Rebel Nation

by Shaunta Grimes

  Bridget had to have believed that she was walking her father right into the center of the rebellion. “Son of a bitch.”

  “West, we need those doses. And we need whatever else we can get out of the ranch after they leave.”

  He ran a hand through his hair, stalling. “How is the car running?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Christopher.” He called out to where the other boy stood at the end of the dirt road watching the highway. “Christopher, do you see anything?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Shit.” He looked away, into the trees. As if there were some answers there. “Okay, let’s just wait and see. Get these cars farther off the road, out of sight.”

  —

  “There’s no way they set themselves up like that,” Kingston said.

  Bennett’s chest felt tight, like a fist squeezing him from the inside. What did a heart attack feel like? He held himself stiff, straight, refusing to let the headmaster see how upset he was. “Waverly, then.”

  “That’s what Bridget said.”

  “Did she say where he is now?” The air in his office felt as heavy as lead to him, but Kingston didn’t seem to notice.

  “Just gone. She doesn’t know where.”

  Kingston didn’t know how delicately balanced his daughter’s life was. Waverly was involved with the past summer’s hysteria. Bennett hadn’t been entirely sure when he killed him, although the return of the Kingston and Donovan girls so soon after gave him some idea. “You believed her?”

  “Of course, I believed her.”

  “You should have told me about this ranch before you left the city with your daughter.”

  Kingston’s forehead broke out in beads of sweat, even though he had the authority to leave the city and hadn’t technically gone outside his bounds. Bennett didn’t care about technicalities. He had the authority to put Kingston in front of the firing squad.

  “Yes, sir,” Kingston said, his tone satisfyingly deferential, tinged with fear. “I didn’t expect to do more than take a peek, find the ranch, and report back. Bridget was surprised that it was empty.”

  “Did it look like they’d abandoned it?”

  “Impossible to tell. There were chickens and goats left behind, provisions enough to last a year or more, a supply of suppressant.”

  “And you left it all there.”

  Kingston fidgeted with his fingers in his lap. He sat prim and proper, his posture painfully straight. “I didn’t want to alert them.”

  “Did you think about what you were going to do if they came back while you were there?”

  The headmaster’s face fell. “I . . . I didn’t . . .”

  “Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

  “You asked me to bring Clover Donovan to you.”

  Bennett didn’t stop Kingston from talking, but he couldn’t repress a deep sigh. He hardly needed a recitation of his own actions.

  “I went to the dorms myself,” Kingston said, emphasizing myself. “My daughter was alone in her room with her bodyguard. They were both distraught. I asked about Miss Donovan, and Bridget told me she was gone.”

  “Just like that? She didn’t put up a fight at all?” Bennett leaned forward, crowding Kingston some, so he could watch his face carefully. “You didn’t have to coax it out of her.”

  “No. She told the truth immediately.”

  “Go on.”

  “I asked her where Clover had gone. She told me about the ranch. It’s the old Ponderosa theme park. That’s all there was.”

  “Did Isaiah Finch go with you outside the walls?”

  Kingston shook his head. “I took Bridget and left immediately.”

  Bennett was somewhat alarmed by how badly he wanted to hurt Adam Kingston. He was aware that he was feeling a transference of anger and frustration. It was losing Clover Donovan, again, that had him so upset. Even worse, it was realizing that he hadn’t been able to use the time portal or his Time Mariners to warn himself that he would lose her.

  That didn’t mean that breaking the nervous little man’s neck wouldn’t feel exquisitely satisfying.

  “Did she say who was living at the ranch?”

  “It was empty, but a group had clearly been living there. I saw crops growing, signs of maybe half a dozen people.”

  This was the important question. Clover Donovan had seen her father only twice since returning to the city. Leanne Wood hadn’t been to see her. The only people the girl spent time with were the headmaster’s daughter and her guard. “Who is Clover Donovan close to at the Academy? Who are her friends?”

  Kingston’s tongue darted over his bottom lip. “Only Bridget and her guard. She grew up with Isaiah.”

  “No one else?”

  Under different circumstances, Bennett might have found Kinston’s fidgety nerves as he wrestled with telling the truth amusing. “Just a boy from Foster City. Jude Degas, but I don’t think—”

  “I want to talk to Jude Degas. Make that happen today.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bennett lifted his phone. “Karen, I want Isaiah Finch in my office ASAP. He’s with the guard. I don’t know where, just find him.”

  “Langston, I think it’s possible that West Donovan—”

  “I know what’s possible,” Bennett said. “I want Clover Donovan. If her brother isn’t dead already, he will be. Soon.”

  Desperate courage makes One a majority.

  —ANDREW JACKSON,

  AS QUOTED IN LIFE OF ANDREW JACKSON, 1860

  It was obvious by the time West, Clover, Christopher, and Jude returned that Waverly had not set Virginia City up for them. The scientist had a plan, but he hadn’t followed through on it. For the rest of the day and into the next afternoon, removing the corpses from the Fourth Ward School building, finding the resources they needed, and organizing those that they’d been able to clear out of the ranch kept West so well occupied that he didn’t have any time at all to think about anything else. Not Bridget, mostly, and not Leanne Wood until Clover reminded him they had to leave to meet the train.

  “We can’t spare you,” he said to his sister. Clover looked as stubborn and unmovable as the mountain Virginia City sat on. “Look around you, it’s obvious. We need you both here.”

  “We have to leave now so we can be back before hard winter,” Clover said.

  “We don’t need that book. Waverly wrote a lot of things that meant absolutely nothing. It isn’t worth risking your lives for.”

  Jude started to say something, but Clover spoke over him. “Can’t you see that we’re already risking our lives? This can’t only be about us not living in the city. Everyone—everyone everywhere—is addicted to the suppressant. We have to do whatever we can to stop the Company.”

  “Clover, you aren’t being—”

  “She’s right,” Jude said. “If there is something in that book that will help us take down Bennett and the Company, then we need to have it. And Leanne was right, too. Clover needs to be farther away from Bennett. If we don’t go now, we’ll have to wait until spring.”

  West wished he could make a convincing argument that the trip would be an absolute failure. “I hate this.”

  “I know,” Clover said. “But that’s not a good enough reason not to do it.”

  West went to the van and opened the door for Clover and Mango to get in. Jude went into the backseat and West got behind the wheel. They drove in silence to the place near the tracks where Frank would stop for them.

  Frank and Melissa were waiting for them when they pulled up. The train was a dark hulk in the waning light with residual steam just visible, melting into the clouds. Melissa hugged West first. Clover stiffened when it was her turn, but she didn’t pull away.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” Melissa said, smiling down at his sister as if she
didn’t notice how much Clover didn’t want her so close.

  Then she turned to Jude and threw herself into his arms. West couldn’t help being slightly amused by the change in Clover’s face when Jude hugged the pretty redhead back.

  “Where’s Leanne?” Clover asked.

  Frank was slower to approach them. He reached a hand out to West, an oddly formal gesture since they’d seen each other several times since the summer. West shook with him. Something wasn’t right.

  “Jude,” Frank said. He turned to Clover but didn’t reach for her. “Clover.”

  “What’s going on, Frank?” West asked.

  “Well.” Frank tugged at the front of his jumpsuit. “Leanne was arrested.”

  It was Jude who reacted first, asking why Leanne was arrested. West was too distracted by Clover, who started to rock and murmur, Oh, no, oh, no. Mango was still in the van, because Clover was afraid of bears, but West heard him bark through the cracked-open window.

  “Arrested for what?” Jude asked again. He cut his attention from Frank to Clover, and then West, and back to Frank as he walked closer to Clover. “What was she arrested for?”

  “What do you think?” Frank’s voice was tight, but West didn’t think he was angry. More stressed than anything. If Leanne was arrested for helping Clover, she’d be identified as a rebel—maybe the first time that Bennett even knew that there was a rebellion. She could hurt Frank and his daughter, if Bennett made her talk.

  “Let Mango out.” When Jude didn’t seem to hear, West raised his voice. “Jude, let the dog out of the van.”

  Jude backed away from Clover, who sank to sitting, and turned to open the van door. Mango bounded out and went directly to where Clover rocked in the dirt. He circled her, then pressed the upper half of his body into her lap until she finally wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her face against the short, soft fur at his shoulder.

  “Clover.” West reached a hand down to her. “Clover, come on.”

  Jude pushed past him and knelt next to Clover.

  “We have to get her out of the city,” West said.

  “There’s nothing we can do.” Jude petted Mango, moving his fingers close to her arm, but not touching her. “Breathe, Clover.”

  West stood up, watching Jude soothe Clover, bringing her back from the edge of a meltdown. For six weeks, he’d let himself believe that planting some vegetables and nurturing a few goats were going to make a difference. That if he figured out a way to keep everyone fed, they’d be safe. They were never going to be safe. Not unless they did something.

  “The two of you should go with Frank,” he said.

  Jude looked up at him in shock. “Are you serious?”

  “Dead serious. Go get that book.”

  “I can get them as far as Denver,” Frank said. “I don’t even have a stop in Salt Lake or Cheyenne on the way east. If that book is important, we’ll figure out a way.”

  “West,” Clover said.

  “Get your packs.” For a long moment, no one moved, and West was afraid he would change his mind. Already his brain struggled to figure out why this wasn’t a good idea. “For God’s sake, go.”

  Jude ran for the van and came back lugging both of their packs. Clover kept Mango with her. They’d already hashed out whether he should go with her. In the end, they both knew that she couldn’t manage without him.

  Decisions were made, and suddenly West needed them implemented, before he could think too long or too hard about all of this. He stood back by the van after Clover gave him an awkward hug. He didn’t even bother to tell Jude to look after her. It was clear they would look after each other.

  “Be careful,” he said, but no one heard him as the train clanked and sputtered, spewing a thick trail of steam from its stack, and slowly started to move east.

  He stood there, shaking, until the train was gone. Then he got in the van and drove away—not toward Virginia City, but toward the gate in the wall that surrounded Reno. He had no idea how he would get through it. He was certain that Bridget had told her father about the river and that way was blocked now.

  It took him nearly half an hour to get a mile from the gate, and he still had no better idea than approaching quietly on foot and playing it by ear. He couldn’t dwell on it. Questions about what the others would do without the van—or do without him—were pushed away as quickly as they came.

  He had no real notion of what he was doing, except the end game. He was getting Leanne back out of the city. She’d risked her life to keep Clover away from Bennett. He could not let her go in front of the firing squad, even if the attempt to get her out meant joining her there. He was running on pure adrenaline that left him feeling like he could very possibly jump over the wall to get to her.

  By the time he parked the van and walked to the edge of the woods, it was nearly dark. He slid his gaze up the cold, smooth concrete, feeling the outward curve. There was no way he could climb over. Not without ropes and lots of practice, anyway.

  There were two guards. If either of them looked in his direction, they might see him, but neither did. Bennett must have believed, eventually, that West was dead. And maybe Bridget hadn’t told him any differently, because as far as he could tell, there was no extra security. A man and a woman sat in folding chairs, one on the outside and one on the inside of the gate.

  The guards were not trained to fight. There had not been a physical threat to a U.S. city in fifteen years. West knew from Isaiah that they had guns but no real training in using them for defense. There was no one trying to get in or out of the city. He waited and watched. The man was about his size, but the woman was smaller. Smaller than Bridget, but not as small as Clover. She was young. She was his best bet.

  West stood at the very edge of the tree line for more than two hours. When the sun went down, a high-powered light flicked on. It shone down on the guards, not out toward the road or the woods. He heard the curfew bells ring, and his breath caught. West couldn’t make his mind settle on a plan or think through what he thought he was doing here. He just stood there, watching. At their third position change the man told the woman that he had to take a leak. He was headed to the chair on the outside, so he just kept coming, out into the woods on the opposite side of the road from where West waited.

  As soon as the man was out of sight, West took a breath, picked up a good-sized rock from the ground at his feet, and left the safety of the woods to walk toward the gate. He was prepared for violence. He felt it burning through his veins. But the woman walked into the guard tower without looking toward him and all West had to do was slip into the city.

  He dropped the rock and ran for the trees a few yards away. The residual adrenaline made him feel equal parts high and ill. Bridget had brought her father to the ranch—but she hadn’t told anyone that West was alive. There was no way he could have gotten into the city so easily if she had.

  As he came down from the excitement of successfully reentering the city he’d lived in his whole life, he realized he had no further plans. He hadn’t really expected to get this far. The ease of getting through the gates left him stunned. It was nearly curfew, and he was on the very outskirts of the city. If a patrolling guard saw him, there would be no escape.

  He had one choice, and it wasn’t a very good one. His father, whom Leanne said she knew and had spoken with, was most likely asleep in the barracks. The barracks were at least five miles away, and right in the middle of downtown. West started out, feeling awkward about being out at night in the city for the first time, staying as hidden as possible.

  He’d been raised to respect curfew, to fear being outside after dark, but as he made his way into the dark, quiet city, he realized that with everyone tucked away, he was probably as safe as he could be.

  The long walk gave him plenty of time to realize that he’d made a rash, probably stupid decision. Clover and Jude were long
gone. He couldn’t take back his insistence that they leave. And he had such a slim chance of doing anything at all to help Leanne that trying amounted to a suicide mission.

  He didn’t fully realize that he had no clue how to get into the barracks until he was standing in front of the building. He’d never been inside it before. James was on the fourth floor. It took a full hour of hiding in an alley, watching, for West to decide to continue on the course he’d set—stupid boldness with a hint of suicidal tendency. He opened the door to the barracks, walked in, and found the staircase.

  —

  James bolted upright in his bed. He looked at the clock on his nightstand, which read ten P.M., and his eyes shifted to the empty whiskey bottle next to it. The knock that had pulled him from drunken sleep came again. By the time he was out of bed and across the room, whoever was on the outside was knocking more urgently.

  “Do you know what time it is?” he asked as he opened the door, expecting to find one of his crew. Instead, he saw his son. His son whom he had let himself mourn and let go of, even though he knew West wasn’t really dead. James’s heart stopped in his chest, then restarted with a hard, painful lurch.

  West came into the room, not waiting for an invitation, and closed the door behind him, locking it. They stared at each other for a long moment. James finally asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Leanne Wood has been arrested.”

  James sat on the edge of his bed. “What happened?”

  “You know what happened,” West said. “She saved Clover, and she got caught coming back into the city to give us time to save ourselves.”

  “She made it back into the city. She came here.”

  “You saw her? Then when . . .” West tried to slow his thoughts. “It doesn’t matter. We have to help her.”

  “How in the hell do you think we can do that? If she’s been arrested, she’s in a holding cell. I don’t even know what the sentence will be—”

  “Yes, you do. And we cannot let that happen to her.”