Then Keisha wanted to hear all about the world outside Salvation. About fast food and fashion and music, and while I tried to answer, I kept having to explain why I never got to go to arcades or movie theaters or music concerts—places where it was dark and crowded, and Roik couldn’t control the situation.
I had to explain that love songs had basically disappeared now that hardly anybody fell in love anymore. How most shopping malls were boarded up, because there weren’t many shoppers, and girls could only go to secure gated ones like the Beverly Center. It wasn’t the world Keisha remembered. And it wasn’t one Beattie’d ever told her about.
I spread out my sleeping bag on Keisha’s rug, and she dozed off. But when I closed my eyes, I couldn’t sleep.
Finally, I sat up against her bureau and wrapped the sleeping bag tight around me. Outside, wind blew the icy snow so it sounded like rice hitting the windows. Keisha was burrowed down in her covers, and I couldn’t shake a story she had told me.
Her older brother had sold her to Cecelia for a Camaro. Custom paint job, V-8 engine, spoiler, aluminum rims.
Cecelia knew Keisha’s mom from the army, and when Cecelia heard she’d died, she tracked down Keisha’s brother. He didn’t want an eight-year-old hanging around his neck and was a day away from dumping her at an orphan camp. All Cecelia had to do was toss him the keys and he was gone.
Keisha’s brother threw her away like she was trash.
I covered my face with my hands, glad no one could see me. The world was full of messed-up things but I’d never really thought about anybody’s life but mine. I lived in my rich-girl cocoon, completely focused on what I was going through. What I didn’t get to do. I had passed the L.A. orphan ranch probably once a week for five years, but did I ever think about the girls inside?
The girls I went to school with, Dayla, Sparrow, Portia, Sophie, we didn’t have a lot of freedom, but none of us had a brother who’d sell us for a car. None of us became escorts like Splendor so we could buy out our sisters’ Contracts.
No, we were protected by gates and bodyguards and dads who could afford to feed us and clothe us and send us to a fancy school.
I laid my head down on my knees, feeling horrible. I’m so selfish.
Even when Mom made me go to church and serve that free Thanksgiving dinner, the next day I barely thought about the people I’d seen. But not Mom.
She always met someone who would be her next crusade. Somebody who needed a heavier coat or qualified for free medical care they didn’t know about.
I remembered getting mad, because the day after Thanksgiving was supposed to be my day with Mom, but she’d be out, taking care of somebody else.
I heard her calm and loving voice in my head. “If I don’t speak up for people in need, honey, who will?”
Mom wasn’t silent. She cared about people and fought for them. Yates, too. It’s time I did the same.
75
It snowed for a day and a half, blowing so hard that I couldn’t see past the porch rail. Somewhere out there, agents were hunting Maggie and me, and I had no clue how close they were to finding us.
Stuck inside, unable to get out and run, I bounced off the walls like a squirrel in a cardboard box. The electricity in the cabin was barely cranking, and it wasn’t like Beattie had a Sportswall to distract me.
She and Keisha tried to keep me busy, kneading bread and playing marathon card games, but I couldn’t keep Yates out of my head. I was sure I’d set the dogs on him by calling him from the truck. The feds chasing Maggie and me probably intercepted the phone signal.
And you didn’t have to be a genius to guess that if Hawkins hired Retrievers to track me down, the first thing the professional hunters would do is monitor Yates’ phone. I had no way to warn him even through a friend, because my phone was completely useless. No reception, or at least that’s what Beattie told me.
Maggie kept to herself by the fire, holding a beat-up paperback, but rarely turning a page. I felt her eyes on me every time I circled the room, and when, around noon on the second day, I started to pace along the windows she snapped, “Would you stop that, for God’s sake. No one’s looking for us in this.”
I glared at her. “You know damn well they are,” I said.
If a look was a shove, Maggie’s would have nailed me to the wall. “The only thing you can think about is saving your own skin,” she said. “Nothing and no one else matters.”
“You’re wrong,” I threw back.
“I wish I was.”
I turned my back on her, hating Maggie for believing that about me, and hating myself for the things I’d said and done to make her believe it.
The wasp sting of what she said was still sharp hours later when the snow finally quit. Maggie made me give her my phone, and she took off to see Barnabas. She’d barely left before Beattie took me out to the porch and handed me a pair of cross-country skis. “Being snowbound can bring out the worst in people. I recommend a dose of fresh air,” she said.
It wasn’t going for a run, but it was close enough, I thought. I stuck my head in the house. “Keisha, you want to ski with me?”
“Not unless I have to,” she called back.
Beattie smiled. “Winter’s not her season.” She wrapped a bright red scarf around my neck. “We don’t want the neighbors mistaking you for a deer.”
The wind had scooped the snow into white drifts and blue hollows, and it sparkled like someone had poured sugar sprinkles over it. Across the road, a boy and a girl were digging out a chicken coop while their older brother pushed snow off the roof of their house.
I headed for the far end of the valley. Jemima waved as I passed the barn. She was brushing off the solarskin with a broom while Caleb dug out the solar water barrels.
Running on tiptoes up the frozen valley, I got into a rhythm. Left right glide breathe left right glide breathe. It felt good, pushing my body after being cooped up so long. My head began to clear, but the cold and the altitude made me feel like I was dragging a parachute. I had to stop, drink, and catch my breath every hundred meters or so.
Someone had been this way already today. I followed the snowshoe tracks until they veered off and headed up into the pines.
At the last house in Salvation, a half-dozen doghouses on stilts poked above the snow. Huskies lounged on the roofs, ignoring me. Then a man with a braided beard hauled a dog sled into the yard. The dogs sprang up, barking and yipping and spinning on their chains. I watched the man harness them to his sled and bang! The sled shot straight across the valley and disappeared behind a hill.
Look at them run, I thought. Those dogs live to pull that sled. They’re not conflicted about whether to go. They just go.
I wish I could be like them. Running for joy, not worried about what’s ahead or behind.
But instead, I was out here, trying not to blow up from inside, thinking of everything I’d done and hadn’t done. What I should do now.
The narrow valley went on for a mile more. I focused on what was in front of me, until my thoughts began to straighten out like the tracks my skis had carved in the snow.
All I can do is go forward. I can’t go back and change anything I did. I just have to keep going.
When I reached the end of the valley, I turned. The sun had colored the distant peaks blush pink against a sky as clear blue as Venetian glass.
It was beautiful, I thought, trying to catch my breath. Like a picture postcard of the most idyllic place on earth. Except that it wasn’t where I should be.
I need to stop fighting Maggie. I need to work with her to get the evidence we’re carrying into Canada where it will be safe.
I need to be the person that Mom and Ms. A expected me to be. The person Yates believes in. That’s the only way I can have a happily-ever-after.
Because I couldn’t live a lie with Yates. Or myself.
I fit my skis into the tracks they’d made and headed back to Salvation. I’d only gone a hundred yards when Luke stepped out of the
woods. Spying me, he walked forward, a rifle strapped to his back, his snowshoes sinking into the snow, and then waited for me to catch up.
“Nice to get out,” he said. His brown eyes welcomed me.
“I was going crazy shut up inside,” I said. “I needed to clear my head.”
“Did you?”
I smiled at the peace flowing through my body. “Yeah, I think I did.”
“The mountains’ll do that.” A quiet smile lit his face.
“I can see why you’d never want to leave here.”
“I got basically everything I need.”
I couldn’t resist trying to open him up. “Is there anything you don’t have that you’d like?”
“Not really, but—” I felt him change direction. “I guess just once I’d like to compete in a rodeo. Barnabas took me to one in Idaho Falls last year.”
“Yeah? What event?”
“Barrel racing. I’ve got a mare who takes turns like nothing you’ve ever seen. I think we could take the prize.”
“Is she at winter pasture?”
He smiled. “How’d you know that?”
“Sarah.”
“Yeah, we’ll herd Sweeney and the rest back up here in April.”
“So why can’t you compete?”
“Well, we don’t leave Salvation much, and not having a legal identity makes it difficult Outside.”
“Yeah, I guess it would.” Being with Luke was easy. I wanted to linger here in the frosted beauty of the woods. “Were you out hunting?” I said, nodding at his rifle.
“Nah. Hunting season’s in the fall. I was checking my traps, but I carry the gun in case I run into something.”
“Like what?”
“Wolf.”
I swallowed. “I didn’t know there were wolves out here.”
“Don’t worry. They usually don’t come around when elk’s plentiful. They wouldn’t bother hunting a scrawny little skier.”
“Scrawny?”
“Compared to an elk.” Luke ducked his head. “I’m sorry about the other night. I guess I ruined your dinner.”
“Too late. Maggie had already accomplished that.”
“She give you a hard time?”
“Yeah, but everything she said, I needed to hear.”
“Truth hurts sometimes.”
Luke was a good guy. It seemed wrong and a waste that we’d be gone in a couple days, and he was no closer to knowing Maggie than he was before she showed up. This was probably their last chance to fix things, and Luke was too angry and Maggie too closed off to try.
“Maggie heard you the other night,” I said. I saw a glimmer in Luke’s eyes. “I know you’re really angry with her—”
Luke groaned and looked away. “Could you leave it alone?”
I’d backed off on way too many things in the past. I had to say something that would get him to talk to her. “Maggie won’t tell you what she’s been working on—but if you knew, you might—”
“I might, what? Forgive her?”
“I don’t know if you’d forgive her—but you’d realize that she cares deeply about people, and justice, and she’s put her life on the line to save others.”
“For someone you say you don’t trust and you claim is not your friend, you think pretty highly of her.”
I smiled at my contradictions. “You guys should talk to each other. We’re leaving and there’s a really good chance you’ll never see her again.”
Luke was quiet for a moment. “I guess that means there’s a good chance I’ll never see you again.”
He was looking at me with something like—curiosity, or waiting. I bent down and checked my bindings. “Maggie and I are heading out as soon as we can. Canada’s border might be closing, so we need to get out before it does.”
Luke turned and was listening hard. Way off in the distance, I heard a whirr like an engine or a chain saw. “We’ve got to get back.” He jerked me to my feet and took off.
The sound got louder and louder the closer we got to town, turning into an air-churning roar. We raced for the shelter of the buildings. Whatever was making that noise was coming from the road to civilization.
76
We were almost to the barn, when Maggie burst out of the wood shop, her shirt undone under her jacket and her jeans crammed into her boots. Her hair was wild around her face and she slammed a clip into her gun. “Do you see anything?” she yelled.
“It’s a snowmobile,” Luke answered. “Stay here,” he told me, and ran ahead.
I undid my skis and tossed them aside. Maggie dragged me behind a woodpile, and we looked past the church to the way we’d come in the other night.
Barnabas dropped to his knees beside us. He was carrying a sleek black weapon that looked like the lethal love child of a rifle and a crossbow. It was fitted with a scope and a steel-tipped arrow. A silent assassin.
“Definitely a snowmobile,” he said. “We’re looking at two riders max.”
“You think it’s the guys who were after us?” I said.
“Don’t know, but if it is, they’ll be carrying an arsenal,” he answered.
My hands felt hopelessly empty. The gun Maggie gave me was back at Beattie’s, a hundred yards away.
Barnabas stood up. “I’m going up on Ramos’ roof. Get a clean shot when they come around the church.” He bounded across the road.
I peeked over the stacked wood. At every house, men and women were out on their porches, and each one of them had a rifle in their arms. The sound came closer, and they ducked down or retreated into the shadows.
A dot of red strobed through the trees. Nobody moved.
A snowmobile zoomed up to the edge of the woods, and the person on the back got off. His legs broke through the snow crust, and he stumbled to get his footing in the thigh-high snow. The snowmobile turned around and tore off. The person it left behind lumbered toward the church, arms flailing as he tried to steady himself.
Maggie peered through a stubby little scope. “It’s a young guy. If he’s got a weapon, it’s under his clothes.”
I could see Barnabas from where we crouched. His crossbow was trained on the intruder. I bet fifty more ex-military were ready to blast the guy’s head off as soon as he got closer.
“I don’t know about this,” Maggie muttered. “You don’t use a snowmobile to surprise someone.”
The guy had to be crazy or completely clueless. If he knew anything about these people, he’d know you don’t show up in Salvation unannounced.
And that’s when I realized who it was. I grabbed the scope from Maggie and took one glance before I leaped up. “Yates! Yates!”
“Avie!” he cried, and started running toward me.
Maggie tried to grab me, but I twisted away and scrambled out into the open. “Stop! Don’t move!” I shouted.
I ran up the unplowed road, sinking to my knees in snow. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” I yelled. “He’s a friend.”
Tears blinded me before they froze on my cheeks. I ran, but I couldn’t breathe. The air was so cold and thin, and Yates so close and yet so far away.
I slipped and fell, and Yates bounded toward me. “Stay right there,” I yelled. “I’m coming.”
The snow had soaked my pants. They stuck to my knees and almost pulled me down.
I fell into his outstretched arms. “Yates. Yates! I can’t believe you’re here.”
He crushed me to him. “You’re alive,” he said, like he was trying to make himself believe it.
“Stand down!” I heard Barnabas yell. “Stand down, everyone, until we see what we’ve got here.”
I locked my arms around Yates’ neck. “You found me.” My lips met his, and we drank each other in, frozen lips and warm breath. I’m not dreaming. You’re real. “I didn’t think I’d see you again. Not for months.”
His eyes were red, and he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. “I told you I’d find you,” he said. He went to kiss me again, but I held him back. “Wait,” I said, “
there are about a hundred people watching us.”
Yates rested his head on mine. “Okay, as long as I can hold you.”
“How did you get here? How did you find me?”
“I caught a ride with a trucker delivering tortillas to Salt Lake. He found me a ride to Boise.”
“And who was that guy on the snowmobile?”
“The pastor at the Pentecostal church. I told him I was looking for Salvation.”
“But how did you even know to look for this place?”
“Mrs. Kessler got a call from a man who said he had a message from Helen.”
Helen, you diehard romantic, thank you.
Yates jerked his head like something caught his eye. “Check it out.”
Barnabas, Ramos, Rogan, and a dozen other people marched toward us, weapons in their hands. “This doesn’t look good,” Yates said.
“It will be okay. I’ll tell them you’re a friend. They don’t need to worry about you.” I kept my eyes on Ramos. He was twitchy, but at least he had boots on. Luke was nowhere in sight and I wondered if anyone else could keep Ramos from losing it.
“What’s with the guy with the crossbow?” Yates whispered.
“Barnabas? He’s a carpenter. He builds guitars.”
“That’s a special forces weapon.”
“He’s ex-military. A lot of people here are.”
“Great.”
The crowd stopped about twenty feet away. They talked in low voices, while Barnabas came forward. “Who’s this, Avie?”
“My name’s Yates.” Yates straightened up and trained his eyes on Barnabas. They were the only weapons Yates had.
“All right, Yates. Why are you here?”
“I came to help Avie.”
“How do we know you’re for real?”
I moved in front of Yates, daring them to shoot me. “He’s my friend. He helped me escape my Contract.”
“Open your coat, Yates. Let’s see if you’ve got any weapons on you.”
Yates raised his arms. “Sure, check me out. I’m not packing.” He tore off his coat and held it over his head while he turned around so everyone could see he was clean.
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