It was way too cold to put Yates through this little show. “Okay, he did what you wanted,” I said. “Are you satisfied?”
Barnabas looked at me just long enough to let me know he didn’t take to being pushed around, then he nodded at Yates. “Go ahead. Put it back on.”
Beattie’d been watching from inside the crowd, but now she stepped around to the front. “The Council’s asking for a meeting. I think it’s clear this young man is not an immediate threat. Everyone, you can go about your business. We’ll let you know when the Council’s ready to meet.”
Yates and I stood there while the crowd broke up and people returned to their houses. I couldn’t figure out why the Council was so amped up. It was obvious Yates wasn’t dangerous.
“Is there someplace we can be alone?” Yates asked. “How about the barn?”
Forty goats and Jonas and Sarah barging in and out. “Definitely not.” I turned Yates toward the church, and that’s when I saw Luke behind us. I don’t know how he’d circled around without us seeing him, but he did.
“This way,” I said.
77
We knocked the snow off our boots and stepped inside the church. It was dim in the falling light. I led Yates up to the balcony, holding on to him the whole time. I didn’t trust him to really be here, feeling almost as if he could be just a figment of my imagination.
“It’s a little warmer up here,” I said.
“Not much.” Yates lowered himself to the floor and propped his back against the wall. He took my hand and drew me onto his lap. My heart pounded as he slowly unzipped his coat, then mine.
We pressed together, soaking in each other’s warmth. I looked into his blue, blue eyes and wondered if he could see the selfish, messed-up parts of me. I was changing and I wanted him to see that—not the rest.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I said.
“Believe it.”
“You could have gotten killed.”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t stay in L.A., knowing they were hunting you. I couldn’t do it.”
I needed to tell him about Sparrow and the secret files I was carrying.
He pressed his lips to mine and there were no words, just touches, kissing away Now and Reality and This Can’t Be.
“You’d better not be doing what I think you’re doing!” Beattie’s voice cut through the church.
We froze. She was staring at us through the railing and Maggie was with her.
“And at the feet of our Lord Jesus,” Beattie moaned.
I looked up, and the cross was right over our heads. I fell off Yates. “Sorry, Beattie!”
Yates scrambled to his feet. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to be disrespectful…”
Beattie laughed. “Oh, get down here.”
We came down the stairs, and Beattie met us on the landing. “Time to summon the Council,” she said.
That didn’t sound like a good thing, not the way she said it.
Beattie pushed open a door on the landing I hadn’t noticed before. She stepped into a windowless room and fiddled with a panel. Recorded church bells clanged over our heads—just like a special ring at school to tell you there’s an assembly.
“Brace yourself for the fireworks,” Beattie muttered.
Maggie leaned against a wall while the Council assembled. Beattie made Yates and me sit down beside her at a table. The first person in the door was Ramos. He picked at a spot on his cheek and stared at me and Yates.
“We’d better let Maggie do the talking,” I said so only Yates could hear. “I don’t want to screw up and tick these people off even worse.”
The rest of the Council arrived: Rogan and Nellie. Barnabas. Jemima and Caleb. Mr. and Mrs. Flores. I hadn’t met the others, but soon all the chairs at the long table were taken. Then Luke came through the door and Rogan tried to send him home.
“You can’t keep me out,” Luke fired back. “Council meetings are open to everyone over eighteen.”
Rogan gave Luke a look that said there would be hell to pay when he got home. I didn’t have a good reason for not wanting Luke here, just an uncomfortable feeling that he was judging Yates.
Beattie had barely called the meeting to order, when Ramos jumped in. “We have rules. No Outsiders!” He jerked a finger at Maggie. “First she brings her—” I cringed as he targeted me. “And then he shows up.” Ramos pointed to Yates. “It’s no good!”
Beattie folded her hands on the table. “Maggie’s not an Outsider, Ramos.”
The man across from me leaned back and hooked his thumbs in his belt. “I want to know why you’re here.”
He was talking to me, but Nellie must have seen me hesitate. “She’s running from a Contract,” she said quietly.
“That right?” the man said.
I nodded.
“What about you?” he asked Yates. “How do you fit into this?”
“I’m her friend.”
“Boyfriend?”
“Yes.”
Luke was very still and I could feel him paying attention to every little thing.
“Great.” The man slapped his leg. “Now we’re going to have some GD Retrievers sniffing around.”
“I don’t think so,” Yates said.
I shot a look at him. Why did you say that?
“Your dad is trying to break the Contract.”
I shook my head, finding it impossible to believe. “How do you know?”
“Gerard. He told me your dad is trying to lead a coup at Biocure. He and some of the board members found a new shareholder rich enough to buy Hawkins out.”
“So, I’ll be free?”
“Looks like it.”
The shock made me dizzy. Free.
“What about you, Maggie,” Rogan said. “Why’d you come? You never brought any girls here before.”
Maggie cocked her head at her brother.
“You’re mixed up in something,” he said.
“It’s time to come clean, Maggie,” Barnabas said. “This boy managed to find you. You know the others are probably right behind him.”
Ramos eyed her like a wolf about to spring. “What’s going on here?”
“Calm down, Ramos,” Beattie said.
“You tell us what’s going on!”
“It was my fault.” Everyone turned to me. “I angered some powerful people.”
Ramos leaped up. “Who? Who’s coming for you?” His hand hovered over a knife strapped to his thigh.
Yates was on his feet. “Hey, back off.”
“Mr. Gomez,” Beattie said calmly, “if you would take your seat, please.”
Yates and Ramos glared at each other. The table was hot with tension. I held my breath as they lowered themselves into their seats.
“Maggie,” Barnabas said. “Tell people the truth so they know what you’re up against.”
Maggie approached the table with her head bowed. Her hands were on her hips and I got the feeling that the fight she’d been waging against the Paternalists was wearing her down. “You know I support the Resistance.”
Rogan shook his head. “You promised you’d never bring it here.”
“I didn’t plan on it,” Maggie said.
Maggie had dragged me into this deeper than I ever wanted to be, but I couldn’t let them stick the whole blame on her. “Maggie didn’t intend to come here. The federal agents showed up just like that and we had to run.”
Ramos jabbed his finger at me and I wanted to shrink into oblivion. “You telling us the feds are after you!”
“That’s right,” Maggie answered.
“Then you tell us what you got us mixed up in!” Ramos said.
“All right. But before we do, I think anyone who doesn’t want to know, should have the option to leave,” Maggie said.
“I agree,” Beattie said. “Anyone who wants to, may go.”
No one got up.
78
The Council grilled Maggie and Yates and me.
Listening to Maggie answer them, I l
earned things I’d never have gotten from the news reports. After the Scarpanol disaster left the economy barely breathing, men were mostly focused on protecting their families and holding on to their homes. The Paternalists rode into office with a promise to rebuild and not enough women voters to stop them.
Maggie laid out what she’d learned in her years of partying with the Paternalist leaders, how Fletcher and his gang were quietly and systematically limiting what girls and women could do, and how she’d uncovered that Vice President Jouvert was secretly supporting them.
“But the President has railed against the Paternalists,” Rogan said. “I guess this explains why he hasn’t been able to cut them down to size, not with his own VP working against him.”
“Someone’s got to expose Jouvert before he’s nominated for president next year,” I heard Barnabas mutter.
“So you two are witnesses,” Nellie said. For the first time I saw her look at Maggie with sympathy.
“We’re not just witnesses,” Maggie told her. “We’re carrying evidence that could impeach Vice President Jouvert and force Senator Fletcher to resign if we can get it in the right hands.”
That’s when I realized that, despite everything I’d heard Maggie reveal, she hadn’t said a word about Sparrow’s final, deadly message now back in my pocket.
“Who’s going to touch your evidence?” Rogan said. “Any news service or blogger who puts it on their site’s going to get shut down.”
I thought about Sparrow’s software. The government couldn’t kill millions of copies if I could blast them through the paternal controls to every Princess phone in the U.S.
“Right now there are people inside the government and out who support Gen S rights. I know at least one congressman who’s sympathetic,” Maggie said, “although he’s keeping it quiet.” She smiled ironically at me. “You met him.”
Congressman Paul? I was shocked at first, but it made sense. His hands all over me and his tongue in my ear? He was playing the loyal Paternalist jerk in front of his congressional dirtbag friends.
Barnabas and Maggie laid out the plan they’d been working on. The three of us would ski out in a day or two and make contact with Exodus in eastern Washington so they could pick us up and hide us. Now we had to move up the timetable and add Yates.
The Council calmed down after hearing we were leaving, but then things turned red-hot.
“Something’s bothering me,” Ramos said, turning to Yates. “You said Pastor Isaac drove you out here on that snowmobile, but how did you find him?”
“I asked a bunch of ministers around town how to find Salvation. He was the only one who didn’t think I was looking to be saved.”
“You talk to Reverend Frank?”
Half the people around the table exchanged looks.
“Yeah. He said I’d find salvation through prayer and reading the Good Book. What’s the problem?”
“He left us a few years ago under bad circumstances,” Rogan muttered.
“I sincerely hope,” Beattie said, “that whoever’s looking for you doesn’t find Taylor Frank.”
“Or those snowmobile tracks that lead right to us,” Barnabas said.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Won’t you be safe after Maggie and Yates and I leave?”
Barnabas shook his head. “Whoever’s after you won’t stop until they’ve eliminated the danger.” He looked from face to face. “Nobody who’s seen or talked to you or harbored you in their home is safe.”
Yates clenched his jaw and swallowed hard. I gripped his hand. You didn’t do anything wrong, I told him with my eyes. Yates shook his head.
“Stop scaring everyone. You don’t know that, Barnabas,” Beattie said.
“I was in Langley for six years. I know how they think.”
I glanced at Yates. “CIA,” he whispered.
I respected Beattie, but I trusted Barnabas to know what they would or would not do.
“We’ll leave before sunup,” Barnabas said. “Luke, Rogan, we need to go warn people what’s coming. Maggie, take Yates and Avie back to my house and get the packs ready. With any luck, you three will be gone and I’ll be back in Salvation before the bad guys get here.”
I got up from my seat. Luke glanced at me and turned away. I couldn’t read his face, but if I was him, I’d be mad as hell if some Outsider arrived and blew my life apart. My neck was pink hot. That easy friendship Luke and I had out in the woods was gone. Yates felt for my hand, but I pretended I didn’t know he was doing it.
Maggie stood in the doorway. She wouldn’t let Yates and me out until she saw Ramos go inside his house. As we went down the steps into the open, she kept her eyes on his house, and her hand on her gun.
She never said it, but it was obvious: she didn’t want Ramos killing us before we had a chance to make things right.
79
It was barely any work to put the packs together, because every house kept a couple bug out bags ready to go. That’s the beauty of TEOTWAWKI, I thought, going through the equipment in the bags. If you believe you could be attacked at any time, then you always have what you need to survive: duct tape, signal mirror, compass, topographic map, matches, hand shovel, knife.
Maggie walked Yates and me through how to use each item. How to find a route on the map. How to fire up the Kelly Kettle so we’d have drinking water. How to dig a snow trench so we wouldn’t freeze to death.
“Why do we need to know this?” I asked her. “It’s not that far to the main road, and it’s not supposed to snow.”
“Actually, we decided it’s too risky to go out that way. There’s a back way, a trail we use to take the horses down to the wintering grounds. From here, it’s about ten miles to Horseshoe Bend, but there are homesteads closer than that.”
The back way. I guessed that was where the guy with the dog sled disappeared to earlier.
We were almost done packing when Jemima stopped by. “Here,” she said, handing me a stack of pants and shirts and a woolly hat. “I rustled these up for you and Yates. Those clothes you’re wearing won’t keep you anywhere near as warm or dry as these.”
The second I touched the pants I knew they weren’t castoffs. They were expensive survival gear. I tried to hand them back to her. “These are too nice.”
“Keep them. Everybody’ll be safer.”
Get wet and cold and we put everybody at risk. Not just Maggie and Barnabas. If we survived, they survived.
“Tell them thank you for me?” I said.
Jemima waited until Maggie stepped out of the room before she said, “Caleb and I thought maybe you’d like some privacy. If you want to use our cabin tonight, it’s yours.”
My cheeks burned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about spending the night alone with Yates.
But he looked Jemima in the eyes. “Thanks, sounds great,” he said.
“It’s not finished,” she warned. “There’s no running water or electricity, but the woodstove works.”
“We don’t need anything else, do we?” Yates said.
I shook my head no, and wrapped Jemima in a hug. “This is really sweet of you.”
“You’re like Rapunzel and the prince,” she said, her voice fairy-tale soft. “Or Romeo and Juliet.”
“Yeah, I guess we are.”
“Thanks, again, Jemima,” Yates said. He kissed me on the cheek. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
Jemima let herself out and I got back to stuffing the packs. I was in love with Yates, so why hesitate about spending the night together?
Because I barely know him. I swallowed. Not true, I told myself. I’ve known Yates my whole life.
But not like this.
Maggie and I finished up the packs. When Yates reappeared, he wrapped both arms around me and nuzzled my neck. “Thought I’d never get that tortilla smell off me.”
“You smell good,” I said, my heart beating like a rabbit’s.
“Come on,” Maggie said. “Let’s get these packs over to the back door.�
��
Yates and Barnabas were each going to carry twenty pounds more than Maggie and me. Still, I wondered if I’d make it ten miles with a full pack. I hadn’t broken any records earlier when I wasn’t lugging a thing.
Keisha showed up, carrying a steel pail with a dish towel over the top. “Beattie sent you a picnic dinner,” she said to us. Warm, delicious smells of bread and some kind of stew wafted into the room.
Maggie tossed me a sleeping bag and lobbed a second one at Yates. “Go on. Enjoy the time alone. After tonight, we’ll be stuck together until we get out of this.”
Yates and I stood on Barnabas’ porch, sleeping bags slung over our shoulders. “Ready?” he asked, swinging the pail toward Caleb and Jemima’s.
I looked into his eyes. I wanted time alone with Yates, no interruptions, no threat of being discovered by Roik. But I wasn’t sure about the rest. “Yes, totally,” I lied.
Cold burned my cheeks, but I was too hot to cover my face. I was conscious of every little thing: snow crunching under our boots, a guitar singing into the night, my flashlight’s blue-white oval, Yates’ shoulder bumping mine.
The moon wasn’t up yet, but the sky was so coated with stars it was like looking at it through gauze. I paused in the middle of the road, needing a moment to center myself before going into the cabin.
“What are you thinking about?” Yates said.
“How much I’ve changed.”
He pulled me along the path. “I don’t think you’re different. I just think you’re more.”
“More of what?”
We stepped up onto the porch. “More of what I’ve always liked about you: you’re ballsy, independent. Real.”
Mom’s voice whispered in my ear. Choose the man who thinks you are beautiful just the way you are, who wants to hear what you have to say, who urges you to follow your heart.
I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
Yates opened the door and we stepped into the echoey dark. I reached for the light switch, forgetting there wasn’t one. We passed our flashlights over the room. A hurricane lamp stood on the half-built kitchen counter. The room smelled of freshly sawed wood, and Caleb or maybe Jemima had lined up the hammers and screwdrivers and boxes of nails in a tidy row on the sawhorse table.
A Girl Called Fearless Page 27