Resist

  “I don’t want to hurt people anymore,” he whispers, looking at the floor.

  “So fight to make things better.”

  Now it’s his turn to be angry. “And how will I do that? The Resistance worked for years to steal cuttings and build a new world. I’m one person. It’s not like I could overthrow the government.”

  Maybe I’m being hard on him, but that’s because it’s only people in his privileged position who can change things. “What if we could overthrow the government?” I ask.

  He stomps on a glass bottle and it smashes into a hundred pieces. “How?” he asks.

  I don’t know yet. But at least I know that he’s willing. And if he is, we’ll find a way.

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  25

  QUINN

  Sequoia’s zip looks like it was dragged kicking and screaming from a swamp. The paint’s peeled away and the blades are covered in rust. I’m not sure it’s even going to make it off the ground let alone into the city and back again, and I’d refuse to get in if I had another choice. Maks sees my expression and slaps the side of the zip. “Found this beauty at an old RAF barracks,” he says.

  I climb into the back next to some dude whose nails are bitten to the quick and the skin around them raw and peeling. When he sees me looking, he curls his hands around his rifle to hide them.

  Maks sits next to the pilot. “Here,” he says, and throws two pairs of enormous earphones into the back. “We’re ready,” he says, his voice crackling through them.

  The zip comes to life, the blades rotating so hard I’m rocked from side to side. The pilot sniffs and speaks: “Sequoia control. Takeoff direction: zero seven. Flight plan: eight hundred feet. Ready for immediate departure.”

  “Sequoia station. Copy that. Clear to takeoff,” I hear.

  “Roger that.” The pilot pulls back the steering column, and the zip lifts away from the tarmac. It creaks like hundreds of unoiled door hinges, and I grip the seat, scared witless that the whole thing’s going to come to pieces in the air.

  The pilot pushes the column forward and the zip’s nose tilts forward with more creaking and groaning. But soon we’re high above the ground looking down at a land dotted with gray and black mounds of rubble and impassable, ruptured roads. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I want to take it all in, but I’m too worried about Jazz and Bea to enjoy the scenery. I hope we aren’t too late.

  We lurch to the left, and I hold on to the door handle to stop myself from sliding along the seat. We careen over a wide river and sunken dock.

  “Bit of wind. Nothing to worry about,” the pilot says, righting the aircraft.

  Maks swivels in his seat to look at me. “You scared?” he says. I shake my head—no. He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you should be: I wouldn’t want to be you, if Vanya’s kid’s croaked it.” He laughs at the idea and turns away.

  I look out at the fields again and think about Jazz. She already had an infection when I left. By now there’s every chance it’s killed her, and if it has, Bea and I won’t have anything to sweeten Vanya’s fury.

  How will Bea be coping with the loneliness? Will she have stayed in the station? “How long until we get there?” I ask, but my earphones aren’t miked, so no one hears me over the noise of the blades.

  All I can do is wait.

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  26

  BEA

  Ronan and I have been pacing for an hour. Out onto the balcony and back inside, brainstorming ways to take the ministry down. But every idea we hit on is full of holes. After everything that’s happened, we need a watertight plan.

  “It’s useless,” he says at last, falling into a chair on the balcony. “If there was a way, someone would have thought of it by now.”

  I don’t agree. Just because no one’s managed something in the past, doesn’t mean the future’s lost. I’d be no good at hand-to-hand combat or shooting guns, but I’m smart. And I’ll figure this out.

  “You told me that the army’s numbers were down since The Grove.” I sit next to him and focus hard on a window with its glass knocked out.

  He shakes his head. “Not enough to weaken the pod’s defenses. And anyway, Jude’s recruiting more.”

  A fork has found its way outside. I pick it up and fling it across the street, where it disappears through the broken window. Ronan laughs. “Good shot,” he says.

  The seed of something is coming to me. I lean with one hand on the railing, and chew my nails with my other. “If it’s true that Jude’s done some kind of turnabout, he’s the key,” I say.

  Ronan shrugs. “He’s just as much a puppet as I am.”

  “If he is a puppet, he’s a puppet with power. They trust him to run the army, don’t they?” I pause and turn to Ronan. The solution is coming . . . it’s coming.

  And I have it.

  I grab Ronan’s hands and pull him to his feet. “You said . . .” I take a breath. I’m scared that if I don’t say it, the idea will evaporate. “You said Jude Caffrey was recruiting. What if . . .” Could it work? Would Quinn’s dad do it? “What if he only recruited auxiliaries sympathetic to the Resistance? They’d be given training and guns and be privy to inside information. It could work, Ronan. Couldn’t it?”

  He thinks for a moment, squeezing my hands and gazing at me. Then he smiles. “Holy hell . . . I think it could.”

  I am about to throw my arms around him and tell him that Quinn’s coming, that all we have do is wait, when a noise I recognize too well makes the hair on my arms prickle. The station vibrates and the sky thunders like a vicious storm is passing overhead. “You sent for zips.” I drop his hands and back away.

  Ronan shakes his head frantically. “I swear I didn’t.” He doesn’t seem to know what to do.

  “Take your clothes off,” I say, raising my voice. A look of understanding washes over him as he watches me undress and does the same. I untie my laces. “We need to be cold so the thermo-sensors don’t find us.”

  “Yes, yes. But don’t cut your feet,” he warns. I leave the laces untied and pull my trousers off over my boots. He’s already seen me in my underwear, but I still feel exposed. I swallow down the embarrassment and focus on staying alive.

  I dash onto the balcony and lather myself in handfuls of slush still frozen in its corners and so does Ronan. I can’t help noticing how athletic his body looks. And dark. Next to him, my skin looks bleached and scrawny. He rubs snow over himself and shivers.

  The zip appears, weaving between buildings on its approach. It’s much smaller than the one I saw when I was with Alina and Maude, and flying low. “It’s coming from the west,” Ronan shouts over the noise of the blades. “The pod is east.” Which means it’s coming from the wrong direction.

  “Then who?” I shout. Could it be Quinn and Alina? She stole a tank—maybe she’d steal a zip, too. But how would she pilot it?

  We hurry inside and foolishly, I cover my head with my hands. The roaring of the propeller blades dwindles, then intensifies again as it circles overhead. “They know we’re here,” I shout above the noise.

  “This way!” We don’t have time to get back into our clothes, so we stuff them into Ronan’s backpack and sprint down the stairs. The noise is deafening. The zip is landing on the road. The whirling blades send debris flying in every direction. “Quick!” Ronan urges. I follow him through the station, jumping over still-clothed human bones, and onto a road strewn with poles, their old electrical wiring still attached. Ronan heads left toward a clock tower with its hands missing.

  He runs ahead and before long there’s a distance between us. I stop as the sound of the zip finally abates and everything is still. Ronan gestures for me to follow him, but my heart is poun
ding, and I can’t shout to tell him, so I scuff onward and when I reach him, he takes my hand and drags me along. “What’s the matter?” he whispers.

  “I wasn’t a Premium.” He looks confused and then he touches his earlobe. Still keeping hold of my hand, he leads me down an alleyway.

  “Breathe slowly,” he says. I stop and take in deep lungsful of air. While he clambers back into his trousers, shirt, and coat, I focus on keeping my heart from bursting through my ribs.

  “Here!” a voice nearby calls out. Ronan takes my hand again and we hide behind a stinking old wheelie bin. He opens his coat and wraps me up in it. I feel his chest next to my back and sink in deeper for warmth. He rests the hand holding his gun on my stomach.

  “Okay?” he whispers. My teeth are chattering. I am too cold to nod.

  Ronan squeezes me tighter as someone prowls the alleyway. Garbage crunches and squelches under the weight of a boot. The barrel of a gun comes into view. And a face.

  Quinn.

  “Bea?” He stares at me, wrapped up with Ronan.

  There are more footsteps and a voice in the alleyway. “See anything?”

  Quinn looks away. “Nothing. I’ll keep looking. They can’t be far.” The footsteps recede.

  I struggle out of Ronan’s embrace and throw my arms around Quinn. He stays still and stiff. “Quinn,” I whisper, bending down, picking up Ronan’s sweater and pulling it over my head. My legs are bare. Quinn looks away and so does Ronan. I feel tears at the corners of my eyes, which I wipe away with the back of my hand.

  “Ronan Knavery?” Quinn says. “And where’s Jazz?”

  “Your father picked her up,” Ronan says. “She’s safe.”

  “My father?”

  “He wants you back. He’s going to protect you,” Ronan says.

  Quinn squints. He’s as suspicious of Ronan as I was. “Let’s go, Bea,” he says, taking my hand.

  “Where are you going?” Ronan asks.

  “None of your business.” Quinn begins to pull me away, but I stay rooted.

  “I think your dad is really looking for you, Quinn.” I press my hand against his cheek, so he’ll look at me.

  And it works. “You believe him?” he asks. But it isn’t about whether or not I believe Ronan, it’s about Quinn having a chance to reconcile with his father. If someone told me I could see my dad again, I’d listen to what he had to say.

  “We have a plan to get rid of the Ministry, if we can convince your dad to help.”

  “He’ll listen to you, I’m sure,” Ronan says.

  “Me? He hates me. Just go home, Ronan.” Quinn’s tone is belittling. But Ronan doesn’t deserve it. He’s only been kind, and Jazz and I would be dead if he hadn’t shown up.

  “Come back to the pod, and we’ll change things together,” Ronan says, pounding his palm with his fist. “Why struggle out here?”

  Quinn laughs. “The only thing that’ll change the pod is if every one of those ministers croaks,” he says.

  “So let’s see to it that they do,” Ronan says.

  This gets Quinn’s attention. He prods Ronan in the chest. “Like you’d give up your fancy house and art studio for the likes of Bea.”

  “He isn’t lying,” I say, though how can I be one hundred percent sure? I only know what he’s told me.

  “Where are they?” someone shouts from the road. Quinn blinks and looks at me.

  “Auxiliaries wouldn’t trust Jude Caffrey or Cain Knavery’s son. I need you both,” Ronan says.

  “Vanya’s going to tear out your liver and have it for dinner,” the voice shouts.

  Quinn holds my face in his hands. Oh, I missed him. “Is there any chance of this working?” he asks.

  I nod. “Your dad took Jazz. I think he’s changing, Quinn. If there’s any chance at all, shouldn’t we take it?”

  “Vanya’s nuts. We’re dead if we go back there without Jazz. She’s Vanya’s daughter,” Quinn says, more to himself than to Ronan and me. Suddenly he takes Ronan by the coat collar. Ronan doesn’t flinch. “This better not be a trap,” he says, and steps behind the wheelie bin so he’s out of view of the street. “Now we have to get out of here,” he says.

  “This way,” Ronan says without another second’s discussion, and runs to the end of the alleyway. We follow, but as we reach him, he turns around, his eyes wide.

  “It’s blocked,” he says, reloading his gun. “Only way out is past whoever you came with.”

  “Quinn, let’s get moving. Where are you?” the disembodied voice calls.

  Ronan puts a finger to his lips and holds his gun ready.

  “QUINN!”

  Quinn looks at Ronan’s gun. “Unless his shot is spot on, this could go very badly,” he whispers to me. I open my mouth, about to tell him that Ronan is a perfect shot, when Quinn releases my hand. “Go to the pod with Ronan and I’ll follow. If this is going to work, we should gather everyone to help. I’ll get the others and join you.”

  I feel lightheaded. “I need you,” I tell Quinn, hoping he knows how true this is. It was true even when we were only friends.

  “Alina and Silas have to be part of this. It’s their fight,” he says. “Besides, they’re the ones with the connections and skills.”

  “But . . .”

  “Hide.” He pushes me toward the wall, where I hunker down behind a pile of garbage. “You, too,” he tells Ronan, who shakes his head and keeps his gun pointed. “Protect Bea,” he says. Ronan hesitates for a couple of moments, then dives next to me. I must be breathing loudly because he puts his hand over the blowout valve in my mask.

  Quinn fastens the top button of his coat and readjusts the strap of his rifle. “Stay hidden,” he says.

  “Anything?” the voice booms.

  “Nope,” Quinn says.

  “Then let’s get out of here. The drifters must have taken them. Vanya isn’t going to like this. I wouldn’t want to be you when we get back.” The man behind the voice snorts.

  Quinn stands motionless, and once the man has retreated, looks at me. My hands are still covered in Jazz’s blood. My frame is thinner than it ever was. I haven’t washed in a long time. I look exactly like someone who needs to be protected. “I love you, Bea,” he says, and before I can protest or tell him I love him, too, he takes off down the alleyway and is gone.

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  27

  ALINA

  Vanya wouldn’t hear of me going along with Quinn in the zip, so we have to sit tight. Maude and Bruce have been put to work in the greenhouse. The rest of us are in a cardio room doing interval training with a girl and guy we don’t know.

  Terry, who sat with us in the dining hall last night, comes into the room carrying a handful of papers. “Just the newbies,” he says. We stop the treadmills, and he hands us each a list printed on heavy gray paper. I rub it between my fingers.

  “Is this stone?” Song asks, turning the schedule over in his hands.

  Terry nods. “Yep. We finally managed to make up a batch.”

  “Limestone and resin,” Song says. “At The Grove we never tried. Too busy with the trees.”

  “What is this, anyway?” Dorian asks, reading.

  “Schedules for tomorrow. You’ll get your permanent ones soon.”

  I eye the schedule. Morning activities are pretty standard: cardio, meditation, breaks for food. But the entire evening is consumed by something called a Pairing Ceremony.

  Dorian waves the paper at Terry. “Pairings?”

  “You’ll be told your vocation, get paired, and move into the main house. Most of you, anyway. Some people just get given a vocation and the pairing comes later.”

  Silas, who’s breathing heavily after hiking hills for almost an hour, repeats Doran’s question. “Paired?”

  Terry fidgets with the schedules still in his hands. “Didn’t Vanya explain?” Sil
as shakes his head. “You’ll be given your permanent partners,” Terry says.

  “Like work buddies,” Song says. “I saw people going about in pairs and I wondered.”

  “Sort of.” Terry smiles and makes to leave.

  Silas holds him back. “So I could be partnered with Alina?”

  “Well, you’re cousins, so no,” Terry says. He shifts from one foot to the other. “You have to be genetically compatible. You know?” Silas scowls. Dorian and Song, who are standing side by side, frown. But after the tests they’ve done on us, we aren’t completely shocked: Not only will Vanya choose what each of us spends the rest of our lives doing, but she’ll also select our mates. It’s almost enough to make me pine for the pod. Almost. “Breeding’s encouraged and most pairs have children who might actually survive . . . this.” Terry waves his hand around the room, but he means the world beyond it—Earth. “Comes naturally, I suppose.”

  “Naturally?” Silas says through gritted teeth.

  “So where are the children?” I try to keep my voice steady, remembering the girl in the attic, the fear in her eyes, the sweat on her forearms, and the doctor cool and detached as she counted her own contractions. Will motherhood be my fate, if we stay here?

  “We keep them in a nursery and train them from birth,” Terry says.

  “You take away the girls’ babies?” I ask, stepping closer to Terry. He doesn’t make the rules here, but I have an urge to hurt him anyway.

  “I have no intention of breeding. Ever,” Silas says. Having loved Inger and lost him, I’m not surprised by Silas’s outrage.

  “But you want to join us. This is what we do,” Terry says simply.