Inside

by Kyra Anderson

  After spending the entire day around nervous energy and fear, I took matters into my own hands.

  I called everyone into the main bunker, telling them to sit in a circle and tell me what they thought we should do. Most of the people said that we should remain where we were, while others said we needed to try and cross the southern border and get out of the country, even though that would not stop Dana from coming after us.

  Some had no idea what the best course of action would be, and remained still and silent, their conflicted eyes locked on the ground, their faces pale from anxiety and lack of sleep.

  However, no one said we should fight.

  “I want to continue our fights,” I said quietly, my eyes also on the ground. “Everything that was done to us, to everyone here to who was wronged by the Commission of the people…Dana is an evil son of a bitch and I don’t want him to harm anyone else the way he has harmed us.” I stopped, swallowing back my tears. “But more than anything, I want everyone to be safe.”

  Everyone in the circle perked up slightly looking at one another, anticipating what I was going to say.

  “I think the best thing for everyone here is to flee the country and try to get Dana, and America, off our backs. Perhaps from there we can find a better way, but we cannot survive here with our limited supplies and the entire country hunting us. And more than win, I want us to survive. The Commission has labeled all of us as unfit to live for one reason or another, and I want us to live in spite of that, just to prove them wrong.”

  There was no doubt that everyone was relieved at the announcement. Everyone heaved sighs and their heads lowered. Some were upset and abandoning our original plan of leading a new revolution, but I could see that, even if they were disappointed, the prospect of being able to survive was more appealing.

  “We’re going to meet up and look over the information we have on safe houses and routes out of the country,” I concluded. “I want everyone to start preparing to leave. Gather your personal belongings, things that you think you’ll need. We’ll start preparing to leave.”

  I stood from the circle and turned away, walking to Griffin, Tori, and Mark who were standing against the wall next to the large door for the strategy room.

  “Fair enough?” I asked, looking at all of them.

  “Fair enough,” Tori murmured.

  “While I don’t agree with admitting defeat, I do agree that we’re backed into a corner here,” Griffin muttered, looking at his feet as he crossed his arms. “Our survival depends on us getting as far away from Dana as possible.”

  I was hesitant to look at Mark. He had put more thought into the rebellion than anyone, which made me feel as though I had no right to say it was over, but I knew that we could not survive against Dana as we were.

  “…are you upset with me for deciding this?” I asked him, my voice quiet.

  He shook his head.

  “Do you know of any way to get everyone safely across the border?” I pressed. “We’re going to have to go south. The war in Canada is going to be just as dangerous as staying in America.”

  Mark motioned for me to follow him and I fell into step as he walked into the strategy room, Tori and Griffin following as well. As Mark bent down to one of the drawers at the back of the room to retrieve whatever information he had, several other members of the Eight Group joined us in the strategy room, as well as Clark. The teenage boy walked up to me and was about to say something, but there must have been something on my face that worried him because he suddenly hugged me tightly, rubbing my back.

  “This is the right thing to do,” he whispered. “We wanted to give these people a life outside of the Commission, and that’s what we’re doing.”

  “At the expense of pitting the entire country against them and strengthen the American people’s belief in the Commission of the People,” I muttered, pulling out of the hug. “We’re running away, Clark. Even if it is the only way to keep everyone alive, we need to see it as it is.”

  He did not respond, turning to Mark as the leader of the Eight Group brought over a small box filled to the top with folded pieced of paper. He extracted each on, glancing over it before placing the papers in different piles and finally pulling out a large map of America, which he set on the table. The paper was ripped in one corner and had been marked over several times, but it showed the country divided into three sections. As the rest of us tried to make sense of the dots, crosses, and squiggling lines on the map, Mark quickly leafed through the other papers in the box.

  “Mark, what is this map? Is this a map of safe houses?” Tori asked.

  Mark only nodded, not looking up at us, continuing to search through the papers and set them in the various piles.

  “How old is this map? Some of these might not even be around anymore,” Griffin stated.

  Mark held up one finger to all of us as he finished the last few pieced of paper, telling us to wait. When he had finished sorting the papers, he pulled out his notepad and scribbled his message.

  “This map is old, perhaps about forty years old, and these stacks of papers have the information of a lot of safe houses and protocols for fleeing the country. While I was still working in the Commission, I had a few of the houses contacted and tried to narrow the list of viable houses, but I did not get far.”

  He slid a small stack of papers toward us and tapped them. I saw a red checkmark at the top of the worn paper, which told me that Mark had checked the address and people at the house and found that they were still there and operating as a safe house.

  “How did you get this information?” Clark asked, grabbing another stack of papers and leafing through it.

  “These were all in this box in the Records Room. They were with other boxes of things from the group The Coalition,” Mark wrote.

  Seeing that the information had come from the group my uncle had been a part of made me both excited and worried. It was a small relief that Mark had already checked into the houses to be sure some of them were still safe houses, but my uncle had also been caught while trying to flee the country, and I had no way of knowing how safe it really was to follow the same routes.

  “We can divide up the others, make contact, see if anyone is still in the game,” Griffin agreed, grabbing another stack of papers as Tori looked over them with him. “In the meantime, we’ll prepare everyone to leave.”

  “How will we keep Dana from figuring out where we’re going?” I pressed. “He’ll know that we’ll try to run as soon as we get backed into a corner like this, and he knows we won’t go north. He’ll be watching every route south that he can to be sure that he gets us. If he doesn’t get us, then his promise to the people to destroy us and seek justice for everything he framed us for is broken. He’s going to want to make an example of us.”

  “We’re going to have to risk it,” Griffin murmured. “We’re going to have to make small groups, stagger the departures, take a few different ways…”

  “We don’t have a lot of supplies,” Tori murmured. “The weaker and sick should go first. The ones who leave last should be the strongest, who can go the longest without food.”

  “But if Dana is watching the routes, then the first ones will be the first to be spotted and taken,” Clark contradicted. “Whoever the first groups are, they’re basically the front line…which means they’re more likely to get captured than later ones as we figure out what routes he’s not watching.”

  A dark feeling settled over the room as we thought over his words.

  I realized in that moment that we would be sending the first groups out expecting that some of them would not make it. We had no way of knowing how safe the routes were until we tested them, even if we knew the safe houses.

  “Then…perhaps…” Griffin glanced over to the open strategy door before lowering his voice. “Perhaps we should send some of the sick experiments first.”

  I closed my eyes and turned away from the group, trying to hide my tears.

  “Without the Co
mmission medicine, they’ll likely die in Mexico anyway,” he continued, trying to keep his voice quiet. If they get captured…”

  “…then they go back to testing, or, more likely, are executed,” I snapped. “And we’re just supposed to offer them up like cannon fodder?”

  The strategy room was very silent.

  “At this point,” Tori murmured, “it’s going to be about getting as many people as we realistically can across the border. And that means that we must prepare for the fact that not everyone will make it.”

  I closed my eyes, my back still turned to them.

  I knew that what was being proposed was the most logical approach, and I knew that the experiments were suffering and several of them were dying, but I did not want whatever end they were going to face to be at the hands of the Commission of the People.

  Guilt was making me feel sick. I felt as though I had given everyone hope that they would have a better life and that we would fight for the good of the country and to be sure that no one else would have to live in such fear of the Commission. Instead, I had put their lives in danger, I had caused the death of good people I loved, and now I was telling everyone to run south, defeated by the one who had tormented them so horrifically already.

  “Lily…” Tori whispered, suddenly next to me. I took a deep breath and turned to face her, though I had my arms crossed over my chest, my nails digging into my arms to try and keep my composure. “There is another thing we really need to talk about?”

  I waited for her to speak, but judging from the way everyone had turned to look at me, I knew I could not prepare for the words.

  “There is one person…who cannot go south.”

  The silence in the room was now oppressive.

  I took a deep breath.

  “I understand.”

  * *** *

  I left the Eight Group, Tori, Griffin, and Clark to discuss finer details of getting everyone south of the border. I was in no state to be making those sorts of decisions. Tori’s small sentence about the person who could not go south repeated constantly, causing my chest to constrict tighter and tighter until it was almost impossible to breathe.

  Tori was wrong. There were two people who could not follow our plan.

  I was one of them.

  Two nights after the broadcast that declared us the national enemy, I pulled Mykail aside, taking him into the recreation room that Mark had used for mourning, hoping not to be disturbed. Sitting at the table, I sighed heavily.

  “You know that we are trying to find a way to get everyone across the border.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t think it’s practical that you go the same way as everyone else,” I told him, my eyes focused on his feet, trying to avoid eye contact. “You have a tendency to stick out.”

  “I know,” he repeated, chuckling sadly.

  “Would it be possible for you to fly across the border?”

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because…pretty soon my wings will no longer work,” he admitted. I could only stare at him. “My right one is already going numb.”

  “What do you want to do, then?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do.”

  “No, Lily.” He shook his head. “Look…I’ve been thinking a lot about my life these past few days…and I don’t see any viable option to continue.”

  “To continue what?” I whispered, horrified at what I thought he was trying to say.

  “If I don’t go back to the Commission and get treatment soon, the wings will kill me anyway.” He dropped his head. “And I will be killed if I go back to the Commission.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’ve been thinking about talking to Mark about killing me…” he murmured. “I know he wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

  “I would!” I snapped, my eyes wide. “Are you fucking insane? You want to have Mark kill you?”

  “I think it’s best,” he admitted, looking at his hands.

  “How could you just throw your life away like that?”

  “What else can I do, Lily?” he asked weakly. “I think, after everything, this is the best.”

  “What do you mean, after everything?”

  “After all the pain I caused you, after almost endangering the revolution…”

  “…I think it was doomed from the start…” I whispered. “Look at us now. The revolutionaries running with our tails between our legs to the south.”

  “You’re saving lives. You’ve saved lives,” he told me strongly, putting a hand on mine.

  “And I’m also responsible for several deaths.”

  “What happened to Josh was not your fault. It was Becca’s, and you can’t blame yourself for what she did,” he whispered.

  “Josh is only one person,” I murmured. “What about Tara? If she had had the medicine from the Commission, she wouldn’t have died like that. And Francesca and Cooper? They died on the raid I rushed into. And all those people who died when Dana attacked Central…if I hadn’t been stupid and challenged Dana, he would have never done that.”

  “Lily, stop,” Mykail said, taking my hand in both of his. “The fault lies with those who did the action. You didn’t think about killing all those people in Central. You didn’t think of betraying Mark’s and Josh’s trust like Becca did.”

  “I should have realized it was a possibility.”

  “You’re only human, Lily,” he reminded me, one hand gently touching my cheek. “You can’t know everything, or foresee everything.”

  I decided to bite my tongue. I could make a million arguments about how everything was entirely my fault, but I didn’t want anyone telling me it wasn’t my fault. I knew it was and I knew people would try to tell me otherwise.

  “I can’t go across the border, either,” I whispered, my head low and my voice mumbled.

  “What? Why not?” he asked, his hand falling away from my face.

  “If I go, Dana will follow. I’m the one he wants.” I sighed, shaking my head. “If I go, I bring him with me, and I endanger everyone again. Dana is not going to give up on me just because I crossed the border.”

  “…what are you going to do, then?”

  This time, I reached forward and took his hand.

  “You don’t want to know…” I repeated his earlier statement. His eyes widened and his hand tightened around mine.

  “Lily…” he hissed. “No.”

  “And why not?” I challenged. “You’re willing to throw your life away and you won’t listen to me when I tell you no.”

  “That’s different,” he protested. “I don’t have a choice.”

  “And I do?”

  He was silent, staring at me, conflicted.

  “You know that Dana won’t let a border stop him,” I whispered. “This whole thing was about me, he said so himself…” I lowered my head, my hands still in his. “The best thing for me to do is to turn myself over to him and hope that he’ll let everyone else go across the border.”

  Mykail looked at the floor before leaning forward and pressing his lips to my forehead, which caused me to look up quickly, surprised. I looked into his eyes and saw the turmoil, the mutual conflict we shared about our dark, uncertain futures.

  “What was that for?” I murmured.

  Mykail sighed, looking at the floor again, as if searching for the answer on the dirty cement.

  “I don’t know…” he admitted quietly. “I guess…I still want to be the person who supports you when you’re troubled.” His thumb moved comfortingly over my hand and I smiled at the warm feeling spreading through me from the contact. “I still care about you…” Mykail breathed. “I still love you, Lily.”

  I swallowed hard and closed my eyes, taking a few deep breaths to contain the typhoon of emotions inside of me.

  “I would be lying if I said I didn’t love you…” I admitted. I squeezed his hand. “But…what I learned…
what Dana said…that can’t be undone.”

  “I know,” he said. “I thought that I just needed the right time to tell you what Dana had sent me to do and to tell you that I wanted no part of it, but I was a coward. I was too afraid of you hating me…” He barked a laugh. “But I guess that already happened…”

  “I don’t hate you,” I told him. “I don’t. I’m starting to learn how to trust you again. But I will never be able to forget the pain I felt when Dana told me he had sent you to basically trick me into doing the revolution.” I dropped my head. “Especially now, when Josh is in an unmarked grave and Mark is…unreachable. I feel the blame for that…and every now and then, I think about what Dana said about your role in angering me enough to go up against the Commission.” I shook my head slowly. “…we can never go back to what we were.”

  “I know,” he repeated. “I don’t have any illusions about you forgiving me and resuming our relationship. I know the damage is too far done.” He squeezed my hand. “But I do want to tell you that I love you. And that I don’t want to see you in any danger or pain.”

  “Too late for the danger part, I think,” I tried to joke. I looked at him seriously. “I love you, too. Which is why it hurts me to think that you would be willing to throw your life away.”

  “There’s nothing to throw away,” he said. “I’m already dying.”

  I felt hot tears prick at my eyes and I sniffed, looking up at the flickering light to hold them at bay.

  “I don’t want you to ask Mark to kill you,” I declared slowly. “You’ve put me in a horrible position, you know that? I have to try and rationalize which horrible fate would be the least painful for you.”

  “Mark would be the best option,” he told me with a nod. “He’s an ace shot. He could make it quick and painless.”

  “I don’t want you to ask Mark,” I repeated. “He’s barely holding on as it is. This will put pressure on him and he doesn’t need that right now.”

  “He wouldn’t mind killing me,” Mykail said darkly.

  “But I would mind if he killed you, and he knows that.”