“Be careful!” I call out. I pull the map from my coat pocket and unfold it for what must be the hundredth time. “There should be a train station after the tunnel. Saint Pancras,” I tell Quinn. He takes our moment alone together to hold me. Without meaning to, I stiffen.
He steps back. “You alright?”
“I wish we’d found more people alive,” I say, diverting his question. I don’t want him to worry, and there’s nothing he can do to sweep away the cinders of grief anyway.
“We’re going to get through this,” he says. I nod, pull the beret Old Watson gave me over my forehead, and smile weakly.
“Stop smooching and hurry up!” Jazz insists. She’s already way ahead. She pulls her face mask down over her chin—having grown up at The Grove and spent her life training her body to subsist on low levels of oxygen, she doesn’t need to wear it all the time. She spins in circles, opening her mouth to the sky. Her spirally red hair, singed at the ends, blazes like fire against the snowy backdrop. You’d never know she was the one survivor we found in the rubble that was once her home.
Quinn takes my wrist and forces me to look at him. “Against the odds, we got out alive and found each other.”
“I just wish . . .” I think of my parents’ motionless bodies, their blood spreading across the stage as the fighting broke out. I was all they ever had and they worked every day of their lives just to pay the air tax, so I could breathe. Thank goodness I have Quinn . . . but I want them, too.
“Do you think Maude made it?” I ask.
“That scrappy lunatic? Of course. Jazz said as much, didn’t she?”
I am about to say that Jazz can’t know for sure that anyone made it when there’s a shrill scream followed by a thud. We spin toward the sound. “Jazz?”
She’s gone.
In a second, Quinn is off. I trail after him, unable to keep up. He halts on the tracks and desperately glances around. “Jazz!” he calls. “She was right here,” he says, as I catch up. We stand and listen.
Silence.
We zigzag back and forth over the track, stopping when we reach a barbed wire fence on one side with old bits of plastic bags caught in it, and a procession of rusting train carriages on the other. Then we inch toward the tunnel, calling Jazz’s name into the dusk. After everything awful that’s happened, I brace myself for the worst.
I pick a red hair from my coat, and it floats to the ground. “Let’s split up. We’ll find her quicker,” I say.
“And lose each other? No way.” He takes my hand and we peer into the tunnel without going inside. The light at the end is a semicircle of gray.
“Do you have a flashlight?” I whisper, so my words won’t rebound.
“I don’t have anything.” He sighs, and I touch his hair with my gloved hand.
“You have me,” I tell him. “And we’re going to find Jazz.” I peer into the tunnel. “But there’s no way she’s in here. She wasn’t that far from us. Let’s go back.”
He puts a finger to his ear. “What was that?” he says. I stay as still as I can, but all I can hear is my own breath and the faint ticking of the air tanks.
Quinn turns and charges along the tracks.
“Careful!” I tell him, following and almost tripping. Quinn stumbles and circles his arms wide at his sides to steady himself. As I get to him, I see what he almost fell into: an opening.
The manhole is protected by a heavy, circular metal plate, which is tilted slightly. Quinn clutches one side of it, while I take the other. On the count of three, we haul the leaden covering away from the hole and it lands with a clang. And there she is, several feet below. “I’ve been calling and calling,” Jazz groans.
“We didn’t hear you. But we’re here now,” I say. I swing my legs over the manhole.
“Are you kidding?” Quinn says, grabbing me.
“It isn’t far to jump,” I say. He snorts. I shrug him off and feel my eyes harden, but I don’t know why; he’s just trying to protect me.
“I’ll go,” he says. He sits, then uses his arms to lower himself slowly into the hole, careful to avoid landing on Jazz. He adjusts her face mask, so she can breathe easier. “I’ll lift her and you pull her.”
Jazz’s bruised face appears through the opening. I sit in the snow, take her under the arms, and lean back, using my full weight to drag her out. She whimpers the whole time.
“Now me!” Quinn calls. I stroke Jazz’s forehead, leave her lying on the frosty ground, and bend over the hole. Quinn raises his arms toward me. I strain against his weight, but he’s so much heavier than Jazz he doesn’t budge when I try to lift him.
My temples throb. “I’m not strong enough,” I mutter, crumpling at the edge of the hole. I hate having to admit this, even to Quinn. “I’m going to find something for you to stand on.” I might be weak, but I’m not stupid.
I rush toward the decomposing train to my right. When I step aboard, the floor buckles under me. I hold on to a rusting fire extinguisher attached to the wall, then creep inside. Most of the seats have been ripped out of place or knifed open, their frothy green innards spilling onto the floor. Only two seats are intact. I shut my eyes, but it’s too late; I’ve already seen the parched bones, one set significantly larger than the other. And on the floor next to them are two skulls: a large one and a small one. And a knife.
They probably took their own lives: one slice to the throat is all it would have taken, and I learned in history class that people resorted to worse during The Switch, when they were gasping for air and starving to boot. But who were they? A parent and child, perhaps? No one will ever know. Two lives wiped from the face of history as though they meant nothing—like so many before and after them.
Quinn calls my name. I need to focus.
I reach for a seat, mildewed and broken, and tow it from the train, my arms burning.
I force the seat down the manhole, and it lands with a whump. Quinn puts it on its side and, wobbling, uses it as a stool. After two attempts he pulls his chin and elbows aboveground before finally crawling out. He lies on the ground and breathes heavily. “I need to start doing more push-ups,” he says, and I can’t help smiling.
But beside us, Jazz’s whimpers have turned into sobs.
Her corduroys are ripped open below the knee. “You have to be quiet, Jazz,” I say. We can’t know who’s lurking. The whole area could be crawling with drifters. Or the army could be out hunting for me already.
I pull at the flap of Jazz’s pants, then turn away so I won’t be sick. She isn’t just bleeding: a deep, jagged gash runs all the way up her leg to the knee and a piece of bone is sticking out.
Quinn appears at my side. He stares at the wound, his jaw slack. I untie my scarf and tightly bind Jazz’s leg. She bites on her fist. “It hurts . . . so . . . much,” she says.
“What are we going to do?” I ask.
“We’ll get her to the station and then . . .” he trails off. “Do you have the strength to carry her?”
“I have to.”
“And we can’t stop, even if she screams,” he says.
“I won’t scream,” Jazz says through tears. But she does scream. And scream and scream and scream.
By the time we’ve carried Jazz through the pitch-black tunnel, and all the way into St. Pancras station, she’s unconscious. And I’m barely able to walk myself. Our oxygen is never going to last all the way to Sequoia if we keep exerting ourselves like this.
We set her down beneath a marble clock and slump next to her. She doesn’t stir. I slide my hand into her coat and place it against her chest. I relax when I feel the heartbeat.
“It’s bad,” Quinn says. I can’t speak through my panting, so I sit catching my breath and gaze at the station’s vaulted glass ceiling. Stars speckle the night sky. It’s beautiful.
Quinn bends toward me. “We’ll make it through this, you know,” he says. He’s trying to be positive, but what way out have we now? Jazz’s leg will get infected, and then what? We leave her
here to rot and move on?
“She’ll die, and then we will,” I say.
He shakes me. “Why are you talking like that?”
I push him away. “Because in case you hadn’t noticed, everyone dies, Quinn.”
“We’re alive.” He removes his face mask, then pulls mine from my face so he can kiss me quickly on the lips. A few weeks ago, I wanted nothing more than to know Quinn loved me. When he kissed me for the first time, it was a like an elixir—but today, his lips don’t revive me. “You have to be strong,” he says firmly, sliding both face masks back into place.
And he’s right. Mom and dad wouldn’t have wanted me to give up. They would have wanted me to fight, like they did in the end. Even if the fighting kills us.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
3
RONAN
I’ve been a prisoner in my own home for two days, and I don’t know how much more of it I can take. When we got back from the battle at The Grove, Jude Caffrey bundled me into a buggy with armed stewards and sent me home instead of letting me help contain the riots. He said it was for my own protection, but never bothered to say what I need to be protected from, and anyway, I hardly think the stewards commissioned to protect me could fend off an attacker better than I could.
The only reason I haven’t given them the slip is because I don’t want to leave my sister alone. Niamh was hysterical when I got home. She’d been in her bedroom with Todd something-or-other when the stewards barged in. They frog-marched them to the basement where they kept them until I got back. And when I did, she asked me about a thousand questions: Where had I been? What was happening? When could we leave? But I couldn’t answer her. The mission to The Grove was classified. And even if I could have answered, I didn’t want to talk about it. I went straight to my room and ripped off my uniform and dirty boots, throwing them against the wall. We’d been told we’d be fighting terrorists. Well, that was the biggest crock of crap I’ve ever heard in my life.
Neither my nor Niamh’s pads have worked since then, either. The screen’s nothing but static. Every so often raking shots are fired outside or a voice booms through a megaphone. And strangely, no one seems to know where my father is. I’m not his biggest fan, but I am beginning to feel uneasy.
“You married?” Niamh asks the steward on duty guarding us from the perils of our own kitchen. She twists a piece of hair around her finger until the tip is bluish. Todd is elsewhere.
“Give it a rest, Niamh,” I say. The guy must be forty and Niamh’s only flirting because she’s bored.
“Just making chitchat, Ronan. You might want to try it some time,” she says, lifting herself up onto a bar stool and leaning forward against the stone island, her head resting on her hands.
I go to the window. The stewards surrounding the house look like a human fence, and beyond them the street is deserted. “How much longer is this going to last?” I ask.
“Please step away from the window,” the steward warns. He’s shorter than me and thin as a whip. But I do as he says and take a jug of juice and a handful of strawberries from the fridge.
“Want something?” I ask. Normally our housekeeper, Wendy, would see to guests, but she’s been banished to her annex, and Niamh and I have been feeding ourselves for the first time in our lives.
“No,” the steward says curtly, then tilts his head in the direction of the hall. “Wait here,” he whispers for what must be the twentieth time today. He slides along the kitchen wall until he’s out of sight. I pour a glass of juice.
“Those dirty subs do nothing but cause trouble. I hope Daddy’s dealing with them,” Niamh says. She pauses. “Do you think Daddy’s all right?” She has an arm outstretched, admiring her polished nails. She’s pretending she isn’t worried, too.
“He can take care of himself.” I don’t know anyone who’d dare cross my father—I certainly wouldn’t. But it is strange that he hasn’t called, when we’re on lockdown.
Niamh takes her pad from a drawer in the kitchen island. “Why won’t this thing work?” She bangs it on the stone top. “Hell!”
The steward reappears at the kitchen door followed by Jude Caffrey, who pulls off his face mask, unbuckles the tank from his belt, and dumps everything onto the floor. The steward spins around and stands with his back to us. “Ronan. Niamh,” Jude says. He’s wearing the same soiled clothes I last saw him in, and his knuckles are grazed. He hasn’t shaved in a long time.
“Why are you here?” Niamh asks rudely.
“Take a seat,” I say, and tap a stool.
When he comes into the kitchen, I see Todd is standing behind him. Todd rests against the arched doorframe with his T-shirt in his hand. His chest is bare and his hair is standing up like he’s been wrestling. “Is it over?” he asks.
“The pod’s been pumped with halothane gas,” Jude says, sitting on the stool. He addresses me as though Todd hasn’t even come into the room. Todd squints and steps further into the kitchen. He’s waiting to be acknowledged. Or at the very least noticed.
“And what does that mean?” I ask.
“If you go outside without a tank, you’ll black out,” Jude says matter-of-factly. But I’m not stupid; he knows that isn’t the question I’m asking.
My mouth goes dry. “Jude, is this a coup?” I ask. “Where’s my father?”
“You haven’t seen any coverage of the press conference on the screen?” he asks, his tone reproachful.
“The screens have been tampered with,” Niamh snaps. No one but Cain Knavery’s daughter could get away with speaking like this to the general of the pod’s army.
He arches an eyebrow. “You, leave us,” he tells Todd, who’s finally found his way into his T-shirt.
“So, I’ll get an air tank from the basement, yeah?” Todd says. Everyone, including Niamh, ignores him.
Jude closes his eyes and massages the lids. “Go help your boyfriend, Niamh,” he says.
“Excuse me?” Her jaw drops and she takes several moments to be deeply offended. “You’re in my house.”
“Please, Niamh. Let me speak to Jude.” I dip my head to one side, and she stomps out of the room after Todd.
Jude stands up, slides his hands into his pockets, and rocks back and forth, side to side, in his dirty boots. The creamy marble floor is covered in muck he’s carried through the house. “It’s important you’re safe. We’ll keep snipers on the roof for another couple of days, and I strongly advise you to stay indoors,” Jude says. He is broad and tall, but he looks unusually tired and defeated.
“Do you think I need a babysitter?” I ask.
“I don’t doubt you’re able to take care of yourself. It’s a precaution, that’s all.” I’ve been training under Jude Caffrey with the Special Forces since I was thirteen and he knows I could take down an assailant with two fingers. And I did—just days ago at The Grove.
Jude moves to the sink, turns on the tap, and puts his neck under the running water. He shakes his head and stands up straight, the water running into his shirt collar. Then he pushes his thinning hair out of his face with wet hands and clasps them behind his back. He’s stalling, I realize, and my gut aches. What is he so reluctant to tell me?
“The pod’s gone mad. You know the auxiliaries have rebelled,” he says.
“They have every reason to,” I snap. I’ve never questioned what the Ministry stands for, but that was before seeing the trees at The Grove, before destroying them at Jude’s command.
He looks like he’s about to say something, then changes his mind. I take a short breath. “Where’s my father?”
He pinches the bridge of his nose, and I brace myself against the wall because it’s obvious why Jude’s so nervous. My ears ring. “Your father’s dead, Ronan,” he says.
I wince at the words. My muscles tense. “What?” I say. I’ve heard him; I need time to take it in, that??
?s all.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Yes,” I say. I stay on my feet, which is more than I managed when Wendy told me my mother was gone. All I could do back then was moan into the kitchen floor. Today I retain my balance. And my composure.
But I’m so damn thirsty. My mouth is dryer than ever. I return to the fridge, get the jug and drink straight from its lip, juice spilling across my mouth and all over my shirt. Jude takes the jug from me. His jacket is missing a button. A loose thread hangs where it should be. I focus hard on it. I have to focus on something. Maybe the button was ripped off at The Grove.
“You’re in shock. Sit down,” he says. He’s probably right. And if I’m feeling like this, how will Niamh take it?
She doesn’t know, and I’ll be the one to tell her. The air seems to have thinned. I pull at my collar.
Jude leads me to the dining table, where he lowers me into a low chair. “Breathe slowly,” he says. I push him away. I don’t want his hands on me.
“I knew something like this must have happened,” I admit. I take large gulps of air as the words dead and forever spin in my head. I wasn’t my father’s favorite, and we weren’t friends. Still, I didn’t want this.
“At the press conference, Quinn started a—well, your father was mobbed and attacked, but it was a heart attack that killed him. By the time the medics arrived, it was too late.”
“What should I do?” I ask. I need him to tell me what life looks like now—what comes next.
But Jude’s an army man; he thinks I’m asking how we catch the perpetrators. “Well, you know we’ve been chasing the Resistance inside and outside the pod. We’ve nearly got them all rounded up. You can help with that.”
“Me? No . . . I want nothing more to do with the Special Forces.”
He squints. “Let’s talk about this tomorrow.”
“I don’t want to talk about it tomorrow. I want out. Those people weren’t terrorists. They were gardeners, Jude. And most of them were my age.” I’ve tried not to think about those we killed, but it comes back to me now: the faces of boys and girls, only a handful of them wearing bulletproof vests, not one of them holding an automatic weapon. They had rifles and shotguns. It wasn’t a war at all—it was a massacre.