Three (Article 5) (11 page)

“This was a school,” said Dr. DeWitt. I got the impression that he’d been talking for a while, but I’d been too awestruck to hear anything. “Now we call it the Lodge. We eat here, store food and supplies. Most everything we grow ourselves.”

He held the door, and with an impressed glance at each other, Chase and I followed the crowd inside.

It was much like the elementary school I’d gone to—a long hall with classrooms lining the right side and big windows on the left. Their mismatched shutters were cast open and the breeze that entered was tinged with the scent of the livestock across the pasture. The walls—decorated with charcoal drawings of stick figures and houses—were bathed in sunlight.

The sound of children’s voices floated down the corridor, easing the remaining tension in my chest. We came to an open door, and the classroom inside was bright and colorful. There were children of all ages sitting in plastic chairs attached to L-shaped desks like I’d used in school. The older ones, probably near twelve or thirteen, helped the younger ones, who wore just the straw-colored tunics that exposed their little legs. In the back, one boy sat alone, staring at us with a sour look on his face.

On the walls were clusters of water-wrinkled magazine photos. Cityscapes, smiling women wearing the tight clothes of the old days, and even pictures from the War—crushed buildings, yellow smoke, and people running. The images chilled me—a reminder of our bloody past, viewed from a failing television in my old living room.

I was reminded again of my mother.
You wouldn’t believe the stuff they used to write in these things
. I almost smirked, thinking of her story in one. She would have liked that. And even if only one person read it, and it made them stop and think, or maybe even fight back, it would have been worth it.

A woman with a short crop of black hair and skin the color of coffee wrote on a chalkboard at the front of the room.

“That’s Ms. Rita,” said Dr. DeWitt. “She’s on the council. Her daughter Jana’s next door with the infants.” He smiled at Sarah.

“What’s the council?” Chase asked.

The doctor looked at him for the first time since he’d recognized us in the grove.

“The council is made up of members who vote on the direction of Endurance. Van Pelt, he works the fields. Panda’s our head cook, and Patch Connor trains the fighters.”

“And what do you do?” asked Jesse a bit rudely.

DeWitt took a slow breath. “Whatever I can to help the cause.”

My heart beat faster. I was certain now that the rumors of Three’s presence at the safe house had been false. This was their base, and clearly, DeWitt was someone of importance here. It appeared our luck had finally turned.

I was just about to move on when I saw the words Ms. Rita had written across the board: “Article 3.”

The class recited in unison, “Whole families are to be considered one man, one woman, and children.”

Instantly I was back in reform school, sitting in a stiff wooden chair, wearing an itchy wool uniform. The scars on my hands I’d been given there throbbed, and I fought back the urge to march into that classroom and tear up the Statute circulars I now saw in the hands of each one of the children.

“She’s teaching the Statutes?” I asked.

“We need to know our enemies,” answered DeWitt.

“They’re kids,” I tried to reason. “They should be reading books and learning, I don’t know, spelling. History.”

Jesse gave me an odd look. “This
is
their history.”

I flexed my hands from their tight fists. In public school I’d learned math and science; I’d read novels and poems. And then my sophomore year they’d taken the Bill of Rights from the curriculum as if it never existed and posted the Statutes in the hallways and told us that if there was ever a hope our country could rebuild after the War, we needed to comply. Now I doubted there was anyone left who didn’t know what the Moral Statutes were.

“Things have changed since I went to school,” I said.

Jesse snorted. “And you’re young. How do you think I feel?”

As he limped ahead of me, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for sticking the fork in his leg.

We stopped at the cafeteria, but the hallway continued on around the bend. Two guards, like those that had hidden in the trees, blocked that path.

DeWitt stood before them. “The north wing is off-limits except by permission of the council. If you all will find a seat in the cafeteria, I’m sure I can talk our cook into throwing together something for you to eat.”

“What’s in the north wing?” asked Billy.

“Weapons depository,” answered DeWitt. I had a feeling guns and ammunition weren’t the only things these guards were protecting.

“But we get our own weapons back,” prompted Billy.

DeWitt smiled, but didn’t answer.

“Sir, our injured made camp near the safe house wreckage,” said Chase. “They’ll be running out of supplies soon.”

In my admiration of the compound, I’d completely forgotten about the rest of the group, fending for themselves at the mini-mart. The guilt settled between my shoulder blades as I awaited DeWitt’s response.

DeWitt continued through the threshold into the cafeteria. “We’ll look into it,” he said.

“We also need a radio,” I said. “Ours was damaged, and part of our group is supposed to make contact sometime around sunset.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you,” I said. “The last we heard, some of our people might be missing.” For some reason, I stopped myself before telling him Tucker’s team had found the first resistance post abandoned.

DeWitt nodded. “Eat,” he said. “Everything else can wait.” With that, he departed, leaving Chase and I exchanging skeptical looks.

*   *   *

A HALF
hour later we were in the cafeteria, crowded around a long table fixed with green circular stools attached to its base, like we’d had in my middle school. As it was, most of the men either sat on the table itself or faced away so they could stretch out their long legs. Rebecca and I crammed next to each other, and for an instant my heart felt like it was being twisted, because I remembered how Beth and I used to swap our lunches in a place like this.

Behind the cafeteria was a playground, and through the open door a few children played on the old rusted equipment. Beyond them, six mismatched ovens were visible—they’d been gutted, their insides filled with fires. A dozen people bustled around these stoves while two others managed a central fire pit. I didn’t know what they were cooking, but it smelled so delicious my stomach growled.

Across the table, a few seats down, Chase was talking to Jesse. Though Jesse’s hair was long, and his scruffy beard fuller, the similarities between them were eerie. The way they sat, facing out with their elbows on their knees, and how their eyes moved over everything, always vigilant, even if you could never see it in their expressions. Jesse leaned back and scratched a hand over his skull, something I’d seen Chase do a hundred times.

“He’s taller than I thought,” said Rebecca.

My attention snapped back into focus. “Who?”

She snorted. “Chase, of course.”

I nodded. He was tall. Taller than most men by several inches, with the exception of Jesse, though thinner than before. Now that I thought of it, I’d always seen him split everything evenly, even though he should have needed more.

“Sean told me how he came for you at the reformatory,” she said. “And how he turned himself in to the FBR to find you when you got caught.”

“Sean’s not so different,” I said.

“No,” she acknowledged. “He’s not.”

“How could you leave him?” I asked, suddenly angry. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. I saw you on that bridge. You knew he wouldn’t be able to follow you.”

I tried to turn away from her, but my legs were trapped between the table’s bars.

“I knew,” she said. “I knew after the first step he couldn’t follow.”

“Then why?” I demanded. “You could have been hurt!”

“I already am hurt.”

She leaned against me, head on my shoulder, and tentatively, I rested mine atop hers. Her hair was matted with sweat and smelled a little, but she was alive and I was grateful for that.

“You’re going to get better.”

“You sound
so
sure,” she said with a sad smile.

I opened my mouth to object, but she continued. “Do you know how hard it is to look at someone and know they blame themselves for what happened to you?”

She looked up then, meeting my eyes, and I did. I knew exactly, because it was my fault she was hurt, my fault she was out here. I turned my head and my gaze came to rest on Chase’s back, bowed down by the weight of the burdens he carried.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said.

She squeezed my arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

*   *   *

WE
ate a meal like I’d never eaten before—not even when I was home, and my mother had a job before the War had started. A man named Panda with buzzed hair and a list of names tattooed on his forearms served us goat meat and sweet potatoes and leafy green kale and carrots. There were chunks of nutty, coarse bread we dipped in honey, and oranges from the orchard and as much fresh water as we could drink.

I ate myself sick; I wasted nothing. And when my plate was clean a lanky boy with skin so tan it was nearly the color of red clay asked me if I wanted more and I said yes because the memory of hunger was just as sharp as the real thing.

When I was able to lift my eyes off my plate I spotted Jesse across the table. He’d barely touched his food. The boy with the tan skin made his way toward him, and as I watched he tripped, then caught himself. He hadn’t spilled anything, but he turned around just the same and sped back to the kitchen, embarrassed.

I tracked him, wishing DeWitt would resurface from wherever he’d hidden. Now that I’d eaten, I wanted to know how he’d recognized Chase, and what he’d meant when he said we needed protection more than ever.

I rose when Chase appeared behind me.

“Sean’s convinced they’re poisoning us to use our bodies as hog’s feed,” he said. “But that didn’t stop him from licking his plate clean.” He rubbed a hand absently down his throat.

“I thought Three was supposed to be, I don’t know,
scary,
” I whispered. “They look like farmers, not fighters.”

“Who said we can’t be both?”

The voice behind me made me jump. Even Chase looked surprised; the noise from the kitchen had distracted him. Behind me, Dr. DeWitt smiled, his blue eyes bright with amusement.

“So you
are
Three,” Chase said.

A little girl that had joined us from Jesse’s group tugged on DeWitt’s tunic. One of the women who’d been tending to her stood back a few steps, and encouraged her to ask him a question.

“Can I go play?” she asked without looking up.

For a moment he didn’t move. Then, slowly, he squatted before her and brushed the hair from her face.

“I hear your name’s Justine, is that right?”

I took a good look at her now, brunette, with pretty round eyes. I realized I hadn’t taken the time to learn the children’s names. Or any of the survivors’ names, for that matter. Better not to get too close. But maybe here things could be different.

The girl nodded, wiping the crumbs off her dirty sweater.

“Pretty name,” said DeWitt. “I’ll tell you what. You’ve got ten minutes to have as much fun as you can. Then you have to wash up and go to bed.”

“But…”

“Nine minutes and fifty seconds,” he said. She pouted for another two seconds, then raced out the door, two other children on her heels.

“Will can show you to your sleeping quarters,” DeWitt told the group, motioning to the boy who’d tripped while serving dinner. “The council has decided a formal introduction to the camp can wait until tomorrow.”

The thought of being paraded around made me nervous. We didn’t even know how many people lived in Endurance.

“Did you talk to them about our people?” Chase asked. Across the table, Jesse flicked back his greasy hair.

“One step at a time,” said DeWitt.

“With respect, sir, they may not have much time left. We haven’t been able to make radio contact in days,” Chase pressed. For the first time in a while, Jack agreed with him.

“We’ll discuss it tomorrow.” The finality in DeWitt’s tone was clear.

As the others rose and followed Will, I helped Rebecca to stand.

“Actually, I’d like to discuss it now,” said Chase. I braced against the frustration in his tone, aware of those around us who’d stopped to watch. We were hardly in the position to make demands. “And I want to know how you know about me, too,” Chase finished.

Rebecca squeezed my elbow.

DeWitt chuckled dryly. “Why don’t we take a walk? The three of us.” He tilted his head in my direction.

“Where are you taking them?” Rebecca asked warily.

“Just for a walk,” assured DeWitt. “They’ll rejoin your people soon.”

He turned without another word and headed to the long corridor that ran the length of the school.

Just a walk
. I could manage that. Maybe he’d found a radio for us, although I wasn’t sure why he wouldn’t just come out and say so. From what we’d seen, neither DeWitt nor his people posed a threat to us, and this might be the perfect opportunity to figure out what exactly was going on.

A quick squeeze of Rebecca’s hand, and Chase and I followed. Sean was scowling, watching the events unfold from his place on the opposite side of the table.

We came to the main hallway, lit by torches mounted to the walls at intervals, but instead of turning left toward the front of the building, DeWitt made a right. In silence, I followed him over the yellowed, peeling linoleum, waiting with growing anticipation for him to explain why he’d asked me to come along. The windows here had been blocked by planks of wood, but through the cracks I could see that dusk had come.

The hall curved slightly and we came upon two armed guards dressed in beige tunics like DeWitt, with loose pants. They gave him a formal nod, then stepped aside.

The north wing, I realized. Entry was forbidden without council approval, but I wasn’t convinced it was just because the weapons were stored here, as DeWitt had claimed. The armed surveillance seemed a little excessive. I passed the guards, trying to ignore the familiar dread I felt around MM soldiers. These were the good guys, even if they did look similar.