“The plane is flying low enough that they might notice a suspiciously person-shaped lump covered with a blanket in the back of a pickup truck.” I shake my head. “I’ll have to use the dirt bike loader to get you down.”
Decision made, I spring into action. Unhitching the back of the pickup, I pull it open and hop up into the bed. Miles presses his eyes shut as I shuffle him away from where the metal ramp is attached. I take it firmly in my hands to lift it off its supports, and . . . nothing. I yank it again. It doesn’t budge.
I wiggle it around, trying to get it unstuck, but it only becomes more firmly attached. I lean over to see that one of the pins the ramp hangs on is bent out of shape. I’ll need a hammer or some kind of wedge to bend it outward before the ramp will come free.
Far away, it sounds like the aircraft is turning. As the buzzing gradually becomes louder, my heart thuds hard against my rib cage. I feel my hands tremble and realize that I’m afraid. The close shave with the helicopters that kidnapped my clan, and my own traumatic experience in Mr. Blackwell’s private plane have shaken me. I break out in a cold sweat. Even if I tried to camouflage us now, I’m not sure I could reach the Yara in my current state of anxiety.
I jostle the ramp again and run through my inventory in my mind: There are some tools in my repair kit that might work. I’ll need to run back to the tent to get my pack. But the buzz of the plane is getting louder, and panic grabs me by the throat and squeezes hard.
I force myself to move, running for the tent. I eye my pack, but know there’s not enough time to use tools now. Instead, I grab the pillows and covers and, sprinting back to the truck, I spread them on the ground beneath the tailgate.
I roll Miles to the edge, and lying down on top of him, press my chest to his and wrap my arms and legs around his body. His eyes are wide with alarm. “Juneau, what are you trying to—” he begins, but I interrupt.
“Just shut up and try to relax any muscles that are working,” I say. And with all of my strength, I use my right arm and leg to wrench Miles’s body up from the truck bed, and roll us off the back of the tailgate. For a split second we are falling, and then we land hard, Miles on top of me.
The cushion I made from the pillow and blankets breaks the worst of the landing, but my breath is completely knocked out, and it takes all of my strength to push Miles off me and sit up. Five heartbeats go by and then I am gulping in air.
The plane is closing in—the sound is coming directly toward us. I scramble to haul Miles beneath the truck. His feet leave furrows in the dry earth. Scoot and pull. Scoot and pull. The truck sits high up on big wheels, giving me enough room to sit crouched over underneath it as I drag his body.
My mouth is full of dust as I grasp Miles under his arms and give one last pull, then I clamber forward to hide my legs and feet under the cover of the truck. The airplane is on top of us: Its insect whine fills my ears as it passes overhead and continues on southward.
I lie for a moment, my chest rising and falling as I try to catch my breath. I cough, and my mouth tastes like dirt. I roll my head sideways to look at Miles, and there he is, inches away, his body turned slightly toward mine, arms limp by his side. His face is covered with sand, and there’s a large scratch on his forehead. He watches me with that wide-eyed look and then licks his dry lips. “Are you okay?” he asks.
“Yeah, are you?” I ask, panting.
“Of course I’m okay,” he says. “I landed with my full weight on top of you. I’m surprised you weren’t crushed.”
I can’t talk, so I just shake my head as I close my eyes and press my chest hard with my palms. We are silent as the sound of the plane becomes distant and disappears.
My breathing slows to normal, and my heart no longer feels like it’s going to explode. A sliver of pain shoots up the back of my neck, blooming poppy red behind my eyes. I’m going to be very sore tonight.
“Juneau?” I hear Miles say.
“Yes,” I respond, turning toward him.
“You’re amazing,” he says, with an awestruck expression. “Trust me when I say you are, hands down, the toughest girl I’ve ever met. And I mean that as a compliment—in my most heartfelt please-don’t-hurt-me-anymore kind of way.” His teasing smile has returned, and this time it fills me with a happiness that makes me forget my aching back and mouthful of desert dust. This feels like complicity. Like we’re a team. Like we’re together.
I smile and reach over to touch his hair. “I promise not to hurt you if you promise never to get shot again.”
“Deal,” he whispers, and closes his eyes.
12
MILES
WHEN I WAKE UP, I AM IN THE FRONT SEAT OF THE pickup, held upright by a very tight seat belt.
Juneau stares intently ahead as she drives, and the gold of the starburst in her right eye flashes in the desert sun. Her finger-length hair is dusted with dirt, and stands up on end. Reddish clay caked on her arms has dried into a crinkled pattern. Right now she would fit perfectly into the postapocalyptic world she believed existed until a few weeks ago. Like Mad Max’s extremely dirty sidekick.
I look down and see that I am shirtless, dressed only in my blood-spattered jeans and tennis shoes. I assume my shirt is too blood drenched to ever use again. I focus on my Converses and try to wiggle my feet. No go.
“Where are we?” I ask, and Juneau jumps. My voice sounds like gravel, and I clear my throat and ask again.
“We’ve been driving parallel to the Colorado River, and are about to cross over it into Arizona.”
We pass a sign that says NEEDLES FWY and then onto a bridge crossing high over a wide aqua-green river. “How did I get in the car?” I ask.
“I got the motorcycle ramp unstuck and used the winch to pull you in,” she says, keeping her eyes on the road.
I watch as she expertly handles a pickup truck after teaching herself to drive barely a week ago. “Is there anything you can’t do?” I ask, only halfway joking.
She considers. “There are plenty of things I’ve never done. Fly a plane. Speak Chinese. But nothing I can think of that I couldn’t either learn or find a way around.”
“Like lifting a hundred-seventy-five-pound man into the front seat of a truck,” I say.
“For example.” She glances over and smiles before focusing back on the road.
Just. Wow. This girl is so confident. Capable. Self-reliant. And generally kick-ass. I wonder what she could ever see in me. “Maybe, once I’m unparalyzed, I could impress you with my mad video game skills,” I offer.
She laughs. “You’ve got to be good at something besides that.”
“What,” I ask, “besides dazzling chicks with my keen wit and striking good looks?” And I give her the smile that I used to use to charm people, which now seems more than a little ridiculous. Juneau rolls her eyes and I laugh. “Okay . . . skills . . . I can lift one eyebrow, put my entire fist in my mouth, and say ‘cheers’ in twenty-three languages.”
Juneau looks over at me in disbelief and then bursts out laughing.
“Okay . . . if I have to toot my own horn, I used to be really good at lacrosse. In fact, I was the junior varsity captain.” I clarify: “That means head of the team.”
“Lacrosse was in the EB,” she says, and digs into her literally encyclopedic memory. “Competitive sport, modern version of the North American Indian game of baggataway, in which two teams of players use long-handled, racket-like implements (crosses) to catch, carry, or throw a ball down the field or into the opponents’ goal.”
“Do you have a photographic memory?” I can’t help but ask.
“No. As I said, we didn’t have much to read,” she responds. “And the Encyclopaedia Britannica was our only window on the world.”
She glances down to check the atlas sitting open on the seat between us. Clicking on the turn signal, she pulls off the bridge and into a picnic area on the edge of the river. A couple of cars are parked nearby, and out in the water a speedboat pulls some shouting kids on
an inner tube.
Juneau rolls down the windows, cuts the motor, and turns toward me.
“You played lacrosse. So you must have good reflexes. And if you were captain you must have leadership skills.”
“The operative word here is ‘were.’ I kind of lost the taste for lacrosse when Mom’s mental health started getting patchy. Kind of lost the taste for everything else, too.”
I turn away from the pity in Juneau’s eyes and lean my head back against the seat. I remember the abyss that opened up inside me after Mom left. The things I enjoyed before—my interests, my passions, everything else that I loved—were sucked right down into it. It was easier to feel nothing. The only activities that interested me were the ones that helped me forget the pain. Temporarily, of course. It always came back with a vengeance.
I wonder where the pain is now, and poke around inside myself like I’m hunting out a bruise. It’s still there, but it seems smaller. More manageable. I wonder if that’s because of Juneau. Or because, for once, I feel like I have a purpose. Or maybe it has something to do with the dream.
“What are you thinking of?” Juneau asks.
I start to say something funny—comedy being my favorite defense mechanism—but decide I don’t need to do that with her. Not anymore. “I’m remembering . . . thinking about Mom. What it was like when she was sick, and then when she left,” I respond truthfully.
“Want to talk about it?” she offers.
I shake my head. “Not yet.” Without thinking, I raise a hand to rub my forehead. My eyes shoot open. “Hey, I can move my hand. And arm!” I exclaim.
“Not bad,” Juneau says, offering me a happy smile. She knows full well I’m changing the subject, but gamely plays along. “Can you use your legs?”
I focus again on my feet, but only succeed in wiggling my toes inside my shoes. “No.”
“I hope you don’t mind, then, if I leave you here in the truck.” She runs a hand through her hair, releasing a mini–dirt cloud. “I could use a swim.” Opening her door, she steps out of the cab and goes around to the back of the truck to get some clothes and a towel out of her backpack. Then, walking onto the beach, she kicks off her shoes, strips off her tank top and jeans and dives into the water wearing only her bra and panties. They’re blue. Not sky blue—a darker blue, like the ocean.
I don’t know why I’m so surprised to see her strip. Juneau’s underwear has more material than most of the bikinis you see in L.A. Maybe it’s just the fact that she’s wearing lingerie at all. Maybe I was expecting her to go commando, being raised by hippies and all. Or maybe I expected her to be super-modest. Then again, she’s not only seen me naked, but dressed me while I was unconscious. Kind of a strange situation for two people who have only kissed. Okay, rolled around on the ground in a mad passionate kiss, but whatever.
I try to erase all thoughts of Juneau and her soft mouth and our steamy make-out session. We’re not only on a mission—we’re fugitives. Even if both of us wanted to, there won’t be much time for rolling around anywhere in the near future. I lean my head out the window for some fresh air to cool me down.
Juneau splashes around for a moment, rubbing her hands over her hair and up and down her arms, washing off the dirt. Then she turns and swims toward the river’s far bank, using broad strokes as her body glides through the water. In ten minutes she’s across a river that would have taken me twice that time to swim. Without taking a break, she turns and heads back.
I lay my head back against the seat and finally let myself think about what has happened to me. I died. And then came back to life. So I’m basically undead. I’m a zombie.
An immortal zombie, I remind myself. One that doesn’t smell like rotting flesh or have limbs falling off. I congratulate myself for looking on the positive side of things, but still can’t help feeling like a freak.
I watch Juneau’s head bob up and down as she executes a perfect crawl. She saved your life, I think, and feel torn. Part of me is just happy to be alive. To have survived a fatal gunshot wound. But another part is pretty freaked out. I’m something else now. Something that even Juneau isn’t, since she isn’t supposed to undergo the Rite until she turns twenty.
I’ve taken a drug that my dad would give his left arm to have, and it’s changed me forever. I don’t even know what it means. Do I have magical powers? Does this slowed-aging thing make me immortal? Awe and fear fuse inside me and rise like lava, scalding my chest and my throat.
I close my eyes and breathe out deeply, then inhale another lungful of air and blow it out as slowly as I can. I’m okay. I’m alive. And I’m with a girl I’m falling for. Okay, let’s be honest, have fallen for. Past tense.
Opening my eyes, I watch as Juneau strides out of the water, dripping wet as she reaches for her towel. She rubs it over her head, wipes down her body, and then does a trick where she wraps the towel around herself, takes off the wet clothes and puts on dry ones without showing skin. Finally, she’s walking toward the pickup wearing black jeans and a red tank top. Her cheeks are flushed from the swim.
She spreads out the towel and wet clothes in the back, combs her hair down so it’s pixie instead of punk, and climbs into the driver’s seat, leaning back on her door to face me. “I’d unstrap your seat belt if I didn’t think you’d fall over,” she says with a ghost of a smile.
“How long will I be paralyzed?” I ask.
“Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“No.”
“Then you’ve got a while to go,” she says. “You won’t need food while you’re still under the influence of the death-sleep. Most of my clan members stay in the medicine hut for four days, sleeping the whole time with two or three short awakenings. You’re awake for long stretches, talking and making sense. It’s like the fact that you were already on death’s door has given you superpowers.” Juneau says it jokingly, but spots the look on my face and pauses. “What?” she asks.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s kind of frightening to hear that I’m an anomaly: no longer a ‘normal’ human, but not like the rest of your clan. I don’t even understand what my ‘new and improved’ body can do.” My joke falls flat. I shake my head. “Okay. What this means is I’m eighteen years old and I’m never going to get older. I won’t grow another inch, won’t develop past where I am right now. Right?”
She nods. “Pretty much. But you’re alive. And I happen to like you the way you are right now.” She leans over and wraps her arms around me, and I rest my head on hers.
We sit there for a full minute, her soft hair cushioning my cheek. Finally she pulls back, enough so that our faces are mere inches apart. She closes her eyes and leans in to give me a warm, soft kiss, and then stays close, running her fingers through my hair. I breathe in her breath and it calms me. Centers me.
“I promise to tell you everything I know about the Rite I gave you,” she says. “I’ll tell you everything the elders taught me about the Yara—the truth along with the lies.
“Then you can do what I’m doing now . . . figure out what makes sense to you. Which parts you believe—which parts make a difference to who you are. Who you can become.”
I don’t know what to say. I’m so tired all of a sudden, I don’t know if it’s the conversation, the death-sleep, or both. It all seems too big for me. I lean back against the headrest and run my hand through Juneau’s hair. Pull her to me and close my eyes. I feel unconsciousness grip me and sleep tug me under.
Juneau’s words come from outside the warm, still place I’m sinking into: “Old Miles, new-and-improved Miles, it doesn’t make a difference—I’m just glad you’re here.”
13
JUNEAU
AS I EXPLAINED TO MILES, MY CLANSPEOPLE barely wake during their death-sleep. So when he reenters his death-sleep, it isn’t like he’s merely nodding off. It’s more like he’s sucked into a vortex of unconsciousness. This reassures me. He’s not as much an anomaly as he fears—the other Rite-travelers were never on the run during their transiti
on. That must explain the different reaction.
Miles doesn’t even budge when I get out to fill the tank and use the gas station restroom. I wear my sunglasses to hide my starburst, but the woman behind the counter is watching TV and doesn’t even notice me.
Back in the truck, I dig through our supplies for any remaining food, and am forced to throw out several bars of melted chocolate and some cheese that went bad in the swelter of the desert sun. I move the bottles of water behind the seat to keep them as cool as possible, and put what remains beside me: two apples and a pack of chocolate fudge Pop-Tarts. Not the most nutritious meal I’ve ever eaten, but all the gas station had was candy and I don’t have time to hunt.
I slip a Pop-Tart out of its package and munch on it as I reassess our situation. There are two things that concern me: how fast Whit will get out of the hospital, and how far Blackwell’s men will chase us.
I sift through the facts. Whit can track me by Reading. But he doesn’t trust his guards. In Salt Lake City, he slipped the fragment of the New Mexico map to me without them seeing. And his shocked reaction when one of them shot Miles is another indication that he’s not completely in charge. Although Whit knows I’m heading for New Mexico, his guards don’t. And if he doesn’t trust them, I don’t think he’d set them loose on me if he’s not there. Until he’s out of the hospital, they are not a factor I need to consider.
As for Mr. Blackwell, if he was so upset about Whit disappearing before they could make a deal, he must not know about the kidnappers. He wouldn’t be aware of where my clan is being held. Therefore he has no idea which direction I’m heading. The farther Miles and I get from L.A., the wider his search will become and the safer we will be.
Which all means one thing: I’ve got to continue driving as far and as fast as I can, and avoid anywhere someone could recognize us: hotels, gas stations, roadside shops. Blackwell might have alerted the police that his son was missing. I wonder how long it will be before he finds Miles’s car and discovers that I swapped it for this truck. The dirt bike guy obviously knew our exchange was fishy, and he has plenty of other cars to drive. Maybe he’s hidden it away for a while. I can only hope.