Stealing Liberty

by Jennifer Froelich

  I peer through the truck’s dusty windshield, searching for movement or light. Any signs of life. There are none. The town seems truly abandoned. Nothing’s left but dilapidated storefronts and derelict homes. Even the transport recharging stations are thick with weeds and neglect.

  The darkness of Main Street makes the lights at the outpost seem that much brighter, glowing from the other side of town. I don’t drive straight there, but stop a block short, turning onto a side road where I park the truck under a large tree. As soon as I switch off the engine everything becomes so quiet I can hear blood pounding in my ears, the engine settling under the hood.

  I twist from left to right. Where are the others? They should have beaten us to Battle Mountain. I try to remember what Paisley told us about the outpost.

  “Satellite feeds show it’s not well lit. Two security cameras focus on the loading docks. We’ll have to watch the Sentribot towers, though.”

  “How many?”

  “Two.”

  “And officers?”

  “Again, two.”

  “Will our com links come back on when we get there?”

  “No. The outpost is considered a secure government facility. No com towers in the area.”

  “What about drones?”

  “It’s a risk,” Paisley said. “We sure can’t stay long.”

  “When we get off the train, we’ll find a hiding place in town,” Oliver told me and Adam. “Just find a dark place to park the truck and let us find you.”

  That’s what I’ve done, but neither Paisley nor Oliver will be here, will they?

  And Reed?

  I check Adam’s bandage, thinking it will help me push anxious thoughts away. It doesn’t work. I close my eyes and I’m back in the shed, stupidly kissing Reed.

  What if I never see him again?

  I can’t stand the confines of the truck cab a minute longer, so I ease open the door and climb out. Adam doesn’t stir.

  I walk around to the back of the truck and roll up the door. The crate is just as we left it, despite the bad roads. I climb inside and put my hand on it, as if it’s some kind of good luck charm.

  Maybe it is.

  “Riley?”

  The whisper comes from behind a tree. Reed!

  I turn around. “Finally! What took you so long?”

  He just stares at me with this stupid expression on his face.

  Xoey comes out of hiding next. She’s still wearing her dress, which is covered in dirt and torn in several places. I jump down and hug her, imagining we must look like a prom-gone-wrong movie.

  “Sam?”

  He comes out slowly, covered in dirt, but cradling something in his arms.

  “Is that?” I step closer. “Is that one of your kittens?”

  Sam nods.

  “How…? Never mind.”

  “We need to get going,” Reed says.

  “Yes. Adam was shot as we drove away.”

  “What?”

  “Is he—”

  “I patched him up with stuff in the first aid kit, but he needs real medical attention. Any idea how far we’re going?”

  Reed turns to Xoey.

  “No. But the sooner we start, the better.”

  The sound of the truck door slamming makes me jump. I turn and see Adam walking toward us, one hand on the side of the truck to steady himself as he focuses on each of us in turn.

  “Adam, you shouldn’t—”

  “Where’s Oliver?” he says.

  Then he passes out.

  Chapter 49

  Adam

  * * *

  I wake up in the dark. Sweating. Shaking from the cold. I can’t see anything. The truck bed hurts, pressing into my back as we bounce over rough roads. I groan.

  Riley touches my forehead. “Shh. Go back to sleep.”

  I shake my head, try to raise up on one elbow. Searing pain rips through my shoulder. My gut twists. I drop back to the floor.

  “He’s going to be sick again,” Riley says.

  “Gross.” It’s Sam. I hear him scoot away.

  Bile rises to my throat. Riley helps me flip on my side just in time to throw up. My eyes are adjusting to the darkness. I’m lying near the back of the truck. The rolling door is open just a few centimeters, letting in the cold air, letting out my sick. When I lie back down, I can make out the shape of the large yellow crate tied down in the middle of the bed. Riley wipes my face with the edge of my shirt.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “Don’t be. We’ll be there soon.”

  “Where’s Oliver?”

  It’s the same question I asked back in Battle Mountain right before I passed out. Riley doesn’t answer. She doesn’t have to. I know Oliver didn’t make the train.

  I fall asleep then wake again with a start. Nothing has changed. We are still bouncing along the road. I still hurt all over. Oliver is still stuck at Windmill Bay and it’s still my fault.

  I close my eyes and imagine Oliver running for the train. I see the Secret Service catching up with him, tackling him to the ground. I see them drag him away, just like my father.

  I wasn’t there to see any of it, but now it’s all I see. Every time I close my eyes.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  Since Saturday morning, I have only been able to see one thing. Riley kissing Reed. Her enemy. The guy she attacked on his first day at the House. The guy who got her sister locked up, her parents arrested.

  I have never hated him more.

  So I sent Riley to the tunnels with one dark idea in mind. Isolate Reed. I knew it would take her seven minutes to get to the depot basement, another seven to come back. Five more for whatever problems might stop them along the way, another five to get from the shed to the service garage. Twenty-four minutes. Plenty of time.

  I waited. Watched. Xoey with the president. Kino with Reed. When he took off toward the tackle field, I waited some more. The band kept playing. Kino kept talking to the president.

  Would she turn around, scan the crowd? Notice Sam was gone?

  The possibility got to me. I decided not to wait any more.

  “Director Kino?”

  “Yes?”

  She stared to my left and my right, even right through me before settling on my face. I knew why she seemed so puzzled. Kino loves dragging students into her office. Making them squirm or squeal. Bend them for purpose or pleasure. But she’s never called me. I’ve been to her office twice. Both times with Reed. Seems I only matter in the context of other people. To Kino, I’m all but invisible.

  “What do you want?”

  My hands shook. I put it down to nerves. Now I know it was shame.

  “It’s Reed Paine. He lied to you. He’s been lying to you all along.”

  I told her everything. At least everything incriminating Reed and none of the rest of us. “Reed was the one who set fire to Zak’s body,” I said last of all, picturing him there with Riley. “He raised the American flag.”

  For a second, I thought she was going to hit me. Instead she clenched her fist, looking first at the president, then at the crowd of students.

  “You sent Mr. Haak to help him, right? And Brock and Xu?” I shook my head. “It might be too late.”

  It was a risk. She grabbed my wrist, working her nails into my flesh.

  “Where is he?”

  I told her where to find him, hidden behind the bleachers. I said he would be holding a tablet loaded with codes to detonate the landmines. As soon as she made her excuses to the president and headed for the tackle field, I knew it would work. She would get there just in time to see Reed with his finger on the trigger.

  I didn’t wait. I turned around, walked to the maintenance garage and got ready to set the fire.

  No way Reed would escape, but the rest of us would. Riley and I would drive away while everyone else who mattered was on the train.

  And Reed?

  He’d be fine. He’s a survivor. But with hundreds of miles between
them, he and Riley would never see each other again.

  By the time I got to the maintenance garage, Riley was waiting for me, soaking wet from the rain. We both flinched when the first land mine detonated.

  “It’s time,” she said.

  The next half hour was a blur, shadowed by pain and remorse. I didn’t see Reed at the warehouse. When Riley mentioned his name, it was all I could do to focus on driving out of there. I figured it out sometime after they moved me to the back of the truck, what Oliver must have done, taking Reed’s place. It makes sense. It’s just like Oliver.

  I close my eyes, imagining Oliver tied to the flagpole, shot in the head just like Zak.

  “My fault,” I try to say. My tongue is thick. Words won’t form.

  “Shh.” My head’s on Riley’s lap. She strokes my hair. The motion of the truck makes me feel sick again. I moan and gag, but nothing comes up.

  “Almost there,” she says. She keeps saying it, probably without knowing whether it’s true. I can’t blame her for lying to me.

  I’ve betrayed them all.

  Chapter 50

  Reed

  * * *

  I run fast, but not faster than a train.

  By the time I get back to the tracks, car thirteen is gone, carrying Sam and Xoey away from me and picking up speed. The rain keeps coming.

  I don’t waste time. Instead I lean forward, pumping my legs as the last car moves past me. My lungs are bursting. It’s not going to be enough — and then it is.

  I reach out and grab the train’s last ladder, forgetting it’s wet. My fingers slip free and I stumble, almost falling on the tracks. But I can’t give up, so I run even faster. Reach out, grab the ladder, grip it tight. Using the rest of my strength, I pull myself up, scrambling to find my footing on the slippery rung. My heart beats faster than the wheels turning along the track.

  I turn back and see Jay at the edge of the train yard, watching me. I offer him a short salute. He returns it.

  I owe him one.

  I start climbing to the top of the train. I’ve seen this done in a ton of old movies, but it can’t be as easy as it looks.

  It’s not. Especially in the rain.

  There’s a grate running along the center of the roof, put there just for walking. But as soon as I try to stand on it, the wind whips around me, pulling on my wet clothes. I almost topple over the side. There’s only one option if I want to reach Xoey and Sam in one piece. I have to crawl.

  It’s miserable, moving centimeter by centimeter, the rough texture of the grate digging into my knees while the wind spits cold rain in my face. I can’t see what I’m doing, and it takes an eternity to reach the other end of the car.

  Now what do I do?

  Sit and examine my options. The next car is less than a meter away, but whenever I look down and see the ground speeding by below, I imagine falling through. Being trampled by the train. If it wasn’t raining, I would jump across. Instead, I take the cautious route — climbing down the ladder and stepping across to the next car’s bumper before climbing the next one.

  Then I do it all over again.

  By the time I reach car thirteen, I am drenched to the bone and shaking from exertion and cold. When I climb down the last side ladder, I am beyond irritated to find the car door closed.

  I bang on the side. “Hey! Open up!”

  Seconds pass, then Xoey tugs it open.

  “Reed! Thank God!”

  “Out of the way.” My teeth chatter as I swing myself through and collapse in a puddle on the floor. Xoey stays at the edge of the car, her face screwed up against the wind. It takes me a minute to realize she’s searching for Oliver.

  “I’m sorry.” I push myself onto my knees. “He didn’t make it.”

  For a minute she doesn’t say anything. She just stands there, letting rain pelt her in the face. Finally she pulls the door closed.

  There are no lights inside the car, but Xoey finds me in the dark anyway and helps me move to a corner where she and Sam have set up camp.

  “Here.” She pushes something into my hands. “It’s a blanket meant for wrapping freight.”

  “Thanks.”

  I shed my wet clothes in the darkness and drape them over the closest crate before wrapping up in the blanket. Then I hear a kitten mewling.

  “Shh, Grace,” Sam says softly. “It’s all right.”

  “You brought a cat?”

  “Yes.” There’s an edge of defensiveness to Xoey’s voice. “She was just sitting there by the shed when I left the dance and I thought…well, Sam loves her. And she was so quiet once I wrapped her up in my old uniform…”

  I have no real argument, so I say nothing, just lower myself to the floor. For the next hour we sit in silence, listening to the train rumble and the wind howl. It feels strange to do nothing — nothing but wait until the train reaches Battle Mountain. I try not to think about Riley and Adam — whether they made it through the gate okay. Whether they escaped with the Liberty Bell.

  I try harder not to think about Oliver and Paisley.

  Xoey sniffs in the darkness. She’s crying, I realize. I reach out and find her hand.

  “We couldn’t have done it without them,” I say softly.

  She doesn’t respond. I fill in the silence with my doubts. Did we make it out with the Bell? I don’t know, but at least Sam is safe, dozing across from me with Grace purring in his arms.

  Eventually Xoey heaves a sigh. “That’s what Oliver always did, right? Make sure everyone else was okay.”

  “Yes. It’s why he came to Windmill Bay in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I tell her everything. How Oliver was recruited by the Resistance back in Chicago, how they trained him before positioning him to get picked up by the UDR and transferred to Windmill Bay. All to get close to Sam. To keep him safe.

  “I don’t know much more.”

  “It started with his dad,” Xoey says slowly. “He worked for the mob, but got caught stealing. He was traded to the UDR, then Oliver was processed for reeducation just like the rest of us.”

  “You already knew?”

  “No. I’m just piecing it together. What he told me. What he told you.”

  “He’s an officer,” I say. “A spy. He’s been working deep undercover with no contact for more than a year. Not until Mr. Patrick figured out who he was.”

  “Because Mr. Patrick is an informant of some kind, right?” Xoey says. “It makes so much sense now.”

  “Oliver didn’t have time to tell me more. Sam was his primary objective. His job was to keep him safe until…” I stop, my mind tracking backward through my own past, connecting dots.

  “Until what?”

  “Until someone with the Resistance figured out where he was — where Windmill Bay was — so they could break him out.” I stare through the darkness, seeing my parents at the dinner table, fighting about something important. Something to do with Windmill Bay.

  “Xoey,” I say slowly. “I think my parents were part of the plan to rescue Sam. I think it all started when that weird old man from church came to our house late one night and asked Dad for help.”

  “Then all those plans intersected at the school. All things working together for good. For a Good purpose.”

  “What?”

  “Something from the Bible my mom used to say. ‘All things work together for good for those who love God.’ Seems fitting, doesn’t it?”

  It does. Suddenly there’s a lump in my throat. I want to get up, to run away, even though I’m exhausted — anything to avoid my guilt, which seems to expand in the darkness. All the mistakes I’ve made — all the selfish decisions. But there’s nowhere to go.

  “I’m not like you, Xoey,” I say thickly. “I’ve never had your kind of faith.”

  “What kind?”

  “The real kind! The kind that…well, quotes scripture. Trusts God.”

  “Reed…”

  “I have so many doubts. I ho
ld grudges. I never pray. I’m angry—”

  “Just stop it.” She sounds weary. Angry too, which surprises me. “You think my faith is perfect? That I don’t have doubts? You think you’re angry? I am angry. All the time!”

  For a minute, I can’t think of anything to say. “It doesn’t show.”

  She laughs but it’s not a happy sound. “We just figured out your father died doing something good to help Sam — a boy he didn’t even know. You know what my father did? He turned us in. Me and my mom. He turned us in for doing…what? Joining the Resistance? Aiding the enemy? No. For going to church! For getting together and praying with other believers. You think I’m not angry? You think I’m above holding a grudge?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”

  “I spend half my prayers trying to figure out whether I even want to forgive my father,” Xoey says. “That’s what kind of faith I have, Reed. The broken kind.”

  I don’t know what to say. After a bit of silence, I try anyway. “But it’s still faith. Maybe forgiveness doesn’t come all at once. Maybe it has to happen a little at a time. Until we can let go.”

  By the time I’m done talking, I realize I’m not just thinking about Xoey and her father. I’m hoping it’s true for Riley and me too.

  I must have fallen asleep because the feeling of the train slowing down wakes me up. Xoey’s already at the door, pushing it open just a crack so we can see what we’re up against. It’s not raining anymore, but it’s windy. The full moon is visible between the clouds, lighting up the night. By the time the train pulls to a stop, I’ve put my damp clothes back on and Xoey has wrestled the cat back into her uniform.

  Getting off the train in Battle Mountain turns out to be the easiest part of our night. We stop well down the line, conveniently around a curve so no one can see us from the loading dock, not even in the bright moonlight. We jump down and run low, heading straight for a chain link fence separating the track from the desert. I check it for voltage, but it’s not charged. There’s nothing to protect out here in the middle of nowhere. It’s not in good shape, either, sagging between the posts — evidence of years of wind tugging it back and forth.