Resist b-2

by Sarah Crossan

  “A child’s bleeding to death,” I say quickly, pointing out the window.

  “Sounds serious.” She shifts her weight on the bed and the springs creak. The more composed she is, the more my limbs jitter. If she isn’t interested in helping, then what does she want?

  “Is there a doctor or nurse? All I need is a buggy and medic . . . please.” I’m not used to begging anyone for anything, but I’d gladly get on my knees and lick her shoes if it meant she’d help. In fact, I’d do absolutely anything.

  “No one’s leaving here,” she says, and grins like this is some kind of joke instead of a person’s life we’re talking about.

  “I won’t let my friends die!” I shout.

  She rises and comes to the door, where she stands ridiculously close to me and speaks slowly and quietly. “This is not a hotel, Quinn. You can’t pop in and then leave when you’ve showered and had a good meal and long rest. Abel should have explained that to you. I’ve arranged for you to complete some tests this afternoon. If you want to live here, I suggest you comply with our requests. I’m more than a little irritated by all the disruptions.”

  “I’m not hanging around here while they’re out there. What kind of crazy woman are you?” I seize her arm and, like a wild drifter, she spins around and punches me on the ear. She’s stronger than she looks.

  “Never lay your hands on me,” she snarls.

  I push past her and out the door into the hallway. “Going somewhere?” Maks says.

  Vanya cracks her knuckles and a vein in her neck pulses. “Take him to the lockup. Give him a few calmers and administer the physical tests,” she says. And with that, she turns away.

  “You’re worse than Petra,” I say.

  Vanya spins around. “I take that as a compliment,” she says.

  “So that’s it? Jazz is going to die?” I push Maks off and step away from him. He’s beefy, but I’m fast. If I make a run for it, I might get away.

  “Jazz?” Vanya says slowly.

  “Yes. She’s just a child.”

  “Well, that changes everything. Come with me.”

  I’m wasting precious time sitting in what can only be described as Vanya’s boudoir while Maks is sent on an errand. Vanya isn’t cool and creepy anymore, she’s flustered. She keeps firing questions at me: “Who is this Bea? How old is the child? Where was she born? Who are her parents? How did she end up at The Grove?” I don’t have any answers—and the less I give her, the more Vanya frets.

  Eventually Maks drags Alina and Dorian into the room. “What’s going on?” Alina asks.

  “You said everyone from The Grove died. You lied.” Vanya says.

  “The place was decimated,” Dorian says. He looks at Maks who, denied the opportunity to beat me up, may have his sights set on him.

  “Quinn tells me there are more survivors,” Vanya says.

  “How would he know?” Dorian spits. “His father was the one who destroyed The Grove. What’s he doing here, anyway?”

  Alina elbows Dorian in the gut. Maks smirks. “We can trust Quinn,” she says. “If he claims there were survivors, then there were. We didn’t know.”

  Vanya goes to the oxybox on the wall and takes a lungful of air. “So people were in there when you ran for it?”

  “We tried to get Petra out,” Dorian says. “She refused. She climbed a tree and wouldn’t come down. We have no idea what happened to the others because we were all stationed at different locations. But Petra—she was determined to die.” Dorian is rambling and making himself breathless.

  “Quinn found a child,” Vanya says. “Who could that be?”

  Alina and I have already gone through this, but Alina pretends she’s working it out. “Jazz was the only kid at The Grove,” she says pointedly. “We tried to save her, but she wouldn’t leave Petra behind.”

  Vanya taps her chin and studies me. “I don’t like this,” she says.

  “Help me find them,” I say.

  Vanya turns to Maks. “Get the zip ready.”

  “A zip? Thank you.” I sigh.

  “I’m not doing it for you,” Vanya says. “I’m doing it for my daughter.” She marches into the adjoining bathroom, leaving all of us gawking after her.

  Maks is standing with one hand on Dorian’s shoulder, the other on Alina’s. He pushes them aside and takes after Vanya. “Jazz is your daughter?” he asks.

  “Yes,” Vanya calls from the bathroom. “Now go and find her.”

  23

  RONAN

  By the time I make it through the back exit of the station and around the front, hoping to take the drifters by surprise, they’ve vanished. And so has Bea. She’ll have run, and I hope she has the sense to go back into the station as it’s the only building not on the brink of collapse. “Bea!” I yell, hopping over fissures in the road and hurtling back through the doors.

  I hear them braying before I see them. “Get on with it, Brent, don’t be a sissy. If you’re not in the mood, let me have a go.” I finger my gun and climb the stairs. When I peer through the glass in the restaurant door, they have Bea trapped by the balcony, prodding her like a cold dinner. “Don’t,” she peeps. “I’ll give you anything you want.”

  “We know you will.” They hoot. Bea sobs. She’s no longer wearing her shirt. She is trembling in her bra and pants.

  I slink into the restaurant, planning to be on top of them before they notice, but in my haste I don’t look where I’m stepping and glass breaks under my foot. The men spin around. And they don’t waste a second. Two of them dive toward me and only hesitate when I raise my gun, ready to shoot.

  “Careful, hombre,” one says.

  “Let’s talk about this,” the other suggests.

  “Down on the ground,” I say. They snicker like this is the silliest thing they’ve ever heard.

  “Shoot them,” Bea says, her voice eerily calm. The man still holding her smacks her. Bea’s knees buckle, and I fire.

  One man falls without a sound. I fire again to be sure he’ll never get up and the others grab their weapons. The one holding Bea presses the pitchfork to her throat.

  “Try that with me, you little bastard, and I’ll rip her open,” he barks. “Now hand your gun to Earl.” The drifter with the baseball bat eases toward me.

  “Stay where you are,” I say.

  “Don’t give him the gun. We’ll both be finished if you do,” Bea says. “Shoot him.”

  “Can’t you shut her up?” Earl says, turning. The guy with the pitchfork knocks the side of Bea’s head with the heel of his hand.

  I close one eye, focus on the forehead of the man holding Bea, and pull the trigger. I am driven back only a fraction. The drifter crumples to the ground and as he does, Bea seizes the pitchfork from him and rushes at the last man. He turns, but it’s too late: the last thing he sees before he dies is Bea thrusting the prongs of the pitchfork into his chest.

  She lets go of the weapon, watches him slide to the ground, and collapses. The delicately ridged track of her spine is clear through her chalky skin.

  Her shirt and sweater have been trampled into the carpet, and when I shake them, glass and dirt cling to the fibers like a razor-edged reminder of what’s happened.

  I throw them aside, remove my coat, and pull my own sweater over my head.

  A sob comes from deep inside her belly as I touch her gently on the back. She covers her chest with her arms. “Here,” I say, and turn away.

  “I should have listened to you,” she says. “I was trying to be strong. Now I’m a killer.”

  I turn back around and crouch beside her. “It was him or you.”

  “I thought you’d left. I thought I was alone.” She can’t say any more. She’s crying too hard.

  “I’d never have left you,” I say. I watch her and breathe in the deathly silence of the station. My gun is still warm. I fasten the safety catch. The men I killed are sprawled across the carpet. Perhaps I should feel a shred of remorse, but I don’t.

  Al
l I care about now is getting back to the pod. And I’m going to have to convince Jude to find a way to help Bea instead of Quinn.

  Because she shouldn’t have to live out here.

  No one should.

  24

  BEA

  Ronan leads me to one of the green chairs, turning it to face the windows, so I don’t have to look at the drifters. He opens up a compartment in his backpack filled to the brim with protein and nutrition bars and hands me one. I pull away my mouthpiece and take a small bite, which is all I can stomach. “You have to keep up your strength,” he says.

  He’s watching me for signs I’ll break down, but I wish he wouldn’t. Every time I catch his eye I see the pity and horror of what might have been. And I’m ashamed. It was my own fault. I wanted to prove to myself how strong I’d become. And I wanted to prove to Ronan that everything he knew about drifters was untrue. Except it wasn’t.

  “What are you even doing in The Outlands, Ronan? Isn’t there a servant at home waiting to run you a hot bath and cook you a meal?”

  “Yes,” he says. “But I told you, I’m looking for someone.” He pauses. “For Quinn Caffrey. His father sent me. Do you know where he is?”

  I want to trust him, and after what he’s just done for me, I probably should, but if Mr. Caffrey’s the one looking for Quinn, it must mean trouble. “I haven’t seen Quinn since the pod.”

  Ronan studies me. He knows it’s a lie. “Well, I have to find him,” he says. “Will you help me?”

  “I wish I could.”

  “I’m a member of the Special Forces, Bea. I was at The Grove. I know what the Ministry did because I was there fighting for them.”

  I sit up, pull off the sweater he gave me using one hand to keep my facemask in place, and fling it at him. How could he have destroyed all those trees? And killed so many people?

  He doesn’t have the face of an enemy, but that’s what he is—he’s his father’s son. “You. Make. Me. Sick,” I say, and head back into the restaurant, where the three dead men are still bleeding into the carpet.

  Ronan runs after me and forces me to look at him. “I didn’t know what we were doing until it was too late. I know the Ministry is full of crap. I want out, and Jude said he’d help. If I find Quinn for him, he’ll change my identity and I can leave the Special Forces. He’ll do it for Quinn, too. . . . And you, I’m sure.” But he doesn’t sound so sure. No Premium father would want his son involved with the likes of me.

  I scratch Jazz’s dried blood from my hands. “I don’t want to go back,” I say simply. “And how could you, after you’ve seen what’s possible?”

  “I’ll become an auxiliary. I’ll be like you.” He says this like it’s the most magnanimous gesture in the world. It’s all I can do to put my hands behind my back to stop myself from punching his puffed-out chest.

  “Do you know what it’s like to be an auxiliary? Do you like running or dancing or kissing or anything remotely normal? Because once you become like me, every breath will cost you. You think that’s a life I want to go back to or one I’d want for Quinn? Leaving the Special Forces and living in Zone Three isn’t going to solve anything. You’ll be in hiding, that’s all. A coward in hiding.” I stop. I’ve been shouting, and my throat hurts. I didn’t hit Ronan, but from his guilty expression, I might as well have.

  “I don’t want to hurt people anymore,” he whispers, looking at the floor.

  “So fight to make things better.”

  Now it’s his turn to be angry. “And how will I do that? The Resistance worked for years to steal cuttings and build a new world. I’m one person. It’s not like I could overthrow the government.”

  Maybe I’m being hard on him, but that’s because it’s only people in his privileged position who can change things. “What if we could overthrow the government?” I ask.

  He stomps on a glass bottle and it smashes into a hundred pieces. “How?” he asks.

  I don’t know yet. But at least I know that he’s willing. And if he is, we’ll find a way.

  25

  QUINN

  Sequoia’s zip looks like it was dragged kicking and screaming from a swamp. The paint’s peeled away and the blades are covered in rust. I’m not sure it’s even going to make it off the ground let alone into the city and back again, and I’d refuse to get in if I had another choice. Maks sees my expression and slaps the side of the zip. “Found this beauty at an old RAF barracks,” he says.

  I climb into the back next to some dude whose nails are bitten to the quick and the skin around them raw and peeling. When he sees me looking, he curls his hands around his rifle to hide them.

  Maks sits next to the pilot. “Here,” he says, and throws two pairs of enormous earphones into the back. “We’re ready,” he says, his voice crackling through them.

  The zip comes to life, the blades rotating so hard I’m rocked from side to side. The pilot sniffs and speaks: “Sequoia control. Takeoff direction: zero seven. Flight plan: eight hundred feet. Ready for immediate departure.”

  “Sequoia station. Copy that. Clear to takeoff,” I hear.

  “Roger that.” The pilot pulls back the steering column, and the zip lifts away from the tarmac. It creaks like hundreds of unoiled door hinges, and I grip the seat, scared witless that the whole thing’s going to come to pieces in the air.

  The pilot pushes the column forward and the zip’s nose tilts forward with more creaking and groaning. But soon we’re high above the ground looking down at a land dotted with gray and black mounds of rubble and impassable, ruptured roads. I’ve never seen anything like it before and I want to take it all in, but I’m too worried about Jazz and Bea to enjoy the scenery. I hope we aren’t too late.

  We lurch to the left, and I hold on to the door handle to stop myself from sliding along the seat. We careen over a wide river and sunken dock.

  “Bit of wind. Nothing to worry about,” the pilot says, righting the aircraft.

  Maks swivels in his seat to look at me. “You scared?” he says. I shake my head—no. He raises his eyebrows. “Maybe you should be: I wouldn’t want to be you, if Vanya’s kid’s croaked it.” He laughs at the idea and turns away.

  I look out at the fields again and think about Jazz. She already had an infection when I left. By now there’s every chance it’s killed her, and if it has, Bea and I won’t have anything to sweeten Vanya’s fury.

  How will Bea be coping with the loneliness? Will she have stayed in the station? “How long until we get there?” I ask, but my earphones aren’t miked, so no one hears me over the noise of the blades.

  All I can do is wait.

  26

  BEA

  Ronan and I have been pacing for an hour. Out onto the balcony and back inside, brainstorming ways to take the Ministry down. But every idea we hit on is full of holes. After everything that’s happened, we need a watertight plan.

  “It’s useless,” he says at last, falling into a chair on the balcony. “If there was a way, someone would have thought of it by now.”

  I don’t agree. Just because no one’s managed something in the past, doesn’t mean the future’s lost. I’d be no good at hand-to-hand combat or shooting guns, but I’m smart. And I’ll figure this out.

  “You told me that the army’s numbers were down since The Grove.” I sit next to him and focus hard on a window with its glass knocked out.

  He shakes his head. “Not enough to weaken the pod’s defenses. And anyway, Jude’s recruiting more.”

  A fork has found its way outside. I pick it up and fling it across the street, where it disappears through the broken window. Ronan laughs. “Good shot,” he says.

  The seed of something is coming to me. I lean with one hand on the railing. “If it’s true that Jude’s done some kind of turnabout, he’s the key,” I say.

  Ronan shrugs. “He’s just as much a puppet as I am.”

  “If he is a puppet, he’s a puppet with power. They trust him to run the army, don’t they?” I pause
and turn to Ronan. The solution is coming . . . it’s coming.

  And I have it.

  I grab Ronan’s hands and pull him to his feet. “You said . . .” I take a breath. I’m scared that if I don’t say it, the idea will evaporate. “You said Jude Caffrey was recruiting. What if . . .” Could it work? Would Quinn’s dad do it? “What if he only recruited auxiliaries sympathetic to the Resistance? They’d be given training and guns and be privy to inside information. It could work, Ronan. Couldn’t it?”

  He thinks for a moment, squeezing my hands and gazing at me. Then he smiles. “Holy hell . . . I think it could.”

  I am about to throw my arms around him and tell him that Quinn’s coming, that all we have do is wait, when a noise I recognize too well makes the hair on my arms prickle. The station vibrates and the sky thunders like a vicious storm is passing overhead. “You sent for zips.” I drop his hands and back away.

  Ronan shakes his head frantically. “I swear I didn’t.” He doesn’t seem to know what to do.

  “Take your clothes off,” I say, raising my voice. A look of understanding washes over him as he watches me undress and does the same. I untie my laces. “We need to be cold so the thermo-sensors don’t find us.”

  “Yes, yes. But don’t cut your feet,” he warns. I leave the laces untied and pull my trousers off over my boots. He’s already seen me in my underwear, but I still feel exposed. I swallow down the embarrassment and focus on staying alive.

  I dash onto the balcony and lather myself in handfuls of slush still frozen in its corners and so does Ronan. I can’t help noticing how athletic his body looks. And dark. Next to him, my skin looks bleached and scrawny. He rubs snow over himself and shivers.

  The zip appears, weaving between buildings on its approach. It’s much smaller than the one I saw when I was with Alina and Maude, and flying low. “It’s coming from the west,” Ronan shouts over the noise of the blades. “The pod is east.” Which means it’s coming from the wrong direction.