Rise (15 page)

“She's not ready to go,” Bette said. “Why can't you see that?”

“We have to,” I said. “It's not worth arguing. Out here we're still exposed. If anyone passes through we could be discovered. We have to keep moving.”

Bette shook her head. As the rest of the girls spread out their blankets and pillows on the floor, curling up beside one another, she turned down one of the side halls. Clara came over to me, her hand resting on my arm as we watched her go. “If it makes you feel any better, she hasn't spoken to me either,” she said. “She'll be better once we get to Califia. She'll see you were right.”

“I hope so,” I said. I stepped away from the others, gesturing for Clara to follow. I grabbed the tattered map from my belt and spread it out, pointing to the route I'd marked in pencil. Clara studied it in the last of the day's light. “If we go north there's water along the way. A guaranteed supply every three days or so. Owens Lake, Fish Springs reservoir, Mesa Lake, Lake Crowley . . . see? All the way up.”

“Lake Tahoe?” Clara asked. “Wasn't that where the dugout was?” She traced her finger over the fork in the road, moving up, past the line I'd drawn. I'd thought about Silas and Benny after I'd left. Moss had sent messages to the dugout when I'd first arrived in the City, stating that I was alive, that Caleb and I were together. We hadn't heard anything back, and it was impossible to confirm they'd gotten word. As much as I wanted to know if they were all right, part of me didn't want to suffer the reality if they weren't. What if we found the dugout abandoned? What if they'd gone to the siege, if they were among the bodies strewn in the road those first few days? And if they were alive, if they were there, I didn't know if I wanted to revisit it all—that time, that place. Caleb. Leif. I'd purposely had us go west before we reached the boys' camp.

I nodded. “It would add days to the journey, though. I thought—”

“I didn't mean we should go there,” Clara said, turning to me. Her expression was apologetic. “I wouldn't want you to. I wouldn't want any of us to—not after what happened to you.”

A few of the girls fell asleep, offering one another
Good night
s, while Sarah and Kit went to retrieve more supplies from one of the bedrooms. Clara knelt down beside the duffel bag, rooting through it until she found the radio. “I was thinking . . .” she said, holding it up. “Is there any way we could send her a message? Just to let her know I made it out of the City. That I'm safe—that I'm with you. She's probably a mess, thinking I was killed in the Outlands, wondering if I was taken by the rebels.”

I turned the radio over in my hands, wondering who inside the Palace would be able to decode the message. I knew it was improbable that any of the rebels who still worked in the tower would risk revealing themselves to Rose—not now, and especially not to tell her that Clara, who for all anyone knew supported my father, was alive. I'd thought about it anyway, noticing how Clara's mood had changed over the past week, the way she'd bring up her mother, or the City, wanting to know if there were any dispatches about the Palace. “Of course we can,” I said. “I just have to warn you—it's likely she won't get it. Now that Moss is dead, I don't think any of the rebels would decode it and pass it along.”

Clara rested her back against the wall, pressing her face into her hands. “We'll go back eventually,” she said, not really directing it at me. “Eventually she'll know I'm all right. I'm sure she's figured out what happened.”

“She must've,” I said. “We'll have more resources once we reach Califia. Once you're there we'll have a better sense of what to do.”

The last of the day's sun came in through the door, catching Clara's blue-gray eyes, lighting up their depths. “I shouldn't have just left,” she said. “It was like I was trying to punish her or something.”

“You didn't have much time to decide,” I said.

“It was always just us.” Clara worked at a knot in her thick gold hair, pulling at the tangle until it came undone. “Ever since the plague, ever since my father and Evan died. There have been so many times that I've just wanted to be free of her.”

“You can't blame yourself for leaving. What if my father had found out that you'd helped me that day? What then?”

We were both quiet. I wanted to tell her that she'd be able to go back to the City, that we could both return, but as the days passed that seemed less likely. I'd noticed a change even in the time since we'd set up camp. The nausea had lifted. Beatrice had said it was normal, that now that I'd made it to three months I wouldn't experience the morning sickness as I had before. My midsection felt swollen and full, and my clothes fit differently—even if it was noticeable only to me. Once we arrived in Califia I wondered if I'd ever leave or if I'd be bound there, indefinitely, unable to go anywhere else. How long did I have before my father found me again?

Sarah and Kit passed, their arms filled with two more stacks of blankets. Clara wiped the skin beneath her eyes and stood, plucking a musty felt one from the top. I knelt down, about to tuck the radio back into the bag, where I'd kept it hidden, when Kit stopped by the door. She was staring at me, her face just visible in the late light. “What are you doing with that?” she asked.

Clara clutched the blanket to her chest. “What do you mean?” she said. “It's a radio, Kit. You've never—”

“I know what it is.” Kit pulled at her long ponytail, wrapping it around her fingers. “But I thought that was Bette's.”

I scanned the lobby, at the girls curled up on the couches and floor. I could barely see them in the shadows, so far from the windows and the road. “Why would you think that?”

Kit shrugged. “She told me she'd found it in the gas station, that it was hers. She was using it two nights ago.”

I could feel Clara's eyes on me. I pushed past her, into the room. “Where's Bette?” I reached down and squeezed Helene's shoulder, startling her awake. “Did you know about the radio? Did you know she was using it?” I looked at a few of the girls who were curled up on the floor, catching glimpses of their shadowy faces, trying to distinguish one from the next. I didn't see Bette anywhere.

Helene shook her head. “I don't know where she is,” she said. But she clasped her hands together, her face tense. “I don't . . .”

“What was she doing with it?” I asked. “Tell me.”

Helene brushed her braids away from her face. “She said she was going to get me help. She promised me.”

I took off down the dark hallway, past the old motel rooms. Some of the beds were turned over on their side. There were dusty suitcases filled with clothes, rotting ceiling tiles, a pile of toys that had been abandoned by people who'd left in a hurry. I spotted a figure in the broken mirror at the end of the hall. I tensed, taking a moment to realize it was my own reflection.

Standing there in the dim hall, I listened to each one of my breaths, trying to figure out when Bette had seen me with the radio. She had to have gone through our bags, searching for it. How long had she been trying to send out a message? Who did she possibly think would come?

Far away, beyond the shattered windows, I heard a small voice calling out, the words indistinguishable. I turned down the hall, not stopping until I was outside, rounding the back of the building. I darted past the parking lot, filled with rotting cars, and when I cleared the corner I finally saw her. She was just a black silhouette against the purple sky. She was waving her hands frantically, back and forth, a pathetic signal fire by her feet.

It took me a moment to see what she was looking at. My hands went cold. Coming up the ridgeline, only a half mile away, was a motorcycle, its headlamp a small pinprick of light.

BETTE KEPT WAVING BACK AND FORTH, JUMPING UP AND DOWN
, trying to signal to the motorcycle. “Over here!” she yelled out. “We're here!”

I ran as quickly as I could, throwing my arms around hers, pinning them to her sides. “Do you know what you've done?”

The moonlight cast strange shadows on her face. “I did what you wouldn't,” she said. “She needs help. You said yourself she could die.”

The motorcycle was coming closer, zipping along the ridgeline. I kicked dirt over the fire, a tiny pile of twigs and brush, scattered with a few burned matches she must've stolen from the supplies. Then I grabbed her arm, pulling her toward the motel. It all came back to me, rushing in, washing away every other thought. In an instant, I could see Marjorie and Otis on the cellar floor, her body slumped over his, her braid soaked with blood. I'd recognized the risk of bringing the radio along, knowing what could happen, knowing how much danger we would be in if one of the girls used it. I'd buried it in the bottom of the bag where only Beatrice, Clara, and I would know to find it.

Bette dug her heels in the dirt, pulling us both to a stop. “I'm getting her help,” she repeated. “We need someone to bring her a doctor.”

“That's not how it works,” I said. She struggled against my grasp but I held on, not letting her go. “When did you send out the message? What did you say?”

The headlight sped closer. The soldier was just a dark figure silhouetted against the sky, his back hunched slightly, the motorcycle packed with supplies. I'd never seen just one soldier, but I'd heard the boys at the dugout speak of it, how sometimes they'd run surveillance from storehouses or government checkpoints. If he was canvassing, that meant there were others close by, not more than fifty miles off.

“Yesterday night,” she said. “When you were sleeping. I said where we were.”

I pulled her back toward the motel, using my full force. “You need to hurry,” I said, looking at the small cluster of buildings ahead of us. There were only three wooden structures and an abandoned store, the parking lots scattered with cars, their tires torn away from the metal rims. It wouldn't take the soldier more than a few minutes to search the buildings. Our only advantages were that there were more of us, and we knew the layout of the motel.

I picked up the pace, running toward the back of the building, Bette close behind. The motorcycle approached too quickly. I heard it coming up the ridgeline, closing the gap between us. There was the terrible grating of the tires on pavement, the sound of the brakes. Just as we'd nearly reached the motel, the engine turned off, returning the outside world to silence.

He didn't call out, as the soldiers often did, ordering us to turn, to make ourselves known. I didn't look at him, instead bringing Bette around the side of the building, through the parking lot, to the back entrance. I pushed open the lobby's glass door, sending off the dull clinking of chimes somewhere above. “We have to move into the back rooms,” I yelled out, pointing to the dark hallway farthest away from the road. “We've been found. Go—quickly.”

Bette stood by the door, unsure what to do. A few of the girls startled from where they slept. Clara hovered by the lobby's front entrance, where she had been watching us as the motorcycle approached. She dropped the curtain and turned to me. “He's not there anymore,” she said, going to the windows on the other side of the door. “I don't see him.”

I scanned the lobby, but it was so dark it was hard to make out anyone's face. Beatrice and Sarah helped Helene to her feet. I felt for the knife at my hip, reassured that it was there. As I grabbed Kit's hand, shoving her out to the side hall, I heard the bells clank together, a sound so sudden it raised the fine hairs on my arm. There was the quick clomping of boots on the tile floor, then his slow, labored breathing, as the man grabbed Bette by the arm, holding a gun to the side of her ribs.

He looked around the room, his face half visible in the moonlight streaming in from the door. “Who did this?” he asked. It was obvious he wasn't a soldier. He wore a broken leather jacket and jeans that were black with dirt. I watched him, studying the red armband tied to his sleeve, wondering what it could symbolize, if he was for or against the resistance. Did he know about the Trail? “Who brought you all here?” he yelled.

“You can take whatever you want,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. “We have water and food. Enough to last you a week.”

“I don't want supplies,” he said, the gun pressed into Bette's side. She was oddly still, her body rigid and eyes closed, as if she were already dead. One of the girls behind me was crying. I didn't turn to look. Some of them had on their jumpers from School, and I suddenly regretted letting them keep them, even if they only wore them when they slept. It was impossible now to lie about who they were.

“I brought them,” I said finally. “They were escaping the Schools.”

He moved the gun from Bette's side, pointing it instead at me. “You did,” he started, each word short. “Someone sent out a message saying they needed help. That they were being held here.”

I looked to Bette. “She hurt her leg,” she choked out, barely opening her eyes. “Helene. She needs a doctor.”

The man scanned the room, taking in Helene at Sarah's side. She held her hurt leg off the ground. “Eve was trying to save us,” Kit said quickly. I turned to her, hoping she wouldn't go on, but she did. “She's the Princess—the King's daughter.”

Beatrice grabbed Kit, trying to silence her, but it was already too late. He let go of Bette and instead lunged at me, squeezing my arm so tight it hurt. Then he leveled the gun just below my ribs. The feel of it there, the blunt end pressing into my skin, was enough to steal the breath from my body. “Is there anyone else from the Palace?” he yelled at the others.

Beatrice stepped forward, into the dim light. “You've made a mistake,” she said. “She's trying to bring the girls to safety. To Califia. She's been working with Moss.”