Follow Me Through Darkness (19 page)

“Only once he failed-”

“And you are here to do what? See if I can overturn the Elders’ decision? I do not question them, Cornelia, and neither should you.”

Since when? “That’s not what I meant.”

“You were very clear in what you meant. The Elders have a reason for everything, and it is not up to us to question or seek understanding in their reasons. It’s up to us to accept them.”

I shake my head. “Are you okay?”

“Perfectly,” he says
.

I’ve never heard my father talk that way. He’s always been a believer in the Elders, but he’s never spoken this way of them. With such devotion. “Are you sure?”

“Cornelia,” he says sharply. “If that boy is leading you to question the Elders or myself as your leader and guidance, then perhaps you should reconsider your stance next to him. The Elders do not ignore threats to life or livelihood. I’d hate to see you led astray.”

Tears bite at my eyes. What is going on? This is not my father. He would never talk to me this way. What happened to the father who left me notes and told me stories and laughed so brightly it could fill a room? This can’t be just because he’s tired
.

“I believe you have placement in a few minutes,” my father adds. “You shouldn’t be late since you only have a little more time left there.”

And with that he leaves me. I watch him walk up over the beach, and this deep concern settles inside me. Something is happening, and with every instant that passes, I feel more unsure
.

DEADLINE: 19D, 13H, 22M

REMNANT CAMP: EL PASO, TEXAS

FOR SOMEONE WHO’S ONLY SEVEN,
Delilah is more sure about life than most people I know. Probably even more than I know. There’s something about her that I like. She’s got spunk for someone so young, and that seems to be what keeps the Remnants alive out here. She’s mastered A through I already. She knows how to write them and match them with words or people or things I don’t understand.

A low-sounding, guttural hum rings through the room. I jump up quickly and knock the chair to the floor. Is that a warning? Is someone here in danger? Delilah laughs. The sound is high and melodic. “That’s the lunch bell!”

I slowly follow beside her on my crutch through the darkened tunnels that are lit by torches along the walls. My leg feels better, but she insists I use the crutch until she gets to the letter “N.” I told her she had until dinner, and then I was ditching this thing.

“Real El Paso was one of the first cities destroyed,” she says as we walk. “In the story, it smelled like rotten eggs.”

The same way the Burrows smelled before the fire reached us. If the Elders destroyed the city and it had that scent, then they really did start the fire. But how?

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“I’m li’l. People say a lot of things when I’m ‘round,” she says.

We enter a room full of makeshift tables and seats created from half-broken Old World items and tree trunks. It was never like this at home. We ate meals in our own houses, complete with our own real tables and chairs. The Remnants stand in some semi-formed line carrying trays for food, but it’s not straight and it’s more clumped together. We join on at the back. Delilah stands beside me and slides her hand in mine. It’s so small. Hard to believe we were all this small once and filled with innocence, warmth, and friendliness.

I feel a sudden wave through my stomach and inspect the line. I find Thorne immediately, only a few people in front of us. He smiles at me, and I smile back. He’s been with Doc all morning while I was with Delilah.

“Do you love him?” Delilah asks me.

I look down at her, and then back at Thorne. “Yes,” I say.

Saying it feels right, but once again I wish I knew what the branding was really doing to us. I can’t imagine my life without how I feel about him. If it’s not real, if it’s all manufactured, then what does that mean for me?

“He should sit with us, then,” she says.

She hands me a tray that’s gray and white. There’s a large crack down the center, and it’s missing a corner. I have to let to go of her hand to take it and balance it with my crutch.

“Out huntin’ today, Delilah?” one of the cooks asks her. The woman is thin with bony, pale arms. Her lips are a straight line, and there’s no life in her eyes. Even her hair seems to be falling out. She puts some food on Delilah’s tray.

“I was trackin’ this morning. Found two rabbits,” Delilah answers with a giggle.

The cook laughs. It’s short and forced, but her face changes a bit. Gets a little rounder at her smile. “Two? That’s more than Miles found. You’ll have to tell ‘im. That boy hates when you beat ‘im!”

Delilah smiles at the woman, and then leads me through the line to the end where my plate of food awaits. I carry a plate and balance on my crutch as we walk toward the back corner of the room. There’s a small, lone table here that’s brimming with people. Too many people for such a small table. One of them is an older man with a crooked hat and a bushy black beard.

“That there is Pete,” Delilah says. “He knows all about El Paso.” She steps away from me with her plate, and I follow. She puts a hand up to stop me. “Let me go first.”

I watch her skip over to the table, all charm and smiles. The people around Pete separate for her and one even gives her his seat. She talks to him silently before every set of eyes at the table drifts toward me. My stomach feels sick when she waves me over. Thorne walks up behind me, his breath on my neck.

“Want me to take that?”

“I can do it,” I say back.

He looks at me and then follows my gaze to Delilah. “You two having fun?”

“I’m teaching her to spell,” I say. Thorne nods. He knows how much I love teaching. “How was Doc?”

“I’m good as new,” he smiles.

Delilah calls my name and waves me over again. I look at Thorne. “Coming?”

“For what?”

“Some answers,” I say. Thorne and I move over to the table across the room.

“You must be Neely. Little Lilah said you was nice,” Pete says. He waves and someone moves for us. I lower myself into the newly emptied chair next to Thorne, still warm from the previous man. “You teachin’ her how to read and write, so I reckon I’m supposed to tell ya ‘bout how we work.”

“That was the deal,” I say. It comes out a little snappier than I mean it to.

Pete raises an eyebrow. “Whatcha wanna know?” I move the food on my plate around with my fork, bite my lip. He laughs at me, a loud guffawing laugh. “Don’t even know the questions!”

A few awkward moments pass us by in silence. What do I want to know? Where do I start? I want to know everything. How they died. What the Old World and the Preservation were really like.

“How do you survive out here?” I ask. Pete shifts in his chair and says a quick word in the Remnant language. Delilah stares at the man until he sighs dramatically. He shoves a bite into his mouth. Some of it drips into his big, bushy beard.

“We survive ‘cuz they didn’t. We know how it works. We use whatever leftover resources we can find from before and build things new. That’s how it works if others go ‘bove at all.”

“How many camps are there?” Thorne asks. I look at him but don’t speak. This can be a way for Thorne to learn some of what I know and for both of us to understand some more.

“More than I know I reckon. See, them Elders tried to destroy everythin’, but they can’t do that. People’s always going to survive and adapt. That’s all we’ve done-adapted. ‘Course, I reckon it’s different everywhere. Who’s to say new camps aren’t set up every single day? I just know the people we workin’ with, and I’m sure it ain’t everyone.” Pete rips a corner of some bread off with his teeth.

Beside me, Delilah swings her legs in her chair while she eats her food. She looks from me to Pete and back again. I pick at the peas on my plate, and then stuff a few into my mouth. They taste like nothing.

“San Francisco is the only place where they live above and below. The Mavericks took it way back durin’ the Preservation after the Elders abandoned it ‘cuz of the earthshakes. It’s some kind of headquarters, a place they run things from, I reckon. None of us goes there.”

I shake my head and dip my bread into what’s left of my food. I chew it quickly so I don’t have to taste it. “Why do the Elders tell us everything is dead? It’s not dead.”

Pete gawks at me, his eyes shifting between amused and frustrated. He opens his mouth, shuts it, opens it again. “There’s a war between us and ‘em. You think the war ended with the Preservation? The Elders want all the land, and they want all of us off it. We’re nothing to them. So the Cleaners come out ev’ry few months and suck the people out. Right after they toss somethin’ over them. A bomb, a poison, somethin’. Sometimes it’s stuff that’s been out in the Old World forever, but the Elders are waitin’ for the right time to use it up. Best way to get rid of vermin is to keep sprayin’ for bugs.”

The fire. That’s how they started it. They’d already had it in the Burrows, and they activated it to kill me. Those people really did all die because of me. I lower my fork, no longer hungry. So many people are dead. Someone walks by and speaks to Pete. He stops talking to me and answers the other woman in the Remnant language.

“Where was I?” Pete asks, clearing his throat and taking a long swig of water. “The network keeps us informed. We share everythin’ with most of the other camps because it’s all we got. Goods, food, news, deaths. Got some real smart people in other places, too, done rigged up some of that technology that destroyed the Old World. We got it now ourselves somehow, and we use it.”

“Like the cars and guns?” Thorne asks.

He nods. “We got to be careful. That’s why we call ourselves El Paso, even though it’s right over yonder. If they think that’s where we is, that’s where they gonna go. It’s safety. We move around. This is just one of our places in this area.”

“Tell her more ‘bout San Francisco,” one of the guys with us says.

Pete eyes us both suspiciously and pushes his plate toward the center of the table. “The Elders lived there ‘fore the ravens, ‘fore the States fell. They were three rich men who wanted the States to be a good place again, who wanted to flourish ‘emselves. They’d been looking for a way to live forever when Raven’s Flesh happened.”

“No one can live forever,” Thorne says. His tone is completely even, but I can tell that he’s struggling. No one can live forever, but maybe they have succeeded.

“So you think,” Pete says. “The Three had lots of scientists, and after the cure, one scientist realized them others was lyin’. He tried to make it better. That’s what you have to do when you realize somethin’ isn’t what you think it is.”

I feel off-balance as Thorne listens, his face twisted in confusion. He looks at me and sees my lack of surprise, which makes him more confused.

“What did the one scientist do?” I ask Pete.

“He had two sons and a daughter in a Compound. Story goes that he saved one of them, and they started the Mavericks. The other son stayed in the Compound, and we never heard what happened to him. The girl was a spy, relayin’ information to her father.” Pete stops just long enough to eat his food. That must be Xenith’s family. He told me that they started the Mavericks. This whole time he’s been connected to the outside in some way.

“In the Old World, everyone thought San Francisco would break apart-all them earthshakes they had at the end-but it’s there still.” Pete looks between us. “The Mavericks are there. They’re good people. Saved a lot of lives. Gotta know how to find ‘em though, ‘cause they’re on the move a lot.”

“Is that how the Elders haven’t found them?”

Pete pauses, and a smile spreads across his face. “The Elders are always lookin’ but they don’t build on this side of the map anymore. They send the Cleaners sometimes, but we’re all careful. They believe all of it’s dead, but really, all of it’s full of Remnants trying to rebuild.”

I don’t think that’s what the Elders believe at all. I think they are waiting.

6 MONTHS BEFORE ESCAPE

I WAIT AS LONG AS I CAN
before I have to go visit my father at headquarters. This isn’t a pleasure trip. I need his signature so I can keep teaching lessons to the younger kids. At this point, everyone my age is doing the thing they will do forever. I don’t want to do anything forever, especially not what they’ve assigned for me
.

Director
.

I’ve known all year, all my life, what my fate would be when I turned eighteen-Assistant Director Cornelia Ambrose. It’s the one thing I don’t want, but I’ll never be able to avoid it, not entirely. This is a delay tactic. We haven’t been on the best of terms, but it’s all I have. I’m still his daughter, and that has to count for something
.

The hallways here always put me on edge. I don’t like being able to see myself in the floor, to hear my shoes as I walk. The walls are so white and the lights too bright. I feel like I’m out of place, and everyone is watching me contaminate the space. Plus, I know what’s underneath the shiny layers of tile and laminate-the dead awaiting the ceremony we have four times a year
.

Father’s office is in the far eastern corner of headquarters, so I have to pass by the Healer unit and the Troopers station before I make it to his quarters. I try to block out what lies beneath me and beside me
.

“Cornelia,” Mary Jenks says. She’s my father’s assistant, though I’m not sure what she assists him with. She’s a short woman with blonde hair cut to her shoulders, and she’s always wearing black dresses and shiny shoes
.

“I’m here for my father.”

Mary flips the papers on her clipboard, her brow furrowing. “You’re not on his schedule.”

I put on my best innocent, doting daughter face. “He’s so busy, I know, but it should only be a minute.”

She smiles at me, eyes darting around before landing on me. “He should be back soon. You can sit in his office if you’d like.”

I thank her and go inside. My father’s office is dark. The walls are brown here, unlike the rest of headquarters. A bookshelf covers the back wall of the room, filled with the history of the Compound in ledgers from previous directors. There’s a couch the color of the tide and two chairs that are near his massive, disheveled desk. If not for the floors that still shine under my feet, I wouldn’t recognize the place
.