The Reaping (28 page)

“I’m proud of you.” Her eyes shine as they look at me full on. They’re blazing and honest, and she’s not hiding anything from me now. “I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but I’m proud of what you’ve done and what you’re doing now. You’re my brave, selfless girl. I wish I were more like you.”

She reaches out her hand to a lock of my hair that’s fallen toward my eyes. She silently asks my permission, a begging look in her face. I nod. She caresses the hair back and her breath hitches. She’s waited years to touch me like this. All the gentle touches a mother should share with her daughter were forfeited the day she left, and I can tell she’s been starved for them. She closes her eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispers. She turns from me and tucks her arm against her side before I can say anything or touch her hand in passing. She whisks away to the opposite end of the sub. I’m surprised at the sudden ache in my heart. My throat is thick and I try to clear it. People are all around me, but I feel so alone right now as I watch the mother I should have had disappear out of my reach. I want to say something—anything—but the voice box is back in the colony.

I croak.

Gaea looks up.

Thank you
, I mouth.

She smiles at me. I can tell from the serenity that washes over her that my gratitude is more than she ever hoped for.

Chapter Twenty-two

When the hatch opens, we’re as low as Jessa can get us in the water without swamping the sub. Still, water sloshes in as we bump against the side of the barge.

“Careful!” Dave hisses to her.

Her teeth are gritted as she moves her fingers along the controls. “I’m working on it. Do you want to have a go at it?”

“You bang a drum too long and someone’s going to come looking.”

“That’s enough,” Jack says, looking up the hatch at the circle of daylight above us. “Jessa’s doing her best. Let’s get out of here.”

Dave scurries up the ladder before I can even blink. Jack shakes his head.

“It was a mistake bringing him. He’s going to get one of us killed.”

I nod.
I couldn’t stop him.

“I know. He needed to come. Whatever comes from it, he needed to. I just hope we don’t have more blood on our hands after this.”

I gaze at the circle of light above me until dark spots float before my eyes. Where did Dave go? Before I even step onto the first ladder rung, I hear a muffled cry, the thud of a punch landing, and a grunt.

“Not yet,” Jack mutters as he flies up the ladder.

I follow behind him and when I peer over the lip of the hatch, a soldier lies sprawled out on the walkway. Dave stands over him, shaking his hand out. There’s a glint in his eye that terrifies me.

“That one hurt,” he says. His voice twitches at the end, like he’s fighting to keep it under a whisper.

Jack takes a small step toward him. “Are you okay?”

Dave smiles, but his lips look like they’re stretched too tight. “I’m starting to be.”

Dave leans over the soldier and pulls the gun from his hands. Jack motions for it.

“Do you want me to take it?”

Dave shakes his head. “Why would I want you to do that?”

Jack looks at me sideways, and I know what he’s thinking. Dave is walking a very thin line here, and everything is about ready to slip out from under him. Only we’re the ones who can see it; Dave has no clue.

“No reason,” Jack says.

“Well then, let’s go.” Dave motions for the door a few yards down.

We’ve come off the sub onto a narrow walkway with a railing. The sub slides beneath the water. Jessa will be waiting for us. I hope she doesn’t have to wait too long.

I peer down the walkway. This side of the barge is quiet. I look up along the metal face and squint. At the very top I can make out the back of another soldier who’s facing landward. He’s the only person I see. A shriek nearly sends me out of my skin, and I whip around. Just a gull hovering in the breeze. Nothing but this barge and a few sea birds for miles. I have to hand it to the government—they know how to protect themselves. They’re either very smart or just very cowardly. Maybe a bit of both.

There are portholes in the wall, and we creep along with hunched backs as we make for the door. The gray paint is peeling and rust eats at the metal underneath. A layer of crusted sea salt ices the wall. Dave puts a hand on the door, and when voices float down to us, he instantly bristles.

“What about the camp in Washington? What about the escape there?”

“Not my concern. Besides, that was months ago.”

“That was the first in this long string. There hadn’t been any attempt for over ten years, and then suddenly they’re popping up everywhere. You think that’s a coincidence?”

“And what if it is?”

“You’d better hope it isn’t related.”

“It doesn’t matter because we’re almost there. Just a few more tests and there won’t be anyone left to fight.” The voice laughs—a squeaky sound that reminds me of wet shoes on tile—and then clears his throat.

“I thought that was confidential.”

“Then how come everyone already knows?”

“Hey, what’s that?”

We press ourselves against the wall. I can barely make two heads craning out over the wall above us.

“What?”

One of them points to the water. “That right there.”

My heart stops. Does he see the sub? Go lower, I think. Before they see you.

“Dunno. Could be some garbage. Could be a fish. I don’t know.”

“Should we report it?”

“And what? Have one of
them
yell at us for a false alarm? No thanks.”

Huh. Could it be the soldiers hate the agents too? Maybe not as much as we do, but do they dislike them nonetheless?

“Ignore it. It’ll probably be gone in a minute.”

“Whatever.”

Then their heads disappear back over the wall and their voices fade away on the wind.

Jack squeezes my hand. “You were right to come as soon as we did. It sounds like they almost have the serum ready.”

“Just hope that little drive from your dad is all it’s cracked up to be.” Dave’s fingers tighten over the gun. His jaw clenches. “Ready?”

I nod. As ready as I’ll ever be, which is not very. I put my hand over my pocket and feel the small square that my father promised would help. Please let it help.

Dave creeps to the door and taps on it. I hold my breath, expecting it to swing open and see soldiers pour out of it, but nothing happens. The water laps against the barge and the gulls cry, but everything else is calm.

“No one’s home.” Dave grabs the handle and slowly pries the door open.

Jack’s hand finds mine again as Dave steps into the darkness of the doorway. My heart clenches.

“Dave?” Jack whispers. Nothing.

I look back and Jack shakes his head.

“Dave?”

Then Dave’s head pops out of the doorway. “We’re in luck. No one’s around.”

I let my breath out and I step over the threshold. The room is littered in junk: papers tossed in the corners, old folding chairs strewn in heaps, and the acrid smell of gasoline twists my nose.

Dave shoves a box out of the way with the toe of his boot. “A bunch of slobs, aren’t they?”

Jack puts his hand on the back of his neck. “You would think the government would take a little better care of itself.”

“Could just be a junk room. Everybody needs a place to dump their old stuff.”

I signal Jack over and take his hand.
Why not reclamation?

He glances from pile to pile and his expression is puzzled. “I don’t know. The whole barge seems kind of dingy and run-down.”

Dave shrugs. “Could just be for show. It looks pathetic, so why would anyone think twice about it?”

My brain is processing the clues—the need for a loyalty serum, the barge that is the capital of the tyrannical government but looks like it could fall to pieces if a wave hit it just right, the deprivation forced on the citizens.

I look into Jack’s eyes just as he figures it out too.

“They need the loyalty serum because they’re about ready to fall.”

I nod.
Can’t sustain themselves.

“Right. So they need the people for their slave labor.”

“So who’s in charge of this upside-down regime?” Dave asks, stepping over a crate on his way to the door at the other side of the room.

“A president. That’s all we’ve heard.”

I nod. There are agents and soldiers and people like Dr. Benedict, but the only thing I’ve heard about this president has been the few whispers and rumors—and no one seems to like her.

“Doesn’t matter now,” Dave says as he peers through the small window on the door. The light on the other side flickers.

“Is anyone out there?” Jack says.

Dave cranes his head to peer down the hall. “Can’t see anyone.”

“The lights keep shutting off. Do you think that’s normal?”

Dave laughs. “It is if they can’t pay the power bill.”

But I don’t feel like laughing. I feel sick. The mildewy smell and the dust and the humidity are all pressing down on me, and I want to get this over with.

Dave checks the window one more time then spins the wheel and opens the door. We stand on either side, but there are no footsteps and no shouts. We all peek through.

Metal corridors streaked with rust stretch out before us, the smell of seawater and old food is even stronger, and the lights burn for another moment then flick off again. The sunlight from the outside door sends a long sliver down the hall, and we follow it to a corridor. When the lights flick on again, I have stars in my eyes.

“Maybe they have most of the power going to the parts of the barge they use most,” Jack says, peering through the small windows as he passes each door. “There’s no one in any of these rooms. They all look like they’re used for storage.”

Maybe further up?
I write. I point upward for Dave’s sake.

“Could be. That’s where all the soldiers were.”

“Where are the stairs?” Jack asks.

“Got to be around here somewhere.” Dave opens a door. “Keep looking.”

We check every door and finally find one marked
Stairs.
Jack and Dave have to both put their full weight against it to get it to open. It opens with a snarling creak, and I freeze, expecting to have soldiers flying out from every nook and cranny. But once again, they never come.

“How far up?” Jack asks as we enter the stairwell. White stairs and white railings spiral around above us as far as I can see.

The main server is probably heavily guarded.

Dave nods. “We go wherever the soldiers are thickest.”

Jack regards him. “That would be convenient for you with this death mission you’re on. But if Terra and I just go storming through, we’ll both be killed and then where will we be? That drive from her father won’t be much good then, will it?”

Dave shrugs. “I never said I was in it for the serum.”

Jack shakes his head. “What happened to you? You used to care about so much more than just yourself.”

Dave’s eyes blaze at him. “Don’t ever ask me that again.” He thunders up the stairs.

“This was a mistake,” Jack murmurs as he follows after. I feel it in my gut, too. Dave is a cannonball, and in just a matter of time, he’s going to come crashing down.

We race after him, and I take two steps at a time, but it’s barely enough. He skims above the stairs, his footsteps echoing on the metal steps and the gun swinging back and forth in front of him. I don’t even have time to blink before we’re up four levels, the door onto the landing opens, and two soldiers step through.

Dave charges at them, crunching the butt of the gun into one of their faces and roaring savagely at the other. He doesn’t even get his gun raised before Dave tackles him and pummels him in the face. After five blows, he stops moving. We reach the landing and Jack grabs Dave’s shirt to pull him off the soldier. Dave rips away.

“Don’t touch me!” he hisses. Then he’s gone through the open door.

Do we follow?

“I don’t know if we have a choice.” Jack cranes his neck and peers down the corridor. “This might be the right place.”

Jack takes a gun from one of the soldiers and hefts it to his shoulder, and he’s just about to lead us from the stairwell when he pauses and turns back.

“Wait.” He eyes the soldiers. “That one looks small enough for you to manage. Let’s put on their gear.”

We strip their uniforms and masks off. The smaller one is still three sizes too big, but if I roll the sleeves and stuff the extra into my boots, it might pass if no one looks too closely. But who am I kidding? No one’s going to believe that I’m a soldier. I’m too small.

I’m pulling the mask over my head when the
pop pop pop
of shots fired echoes down the corridor. I grab Jack’s arm. Not Dave, I tell myself. Please not Dave. We race down the hall. I gasp when we come to the first intersection.