Or ever.
The problem was, I had set myself up—making sure Reed pinned tonight’s rebellion on me. I could almost hear Riley’s voice in my head: Real smart, O.
Smart? Cocky was more like it. I’ve said that, right? That I was cocky? So sure I’d be on a train with Sam in tow, speeding toward a rendezvous with the Resistance. Mission accomplished, asset in hand, ready for commendation.
None of that would happen. I figured I’d be dead inside an hour. Kino might wait until the president and his entourage left, but there was no doubt that a bullet through the brain was in my immediate future. And even though part of the oath I took was offering my life in defense of our American cause, it didn’t seem heroic just then. All I had to do was blink, and my thoughts returned to Xoey.
Xoey. Wearing that ball gown and ridiculous wig or wearing her ugly uniform with her head shorn like a sheep, she was still breathtaking. I was jealous for my breath in that moment. It should be taken away by her, only her. My heart should stop for Xoey, not for Kino.
I was willing to die, but I wasn’t ready to die. So I did the only thing I could think of. I turned myself in to the Secret Service and dared to hope.
For what?
Who knows? The United Democratic Republic doesn’t adhere to habeas corpus. We have no protection clauses like I read about in the American constitution, giving me due process, or a fair and public trial.
Was it clause five or six?
Doesn’t matter. My grandparents’ generation called the constitution outdated and threw it away, along with all its protections. I was headed to death, there was no doubt. I just hoped it would come at the hands of someone other than Kino.
My plan worked. I didn’t die that night. I heard Kino and Amaron arguing about it after they shoved me into Xoey’s closet in the library and stood in the corridor, throwing around words like “containment,” “talking points,” and “strategize.”
The president wanted me alive, but clearly he didn’t trust Kino, so he stationed two SS guards by the door to make sure the murder in her eyes didn’t travel to her trigger finger. Mercy wasn’t his logic, though. He just wanted me to give up the others and reveal our plot.
“He won’t talk,” Kino told him.
“He has to,” Amaron said. “Otherwise this entire debacle will land on our heads, Wanda. And understand this: If I fall, I will take you down with me.”
I stayed at Windmill Bay for another week. SS officers pulled me out of the closet once a day, dragged me to the courtyard, and beat me in front of my classmates. They figured it would demoralize me, I guess, despite what Kino told them. Of course, it had the opposite effect, because seeing Paisley in the crowd, still safe, her eyes bright and hopeful, meant only one thing: Everyone else got out with the Liberty Bell. And that was enough. That made me strong.
For a while.
Truthfully, I might have lost my mind at some point. Locked in a closet, scratching at the door. Thinking of Xoey and how she felt in here. How I was glad it was me, not her. Still. No food, little water. Shower and bathroom privileges only once a day. Kino didn’t want me stinking up her office whenever she had the SS officers drag me up there for questioning.
Then it all ended.
I don’t know the details. That’s part of the deal when you’re locked in a closet. I smelled smoke through the door. Voices screamed. Distant cries followed by sirens and gunfire. Bouts of stillness followed by more mayhem.
I tell myself they were not all screams of pain, but mostly fear. Confusion. I don’t know though. I worried about all of them but kept picturing Paisley. I bloodied my hands, banging on the door. Screaming to no one.
Then the smoke got thicker. It began to seep into the closet. Smoke kills. I figured I would die any minute. Then came some Good with a capital G, though from a bad source. One of the SS officers unlocked the door and pulled me out. He and the other one dragged me to the tackle field where a helicopter was waiting.
Windmill Bay was on fire around me, but I could do nothing—could see nothing through the smoke. They pushed me onboard and buckled me in a seat between them. The last thing I saw was Kino, standing in the field, ignoring the inferno behind her as she watched me leave.
This isn’t over, her eyes said.
It wasn’t.
“Oliver.”
Today her voice is soft. Coaxing. This is her infirmary voice. A sharp contrast from the one she uses in my cell, when she’s doing the things she does so that I end up back here again.
“Don’t resist,” she whispers. Meanwhile, her sharp nails dig into my skin. “What’s the point? We’ll find Reed Paine. You know we will.”
She says this a lot. I would like to say I’ve never cracked, but it’s not true. I have cracked like an egg again and again, saying all kinds of things. True things, false things, and things I make up, which may or may not be true. I have no idea.
Just following another part of my training. Torture works sometimes, so the Resistance doesn’t tell us much before they send us out to die for the cause.
“You can’t tell what you don’t know.”
How many times did I hear that?
But Kino doesn’t know that, so when the pain is too much, I give her something. Dates that don’t matter. Coordinates long abandoned. Conspirators who have died. But my friends, I protect.
Today she isn’t planning to torture me, though. Her eyes light with a new plan. I don’t know whether to be relieved or worried.
“Sit up, Oliver.” But she is the one who controls my movements, using the bed remote to raise my head until I’m almost upright. It hurts, but I try not to cry out. I suspect I have more than one cracked rib.
“Do you reminisce about our days together at Windmill Bay, Oliver?”
“Strangely, no.”
“I do.”
“Now that I think about it, the food was something special. Like mystery stew. Was that a family recipe, Wanda?” I love calling her Wanda. It does something funny to her nose that I cannot describe. I almost laugh, but wheeze instead, then wonder what a punctured lung feels like.
“I miss particular moments,” Kino continues. She’s circling to the foot of my bed, tapping controls on a tablet to light up the pixel wall across from me. “Special visits in my office. You, me, and a string of girls. You remember?”
Blink. Breathe. Don’t think. Don’t remember.
I shrug, grateful she can’t see inside my nightmares where those pretty girls line up to blame me for everything she did to them.
“One pretty face is much like another,” I say. I’m going for nonchalance, but probably not selling it. “You wasted a lot of time.”
“True. We tried all kinds of girls. Every flavor. Just to see what made you squirm. But we never found one to make you squeal. Not even dear Riley.”
Riley’s name on her lips turns my stomach. Her beating was the worst, and easy to conjure in my weakened state. Riley is prominent in my dreams. Unlike the others, she doesn’t blame me with words, but with her eyes. Happily, I’m not asleep, so I can fight my guilt with facts. Riley was too strong for Kino. And it’s her strength that reminds me dreams have little to do with reality. Riley escaped, along with most of our crew. Kino can’t get her hands on any of them now.
Kino doesn’t see me smile. She’s casting a video onto the pixel wall. As soon as I recognize it, my smile slips away.
“I finally figured it out,” Kino says softly. “I know now, Oliver, who you care about most in this world.”
I swallow a hard knot and try not to let my emotions show. The video was recorded the night of the president’s visit, during the dance. The camera pans across the students on the dance floor, then to Xoey, who takes the stage and begins to sing. For a moment, I’m back there again, watching from the shadows, listening to her angelic voice. Then, I’m there on the screen, just like in my memory, and Kino pauses the video, which shows the look on my face as I watch Xoey.
Yes. She knows.
> Kino sighs and lets her nails trail up and down her throat while she stares at the vid. Finally she bites her lip and turns to me. “What a waste. If I had known…well, what fun we could have had. You crying over Xoey. Or maybe, Xoey crying over you?”
I grit my teeth. “Wouldn’t have happened. She only had eyes for Reed Paine. Surely you know that.”
“Hmm. Maybe. But then again, not many girls on campus could resist your charm, could they?”
Breathe. Control it. Don’t let her see.
“I just can’t help the regret I feel,” she continued. “If only Xoey had been left behind at Windmill Bay. I could collect her now, bring her to you here and just…watch what happens.”
“What’s the point?” My control is slipping. I tighten my jaw, growling out a response. “I’ve told you everything I know.”
“Maybe.” She leans in close. “Still, it sounds like fun, doesn’t it?”
I close my eyes and try to focus.
Picture Xoey on the train. Picture Kino raging when the escape made the newsfeeds. Some citizens even started waving American flags after my friends liberated the Liberty Bell. Kino can’t undo that. She only has words. Words and threats. Nothing more.
I smile broadly for the first time today, which cracks open a cut on my lip. I feel blood run into my gums and down my chin. “You can wish all you want, but she’s gone, isn’t she? You’re too late.”
“Too late,” she repeats, nodding her head. “Yes, maybe.” Then she leans in close and wipes my bloody lip with her finger before raising it to her mouth to suck it clean.
“But I can wish, Oliver. And sometimes, don’t wishes come true?”
11
Riley
Whenever we watched old movies in the Hidden Library, I wondered why the bad guy didn’t come back, like, five minutes after he was done searching some place. If he had, he would have found the people he was looking for every time, just hanging out in the open, drinking coffee or having a loud argument as if their lives hadn’t just been threatened.
This is what I’m thinking when Reed pushes off the floor (and me) and starts halfway up the ladder.
“Reed!”
I yank on his shirt, pulling him to a stop. He doesn’t argue, which isn’t like him, but I’m not complaining. Meanwhile, Claire must think like me because she’s upstairs in the kitchen, muttering under her breath and behaving as if she’s not hiding fugitives under the floorboards.
Then, sure enough, about three minutes later, a booted thug bursts through the door. Reed’s hands grip the ladder while the soldier makes his lame excuse.
“I need a signature.”
Claire doesn’t say anything in return but must be signing his tablet without argument. He stomps off, slamming the door behind him, and she goes back to cleaning up broken glass and sticky peaches. For the next five minutes I watch Reed shift back and forth on the same ladder rung, totally impatient to be out of hiding and totally driving me nuts, as usual.
“Reed, seriously!” I finally say. “Can you just—”
But that’s when Claire starts pulling up the floorboards, cutting off my words. Reed and I squint against the light then scramble up the ladder. On the way out of the hiding place, I notice what I didn’t have time to see before: narrow shelves from floor to ceiling around the perimeter, covered with jars of food and racks of guns.
“A hidden pantry,” I say. Like our Hidden Library at Windmill Bay. I can’t help but smile.
“Thank you,” Reed says. “You’ve taken a great risk, helping us. Hiding us.”
Claire bends over to pick up another piece of glass, grunting as she straightens to toss it in the trash. “No matter. Even if you hadn’t been here, I’d still be cleaning up this mess, still rationing my food through next winter.”
She stops and puts a shaky hand against the counter.
“Claire?” I take a step toward her, noticing a gray cast to her skin. “Are you alright?”
She shoos me, as if I’m an annoying fly. “Fine, fine. Don’t fuss.”
But now I’m sure something’s wrong. Her words are slurred.
“You need to sit down.”
She takes a step back from me, then stops, her eyes rolling. I start toward her, but I’m too late to keep her from crumpling to the kitchen floor.
“Claire!”
I kneel by her side, cradling her head while I take her pulse. It feels weak. Blood from the back of her head covers my hand and begins to drip on the floor.
“What can I do?” Reed asks.
“Find something to stop the bleeding. Quickly!”
He bangs through the kitchen cabinets, finally finding a threadbare towel that he thrusts at me.
“There’s more blood on the corner by the stove,” he says. “That Neanderthal Ogas must have banged her head against it when he was interrogating her.”
I nod, pressing the towel to the back of her head while I check her pupils. They look dilated, but I’m no expert.
“She might have a concussion. I should have seen it coming. Her face was like ash. Maybe I could have stopped her from falling.”
“You’re too small for that,” Reed says. “She would have just knocked you down.”
I glare at him, but he doesn’t notice. “Just help me carry her to the bedroom, would you? It’s in there. Behind the stairs.”
By the time we lay her on the bed, Reed looks exhausted. In all the commotion, I forgot about how sick he’s been.
“Sit down before you fall over,” I tell him.
“I’m fine.”
I stop adjusting Claire’s blanket. “Really? So I’m a pathetic, weak, little thing, but you’re fantastic?”
“I didn’t call you pathetic, or—”
“Yeah, you pretty much did.” Anger surges to my cheeks, but I check the impulse to stamp my foot. “And you’ve been sick, remember? So sick, in fact, that Claire and I had to drag you through the forest last week, which I somehow managed, despite being so tiny and weak, so, enough with the tough-guy attitude. The last thing I need right now is to be responsible for nursing two injured people back to health.”
“Fine.” He folds his arms and flops down in a rocking chair near the window, huffing out a deep sigh. Claire is starting to stir, so I give her my full attention. She groans and opens her eyes before trying to sit up.
“No, no. Shh,” I gently press her back against the pillow. “It’s alright.”
“What happened?”
“Ogas banged your head against the kitchen cabinet. You lost some blood and fainted. Don’t worry. You’re in your bed now. Just rest.”
“I can’t…” Claire closes her eyes again. I check her pulse, which seems steady. I don’t know what else to do.
“I need to monitor her tonight,” I tell Reed. “Wake her up every now and again to make sure she’s okay.”
“What if she doesn’t wake up?”
“I don’t know. She needs a real doctor, but she’s stuck with just me.”
“Give yourself credit.” He sighs and leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You’ve taken good care of me, Riley. She’s lucky to have you.”
I just stare at him. Why does he have to be nice right after being a jerk? Is he trying to drive me crazy?
“I fake it well, Reed. The truth is, I have almost no idea what I’m doing.”
“You’re smart and resourceful.” He stands up. I suppose he just can’t follow instructions. “Plus, you care. That’s a lot.”
“But—”
He rolls his eyes. “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Worry so much…take everything on yourself.” He laughs. “Come on, Riley! Do you seriously feel guilty for not letting her fall on you?”
“Don’t start again! Why do you always have to be such a—” I stop midsentence, forgetting which insult I was going to use, probably because the whole thing seems to amuse him more than anything else.
“Such a…what?”
“Maybe this is just…I don’t know. The universe taking care of things,” says Reed. “If Claire hadn’t helped us in the woods, the UDR patrol still would have come, right? And now she’d be lying on the floor by herself, bleeding. With no one to help her.”
I nod. “Xoey would call that providence, wouldn’t she?”
“Yeah. She would. Drove me nuts sometimes.” He looks at me. “Miss her?”
I nod.
“Yeah, me too.”
Panic begins to swell in my chest when I think about Xoey and the others. She told me to pray during moments like these, but after Reed and I took off, I just sort of forgot. Maybe I should try again. Xoey would definitely tell me to try again.
I clear my throat. “Go to sleep, Reed. You look like you’re having trouble staying awake.”
He blinks at me. “Yeah. Okay.” He turns and heads upstairs.
I doze in the rocking chair, waking up every few hours so I can rouse Claire and make sure she’s able to regain consciousness. I don’t get more than a few words out of her each time, and those are slurred and almost impossible to interpret. She’s still got a big knot on the back of her head, but at least it’s not bleeding anymore.
I don’t hear any noise from upstairs, so when I wake with a start after another dream about Lexie, I go up to check on Reed. The bunk room is dark so I step carefully, pausing whenever a floorboard creaks, then kneeling near his bunk while holding my breath, listening for his. Instead I hear his voice.
“You should get some sleep.”
“I have been sleeping.” I lower myself to the floor.
“Where? In that rocking chair?”
“Yes, and I need to check on her again soon. Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I’ve slept long enough.”
For a few minutes, neither of us has anything to say. Then he shifts until his feet touch the floor and he sits up behind me. “My mom used to do that. Fall asleep in a rocking chair in my grandmother’s room at the retirement village. She came home exhausted, and always with an aching neck.”
Weeping Justice Page 8
