Breathe (21 page)

“Obey? That doesn’t sound like you.”

“I trust Petra. Look what she’s built. She only managed it because she wouldn’t allow people to violate her rules.”

“Why can’t you trust your feelings.”

“The last time I trusted my feelings someone ended up dead.” Alina’s eyes harden and the skin around her mouth tightens, and I know there’ll be no way to convince her. “Maybe Petra will find a use for her. Let’s hope for that,” Alina says. She opens the cell door, takes the tank from me, and gestures for me to go back inside to Maude, who is awake. Alina stands watching us a moment before shutting the door.

I can’t keep the food down. I’ve lived on powders and chemicals for too long. No sooner has Alina closed the cell door than I vomit weakly, dribbling all over myself. “I’m sorry,” I say. Maude strokes my face and uses the sleeve of her sweater to wipe my chin and swab my shirtfront. There were jugs and jugs of fresh water at the dinner table, but stupidly I didn’t think to drink any.

“Could we get some water in here?” I call out. “And more air. I can’t breathe.” I move to the door and call again and again. No one answers, not even Alina.

“We’ll be all right, darlin’,” Maude says, and her stomach growls.

“I got you food,” I remember, taking the small chunks of fruit out of my pocket and holding them to her. She paws the fruit suspiciously and then takes a piece of apple and gobbles it down, immediately reaching for another piece.

“Slowly,” I say.

When she’s finished, we sit back to back and try to preserve our energy. I feel weaker than I’ve ever felt. I call once or twice more and so does Maude.

But there is no one here to help us.

We haven’t exchanged any words in hours. There doesn’t seem to be anything important enough to say. And it’s dark by the time Silas leads me up a set of steps to a door where he raps a couple of times and waits until someone opens it. I just follow. I try to keep my eyes on my feet. I’ve sort of stopped seeing things.

We’re at The Grove. It should feel unbelievable. It’s an old soccer stadium. But how can I be excited about soccer?

My father.
Mine
. I can’t get his face out of my head. In my mind he is turning into a devil. He’ll have horns soon, a tail, and a smoking pitchfork. But he’s still the father who took me to the park to play when I was a kid. The father who tickled the twins’ feet at night when they should have been sleeping. He kisses my mother’s belly before he goes off to work. He’s that man, too.

Silas is whispering to someone, and minutes later a dark-skinned woman in a long coat is striding toward us, a whip in her hand, followed by a kid.

“Is it a family tradition? What is the meaning of this?” she says.

“I didn’t have a choice.”

“Follow protocol!” she shouts. “You’ve already taken it upon yourself to recruit members. It’s a good job the Ministry killed this Abel character, whoever he was.”

“What? No, I didn’t authorize Abel. He told me that Alina—” She hits him square in the face with the handle of the whip. The woman is probably a foot shorter than Silas, with fists about half the size of his, but he doesn’t retaliate. He stands there looking small and angry.

“I have never crossed you,” Silas says. “Things have changed out there. It isn’t what it was. We need new rules. And we need a plan. They’ve grown in numbers. They’ve gathered troops. A whole army is marching through the city as we speak. We have days to get ready at most. They’ll obliterate us if they find us here.
Obliterate
us.”

“You don’t come with anything new. Roxanne and Levi were out today. Levi saw them. We have a planning committee set up to deal with this.”

“No committee, Petra. It’s too late for that. We should flee. Head for a northern division—Redwood or Poplar. Or we could go west to Sequoia,” he says. So this is Petra. Alina spoke about her like she was some kind of demigoddess, but she’s just a woman.

“No one is going to Sequoia. And don’t presume to tell me how to run things.” Petra raises her hand, though she doesn’t actually strike Silas because the girl at her side makes a grab for the whip. Petra scowls, closes her eyes for a second, then turns to me. “So
you’re
the Premium,” she says, pulling me toward her by my tattooed earlobe. She pinches it and I yelp. I can’t help it. “You’re not as dead as Alina said you were,” she says, and releases me.

“What do you mean? You know about him? Alina’s here?” Silas asks. Petra crosses her arms but doesn’t continue.

“Alina’s here, Silas,” the child says. Silas lets out a long sigh of relief. “She’s in the shooting range. I can take you to her.” Silas strokes her curly red hair and she smiles up at him.

“What about the others?” I ask. “Did they arrive too? Where are they? Can you take me to them?”

“We don’t know who you mean, do we, Jazz?” Petra answers. The child shakes her head slowly.

“Quinn will be useful to us,” Silas says, stepping in front of me slightly, which is really nice of him because Petra is swinging the whip again. “
Very
useful. He has connections.”

“Useful? Yes. We may need a human shield when the battle begins to rage,” Petra says. “I hope he’s bulletproof. Or foam-resistant.”

“I’m sure I
can
help,” I mutter.

“You have no idea what we even do here. Enough of this bullshit!” She clicks her fingers. “Levi, take the Premium somewhere he can’t be any trouble.” A guy grabs me and puts me in an armlock.

“Silas!” I shout. “Ask Alina about Bea. I need to find Bea!” Silas watches me being dragged away without giving any indication that he hears me. He doesn’t know who Bea is, so maybe he doesn’t care what happens to her.

But I care.

I really do.

I brace my shoulders as I take aim, pointing the barrel of the gun at the space between her eyes. She stares back at me. My hand trembles. I’m taking aim at her head.

It was easy to get hold of these targets for practice. I was on the mission myself and it took less than an hour because every dilapidated clothes shop we came across had a bunch of dummies prostrate in their windows. But it’s hard to shoot at this one. She has eyelashes and eyebrows, and even a bellybutton and nipples. She is too real. I aim at her chest instead and fire. Plastic pieces explode from her torso and she smashes against the floor. The noise echoes along the walls of the narrow room, which is insulated against sound.

I put down the rifle and go to her. She is fatally wounded. I touch her face. I do not want to practice shooting people anymore, even lifeless dummies. I don’t know what’s happened to me. Months ago I would have loved gearing up for a war. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. She doesn’t hear me. She is plastic. She is in pieces. She hasn’t got a heart.

The door to the shooting range swings open and Jazz barges in. “What are you
doing
?” she asks. I jump up and brush myself off.

“Practicing,” I say.

“Practicing what?”
I’m practicing grieving
, I think. I wipe my running nose with the back of my hand. “There’s someone to see you,” she tells me, holding the door open. I expect to see Petra; I expect I’m in trouble again. Then Silas slips into the room.

I stare at him, and at Jazz, who is beaming.

“Did she actually cut out your tongue?” Silas asks with a grin.

“I thought you’d been captured. I thought I was saying good-bye to everyone forever.” I run to him and throw my arms around his neck. He’s here and he’s safe.

“I was lucky,” he explains. “I thought I was finished for sure, but one of the stewards who arrested me was a Resistance member. I didn’t even know him. He bundled us into the back of the truck, then called headquarters to say I’d attacked him and escaped. He gave me a couple of hacked pads and let me out by Inger’s apartment. He took Mom and Dad to a safe house. I have no idea where it is or how safe it is. It’s in the pod; that’s all I know for sure.”

“But they’re alive!” I exclaim.

“We have people deep in the Ministry,” Jazz says.

“I suppose they wouldn’t be safe if we all knew too much. I can’t say how I’d react under torture. Maybe I’d give up my own mother,” Silas says. I wonder how Abel reacted. He must have been tortured. And maybe he informed on us, because no sooner was he dead than I was being hunted. But I don’t want to believe it of Abel. I want to believe he did the right thing. And that Silas would do the right thing, too. I want to believe that everyone would sacrifice themselves for the sake of others. For the Resistance.

“Petra claims she’s never heard of Abel. Didn’t you tell me that Abel was authorized?” I say, nodding. He frowns.

“Abel said Petra told
you
he was authorized. I assumed …” He looks up at the ceiling, then back at me. “And you thought Petra told
me
? Damn it!”

“That wasn’t how it happened. I remember—”

“No!” he interrupts. “I heard nothing from The Grove. I thought you had.”

Jazz gasps. “He was Ministry,” she says.

“He wasn’t Ministry. I’d know Ministry,” Silas says. “I just don’t understand.”

“I’m telling Petra,” Jazz says.

“The Ministry wouldn’t kill one of their own. Why would they even
pretend
to?” I wonder aloud. “We planned to come here. If he was Ministry or Breathe or whatever, then why didn’t he just let us lead him to The Grove?”

Silas rubs his nose and looks down at Jazz. “Don’t say anything to Petra?” he pleads. He’s right. We need time to figure this out ourselves.

“Why not? There’s going to be a big huge mess because of Alina. She stole a tank,” Jazz says.

“It’s true,” I say. I can’t meet Silas’s eyes.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Silas says. “Our guy told me he overheard a senior Minister saying they’ve been planning a battle for a long time. He told me they noticed the number of tourists leaving the pod increasing and the number returning decreasing. They’ve been gathering evidence, training soldiers. I think you just changed their timing.”

“There’s no way!” Jazz declares with a scowl. “No one’s been followed here. There’s no way.”

“You’re probably right. They only know that most tourists go southwest, they don’t know our exact location yet. They think we’re gathered near the river by the old parliament buildings, but as soon as they realize their mistake, they’ll double back. We have some time to get out, but not much.” A light bulb overhead flickers.

“We’re finished,” I say. The stadium is the biggest structure for miles and the Resistance chose it because it was relatively new and the least likely to cave in. Plus it’s like hiding in plain sight. It isn’t going to take a genius to target this place eventually.

“I think we should leave. I saw several hundred soldiers this afternoon. And I’m sure there’ll be more,” Silas says.

“I’ll tell Petra!” Jazz says. Silas ignores her.

“In a few weeks this place will be a pile of rubble.”

“No deserters. I’ll tell!” Jazz screams, her hands on her hips.

“You should. Speak to Petra, Jazz.” Silas rests an arm on her shoulder and she looks at him with a mixture of admiration and fear. “She listens to you. And I’m telling you, the army is on their way and they won’t leave anyone alive. They mean to wipe us out. You’re young, Jazz. You have your whole life to live. Tell Petra what’s happening. Tell her you want to go. She’ll listen to you. There are only a few of us who can’t breathe yet. We could train quickly. I’m sure we could.” He looks at me, but I have no idea how long it would take us to be ready. I doubt we could train as quickly as Silas is suggesting. It’s taken most of the members of the Resistance years to conquer the atmosphere.

“And if not, we could carry tanks,” I say.

“And why should I listen to
you
? You both came here with strangers. You don’t know anything!” she yelps.

“Jazz,” Silas soothes, stroking her shoulder.

“Petra is in charge and she makes the decisions. This is my home.” And the only home she’s ever known.

“Please talk to her. Even armed, our numbers make it impossible to win. Impossible,” he says.

“I’m not leaving!” she screams, and hurtles out of the room. We stand watching as the door swings after her. The fluorescent light bulb continues to flicker.

“We’re in trouble now,” I tell him. “There’s no way Petra will allow anyone to upset Jazz.”

“I don’t care. Jazz is the only one who’ll ever convince Petra to leave the trees. Even she might not be able to.”

“After all we’ve done here, do you really think we should run and let them destroy everything?” How can I abandon The Grove and all the trees? Maybe I agree with Jazz. Maybe we should stay and fight.

Silas reads my mind. “I can’t allow us to stay and die. It would destroy Mom and Dad. I can’t do that to them.” This is something I hadn’t considered, and I know how it feels, to be the one left behind.

“I understand.” I pause, remembering something Jazz said. “What stranger did you bring here? I did the same thing.”

“His name’s Quinn. He claims to have saved your life. Did he?”