You can get up.
You have to get back up.
I could get back up. I could do it myself. Again, and again, and again. As long as there was breath in my body, I could get back up.
I slid my palms out from where they’d been trapped under me until they were in line with my shoulders. I spread my fingers, steadying myself as I pushed up off the ground. The figure beside me ran a hand down my back and along my shoulders—Roman.
His mask had slipped in the darkness, and there was only terror there.
“Are you hurt?” he shouted.
I shook my head, still unable to speak. I pressed my right hand to my left shoulder. I’m okay. Roman nodded, returning the gesture. It’s okay.
I could stand up. I could do it on my own.
A sheen of sweat had broken out over Roman’s face, and the telltale tremors were already starting to work through his body. We’d only have minutes before the pain overtook him.
I grabbed his free hand, relishing the hard clasp of his fingers around mine. Needing to make sure he didn’t somehow fall behind. Still here, still standing.
Priyanka was waiting for us at the gate, her body thrumming with power, her expression wild. Seeing that we were okay, she turned and started after the others, running for the building. I pushed Roman toward her.
“Go!” I said. “I’ll make sure the others are all right.”
“Five minutes,” he said, pressing his hand to his shoulder again.
I returned the gesture, feeling lighter. We are okay.
He navigated through the crowd of kids, disappearing into the building. One of Cubby’s crew was at the fence, rifle in hand, waving everyone in. At the sight of me, she stopped. I turned, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was behind me.
Only soldiers. Mud-splattered and charging, yelling out their rage. Even without their guns, they still had Tasers. Batons.
“Was that really everyone?” I asked.
“You’re the last one,” the girl said, dragging the gate shut and throwing its lock in place. “Do it.”
I nodded. Priyanka hadn’t completely shut down the electricity in the Pit, she’d only temporarily turned it off. It took only three heartbeats to coax the electricity back into the fence. We turned to go just as the soldiers reached it and began screaming.
Someone, likely a Kin, had ripped off the decontamination room’s door, easing our path back into the building. The storage tubs had been ransacked, but I didn’t bother to stop long enough to see if my clothes were still there. We’d left our actual belongings in the car we’d parked a good fifty miles north of here, at the border between Texas and Oklahoma.
There was no sign of Priyanka and Roman as the remainder of us followed the trail of destruction down a set of stairs I hadn’t seen before, when we’d first come in.
Give them time, I thought, trying to ignore the sharp twist of worry in my gut.
“Where are we going?” the same girl called up to one of the others, just as we turned the last corner of the stairwell and saw for ourselves.
It was a massive garage.
The size of it must have encompassed the whole length of the Pit. There weren’t just the soldiers’ personal vehicles, but military-style trucks and vans they almost certainly used to haul kids in here.
Along the back wall were a series of lockers and a bulletin board filled with keys on hooks. The lockers had already been pried open and their contents—purses, backpacks, clothing—ransacked. Cubby was there, tossing set after set out to the kids waiting in a surprisingly orderly line for them.
“Don’t keep the cars for longer than a few hours,” I shouted over the roar of engines revving and the excited, terrified chatter of the kids. “And don’t stop for anything!”
A few shouted back, acknowledging the instructions. I spotted Max helping another teenage girl load some of the smaller kids into an SUV. He waved to them as the girl climbed into the front seat, and a boy climbed up into the passenger side.
Most of them were traveling together, it seemed. Good. But seeing them pair off and cluster in groups made me stop and look back toward the entrance, waiting.
Come on, I thought. Where are you guys?
Cubby made quick work with the rest of the keys, leaving two smaller sets for us. She tossed both at me as she passed by, grinning. “See ya in the next shit hole, Rook.”
The keys weren’t for an actual car, but two of the motorcycles parked in their own section along the far eastern wall. Max ran to my side, dodging out of the way of a green Jeep as it roared by.
“Do you see them?” he shouted.
Seconds passed. Minutes. More.
“Maybe I should go look for them—?”
“No, there they are!” Max took off like a shot, weaving through the remaining vehicles. I saw them a second later, Priyanka all but carrying Roman on her back. The veins and tendons in her arms stuck out, and she vibrated like a kettle on the stove.
“I got it,” she said, seeing my face. “I got it, I got it, I got it!”
“Great—”
“Are we riding these? I love these, oh my God, I love it—”
I clapped my hands in her face. Priyanka turned to me, her pupils dilated and her face bright with eagerness. She had Roman’s full weight across her shoulders and hadn’t so much as broken a sweat.
“Are we going? Are we doing this?” she asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
I felt Roman’s neck for a pulse. His eyes opened to slits, and, as Priyanka set him back down, he pressed his right hand to his shoulder. In it was a syringe.
“Raided their med bay, it’s all good,” Priyanka said. “I’ll take it once we get the hell out of here, I’ll come down, I promise, I’m in control, I’m fine, just let me fly—let me fly.”
“If you can handle it,” I told her, squeezing her wrist, “then that’s the plan.”
Roman took one look at the bikes and managed to get out, “Can’t.” His brow wrinkled in obvious agony.
“Can.” Max held up one of the soldier’s belts. “You remember how to ride?”
That last question had been directed at Priyanka.
“I remember beating you in every, every, every single race,” she said, taking the belt from him. “Load him up behind me, and let’s blow this joint.”
Priyanka sat down on the first bike, leaving Max and me to maneuver Roman’s unconscious form behind her. I looped the belt over their chests, securing it with a little prayer.
She kicked off and headed toward the door before Max and I had even climbed onto ours.
“This is…” he began.
“Don’t think,” I told him. “Just go.”
The words were drowned out by the roar of the garage’s door as the others finally got it all the way open. The kids honked as they drove out, smashing through the chain-link gates that had seemed so formidable when we first drove in. The fencing splintered and snapped, tossed out into the dirt as the first trucks and SUVs mowed through it. A cry went up from the cars behind them as they flew forward. The sound rippled back through the mass of us, feeding an electric sense of hope.
After the last car was out, Max hit the gas, bringing the motorcycle alongside Priyanka’s. We sped up, and the world suddenly opened for us. With the exterior lights out, all I could see was an infinite sky, studded with stars.
If they wouldn’t see us as human, I thought, we’d make sure they understood we were something more.
The car was waiting for us right where we’d left it behind a rundown, deserted strip mall at the edge of Oklahoma. I’d lost track of how many we’d had to steal at this point; it had taken two just to put this plan into play. We’d stashed a car here and then taken a second one back into Texas to leave at the gas station where we’d been taken into custody.
We took turns changing out of the uniforms, leaving them and the bikes for someone else to deal with. At some point, Max had wandered away from us, walking toward the cheerful sign tha
t had greeted us as we crossed state lines.
“Are you accepting Oklahoma’s invitation to ‘Discover the Excellence’?” I asked him, watching as he paced back and forth, his head tilted back. In the distance, I could have sworn I heard helicopters. “We should get going.”
Or maybe that was just the sound of the wind turbines. We’d passed by hundreds of them, all sticking out of the ground like petal-stripped flowers. They’d felt appropriately skeletal, for a part of the country that seemed as dusty as old, disintegrating bones.
“Everything…all right?”
Roman had woken up just before we’d reached the car, but he still didn’t look well to me. His skin had a chalky quality to it, and he swayed slightly as he came toward me. Instinctively, I reached out to steady him. He shot me a slightly rueful look, but accepted the help.
Now that I’d burned through the heat of anger and fear, what I’d found inside me again was quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t keep you at its mercy, but clarified everything. The comfortable kind of quiet you’d find walking next to someone who no longer needed words to know your heart.
“I think we should lie low somewhere safe for a little while and regroup,” Priyanka said, coming up behind us. The sedative was starting to take effect, and her feet were dragging through the dust. “It’ll give Max time to prepare for fishing. If anyone has any suggestions on where that mythical place might be, I’m all ears.”
Oklahoma…As far as I knew, there wasn’t anyone in the old Children’s League network that lived out here. But—I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Ruby’s friends Sam and Lucas had moved out to Kansas after Ruby had disappeared, falsified identity documents in hand. They’d left an address with us to memorize, in case we ran into any Reds who needed their help.
I just wasn’t sure I could bring myself to interrupt what little peace they had.
Desperate times, I thought. When were they not, though?
“I know a place,” I said.
After the hell the last few days had brought, the next few hours unfolded with surprising ease. Once I was done driving my leg of the trip, I passed the wheel—and Sam and Lucas’s address—to Roman. In our exhaustion, we just kept heading north, until the sun was up and we were in Kansas.
“Wake up, Dorothy,” Priyanka said, giving me a slight shake. I sat up from where I’d been sleeping against her arm in the backseat. “We’re over the rainbow and in Kansas.”
For one disorienting moment, I heard a different voice.
I’m Gabe. This is Dorothy.
“Don’t call me that,” I said, rubbing my face.
“Aw, but Dorothy suits you, now that I think—”
Dorothy—Guess we…shouldn’t have left Oz….
“Priya,” I said, letting an edge of that old pain into the word. “Don’t ever call me that.”
“All right,” she said softly.
“That has to be it, right?” Max said, pointing through the windshield. A small farmhouse with some kind of detached shed or barn took shape in the distance. As we turned up its long driveway, I saw a few cows grazing, a handful of overexcited goats, and a separate sty for the two pigs.
“Looks all quiet on the home front,” Priyanka said as Roman parked the car.
I stepped out first, trying to see through the house’s windows. Thick white curtains completely blocked out the interior. The others waited by the car as I stepped up onto the porch and knocked.
No answer. I pressed my ear against the wood, trying to listen for any movement inside. Clearly someone was home. There were fresh footprints leading from the house to the pigs’ trough, as well as to the chicken coop on the other side of the barn. A lone rooster strutted by us, heading toward the small, noisy structure. His path overlapped with another set of tracks, this one heading for the barn door.
“Zu…” Roman began, reaching for his gun. I waved him back, motioning for them to stay where they were. Sam and Lucas probably didn’t get many visitors. We could have scared them into hiding, uninvited and unannounced.
I reached for the barn door, angling myself back as I walked it open. When no one jumped out, I stepped inside, slowly searching the darkness.
Only to be met with the hard jab of a gun’s barrel against my back.
“Keep your hands up,” a familiar voice said. “Back up nice and slow—”
Recognition lit through me, surging until I thought my heart might explode. Somehow, I managed to turn my head to look back at him.
“Christ!” Beneath his beard, his face paled. He lowered the shotgun. “I could have killed you! You about scared the life out of me—”
I launched myself forward, and threw my arms around Liam’s neck.
Three Years Ago
WE BEAT THE SUNRISE TO Blackstone, a sleepy little town that had yet to wake up from the country’s financial slump. Nature seemed to have overtaken a number of the neighborhoods we’d driven through, looking for the mural that was mentioned in Liam and Ruby’s coded message.
“All right,” Chubs muttered. “This is getting ridiculous….”
Back in the Betty days, we used to relish mornings like these, where our chances of being seen and reported dwindled enough for us to find a place to park and rest for a few hours. But it seemed to be having the opposite effect on Chubs. He shook his head at each abandoned house, sighed at the potholes we hit. It was clear that what I saw as a blessing, he saw as unfinished work.
There’s so much left to do. The more I thought about it, the heavier the realization sat in me. It seemed insurmountable; how many roads, how many neighborhoods, were exactly like this one? How were we ever going to get to them all in our lifetime?
“There—” I said, pointing. There was a small road sign barely hanging on to its post. It was twisted and bowed backward, but still readable. “We have to go right to find ‘Historic Main Street.’ That sounds promising.”
For all those hours we’d spent driving in circles, once we were on the right road, we found the mural immediately. A saintly hooded figure held out both of his hands, welcoming us. Compared to the dirty brick exteriors, the paints were bright and fresh. The image seemed to glow with the sheen of the drizzle on this overcast day.
A few cars were parked in front of the shops along the street. They had their choice of a grocery store, a pharmacy, and…
“There’s the coffee shop.” Chubs pointed to it. “All right, they said what again?”
“We’re supposed to write a name on the wall and leave a rock?” I said, reading from the sheet again. “And then they want us to go in and buy tea.”
He looked at me. “Why tea?”
“That’s the part you find strange?” I asked. “Do you have anything to write with?”
We searched the car, eventually turning up an old pen in the center console. After looking up and down the street to make sure no one was watching, we got out and walked over to the mural. Cold air bit at me as I stared up at the towering image.
“This is ridiculous,” Chubs muttered, trying to scratch his name onto one of the painted bricks. It was so faint, I didn’t even bother trying to write my own when he handed the pen to me.
I told him before that this wasn’t a scavenger hunt, and I still believed that. Clearly, the address wasn’t going to suddenly flash across the wall because we’d completed the mysterious steps. If anything, the steps probably didn’t matter as much as being seen attempting them did. Someone nearby must have been keeping an eye on this spot. If they didn’t have the address, then maybe they were notifying Liam and Ruby we were here, and were ready to be picked up?
“He should have just given us a stupid address,” Chubs said. “I feel insane doing this. Come on, let’s go back to the car—”
“Wait,” I said, searching the ground nearby. “The rock—”
I picked up a broken chunk of brick, turning back toward the mural. But that had been the end of our instructions. With no other place to really put it, I set it do
wn against the wall, just under the painted figure’s feet.
“This is ridiculous,” Chubs said again, stuffing his hands into his pockets.
“You need to go buy tea,” I said. “Remember?”
I wanted to go in with him, but I also didn’t want the questions or looks I’d get from the others, especially if there was a chance that it would spook Liam and Ruby.
Chubs sighed, but started to trudge across the slushy street anyway.
“Hang on,” I told him. He let me pull his hat down a little more and adjust his scarf so that it covered his identification pin. I took his glasses off too, just for good measure. I didn’t think he’d even been photographed without a pair.
Chubs gave me a slightly unfocused, but definitely irritated, look.
“Just this once,” I said.
Waiting for him in the car was pure torture. When Chubs finally appeared again, two steaming cups in his hands, he looked even unhappier than before.
“Nothing?” I asked.
He passed me my usual hot chocolate. “After making incredibly creepy eye contact with everyone in that café, I can only assume that they’re either going to show up, or the local police will beat them to it—ah, shoot—”
Hot water from the tea spilled down his front. Chubs started to blot the stains with a napkin. The cup tilted dangerously again.
“Give me that,” I said.
As he passed it over, the protective sleeve slipped down.
I set my own drink aside, sliding the sleeve off completely. I turned the cup so he could see the address scribbled there.
Chubs leaned back against his seat, letting the napkin fall to the floor.
“All right,” he said. “Let me see the map again.”
In the end, the address didn’t even lead us to a house. It took us down a small back road and onto a cleared lot of land. I would have picked it out as the address even if I hadn’t seen the numbers spray-painted onto the tree at the edge of the road, or the red truck parked just out of sight.
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