Blind the Stars (Rose of the Dawn Series Book 3) (7 page)

“The
car will only get us so far,” Ezekiel says. “We’ll have to walk a bit to get to
it.”

“I
saw you hid it beside the driveway. That’s not a walk, unless you figure we
have to get around the crows.” I say.

“It
wasn’t parked by the drive,” he answers. “It’s around back. Near the ravine.”

“Maybe
Dory took it,” Pike adds, looking at Ezekiel.

“Dory
wouldn’t take the car. She doesn’t know how to drive,” I state. “And there was
a car parked by the drive. I saw it myself.”

Neither
Pike nor Ezekiel says anything.
Are they worried?
Maybe they should
shower. They’d feel much, much better. No, there isn’t enough time.

“Did
you notice another car?” Pike says to Ezekiel.

Ezekiel
shakes his head.

“I
swear I saw one,” I state.

“We
believe you,” Pike says. “But we’ll have to make sure Zeke’s car is still there
as well or we’ll be in for quite a long walk.”

“Who
would take the car?” I try to suppress my fear of hiking for days in different
directions.

“I’m
sure it’s still there, no one can start it without my code,” Ezekiel states,
confident. “Once we get on the road, we’ll have to stop before the border of the
Sunken City and we’ll hide the car then. We’ll get it again on our way out to
Hadestown.”

“Timing
is going to be everything,” Pike says to Ezekiel. “Do you know how to swim,
Rose?” Pike asks me.

“Swim.
I don’t know how to swim, no.” No one ever taught me that behavior. “Why?”

“Then
we’ll just have to make it in time.” Pike steps beside me, grabs my shoulder,
and squeezes. The current is back, running through my body once again. I can’t
be this close to him without wanting to touch him. I can’t bear to be this
close without wanting him to touch me.

“I
thought you said the safe house was in the city?” I remind Pike of a
conversation we had when we left The Hollow. “The Sunken City doesn’t exist.
There’s nothing left there.”

“There
is something left, it’s just covered by water. The safe house is on Lye Island,
just past the Sunken City,” he answers so matter-of-fact.

“We
should leave now. We’ve got to get onto the island before the tide comes in.”
Ezekiel is out of the kitchen and walking toward the door of the containment
room. Pike follows, and after making sure my own hiking boots are laced up, I
follow them.

The
door opens and we huddle into the quarantine containment room. Lights in the
quarantine room start to dim. The door shushes shut and the outside one squeals
open. Up the stairs and through the house, we stop at the top.

“Someone
is inside my house,” I say and turn down the hallway. I can hear the clanging
of dishes in the kitchen and the sound of a chair scraping across the floor.

“Rose,
wait-” Pike tries to catch my hand, but I shrug him off.

“You
hear it don’t you, c’mon!” I’m running now. Through the dining room, the table
is set with actual place settings and laughter wafts from the kitchen like the
smell of food would if we were hosting a party. “Mom? Dad? Is that you?”

I
throw my arm into the door to the kitchen and stop frozen in my tracks.

Someone
stands in the kitchen, no, two someones stand in the kitchen. The light
reflecting off of the stainless steel countertops is almost blinding and I have
to squint to see. The overhead light sways, casting shadows all around the
room.

“Who
are you?” I ask. The dishes in their hands drop to the floor and shatter into a
million tiny pieces. My mother’s finest. I jump back. Pike is right behind me
and he keeps me balanced.

“Who
are you!” I shout, louder this time. The two men with black hair and long
narrow faces are wearing coats to match. They’re from the Imperial Bead. Have
they come to get me? What are they looking for? Where are they going to bring
me?

“Rose-”
Pike tries to pull me back out of the kitchen.

“Where
are my parents? What have you done to them? I’m not going to let you do
anything to me!” These men aren’t from the Imperial Bead. They’re the
attendants from The Hollow, with their dingy, drab hospital scrubs under their
long coats and snide smiles. They approach me. One has a syringe. The other
leather restraints. I hear the squeaking and squealing of the gurney coming
down the hall. “Oh, no, I’m not going back in there!” Something grabs my wrists
and I thrash about. They have me and hold me fast.

I
look up, it isn’t the attendants. A reflection in the glass cabinets makes it
clear who is here. Dr. Flint, hands in her pockets, comes up behind me.

“You
thought you could get away from me, well you were wrong, Rose.” Dr. Flint
sneers in the glass. “I told you, I own you. You can never get away.” Her
laughter fills my ears and I won’t go with her. I can’t. The room spins and my
head spins with it.

“Get
her out of here!” Ezekiel’s sharp tone rings out in my ears and Pike pulls me,
with more force this time, out of the kitchen. He drags me outside where the
air is moist and balmy.

“Rose,”
Pike repeats, but doesn’t say anything more.

I
am out of breath and my body is wet with perspiration. I sit down on the front
steps trying to get my mind together.

“What
just happened in there?” I ask. “Did you see what I saw?” I turn to look up
into his face. His features are severe and there are lines throughout his
forehead. He shakes his head.

“I
hallucinated it, didn’t I?” I try to replay what just happened, but I don’t
want to see what I just saw. If this is my mind, it’s playing a terrible trick
on me.

“What
did you see?” Pike asks. Ezekiel pats Pike on the shoulder and then passes me
on the steps. He walks around the side of the house.

“What
was in there?” I ask instead. I know something was there. Something had to
trigger my psychotic lapse.

“Crows.
There were just a bunch of crows.” Pike’s voice is laden with sympathy and he
looks beyond me to the surroundings. I sit still for minutes and Pike doesn’t
say a word. He stands behind me. Silent.

“Just
a bunch of crows,” I repeat and cover my head with my hands. My bionic arm
lands first and I think I can feel the strands of my hair under my fingertips.
But I might be hallucinating that, too. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be
like this,” I say and Pike doesn’t answer. I don’t know if he even understands.
I look out past the front lawn and then get up.

“It’s
not there.” I point to the line of trees.

“What?”
Pike asks as my comment breaks the silence.

“I’m
not hallucinating this. The car that I saw before isn’t there.” It’s
mid-morning and the light has come up and reflects off of any remaining glass
in the windows. It’s later than I thought.

“Do
you remember what it looked like? What color was it?” Pike asks. The crows are
nowhere to be seen and I can’t tell if he thinks I’m crazy or not. He must
think I’m a little crazy. As long as he doesn’t feel sorry for me. That would
be much worse.

“I
don’t,” I answer. “But it was farther away. It might have been a dark color,
though. Blue or black. I thought it was Ezekiel’s.” I scan the horizon.

“Are
you positive?” Ezekiel calls from around the other side of the house. Now I
know he thinks I’m nuts.

“It
was pretty chaotic out here and inside. If you-” Pike stops short. A bird
cackles in the distance.

“I
couldn’t have imagined it. No. It was there. I just wish I had gotten a better
look at it.” I follow them around the house. “What happened in the kitchen was
my mind playing tricks on me. And it may happen again, but it didn’t happen
when I saw the other car. You have to believe me.”

“C’mon,
my car’s still here. Dory didn’t take it.” Ezekiel waves us ahead.

“Maybe
it was the other car that Dory took,” I state, trying to come up with some
answers that make me sound saner than I am.

“Maybe
it was the other car that came to get her,” Pike adds. Ezekiel and I turn to
him.

“Like
who?” Ezekiel almost accuses.

“Like
anyone.” Pike moves away from us and strides down the embankment toward the
car. The same car Ezekiel used to get Leland and Christophe, Delia and Hara
away from The Hollow.

Pike
stops, opens the door, and looks up at me and Ezekiel.

“I’m
not saying she went willingly or even that she might have been taken. I’m just
not sure that she has the mental wherewithal to plan a pick up. Maybe she saw
them coming on the screens. Maybe that’s why she left the note,” Pike says.

I
hurry down the embankment. The possibility that Dory was taken scares me so
much more than her going off all by herself. If anyone was going to be taken,
it should be me. At the bottom of the hill, I look back up at my house and see
it the way it used to look. Statuesque. Magnificent. I try thinking back to
reading with Jenny in the conservatory. From in there, we rarely looked out
here. Now all that is gone and the only memories that invade my mind are of
Aegis. And The Hollow. I take one last look and then don’t look back again. I
don’t care if I ever see it again.

The
car is parked in the dried up streambed about a quarter of a mile from the
house. Ezekiel gets into the driver’s seat. He starts the car. It squeals and
then rumbles to life. I can see the navigation light up on his wrist, too. It’s
reactivated. He turns it off. He doesn’t need it. Pike eyes it, warily. As if
someone else is watching us. If someone else is here.

Ezekiel
puts his foot on the clutch and the car quiets. Then he shifts into first gear,
grinding them before the car is put into second. The engine revs and the car
jumps out of the ditch. We drive behind my house, tearing up the overgrown
lawn. He turns onto the road.

“There
were a few monitors along the way that I think I can sync to my armband. Then
we’ll know if Dory went this way. She’d have to if she were going to the Mine
Fires. She’d want to take the road rather than go through the woods. It’d be
much faster.”

I
pay careful attention to where these monitors would be located and prepare to
look for them out the window. I immediately notice monitors on almost every
tree and lamppost. He drives past them all. I look out the back window as we
leave my house behind. Then we come upon more houses. Houses that are in my
neighborhood that all look the same. House after house after house. Off white,
white, eggshell colored houses. All scattered about the landscape. They aren’t
even close to each other, but they’re so large, it would be impossible to not
see them from a distance. I can’t see my house anymore as another has taken its
place in the rearview.

“These
are all out.” Ezekiel doesn’t take his eyes off the road. “We might be able to
catch a residual image off of some of the others up ahead.”

“You’ve
heard of Lye Island, right?” Pike asks. In the time since I’ve met him, I’ve
gotten to know him more than anyone else. Maybe that’s why I feel so connected
to him.
Is that what love is? Is it love if it isn’t reciprocated?
I
want to love him.
Does it matter that he doesn’t feel the same?

“Lye
Island near the Sunken City,” he says again, turning his gaze from out the
tinted windows to me in the backseat.

“I
have,” I answer. “I learned about it with Jenny.” Whatever I feel for my family
or Jenny is different from Pike. But he feels for me as I do my sisters. My
heart sinks.

“When
most of the coastline collapsed from the rising tide and people left for the
interior, whoever stuck around isolated themselves in those pocketed
microcities or the self-sufficient neighborhoods,” Pike says.

I
know. On many levels, though, my self-sufficient lifestyle wasn’t that
different from Aegis or The Hollow. Isolated.

“The
Sunken City was closed off to the public by the Imperial Bead,” he continues. “Because
the Beadledom needed to keep control over a smaller territory. The Sunken City was
about to succumb to the rising sea, but it didn’t.”

“It
shouldn’t have,” I say. I remember this lesson distinctly. Jenny shouldn’t have
taught it. It wasn’t part of my curriculum. Of the Imperial Bead curriculum.
But Jenny taught it anyway. She taught me how the Sunken City was intentionally
flooded to cut off the outlying microcities. It would prevent people from
moving out, rather than moving in. It’s coming back to me.

“It
shouldn’t have,” Pike repeats and his hand goes up to the handle above the
window.

With
a jolt, Ezekiel pulls off of the road where the pavement was so smooth it was
like floating instead of driving, onto another dirt and gravel embankment. My
head almost hits the ceiling of the car, which is a dirty gray cloth that hangs
down in patches that have pulled away from the edge. He drives down toward the
streambed and every hole he drives into, I feel the bump inside my body. The
vibration travels up my fake arm, reverberating through my shoulder and up my
neck. He stops the car at the bottom and puts it into neutral letting it idle.
He opens the door and runs out. A camera monitor is tucked deep within the
branches of an evergreen tree. The only bare part is where is camera is mounted
and aimed. He stands below, clicking something into his arm. He taps it again
and again and then waves his wrist around. He turns back to us, shaking his
head.

According
to the clock on the dash, we’ve been driving nearly an hour.

“Nothing?”
Pike asks, his window is rolled down..

“It’s
out. They’re all out. The grid’s been terminated. There’s no information here.”
Ezekiel gets back in the car.

“We
still think she came this way, though?” I ask. I wonder if there’s really any
way to know.

“If
she’s going to Mine Fire City, she would have to have come this way before
going west. We’ll catch up to her even if we take a day at the safe house.”
Ezekiel puts the car back into gear and we drive along the stream for about 100
yards until he finds a shallow spot and drives the car through it. It wasn’t as
shallow as I expected and water comes up through the metal slats on the
floorboard. I move my feet to the hump in the middle of the backseat so they
don’t get wet.

Pike’s
hand grips the bar above the window, his knuckles turning white this time.
Ezekiel downshifts and the car speeds to the other side. I put my feet back
down on the floor and Pike let’s go of the handle. Ezekiel drives the car to
the right, finding some sort of an access road on which to drive.

Ten
minutes pass. Then twenty. We’re no longer driving on the access road, but now
we’re on a trail. Worn only by the treads of bicycles, not car tires. What
must’ve been another neighborhood has been retaken by nature. Ezekiel’s driving
has slowed down considerably and I’m able to get a better look around. While is
seems as though there’s nothing out here, there’s quite a bit I would’ve missed
or wouldn’t have cared to notice. Where people once lived here, the only
reminder of that are crumbling foundations and collapsed walls, overgrown with
weeds and trees. People abandoned this area to get closer to the cities. It’s
just too far away to sustain itself.

I
glance back up at the clock. We’ve been driving for well over an hour and my
legs are getting stiff. The land is so uneven that every jostling bump is felt
throughout my entire body. I’m ready to get out.

“If
the roads Dory has to travel on are anything like these, she’s not going to
make it,” I say, more and more scared for my sister.

No
one answers. They don’t have to. I know they’re thinking the same thing I am.

More
time passes and still I glance outside for even a glimpse of my sister in the
woods surrounding us. I know that’s impossible, but I’m still hopeful that she
may have wandered north instead.

“So
everything you know you’ve learned from books. Did you ever go out?” Pike asks,
regaining my wandering attention.

“Of
course,” I say. “We went outside all the time.”

“No,
I don’t mean that.” Pike turns around. “I mean, did you ever go out and do
things with other people?”

“Did
you?” I ask. I’m trying not to be defensive. I realize in this moment that
while I may love Pike, I know very little about him and he knows next to
nothing about me. How could I love him, then? How could he love me? My back is
starting to sweat and my neck is hot.

“I
did before the Beadledom threatened the end was near. Then no one went anywhere
unless they left. My question remains, did you go anywhere?” Pike turns around
again. His eyes search for an answer.

“No.
We didn’t need to.” I’m embarrassed answering. I shouldn’t be. We were just
like everyone else around us. We streamed in all movies and only shopped
through intermediaries that would ship direct. “We always had everything we
needed.”

And
now I need this car to stop. My arm is heavy and I can’t get it comfortable. I
shift to the side to prop it on the seat back. It only makes it worse. The
floor is still wet and it smells like must and mildew.

“What
about friends?” he asks. “Did you have any?”

“I
had Dory. And Jenny.”
And I have Leland and Christophe.
I think to
myself, though I know they don’t count. I get that he’s making conversation,
but why does it have to be so personal?

Ezekiel
stops the car short and turns it off. He opens the door.

“We’ll
walk from here.” He gets out. He opens my door and I slide over and step out,
too. Blood recirculates through my legs and it’s hard, but I lift my arms over
my head. I’m instantly rejuvenated.

“Is
this the way you came with the others?” I look around trying to get a sense of
where I am.

Ezekiel
shakes his head and I slam the door behind me. I walk after Ezekiel and Pike.
The car is parked beside a large boulder at the edge of a dense forest. We
couldn’t drive through there if we tried. We step into the trees and even
though we’re away from the stream, the ground isn’t dry. There are patches on
the ground of liquifacted Earth. Of quicksand. I know enough to avoid them as
they’ll surely suck my boots down into them.

“Dory
got out,” Ezekiel states. I stop, but not for long as neither of them even
pause. I have to walk faster just to keep up.

“What
do you mean?” I ask. A bit confused.

“She
told me that she used to get out,” Ezekiel says. “She said she would meet up
with a bunch of other kids like you. Pretty often, actually.”

I
don’t have anything to say. I’m not so much surprised as I am hurt. Deep
inside, I must’ve known.
How could I have expected she would remain in
isolation? I had Jenny, but who did Dory have?

Ezekiel
continues as we step over mounds of pine needles, orange instead of green. “She
and the other homeschooled would plan where they would go if they got away. She
told me they would talk on the web and then would meet up somewhere away from
the neighborhoods. They didn’t know what was beyond this immediate area and most
of them were too scared to go too far. That’s what she told me.”

“Dory
wasn’t too scared, though,” I say, recalling my sister before I went into the
hospital. She was always so self-assured and strong.

“She
didn’t have any real plans to leave, as far as I knew.” Ezekiel still stomps
ahead. We’ve only been in the woods about twenty minutes and I can already see
the glimmer of light beyond the darkness of the forest.

“You
asked her to come to Aegis, didn’t you?” I ask. “To be with you.”

Ezekiel
stops, but doesn’t turn around. I’m glad for the break. My legs are still stiff
from the car ride.

“I
did. I told her I could come and get her. She wanted to come, but would never leave
you. Or your little sister,” Ezekiel finishes and continues to walk ahead.

“But
how would she know where to go if she left? If she never really went anywhere,”
I ask. I’m still not sure why she would want to go to the mine fires unless
someone made her go or she really thought Evie was there.

“I
don’t know,” he answers and says nothing more.

Mushrooms
pop up through the needle cover, decomposing whatever is below. Ezekiel walks
us to the light that has begun to penetrate the forest. In another ten minutes
we are out of the forest and in a clearing where the landscape changes
drastically. There is more tall grass instead of tall trees. We hike through
the grass, it itches my skin as it brushes against me. I am reminded of my
arrival in Aegis. There are definite similarities with the tall grass. Just as
it starts to get oppressively hot, a breeze blows up, cooling down my skin.

Within
a few minutes we are back beside the stream. If it’s the same stream we
followed off and on from my house, I wonder why we went through the woods
instead of following the water.

The
woods continue alongside us, but the only thing I can see now ahead is the blue
sky of the horizon. Pike and Ezekiel stop and take in the surroundings. They
huddle together, probably to review some plan I’m not privy to. It’s okay. I
look down. The banks of the stream are a golden sandy color. There isn’t any
dirt despite just leaving the forest. Curious, I take my boots off and dig my
toes into the sand. I’ve never felt sand before and it’s warm and then cool as
I scrunch my toes deeper in. It sends shivers up my legs.

“Don’t
do that! Put your boots back on!” Pike yells at me and rushes over. I fall back
onto the sand. Pike takes my foot, wipes it on his pants and crams it into my
boot. He does the same with the other.

“What’s
wrong?” I ask. Pike pulls me back up. He’s breathing hard.

“There
are chemicals in the sand.” Pike takes my hands and wipes them, too. Not on his
pants, though. With his own hands. “It was used to dissolve the whales.”

“Whales?”
I ask. He nods his head.

“Whales
were slaughtered here and the lye is still in the land. See-” He points to
lifeless corpses of frogs in varying stages of early development, all
apparently trying to scramble their way up the sandy banks along the shore, but
not making it because of underdeveloped or nonexistent limbs. “Dead frogs. Not
evolution.” Pike brushes his hands on his pants and hurries to catch up to
Ezekiel, waiting just up ahead.