The Reaping (17 page)

The man cranes his head. “There’s an alley that runs between this building and the next. It leads to the next street over and we can bypass the stadium that way. It might be watched, though, so we’ll need to be careful.”

Lana looks over her shoulder. “They’re not looking this way,” she whispers.

We move as quickly as we can into the alley. Red’s jaw is set and I see the pain in his eyes. He clenches Jack’s hand until his knuckles are white. I can’t imagine how hard this is for him. Sweat drips down his face and his cheeks are pale, but still he doesn’t say a word.

The alley is half in sunlight and half in shadow. Doorways lead off on either side, and a few windows sparkle further up the sides of the buildings. There’s nothing else here but us, and the flash of glass on a black scanner at the other end of the alley. Jack hisses in a breath.

How far to water?
I ask Lana.

“Two blocks.”

I look at Jack, and he knows what I’m thinking. How much time do we have until those scanners relay their information back to someone who will do something about it? The hospital knows by now that Nell and Red are gone. I doubt they think they’re in San Diego, but once someone figures it out, when will the soldiers leave the stadium and come after us instead?

How long to midnight?

Lana frowns and checks her watch. “It’s only twelve o’clock right now. You still have a long time.”

This is never going to work. There are too many scanners, too many soldiers, and too many things that could go wrong. I feel Nell’s and Red’s eyes on me, and I’d like nothing more than to crawl into a hole. Taking those nomads I had never even met before to the sub was so different from this. I feel the weight of this pressing on my shoulders, because these are people I love. They’re family. I close my eyes and put my fingertips to my temples. The headache that’s been threatening is coming on hard now.

Nell puts a hand to my cheek. “Terra.”

I can’t look at her. If I look at her, I’m afraid all I’m going to see is death.

“Look at me, dear.” She gently pries my hands from my face. “You’re so young. Sometimes I forget that. How old are you? Seventeen, eighteen?”

Seventeen.

Nell smiles and wraps her arms around me. I lean into her, into the comfort she offers me. “I don’t want you to feel responsible for Red and me.”

I laugh, and it’s choked.

“I mean it, Terra. You’ve done so much already just getting us out of that hospital, letting me see Red again when those . . . people . . . might have taken him away forever.”

I glance over at Red, and his chest is heaving. Nell gently turns my face back.

“I love you. You should know that. I know that makes things both easier and harder. But you should also know that because I love you, I know you’ll do your best, and anything bad that happens won’t be your fault, and I won’t blame you.”

Nell looks at me expectantly, but I’m not sure what she wants me to say. The alleyway feels much too stuffy for this conversation. Sweat pours into my eyes and I brush it away.

“I won’t blame you,” Nell whispers again, and she starts walking toward the scanner.

“Nell!” Red hisses, and the man, Jack, and Red start after her. “What are you doing?”

“Someone had to get started. Poor Terra feels the weight of the world on her shoulders, and all the rest of you can do is stand around and stare.”

We’re halfway down the alley, and I can already hear the faint whir of machinery in the scanner. It makes me cold all over. It’ll be able to scan Nell’s and Red’s trackers soon.

“Where do we go once we’re out of the alley?” Jack asks.

“We either go to the high-rise just south of us, or we go to the industrial area,” the man says, eyeing the scanner. Its glass face glints as it rotates toward us. “I say you get as close as you can to the water and hide.”

“You’re not coming?” Jack says.

The man shakes his head. “Lana and I still have trackers too. And if our tracker info is sent along with your friends’ here, the government will probably assume we were together, and I don’t want to be caught with some escapees. They’ll hunt us down and there’ll be no way we can help anyone else find you again.”

I nod.

“Thanks, Terra,” Lana says. She shakes my hand.

I try to smile, but I’m shaking so hard it probably looks warped on my face. Then Lana and the man turn abruptly and follow the alley, disappearing around the corner. The four of us stand still for a moment. Then Red reaches for me, and he drapes his other arm over my shoulder.

“Might as well get it over with,” he says.

I laugh loudly, and this time the laugh booms out of me, and all of my worry is expressed with it. It feels like a relief to let it out.

“Let’s go,” Jack says.

We make our way down the alley, and our progress is painfully slow. Each step toward the scanner makes my stomach lurch, but Nell steps in beside me, and with Nell, Red, and Jack surrounding me, I feel like we just might be able to do this. It seems improbable with Nell’s and Red’s medical condition, but I don’t pause to dwell on that.

We’re twenty feet from the scanner when I hear the faint beep of a tracker being scanned. Then another.

“Now we hurry,” Jack says.

We shuffle along, turn the corner, and I blink to keep the sun out of my eyes. We’re out in the open, the wide expanse of street leading the way past a tall building on our right and toward the industrial area. It’s a series of low buildings, and on either side of each one, I see a patch of blue. We’re so close. I keep expecting to hear the pounding of boots on the pavement, the bark of a soldier’s command, or the snide laughter of an agent, but there’s nothing but the blazing sun and the occasional call of a seagull.

Our feet scrape against the concrete, and Red is getting heavier and heavier on my shoulder.

“Do you need to stop, Terra?” he asks. He breath comes out ragged.

I shake my head, forcing my legs to keep plowing ahead.

“We need to get as close to water as we can,” Jack says.

“Not at the expense of all of us,” Nell says, worry written all over her face.

“Keep going.” Jack puts one foot in front of the other, and Red’s feet are dragging, but he moves them and tries to keep up.

We pass the high-rise and cross another street toward one of the work buildings. There’s no one around, and the streets are eerie in their silence. We come to a gate that’s been left open as everyone has made their way to the stadium for the med drop. A beep to the left stops me dead in my tracks. Another scanner.

“Now they know we’ve been here, too. Keep going.” Jack leads us through the gate.

“We can’t hide inside, Jack,” Nell says. “Not when they know we’ve been through this gate.”

“We’re not going to hide inside.”

He pulls, and Red and I follow him around the building. Nell is close behind, her hands fluttering and her face turned away, watching our backs. Still nothing but the sound of our feet on pavement. Nothing but footsteps, seagulls, and the ripple of water. The lack of sound is pressing on me, and soon I can hear my heartbeat thrumming and the sound beats down on me. The tall buildings loom a block away, and all the reflecting windows are watchful eyes, and I’m sure there’s someone in there telling an agent exactly where we’re going. My palms are sweating, but there’s nothing to be done for it now.

“Where are we going?” Red asks in a croak. His lips are dry and he licks them, but it doesn’t help.

Jack grunts. “To the water.”

“We can’t stay there all day long, can we?” Nell asks. She puts a hand on my back as she once more turns over her shoulder. “I thought I saw something.”

I look back, but the sweat drips into my eyes, and I can’t be sure of anything I see. There’s still no sound, and everything behind us looks the same.

“I don’t think we’ll have to. Keep moving.”

Jack sounds so sure of himself, and it almost brings me up short. Of course we’ll have to wait all day. The sub comes at midnight. On a few occasions, Jessa has even been late. A few of those times it was a close call, but most of the time it didn’t matter—we weren’t backed right up against a city full of government officials peering down at us from towering buildings. I try to swallow, but my throat is dry.

“I saw it again,” Nell says, and her hands clutch at my shirt and tug on it until I feel like I’m dragging Red and her.

I look back again, and Nell points. There, at the alleyway we came from, are two soldiers. They’re looking around.

That answers the question about how long it would take all that information to be relayed—ten minutes tops. Which means they’re going to find out what the scanner at the gate learned in just a few more seconds.

One of the soldiers puts a hand to his ear; he must have an earpiece. He lingers in that posture for a few more seconds, and then he looks up at the industrial area, and I swear we lock eyes. My legs start churning forward before I can even tell anyone else what I’ve seen.

“What is it?” Jack asks, bewildered.

Nell saw the whole thing. “Soldiers. They see us.”

I grip Red more tightly around the waist, and we try to pick up the pace, but my legs are so tired and the sun is so hot, and I feel like I’m walking through mud.

“Just leave me, all of you,” Red croaks, and his legs stiffen.

“Stop it, Red! I warned you!” Nell tries to be stern, but her voice is full of tears, and she’s trying to grab him too and carry him along, but her muscles aren’t strong enough after months of lying in a hospital bed.

Jack looks back, and we both see the soldiers trotting toward us, their eyes wary and their guns half-raised. Jack pulls Red toward him, sets his legs, and then purses his lips as he hefts Red up and slings him across his shoulders. The veins on his neck stand out and his face is red, but he starts trotting along.

“Come on,” he gasps out.

I grab Nell around the waist and help support her as we race toward the water. We turn the corner and now I see the ocean stretching out before us. Cracked sidewalks lie along the path before us, and old metal docks float ragged on the water. It’s a ruin. The government must not have wanted anyone to have ocean access.

But where will we hide?

I glance behind, and the soldiers have closed the gap, and my pulse quickens even faster when I see two more cutting toward us at a diagonal. Now we have to step over chunks of concrete and debris, and Jack’s legs quiver with each step. He keeps his pace, but I don’t know how much longer he can last. Nell’s face is hard, but her eyes are streaming tears, and she grips my arm so tightly I want to wrench it away, but I can’t. Not now when these people trust me, and where am I taking them? There’s nothing but ocean before us.

I squint at it. The sun glares down at us and reflects off every facet of every wave, and it hurts my eyes, but I can’t look away. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. The ocean was supposed to be a refuge, and now it’s just going to be a brick wall up against our backs as the soldiers press in on us.

“Jack?” Nell says, and her voice is so quiet it’s almost lost in the pounding of footsteps.

Jack can’t answer; his mouth is clamped shut.

“Where are we going?”

“The water,” he manages to get out.

But where? I want to scream. There’s nowhere to go. There’s not a pier we can hide under, no boats, no cover of any sort.

The soldiers stalk closer, and one of them is raising his gun.

We’re finally to the water, and we creep onto a jagged piece of metal that once was a dock. It bobs precariously under our feet. We stop right at the edge, and I can see down into the depths, at the spindly stilts that float askew in the water. Seagulls bob on the surface and cock their heads to look at us. We must look insane to them, our small group of terrified nomads worn way too thin. Jack’s face is frantic as he swivels his head left and right, then left and right again up and down the stretch of water in front of us.

“It can’t be,” he pants, and his legs are wobbling so badly, I’m sure he’s going to drop Red. “I thought it would be here.”

I manage to grab his hand.
What?

His face is full of despair. “The sub. I thought for sure it would be here.”

The soldiers have just reached the broken sidewalks. “Stop there. Hands behind your heads.”

Why?

“It’s the way Gaea is. She’d be watching you the whole time. She would be ready. I know it.”

“Hands behind your heads!” I turn back and the soldiers stalk toward us, their guns raised.

Nell and I slowly raise our hands, but Jack goes stick-straight.

“There!” He points a hundred feet to our left, and there in a surge of sea foam against the decaying dock, I see the lights of the sub. “Run!”

I grab Nell’s hand and drag her after me. Jack’s footsteps pound behind us, and Red’s breath comes out in heavy gasps as he thuds against Jack.

“Stop or we’ll shoot!”

The sub surfaces, and the water is still pouring off the hatch when it opens and Jessa’s face appears. I’ve never been so happy to see her in my life. The dock groans under our weight and wobbles. I almost lose my footing, and I cling to Nell to keep her from going down. I glance back, and Jack staggers under Red’s weight.