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fifteen
THERE WAS NO RELIEF FROM THE RAIN. IT CAME FAST AND hard, pelting my hands, my neck, my face. Streams flooded the Outlands, burrowing into the sand, turning the ground to a thick, heavy sludge. When I glanced back, Clara had pulled off her shoes and was wading, knee-deep, through a puddle. Behind her, the rest of the girls trudged on, nine in all, their jumpers soaked through.
“Hurry now,” Beatrice called out, ushering them along. Her short, gray coat hung heavy on her shoulders, the rain dripping off the hem.
Sarah was yelling to a girl toward the rear of the group who’d stalled. I turned, noticing it was the girl with freckles—Bette. “We can’t go to the Schools,” Sarah kept repeating, as she pulled Bette toward the wall. “Beatrice said it, too. It’s not safe anymore. You have to just trust them. ”
The Jeeps had stopped on the road. As the soldiers climbed out, they were deliberate in their movements, thinking they had time, that we had nowhere to go, the wall just a quarter mile off. I sped up and the girls followed, weaving down one last street until the motel came into view up ahead, the pool filled with a murky gray liquid, the rain rippling its surface.
“We’re not going to make it,” Clara said as she ran beside me, her bare feet sinking into the sand. “There’s too many of them and there’s too many of us. ” She swiped the wet hair out of her face.
“Just hurry,” I said as I pulled open the chain gate, the girls filing past me. A few held their bags over their heads, their shoes knotted together, the laces slung over their shoulder. They kept looking to me, then back at the soldiers, as they started toward the front of the motel. “Bring them into the one marked eleven. ”
I ducked through the gate, watching as the soldiers started down the road toward us. There were ten of them, maybe more. We only had a few minutes.
When the last girl passed into the room I followed behind her, weaving around a rack of clothes that had been covered with a clear plastic tarp. The room smelled of mildew, the carpet peeling up at the baseboards. Boxes of clothes covered a large chest against the wall, the shirts draped over the sides, arranged by color. The lock was a loose, pathetic thing, but I pulled the chain over the door anyway, sealing it shut.
“It’s not here,” Clara yelled, as she opened the closet in the back. Her voice startled the rest of the girls. They pressed against the walls, watching me. “It’s the wrong room. ”
A mattress was propped against the window, half blocking the view. I pulled back a small sliver of curtain, watching as the soldiers started into the motel’s entranceway, working their way down the row of rooms. I moved quickly, dragging the wood chest against the door.
There were wet, muddy footprints all over the carpet, but it was impossible to say if they were ours or not. Another mattress sat at an angle on the floor, one corner of it bent against the wall. I checked the bathroom, the closets, the small space between the dressers. I wondered if I could’ve read the map incorrectly, or if this wasn’t the motel Moss had described.
“They’re coming,” Beatrice said, her voice frayed by nerves. She let the curtain drop and began pulling at the mattress, maneuvering it so it covered more of the exposed window.
I stared at the mattress on the floor. Bette was standing on it, her feet sinking down in the center. I watched as she shifted her weight, the thick padding giving beneath her. “Help me move this,” I said. “Quickly. And stack the dresser against the door. ”
I signaled to the girls beside me, and they grabbed the musty corners of the pad, sliding it back into the center of the room. A hole appeared in the floor, no more than three feet wide, the carpet cut away around the edges. Clara pressed her hands to her flushed cheeks, a momentary relief, until the first soldier banged on the door. “Go,” I told her, nodding toward it. “I’ll meet you out on the other side. ”
The room was dark. The sound of rain filled the silence. We could see the soldiers outside, their shadows moving past the thin strip of window that wasn’t blocked. Clara lowered herself into the tunnel, her breath sucking in as she let go. “There’s water down here,” she said. She turned back, her hands gripping the rim. “It’s up to my knees. ”
I closed my eyes, wanting a minute to think, but the soldier pounded on the door again. Moss had never told me the exact distance of the tunnel, but I imagined it was the same length as the one in the hangar—no more than a mile. Many of the flood channels had been filled in with concrete after the plague because they were seen as a security threat. The rebels had followed their basic routes, extending them where necessary, but most were much narrower than the originals—no more than five feet across in places, with low ceilings. It was impossible to know how quickly this one would fill, but we’d be in more danger staying here, waiting for the soldiers to come through. “Go quickly,” I said, helping the next girl in. “Just keep moving until you reach the other side. ”
“I can’t swim,” the girl said, her face tensing as she splashed down into the murky water below. She pulled the hem of her jumper above her knees.
“You don’t have to—just move quickly. ” I peered into the tunnel, my eyes meeting Clara’s before she took off, trudging through the water and into the darkness ahead. One by one the girls lowered themselves into the earth. The soldiers outside worked at the knob, trying to free it. Sarah had moved the second mattress to the door, wedging it behind the wood chest, so it was flush against the wall.
As she worked, pushing the dresser tightly behind it, I saw a flash of what Beatrice must have been like when she was younger. Her short, strong build, the straw-colored hair curled at the nape of her neck. “You should go,” Sarah said, pointing into the tunnel. The last girl lowered herself down, leaving only the three of us. “I’ll follow behind you. ”
“You will not,” Beatrice said. She put her hand on the girl’s arm, pulling her toward me. As she said it, the lock broke. The door pressed against the mattress. The soldier pushed into the room, straining against the stack of furniture. Within seconds the window gave, the shattered glass falling below the curtains.
I leaned over the edge of the tunnel’s entrance, watching the last girl move forward, into the dark. I helped Beatrice into the water below. Her skirt bloomed around her, the thin gray fabric floating on the glassy surface. The water had risen—an inch, maybe two.
Sarah lowered herself in behind her mother, gasping as she sank into the cold. “Just keep moving,” I said, calling over Sarah’s shoulder as I started inside. I hit the ground, the water nearly up to my hips. When I spread my arms out, both hands grazed the sides of the cavern, the walls pitted and rough where the rebels had chipped away at the concrete. My pants clung to my legs, and the edge of my sweater was heavy with water. My boots filled, anchoring me to the floor.
I could see very little beyond Sarah’s back, just hear the sloshing of the water against the walls as the girls pushed through. Somewhere in front of me a girl was crying. “My shoe is stuck,” she yelled. All movement stopped. I could hear her labored breathing as I unzipped my boots, clutching them against my chest. There was whispering, quiet coaxing, and then we began moving again, farther into the blackness.
I glanced behind me, watching the dim light that filtered down from the motel room. Shadows came over the surface of the water. “It’s another passageway,” I heard a soldier call out. One jumped in, the water hitting him just below the hips. He waited there, squinting into the dark, trying to figure out just how far away we were.