by Kody Boye
“Yeah,” she says, hobbling forward. Her eyes are bloodshot and her lip is swollen, but otherwise, she appears fine: at least, for now, anyway.
I turn and gesture Wu toward the stairwell.
With trepidation unlike any I have ever seen, the girl walks forward—gun held before her, eyes wide with disbelief. She peers first around the corner to ensure that no one is in the attached office, then down the stairs to double-check that there is no guard before saying, “It’s clear.”
“For now,” Ceyonne offers, coughing. She braces her hand along her abdomen and grimaces as she takes another few steps forward.
“I’ll help you,” I say, sliding my arm across her back.
She leans on me with most of her weight, which isn’t much considering the circumstances we have been in, and allows me to lead her down the stairs.
Each step we take sounds like a gun going off.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
I swear someone will hear us sooner rather than later—that someone, anyone, will come bursting through the corridor to stop us—but know that I cannot make those considerations, at least not now.
“Do you remember the way we came?” I asked, turning my eyes from Ceyonne to Wu.
Wu nods. “Yeah. I do.”
“Okay. Lead the way.”
The passage through the corridor is harrowing. Every turn is like a labyrinth, every breath a calamity waiting to draw forth a storm. I feel, instinctively, like we are being watched, but know that cannot be possible, if only because of the tumultuous happenings in the streets.
Don’t freak yourself out, I think. Everything’s going to be fine. You know it will.
But do I? Few know my status, my condition, my complete and utter regard for a human life. The fact that I was so reckless with the shock baton causes me some regret.
And Omara—
I swallow.
She was going to kill Ceyonne, I think. She might’ve even killed you.
Yet, guilt still eats at me, now that the adrenaline is gone, that the rage is dying down. I have never been so violent—at least, not without purpose—but I’d been ready to kill her if push came to shove.
Sighing, I allow Wu to lead us through the base until we come to the door outside.
“Okay,” she says, turning to face me. “This is going to be where things get rough.”
“You’re ready to shoot if you have to?” I ask.
Nodding, Wu reaches forward to take hold of the first security bar. “I don’t want to promise anything,” she says, “especially to you, Kelendra. But… I’ll do my best to make sure we’re safe.”
“Where are we headed after we get out of here?”
“The Ceres Farmlands,” I say.
Ceyonne lifts her eyes. “Why—” she starts.
“Because there’s a way out underneath the wall,” I say. “We’ll go to Daniel’s parents’ house, get some clothes, then get the hell out of the city.”
The girls simply nod in response.
“All right,” I say, turning toward the doorway. “Go.”
The next few seconds are a blur.
Wu reaches forward.
The second lock is freed.
The door is opened.
The gun comes up.
A voice begins, “What—”
A bullet is ejected from the gun in Wu’s grasp, and a SAD standing nearby falls to her feet.
Wu mercilessly executes her and then spins to fire another shot into the distance. “Come on!” she cries.
I throw Ceyonne out the door, only pausing to free the shock baton from the dead SAD agent before following Wu around the corner.
She fires another shot, then rushes forward at a breakneck pace, her bare feet slapping the asphalt as if they are immune to any physical harm.
Within moments, she is drawing up to the gate terminal and is screaming at us to hurry.
“RUN!” she screams. “RUN!”
So I throw Ceyonne forward, and I push her as hard as I could, then I drag her along as adrenaline begins to take hold of her. She pumps her legs and braces her hand over her stomach and throws herself to the asphalt and cries out but rolls forward against the terminal. Wu fires another shot; and when it becomes apparent that we are going to be under assault, she releases the gate switch, causing a car that is idly making its way down the street to come to a screaming halt.
“We gotta run fast,” she pants as she rises, ejecting the magazine to ensure that there is an adequate number of bullets within it. “Can you do it, Cey?”
Ceyonne nods.
“Kel?”
I nod, too.
“Okay. Now on the count of three. One… two…”
Three.
She doesn’t even have the chance to say the word before we are barreling around the corner and taking off into the streets.
“Hey!” the man whose car was hit cries. “What the hell do you think you’re—”
He is silenced as a massive military vehicle plows into him from behind.
“Go go GO!” Wu screams.
And so we run—through one alley, and then another, a third, and a fourth. We run so fast that I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to stop. A stitch develops in my side, and while I want to stop and cradle it, I don’t. I make sure Ceyonne is in front of me constantly, and only throw glances over my shoulder to make sure that nothing is pursuing.
You’re doing good, I think. Just keep going. Running. Moving. Surviving.
We have just reached the edge of the city when Ceyonne stumbles over the curve of the street and then goes rolling down the hill.
“Ceyonne!” I cry.
Wu tries to catch her, but can’t. Aided by gravity, and propelled by the speed of our flight, Ceyonne goes barreling down the hill and only stops when she reaches the bottom.
I throw myself forward—
See that she isn’t breathing—
Fear she might be dead—
But after a moment, she inhales a gasp of air, and cries out as I drag her to her feet.
“We gotta run,” I say.
“I can’t,” she manages. “Everything hurts, Kel. You gotta go on without me.”
“We won’t go without you!” Wu says, sliding an arm across Ceyonne’s back just as I do. “Ready! One, two, three!”
The two of us haul her upright and then begin to propel our feet through the corn fields.
Corn, corn, wheat, wheat, I think as we advance from one plot of farmland to another. Corn, corn, wheat, wheat.
It’ll take less than three minutes for us to reach the Ceres Farmlands at this rate.
I lift my eyes to see if there are any Seekers following us, then nod as we stumble forward.
Seconds pass. Minutes transpire. What feels like ages go by.
But soon, I see the house rising into the distance—and witness as the big black dog named Buster lifts his head to bark.
Frank Cross steps out to survey the landscape.
His eyes catch mine.
I raise my left hand and scream, “MR. CROSS!”
He mouths my name in question.
Then we are passing over the road and collapsing on his drive.
Mr. Frank Cross calls for his wife just in time for Wu to gasp and lift her gun.
I say, “Stop!”
She looks at me in question, but lowers the gun in kind.
“They’re Daniel’s parents,” I say.
“Oh God,” she whispers. “Daniel…”
Frank and Mariah Cross come running across the drive.
The first thing Frank does as he looks upon me is stop.
He stares.
Mariah Cross gasps.
Frank then asks, “Kelendra?”
I want to pass out. But somehow, someway, I’m able to say, “Yes. It’s me.”
Then Mariah is sobbing and stepping forward to hold me.
“We don’t have time,” I whisper, reaching up to take hold of her hands. “We
’re being chased by SADs.”
“SADs?” the woman asks. “Why are you—”
I shake my head. “Please,” I say. “I know there’s holes under the wall. We need to get under them. Now.”
“But you—” Frank said. “You’re—”
“Dead. Yeah. I know.” I manage a painful laugh. “I’m sorry I can’t explain, but we need to hurry.”
“Come on,” Frank says, hauling Ceyonne to her feet. “Let’s get you inside.”
Buster hasn’t barked since we’ve entered the house.
Which means the SADs haven’t showed up.
Which means we are safe.
For now, I think.
Ceyonne and Wu recover in the other room as Mariah Cross scrambles to clothe us. Frank Cross, meanwhile, holds his handgun steadily, while pulling canned and bagged foods from the cupboards and shoving them into knapsacks.
“We can’t take your food,” I say.
“You have to,” Frank replies. “You’ll never survive out there without it.”
“Where are we going?” Wu asks from the other room. “Kelendra. You never said—”
“We’ll walk until we reach a settlement,” I say.
“And from there?” Ceyonne questions.
“I…” I pause. “I don’t know.”
Frank Cross merely frowns as he finishes shoving the last of the food into the three knapsacks. “Let me call my hands in,” he says. “They can guard you while you’re crawling under the wall.”
“No,” I say, and shake my head. “Absolutely not.”
“Kelendra—”
“They’ll kill you if they know you helped,” I say. “They’re likely going to ask if you saw us anyway. When they do: you tell them the truth. They’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“Why do you say that?” He frowns.
“Wu killed three SADs getting us out of there. I assaulted another.”
“Kelendra,” he whispers. “I… I don’t know what to say.”
“So don’t say anything,” I say as Mariah Cross comes down the stairs, holding three sets of clothes, including shoes for us from my personal collection. “Thank you, Mrs. Cross.”
“Tell me one thing,” she says as I scramble to dress.
I pause.
She asks, “Daniel. Did he—”
“He died a hero,” I say.
“Saving us,” Ceyonne adds.
She merely nods and reaches out to touch all of our faces. “God bless you girls,” she says. “God bless you and this horrible war.”
We finish dressing within record time; and though tired and weary from all the running we have done, we accept the bags that are offered and turn to face the kitchen’s rear exit.
Frank extends the second handgun to Wu. “I don’t have much ammo,” he says, “because the government limits the sale of it, but it’s all I can give you.”
“Thank you,” she says, bowing her head.
“Yes,” I add. “Thank you. Both of you.”
My mother and father-in-law embrace me, then offer the only words they can muster.
“Good luck,” is what they each say.
Then we are out the door and running toward the edge of the field.
Our feet whisper through the grass. Our breaths run ragged as we pass into the wheat fields. Toward the wall we run, and though around us there are men standing on high towers, they don’t bother us.
No.
Instead, they merely lift their guns to train them on the fields beyond the home as we approach the first of several holes that have yet to be filled.
Wu, being the strongest and most capable of us, shoves the bags underneath the gap in the wall and the earth, then instructs Ceyonne to duck down and crawl through.
“I’ll watch,” Wu says.
“You’re sure?” I ask.
She nods, and brandishes Mr. Cross’ revolver steadily.
After touching her arm, I crawl beneath myself.
Only to find that the world beyond is wonderful.
Grasslands extend far into the distance. Beyond that there lies ruins of old homes, barns, properties. A forest rises into the distance beyond them.
Wu appears a short moment later. “We have to go,” she says, looking from Ceyonne, to me, then back to Ceyonne again. “We need to run just a little farther, Cey. Can you do it?”
“Can we slow run?” she asks.
“I think so,” I say. “They don’t know where we are yet. The more ground we put between us, the better.”
Nodding, Wu presses a hand to Ceyonne’s back, then pushes her forward.
Then we run.
Eighteen
It takes what feels like hours for us to cross the large field that extends beyond the Glittering City. Tired beyond compare—with our bones aching, our feet throbbing, and our muscles screaming out in pain—we stumble into the dilapidated barn that we’ve been making our way toward this whole time and collapse the moment after we pass beneath its dilapidated features.
Ceyonne begins to cry not long after.
“Hey,” I say, forcing myself to crawl toward her despite my body’s protests. “Everything’s okay. We’re safe.”
“I hurt so much,” she manages through gritted teeth.
“We all do,” Wu says, lifting her eyes to look at the cracks in the foundation, where fine shards of light reveal that daylight is fading, and night will soon come. “What matters is that we made it. We survived.”
Ceyonne closes her eyes.
“Wu,” I say, lifting my eyes to face my friend.
“Yeah?” she asks.
“Do you think we’re safe out here?”
“I have to hope,” Wu replies. “Otherwise… what more can we do?”
Nothing, I realize. We can do absolutely nothing.
With that in mind, I roll over onto my back and look up at the crossbeams above.
I want to believe that we’ll be safe. I really do. And yet, a part of me knows that we’re not really, truly safe until they stop looking for us, if they ever will.
A sigh passes from my lips as I consider the reality of this.
There is no way for us to realistically continue on at this point in time. Given Ceyonne’s injuries, and the fact that we have no energy to even walk, let alone slowly, that leaves us with only one choice:
Staying in the barn.
It isn’t the most reasonable place to sleep, given that there is little in the way of insulation. But if we’re lucky—really, truly lucky—then everything will be just fine.
Fine.
“Fine,” I whisper.
Though Wu cocks her head toward me, she doesn’t move from where she’s sitting. Rather, she sprawls out beside Ceyonne and myself and lets out a long, drawn-out exhale.
Then, slowly, we fall asleep.
I awaken sometime after dark to the knowledge that I am no longer in the Glittering City, nor in the passes beneath it.
No.
I am here, in a dilapidated barn, and opening my eyes to true darkness.
At first, I’m alarmed—because as I come to awareness, I don’t realize what it is that has occurred. As it begins to filter into my conscience, however, I am left with the coldest, most unsettling feeling on what is perhaps one of the warmest nights I have ever experienced.
“Ceyonne?” I ask weakly. “Wu?”
Neither of them reply.
I push myself upright despite my body’s protests and turn my head around—first to my left, then my right.
When my eyes finally come into focus, I see the two of them sitting in the threshold leading out of the barn—and looking, it appears, at the sky.
“It’s beautiful,” Ceyonne says, “isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Wu replies. “It is.”
I cough to clear my throat.
My friends turn their heads.
“You’re awake?” Ceyonne asks.
“I am,” I say.
“Come sit with us. We were just gonna start eating.�
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“I’m not sure I want to eat,” I offer, grimacing as I slowly but surely crawl across the barn’s overgrown floor to where the two of them sit.
“We have to keep our strength up,” Wu says. “We don’t know when we’ll have to move.”
Move.
It’s a word I hadn’t wanted to hear, let alone contemplate.
With a nod, I accept the bag of cooked potato slices from my friend and take a few out of the bag, savoring their rich flavor and the explosion of salt upon my lips. Though a part of me wants to indulge in more than just a handful, I pass the bag to Ceyonne, who takes her share, then passes it over to Wu, who takes her own before returning the bag to me.
“I don’t need anymore,” I say.
“You’re eating for two,” Wu offers, shaking the bag. “Take it.”
I am hesitant to do so, but nod all the same.
I shuffle forward to sit beside them and look out at the bright white stars shining in the dark blue sky.
“You’d only see this in a place back home,” Wu says. “Which reminds me… now that we’re all awake…”
Ceyonne and I turn our heads to look at her.
With a sigh, Wu reaches up to brush her long dark hair back from her face, then tilts her head back to the stars and says, “How are we gonna make it back?”
“You mean… to the Sandstone Hills?”
“Gladberry is closer,” she says.
“How close?” Ceyonne asks.
“A few days from here by foot. I… I want to go back, if… if you think we can make it.”
“Why wouldn’t we be able to?” I frown.
“I… I don’t know. It’s just… with everything’s that happened, and… with you pregnant and all—”
“My pregnancy shouldn’t have to dictate whether or not you go home, Wu.”
“I’d never leave you behind, Kel. Not after everything you’ve done for me.”
“I feel like I’ve turned our lives upside down,” I say. “That all my choices have just put us back to the very same place we started from.”
“But we know now what we don’t want,” Wu says. “We’ve experienced everything we could have in our lives, and yet… it didn’t fulfill us. All it did was lead to more death. To more tragedy. To more heartbreak.”
“You really think we can make it to Gladberry on foot?” Ceyonne asks.