inDIVISIBLE (22 page)

“Why did we take it then? And how do we get rid of it all without them finding out what we know?”

T ran his fingers through his hair before clasping both hands at the back of his neck and craning his head back to stare into the lightening sky. “The beacon already transmitted our words. They knew we were there so I figured taking it might give us a chance to turn them in the wrong direction.”

I folded my arms, rubbing my biceps to smooth the chills.
“And what about the men in the bushes?”

T dropped his arms to his sides. “
I saw one of them—a Freeman.”

The river
seemed to intensify in sound, louder and louder until I thought it would burst my eardrums. I cleared my throat. “You’re sure?”

“Yes
.”

I stood but T motioned for me to sit back down. “
Then who were the others?”

“Just before you woke, the Freeman
was going through our supplies. He didn’t take anything, just looked at each object before dropping it back into place. He headed into the trees as you woke. I’m assuming he ran into Alliance officers.”

             
“How do you know he wasn’t
with
the Alliance?”

“He dressed like someone out of our history lessons,” he said, turning away and walking three steps before turning back. “He had on faded jeans, old hiking boots and some kind of b
rown jacket—and he fought the officers. If he was with them, they wouldn’t have fought ...”

T
his time I stood and stared into the water. “Do you think they killed him?”

T pushed his toe through the dirt
. “I don’t know.”

The loss nearly overwhelmed me, making my heart
cold and heavy. I dropped my hands and stepped back, feeling nearly as though I’d lost my father a second time. “What do we do now?”

“It’s time we sent the Alliance off course and put some distance between us
—and that Freeman found us once, so I’m hoping he’ll find us again.”

“How
do we get away from them? They know right where we are because we took those stupid supplies. ”

T glanced up
river to where he stashed them and said, “I’m going to secure the beacon to a log and float it downriver.”

“What about the rest, the blankets and the food?”

The jerky has enough air in it to float and let’s see if we can get those cans headed downriver.”

“The blanket
?” I asked, wishing I didn’t already know the answer.

“We’ve got to lose
it too. We’ll drop it in the water or along the bank. Have a preference?”

I considered for a moment before I remembered the map. “Isn’t there a cliff just south of us?”

He smiled. “I’ll drop it over. You find something to attach the beacon to while I’m gone.”

“What about the men
?” I asked.

He cupped the side of my face. “
If the Freeman won, there’s nothing to worry about—and if the officers won, they’re going to have to take care of the Freeman before they come hunting us. We’ve got a short window and we need to take advantage of it.”

I didn’t want him to leave me alone. I wanted to be beside him. “We could both go …”

T shook his head. “I wouldn’t leave you if I didn’t think you’d be okay—five minutes—find something for the beacon and stay put.”

I nodded and T took off at a sprint through the trees to the pile of supplies. By the time I reached the same place, he’d already disappeared to the south. I picked up the beacon—lighter than I’d imagined. I st
arted into the brush to find something that would float when an idea occurred to me.

I returned to the river and crouched among the food. Carefully, I tore away the top of the jerky bag and the scent of
the meat struck my nostrils, made me salivate. My stomach rumbled, and I reached inside for a piece when T said, “No.”

I jumped and dropped the pouch into the dirt.

He crouched opposite, sniffed the jerky and mouthed, “May be drugged.”

I clenched my teeth and took the package from him,
my hands now trembling. I placed the beacon inside and sealed the package back up with the zippered seal, trying to leave as much oxygen inside as I could so it would float atop the water as long as possible. As I held that package up, the meat mocked me—made me remember how little the Alliance really valued me. All they wanted was my knowledge—or my father’s knowledge—and as long as they thought it was only in my head, the longer I’d live. I cursed them for it, for thinking we lived to serve only them. I wouldn’t do it anymore and letting their stupid beacon be swept away would be one more step of defiance I hoped they’d feel like a slap to the face. My teeth throbbed, and I released my tight jaw. I opened my mouth, stretched it open to help me relax and lowered the bag.

T gave me a thumbs up, gathered up
the canned food and held them over the water. I held the jerky next to his armload and we met each other’s eyes. I could still smell the jerky, and my stomach rumbled for it but I wouldn’t give into the traps again. T shook his head once and nodded toward the river. We released our loads together and they hit with a splash before drifting away.

T tossed his backpack over his shoulder, the backpack we’d depleted of supplies, and grabbed my hand. I followed him away, a
jagged line to the west, each of us making heavy steps, breaking limbs, an easy trail for the officers to follow. After half a day, we stopped and T whispered, “I found a settlement, a few miles to the south.”

“How?”

“I saw it from the cliff when I dropped the blanket.”

“Freemen?”

T shook his head and took a long drink of water. “But it looked big … and cluttered. I think we could blend in for a day or two, really throw the Alliance off our trail—maybe beg a little food.”

I sipped from the bottle, my emotions at war. “We can’t lead them to an innocent settlement.”

“Listen, Brynn, I think we actually lost them for a while, but they know where we are now. We won’t lose them again without doing something. They’ll send in helicopters or drones once they realize we’ve discovered the bugs and disposed of their ‘gifts.’ We can’t let them catch us and if we hurry, they’ll never know we went to the settlement.”

“What if they show up in the settlement?” I asked.

T said, “My bet is that those people don’t care much for the Alliance. I think they’ll help us.”

I couldn’t maintain the same level of conviction as T but I
agreed by saying, “Food sounds good.” We inched toward the cliff and I saw it—an entire city in the middle of a forsaken desert. From a distance, it had houses, streets, apartments and squares of blue and black plastic between many buildings, wooden structures between others. “It looks—”

“Exciting?” T asked, walking down the cliff until he found a place with ledges, almost like stairs down the face of it.

“Disorganized,” I said, slipping down to the first ledge, a five foot drop. My jaw rattled when I hit.

“Land with your knees bent,” T said, demonstrating as he jumped off the next. “Just like jumping out of two-story windows.”

My knees shook but I squatted and jumped, nearly going over the edge and down a ninety foot drop. T caught my arm and pulled me back toward the wall. “Easy,” I said.

“Exactly.” He dropped to the next level and waited for me, the rest of the ledges the same until we reached the
scree slope. The next thirty feet was fine sand and rock, a slippery sloped descent to the desert floor. “Ready to tuck and roll?” he asked.

I laughed even as my heart trembled. We’d run out of time if we didn’t find some way down it in a hurry. “Any other ideas?”

The six feet from our ledge to the top of the scree looked like twenty but it would be a softer landing than rock. “Jump and let the loose stuff just carry you down—like skiing.”

“I’ve never been skiing.”

T took my left hand in his and said, “On the count of three—”

“Together?”

“You know how it works,” he said, skipping one and two and saying, “three.”

We jumped and I sa
nk to my shins in the debris, but it did roll downhill, carrying me with it like the mudslides I’d watched on my PCA.

Adrenaline shot through me, making me lightheaded—and wanting to laugh out loud. I bit down on my bottom lip and rode out the debris until it slowed and jumped again. The base of the slope became harder and we ran until we met flat ground.

With the worst behind us, we burst forward, making the two mile run faster than I thought possible, but with T pulling me beside him I had little choice to slow. My lungs burned and my thighs ached.

The bui
ldings became houses and tents. Tarps stretched to provide privacy, shelter or shade. The streets opened up into narrow lanes the size of sidewalks, tents and shelters packed at the base of each permanent home … homes like T had described with pitched roofs, brick walls and chimneys.

CHAPTER 26

We collapsed in the shade of a towering building made from particle board and corrugated tin. My stomach retched, and I rolled to my knees, my back cramping with the pain of losing what little water I had left. Stomach acid followed, burning my raw throat, until I rolled to my side and pulled my knees to my chest.

T sat beside me, his breathing normal, his legs stretched out as his head lulled
against the building at his back. “Deep breaths,” he said softly, his voice rhythmic—calming.

I sucked air in through my nose, the relaxation technique I’d learned in the healing center becoming useful. I pushed it out through
my mouth until my lungs burned and my vision blurred.

“Deep breaths,” he said again, “not hyperventilate.”

I used what little energy I had left to slap his leg.

He chuckled.

I sat, leaned against him and pushed my legs out in front of me too, mimicking his relaxed posture. “We made it, T,” I whispered.

He rubbed my shoulder. “Yes we did.”

“Now what?”

A child squealed somewhere out of sight and two men argued behind one o
f the flimsy walls. “We blend in,” T said.

My head cleared.
I focused on my filthy hands and broken nails … “How can we blend into anything other than dirt?”

A child rounded the corner, the street narrow where we sat, little wider than the sidewalks we’d used in Section Seven. He slowed when he spotted us but continued forward
with his eyes wide, his hands at his sides.

His hair hadn’t been cut in ages and dirt smeared his cheeks, but what caught me most were his
clothes: he had no shoes, no shirt and his ragged shorts hung from his skinny hips. As he reached us, he smiled.

“I’m Ben.”

His smile was contagious and I returned it. “Hi, Ben. I’m—”

“Kate,” T
interrupted. “And I’m Tom.”

He scrunched his nose as he looked us over, his fingers brushing against my tangled hair. “They’ll do.”

I touched my hair, feeling twigs and dirt embedded in the mass of knots. “What will do?”

“The names.”
 

I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

“You could do better, but they’ll stick.”

He knew we lied about our names but it seemed common enough.

“When did you get here?” he asked.

“Today,” T said.

“Did you come for harvest share?”

T and I exchanged a glance. “What’s harvest share?”

Ben jumped as another boy sprinted around the corner screaming, “I knew I’d find you!”

Ben squealed, waved and took off towar
d the boy, narrowly escaping his arms as they resumed their game elsewhere in the settlement.

T stood, brushed off the back of his pants from habit and offere
d me a hand. I took it, teetering as I planted my feet. “Whew, lightheaded.” I clamped my fingers around his hand and waited for the feeling to pass. “What do you think harvest share is?”

T swiped a thumb over my cheekbone and said, “
I don’t know, but judging from the looks of Ben, we’re going to fit right in.”

“If we lose our shoes,” I added.

He looked down at his running shoes that must have cost the Alliance a fortune and he smiled. “I’m okay with losing my shoes—later.”

Squared off homes of brick and rock sat at intervals below
and between scabbed houses, the leftovers of a society the Alliance had “bettered.” The windows were gone, left open to let in the breeze or patched with sheets of plastic, blankets or cardboard.

I walked ahead a few paces and paused, turning full circle. Handcrafted tents fill
ed the spaces between, piles of clothing, pans and scavenged boards marking entries as people hoarded their meager belongings.