A few of the women nodded in response. No one else spoke. The guard stood still and examined us closely.
“Did a woman dressed like a nurse come through here?” he asked gruffly.
Silence. I could feel the blood draining out of my face. What reason did these women have for helping me? They didn’t know me at all. And the older woman had said it herself: they were risking themselves by sheltering me. I imagined what would come next. Maybe they would all start to point at me in unison. Or maybe the older among them would come back, grab me, and throw me to the ground by the guard’s feet.
“No, sir,” came the response instead. It was the redheaded woman again, and a few other women were shaking their heads in agreement.
The guard’s eyes narrowed dangerously. He definitely wasn’t making any effort to appear to be a kind and helpful member of a beneficial organization. Then again, nothing in this place gave that impression. Were these women still under the impression that Helping Hands would actually assist them, despite all of this?
“It would benefit you all to tell the truth,” he said. “The woman is dangerous. Anyone found guilty of assisting her would be in grave trouble.”
The women stayed silent, unmoving. No one looked back at me. No one cast me forward.
More guards walked up behind the man in the doorway.
“Did you find her?” one asked breathlessly.
The guard stood and stared at us in turn, his gray eyes examining each of us individually. I turned my eyes to the ground and prayed that he wouldn’t notice the stained white shoes on my feet.
“On the other hand,” the guard continued, his voice lowering, “anyone who assisted us in her capture would be handsomely rewarded.”
Oh, no. That was it. Surely these hungry, tired, cold, poor women wouldn’t turn down an offer like that. What did they have to lose? The wellbeing of some stranger? The older woman took a breath as if she was about to speak, and I knew what she was going to say. But then another woman spoke.
“We haven’t seen anyone, sir. But we’ll watch for this woman,” the kind woman said resolutely, her voice strong and certain. She stared straight ahead at the guard.
The older woman briefly looked over at her and then turned back to the guard.
He shifted in the doorway, and I held my breath. This entire mission hinged on this moment. Would they turn me over? Or were they going to risk their own safety for me?
“Very well,” he said after an agonizing silence. “You had better be telling the truth. Or we will be back. And there will be consequences.”
The guard turned on his heel and disappeared back into the night, the other guards following. A collective sigh escaped all of the women when the door banged shut.
“Well, now you’ve done it,” the angry woman said. She had turned to face the green-eyed woman, hands on her hips in an accusatory stance. “What will we say when he comes back? You think they don’t have cameras all over this place? They’ll find out, and our heads will be on the line. Because of you.”
The green-eyed woman stood her ground. “It hasn’t occurred to you that our heads are already on the line?” she shot back. “We’ve been held here for weeks now with no explanation, and no plan for being returned to Millville.”
I considered what the woman was saying. I had only been here for a couple of hours, but these women had been here for weeks. And no one had given them any sort of timeline or explanation for what they could expect in this place? They hadn’t been told what was happening in Millville, or been briefed on the “factory repairs” Helping Hands was touting?
Was that because all of these people were slowly being fed into the hospital… and then loaded up onto trucks and shipped out? If so, why? And where were they going?
The older woman turned on me before I could follow that line of thought any further, and I could see a fiery anger in her eyes. Her lips were drawn taut in a frown so tight that they looked white and bloodless.
“So what are you going to do for us, then?” she asked me venomously. “You’ve risked all of our lives by coming in here. So how are you going to save us?”
I stuttered in my response.
What could I do from in here? Minutes and hours had begun to swirl together since Kory and I had stepped off the truck and been separated. I didn’t know exactly how long I had until Little John showed up. I didn’t know what their diversion was or if it was going to be big enough to get us out of here. I didn’t know how the collection team was planning to get to us. And I didn’t even know where Kory was.
But I knew Nathan hadn’t given me any orders to try to save these people. We didn’t have the luxury of ferrying thousands of hungry and scared townspeople out of the compound. We couldn’t even be guaranteed to save ourselves.
What could I say to this woman to justify the danger I was putting them in with my very presence?
The green-eyed woman stepped forward. “What did you see?” she asked again with a new sense of urgency in her voice.
I sighed. I was going to have to tell them something. Even if I couldn’t help them directly, I felt obligated to show them the danger they were in. I owed it to them for saving my life when the guards came. I didn’t know if they could save themselves or not, but they needed to know to avoid the hospital at all costs.
“Do you know what’s in the white building?” I asked uneasily.
The women shook their heads in tandem. All of them. I furrowed my brow. Did that mean that the people who went into the hospital never came back out to these barracks?
“They call for factory reassignments every day or so. Is it a school?” the redheaded woman asked.
So they at least knew that the white building was taking people in. Then why hadn’t any of them gone? I had seen people camped out in front of the hospital, clamoring to get in. Why not these women?
“But we don’t want to go to another factory,” the green-eyed woman added, as if she had read my mind. “We want to go home. Do they take you home when you go in the white building?”
I shook my head.
The thin, angry woman rolled her eyes and scoffed.
“No use asking her any more. She probably didn’t even see inside. She’s just giving us the runaround so we don’t turn her in,” she said. Then she turned to the kind woman directly. “And you were just soft enough to fall for it, Juno.”
Juno.
I looked at the green-eyed woman anew, my eyes tracing over her face, examining her every feature.
Was this Juno Jones?
Was this. . . my mother?
She looked back at me intently.
“You don’t have to be afraid, Nora. But please. If you saw something, tell us what you saw,” she said.
I stared at her wordlessly. Was that my nose on her face? Were those my eyes, in a more vibrant shade of green? Was that my chin? Everything was coming at me so fast. I was afraid for my life, I was afraid for Kory’s life, I was afraid for all of these people, and I was anxious for Little John to return. It was hard to decide what to do or what to say.
How much sensitive information could I risk if it meant saving these people from a horrible fate?
And what about if it meant saving my mother?
“It’s a hospital,” I said suddenly. “And I don’t think they’re sending people to job training.”
“A hospital?” a new woman intoned from the front of the group. “Well, isn’t that a good thing?”
I shook my head slowly.
“I don’t think so,” I said, keeping eye contact with Juno. “I think—”
But I didn’t have the chance to finish my thought. A cacophony of noise exploded all around us, and the ground itself shook, tossing several of us to the ground. I could see a bright light through the slats of the barrack walls. The explosion left a high-pitched ringing in my ears and a coppery taste in my mouth. I wiped a finger against my lip as I lay on the ground and pulled it back to reveal blood. The force had sent me face-first int
o the dirt, splitting my lip.
When the ringing started to fade it was replaced with new sounds: screaming, yelling, crying, and, most frightening of all, blaring sirens.
34
The oil lamp had hit the ground and burst into a small fire. A woman rushed over with a dirty brown shawl to stamp it out. But even then, an eerie orange light pervaded the barracks. It was coming from outside.
I leapt up and raced to the door, throwing it open wide to see what was happening. The air felt thick and dry, and my throat began to burn immediately.
Smoke.
I turned to find the source of the orange glow, and quickly located it. A massive purple airship was glowing orange and yellow as it reflected back the color of flames, the fence underneath it completely obliterated. The remnants of the fence crackled and burned beneath a huge bonfire of angry flames.
It was Little John. This was the diversion.
A whistle sounded as another airship flew up beside the first ship, directly above a part of the fence that was still standing. I heard the distinct sound of an airship blaster charging up to fire.
My eyes widened as I realized what was about to happen.
“Get down!” I screamed at the women inside the barracks.
A breath later, another huge explosion rocked us. I held tightly to the door and tried to keep my footing.
“What’s happening?” Juno yelled as she jumped up from the ground and ran to my side.
“We’ve got to go. Now,” I replied. There was no time to explain or attempt to convince anyone. It was time to escape. I grabbed her hand, and we ran out of the barracks together.
People were streaming out of their shelters as throngs of armed guards ran between the buildings to get to the fence line, and I started to hear the distinctive popping of gunfire. Juno and I ducked and braced ourselves instinctively, but the gunshots were aimed at the airships and away from the compound. We stood for a moment and watched the blaze, which was only a few hundred feet from where we stood, and then I turned to look at her. The reflection of the flames was dancing in her green eyes as she stared at the melee. And maybe they were my eyes. Maybe they weren’t. Maybe she was another Juno from my hometown. Maybe she was my birth mother. I didn’t know, and for the time being I actually didn’t care. She had given me the benefit of the doubt when I needed a friend the most. And I wasn’t going to let anything happen to her. I knew that for sure.
I yanked on her hand when I began to run away from the flames. Nathan had said Kory and I were supposed to meet at the opposite side of the camp from the diversion. The collection team would be there waiting for us. If we could just get over there, we had a chance of getting out of here alive. Hopefully Kory would meet us there.
Dozens of guards ran past us as we sped to the other side of the compound, while the townspeople reacted in various ways, some running toward the fire and others away from it, some standing and staring out in the open and others peeking out from their barracks. I wanted to bring all of them with us, to help all of them escape whichever horrible fate would befall them first: fire, gunfire, or the steel stake and mallet in the operating room. But I couldn’t do anything but run as fast as possible, with Juno on my heels. Anything else would bring too much attention to us.
If enough of these fences went down, the townspeople would have the opportunity to save themselves. I prayed they would take it.
“Where are we going?” Juno panted from close behind me.
I grasped her hand more tightly in mine. I wasn’t going to lose her in here.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” I replied. “We need to get to the other side, past the men’s barracks.”
The fire was large enough behind us to light the entire compound, but I wasn’t looking at it anymore. However many ships were back there now, I knew they were creating quite a diversion for us. I just hoped the townspeople would be safe from the flames. And I hoped that we would find Kory in time so that we could all escape safely together. I didn’t want to leave him behind.
I watched the guards streaming past us more closely once we got to the hospital in the middle of the yard. Were any of these men part of the team that had chased me earlier? Would they recognize my face? But the guards were far too preoccupied with the flames and the airship attack to pay us any attention.
A few nurses were standing outside the hospital and looking over at the flames. A female doctor held her hand over her mouth in wide-eyed disbelief. Juno and I raced past them without a second glance, and into the men’s side of the yard.
The gunfire and shouting from the attack site had begun to sound farther and farther away as we ran to the other side of the compound. But suddenly the sound of orders being shouted sounded much closer.
I slowed and turned around. Guards were now running away from the attack, back toward the barracks.
Back toward us.
“Come on!” I yelled at Juno.
We started running again.
Juno was slower than I was and kept turning around to look at the scene behind us. I pulled harder on her hand, frantic. Didn’t she understand what was at stake here?
But then she pulled back on my hand, hard, and stopped. I turned quickly to face her.
“They’re forcing people back into their barracks,” she gasped to me, her eyes wide with fear. I looked behind her to see guards handling townspeople roughly, pointing their weapons at them and forcing them into their scant shelters. And here we were, two women, in the men’s side of the compound. It was obvious that we weren’t where we were supposed to be.
“Faster!” I screamed.
Before we could start running, a hand grabbed my upper arm roughly. I turned and prepared to fight.
“Robin!” the man holding me shouted in relief.
I squinted in the strange light of the distant fire. Kory.
“Your mask,” I breathed in fear. His face had started to droop and melt. It looked like he had been terribly burned.
“Yeah, yours too,” he replied. “Good thing that when Little John does diversions, they do them big.”
Kory turned and noticed Juno for the first time. He looked back at me in confusion.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“She’s coming with us,” I replied determinedly. There was no way I was leaving her behind.
Kory shrugged. “Let’s get moving then!”
We started running together through the yard. I could see the fence on the other side of the compound now. We only had to get through a few more rows of barracks and we’d be there. We were so close.
But I didn’t see any holes in the fencing… or any Little John team members. They were supposed to be there for us already. Where was the collection team? What if they had been captured elsewhere? What if they weren’t coming?
“Do you see the collection team?” I asked Kory in between ragged breaths as we ran.
“No,” he replied. “But maybe they’re waiting until they see us to make any moves.”
That made sense. It would be wise for the team to avoid cutting any holes in the fence or causing a stir that would offset the diversion on the other side. But it made me nervous to run so hard and so fast to what was, as far as we could see, a complete dead end.
I just had to have faith that they were there somewhere, and that they were prepared to help.
“Back to your barracks!” an angry voice shouted behind us.
Over my shoulder I could see guards streaming toward us and stopping at every row of barracks along the way to force curious or frightened people back inside. How long would we have before they noticed that Juno and I weren’t where we were supposed to be? And what about the masks?
“We’re going to have to pick up the pace!” Kory yelled over to me.
Suddenly a noise like a sonic boom hit my ears. I stopped involuntarily to cover my ears with both hands. We all did. Overhead, a giant black airship zoomed over us at a high speed to get to the other side of the compound. It was a blac
k so reflective that it mirrored the yard from overhead. I’d know those airships anywhere.
The government. They were here to fight back.
Juno turned to me with wide-eyed terror. She didn’t speak, but her face was saying it all. What is happening?
I wanted to take the time to explain it to her. I wanted to thank her for standing up for me and tell her that now I was going to return the favor and save her. But there was no time. So instead I pulled her forward again as we began to run. We had to get to the other side.
“Hey, you!” an angry voice called.
I didn’t turn around this time. We had to keep going.
“You women! Stop!”
I closed my eyes tightly for just a moment. We had been spotted. Now our race to the fence was going to get tricky.
A bullet whizzed past us. Juno yelped.
I didn’t slow down, but I turned to glance back at her.
“Have you been shot?” I asked in a blind panic. I couldn’t imagine being so close to getting her out of here only to lose her at the last minute. It would be a crushing loss. Whether or not this was my mother, I felt personally responsible now for keeping her safe and getting her out of here.
Juno looked back at me in confusion.
Oh, right, I remembered. The mask.
But she was still running, so I figured she hadn’t been hit. At least not yet.
“Who are you?” Juno asked, her tone rising. “Where are we going? We’re going to be trapped here.”
“Not if things go according to plan,” I replied. No use in hiding much from her now. Kory had called me by my real name, my face was obviously melting off, and we were officially being shot at.
Another bullet flew past us.
“Robin, we can’t keep running like this!” Kory yelled. “We’re easy targets!”
He was right. We had a straight line to the fence, but that also meant that the guards had an easy shot at our vital organs.
“Left!” I yelled as we passed the next row of barracks. The three of us whipped off our path and started running between buildings. We were going to have to weave our way through the rows of shelters to get to the fence now; otherwise, we were going to be staring down the barrels of guns.
The Child Thief 5: Ghost Towns Page 31
