Racing down a few more flights, I shove through the door to the thirtieth floor. I dive for the elevator buttons, punching the down arrow.
This floor has no air-conditioning; the air is torrid and stale. Wallpaper peels off the walls, exposing glue that looks like hardened mucus.
Hearing a ding, I pull out the Taser, holding my breath, as the elevator to my right opens.
It’s empty.
I leap in and hit LEVEL 1. Waiting for the elevator to move, I’m sure time has stopped. Finally, after what feels like two lifetimes, the doors slide shut and I begin to descend.
What if the electricity is cut? Can the Ashers trap me in here? I feel faint at the thought. I hear another ding; then the doors open and I find myself on the ground floor.
No door guards wait here—only cameras, pointing out. The rich don’t expect their trouble to come from the inside. I dash through the lobby, pushing into the giant revolving door and out again, and then I run like demons are grabbing at my heels.
SIXTEEN
MADISON IS A LARGE, BUSY AVENUE, LANES jammed with bikes, buses, and taxis all trying to head north. As I head south, the brutal roughness of the sidewalk scrapes my bare feet, and I can only pray that I don’t step on something sharp or nasty. I don’t have time to be cautious. I have to keep sprinting.
I fly across 74th Street. Pedestrians stare at me as I charge by, but no one stops me. Where am I going? I want to go home. I want to run to my parents: to tell them what’s happened, to hear the soothing words of my father. But I can’t. I’ve shamed him. I ran away from my fiancé’s family. I assaulted my fiancé. No one will care what they did to me. All that will matter is my behavior toward them.
My mother will turn me back over to the Ashers, rather than dishonor our family publicly.
The same will be true of all my relatives—my aunties, Grandma and Grandpa Silna. No one will give me safe harbor now.
I reach 72nd Street, stopping to let traffic cross in front of me. My lungs scream. I can’t catch my breath. I wait with a large group of pedestrians—women in their cloaks and veils, like dark ghosts, and men with impatient frowns. A Teacher stands tall and proud in his red cloak, the Book resting in the crook of his arm. A little boy standing with his mother gapes at my naked feet.
I look behind me for signs of Mr. Asher or his guard, but I can’t see much beyond the mass of people. The light changes. I’m moving with the crowd, when, without warning, a piercing alarm fills the air and everyone stops walking, looking around for the source. It’s deafeningly loud, and the little boy starts to cry. I cover my ears, but the siren only gets worse. With horror, I realize why.
The alarm is coming from me.
The diamond cuff on my wrist is emitting an ear-splitting scream.
I pull at the bracelet, desperate to get it off, but I can’t unlock it, and it’s too small to slip over my hand. As they realize the source of the screeching, the people around me begin to back away.
Just like they did in Union Square. Right before the stoning.
My stomach seizes as if I might be sick. I keep trying to unlock the cuff, hands shaking, but it’s no use. I look up at the women around me. “Please. Please help me.”
They turn their heads away.
I can’t just stand here. I should keep running. But, just as the thought passes through my head, a hand lands on my shoulder. I turn to find a Twitcher standing behind me, his helmet shield an inch from my face. I can’t be sure whether he’s speaking to me or not; I hear nothing but the siren. He twists my arm behind my back, and pain shoots up my shoulder.
A second Twitcher appears. He grabs my other arm and places a thin metal reed into a hole in the side of the diamond bracelet, abruptly stopping the alarm. After seeming to exhale all at once, the people around us start walking down the sidewalk again.
The first Twitcher stands facing me on the sidewalk, and I see his Senscan move up and down. Instead of turning green, the scanner’s light flashes red. The Twitcher says, “Seems we’ve caught a bride mid-flight.”
The other snickers. “Not a Deserter, then. A ‘Dreader.’”
They both laugh. “Why are women so dramatic?” Twitcher Number One asks, sounding tired. “Let’s take her to the Lyceum. The Teachers can have a nice ‘chat’ with her until Mr. Asher wants to pick her up.”
After the other one nods, they start to pull me uptown. I resist, relaxing my body into dead weight, but the one on my left twists my arm again until I’m forced to stand and walk normally.
The Lyceum is on 80th and Fifth, and it will be full of hundreds of Teachers, each of them carrying a Taser cane. I don’t want to “chat” with any of them. I have to escape before we get there. I still have the Taser rod in my pocket, but there’s no way to reach it with my hand behind my back. Plus, how can I take down two Twitchers?
Dekker will be at the Lyceum. What if he sees me? The chances are slim—the Lyceum is huge—but if he does, I wonder what he’ll do. Will he acknowledge me? He’ll probably escape the room as quickly as possible. If only I could get him alone, tell him everything that’s happened, maybe I could make him understand. Maybe he could help me escape. . . .
I stumble, and the Twitcher to my right jerks me forward. We pass 74th—only six blocks left. I can’t go back to the Ashers’. I can’t. The Tunnel would be better. I’d rather be in a place that acknowledges that it’s a prison than with a family that pretends it’s something else.
75th Street comes and goes. I have five blocks to think of something. What can I do that will make these Twitchers so angry that they’ll turn around and take me to the Tunnel, instead of the Lyceum? Speak against the Prophet? Confess some horrible sin? But if I admit to a crime they consider reprehensible, they might execute me on the spot. How is one to know?
I open my mouth, ready to confess that I once touched a boy’s hand and spoke to him without my family’s permission, when there, standing on the sidewalk in front of us, is the boy himself: Juda.
I’m sure I’m hallucinating, like when I was in the bathtub. But then he speaks.
“Peace,” he says to the Twitchers, who want to keep walking but stop because Juda has blocked our path.
They respond, “Peace.”
Juda doesn’t look like a man on the run. Instead, he looks exactly like he did when he arrived at my Offering. He’s wearing his uniform, hair perfectly combed, hands held calmly at his sides. Eyeing me, he says, “This is the fiancée of my employer, Damon Asher. We’ve been searching for her all day. I have instructions to return her to his home immediately.”
The Twitcher on my left says, “When a chip is activated, it’s protocol to take the runaway to the nearest Teachers for penance.”
Juda doesn’t flinch. “You know as well as I do that she could easily get held up in the system, and it could take days, if not weeks, for her to atone and be returned to the family. Damon’s father, Mr. Maxwell Asher, is Uncle Ruho’s chief energy engineer. He would be very displeased if this delay were to occur. And it would be very unfortunate if your names were in the system as being the cause of such a holdup, don’t you agree?”
A long silence follows. I try not to look at Juda. I try not to have hope.
Turning his head away for a moment as if he’s heard a sound, the Twitcher on my right seems to type on an invisible keyboard. He tells his partner, “Headquarters says there’s another graffiti leaf over on Park. I said we’d take care of it.”
The other Twitcher then does exactly what I’ve been dreading: he scans Juda. I hear the hum and watch the red light, fearing the moment when it will start to flash like it did with me. Juda stays calm, ignoring the Senscan, but I can only imagine that inside he is preparing to run.
The light turns green. I’m flabbergasted.
The Twitcher holding my right arm shoves me toward Juda, saying, “If there’s a hole in the record, you’ll be to blame, not us, Mr. Alvero.”
This is the first time I’ve heard Juda’s last name.
>
Juda says, “Thank you for your wisdom. Peace.”
“Peace,” the Twitchers say, heading east.
Saying nothing, Juda grasps my elbow and starts walking south. We don’t turn our heads. We don’t look behind us. I wait to hear the yelling—to feel the bullets slam into my back.
“Why hasn’t Mr. Asher turned you in?” I say, still stunned.
“I don’t know,” he says. When we’ve gotten a block away, we turn west. “Your word plus mine equals one and a half testimonies. He probably realizes that the Teachers would have to believe our story and not Damon’s.”
And if they only have me, my word is worth half of Damon’s.
“Damon wants revenge,” I say, lengthening my strides to keep up with him. “He’s not going to let you walk away.”
“I know. I don’t think we have long. When those Twitchers learn that I’m wanted, too, they’ll reactivate the alarm on your collar.”
My collar? My extravagant engagement gift—I should’ve known.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
“To the Fields,” he answers.
The Fields are where we grow most of our food, a big block of land in the middle of Manhattan. I’ve never been inside, but I would go anywhere Juda told me to right now. I’m so happy to see him, I think I might cry. I grab his hand, but he quickly shakes it away.
“No,” he says, a slight snarl in his voice.
I pull my hand back as if he’s bitten me, and he quickly changes his tone. Keeping his face looking forward, he says, “I’m sorry. I meant . . . we can’t attract attention.”
He’s right. I only touched him because I don’t believe this freedom will last. Any second, the Ashers or the Twitch-ers will come drag me away. I want every second with him to count.
As we approach Fifth Avenue, he says quietly, “We’re going to cross the street, and then we’ll enter the Fields at 72nd. There’s no reason for a single girl to be in there, so just go along with whatever I say.”
I nod, and we continue across the street. A huge fence lines the perimeter of the farmland, and a closed gate stands here at 72nd. A sign warns, FARMING PERSONNEL ONLY. Examining me, Juda asks, “Can you rearrange your cloak at all?”
Seeing that my cloak is spattered with blood, I pull out the fabric around my sleeves, and by crossing my arms in front of me, I’m able to cover the stain. He frowns at my bare feet, but I can’t do anything to hide them. I look like a beggar.
He approaches the side of the enormous gate, producing a card from his pocket. He slides the card into a small box I hadn’t noticed, and, after a little click, the heavy gate swings open, revealing a cornfield that reaches as far as the eye can see. I gasp, taken aback. The beauty of the waving stalks astonishes me.
Juda takes me by the shoulder, a little brusquely, leading me inside.
The corn is planted in perfect rows, evenly spaced, crisp and neat. Each stalk is over seven feet tall, and the evening light bouncing off their tassels is golden, as if there were a spotlight on each one.
The air here seems fresher and smells earthy. For a moment, I forget everything and just want to race through the dirt and run my hands across the long green leaves.
I’m thrown out of my daydream when I spot a man with a shotgun standing just inside the gate. He’s not a Twitcher. He’s wearing a soiled tunic and work pants, and he seems to have been out working in the Fields.
Juda says, “Peace,” and the man nods in return.
“What’s this?” he asks, motioning to me.
Juda smirks in an unfamiliar way. “Entertainment for the boys who’ve been harvesting in the meadow.”
The man leers at me as if he can see through my cloak. “Why doesn’t that ever happen when I’m working over there?”
“It’s all about timing, brother,” Juda says, his voice both friendly and mocking.
The man laughs bitterly, motioning for Juda to move on through.
Juda pulls me roughly ahead into one of the cornrows, and soon the stalks have engulfed us completely. The cool dirt soothes my feet and feels wonderful between my toes. When we’re out of sight of the gate man, Juda releases my arm, giving me a warm smile.
Relief trickles through me, and I start to ask him where we’re going, but he puts his finger to his lips. I look around, not seeing anyone, but if he says someone is listening, I believe him.
Instead of saying anything, I stand on tiptoe, lift my veil, and quickly kiss his lips. His eyebrows shoot up, and then a lopsided grin spreads across his face. I mouth the words “thank you.”
Nodding once, he signals for me to follow him. He heads west, straight at first and then weaving in and out of the rows, walking with purpose. I can’t imagine how he knows where he’s going. Every row looks exactly like the last. I could be lost in here for days.
After walking for about ten more minutes, he finally turns toward a clearing. When we emerge from the corn, the sun is lowering to the west. I squint at the orange glare. Wheat grows far into the distance, sloping up hills, disappearing into ravines, and turning pink in the light of the fading day.
“Wow,” I whisper, before I can stop myself.
Just then, I hear the clang of the Bell, the sound ringing across the wheat stalks and then disappearing into a thicket of woods to the north.
Tense, Juda pulls me back into the cornfield and makes me crouch down low, gesturing for me to be quiet.
No need. I’m still as stone. Men are walking through the wheat, all dressed like the gate guard but with wide-brimmed hats, and all headed in the same direction. A prayer center must be close by. We were lucky not to be walking near it.
I look at Juda. His face is a mask of concentration. On second thought, luck had nothing to do with it. He knows where he’s going. I try to relax and trust him.
After a few minutes, when the men are gone, he signals for me to stand. We head back into the clearing, toward the trees. The sun is disappearing. As we enter a thick cluster of maple trees, the night becomes darker, cooler.
Before long, I see a building—or what used to be a building. Instead of grass, I now walk on old, cracking concrete, which forms a path up to the crumbling structure. Approaching an empty window to look inside, I see a cavernous room with a stone floor, its rusted-green copper roof collapsed down the middle. Grass and ivy snake in-and-out of cracks in the stonework and up thick marble pillars. I’m astonished to see a tranquil lake visible through the columns. This must have been quite a grand place, once.
Walking to the empty doorway, I’m excited to step inside, when Juda says, “Be careful.” He points to shattered glass on the floor, and I stop dead.
Indicating my bare feet, he asks, “May I lift you?”
I try to be casual as I say, “Yes,” but I’m sure he notices my voice getting higher.
He encircles me as he did at the Ashers’ right before he kissed me. I hope he’s going to kiss me again, but instead he scoops me up into his arms and carries me across the crunchy floor.
Trying not to be disappointed, I inhale his Juda smell. He’s been on the run, but he still smells like sandalwood and soap. He walks me through the room and down two steps, until we’re at the water’s edge.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say, watching the last of the light sink into the dark lake. Thick trees rise up from both shores and bend inward, their bowing branches like hands protecting the precious water.
An odd chirping fills the air, and before I can ask him about it, Juda says, “Crickets.”
I smile, finding the sound strangely soothing.
“You need to get wet.”
“Excuse me?” Is he about to throw me in the water?
Checking the floor for glass, he places me back on the ground with great care. “Your wrist—the collar. Submerge it. It will disarm it temporarily, hopefully long enough for us to break it off.”
As soon as I understand his meaning, I kneel on the edge of the floor and stick my hand in the cold water, but soon I
realize I actually need to lie down if I want to get my arm elbow-deep. Rearranging myself, I plunge my arm in, sending ripples across the calm lake. I see the diamonds sparkling under the dark water, and I imagine them attracting little fish that will come and gnaw off the bracelet.
I’m surprised to look over and see Juda lying next to me, scooping water into his mouth.
“Is it safe?” I ask.
“They use it to water the Fields. It’s probably the cleanest reservoir in the city.”
I happily use my free hand to ladle cold, crisp water under my veil and into my mouth. Until now, I didn’t know water could be delicious. I slurp handful after handful, until Juda stands, saying, “That’s probably long enough,” pointing toward the cuff.
His eyes dart along the perimeter of the lake. Understanding he’s afraid of being seen, I stand to leave. He puts his arms out, ready to carry me again.
“I’m a bit wet,” I say.
“I know.” He smiles. “I told you to get that way.”
Picking me up, he turns back into the ruins. This time, he heads for two swinging doors on the northern side. Putting his shoulder against the right door, he pushes it open, revealing a decrepit kitchen. “This used to be a restaurant,” he says. “There are three kitchens.”
“Three?” I try to remember a restaurant next to a lake in the Primer, but I can’t think of any. This one must have been enormous.
“There are some old nails and stuff in here, so I’ll, um, just take you to the other side.”
The old kitchen has a partial roof, even less than the last room. He carries me past several rusted, decaying stoves and a huge, open refrigerator with collapsed shelves. We reach the far end and face another door. This one is solid and looks as if it’s made of thick metal.
He says, “You should be fine from here.”
No, I wish I could say. I don’t want him to put me down. He places me on my feet and I stare at him, knowing he can’t see my eyes through my veil. His uniform has a mark where my wet arm must have been, and I can see his skin through the fabric. I step in closer, wanting to touch that wet patch of skin.
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