“Jemima said the firewood’s on the back porch.”
I followed Yates out and held the flashlight while he loaded up his arms. Then I lit the lamp while he got the fire started. The wood walls glowed golden yellow, but I could still see my breath.
I lifted the towel off the pail. A loaf of bread sat on top of two plates. When I lifted them, a small crock of stew steamed in my face.
I came around the corner with the food. Yates sat by the stove, the fire glow lighting his face. He smiled at me as he blew into a large air mattress.
“Let me know if you get tired,” I said.
My fingers fumbled with the ties on the sleeping bags. I rolled them out and they lay side by side, before I realized how awkward and useless they were this way. I didn’t look up, but I felt Yates watch me zip them together.
“Done.” Yates spread the air mattress in front of the woodstove. Flames crackled in the stove’s iron belly and we sat cross-legged on the mattress and pulled the sleeping bag over us like a quilt.
I dished out the stew and Yates tore into it. “When was the last time you ate?” I asked him.
“This morning. I caught the $2.99 All You Can Eat Flapjack Special at the Rise and Shine Diner.”
I watched him eat, marveling that he’d ridden to Salt Lake in a tortilla truck and searched Boise until he found someone who’d take him to Salvation.
You promised you’d find me, and you did. But you probably shouldn’t have.
I took a deep breath. I’d come clean at the Council meeting. I didn’t have any secrets from Yates anymore.
“You know you might have to hide out in Canada with us?” I said. “You probably won’t be safe in the U.S.”
“I know.”
Those men pursuing us weren’t going to give up until Maggie and I were permanently silenced. “Are you sure you’re ready to give up your life in California—school, all your friends, the movement?”
Yates dropped his fork on his plate, and gently ran his finger down my cheek. I tilted my face toward his. “I gave up my old life when I joined Exodus,” he said. “The minute I did my first extract, I knew I’d have to run someday.”
I nodded as he took my empty plate from my lap. He slipped his hands into my hair and pulled me ever so gently closer. “Forget about the world right now,” he said. His mouth brushed mine, and our lips did a shy, slow dance.
Together, apart, together—my feelings jumbled with each touch. Excited, afraid, sure, unsure.
We fell back and drew the down bag over us like a tent. In the green-tinted dark, our jackets crackled, and we felt for the zippers and teased them open. We murmured between kisses, our bodies pressed together, warmth flowing through the layers of cotton and flannel separating our skin.
Yates slipped his hand under my shirt and clasped the tender skin of my waist. I drew in my breath and he went to pull away. “I want you,” I whispered, and knitted my fingers into his. “But I’m not ready.”
He rested his forehead on mine. “We don’t have to do anything. I’m not in a hurry. All I really want is to lie here with you and be together.”
His eyes told me he meant it.
I got very still. Here we were in this funny little cabin in the middle of nowhere and as wacky as this place was, it was filled with love. The love Caleb and Jemima were building into it, and the caring Keisha and Beattie showered on us, and the love Yates and I felt for each other.
I guided his hand back to my waist, carefully setting it down outside my shirt. I wasn’t ready to sleep with Yates, but I knew I would be someday, and for now I wanted to hold on to that hope for someday as hard as I could. I smiled and lifted my face to kiss him.
We moved slowly, our fingers exploring and mapping each other’s bodies. Starting, stopping, talking. Each moment so rich with everything we’d been denied that Salvation and Time and the World and Fear disappeared.
80
I lay on my side, watching the flames through the grate in the potbellied stove. Yates slept, one arm tucked over me, hugging me to his chest.
If he wasn’t next to me, I’d swear everything that had happened that day was a free fall of my imagination. But Yates was next to me and he was real.
I could be free. Soon, Hawkins might not own me anymore. I turned that over and over in my head like something I’d picked up and didn’t quite recognize.
Hawkins wasn’t the kind of guy who just gave up. Even if Dad forced him out of Biocure, Hawkins wouldn’t go quietly. I counted the days and realized he’d launched his campaign. I doubted either he or Ho wanted me to turn up on the talk-show circuit and tell my story: “Ex-fiancée Dishes About Soon-to-Be-Gov.”
Even if I was legally free of Hawkins, he probably wasn’t out of my life.
“You’re awake,” Yates murmured. “Can’t sleep?”
I snuggled in closer. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“What about?”
“About Hawkins and my Contract.” I saw Dad and me standing on the edge of the cliff. Dad telling me that Hawkins had trapped him, too. “Dad’s probably thrilled somebody’s buying Hawkins out. He hated Hawkins taking over.”
“Your dad’s leaving Biocure.”
I flipped over so I could see Yates’ face. “No!”
“Yeah, he has to give up the presidency and all his stock as part of the deal.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. Biocure was Dad’s baby.”
I saw Dad rattling around our empty house, turning on the Sportswall and watching for about a minute before he clicked it off. The only thing Dad had was work. And me.
Dad give up Biocure for me? The enormity hit me: his life’s work. His dream! “I need to call him, but I can’t. Not from here.”
“It’ll be okay. In a few days, we’ll be in Canada. You can call him then.” Yates reached over his head and felt around. I jumped as his icy phone brushed my skin. He sat up and played with the screen. “Here. I was going to save this, but…”
There was a picture of me and Mom eating fish tacos on the boardwalk at Venice Beach. Then the picture blurred and changed to me and Dayla at her Sweet Sixteen, smiling madly, waving our arms to the pounding music. Then the photo changed again to Dad lying on the couch with his eyes closed and five-year-old me asleep on his chest, a sea of picture books on the floor beside us. I checked the number in the corner of the screen. Three hundred.
“And I loaded them onto a site, PhotoForever, so no matter what, you’ll always have them.”
I set my hand on my heart. “How did you—”
“Roik searched your digital files, trying to track you down. After Hawkins and your dad fired him, Roik sold them to me.”
Roik’s help never came cheap. “This must have cost you a lot.”
Yates shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
But Yates didn’t have access to a lot of money. The only thing he had was … “You gave him your motorcycle.”
“Yeah, but bikes can be replaced. Your family can’t.”
I was smiling, but I was choking up. “How did you know?”
“After your phone signal died, I figured Ruby made you toss it. The way you took off so last-minute, I guessed you must have left the other things you wanted to take.”
“Yeah, I lost everything except you.”
“Except me.”
81
It was still dark when the bells started ringing. Bong bong and then a clang like a giant alarm clock gone crazy. Bong bong clang. Bong bong clang.
“What time is it?” Yates said.
I grabbed his phone. “Four A.M.”
“What’s going on?” Yates pulled on his jeans.
Bong bong clang. We could hear people calling to each other outside.
“I don’t know,” I said, fumbling around for my sweater, “but it doesn’t sound good.”
“Barnabas didn’t say anything about this?”
“No, nothing.”
I jerked back a curtain. Lights were coming
on in houses. Doors banged, and I saw men and women rush into the street, their arms full of bundles. “People are heading for the church and they’ve got their kids with them.”
“Then we’d better go, too.”
We grabbed our boots and started lacing them. Someone banged on the door. Caleb stuck his head in. “You gotta get to the church. Bring your lantern, sleeping bags, any weapons you got.”
“What’s happening?” I said, even though I had a sick feeling I already knew.
“Not sure, but I expect we’re going to be under fire. I got to go get Jemima.”
“Go,” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
We broke up the fire, and left it to burn itself out. By the time we got out to the road, all but a couple houses were dark, and I guessed they’d been abandoned. The alarm bells had stopped, but the air echoed with the panicky sound of goats bleating and banging around in the barn. Their squeals filled me with fear.
A few stragglers ran ahead of us, flashlights jumping over the snow and guns slapping their backs.
“Come on, hurry up,” Beattie yelled from the church steps. “Get inside.”
Yates and I started to run.
Siege
82
Inside the church, Beattie went from family to family, clasping people’s hands, her face calm and reassuring as she tried to get them to take a seat.
Children whimpered and moms shushed crying babies. Keisha and Jemima were stone-faced. They wore down jackets over their nightgowns and jeans underneath. Their bug out bags lay at their feet.
This was what The End Of The World As We Know It looked like.
Barnabas took the podium. “We have reason to believe that a military force will reach us within minutes.” He was cool, factual like he was addressing soldiers, not families with children who’d been torn out of bed. “The camera at the base of the road caught a vehicle equipped with tractor treads heading this way. I estimate twenty onboard.”
“How long before they get here?” Beattie asked.
“Twenty-five minutes. Half hour. Families should get their children settled in the Bunker while the Council takes a head count to determine who’s missing. Then armed adults should take positions at the windows.”
Women gathered their children and herded them toward the basement. Mrs. Gomez glared at me. “It’s all your fault,” she yelled. “You did this!”
My heart pounded as the whole room pinned me with their eyes.
Ramos pointed at Maggie. “Put her and that girl and her boyfriend out on the road so the feds find them. We don’t need to protect these people. They’re Outsiders.”
Yates leaped up before I could stop him and went for Ramos, but fortunately Luke caught hold of him. He leaned in, saying something only Yates could hear. I held my breath until Yates lowered his fists. Thank you, I said to Luke with my eyes.
“We are not throwing anyone out,” Barnabas declared. “Right now we’ve got to focus on what’s coming at us.”
“Barnabas, the Council reports one unaccounted for: Spoke Coleman,” Beattie said.
“He took off with his dog team yesterday,” someone added. “Hasn’t come back yet.”
Barnabas asked for volunteers to bring weapons and ammo up from the Bunker. When he headed for the stairs, Yates and Luke followed him, and I trailed after them.
Down in the Bunker, the gas was lit under an enameled coffeepot and left to brew. A teenage boy was fitting frozen blocks of meat around milk jugs in one of the large coolers.
Women were setting up cots and zipping children into sleeping bags. Lanterns on the floor lit their faces like campfires.
Jemima wandered the room while Sarah dogged her, asking, “Who’s going to milk the goats in the morning? Who’s going to let them out and make sure they’ve got water?”
I took Sarah by the hand, and led her over to Jonas, who was curled up in a ball, his cowboy hat pushed down over his face.
“Are you okay, Jonas?”
“Hector said the soldiers are going to kill Emmeline and Pluto and eat them.”
“No, no,” I said, easing his hat off his face. “They won’t hurt the goats.” Or will they? I thought. You don’t know what they’ll do.
A woman rocked on the next cot, breastfeeding a tiny, tiny baby. She looked stunned like she’d barely slept in days.
And just beyond her, I saw Luke and Yates hauling guns out of the locked cabinet. They were flat tan like a desert tank, and the muzzles and barrels and all the other parts had a brutal, no-shit, we’re-at-war look.
Salvation’s going to war. And it was my fault for sending out Sparrow’s message so everyone could see the Vegas Strip behind me. The phone weighed down my pocket like a stone and I felt helpless, not seeing any job I could do or way I could help.
Back up in the church hall, Barnabas outlined how he thought things would play out. “These agents have probably been told we’re antigovernment extremists hoarding a stockpile of arms. They’ll search our houses and the other buildings and conclude we’re in here. They won’t storm the building immediately, but they’ll look for vulnerabilities to exploit. Meanwhile, we will observe how they operate. We’ve got eight cameras under the eaves and another half dozen in the trees. Most important, we will not fire first. We will only fire in self-defense.”
Barnabas stepped back from the podium.
83
We turned off the lanterns and waited silently in the dark. Men and women stood on the balcony in pairs, keeping watch through the narrow windows, Yates and I along with them.
Until then I hadn’t noticed that the thick walls were angled so a person could fit comfortably against the windows or that the windows were positioned at chest height on both levels. Now I saw how every window had an inset that could be raised to accommodate a gun. I flipped the little panel up and realized it was inch-thick acrylic. The Bunker, the bulletproof windows, the balcony that circled the room. The entire building was designed to withstand an attack.
The moon lingered on the snow, casting long shadows that reached for the church.
The big room hummed as the boiler cranked out a pitiful heat and the ventilation fan turned. Yates and I huddled together, shivering through our clothes.
The feds showed up barely a half hour after we’d taken our places. The vehicle Barnabas had spotted on the surveillance camera crawled over the snow, looking like a kid’s toy, not a transport carrying enough troops and assault weapons to blast some serious holes through these concrete walls.
“It stopped,” Yates whispered.
The troops got out, and even though they were wearing snow camouflage, their dark weapons stood out in the moonlight against their white suits.
“Let’s get a count, people,” Barnabas said quietly.
The troops jogged over the snow. I caught whispers. “I count eighteen.” “My count’s twenty.”
Yates and I watched them fan out to the houses along the road. Four would disappear inside a house, then a few minutes later, come out and wave signals to the others. They headed up the valley toward the houses on the outskirts.
“I’d better get to the control room,” Yates said. “Barnabas asked me to help monitor.”
I crept down the balcony behind Yates and stepped into the control room. Two rows of monitors displayed images caught by the cameras rigged near the roof and in nearby trees. Everything within a hundred feet around the church appeared in at least one screen, and Barnabas sat watching them.
“I don’t believe this,” I said. “Nobody up here even has a radio, but—” I waved my hand at the screens and wires snaking everywhere.
“We choose not to let the outside world interfere in our daily lives,” Barnabas said, “but we’re not fools.”
Something struck me then. “Beattie told me phone reception’s spotty up here, so how did Maggie reach you when we were in trouble?”
He didn’t even blink. “We have a micro cell tower, but we turned it off once you two arrived. We didn�
�t want to make it easier for them to track you down.” He got up from his stool and left Yates and me with the flickering screens.
For an hour, we watched the figures on the screen get smaller and disappear from view. Yates wrapped his arms across me, but no matter how tightly he held me I couldn’t get warm. He buried his face in my hair.
“What did Luke say to you?” I asked. “To make you leave Ramos alone?”
“He told me Ramos would gut me like a trout and I was no good to you dead.”
I was about to say I preferred him alive, when I saw troops converging in the road and heading right for the church. “They’re back.”
Yates looked up. “We’ve got to tell Barnabas.”
I forced myself to breathe before I reached for the gun jammed in my pants.
“I wish I knew how to shoot,” Yates said, watching me check the clip and shove it in place.
“No, you really don’t.”
84
Yates stood behind me at the window. The sky was ash grey, but there was enough light to see that the men in snow camo had retreated to the edge of the woods.
“What do you think they’re waiting for?” I whispered.
“Dawn, maybe? They thought they’d surprise us, but now they’ve got to rethink their plan.”
Tension was tying everyone in the hall like taut strings crisscrossing the room. Across from us, Luke and Rogan framed a window, guns propped beside them. Sunlight struck the window, glaring like a spotlight on the thick acrylic.
“I can’t see a thing,” I said.
“Let’s check the cameras,” Yates replied. We kept low and scurried to the back room where Barnabas was fixed on the center screen.
“They’re approaching on the east,” he said.
“With their bayonets out?” Yates said. “What the hell? Do they think they’re going to cut through the walls?”
“No, they’re doing what I would do,” Barnabas muttered.
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