by Anna Carey
Page 11
“Suit yourself. But I wouldn’t want to be alone out here if I were you. Especially not in this weather. ” Caleb pointed to the dense storm clouds, which were moving faster, stretching out, ready to spill water onto the forest. Then he turned the horse and they started down the road. Arden waved good-bye to me, not troubling to turn her head.
I looked back at the field we’d come through. The sunflowers leaned to one side, pushed down by the wind. I wasn’t sure which direction the house was in, or how far off it was. I didn’t know how to start my own fire, I didn’t know how to hunt, and I didn’t have a knife to call my own.
I dug my fingernails into my palm. “Wait!” I called, running after the horse. “Wait for me!”
Chapter Eight
IT WAS THE DARKEST NIGHT I’D EVER SEEN, LIT ONLY BY flashes of lightning across the black sky. We’d been traveling for over two hours. I clung to Arden, grateful for the extra space between Caleb and me. As we made our way down a muddy road, I kept silent, reviewing all the ways we might die by Caleb’s hand, or be manipulated into doing things we weren’t supposed to. Among all the lies the Teachers had told us, there must have been some truths. After seeing the way the gang had skinned that animal alive, I knew men were as violent and callous as we had been told. I thought of the innocent Anna Karenina, and how she was oppressed by her husband, Alexei, and then seduced by her lover, Vronsky. Teacher Agnes had read her suicide scene aloud, shaking her head in disappointment. If only she had known what you know, she’d said. If only.
I would not be fooled. As soon as we arrived at Caleb’s camp we’d eat, then wait out the storm. I wouldn’t sleep. No, I’d stay awake and alert, my back against the wall. Then in the morning, when the sky had returned to its perfect cerulean blue, we’d be off. Me and Arden. Alone.
“So how’d you know about School?” Arden asked. She hadn’t spoken much, except to question Caleb about the route he was taking.
I raised my cheek from Arden’s back, suddenly interested in their conversation.
“I know more about Schools than I would like. ” Caleb kept his eyes on the road ahead. “I was an orphan, too. ”
“There are schools for boys then,” Arden pressed. “I knew it. Where?”
“A hundred miles north. But they’re not Schools, so much as labor camps. I know the things you’ve seen at School, I know how unspeakable it is, the girls who are being used for breeding. But I can tell you—” Caleb paused for a moment. He spoke slowly and matter-of-factly, like he’d known these secrets for years. “I can tell you that the boys have suffered, too, perhaps worse. ”
I couldn’t stop from scoffing. It was always women who’d suffered at the hands of men. Men were the ones who’d started wars. Men had polluted the air and sea with smoke and oil, ruined the economy and filled the old prison systems up to their limits. But Arden reached over and pinched my thigh so hard I squealed. “You’ll have to excuse her,” she said. “She was the School valedictorian. ”
Caleb nodded, as if that explained some deeper truth about me. Then he leaned forward, urging the horse to pick up the pace. We galloped up a long incline, the crest of the hill just a quarter mile off. Trees stretched their limbs over the grassy terrain, creating menacing shadows. The rain was falling harder now. The drops felt like tiny pebbles hitting my skin.
“Oh no. ” Caleb stopped the horse in the mud. I followed his gaze. There, only a hundred yards ahead of us, was a government Jeep. Even through the rain, I could make out the two red taillights.
Caleb tried to turn the horse around, but it was too late. A beam of light stretched through the darkness, illuminating our faces.
“Stop! By order of the King of The New America!” a voice bellowed over a megaphone.
“Go,” Arden urged. “Now!”
Caleb spun the horse around and we took off the way we’d come. I couldn’t stop myself from looking back. The Jeep was spinning around, too, mud splashing from its back tires. It started toward us, our backs lit by the unblinking eyes of its front headlights.
“Stop in the name of the King! Or we will use force. ”
“No,” I whispered to myself, clinging to Arden’s slippery back. “No, this can’t be happening. ” Maybe it was the downpour, or the mud, or the weight of the third person, but the horse was slower than before. The Jeep was gaining on us.
“We can’t stay on this road,” Caleb said. “They’ll catch us. ” He pointed off to the side at a thickly wooded forest. The horse raced toward it. “Hold on!” Caleb shouted.
I gripped Arden desperately. The horse jumped off the side of the road and in seconds we were in the dense wood. The thick branches of trees whipped at my arms and back. “Keep your head down!” Caleb yelled.
The lights of the Jeep disappeared behind us. The vehicle had stopped on the road. “It’s just a little farther,” Caleb reassured us, as our bodies pitched and heaved over the uneven terrain. I didn’t know what “it” was, but I hoped we would reach it soon.
The horse weaved in and out of the trees, finally coming to a stop in front of a nearly thirty-foot-wide river. Caleb jumped to the ground, helping Arden and me down. He slapped the horse’s rear and she took off. For a moment the forest was quiet.
I glanced behind us. The Jeep’s headlights lit the hazy night. The men slammed the car doors. “This way!” one of them yelled.
“Why are they after you?” I asked.
Caleb pulled us behind a boulder at the river’s shore and we all crouched low. “They’re not,” he said. I looked up at him, confused. “They’re after you. ” He retrieved a piece of paper from his back pocket.
Arden plucked it from his hands. There, staring back at us, was a black-and-white photograph of a girl with long, dark hair, and a plump, heart-shaped mouth. EVE, the paper read. 5'7", BLUE EYES AND BROWN HAIR. TO BE CAPTURED AND DELIVERED, ALIVE, TO THE KING. IF SEEN, ALERT THE NORTHWEST OUTPOST. Arden held it in her hands until a giant raindrop fell, splattering across my name.
Caleb peered around the boulder, to where the Jeep was idling. “I found it on the road this morning. ”
I grabbed the sheet from Arden’s hand and stared back at my own face. It was my graduation photo—the only picture ever taken at School. Last month a woman from the government came and lined all thirty of us up outside, photographing us one by one. In the photo, I stood in front of the lake, the windowless building just visible in the background. “But why are they after me? Arden escaped, too. ”
Caleb looked down, his face half hidden by his matted brown hair. “What?” Arden asked. “What is it?”
He wiped the rain from his cheeks. “There’s been talk from the City of Sand—we originally thought it was a rumor. ” Slowly, his eyes met mine. “The King wants an heir. ”
Arden shook her head. She kept staring at the photo. “Oh no . . . ” she mumbled.
“What? What is it?” I asked, feeling panic swell in my chest.
She peered back to the road, where a few flashlight beams now canvassed the trees. “‘Eve has proven one of the best and brightest students we’ve seen at School. So beautiful, so smart, so obedient. ’” Headmistress Burns’s words sounded different coming from Arden’s mouth. Sinister, even. “That’s what you get for your Medal of Achievement, Eve. You weren’t going to that building after all. You belong to the King. ”