I’d better defuse the situation before I kill him. Holding up my right hand, I insist on reason. “Look, we’re all under a lot of stress right now and the longer we stay here, the greater our chance of getting caught. We’ll take as much food as we can. But the clock is ticking and we’re running out of time.”
Everyone except for Maxis, look at each other confused. “What’s a clock?”
I roll my eyes. “Never mind, we need to hurry. We can rest once it’s safe and then you can eat all you want.”
The stubbly hairs in his nose shake as he snorts out a grunt of submission.
“That’s better,” I try to let go of my irritation.
“Okay, so how do we get out of here?” he asks haughtily.
“The windows. We follow Ratte’s instructions just as he told us. I’ll go first to make sure there’s no surprises.”
“What if something happens to you?” Maxis adds with concern.
I slap him on the back. “I’m beginning to think you like me or something.”
We heap the boxes together, making a crude staircase. Ratte’s words come back to me as I break the glass with the blunt end of the knife. “Grits will be ready in about twenty minutes.”
We have maybe five minutes left at most. I remove the bottom pieces from the frame so no one cuts themselves. We’re right next to the stadium. The curved walls run parallel to the warehouse.
I hoist my body up, maneuvering conscientiously to avoid hurting my arm. Laying flat against my belly, I lean forward and let my body fall. Before hitting the pavement, I do a flip and land on my feet. There’s no cover to hide ourselves with, but most of the Blooders will be in the compound.
“Clear, come on through. But watch the drop,” I whisper up to the broken pane. One by one they come through somewhat gracefully, except for Emeric who at the last second spins and lands on his back; letting out a loud yelp.
“Get up!” I whisper forcefully.
He bumbles for a few seconds, then gets to his feet again. This idiot is going to get us killed! It’s amazing we haven’t been spotted already. Shaking my head, I push the thought aside. Eli would do the same thing. Just remember that.
“To the right,” I instruct, crouching down. We move slow and circle the stadium. Keeping low, we scurry around the perimeter, then come across a gap in the multi-faceted wall. We slide through it without any issues and head south, back to the safe house.
“Don’t run, go as quietly as you can but stay alert. There might be a few lookouts left behind.” I fall back and jog next to Maxis and Alvah. “You and her?” I taunt.
He holds up his still-activated BAND which reads SIGNAL LOST. “I have nothing to stop me now.”
Her face is covered in filth. I stare at it curiously. “They tried to make me look unappealing,” She mumbles, having noticed my gawking.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s okay. I’ve had appealing features ever since I turned fifteen. That’s why I have to always dress in rags and paint myself with mud and feces. Ruth said if they ever saw what I really look like they would…” she trails off into silence.
Maxis hangs his arm around her shoulder and kisses her grimy forehead.
BOOM! Another loud explosion in the sky. Either it’s time for dinner, or they know we’re gone. “We should pick up the pace.”
“We’ve gone far enough, we need to stop and rest,” I hear Emeric respond defiantly.
“Just a few more blocks and then we can—”
“No!” he shouts, placing his stubby body right in front of me. “We need to stop now.” A thick vein bulges out from his neck and temples.
“We aren’t far enough yet,” I respond woozily.
“We’ll be fine. No one knows we’re gone.”
“What do you think that big bomb in the sky was for, then?” Maxis joins in.
I blink a few times as the vertigo increases. “When we get back to my hideout we’ll—
“—Your hideout? It’s time we went our separate ways,” he sneers sardonically, reaching for the pack over my shoulders.
I jerk backwards and slap away his hand. “Don’t touch me.”
His eyes widen with madness. There’s a moment of silence before the proverbial volcano erupts. Emeric throws a wild punch which lands on my left cheek. My reflexes are hindered from the loss of blood.
“Emeric!” Alvah shrieks.
“What are you doing?” Maxis shouts, helping me up.
“Give me the pack!”
Luckily I fell on my back and not my arms.
“Are you crazy? You’re going to get us all killed!”
“Gimme the pack!” he badgers furiously.
I trace my lips with my finger and feel where they split down the lower half.
“Just give me the pack and you can leave,” he says frantically, his jittery fists emphasizing the lunacy in his voice.
“Have you lost your mind, Emeric?” Ruth counters, standing in front of Maxis. “This man saved our lives. And now you’re going to rob him?”
“Rob him? We found that food together. I just want what’s rightfully ours.”
Alvah strides past them both and shoves Emeric hard. “We would have been cut up and eaten by those freaks if it weren’t for Krys!”
His skewed-up face loosens a bit. “We can’t trust him. Who knows where he’s leading us. Maybe he’s planning to do the same thing.”
“‘Cause that makes sense, you idiot,” I blurt out sarcastically.
He looks around at the rest of the group. “I’m sorry, I just…”
At that moment, five consecutive explosions sound off, followed by the faint roar of angry Blooders.
“Run!” I scream, sprinting my guts out; dodging broken glass and brick, torn apart furniture, an old mailbox, and some rusty barrels. “Round the corner!” I yell and lean to the right as the sidewalk curves.
Thump. I run straight into the backside of a person.
The others stop right behind me. I freeze up while the Blooder turns around to see what hit him. A look of recognition and surprise causes his mouth to open.
“They’re over here!” he calls out and reaches for a weapon.
Without thinking I lunge; digging my knife into his skull and landing on top of his limp body.
“Come on!” Emeric shouts. I look behind me to see him and Ruth running in the opposite direction.
A thick metal sound rings in my ears as I pull out the blade and I stand up to run after them. A hard object collides against my cranium, catapulting me downwards.
“Krys!” echoes a voice, reverberating as if in a spacious room.
“No one steals from us!” another voice reverberates infinitely.
BANG! Someone pulls me to my feet. “Come on, Krys.”
My ears ring, everything is fuzzy. Pictures of faces and city streets blur in and out. I look to my right, Maxis has my arm around his neck, dragging me as my feet dangle without any strength to themselves.
“Here, get him in here!”
The ringing gets more intense, making my head throb. So much pain, it’s unbearable! It feels like years have passed as I regain consciousness. “What happened?” I sputter out, rubbing my head.
“You got jumped from behind,” Maxis replies.
“How long have I been asleep?”
“Just a few hours,” Alvah answers nervously, pacing the floor.
“Where are we?”
“It’s like a garage or something,” Maxis says with a shiver.
“We should go back. We need to find them,” she insists through gritted teeth.
“Alvah, there’s no way for us to find them. The city’s too big.”
“So what, we’re just gonna sit here and wish them the best of luck?” Her words bounce around bleakly inside the enclosed space.
“Both of you calm down. What happened?” I command, taking control of the conversation.
Alvah’s eyes begin to water. “After you got knocked out, I shot the Bloode
r. Maxis picked you up and when we turned around… they were gone.”
“They left?” I ask, bewildered
“I never thought that they’d actually… ” Her voice breaks as she sobs softly.
“What I meant to say was… we can’t go looking for them… now. Not when it’s this dark out…”
Maxis opens his arms. She hesitates at first, then lets him comfort her.
“You’re right, it’s too dark to leave now. We’d only get ourselves killed.” I take watch for a couple hours and let them rest; flooding my mind with questions and no restrictions to dam them. Why would they leave us? Why is Maxis’s BAND still on? How much longer does Eli have? What would he do?
I can barely sleep when they take over my watch. I can’t stop thinking about Eli. It might be too late already. Waves of despair corrode the prominent confidence I’d won in my confrontation with Jaak. I won’t give up now. Not when I’m so close. Not when I’ve already beaten the worst and come this far. I need a plan. I can’t stay here any longer.
“Krys?” Maxis whispers to me with heavy bags under his dry and reddened eyes. “What’s the plan?”
Refusing to be helped, I stand on my feet. “I need to leave.”
His mouth compresses into a saddened frown.
Alvah is not so sympathetic. “You’re going to leave us just like that?” she scowls.
“I’m sorry, but I have to get back to someone.”
“What was the point of saving us if you’re just going to abandon us now? You should have left us there! At least then we’d be together. At least I would have died with my mother next to me, instead of dreading every second, not knowing if she’s already dead!”
I bow my head and close my eyes. Kalen wouldn’t want this. He would go out of his way. He would give everything. But I can’t. I can’t lose Eli. He’s all that I have left.
“I’m sorry. But I just can’t.” Thirst has dried out my voice, leaving it worn out.
“At least let us go with you, Krys,” Maxis pleads. I roll my shoulders and look down at my arm, completely forgetting my hand was cut off. I relive the horror in a flash, the memory bearing down on me.
I can still feel it. Still feel the tingle of my fingers moving. I flex the muscles, tightening the remaining tendons. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Slowly, I undo the knot of the bandage, feeling the blood rush to the cutoff end but there’s no bleeding.
A fresh layer of skin covers where the clotted veins and bone should be. It’s still tender but impossible to have healed this quickly. I gaze at them as the realization hits me.
“No!” I rip off the pack and dump out the contents. The Sphere schematics, the cans of stolen food, and an empty black container.
“What did you do?” I grunt in frustration. “Where are the SIO pills?” Both of them stand silently. “Maxis, Alvah, where are the pills?”
Alvah peeps weakly, “I gave them to you when we got here.” The container falls out of my hand. “Your wound was bleeding through the bandage and you had a fever. I searched your pack and found them. I wasn’t sure so I just put them all in your mouth.”
The most wrenching agony penetrates my heart with a razor sharp stab. I lean against the wall, unable to speak. No! This wasn’t supposed to happen.
“I’m sorry, Krys, but I didn’t know what else to do. You were going into shock.”
It keeps getting worse. Nothing I do makes any difference. I pound at the concrete wall with my fist, unleashing a devastating scream that tears a hole inside of my very soul. I watch my knuckles turn a shade of purple, not even hurting since the pills have yet to wear off.
“You don’t know what you’ve done!” I cringe, glaring at her viciously, fueled by blistering rage. I play in my mind how easy it would be to ring her neck, even with just the one hand.
I look down again at the stub and feel a lump in my throat as the tears swell. They come easily, overwhelmingly. My anger turns to sadness and I slump against the wall; hiding my head in-between my legs.
And just like that, I’m a child again. Staring into the lifeless face of my father. It’s going to happen again. It’s going to happen and there’s nothing I can do about it, except watch helplessly by the wayside. Nothing will stop it now.
Eli is going to die.
Chapter 17 Exodus
The dusty air irritates my throat, making me cough in-between my sobs. How can this be happening to me? Why? Is there some unseen power whose only desire is to see me miserable? To strip me of my sanity? Why do those closest to me always die?
“Krys?” Alvah says tenderly, kneeling by my side. “I’m sorry.”
There’s no mistaking her sincerity as she asks forgiveness in just two words. With quivering lips, I mumble, “He’s going to die.”
She embraces me warmly with tears of her own to accompany mine. “I’m so sorry.”
“That medicine you gave me was for my friend. He got hurt and now…” My voice breaks with every word.
“We didn’t know,” Maxis replies gently.
“I know you didn’t.” I break into another heavy sob.
Alvah pulls away to look me in my eyes again. “We’ve all lost someone, Krys. This world isn’t kind. It’s cruel and harsh but we do what we have to to survive. My Mother abandoned me and Maxis is all I have now.”
The compassion and warmth is replaced with fear. She’s been afraid for a long time. I can see it behind her eyes. “How long?” I ask.
She raises up an eyebrow in confusion.
“How long will it take you to get back to Roosevelt?”
They exchange looks. “Three, four days maybe?” Maxis replies.
Using the wall as leverage, I push myself up. “You’re going to need supplies if it takes that long.”
Alvah exhales, relieved. “You’re going to help us?” I nod my head.
“It’s what Eli would do.”
She gives me a hug. “Thank you! We owe you so much.”
“First we need to know where we are.”
“Krys! I’ve been waiting for so long! Aren’t you going to ask me how I got out of Pura?” Maxis asks, exasperated.
“You want to talk about this now? We don’t have a lot of time.”
Showing me his BAND once more, he points to the screen and says, “You’re going to want to make time.”
It was never easy to say no to him. “At least let me check what time it is?”
“Oh, it’s 06:52,” he answers. I examine the screen more closely. Underneath the large SIGNAL LOST message, it displays the current time.
The Blooders probably searched for us all night. Meaning they’re sleeping or exhausted. I can spare a few minutes for Maxis. “Alright, Maxis, how did you escape?” I ask, pretending to be agitated.
“That’s just the thing. I didn’t.”
Alvah smiles like she’s heard this story a thousand times before, which is definitely not out of his character. “That day in the market by the Triad, I got sent to the Cathedral to be judged for Cleansing.”
Pangs of guilt return just hearing him say that word. “I was left in a holding cell, waiting for them to start. After a few days, I was visited by a Council member.”
“Which one?” I ask with my arms folded.
“It was Cornelus.”
A picture appears in my mind of a man with light hair, dark brown eyes, and a wide brow. He is the youngest member of the Council to date, having only thirty-one years of life.
“What did he say?”
“He offered me an alternative to Cleansing. He said that the Council was willing to exile me as punishment for my crime. I’ve already told Alvah how they do things in the Sphere, so I said yes. I was escorted by a team of SIO’s to the edge of the fields and that was that. But… I think you knew one of them.”
A flutter in my heart numbs the guilt. “Who?”
He grins at me like we’re two grangers again, working the fields together. “A girl.”
Leina! She’s alive? But that was mon
ths ago. Could she still be?
Excitedly, I twitch my fingers.
“You see Al, I told you he’d be happy to hear it,” he jests proudly. “Anyways, as I trekked my way across the desert, I found the remains of a helicopter. Was that you?”
I can’t hide the bragging smile that brims as I nod.
“I knew it! I can’t believe you took down a helicopter! It’s amazing.”
My spirits lift from his exuberant praise. He always tried to make me feel good about myself. It’s his best quality, which made him the ideal criminal to the IRIS.
“So, I hadn’t eaten for days and had to… um,” he gives Alvah an apologetic look, “relieve myself. Needless to say it was awful. I thought I was going to starve to death, until—”
I gasp, realizing that the food I had mistakenly left behind was picked up by Maxis. “The food!” I exclaim.
“That was you too?”
“I can’t believe it!” I say, unable to contain my amazement.
“I found the remains of a fire and there it was. Enough food and water to keep me going. That was the moment I knew I was going to survive.”
Amazing! He was only a day behind me. If only I had waited, we could have escaped together.
“I kept following what remained of your tracks until I saw the opening in the base. The second I crossed the threshold, my BAND alarm went off and I haven’t had a warning since.”
He speaks with such enthusiasm, the likes of which I’ve never seen in Pura, it’s hard not to be captivated by his natural charisma. To see him now, outside of the IRIS confines, thriving with personality, it’s exhilarating.
Eli was right, Maxis always knew who he was.
“What does it mean? ‘Signal lost’?” I ponder eagerly, stroking my prickly chin. “Hmmm. I wonder,” I think aloud and pick up the Sphere schematics.
“What are those?” Alvah inquires.
“These are the designs for the Sphere and Pura.” Maxis and I pour over every sheet of paper, scrutinizing every note and detail while Alvah stands to the side watching.
“Wait, what’s this?” Maxis says, tapping his finger onto the Cathedral design. I begin to read the adjacent texts when I stop at the words “BAND Server.” I take hold of the entire sheet and read aloud.
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