Sunset Rising (28 page)

When the crowd following Crystal had left, I returned to the room to look for Jack.
Despite the number of people that followed Crystal, a large crowd remained in the room, anxious for the evening’s training session to begin. I found Jack with a group of people gathered around him, sharing their life stories. Many people were still wiping the tears from their eyes. They spoke of beatings, killings, and rebellions. A group of younger people behind me was singing Crystal’s song.

Jack put his arm around me and pulled me close enough for him to whisper in my ear.
“It’s happening.”

I nodded.
I knew what he meant; Crystal was uniting the Pit. I should have been happy. That was what I wanted. But my mind was still on Crystal. Why was everyone following her, and why did she say she didn’t have much time? I spotted her parents sitting alone at a corner table in the back of the room. Her mother was sobbing uncontrollably. I excused myself and went to talk to them.

“
Hi, I’m Sunny, a friend of your daughter.” My introduction seemed a little silly considering the song Crystal had just sung. “I wanted to say that Crystal is a beautiful singer. Her song really touched a lot of people.”

“Forgive my wife
,” Crystal’s father said. “She’s very upset right now.”

“I can tell.
I wonder if there’s anything I can do to help?”

“You’ve helped enough!”
Crystal’s mother spat at me.

“
I’m sorry?” I was taken aback by her anger.

“Crystal knows what
she’s doing,” her father said through his tears. “I have to trust in that.”

“I think you need to tel
l me what’s going on.”

“Mr. West has forbidden her to sing down here.
She’s only allowed to sing at his request,” her father said.

“But the camera is broken in this room.
He’ll never know she sang here.”

“But they aren’t broken in the other common rooms.
She’s going to every level to sing her song so everyone will hear it. She already sang on the first three levels. It’s just a matter of time before someone upstairs hears her,” he said, his voice laced with despair.

Now I understood why everyone was following her and why she said she did
n’t have much time. If West had heard about her song, then he probably already had Domers on their way down to get her. People in the Pit had been beaten to death for lesser crimes. We needed to help her. Without another word I ran to Jack.

“We have to help Crystal!”
I said, pulling on his arm.

“What’s going on?”

“Her parents just told me that West has forbidden her to sing without his permission and she’s going to every level. We have to smash the other cameras!”

I ran
out the door and down the hall with Jack on my heels.

“Wait!” he said when we reached the stairs.
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the communicator that Bron had given him. He made sure he was on the right frequency to reach the Alliance guards and sent out the order to break the cameras from the fifth level down to the eighth. Five guards confirmed receipt of the order.

“It’s done,” he said.

I turned to go down the stairs. “I want to make sure.”

I heard Jack’s exasperated sigh, but he followed me anyway.
We passed the fifth and sixth levels and kept going until we were almost to the seventh level, but the number of people on the stairs was too thick to get through.

“We’ll just have to trust that our guards got to the rooms,” Jack said.

I heard the clatter of footsteps racing down the stairs
behind me and turned to see a small army of Domers marching toward us. They were armed.

“Clear the way!” one of them shouted.

Jack grabbed me,
pushed me against the stone wall, and used his body to block me from the guards.

“You don’t have your hat on
, and your hair is almost back to its normal color. They’ll recognize you in a second.”

“But
we have to help her!”

“You’re my first priority.
When the guards pass by us, we go back up.”

“No!” I wouldn’t abandon her.

“Clear the way!” the guards were yelling.

But there were too many people on the stairs to clear the way for them.
One of the guards unhooked something from his belt and held it high.

“C
lear the way or we use the gas!” His voice boomed through the stairs.

“Dammit!” Jack said under his breath.

Cries of fear rose up, and the crowd started slowly moving forward as the people farther down left the stairs. Jack and I were caught between levels and had no place to go but down. Going back up would take us right into the path of the guards. He kept me in front of him, hiding me from their view. When we reached the seventh level, we stepped off the stairs and joined the hordes of people there. I expected the guards would pass us by, but two remained on our level while the others kept going down.

“Crowd control,” Jack
said. “We’re stuck here until they leave.”

After several minutes passed
, we heard a scuffle on the stairs as the guards came back up from the eighth level dragging Crystal with them. We were close enough to the stairs for me to see her. I didn’t see any new bruises on her face, so I hoped that they hadn’t hurt her. She saw me standing among the crowd and gave me a huge smile.

“R
ise up!” she yelled to the crowd. They responded with a cheer, raising their fists high in the air.

I wrenched free of Jack’s grasp.
“I can’t just stand here and watch this happen!”

I pushed my way through the crowd
, intent on saving her. I wasn’t sure how I was going to do that, but I couldn’t just let her be dragged away. I was vaguely aware of the crowd getting louder, their cries getting angrier, and then people started moving forward. Everyone wanted to save Crystal. I had almost reached the stairs, but then I was being crushed in the surge of angry people. I felt hands grab me from behind and knew Jack had caught up to me. I tried to kick him to make him let me go, but he pushed me up against a wall and pinned me there. I was dumbfounded when he ripped off his t-shirt, balled it up, and pressed it against my face. I tried to pull it away, but he kept a firm hand on it. A shot rang out and something landed not too far from us. A few seconds later tear gas filled the hall.

Jack’s
eyes started tearing up right away. I tried to give him the t-shirt he had pressed against my face, but he wouldn’t take it. Instead he rearranged it to cover my eyes, too. I was blind, but I could hear the chaos going on around me. Jack was gasping for air. I pulled at the shirt to get it off my eyes, and it shifted enough for me to peek out. I watched in horror as Jack fell to his hands and knees in a fit of coughing. I had to get him out of there.

The alarms rang out
, signalling a lockdown. In a few minutes there would be more guards down there, forcing us into our homes. I pulled at one of his arms, urging him to get up. My eyes were beginning to sting, and I put the t-shirt back over my face. I would be no good to him if I became incapacitated too.

Jack managed to stand up
. I seized him by the wrist and started making my way through the mob. Every time I peeked up from the t-shirt, my eyes stung. The stairs weren’t far from us, but it seemed to take forever to get there. When we finally made it, the stairs were littered with people dealing with the effects of the gas. I was appalled at the sight, but one thought kept me going past everyone: Jack couldn’t breathe. I stepped over people, pulling him behind me. My eyes were beginning to sting more, and breathing was becoming difficult. I was coughing too, and it slowed our progress. But I didn’t stop moving. I could hear Jack wheezing behind me.

We made it to the fifth level
, and the air up there was clear. I took his t-shirt away from my face to make better time. The stairs were still thick with traffic, but it was moving steadily. I could hear the arrival of the extra guards. We were almost to the fourth level. I pushed through the crowd and nearly lost my hold on Jack’s arm. His eyes were still closed and tearing badly. I looked around and saw other people in the same shape, trying to find their way home.

We
reached our level before we met the guards on the stairs. Instead of going straight to our apartment, I ran to the bathroom. He needed to rinse the gas out of his eyes. There were a few other people already there with the same idea, but they made room at the stone tub for Jack. His eyes were still closed against the sting, but as soon as he felt the water, he madly splashed it in his eyes. He dunked his entire head under, scrubbing at his hair and the back of his neck. When he came up for air, his eyes were open.

“Come here,” he said
, pulling me down to kneel beside him. His voice was deep and hoarse.

I splashed the water in my own face.
My eyes weren’t as bad as Jack’s, but they were still stinging quite a bit. The water felt cool and relieving.

“All the way,” he said
roughly, plunging my head into the freezing water. He pushed all of my hair in as well and splashed water along the back of my neck. I came up gasping for air when he finally let go of me.

“What did you do that for?” I
asked.

“You have to get the gas off your skin and hair
.” Then he looked at everyone in the room. “When you get home, strip your clothes off and wash them.”

More people staggered into the
bathroom, and Jack and I left to make room for them. The halls were still thick with people, most of them moaning and crying. Guards yelled, telling everyone to get to their homes. But most people were too desperate to get to water and relieve their stinging eyes.

As soon as we walked into our apartment, Jack unzipped his jeans and almost tore them off his body.
He ran to the sink and filled it with water. A rash covered his back. I grabbed one of the towels off the rack, soaked it, and started rinsing his back. His sharp intake of breath told me it hurt. I realized he must have taken a good dose of the gas when he was blocking me.

“Thank
you for saving me,” I said.

Jack smile
d and was about to say something when he went into a fit of coughing. My eyes were beginning to sting again, and I wiped at the tears, which only made them worse. I opened the cupboard door to get him a glass for water but could barely see. My eyes were starting to roll up in the back of my head. I wiped at them again, but that made them even worse.

“Stop rubbing your eyes.
It’s on your hands,” Jack said, gripping my wrists and wrenching my hands away from my face. He bent his head close to my t-shirt and his eyes started tearing again. “It’s all over your clothes.”

He grasped the colla
r of my shirt in both hands, ripped the front of it open, and let it fall to the floor. I still had the vest on so it hadn’t soaked through to my skin, but the outer shell of the vest would have to be washed. I took it off, careful not to drag it across my face.

“Now the pants,” Jack said impatiently.

I unzipped them and took them off. Once I was down to my underwear, Jack let me rinse my eyes and face. I was conscious of the fact that we were using a lot of our water ration. I prayed we didn’t run out. He gathered up our clothes and put them outside the door of the apartment and then came back to wash his hands. While he was at the sink with his back to me, I picked up the wet towel and gently dabbed his red skin.

“Does it hurt?” I asked.

“A little. It’s just a mild chemical burn, so it should be gone by tomorrow. The canister must have gone off right behind me.”

“It did.
I watched it hit the floor. I didn’t think tear gas was this bad.”

“Tear gas has been used
so much down here that no one is afraid of it anymore, so they changed the formula to make it more… effective.”

I remembered
that he’d already had his t-shirt over my face before they had even released the canister. “How did you know they were going to use the gas?”

“Because it’s the order I would’ve given if I was
in charge.”

“You do have
insight.” Once again I was confused over whether or not I liked this side of Jack.

He turned his head to l
ook over his shoulder at me, a scowl on his face. “Just because I was trained by them doesn’t mean I’m like them. And I think my insight has been valuable.”

“It has been valuable.
I’m sorry.” I finished wiping his back with the wet towel. “Better?”

He nodded.
“Thank you.” He turned around to face me. “Tonight was just the first battle. There will be more.”

“Crystal was amazing.
Her song really brought everyone together.” Goose bumps rose up on my skin when I thought of her song… and when I thought of the inner strength it must have taken for her to defy West and do what she thought was right.