Rebel Nation (3 page)

Last Clover checked, Bridget was supposed to be in love with her brother. And West was definitely in love with her. Bridget should have looked forward to Saturdays as much as she and Jude did. Plus, the Dinosaur was their place. Clover was far more comfortable there than she was in the dorm room she shared with Bridget. Being there reminded Clover that she was more than an Academy student. It didn't make any sense at all that Bridget would rather sit here and do homework.

“Homework, for God's sake,” she said. “Come on, we have to go.”

This was the second week where Clover felt like they were begging Bridget to come with them. Jude had told her he thought she was just trying to lose herself in her own more familiar world. Maybe it was a reaction to the stress of the weeks when they were outside the city.

“Don't you think it's time to tell Isaiah about all of this?” Bridget didn't even look at Jude now. Her eyes were on the worn industrial carpet. “He deserves to know. We should tell him.”

“All of what, exactly?” Jude asked. Clover reached for Mango and he dragged his broad face over her palm before pressing his head against it. “That West isn't dead? That we talk to him? Should we tell Isaiah,
the guard
, about the other Freaks and how they escaped from Foster City? How much do you want to tell him?”

“Isaiah's not a guard.” Bridget's face flushed when she heard herself. Isaiah had been a guard for three years, since he turned sixteen. “Not like you mean, anyway.”

“No.” Clover looked at Jude for confirmation. He just shook his head. “No, it is not time to tell Isaiah, Bridget.”

There was just too much at stake. So far only the Freaks knew that the suppressant everyone, everywhere, received every day was an unnecessary addictive substance. A single dose of Xanverimax, the medication Waverly brought back from the future, was enough to keep the virus at bay.

Clover reached up and touched the suppressant portal implanted at the base of her skull. The daily doses she'd taken her whole life had no Xanverimax in them. They were solely designed to keep control over the survivors.

Only the Freaks knew that Ned Waverly had been murdered. Only they knew about the ranch Waverly had prepared for them outside the city. Only problem was, they weren't sure, yet, what to do about it. That was why Waverly's notes were so important. And that was why telling Isaiah, who was a Company guard even if Clover had known him her whole life and wanted to share Bridget's faith in him, was a dangerous idea.

“He's a Freak,” Bridget said. “I'm telling you, he is.”

“Why risk it?” Jude sat on the edge of her desk. “What am I missing?”

“Nothing.” Bridget closed her book and stood up. “Let's go.”

“You haven't already told him, have you?” Clover asked.

Bridget shook her head once, then went to stand at the door. Clover clipped a lead to Mango's collar and shot Jude a look before they all left the dorm.

They walked outside into the cool autumn air. November was a crapshoot in Reno. Some years it was pure winter; others, summer came back and took hold so warm days gave way to cold nights. This was an Indian summer autumn, and all Clover needed was a light jacket to stay warm.

“What's wrong with her?” she asked Jude. Bridget walked so stiffly, she was nearly marching. “Has she said anything to you?”

“Nothing is wrong with her,” Bridget called back over her shoulder. “Even her hearing is just fine, thanks.”

“Sorry,” Clover said. “But you're acting so—”

Clover stumbled when a woman stepped out from between two buildings and cut her off, literally and figuratively. Clover almost didn't recognize Leanne Wood. Her Time Mariner trainer had lost weight and her face was so gaunt she looked ten years older than she had the last time Clover saw her. Bridget and Jude stopped walking, too, and they all stared at each other until Clover said, “Leanne? Are you okay?”

“We need to talk.” Leanne's voice was hoarse, like she had a cold or had been crying for a long time. She pointed at Jude. “Me, you, and him.”

“Now?” Clover asked.

“No, not now.” Clover suddenly placed the strong emotion she saw on the woman's face. Leanne was afraid.

Jude put a hand on Clover's elbow, as if to stop her, but she knew better than to tell Leanne where their secret place was.

“What about your house?” Leanne paced a few steps, limping just slightly on her prosthetic leg. “Can you meet me there? At curfew?”

“Why?” Clover asked. “What's wrong?”

Leanne nodded once, as if she were agreeing with someone, although no one but her had made a suggestion. “Meet me there tonight?”

They would be stuck overnight if they did. Reno had a sundown curfew. It had for all but the first few days of Clover's life. “Can't we meet somewhere on campus?”

Leanne looked truly appalled for a moment, then shook her head. “No. No, campus won't work.”

“I'm not spending the night out,” Bridget said. When all attention turned to her, she took a step back and said, “I mean, are we all going to sleep at your house, Clover? Even her?”

“There's plenty of room,” Clover said.

“We don't even know her.”

“I know her.”

“Bridget Kingston, right? You don't have to come. In fact, it would be better if you didn't.” Leanne's voice was flat. She looked at Bridget with almost no expression. Bridget physically bristled, her eyes narrowed, and her back stiffened. “Unless you're going to tell your father you saw me. You're not going to do that are you?”

“What? No, I wouldn't—” Bridget looked genuinely offended, and for some reason that made Clover feel better.

“Clover, I really need to talk to you. It's important, or I wouldn't be here.”

“We'll be there,” Jude said.

Leanne looked at Jude, then Clover again, then walked away before either of them could change their minds. They watched her until she disappeared around the corner.

“Jesus,” Bridget said. “Could she have been any ruder?”

Jude turned to face her. “Maybe you should go back to campus. We'll tell West you said hello.”

Something passed between the two of them that Clover couldn't quite pick up. A look, but also a strange silence. “Seriously, what's going on?”

Bridget gave a tight little smile, then turned and left, back toward campus.

After she was gone, Jude sighed. “Dropping like flies.”

Clover had a strong visual of flies falling like rain from the sky, which was followed closely by a memory of standing in the rain with her head tilted back and her mouth open to catch the drops. She shook herself once, hard, which caused Mango to make a soft
woof
. “West isn't going to be happy. About any of this.”

“I agree,” Jude said. “Let's go.”

For history does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.

—DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER,
INAUGURAL ADDRESS, JANUARY 20, 1953

Three months ago, Clover didn't know Jude. She didn't
know any of the Freaks, except for her brother and Bridget, and she'd never been inside the Dinosaur. Now, the idea of going back to her house tonight and sleeping there was upsetting. The Dinosaur felt more like home to her than the house she'd lived in all her life.

“My dad might be there, you know,” she said as they walked upstairs toward the fifteenth floor of the hotel. The part they'd made their own. “At my house, I mean.”

“Do you really think he will be?”

She didn't. Jude knew she didn't. She hadn't seen her father since the first day of classes. He came to the dorm room she shared with Bridget, spent fifteen minutes making miserable small talk, then left. “What do you think Leanne wants to talk to us about?”

The door to the eighth floor, one landing above them, flew open and banged against the wall. Jude stepped down to the stair she was standing on and used his entire body to press Clover to the wall as someone yelled, “Holy shit!”

A loud noise, almost but not quite a scream, echoed around the stairwell and Clover threw her hands over her ears. Mango went crazy, barking and throwing himself against his lead, nearly ripping Clover's arm out of its socket.

“Oh, no.” Jude sighed and took a step away from Clover, taking the dog's lead.

The commotion at the doorway went suddenly quiet , and two voices whispered something that Clover couldn't make out. Jude shined his hand-cranked flashlight upward. The circle of light illuminated round faces with expressions of such pure and classic shock that Clover had no problem placing the emotion.

“What do you think you're doing?” Jude asked.

“Who the hell—Oh, no, oh, God—” One of the voices went from demanding to terrified in the space of a few words, and the screaming noise was back. Clover would have crawled right through the wall Jude had her pinned to if she could have. He shortened Mango's lead just as the dog lunged against it. Two huge Canada geese half ran, half flew down the stairs. A wing flapped against Clover's shins and she cried out, which made Mango bark even louder.

“Quick, get back inside,” the voice above said.

“Wait a minute.” The eighth-floor door started to close. Jude sprinted up the steps and grabbed it before it did. “Jesus, Tim, it's too late now.”

“Great.” Clover came up the stairs behind Jude. The geese were still honking and flapping around, not too far down the stairway from her. “You know each other. Can we get out of this hallway before they come back? Please?”

Tim opened the door wider. Two more boys stood on the other side of it. When Clover shined her flashlight at them, their faces were red and splotchy.

“We could have caught them,” one of the other boys said. He didn't look more than twelve.

“Not likely,” Tim said, “since they been chasing you for the last half hour.”

—

Freeing the birds from the Dinosaur took the better
part of an hour. Jude got ahead of them and opened the sixth-floor door, and then Clover, Tim, and the other boys chased them through it, into a room, and out a window.

The geese flew away, probably at least as grateful to be out as Clover was to see them go.

Without that time spent working together, Clover probably would have put up a fight about taking the boys up to the fifteenth floor. But she could see that Jude and Tim really knew each other, and working toward a common goal with the boys smoothed her feelings toward them. All she really wanted after the geese had flown away was to figure out what was going on before it was time to talk to her brother.

“You can't be mad, Jude,” the younger boy, Wally, said.

“Why would he be mad?” Clover asked.

“Never mind that right now.” Jude led the way as they trudged up the stairs. “Why were there Canadian geese in here?”

“Canada geese,” Clover said. Jude lifted his eyebrows. “Well, that's what they're called. Technically.”

“We were going to eat them,” Wally said. “Do you know how much meat is on a goose?”

“Are there any more geese inside?” Clover asked.

“No, those were the only ones we caught.”

“We needed food.” Tim shot Wally a look. “Obviously catching geese wasn't the answer.”

“We have some food upstairs,” Jude said. “It's not goose, but it should fill you up.”

“Thank God, 'cause I'm so hungry. I could have eaten a whole
Canada
goose by myself.” The boy ticked off the parts of the bird on his fingers. “Feathers. Bones. Beak—”

The third boy was Wally's older brother, David, who swiftly backhanded Wally on the shoulder. “Jesus, shut up about your stomach.”

Wally shoved his brother. David. “Don't tell me to shut up!”

Jude took Clover's hand and pulled her up, away from the boys. Tim got between the brothers and said, “Both of you shut up. Right now.”

The rest of the walk was less eventful. Now Clover almost didn't want Jude to open their door and let these boys in. More than almost, if she was being honest. “Is this how you felt when me and West first came here?”

Jude squeezed her hand, then let it go without answering her. There was something he wasn't telling her, but she filed that away until they were alone.

Jude walked to the utility room at the end of one hallway and flipped a couple of breakers. A few minutes later, they went into room 1528 and he switched on the light. The three new boys exploded with questions about how the lights came on, all at the same time, but Jude held up a hand to quiet them.

“There's electricity? We've been living in the dark, and there's power here?” David asked.

“Later.” Jude opened the food closet. They kept preserved fruits and vegetables, some jerky, bags of stale cookies and crackers stolen from the Academy dining room, and mason jars filled with dry rice and beans. “Eat. We'll be next door. We have something we have to do, and then we'll be right back and we'll answer your questions.”

“Not all of them,” Clover said.

None of the boys were listening. They were fighting for space in front of the food closet. Jude led her to his old room, retrieved a duffel bag from under the bed, and then they locked themselves into the adjoining room.

For the first time that Clover could remember, Mango was more rattled than she was. The fight to stay with Clover rather than follow his instincts and chase the geese had upset the dog. Clover took his lead off, gave him a bowl of water, and let him catch his breath.

“What aren't you telling me?” she asked.

“Clover.” It sounded like there was more, there had to be more, but he didn't go on.

“You weren't surprised they were here,” Clover said, feeling the pieces slip into place.

Jude hesitated, then said, “No.”

“You told them to come here.”

“I told them about this place,” Jude said, as if there were some distinction there. “I told them how to find food.”

“Yeah, it doesn't look like they've figured it out yet.”

“No, it doesn't.”

“Do you know what would happen if they got caught and gave you up?” It hit Clover, all of a sudden. So far, Jude was under the radar. If Bennett found out about him—that he'd been out of the city with her and Bridget—it would be bad. Very bad. “Jude.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. “I had to do something.”

“What are we supposed to do about them? We can't just leave them here, can we?”

“We can't send them back to Foster City.” Jude took the laptop and illegal wireless modem from the duffel. He'd stolen both from his abusive house father when he escaped Foster City several months before. The scar that ran down the left side of his face was evidence of why he felt so strongly about sending anyone back there.

As hard as Clover had fought to return to the city with Bridget and Jude, six weeks in she was almost desperate with homesickness for her brother and the other Freaks. She couldn't stop feeling like she wasn't doing what she'd set out to do.

She pulled a chair next to Jude's and waited for West to reach out for her across the miles.