“When she wakes up, sir, I promise we will have her immediately transported to your place.”
“I’m not leaving her here alone. Do you think I’m going to leave her now, after this royal screw up? Who knows if I’d ever find her again. You’re going to have to give me a bunk, and I’ll wait for her to wake up.”
“It’s a women’s facility, sir.”
“Do I look like I give a crap?”
I try to sit up in my bed and notice movement to my right. It’s Ali, sitting on the bunk next to me. She presses a finger to her lips and leans over to whisper, “Don’t get up. You need to rest a little longer. Trust me.”
“But that’s my uncle,” I say, still trying to move.
“He sounds very mad,” she says. “He reminds me of the men outside.”
I can see her biting her nails again. She can’t be more than fourteen. What’s she doing in a place like this? There’s no way I’m staying here any longer.
“Go home, Ali. Go home and see your mother. I’ll be okay. Trust me. My uncle will make sure of that.”
“I can’t go home.” Ali shakes her head.
“Why not?”
“I promised my mother.”
“I’m sure she’d understand. It’s terrible down there, and look at you, you’re scared all the time.”
Ali looks shocked by my revelation, and then notices she’s biting her nails and puts her hands under her legs.
“You don’t understand. If I left, they’d go back to my home and take my mother. She’s not well. My little brothers need her. I’m the oldest.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”
“It’s better than what happened to some of the others.” Ali’s eyes dart around the room.
“What happened to them?”
“Not all domes are created equal.” She repeats the same rhetoric she gave me down in Laundry. “‘Don’t fight, Ali. Just go,’ Momma said. ‘It’ll all be okay.’” She turns her chin up, as if she’s trying to be proud, but I can see it quiver ever so slightly. So young, yet so strong. What has this girl been through?
“What happened at your dome, Ali?”
“Ali!” Mae’s voice calls from outside. “Get out here. It’s time to get back to work. She doesn’t need you watching over her anymore. She’s got family to do that.”
“I have to go,” Ali whispers. “I hope I can see you again.”
“Wait, Ali,” I say, trying to sit up and reach out to her, but my head is so heavy that the movement makes me lose my equilibrium, and I fall back against my pillow.
My uncle appears from behind a curtain that acts as a doorway to the dorms. “Natalia!” I must look worse than I did when I woke up this morning because tears immediately fill his eyes. “What happened to you?” He grabs my bandaged wrists then feels my forehead.
I look past him for Ali. I have so many questions for her now, but she slipped out quietly, like the little mouse that she is. I look back at my uncle. “This isn’t the welcome I expected.” I manage a laugh despite the horror I’m feeling inside. “This place isn’t at all what I thought it would be.”
“I’m taking you to my home right now,” Alec says.
“Yes, please,” I say, looking at him wearily. “I just want to go back. I want everything to go back to how it was.” And that’s it—I finally let myself cry.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I should have been here when you arrived. I never thought—I would never have—I just don’t understand what happened.”
He lifts me from my bunk and cradles me in his arms. My head rolls against his chest as I try to regain control of my functions. He smells of soap with a mingling of musk, which reminds me of my dad. It’s the first time I’ve caught that smell in nine years.
As he carries me down the streets my senses return, and I’m able to lift my face, noticing that people part out of our way. For a moment, I think I see Nico in one of the crowds, staring at us. It couldn’t be her, though; Evan said she was his escort, and I don’t see him anywhere out here.
After a short walk, we reach my uncle’s home. He must be exhausted from having hauled me for several blocks, but he insists on taking me straight to my room. He lays me on the bed and tells me to rest while he goes out to get me some new bandages and some medicine.
I feel better just being somewhere that feels safe. Alec has made this space mine already by bringing my bag here, and leaving some toiletries and other necessities on top of a dresser beside a picture of my parents. It’s one I haven’t seen before. My mother is in a beautiful white dress and my dad is in a dark suit; it must be from their wedding day. I reach into my pocket and pull out the photo Mrs. Douglass gave me and set it on the pillow beside me. Is this the kind of world my parents imagined when they started the expedition program?
I might not be home, but this is the closest I’ll get to it. I need to come up with a plan. I hope that Alec is someone I can really trust. I close my eyes and let myself drift off to sleep.
***
I jolt awake at the sound of the front door closing. How long was I asleep? I sit up, happy to see I’ve regained my balance. I test my feet on the ground and can push myself out of bed. I leave my bedroom to talk to my uncle, but he’s not there. Instead of his familiar tall frame, there’s a woman standing in front of me. She has long dark hair, wavy like Evan’s, and her eyes stare into mine with the same steely gray. This must be Caroline.
“Hello, Natalia,” her voice slides through the air. “I am—”
“Evan’s mother,” I say, feeling suddenly very self-conscious of my appearance. I try to straighten my clothes, but I’ve been wearing them for over twenty-four hours now, and they’re soiled from the filthy ground of the laundry facility. Then there’s my hair—oh, I can just imagine how frazzled my thick brown locks must be right now.
“Most people call me Mrs. Carmichael,” she says with a thin smile. She plays absent-mindedly with a small gold key on a chain around her neck. “I am the elected official of the New Order of Dome 569, and yes, I am Evan’s mother.”
“I’ll call you Mrs. Carmichael, then.”
She smiles smugly. “No, please, Caroline is fine. Evan says you are like family. I hear you don’t have one of your own.” She raises one eyebrow, waiting for my reply.
“I have my uncle.”
“Ah, yes, Alec. He’s indispensable to me.” Caroline nods. “And I can see you’re important to him.”
“He came back for me,” I say, as I stare blankly at this woman. I try not to be intimidated by her, but she has an air of confidence about her—something I lack. “After all this time, he came back to our dome to get me.”
“Do you know how the domes got their names, Natalia?” Caroline asks, as if she didn’t hear me.
“They teach you at the Learning Institute,” I say. “Each dome was numbered as it was built.”
“That is correct. Your uncle always told me what an astute learner you are. Do you know how many domes there were in total?”
“Two thousand,” I say, recalling the history testing we used to go through at the Learning Institute.
“Yes. Two thousand domes to house the immune. Two thousand domes to carry on humankind. Two thousand domes left to their own devices to change over time. The domes weren’t meant to be used forever, you know that now, don’t you Natalia?” I nod. “They were intended to protect the immune from radiation. But as Alec learned, and so will you, some domes carried out their own agendas.”
“Ours isn’t like that anymore,” I say, defensively.
“No, I suppose not. But it doesn’t always happen so easily. It’s better to take a dome out right at the heart. That way when a society is forced to rebuild from the ground up, it can be trusted to understand the struggles of acting completely alone.”
“By the heart, do you mean the Axis?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
Evan’s orders were to t
ake out my dome’s Axis, but when we uncovered the truth about the testing on innocent people, and the Director became infected, I pleaded with Evan to spare the Axis. There was no reason it had to be destroyed; more innocent people would have died.
“Those were my orders Evan disobeyed when he did not destroy the Axis at Dome 1618. My direct orders. He knows you for a month, and he listens to you over me: his mother and leader of his dome. Do you see why I’d be suspicious of you?”
“It didn’t need to be destroyed. What purpose would it serve?”
“People become stronger when they have to rebuild. Do you want your people to be weak, Natalia?” I shake my head. “No, I don’t believe you do. Trust me, we were weak once. We will never be weak again.” Caroline turns away from me toward the door.
“Being a bully isn’t the same as being strong,” I call after her.
I see her body stiffen and then quickly regain its composure. “Did you enjoy your time down in the laundry facility?” she asks, turning her attention back to me. “We do need to find something useful for you to do around here.”
“Funny how you know that’s where I was.” I wait for her response as my heartbeat thunders in my ears. “Alec didn’t even know at first. But he found me and rescued me.”
“I don’t think you needed rescuing, darling,” Caroline says, tugging at the key around her neck again. “We were keeping you safe until he returned. Nothing happens in this dome I don’t know about, Natalia. Don’t forget that.”
“I brought you the immune serum.”
“Yes, thank you for that,” Caroline says. “Yours is the first dome we’ve come across that was testing the virus on people. Alec was the one who informed us and explained that some people are no longer naturally immune. This serum will save many people from being infected. Still, it doesn’t excuse your dome’s behavior.”
“Those people are gone now.”
“So Evan tells me. It’s almost as if you rehearsed it together.”
I ball my fists, frustrated I can’t break through Caroline’s hard exterior. Is she always like this?
“Don’t get so upset. It’s not that I don’t like you, Natalia; I don’t know you. Anyone who can turn my son against my orders will cause suspicion. I’m glad you are with your uncle now. When I heard you fainted down in Laundry, I was concerned and notified him right away. It was not my intention to make you feel like you were being treated badly. I needed some time to see how you would deal with our situation. I only seek the truth.
“What reason would I have to lie to you?”
“That I don’t know,” Caroline says. “But I’m not surprised by what a person is capable of when it comes to protecting one’s own.”
I let out a long exhale once she’s reached the end of the front walk. My entire body is vibrating from our encounter. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to win this woman over. And I don’t know that I want to.
Minutes after Caroline leaves, Alec walks up the road carrying bags. I’m still standing in the doorway, distracted by my visit with Caroline, when he stops in front of me.
“You look ill,” Alec says to me. “Maybe you should still be in bed.”
“I just had a visitor.”
He moves past me and starts putting away groceries. “Evan?”
“No. His mother.”
My uncle freezes, holding a container of water in mid-air. “She did, did she? What did she want?” He carefully places the water on a shelf in the fridge.
“She was checking to see how I was doing,” I explain. “But really, she wanted to know how I convinced Evan not to destroy the Axis back at Dome 1618. Or maybe it was why I asked him not to? I’m not sure what her real agenda was.”
Alec turns to me and sighs. “I told her when I got back here that it wasn’t necessary to take the Axis. I explained everything. I think it’s best if you avoided Caroline for a while.”
“She’s Evan’s mother. I can’t just ignore her.”
“Dammit, Nat.” My uncle slams his hand on the counter. “Just listen to what I say for now. This isn’t Dome 1618; things are much different here. Can’t you see that already? Caroline is mad at me right now, and I don’t need her taking it out on you.”
“Why is she mad at you?”
“We don’t see eye to eye on how this place is run. It’s nothing you need to worry about. Evan and I just need to get some work done here and then we can all return to Dome 1618. You need to stay out of trouble, understand?”
“Does this have anything to do with how this dome treats other domes?”
“What do you know about other domes?”
“There was a girl in Laundry—”
“Forget about what you heard in Laundry; that place is full of troublemakers. I don’t want you getting caught up in anything while you are here.”
“Yeah, but she told me—”
“That’s enough,” Alec says. “Eat something and then lie down. I’ll show you around later. There are a few things you need to know about this place.”
Reluctantly, I do as he asks. Alec hasn’t been as forthcoming as I had hoped. Is he afraid of Caroline, or does he not entirely trust me yet? It’s true I spent all of my time back home with Evan, once we freed my dome, but it wasn’t all my fault: Alec didn’t hang around long enough to let us get to know one another again. He was constantly meeting with people and running off.
Before I go lie down again, I have one more question.
“Do you remember how you used to bring me rocks?”
“I do.” Alec smiles at me. “You were a very astute learner.”
“I just wanted your attention.”
“That was an exciting time. I was just starting out in Geology, and was invited to join the Expedition crew with my big brother. I was on top of the world.”
“Is that when my mother found out what was happening?”
“Yes,” Alec nods. “Your dad always knew she’d been gathering evidence against the Director. When she decided to include me, I was too stubborn to wait. I just wanted to know what it was.”
“How did Mom think it would work?” I ask. “She couldn’t have thought it would be easy?”
“I don’t know, kid. I sometimes wish she would have thought of you first.”
“She was thinking of me. I wasn’t immune.”
“I guess that explains a lot,” Alec says, studying me for a moment.
“How did you get here?” I ask. “Evan told me he remembers you coming out of the wild. But how did you do it, without any food, or direction?”
“I spent weeks in the wilderness, living on berries and other plants, following the river that led me here. When I arrived, I was weak and starving, almost dead from overexposure. The New Order found me on one of their rounds, lying half-dead on the riverbank. Evan’s dad, Jase, was on that team. He brought me back here, and we became good friends.”
“How did Evan’s dad die?”
Alec turns and looks out the window. “Another dome attacked this one. He died in the attack.”
“Why would one dome attack another?”
“Time hasn’t been kind to all domes,” Alec explains. “I do some scouting for Caroline. I’ve seen domes that fell apart, before it was safe, and all their residents killed from radiation. I’ve seen domes that flourished by refusing to open their doors to the outside. There are a lot of domes out there I’ve never seen. As many good domes there are, there will always be ones that are threats.”
“What kind of dome is this one?”
“This is a dome that succeeded with its relocation to the outside. After the attack, things began to change, and their focus shifted from growth to security. I can’t blame them; a lot of bad things happened that day.”
“Where are the attackers? How did they not takeover?”
“We were able to fight them off.”
“They never came back?”
He pauses, and looks back at me.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’m sorry. It was just a hard time for everyone.”
Alec is holding back something; I wish I could convince him he can trust me. But I’m afraid he still sees me as the little niece who followed him around. How do I explain I’m not a kid anymore?
I sigh and look out the window, then sharply inhale as I see Evan coming up the road with Nico. I grip the windowsill. I’m not sure I’m ready for this.
“What’s wrong?” Alec asks.
“Evan’s here,” I say. “Things haven’t gone like I thought they would.”
“Don’t be so hard on him,” Alec says, coming up behind me. “Things have changed here in the last month. As you said, it’s his mother. You can avoid her, but he can’t.”
Alec goes outside and greets the two of them, motioning toward the house. Nico nods, then she and Alec leave. Evan walks toward the house alone. My heart feels like it’s going to explode from my chest. What am I supposed to say to him? Can I trust him? Or is it myself I’m worried about?
Evan quietly enters the house and looks over at me. His eyes are red, his shoulders slumped, and he’s staring at me with a blank look, standing awkwardly by the door.
“Do you still hate me?” His voice comes out barely a whisper.
My anger toward him waivers. I start to tear up and can feel my lip quivering. “I never hated you.”
Evan watches me as he shifts his weight. The air between us hangs heavy with doubt. I want everything to go back to the way it was before we came here. I want to go back to the night we spent by the river: free and happy. Suddenly tears are running down my cheeks, and I cover my face with my hands as I begin to sob. I’m just so tired of everything right now.
I feel Evan’s arms wrap around me, and I put my head on his shoulder as I let go. “Why did we come here?” I ask through my tears.
“Shh,” Evan says, stroking my hair and pulling me to the couch. I sit on his lap while he holds me and kisses my forehead. He does care about me. Why am I always second-guessing what we have together?
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