Jemima waited until Maggie stepped out of the room before she said, “Caleb and I thought maybe you’d like some privacy. If you want to use our cabin tonight, it’s yours.”
My cheeks burned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about spending the night alone with Yates.
But he looked Jemima in the eyes. “Thanks, sounds great,” he said.
“It’s not finished,” she warned. “There’s no running water or electricity, but the woodstove works.”
“We don’t need anything else, do we?” Yates said.
I shook my head no, and wrapped Jemima in a hug. “This is really sweet of you.”
“You’re like Rapunzel and the prince,” she said, her voice fairy-tale soft. “Or Romeo and Juliet.”
“Yeah, I guess we are.”
“Thanks, again, Jemima,” Yates said. He kissed me on the cheek. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
Jemima let herself out and I got back to stuffing the packs. I was in love with Yates, so why hesitate about spending the night together?
Because I barely know him. I swallowed. Not true, I told myself. I’ve known Yates my whole life.
But not like this.
Maggie and I finished up the packs. When Yates reappeared, he wrapped both arms around me and nuzzled my neck. “Thought I’d never get that tortilla smell off me.”
“You smell good,” I said, my heart beating like a rabbit’s.
“Come on,” Maggie said. “Let’s get these packs over to the back door.”
Yates and Barnabas were each going to carry twenty pounds more than Maggie and me. Still, I wondered if I’d make it ten miles with a full pack. I hadn’t broken any records earlier when I wasn’t lugging a thing.
Keisha showed up, carrying a steel pail with a dish towel over the top. “Beattie sent you a picnic dinner,” she said to us. Warm, delicious smells of bread and some kind of stew wafted into the room.
Maggie tossed me a sleeping bag and lobbed a second one at Yates. “Go on. Enjoy the time alone. After tonight, we’ll be stuck together until we get out of this.”
Yates and I stood on Barnabas’ porch, sleeping bags slung over our shoulders. “Ready?” he asked, swinging the pail toward Caleb and Jemima’s.
I looked into his eyes. I wanted time alone with Yates, no interruptions, no threat of being discovered by Roik. But I wasn’t sure about the rest. “Yes, totally,” I lied.
Cold burned my cheeks, but I was too hot to cover my face. I was conscious of every little thing: snow crunching under our boots, a guitar singing into the night, my flashlight’s blue-white oval, Yates’ shoulder bumping mine.
The moon wasn’t up yet, but the sky was so coated with stars it was like looking at it through gauze. I paused in the middle of the road, needing a moment to center myself before going into the cabin.
“What are you thinking about?” Yates said.
“How much I’ve changed.”
He pulled me along the path. “I don’t think you’re different. I just think you’re more.”
“More of what?”
We stepped up onto the porch. “More of what I’ve always liked about you: you’re ballsy, independent. Real.”
Mom’s voice whispered in my ear. Choose the man who thinks you are beautiful just the way you are, who wants to hear what you have to say, who urges you to follow your heart.
I smiled at him. “Thanks.”
Yates opened the door and we stepped into the echoey dark. I reached for the light switch, forgetting there wasn’t one. We passed our flashlights over the room. A hurricane lamp stood on the half-built kitchen counter. The room smelled of freshly sawed wood, and Caleb or maybe Jemima had lined up the hammers and screwdrivers and boxes of nails in a tidy row on the sawhorse table.
“Jemima said the firewood’s on the back porch.”
I followed Yates out and held the flashlight while he loaded up his arms. Then I lit the lamp while he got the fire started. The wood walls glowed golden yellow, but I could still see my breath.
I lifted the towel off the pail. A loaf of bread sat on top of two plates. When I lifted them, a small crock of stew steamed in my face.
I came around the corner with the food. Yates sat by the stove, the fire glow lighting his face. He smiled at me as he blew into a large air mattress.
“Let me know if you get tired,” I said.
My fingers fumbled with the ties on the sleeping bags. I rolled them out and they lay side by side, before I realized how awkward and useless they were this way. I didn’t look up, but I felt Yates watch me zip them together.
“Done.” Yates spread the air mattress in front of the woodstove. Flames crackled in the stove’s iron belly and we sat cross-legged on the mattress and pulled the sleeping bag over us like a quilt.
I dished out the stew and Yates tore into it. “When was the last time you ate?” I asked him.
“This morning. I caught the $2.99 All You Can Eat Flapjack Special at the Rise and Shine Diner.”
I watched him eat, marveling that he’d ridden to Salt Lake in a tortilla truck and searched Boise until he found someone who’d take him to Salvation.
You promised you’d find me, and you did. But you probably shouldn’t have.
I took a deep breath. I’d come clean at the Council meeting. I didn’t have any secrets from Yates anymore.
“You know you might have to hide out in Canada with us?” I said. “You probably won’t be safe in the U.S.”
“I know.”
Those men pursuing us weren’t going to give up until Maggie and I were permanently silenced. “Are you sure you’re ready to give up your life in California—school, all your friends, the movement?”
Yates dropped his fork on his plate, and gently ran his finger down my cheek. I tilted my face toward his. “I gave up my old life when I joined Exodus,” he said. “The minute I did my first extract, I knew I’d have to run someday.”
I nodded as he took my empty plate from my lap. He slipped his hands into my hair and pulled me ever so gently closer. “Forget about the world right now,” he said. His mouth brushed mine, and our lips did a shy, slow dance.
Together, apart, together—my feelings jumbled with each touch. Excited, afraid, sure, unsure.
We fell back and drew the down bag over us like a tent. In the green-tinted dark, our jackets crackled, and we felt for the zippers and teased them open. We murmured between kisses, our bodies pressed together, warmth flowing through the layers of cotton and flannel separating our skin.
Yates slipped his hand under my shirt and clasped the tender skin of my waist. I drew in my breath and he went to pull away. “I want you,” I whispered, and knitted my fingers into his. “But I’m not ready.”
He rested his forehead on mine. “We don’t have to do anything. I’m not in a hurry. All I really want is to lie here with you and be together.”
His eyes told me he meant it.
I got very still. Here we were in this funny little cabin in the middle of nowhere and as wacky as this place was, it was filled with love. The love Caleb and Jemima were building into it, and the caring Keisha and Beattie showered on us, and the love Yates and I felt for each other.
I guided his hand back to my waist, carefully setting it down outside my shirt. I wasn’t ready to sleep with Yates, but I knew I would be someday, and for now I wanted to hold on to that hope for someday as hard as I could. I smiled and lifted my face to kiss him.
We moved slowly, our fingers exploring and mapping each other’s bodies. Starting, stopping, talking. Each moment so rich with everything we’d been denied that Salvation and Time and the World and Fear disappeared.
80
I lay on my side, watching the flames through the grate in the potbellied stove. Yates slept, one arm tucked over me, hugging me to his chest.
If he wasn’t next to me, I’d swear everything that had happened that day was a free fall of my imagination. But Yates was next to me and he was real.
I could be free. Soon, Hawki
ns might not own me anymore. I turned that over and over in my head like something I’d picked up and didn’t quite recognize.
Hawkins wasn’t the kind of guy who just gave up. Even if Dad forced him out of Biocure, Hawkins wouldn’t go quietly. I counted the days and realized he’d launched his campaign. I doubted either he or Ho wanted me to turn up on the talk-show circuit and tell my story: “Ex-fiancée Dishes About Soon-to-Be-Gov.”
Even if I was legally free of Hawkins, he probably wasn’t out of my life.
“You’re awake,” Yates murmured. “Can’t sleep?”
I snuggled in closer. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“What about?”
“About Hawkins and my Contract.” I saw Dad and me standing on the edge of the cliff. Dad telling me that Hawkins had trapped him, too. “Dad’s probably thrilled somebody’s buying Hawkins out. He hated Hawkins taking over.”
“Your dad’s leaving Biocure.”
I flipped over so I could see Yates’ face. “No!”
“Yeah, he has to give up the presidency and all his stock as part of the deal.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe it. Biocure was Dad’s baby.”
I saw Dad rattling around our empty house, turning on the Sportswall and watching for about a minute before he clicked it off. The only thing Dad had was work. And me.
Dad give up Biocure for me? The enormity hit me: his life’s work. His dream! “I need to call him, but I can’t. Not from here.”
“It’ll be okay. In a few days, we’ll be in Canada. You can call him then.” Yates reached over his head and felt around. I jumped as his icy phone brushed my skin. He sat up and played with the screen. “Here. I was going to save this, but…”
There was a picture of me and Mom eating fish tacos on the boardwalk at Venice Beach. Then the picture blurred and changed to me and Dayla at her Sweet Sixteen, smiling madly, waving our arms to the pounding music. Then the photo changed again to Dad lying on the couch with his eyes closed and five-year-old me asleep on his chest, a sea of picture books on the floor beside us. I checked the number in the corner of the screen. Three hundred.
“And I loaded them onto a site, PhotoForever, so no matter what, you’ll always have them.”
I set my hand on my heart. “How did you—”
“Roik searched your digital files, trying to track you down. After Hawkins and your dad fired him, Roik sold them to me.”
Roik’s help never came cheap. “This must have cost you a lot.”
Yates shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
But Yates didn’t have access to a lot of money. The only thing he had was … “You gave him your motorcycle.”
“Yeah, but bikes can be replaced. Your family can’t.”
I was smiling, but I was choking up. “How did you know?”
“After your phone signal died, I figured Ruby made you toss it. The way you took off so last-minute, I guessed you must have left the other things you wanted to take.”
“Yeah, I lost everything except you.”
“Except me.”
81
It was still dark when the bells started ringing. Bong bong and then a clang like a giant alarm clock gone crazy. Bong bong clang. Bong bong clang.
“What time is it?” Yates said.
I grabbed his phone. “Four A.M.”
“What’s going on?” Yates pulled on his jeans.
Bong bong clang. We could hear people calling to each other outside.
“I don’t know,” I said, fumbling around for my sweater, “but it doesn’t sound good.”
“Barnabas didn’t say anything about this?”
“No, nothing.”
I jerked back a curtain. Lights were coming on in houses. Doors banged, and I saw men and women rush into the street, their arms full of bundles. “People are heading for the church and they’ve got their kids with them.”
“Then we’d better go, too.”
We grabbed our boots and started lacing them. Someone banged on the door. Caleb stuck his head in. “You gotta get to the church. Bring your lantern, sleeping bags, any weapons you got.”
“What’s happening?” I said, even though I had a sick feeling I already knew.
“Not sure, but I expect we’re going to be under fire. I got to go get Jemima.”
“Go,” I said. “We’ll be right behind you.”
We broke up the fire, and left it to burn itself out. By the time we got out to the road, all but a couple houses were dark, and I guessed they’d been abandoned. The alarm bells had stopped, but the air echoed with the panicky sound of goats bleating and banging around in the barn. Their squeals filled me with fear.
A few stragglers ran ahead of us, flashlights jumping over the snow and guns slapping their backs.
“Come on, hurry up,” Beattie yelled from the church steps. “Get inside.”
Yates and I started to run.
Siege
82
Inside the church, Beattie went from family to family, clasping people’s hands, her face calm and reassuring as she tried to get them to take a seat.
Children whimpered and moms shushed crying babies. Keisha and Jemima were stone-faced. They wore down jackets over their nightgowns and jeans underneath. Their bug out bags lay at their feet.
This was what The End Of The World As We Know It looked like.
Barnabas took the podium. “We have reason to believe that a military force will reach us within minutes.” He was cool, factual like he was addressing soldiers, not families with children who’d been torn out of bed. “The camera at the base of the road caught a vehicle equipped with tractor treads heading this way. I estimate twenty onboard.”
“How long before they get here?” Beattie asked.
“Twenty-five minutes. Half hour. Families should get their children settled in the Bunker while the Council takes a head count to determine who’s missing. Then armed adults should take positions at the windows.”
Women gathered their children and herded them toward the basement. Mrs. Gomez glared at me. “It’s all your fault,” she yelled. “You did this!”
My heart pounded as the whole room pinned me with their eyes.
Ramos pointed at Maggie. “Put her and that girl and her boyfriend out on the road so the feds find them. We don’t need to protect these people. They’re Outsiders.”
Yates leaped up before I could stop him and went for Ramos, but fortunately Luke caught hold of him. He leaned in, saying something only Yates could hear. I held my breath until Yates lowered his fists. Thank you, I said to Luke with my eyes.
“We are not throwing anyone out,” Barnabas declared. “Right now we’ve got to focus on what’s coming at us.”
“Barnabas, the Council reports one unaccounted for: Spoke Coleman,” Beattie said.
“He took off with his dog team yesterday,” someone added. “Hasn’t come back yet.”
Barnabas asked for volunteers to bring weapons and ammo up from the Bunker. When he headed for the stairs, Yates and Luke followed him, and I trailed after them.
Down in the Bunker, the gas was lit under an enameled coffeepot and left to brew. A teenage boy was fitting frozen blocks of meat around milk jugs in one of the large coolers.
Women were setting up cots and zipping children into sleeping bags. Lanterns on the floor lit their faces like campfires.
Jemima wandered the room while Sarah dogged her, asking, “Who’s going to milk the goats in the morning? Who’s going to let them out and make sure they’ve got water?”
I took Sarah by the hand, and led her over to Jonas, who was curled up in a ball, his cowboy hat pushed down over his face.
“Are you okay, Jonas?”
“Hector said the soldiers are going to kill Emmeline and Pluto and eat them.”
“No, no,” I said, easing his hat off his face. “They won’t hurt the goats.” Or will they? I thought. You don’t know what they’ll do.
A woman rocked on the ne
xt cot, breastfeeding a tiny, tiny baby. She looked stunned like she’d barely slept in days.
And just beyond her, I saw Luke and Yates hauling guns out of the locked cabinet. They were flat tan like a desert tank, and the muzzles and barrels and all the other parts had a brutal, no-shit, we’re-at-war look.
Salvation’s going to war. And it was my fault for sending out Sparrow’s message so everyone could see the Vegas Strip behind me. The phone weighed down my pocket like a stone and I felt helpless, not seeing any job I could do or way I could help.
Back up in the church hall, Barnabas outlined how he thought things would play out. “These agents have probably been told we’re antigovernment extremists hoarding a stockpile of arms. They’ll search our houses and the other buildings and conclude we’re in here. They won’t storm the building immediately, but they’ll look for vulnerabilities to exploit. Meanwhile, we will observe how they operate. We’ve got eight cameras under the eaves and another half dozen in the trees. Most important, we will not fire first. We will only fire in self-defense.”
Barnabas stepped back from the podium.
83
We turned off the lanterns and waited silently in the dark. Men and women stood on the balcony in pairs, keeping watch through the narrow windows, Yates and I along with them.
Until then I hadn’t noticed that the thick walls were angled so a person could fit comfortably against the windows or that the windows were positioned at chest height on both levels. Now I saw how every window had an inset that could be raised to accommodate a gun. I flipped the little panel up and realized it was inch-thick acrylic. The Bunker, the bulletproof windows, the balcony that circled the room. The entire building was designed to withstand an attack.
The moon lingered on the snow, casting long shadows that reached for the church.
The big room hummed as the boiler cranked out a pitiful heat and the ventilation fan turned. Yates and I huddled together, shivering through our clothes.
The feds showed up barely a half hour after we’d taken our places. The vehicle Barnabas had spotted on the surveillance camera crawled over the snow, looking like a kid’s toy, not a transport carrying enough troops and assault weapons to blast some serious holes through these concrete walls.
A Girl Called Fearless: A Novel (The Girl Called Fearless Series) Page 28
