Breathe (26 page)

They spend the rest of the meal devising ways to torture and kill the so-called terrorists. My father nods approvingly, encourages us all to be hungry for revenge.

I didn’t want to come home. When I burst out of the Justice Building earlier on, I was thinking about hiding out somewhere else. But I couldn’t exactly live on the streets. I’d have been picked up the second I shut my eyes. And I couldn’t go to Bea. It would’ve been the first place they’d have looked. So I dragged myself home, if I could even call it a home now that I know my parents don’t care whether I live or die.

When I came through the front door, my parents were standing in the hallway hanging up their coats. They could hardly look at me.

I slink into my bedroom after dinner, and my father follows me. He sits on the edge of my bed looking at the pile of dirty clothes in the middle of the room. “I can’t say I’m not disappointed,” he says.

“Sorry,” I say, as though
I
have something to be sorry about. “I shouldn’t have trusted Alina. I shouldn’t have bundled her through Border Control. I know that.”

“Yes, well, generally you need to start showing more discretion.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your friendships are suspect. You’re too old to be palling around with auxiliaries, so it’s about time you and Bea cut ties. People will start to talk.” My heart jumps and my hands begin to sweat.

“She’s my best friend,” I say.

“Not anymore. Keep away from her. Your mother and I have bigger plans for your life than an auxiliary wedding. Cain Knavery’s daughter is a year older than you. Pretty girl. Sharp.” I know Niamh Knavery. When he says she’s sharp, he means she’s cruel. And she’s had a stack of boyfriends since the beginning of the school year. Even if Bea weren’t in the picture, I wouldn’t touch Niamh Knavery with rubber gloves on.

“I understand, sir,” I say. If I’m going to help the Resistance, I have to play the game, and if that means nodding a bit and pretending to agree with what he says, I’ll do it. I have to.

“By the way,” he says, standing up, “I don’t know what the terrorists told you about my job, but whatever you heard, keep it to yourself. Your mother is fragile and the twins are young.”

“I don’t understand,” I say. I take on the face of the Quinn who lived here only days ago and my father eats it right up.

“Well, that’s fine,” he says. Without saying good night he turns and leaves the room, pulling the door tight on his way out.

I retrieve an airtank from under the bed. I need to start training to exist with lower oxygen levels. I have no intention of living in this pod, or this house, one minute longer than I have to.

We are back in the pod for two weeks before we have lunch together. It’s important we avoid each other in public now that Quinn’s dad has vetoed our friendship. We have to meet in secret, in the caretaker’s closet with brooms and mops or in hidden corners of the tech room. Quinn comes to my place sometimes, but only at night and not too often. We both have the same free period today, so we’re using it to meet in the canteen with the freshmen, most of whom we don’t know. The canteen is a muddle of clanking plates and hungry voices.

“Cain Knavery was over again last night,” Quinn says.

“What did he want?” I’m not sitting in the seat right next to him, which is where I want to be, but two seats away. We’re facing the same direction and talking without looking at each other. Quinn is wearing a cap that hides his face.

“Blood. He’s sick of scouring the coastline. He wanted to know if I could remember anything else that could help them pinpoint the location. He’s not happy.”

“So he’s afraid?”

“He didn’t seem afraid exactly. He was irritated. He got so wasted he almost broke my wrist urging me to tell him more. He spent the evening laughing at nothing. Ha! Ha! He gives me the creeps. Niamh and Ronan had to come with a driver to pick him up once he keeled over. Ronan basically had to carry him out of the house.” Quinn raps his fingers against the table. I wish I could touch him.

“Imagine having a dad like that. I feel sorry for them.”

“For Ronan, maybe;
he’s
all right. But his sister? Ugh.”

“So what did you tell Cain before he passed out?” I ask, as my art teacher, Ms. Kechroud, comes into the canteen. Quinn pulls his cap down a little farther.

“The same thing I always tell him: ‘South, that’s all I know, Pod Minister.’”

“We’re running out of time.”

“You don’t have to tell me that. I don’t know how much longer they’ll keep searching before they figure out that we lied. I wish there was a way we could step up our training.”

Whenever Quinn comes over to my place, Mom sits in the living room, happily convinced we’re making out, while really we exercise and practice breathing with reduced air. Quinn stole a couple of tanks from the cellar in his house and so we’ve been gradually tightening the valves and learning how to live on less and less oxygen, just in case. We are also practicing meditation and the relaxation positions Alina gave me a glimpse of. We aren’t much good. We need more time, and really, we need a teacher.

When Quinn can’t come over, I practice alone. But despite all the hours I’m putting in, it’s always hard to breathe on reduced air when most of the day I’m breathing in more than I need. Quinn thought about buying Premium Pure Air so we could use it all day, gradually tightening the valves as we got stronger, but we’d just be drawing attention to ourselves. People would notice me especially. They’d know Quinn bought the air, and we aren’t supposed to be seeing each other anymore.

“Have you figured out a way to get across the border?” I ask.

“I’m working on it,” he says. He stops eating and starts to massage his temples.

“What is it?” He looks at me quickly, opens his mouth to speak, then bites his bottom lip. “Tell me, Quinn. What is it?” Ms. Kechroud has her lunch and is looking for a place to sit. She scans the room without spotting me and luckily chooses a place by the door, away from us.

“We shouldn’t have met here,” Quinn says.

“Don’t change the subject.” I throw down my fork in frustration. Quinn puts his head in his hands. It’s the first time since our return to the pod that we’re bickering and there’s no need for it. “Quinn, please,” I say more gently.

“The Pod Minister is impatient. He talked a lot about you. I think he was threatening me. I think he knows we’re together. He might be having me followed. It’s not unthinkable.”

Before I get a chance to respond, a shadow appears over us and when we look up, Riley and Ferris are standing there. Ferris has had a new set of veneers fitted that are too big for his mouth.

“Guess who made team captain?” Ferris asks, picking at a large mole on his chin. He leans in close, and I have to cup my hand over my nose because the smell of his aftershave is so strong.

“The coach is blind. Can you believe he chose Ferris over me? When have you ever heard of a defender being captain? It’s ridiculous. We ought to have Coach replaced. I’m gonna tell people he watches us in the showers. Damn auxiliary,” Riley complains.

“Not now,” Quinn says.

“I thought you two weren’t friends anymore,” Ferris says to Quinn, looking at me.

“She borrowed something. I was getting it back,” Quinn says, patting a notebook on the table. Riley reaches for the notebook, but Quinn snatches it first and stuffs it into his backpack.

“So, Bea, when are you going to let me take you out?” Ferris has managed to pick a hair out of his mole and is examining it in his hand. “Maybe we could double date,” Ferris says to Quinn. Suddenly Quinn’s smile vanishes and he glares at Ferris.

“And I could come, too. When Niamh is done with candy-ass Quinn she’ll no doubt wanna cop a feel of a real man,” Riley says, running his hands down his own body. I have no idea what they’re talking about. Under the table I stretch out my leg so my foot is touching Quinn’s.

“Oh, God, it’s Ms. Kechroud. I didn’t show up for detention with her last night. Let’s roll out of here,” Ferris says. He grabs Riley by the shirt and hauls him away. “Bye, Bea!” he calls.

“Shit!” Quinn says when they’re out of earshot. “They’re the last people I wanted to see.” I don’t say anything. I wait for Quinn to explain what Riley was talking about. He doesn’t. He takes his tray to the counter to clear it off. I wait a few seconds, then follow him.

Once we’re out in the yard he leads me to a hidden nook where the water fountain is and finally turns to me. “When she was over last night, my father organized for Niamh Knavery and me to go out next week. I had to say yes.”

I think of Niamh Knavery, her long spindly legs and mammoth breasts, her shiny hair and perfectly proportioned face. I hate the idea of Quinn and Niamh alone, maybe at dinner or seeing a movie in the dark, and I feel my hands curl into fists.

“But we’re still together,” I say. I want him to do whatever it takes to help the Resistance. Even so, I don’t want to lose him.

“Bea, I want
you
and no one else. I promise.” He leans on me, pushing me toward the wall, and kisses me hard on the mouth. Then he steps away and takes my hands.

“What are we going to do?” I ask.

“I think it’s time you went into hiding. If they decide to make an example of me, there’s at least a chance my father will intervene.”

“Where will I go?”

“Meet me at the three-B tram station after school. I’m going to leave my pad in my locker and you should, too, in case they’re using them to track us. Bring a bag of clothes. I have an address,” he says.

“I don’t want to endanger anyone, Quinn. It isn’t right.”

He takes my hand and kisses my palm. “I know you don’t, but they’re the only people we can trust. It isn’t safe in the pod anymore.”

I’m in the shooting range every day training drifters. Some of the older ones, who brought their own guns with them, take one look at the dummy and hit the bull’s-eye the first time. I send them on their way, down to Levi for cardiovascular training or to Petra for yoga and meditation practice. Those who’ve been defending themselves with knives and swords need a bit more help knowing how to aim the rifle and keep it steady when it goes off.

Once I’m done with drifters, the Resistance members come up to practice. Most of them need no training at all; they’ve become accomplished snipers and could hit a running man from five hundred feet. Jazz was sent up by Petra a few minutes ago to do drills. Surprisingly, as she fiddles with the gun, she doesn’t even seem to know where the trigger is. When I try to give her a few words of instruction, she pushes me out of the way and stamps her feet.

“Don’t tell me how to shoot or I’ll point this baby at you! Tell me
where
.” The other Resistance members in the range look over at us. Dorian is up here, too. He sneers, aims his rifle in Jazz’s direction, and pretends to shoot, stepping back to give the effect of the gun going off. I shake my head and bite away the smile.

“See that dummy there? I want you to plug her little finger.” Jazz gulps and points the gun at the target. She shoots and staggers backward, almost falling over from the force of the blast.

“There’s something wrong with the rifle,” she says when she realizes that all she’s managed to hit is an old vent in the wall.

“There’s nothing wrong with that piece, Jazz. I just used it.”

“I’m telling you, it’s broken!”

Dorian coughs and sputters in the lane next to us, and I turn my back on him because if I look at his face I’ll laugh out loud. Then I’ll be in real trouble.

“Here, try this,” I say, handing her a pistol. It’s smaller and I hope that the force from it when she shoots won’t send her flying. She aims for the dummy again and fires. She takes only one step back this time, steadies herself on me, and sucks her teeth.

“Target down,” Jazz tells me, pointing to the dummy’s knee, which she’s managed to hit.

“I said her little finger,” I remind her.

“You did not! You said hit her leg.” She turns to Dorian. “Isn’t that what she said?”

Dorian puts down his gun and steps over to us. “Jazz, have you been practicing?” Jazz nods vehemently, then puts her thumb into her mouth and starts to suck on it. Dorian continues. “The thing is, when Petra tells me to come up here and train, well, sometimes I go down and sit with the trees. Have you ever done that?” Jazz nods again. “And sometimes, when I look at those trees, I wonder what it would be like to climb up into one and just sit there. You know, just sit there all day.”

“Can you keep a secret?” Jazz asks. Dorian turns his head to reveal a willing ear. “I do that all the time. I climb the trees and imagine all the things that the world used to have. And I imagine things
I
used to have. Like my parents.” Here she stops and looks at me. “Petra said your parents died.” My stomach does a somersault.

“They’re missing, yes.” Dorian rests one hand on my shoulder, the other on Jazz’s.

“How about we go down to the trees now,” he says. Jazz looks at the pistol she’s still holding.

“I never practiced. When the army comes, I won’t be able to fight.”