch

I hope you understand the stakes here. Whatever your personal feelings about the way I run this town—and you’ve shared them with me—it works. This can never be a democracy. There’s too much to lose if everything goes to shit. You’re with me on that, right?” “I am. You run a mostly benevolent dictatorship with occasional slaughter.”

“Maybe we aren’t as concerned,” Pam said, “with your safety as we are with your loyalty.” Ethan turned in his chair. He’d fought this woman once in the basement of the hospital. She’d come at him with a syringe, and he’d crashed into her at full speed, driven her face into a concrete wall. He relived that moment now like the memory of a good meal, wishing he could experience it again.

He could’ve been standing in their kitchen in Seattle. Late Saturday afternoons, he’d put on a Thelonious Monk record, open a bottle of red, and immerse himself in cooking a fabulous dinner for his family. No better way to unwind after a long week. This moment had the feel of those peaceful evenings, all the trappings of normal. Except that a half hour ago he’d cut a tracking chip out of the back of his wife’s leg in the one spot in their house that wasn’t under constant surveillance. Except for that.