by Melanie Tays
I keep my footfalls slow and quiet until I’m a safe distance away, and then I take off at a full run. I reach our hiding-place amid the trees in minutes. The canopy of leaves blocks all the light. Without a torch, I’m plunged into complete blackness. I feel for the rough tree trunks, moving slowly and methodically from one to the next.
Soon, my efforts are rewarded with the furry sensation of moss-covered bark. I drop to my knees and begin groping in the dirt and twigs to find the place where Vander dug the hole. My fingers find the thick tree roots, and I know I’m close. I crawl forward a few feet and feel for the recently turned soil. When I find it, I thrust both hands in, wanting to retrieve the little device as quickly as possible. I don’t want to risk missing this opportunity and be forced to wait another twelve hours to send the signal.
Handful after handful of dirt comes up with nothing but moist, rocky soil, and I’m beginning to fear that someone else had their own plans and beat me here tonight, but then my hands finally hit on something hard and smooth.
I grasp the round ball and start to pull it up when suddenly my wrists are caught and bound in some kind of trap. The device tumbles from my grasp as the cord tightens like a vise, slapping my hands together. Before I can react at all, I’m being yanked by my bound wrists. The upward force brings me to my feet, stopping only when my arms are held firmly above my head and nothing but the tips of my toes graze the ground.
Chapter 13
It all happens so fast, I don’t even have time to cry out before it’s over, and I’m completely trapped.
“Who’s there?” I whisper. “Let me down.” I listen, but the only sound is that of chirping crickets and my pulse pounding in my head. I feel the seconds slipping away like water through a crack. I have to get free and activate the transmitter before it’s too late.
“Let me down!” I say again, louder this time.
On the other side of the wide tree, a torch flares to life.
“Well, well. Look what we have here,” Vander says, stepping from behind the thick, mossy trunk. “I knew you were up to something. I was just afraid I’d have to sit out here shivering all night before you made your move, so thanks for not waiting around.”
“I’m up to something? Look who’s talking. Did you wait a whole hour after we left to come back and rig up this little trap?” I accuse bitterly. I writhe, trying to pull free of the restraints, but all I manage to do is teeter clumsily from side to side. My shoulders feel like they’re being ripped from their sockets.
Vander stays rooted in place, unmoved by my pleas. In fact, he appears to be enjoying my helpless struggle.
“Vander!”
“I keep trying to tell you, we’re on the same side here. I’m not going to let anything prevent that barrier from coming down. After everything you told me about your brother—and, of course, your little obsession with Eason—I’m guessing you’re here for the same reason,” he says. “So why did you lie to me?”
“I just wanted to make sure the transmitter was safe. I still plan to bring down the barrier tomorrow, just like we agreed.” I’m not entirely sure why I’m continuing this charade, but now isn’t the time for me to work out whether or not to change tactics, so I just keep to the same story.
Vander approaches—close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body radiating through the cool night air. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you’re a rotten actress,” he mutters in my ear. “You were going to do it tonight at midnight. You were going to leave me out entirely and let me find out that the Safe Dome was down in the morning when chaos breaks out. But by then, it might be too late to get to the people we care about. We have to reach them before Traeger has a chance to react. He’s not going to give up without a fight.”
That startles me, and I stop fighting against my restraints. I was so worried about the people I’m dedicated to protecting, it didn’t occur to me that Vander might have people of his own—people he loves, who need him in some way I’m not aware of. Hot shame warms my face.
“What makes you think I can activate it at midnight?” I ask, subdued.
“I read the note,” he says, emphasizing each word.
“What? When? How?” I stammer.
“Before you did. While you were off riding horses with Cresta, I went back to the Supply Barn to see what was in that box. It was tricky getting into it without breaking it, but I figured it out.”
“What about Fox?” I ask.
“I told him that the fields needed more seeds, and that took care of him for half an hour. He wasn’t even upset when he came back, lugging a huge bag of seeds which it turned out no one needed after all.”
“So why didn’t you just keep the note and transmitter for yourself?” I ask, stunned.
He reaches above my head. With one quick tug, he releases my hands, and I collapse to the ground.
I roll my shoulders, and they protest painfully, but I have full movement, so I figure whatever is wrong will resolve itself soon enough. You learn in the Smoke the difference between the kind of injury that will work itself out and the kind that needs serious medical attention. Everyone has experienced both with some regularity. This ache feels more like the fell-off-a-ladder variety than the arm-got-crushed-in-the-recycle-sorter type.
“Because I wanted you to trust me, and I honestly believed I could trust you,” he says. The betrayal in his voice is raw and visceral. His words stab at me like a dagger.
“Why didn’t you say something earlier tonight?” I mutter, ashamed.
He shrugs. “I guess I was waiting to see how far you’d take this. I couldn’t really believe that you’d just cut me out after all your talk the other day about being in this together, and how all we have is each other.”
My face burns as he throws my words back at me. I’ve been so busy not trusting anyone that I’ve become the least trustworthy of all, it seems. A soft prickling sensation tickles my eyes as tears start to well up.
But then he adds, “That’s more my style, not yours.”
I laugh. “Good point. No more secrets. We are in this together,” I promise. It’s not as hard to say and to actually mean as I’d expected. Honestly, I do trust Vander, even if I still don’t understand why he’s so dedicated to this mission. “It’s almost midnight. Let’s end this,” I say, getting to my feet.
He pulls a watch from his pocket to check the time. He must have taken one from the Supply Barn when he realized we’d need to know what time to activate the transmitter. I wish I’d thought of that.
“How much time do we have?” I ask.
“Eight minutes.”
“Let’s get closer to The City,” I say. “I want to see the barrier disintegrate with my own eyes.”
“We should get in and warn as many people as we can tonight. People we can trust. It’ll help tomorrow go smoother, help keep the people we care about safe.”
I take off running. Vander follows close on my heels, still holding the torch to light our way. We stop at the outer edge of the ashen expanse that separates the forest from The City. The moonlight glistens off the golden dome, making it look like an enormous gem—something prized to be protected, rather than the prison it has become.
“Okay, where’s the transmitter?” I ask.
“Huh? I thought you had it,” Vander says.
My eyes widen, and I inhale sharply. I thought he picked it up. I can feel a total meltdown coming on as images of Whyle and Eason—damaged and dying—assault me. Have we seriously lost the most precious object on the planet? What If we can’t find it now?
But then he grins and pulls it from his pocket.
“Not funny,” I mutter, pressing my palm to my chest as though that might calm my racing heart and rattled nerves.
“Do you want to do the honors?” he asks, offering it to me.
I’m surprised at the gesture. “Sure,” I say, eagerly accepting it. Every cell in my body begins to tingle in anticipation.
“One-and-a-half minutes,” Vander
announces. Then he whispers, more to himself than to me, “This has to work. Time is running out.” I think that maybe he’s talking about Whyle, or even Eason, but then he adds, “And it’s all my fault.” His face pales to a translucent shade of white, reflecting the moonlight in ghostly ways.
I want to ask what he means, but he’s right about one thing: this has to work. That means we can’t let anything distract us from activating the transmitter at exactly the right moment, which is less than one minute away. I grasp the small silver orb firmly, ready to compress it together on Vander’s signal.
He begins a countdown. “Twenty seconds…fifteen…ten…five…three...two…one.”
My hand clamps down, pressing the two halves into a perfect sphere. The device emits a soft chime, and a yellow light glows from the center of the ball.
And nothing happens.
“No!” I exclaim.
I release the ball, and the two halves instantly pop apart, extinguishing the light. Perhaps the watch was wrong. We can’t have missed it. Twelve hours is a long time to wait with the fate of the people we love hanging in the balance. Unable to accept defeat, I compress the ball, again eliciting the return of the chime and light.
And nothing.
“Are you sure you did it right?” Vander accuses me.
“Yes,” I hiss.
“Give it to me,” he demands, a hint of hysteria in his tone.
Before he can wrestle it away from me, I clamp down on the device in one last frantic attempt. Again we hear the chime, and then see the faint glow.
And the golden glint of the Safe Dome flickers once—twice—and disappears.
Chapter 14
We both stand there for a moment, stunned. It’s what we hoped for, and yet it seems impossible. In the dead of night, with two lone witnesses, the Safe Dome has ceased to be.
“It worked,” Vander mutters in disbelief. He drops the torch he carries in the ash at his feet, letting it sputter out. He gathers me up in an enormous hug, lifting me from the ground and spinning me in circles until we are both laughing and so dizzy that we can hardly stand.
“Shhh,” I hush him, trying to regain my composure. “We don’t want to attract the attention of Enforcers before we even set foot in The City.”
He nods, taking a few deep breaths to quiet the excitement that has so clearly overtaken him. “Should we go in together?” he whispers.
“What do you think is going to happen when people realize?” I say. “Do you really think they’ll panic? And what will Traeger do?”
“He’ll probably round up everyone who had anything to do with this. We have to get to our families and make sure they get out right away.”
A shiver runs down my spine. I turn back to The City. A distant orange glow lights up the dreary streets. “Vander, look. The Wall of Fire is still burning,” I say, pointing to the shifting flames. Of course, it’s not really burning. It’s just synthetic fire on top of a barrier field, but it’s impenetrable nonetheless. “The people in the Flame will be trapped.”
“The tunnels,” says Vander.
“Of course!”
We squint into the distance, and I force myself not to think about what I might be running into. I feel certain that whatever I am about to face will make the Burning and my days in the Ash feel like the things of Whyle’s fairy tale bedtime stories in comparison.
My heart thuds in my chest as I approach The City, now exposed for the first time. Each step we take creates plumes of ash and leaves a trail in our wake. I’ve only been gone for three days, but somehow it feels as though I’m entering a completely foreign land.
The farm is located about a quarter of the way around The City from where we exited through the gateway. That’s good because my family lives on this side of the Smoke, so I’ll be able to reach them quickly.
It’s easy to tell where the Ash ended and the Safe Dome began. A clear line—peppered ash on one side and paved cement on the other—delineates the boundary of The City. We stop right at the edge; a heady sense of what we have just done hangs in the air between us. This changes everything we have ever known.
There is no going back to the way life has always been—not for us, not for anyone.
Standing at the edge of The City, we have a clear view of the Smoke—the soiled streets and dilapidated buildings. It’s far past curfew, so there’s no one in sight. Presumably, there are Enforcers still patrolling, but I have no idea how many or where they would be. All is quiet. I suppose it is possible that no one has noticed the change. Hours may pass before the situation becomes clear. I wonder what will be the first clue—the twinkling stars or the rising sun.
We left The City together, and it only seems right that we re-enter the same way. Vander is clearly thinking the same thing, because he’s the one who reaches for my hand this time. We share a glance, inhale a breath, and then we take a single step forward.
And we slam face-first into an invisible barrier.
“Blazes!” I exclaim, far too loud.
“No!” Vander yells, not even trying to keep his voice low.
We both reach out to what appears to be open air, but our hands feel along the outside of the Safe Dome. It’s invisible now, but as strong as ever.
“How can it still be there?” I demand.
“Maybe that thing is defective,” Vander says. “Or maybe Eason screwed up.”
I worry that Traeger got some information out of Eason and then dismantled the transmitter or receiver inside The City. But if that were true, would sending a signal from here have done anything at all?
Regardless, I don’t like him blaming this on Eason. “Clearly something happened. Maybe we just have to try again. At least we can see into The City now,” I say, trying to remain positive and assuage my own growing fears.
“What good does that do?” he demands.
I don’t have an answer for that. “Listen, there’s nothing more we can do right now. We’ll send the signal again tomorrow at noon. That will finish the job.” I have no idea if that’s actually how these things work, but it’s the best idea I’ve got, and we both need some kind of hope to cling to.
“So what do we do in the meantime?” he asks, unable to come up with a better plan of his own. “Head back to the farm and act like nothing happened?”
“As soon as everyone wakes up, at least one person is going to realize that isn’t true and have a pretty clear idea of what’s actually going on,” I point out.
“True, but then maybe Bretton can help us figure this out.”
“Eason said not to trust anyone,” I remind him.
“All right, fine,” Vander agrees. “Let’s get a good distance from the farm, and we can find a place to hunker down for the night.”
“Agreed.”
The torch Vander dropped in the ash has burned out, so we travel by moonlight now. Even so, we return to the trees so that we won’t leave a trail of footprints in the ash to give us away if anyone should come looking for us. It’s slower going this way, but it’s safer.
“Let’s go back to the gateway,” I suggest after a while. Fortunately, we’re already headed in the right direction. “Clearly the barrier field was affected by the signal. Maybe if the rest of the dome is transparent, the gateway is actually open.”
“That’s true,” Vander says, picking up his pace. “I think we’re almost there.”
Soon we’re both running, fueled by a hope that we’ll still reach our goal tonight. Everything here looks so similar, and I start to worry that we won’t even recognize the gateway when we reach it, now that it’s transparent. But after another ten minutes or so, there’s a noticeable break in the dome’s invisibility. A shimmering arch stands right in front of the dark, abandoned-looking building that led us here. The space beneath the archway is only partially translucent, with a pearlescent, shifting sheen.
I think how sad it is that we spent so many hours lost in the forest that first day, when the gateway and the farm are an easy half-ho
ur walk from each other if you know where you’re going.
“You first,” I say, not because I’m scared of entering The City but rather terrified of discovering that we’re still locked out.
“Okay,” he agrees. He walks forward, holding his hands out to test the gateway. When his palms touch the shimmering barrier field, they meet solid opposition. “No!” he gasps, then takes a step back and rams his body into the gateway, slamming into it with a thud.
This is what I feared, but I can’t resist the need to try for myself. It’s no use. The barrier field may have been affected, but it’s still just as powerful a sentinel as ever—keeping watch and protecting The City from invasion, even as Traeger’s tentacles coil around their throats.
We’re disappointed, but not entirely surprised by this turn of events. We’ll just have to stick to our previous plan. We’ll find a place to wait out the morning and send the signal again at noon. Hopefully, that will finish off the Safe Dome.
All my life, I’ve lived under a mandatory ten o’clock curfew—enforced at blaster point—so I’ve never once been up this late before. The adrenaline that has carried me through the night is rapidly wearing off and leaving a crushing fatigue in its wake. My eyelids droop as though they have weights attached to them.
We retreat to the shelter of the trees. Once we’re out of sight, I happily nestle down on the cushion of fallen leaves at my feet, ready to drift into dreams. Now that we aren’t moving, I notice how cool the night air is. Despite my overwhelming exhaustion—or maybe because of it—I begin to shiver violently.
Soon, Vander pulls me up enough to slip his arms around me. He radiates warmth as he clutches me to his chest. I turn my head to look at him, but can’t see his face in the dark.
I feel his shoulders tense and release in a shrug. “You looked like you were going to shiver to death before morning,” he says in a tone that tells me I shouldn’t read too much into his kind gesture.