I like that. There are choices now. Possibilities.
“This place you’re going,” I say, “is it nice?”
She already wrote the address down for me. Smart thing had it memorized, and realized, even before I did, that we could roughly navigate our way there by zooming in on the skip tracer tablet’s map until it showed the surface streets around San Bernardino. I’d only been to California a few times, enough to start feeling a bit nervous once we hit Quartzsite, one of the last few Arizona towns along the I-10 before the border.
Zu shrugs.
“You’ve never been there before?” I press. “Even though it’s your uncle’s place?”
She weaves her fingers together, then rips them apart.
“Ohhh,” I say, “he doesn’t get along with the rest of your family?”
I get a thumbs-up for that. “Are you sure he’s…I mean, I know it’s your uncle, but he’ll be okay taking you in?”
Zu wraps her arms around herself, miming a big embrace.
“I hope so, kid, ’cause I don’t think you can stick with me if I go looking for, like, the Children’s League.”
It’s like I’ve slapped her in the face—the moment the shock passes, she looks visibly upset. At first I think it’s because what I’ve said was a little mean, but she’s freaking out, shaking her head, waving her hands. No—her mouth forms the words in the dark—not them.
“Why not?” I haven’t heard, you know, pretty things about their methods, but they do get their point and demands across in a way the parents sitting around on the steps of Flagstaff’s city hall never did.
She’s frantically looking around the different compartments of the car, pulling out sheets of paper, then putting them back when she sees there’s something important written on them.
“Dorothy, Dorothy—it’s okay, calm down.” I can tell she’s getting more and more frustrated—and just when I think she’s going to pull the Band-Aids off her face and write on the backs of those, she finally just settles on using the last of the ink to write the message on her palm.
NO!!! THEY ARE TERRIBLE! SCARY! YOU ARE BETTER THAN THAT!
I snort, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel. For a few minutes, I can’t say anything at all. There’s a stone in my throat and I can’t swallow it. A few minutes ago, all I could taste in my mouth was the McDonald’s hamburger I scarfed down for dinner. Now it’s so dry my tongue sticks to the roof of it.
“All right,” I tell her. “All right. I’ll figure something else out.”
Because even if it’s not true, I want it to be.
You can see the border station from a good three miles away. The floodlights are cranked up so high they look like they form a solid white wall. It’s only when you get closer that you start seeing the lengths of barbed wire and the enormous military tanks and trucks they have haloed out around the freeway, and the small, old building where the border agents used to sit and wave you through.
We pulled over a while back to get Zu situated, but I still feel sick about it—really, genuinely sick with fear. I’ve got her folded down in the gully of space where the dashboard curves out, but she’s only covered with a blanket and a large duffel bag of clothes we picked up at one of those Goodwill drop-off sites. I wonder if she can even breathe under there, and I wonder what’s going to happen if they demand to search the truck, and I wonder if she’s somehow going to have to save me from this, too.
“Don’t say anything or move no matter what, okay?” I tell her.
There are bright orange signs everywhere telling me to reduce my speed, but they seem a little redundant. The floodlights are so damn bright it’s hard to see anything and you have to take your foot off the gas to avoid crashing into the barrel barriers or any one of the uniformed National Guardsmen and -women.
Shit, shit, shit. I grip the steering wheel. I have the AC going at full blast, so high it’s practically deafening, but my back is sticking to the faux leather seat. You’re fine, Gabe—Jim! You are Jim! You are Jim Goodkind and you have every right to be driving through here—
A soldier steps out of the little station building, lifting her hand against the glare of my headlights. I’m waved forward, but not through, like I was stupidly hoping.
She raps her knuckles against my window and I roll it down, trying to remember how to breathe. In out in out in out in outinoutinout…
“Can I ask what business you have in California?”
Say something. Say anything. There is a little girl right next to you and she needs you to act like the twenty-five-year-old you are, not the three-year-old your wimpy-ass guts are telling you to be.
“The aqueduct…” I swallow, forcing what I hope is not a demented smile onto my face. “My boss thinks someone on the California side might have tampered with it. Water levels are suspiciously low. I have to check it tonight before they come in tomorrow morning.”
I have no idea what words are coming out of my mouth. I have no idea if there’s a canal that flows from California into Arizona. I always thought it was the opposite—that California was hogging the Colorado River and leaving us with nothing—but maybe I just spent too much time with drunk, bitter Grand Canyon tour guides growing up. I’m smiling so hard, though, I’ve lost all feeling in my face.
Shit. Why didn’t I practice this? Why can’t I ever think far enough ahead?
“I have all of my paperwork—passes,” I add weakly, fumbling with the glove compartment latch.
The soldier glances down at her clipboard, then back up at my face. “I don’t have any notes about this maintenance trip.…”
I lean closer to the window and let my voice drop to a whisper so she also has to lean in to hear me. “They think the Children’s League might be involved. No one’s supposed to know I’m coming.”
Great. Now in addition to looking sketchy, I also look like a conspiracy theory whack job. Great way to inspire confidence in my sanity.
Dammit, this isn’t going to work. Why did I think this would work?
The other soldier in the booth, who planted himself in front of the TV, sticks his head out to see what’s going on. The soldier I was talking to turns around, about to explain it to him, but he cuts her off. “Heron Hydraulics is on the auto-approvals list—I’ll give you a copy tonight to study for tomorrow.” He turns back to me. “Sorry, sir. Go ahead.”
I stare back at him dumbly. The other soldier has to give me a wave to get me moving.
But no more than a hundred feet later, there’s a whole other border station set up—one Della neglected to mention. It’s not nearly as impressive as the first one, but I can see a small dark figure moving inside the tiny booth as I approach. Hanging from the metal levers blocking the path is a sign telling me to HAVE FEDERAL COALITION–ISSUED PASSES READY.
Shit. Do I have those? I turn the overhead light on again, letting the car coast forward through that small sliver of free land between the two competing governments. I can’t find anything labeled with the Federal Coalition’s name in the variety of rainbow-colored official documents. By the time the car comes up to the metal bar standing between me and the velvet black of California’s stretch of desert, I’m fighting not to start hyperventilating.
What can I tell them—how can I spin my story so I seem sympathetic to them, not Gray? Does it matter? Are they looking for me to be sympathetic toward them? Does that make me seem more suspicious?
But by the time I get there, the police officer—highway patrolman, I realize, rare breed they are—just reaches over and presses something on his desk, and the metal bar rises. He doesn’t even turn around in his seat, from which he’s watching the same program the National Guardsmen were.
I let myself speed up, waiting for him to try to stop me. To show half as much initiative to do something as the first soldier did. But he just sits there, and it’s like all the lights are on, but no one’s home. No one cares. Given how long it’s been since the Federal Coalition was formed and how little they’v
e done to help anyone, it seems appropriate.
Zu’s face is flushed, but she’s beaming when I lift the bag and blanket off her. When I don’t return her smile, her dark brows draw together in a silent question, but I don’t want to tell her. I don’t want her to know that all of a sudden I’m not sure this is a safe place, either.
SEVEN
SAN BERNARDINO doesn’t look all that different from the part of Arizona I found Zu in. It’s not covered in a thick coat of evergreens like Flagstaff, though I’m convinced I see a few mixed in with the shapes of other kinds of trees. It’s a valley, a nice one, surrounded by black-faced mountains that seem to lean in more over us the farther I drive from the lights of the city at the heart of it.
I heard rumors that California wasn’t hit as hard as the rest of us, but driving through these streets makes me feel like I’ve stepped back ten years in time. There are none of the scabs I got used to seeing back home: no sea of silver-backed trailers, no abandoned cars, no tent cities. The gas prices are still astronomical, judging by the price boards, but none of the stations have been shuttered with signs like NO GAS HERE or TRY CAMP VERDE.
The address Zu gave me is a good twenty miles outside the city’s reach. It starts getting quieter, colder as the hours pass by. Eventually I have to roll up my windows and turn down the radio.
“Hey, Dorothy,” I say, shaking her out of sleep. “Is this the place?”
It’s pitch-black out here, but there are lights strung up along the wooden fence leading up to the large one-story home. It’s done in the typical southwestern ranch style—every detail, from the obligatory cacti in pots around the entryway to the bleach-white cattle skull that hangs on the door. I let the truck’s headlights wash over the building once before I switch them off and park the car on the dirt driveway.
“What do you think?” I ask her. “I don’t see any lights on.…”
She unbuckles her seat belt, her mouth pressed together in a tight line.
“You want to wait here while I see if anyone’s home?”
I’m not going to lie. A big part of me was hoping that someone would be up, waiting for us. That her friends those skip tracers were chasing would be here to greet Zu and tell her all about how they gave the beards the slip. It wasn’t so crazy—I never saw them take those girls away. They weren’t in the PSF station in Prescott as far as I could tell.
They’re probably asleep, I think, smoothing my hair back. Yeah. It was just shy of midnight, an hour when nothing good can happen. We all should be in bed before then, I think.
Of course she doesn’t want to be left in the car, but she lets me carefully maneuver her behind me, at least. I feel her small hands gripping the back of my shirt to keep track of me, and the thought that she’s depending on me is steadying.
I ring the bell and knock, but no one comes to the door. We even walk the perimeter of the house, peering through the windows, but nobody’s there—only furniture covered in white sheets.
Maybe her uncle up and abandoned the place. Given how long it took me to drive the length of the driveway through the sprawling property, it seems like this place would take a monumental amount of work to maintain and keep thriving, even in a great economy. I thought I saw a few cows or horses in the far ends of the grassy field behind the house, but I think exhaustion tricked my brain. All I see now are rocks.
I reach around to take Zu’s arm, wondering how to explain this to her. It seems unfair that I have to be the one to break her heart over this—to point out that she fought so hard to get here for nothing. But just as the words start to form in my mind, we hear a muffled bang from the smaller building set off from the main house. Some kind of stable or garage, probably.
The doors are shut, but I see the line of warm, milky light under them—and I see it switch off as we carefully, quietly come up on it. Zu stays behind me the whole time, her hands clenching fistfuls of my shirt.
I take the metal handle in my hand and slide the door open slowly, feeling my pulse jump as it scrapes across the rocky dirt. And for a second, I’m confused, because the face that appears in the darkness is Zu’s—Zu the way I’d seen her in the skip tracer network, with long, silky hair. Her eyes go wide, and her mouth opens in a scream.
And then I see the blond hair behind her, the girl with the gun in her hand who doesn’t even hesitate before she fires it straight at my chest.
It feels…
I feel…
It’s like…
My mind blanks with the fiery burst of pain that tears through me, ripping me up from the inside out. I can’t—what’s—I don’t understand, the girls are yelling, the three of them from the valley, but the last thing I feel before my legs go is Zu at my back trying to hold me up.
Move—I don’t want to hurt her, but I can’t feel anything below my waist. I’m going to collapse back on her, I’m…
When my eyes open again, I’m on the ground and warm rain is spilling down on me from the clear river of stars overhead.
“—the man from the road, I thought he—!”
Zu flashes in and out of my vision. She shoves the girl with the gun, beats her hands against the teen’s chest. I hear “call,” “can’t,” “hospital,” and then nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat. I want to lift my hands, to apply pressure to the place in my chest she’s just cracked open, but I can’t breathe—I can’t—I can’t—I’m choking on air and the metallic bitterness coating my tongue.
One of them disappears into the dark of the stables. I can smell the place’s old musky animal scent, the sharp, fresh hay, but even that begins to fade. Zu’s face appears over mine, and her mouth is moving, her lips are moving, with a message for me and only me, but there are no pens here, no paper. I can read the desperation and fear in her face. I see her hands come down against my chest, but I can’t feel them.
“D-Dorothy—” My throat burns. It’s the only way I know the words are leaving it. “Guess we…shouldn’t have left Oz.…”
I feel myself drift back. Her whole body is heaving with sobs, snot and tears dripping down her face, and I want to say so much to her, and I want to tell her—Her face begins to dissolve into gray, and it takes my breath with it. My voice.
Stop it, you stupid kid. Jesus, stop crying.
Don’t you know I hate it?
Dorothy, it’s so stupid. Don’t be so stupid about this.
Don’t.
Don’t—
ONE
THE crook of my arm locked over the man’s throat, tightening as his boots’ rubber soles batted against the ground. His fingernails bit into the black fabric of my shirt and gloves, clawing at them in desperation. The oxygen was being cut off from his brain, but it didn’t keep the flashes of his thoughts at bay. I saw everything. His memories and thoughts burned white-hot behind my eyes, but I didn’t let up, not even when the security guard’s terrified mind brought an image of himself to the surface, staring open-eyed up at the dark hallway’s ceiling. Dead, maybe?
I wasn’t going to kill him, though. The soldier stood head and shoulders over me, and one of his arms was the size of one of my legs. The only reason I had gotten the jump on him at all was because he had been standing with his back to me.
Instructor Johnson called this move the Neck Lock, and he had taught me a whole collection of others. The Can Opener, the Crucifix, the Neck Crank, the Nelson, the Twister, the Wristlock, and the Spine Crack, just to name a few. All ways that I, a five-foot-five girl, could get a good grip on someone who outmatched me physically. Enough for me to draw out the real weapon.
The man was half hallucinating now. Slipping into his mind was painless and easy; all of the memories and thoughts that rose to the surface of his consciousness were stained black. The color bled through them like a blot of ink on wet paper. And it was then, only after I had my hooks in him, that I released my grip from his neck.
This probably hadn’t been what he had been expecting when he came out of the shop’s hidden side entranc
e for a smoke break.
The bite in Pennsylvania’s air had turned the man’s cheeks bright red beneath his pale stubble. I let out a single hot breath from behind the ski mask and cleared my throat, fully aware of the ten sets of eyes trained on me. My fingers shook as they slipped across the man’s skin; he smelled like stale smoke and the spearmint gum he used to try to cover his nasty habit. I leaned forward, pressing two fingers against his neck.
“Wake up,” I whispered. The man forced his eyes open, wide and childlike. Something in my stomach clenched.
I glanced over my shoulder to the tactical team behind me, who were watching all of this silently, faces unseen behind their masks.
“Where is Prisoner 27?” I asked. We were out of the line of sight of the security cameras—the reason, I guess, this soldier felt safe enough to slip out for a few unscheduled breaks—but I was beyond anxious to have this part over.
“Hurry the hell up!” Vida said through gritted teeth, next to me.
My hands shook at the wave of heat at my back as the tact team leader stepped up behind me. Doing this didn’t hurt the way it used to. It didn’t wring me out, twisting my mind into knots of pain. But it did make me sensitive to the strong feelings of anyone near me—including the man’s disgust. His black, black hatred.
Rob’s dark hair was in the corner of my sight. The order to move forward without me was ready to spill out over his lips. Of the three Ops I’d gone on with him as Leader, I’d only ever been able to finish one.
“Where is Prisoner 27?” I repeated, giving the soldier’s mind a nudge with my own.