Regret

by Elana Johnson

  I tried to have faith, and ended up rubbing my eyes instead. “Lex, organize our people into groups of five or six. We’ll start leaving in shifts at the end of the week.”

  He nodded as the evac team pushed back from the kitchen table and headed down the hall to Irvine’s bedroom. The items we’d collected had been bagged and organized. Between the five of them and one hoverboard, they loaded up.

  I waited until everyone had left except my mother; then I clutched her arm and gripped her in a hug. “Be careful, Mom,” I said, my voice low and thick in the first display of emotion I’d shown in almost two months.

  “And you, Indiarina.”

  I stood in the doorway and watched my mother shoulder the heavy backpack of bandages and antiseptics. I joined my father at the front door, and together we watched her disappear into the night.

  A frantic hand shook me awake. “Indy, wake up! Thane Myers is here.”

  Those words spoken in any voice would startle me from sleep. They’d startle the dead. That’s how far-reaching—and terrifying—Thane Myers was. I leapt up, nearly knocking heads with Lex. His blue eyes were wild, and the panic I felt was clearly written in his stature.

  “Time to go,” I said automatically. I grabbed the backpack I’d prepared last week. “Send the word, Lex.” All communication that concerned locations was passed verbally, thus no rendezvous points would be sent. Lex simply messaged the code word for evacuation; anyone reading it wouldn’t know what it meant.

  For a brief moment, I considered changing my clothes. I’d gotten into the habit of sleeping fully dressed, something I was now thankful for and disgusted with at the same time.

  Lex’s fingers flew over his phone as he gave the order to leave to the dozens of Resistance members across the Badlands. I decided against wasting time changing my jeans and instead pulled on my boots.

  Shouts sounded in the street, so I opted for the window. I ushered Lex through and then turned back. My father stood in the doorway, wearing his brown plaid pajamas and a stricken expression.

  “Peace goes with you, Indiarina,” he said. “Please send Mother home safe.”

  There were no sweet good-byes to be had. I darted across the room just as knocking sounded on the front door. I held my father in a two-second hug—long enough to convey my love for him and short enough that I wouldn’t break down—and sprinted back to the window.

  This time, I didn’t look back.

  The grass looked gray in the predawn light, and Lex’s footprints shone like oil. I stepped in them so that it appeared like only one person had fled this house and vaulted the wooden fence at the edge of the backyard.

  Behind me, probably standing on my front porch, a dog barked. I tightened my backpack straps and recited the emergency evacuation instructions Jag had put into place years ago. “When the code word for evac goes out, get to the forest as quickly and inconspicuously as you can.” I’d been drilling it into my people for the past two weeks as well.

  The forest was a temporary safe spot; Jag had always intended to provide the second location himself. I reminded myself that I was in charge, and I would be giving the second location. If I arrive in the forest alive.

  I silenced that troubling thought as I scampered next to Lex behind a dog kennel. I’d jumped my fence and stolen through this particular yard many times. Only one more street lay to the north before the desert took over, but the narrow strip of trees that constituted the forest blanketed the west side of the Badlands. A couple of miles separated me from the protection of those branches.

  I tapped Lex on the arm and motioned with my head for him to push further back. A narrow space existed between the kennel and the fence, and we could almost make it to the house without being exposed.

  Lex squeezed himself into the tiny space, only issuing a single grunt of complaint. He turned at the corner and yanked on his pack as it jammed. I had to do the same thing, but hardly a sound met my ears as we moved. At the edge of the kennel a ten-foot expanse separated the safety of the shadows we stood in now from the dark area along the side of the house.

  Lex sprinted across first, without incident. I waited until I couldn’t see him in the darkness. I waited five more seconds. Then I pumped my legs and flew across the space too.

  A motion-sensing light flicked on just before I met the shadows, casting a long triangle of light into my hiding place. Lex shuffled further along to provide more room for me to hide. Nobody came, but even if they had, Lex and I didn’t wait for them. Taught to constantly move forward, we peered into the street together, only our heads poking around a rain gutter.

  Orange puddles of light adorned the corners of the street but otherwise it was quiet. Too quiet. In the distance, another dog barked. Somewhere a door slammed. This early in the morning, nobody was out jogging or driving to work.

  “Across?” Lex asked.

  “Across,” I answered. As I pounded the pavement, I wished I’d had the time and foresight to grab my jacket. The dampness of predawn settled under my skin, chilling me despite my physical exertion.

  With every yard we crossed and every fence we jumped, I thought of Jag. He’d made the journey to the forest many times, claiming it was the only place he could truly think. I’d followed him once last fall, desperate to carry some of the burdens he bore as leader. He’d let me follow him, silent and brooding, through the streets.

  But he hadn’t allowed me to step foot in the forest. “Please, Indy,” he’d said. “Sometimes I just need to be alone.”

  I’d stood apart from him, tears welling in my eyes and frustration burning in my blood. “Why can’t you let me help you?”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I can take some of the councils. I can read some of the reports. I can make some of the decisions. You don’t have to do everything by yourself.”

  He’d started shaking his head almost as soon as I’d started speaking. I’d wanted to make him stop. Actually, I would’ve done whatever it took to make him stop.

  “You don’t understand,” he’d said. “When you’re in charge, you will.”

  And I had. In the past two months, I’d often wished for an escape. For somewhere I could go that only I knew about, where no one could bother me with news, suggestions, or endless questions.

  Jag had his forest, and now I understood why. I regretted trying to force him to share it with me, though I’d been beyond desperate at the time for him to let me in.

  He’d kissed my forehead and asked me not to follow him. Then he’d entered the forest, and I’d turned and gone home, like he’d asked.

  This time, when I stepped into the forest, it was for a very different reason. I wouldn’t be alone, and I wouldn’t find comfort. I did, however, find a group of bright-eyed Resistance members.

  I gave them the coordinates to the safe house in the Abandoned Area of the Goodgrounds and set Lex to the task of organizing their departure.

  Near midday everyone had arrived except for Sloan. I gnawed at my fingernails, not caring that they were filthy. I’d sent Lex out with a group two hours ago, making sure that if I was caught, the second wasn’t compromised too.

  I remained alone among the trees, having just sent the last group south, where they’d give the main city a wide berth and cross into the Goodgrounds near the central area of the Southern Rim. All told, forty-seven people had been evacuated. I worried over my mother’s evacuation team and if they’d run into any trouble the night before. Thane and his goons had most likely arrived via teleporter or hovercar, so I hoped the supplies I’d spent weeks gathering would be waiting in the Abandoned Area.

  Where is Sloan? I peered through the trees, willing her to come dodging through the trees with her feel-good hair and easy smile. She didn’t.

  Suddenly a man’s voice shattered the silence of the forest. Amplified and broadcast for all to hear, he said, “No one shall leave their home today. All men, women, and children shall turn on their radios and listen to today’s headline
s.”

  The sound echoed through the treetops, and a profound fear crept along my skin as my mind emptied and I felt the need to return home and listen to today’s headlines. I struggled against the power of the man’s voice and managed to keep control of my mind. So the brainwashing messages would begin right now, right here, in the very place that should be safe. I felt ill, and wondered what my father would do to block the brainwashing. Surely he had something to cancel the sound.

  But Sloan wouldn’t. I moaned and raced toward the edge of the forest. I stopped behind the last tree before the landscape gave way to low shrubs and waving grasses. Asphalt claimed the ground very soon after that, and across the street, I saw the flutter of curtains in a window.

  The streets were empty as I sprinted through them, heading south toward Sloan’s house. The closer I drew, the louder everything became. A woman was yelling; red and blue light pulsed against the noonday sun; dogs barked and chains jangled.

  I stopped at the edge of a fence and snuck a glance around the corner.

  Thane Myers stood in the middle of the street, wearing a black leather jacket and issuing orders like he owned the place. I also recognized the white-blond hair of none other than Zenn Bower. He stood straight as rod, not flinching from the scene before him.

  I found it difficult to swallow, and even harder to breathe. With a jolt of terror, I realized Thane did own everyone and everything around him. Already.

  Two men advanced toward the house, each holding the leashes to a pair of dogs. The dogs whined and snapped their jaws, eager to be loosed so they could run, jump, bite. Sloan’s mother sat on the front steps, her hair sticking up and her eyes closed. She held someone close to her chest, dropping fat tears into their multicolored hair.

  Sloan, I mouthed, unable to give sound to my words. Pain I didn’t know I could bear threatened to crush me into the ground, and a sharp sting in my knee told me that I had fallen down.

  Time slowed into nothing but the sight of Sloan’s unmoving body and the wails of her mother. I knew my best friend was dead.

  Thane Myers jerked around, searching the corner where I sat with his precise green eyes.

  I pulled myself back around the fence and forced myself to stand up. He’d sensed either my thoughts or my emotions, I wasn’t sure which. I didn’t know everything about Thane Myers, and certainly not the details of his talents. But I knew that he brainwashed people, that he thought for them, that he decided everything for those living in his cities. I knew he was the reason the Resistance existed. I knew I’d been fighting against Thinkers like him for years.

  Tears flying from my face, I ran.

  Horror settled in my bones when the whirring fans of a hovercar buzzed behind me.

  6.

  The desert loomed before me, looking black in the fading sunlight. I’d hidden first in a root cellar, then in a muddy ditch, and then inside someone’s garage as Thane’s men searched the city for me. I’d heard Zenn’s voice more than once, but I didn’t attempt to talk to him. He’d made his loyalty pretty clear.

  Thankfully, no one seemed to be equipped with emotional sensors, and I’d been able to evade them for the past eight hours. Now all that separated me from the relative safety of the Abandoned Area was the sprawling desert.

  I stepped into the sand and began the journey. The fact that I was marching into enemy territory wasn’t lost on me. Whenever I’d asked Jag about our safe house in the Abandoned Area, he used to say, “They never look right under their noses. Trust me, Indy. We’ll go to the Goodgrounds if we ever have to evacuate.”

  With each step I took, I used the fury and pain accompanying Sloan’s death to reinforce the barriers around my heart. By the time I illegally crossed the border into the Goodgrounds, I didn’t think I’d even flinch when I saw Jag again.

  If I saw him again.

  1.

  Good girls don’t walk with boys. Even if they’re good boys—and Zenn is the best. He strolled next to me, all military with his hands clasped behind his back, wearing the black uniform of a Forces recruit. The green stripes on his shirtsleeves flashed with silver tech lights, probably recording everything. Probably? Who am I kidding? Those damn stripes were definitely recording everything.

  Walking through the park in the evening is not technically against the rules. Good people do it all the time. But walking through the park with a boy could get me in trouble.

  When darkness fell, another rule would be broken.

  The whir of a hovercopter echoed high above the trees. In this park, the saplings stood an inch or two taller than me. Some trees in the City of Water are ancient—at least a century old. But the forest is off-limits, and even I know better than to break that rule.

  The filthy charcoal shade of the sky matched the impurities I’d filtered from the lake in class today. I imagined the color to be similar to the factory walls where my dad worked, but I had never been there and hadn’t seen him for years, so I couldn’t say for sure.

  People don’t return from the Badlands.

  “Vi, I’m glad you finally answered my e-comm,” Zenn said, his voice smooth, just like his skin and the perfectly fluid way he walked.

  “You know my mom.” I didn’t have to elaborate. Not with Zenn. “I told her I was coming whether she said yes or not.” I tried to hide how desperate I’d been to see him, how happy his e-comm invitation had made me. He could’ve asked me to the moon and I would’ve gladly gone. And taken whatever punishment followed.

  I’d left school during the afternoon break. The Special Forces compound is a two-hour walk south of the City of Water. I’d crossed the border and trekked for half a mile in the Fire Region just to see him. Crossing borders is also against the rules, but Zenn was worth every step.

  I watched the hovercopters circle closer, comfortable in the silence with Zenn. Sometimes it said more than we did.

  The sidewalks had stopped functioning thirty minutes ago, clearly curfew for this park. As one hovercopter dipped nearer, it took every ounce of courage I had to keep from reaching out, grabbing Zenn’s hand, and running.

  Before, I might have done it. But there was something different about him. Something that made me think he wouldn’t run with me this time.

  Another quick glance confirmed it. His eyes. They held no sparkle. No life. Maybe the Forces worked him too hard.

  My sweet, wonderful Zenn. I hoped he was okay here. His eyes worried me.

  “Well, now that you’re here, I’ve got something for you,” he said, smiling.

  I angled my body toward him. Zenn’s e-comm had said he had a surprise for me—surely something he’d tinkered with until it was absolutely perfect. Like he was.

  “The Forces have kept me busy,” Zenn continued, reaching into his pocket. He didn’t seem concerned about the circling hovercopters, but he wasn’t always living one breath away from getting arrested. “But we might not get to see each other again for a while. Your birthday is in a couple weeks, and you’re my—”

  “You down there!” An electronic voice cut through Zenn’s throaty tone. I flinched and took a half step behind Zenn. A one-manned tech-craft, the hovercopter was invented especially for ruining lives. No one ever escapes from one. Not even me.

  On the bottom rudder, a red rose winked through the twilight. My breath shuddered through my chest—I’d been caught by this hovercopter before. Maybe since Zenn was a Forces recruit and had invited me here, I wouldn’t get in trouble.

  Yeah, right. Fairness isn’t something the Director cares about.

  “Cards!” the mechanical voice shouted. Zenn pulled out his lime green activity card and held it straight up. An electric arm grew from the side of the police vehicle and flew down to scan the bar code on the back of Zenn’s card.

  I slowly retrieved my own ID. No one in the Goodgrounds can so much as step onto the sidewalk without an electronic record of their activity.

  My card was blue for the City of Water. I raised it halfway as the arm jangled at me,
trying to get a better angle to scan the bar code. Then I’d be busted for being out of bounds—after dark.

  Zenn watched me with a wary eye. “Vi. Don’t give them a real reason to lock you up.” He stepped close enough for his body heat to permeate my senses. Touching was against the rules, but he’d broken that one lots of times.

  I smiled, even though he was right. Lock Up is not a fun place. The stench alone is enough to set rule-breakers straight. Still, I almost threw my activity card into the brambles where no one would ever find it.

  Zenn’s face stopped me, his mouth drawn into a fine line. My bar code would be attached to his—we were in the park after dark (gasp!)—and if I got into serious trouble, he might not be able to advance in the Special Forces. And I couldn’t have that weighing on my conscience.

  I rolled my eyes at Zenn, something he didn’t see because of my oversize straw hat—another rule, one I actually followed. The scanner beeped, and a horrible squeal erupted from the hovercopter.

  “What have you done now?” Zenn’s voice carried a hint of laughter amidst the exasperation.

  “Nothing,” I answered. “I’ve done nothing this time.” I’d been good for two months.

  “This time?” he asked.

  “Violet Schoenfeld, stay where you are!” the mechanical voice boomed. “The Green demands a hearing.”

  “Vi! The Green? Seriously, what have you done?”

  “Can I have my present now?”

  Everyone knows the Green is just a fancy name for the Thinkers. They’re the ones who broadcast the transmissions and categorize the people. The ones who do the thinking so regular people won’t have to.

  Zenn would join Them when he finished training with the Special Forces. He’d wanted to be a Greenie for as long as I’d known him, but that didn’t stop our friendship. This arrest might—SF agents didn’t hang out with criminals.