Authors: Bethany Wiggins
“That's right. And why did she do that?”
I look at him. “Because the mother loved her baby so much
that she was willing to give it up forever as long as it wasn't hurt.” I think of my mother, that day at the wall, willing to live outside the wall as long as her precious children were protected. I ball my hands into fists and fight the nearly overwhelming urge to punch Soneschen in the face.
A smile splits Soneschen's lips, showing slightly crooked white teeth tinged with pink. “Very good, Jack.” I breathe in his copper-smelling breath and shudderâI am smelling blood. He has blood on his teeth. He looks above my shoulder, at Bob. “Go tie him to the tree in the courtyard. We're about to find out who loves Jack.”
Eyes the color of the morning sky flood my thoughts and all the air seems to whoosh out of the hallway. I can't breathe. Soneschen slams the door in my face. Bob squeezes my neck and starts herding me down the hall.
I force my ribs to expand and contract. And then I duck and twist, wrenching myself out of Bob's grasp, and sprint toward the glass doors. There's no way he'll be able to catch me. After five steps, when I am so close to the door that I lift my hand to open it, something flicks against my back, like a grasshopper jumping on me, and my whole body seizes up. My muscles contract as if they are trying to compress my bones into dust. I fall to the floor and slide to a stop beside the exit. My body lurches uncontrollably from the electricity sizzling through it.
Bob puts a Taser back into a little black leather pocket on his belt and then walks over and stops beside me. Pain consumes me, and I stare at the threadbare hem of his jeans and listen to the sound of my teeth rattling in my skull.
When I stop convulsing and sag against the floor, Bob grabs my left ankle and drags my trembling body down the hall. Too weak to move, I stare at grimy white tile as it passes below my cheek. We stop at a glass door and he opens it, pulling me outside.
I'm dragged over cement, then onto thin, brown, rain-soaked grass. The sky blazes pale blue overhead, and I blink up at the brightness of it, wondering how it can be so blue when the world is so vile.
Bob lifts me to my feet and props me up against the rough, splintery trunk of a tree. I close my eyes and smell the deep, rich scent of damp wood as a rope is wrapped around my wrists and cinched tight. Bob grunts and groans as he hoists me up until I am dangling by my bound wrists from a tree branch, with my toes barely able to touch the ground and spasms of electricity still twitching in my muscles.
For a moment Bob studies me, and then he pulls a gun from his belt, from right beside his Taser. My stomach drops and I wonder if I am about to die. Without looking at me, Bob points the gun to the sky and fires. The sound hurts my ears and eats the morning's silence. Dogs howl, and the gunshot echoes off the mountains and back, like rolling thunder. Bob turns and walks away, and I am alone, dangling in a slow circle. The branch I am tied to creaks under my weight.
And then the morning is filled with human sounds as raiders start massing onto the roof of the building surrounding me. I am in the courtyard I saw from my barred window.
Two men walk into the courtyard, and I dig the tips of my toes into the ground, making the rope I'm attached to turn in the other direction so that I can see them. One is ex-governor Soneschen, his white shirt buttoned and tucked into a pair of fancy black pants. His eyes are riveted on me. The other man is a raider with a thick black beard and shoulder-length black hair. He's wearing torn jeans and a dingy tank top that exaggerates his heavily muscled, scarred shoulders.
“If you guys will shut up, I'll start,” the raider yells, eyes scanning the men on the roof. The hair on the back of my neck prickles. I know that voice. “I said shut up!” he says, even louder.
I squint against the morning sun, trying to get a better look at him, but the rope binding me twists and slowly spins me around so my back is to him. Aside from the muted barking of
a dog, the morning goes quiet. I peer up at the roof, at the gathered men, and momentarily forget the raider in the courtyard. There have got to be more than a hundred men up there. And right in front stands Kevin, staring down at me like he couldn't care less what happens to me.
The rope keeps slowly spinning, turning me away from Kevin, back to the two men in the courtyard. When I'm facing them, I dig my toes into the ground again and stare.
The raider is watching me now. His fierce blue eyes lock on mine. If the rope wasn't holding me erect, my legs would give out and I'd be on the ground.
“Chest, head, chest,” I told my baby brother. “That way, if you miss twice, you've still got a third chance to kill your target.”
I helped Chris lift the rifle to his shoulder. He wobbled under the weight. “It's too heavy,” he whined. “I can't do it yet. And I'm cold.”
“That's all right. You're only six. I don't think you'll actually need to learn to shoot for a few more years.” He nodded and stumbled through the thin layer of snow on the ground and into the house with the rifle
.
I rested my rifle on my shoulder and peered down the street, looking for the Fec who came to trade ammunition for food on a semiregular basis. I don't know why he still came. We stopped trading with him when he slashed Josh's leg. And even though I was always armed with a rifle, and the Fec had only a knife, he scared me. He moved like a shadow in broad daylight, and he'd attacked me more than once for the scraps of food I carried in my pockets
.
Dean had seen the Fec sneaking around right before sunrise, so I knew
he was close by. I'd emptied my vest pockets before I started my watch. I wasn't going to take any chances
.
I pulled my wool beanie down over my ears and stared into the shadowed windows and doorways of the abandoned houses lining the opposite side of the street, but nothing moved. The dogs lay huddled together on the dead grass, completely unconcerned
.
Around lunchtime my nerves finally settled down enough that I actually felt hungry. I glanced at my watch, calculating the minutes before Steve came out and took over the front yard long enough for me to eat something. When I looked back up, the Fec was standing in the middle of the road, a smile gracing his filthy face
.
My gun was up and aimed before I had time to draw breath, before the dogs even started barking. The Fec didn't care. He smiled even bigger and swung his greasy hair out of his eyes
.
“What do you want?” I asked, loud enough that my voice would carry over the sound of the dogs
.
“I brought you something,” he called. He lifted his thumb to his mouth and started nibbling the skin around his brown fingernail. The dogs stopped barking, but their chains were pulled taut, and they were all staring at the Fec as if they wanted to eat him for lunch
.
“We don't want anything you have,” I said, not lowering my gun. “Get out of here.”
The Fec shrugged. “Fine. Be that way. You might not want
her,
but she wants you guys.” He turned and started slinking down the road, feet utterly silent
.
“Wait!” I whipped around at the sound of Dad's voice. He stood framed in the doorway, pajamas wrinkled, white hair mussed
.
“Who do you have, Arris?” Dad asked, coming to stand beside me.
His eyes slowly moved over every inch of the Fec, calculating, like when he was trying to determine whether to give someone a root canal. And then he took the rifle from my hands and aimed it at the Fec
.
Arris turned his back to us and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Come on out!” His yell echoed down the street, and in less than two seconds all three of my older brothers were standing in the yard with Dad and me, guns ready
.
Five houses down, someone stepped out of a front door. A man, not a woman. He put his hand above his eyes, blocking the noon sun, and looked at us. Behind him, another person came out the door. Her tan pants were filthy from the knees down, like she'd been wading in something brown, but her shirt was still mostly white, like her hair. The man put the woman's hand on his arm and the two of them started walking toward us
.
“Lower your guns,” Dad said. My brothers obeyed without a word
.
The man and woman skirted around the Millers' abandoned truck, stepped over snow-covered trash and tumbleweeds in the road, and stopped beside the Fec. My skin crawled. They obviously didn't know their lives were in danger by merely being in the same vicinity as the Fec. And then I saw the Taser in the man's hand, pointed at the Fec. Maybe he
did
know
.
I looked at his face, at his dark hair and blue eyes, and frowned. I knew this man. He was from the walled city. He was the doctor who tried to get my dad to live inside the wall
.
“Jefferson Bloom? Is that you?” the woman asked. She hugged her arms over her chest and started rubbing them for warmth
.
I stared at her. It had been a long time since I had seen a woman other than my own mother. I forgot how soft women were, how small and
gentle their hands looked, how their bodies formed subtle curves instead of hard angles. I had forgotten how long hair hung in waves when it was clean. Hers wasn't as white as I first thought. It was dark blond, streaked with white
.
“Abigail Tarsis.” The words came out of Dad's mouth on a breath of air. I knew that name. This woman was Fiona and Jonah Tarsis's mother, one of my mother's best friends from before. She'd been living inside the wall
.
Eyes wide with disbelief, Dad handed Dean his gun and then strode out of the yard and stopped in front of the woman. The Fec crouched on the balls of his feet like he was about to pounce and stared at my dad. Dean lifted his gun and pointed it at the boy
.
Dad put his arm around the woman's shoulders and held his free hand out to the doctor. “Doctor Grayson, how are you?” he asked
.
The doctor shook Dad's hand and gave him a tight smile. “I'm well enough.”
Dad nodded and looked both ways down the road. “Let's get you two inside,” he said, and then ushered them into the yard, past the dogs, and to the house
.
“I need payment,” the Fec yelled after him
.
“Jack, give Arris a plate of beans,” Dad called. “Josh and Steve, stay in the yard.”
Josh and Steve put their guns on their shoulders and simultaneously aimed them at the Fec. “Don't come any closer,” Steve warned
.
Dean walked into the house with me and stood at my side as I opened the pot of warm beans and began scooping some onto a plate, but he wasn't paying any attention to me. His attention was riveted on Abigail Tarsis
.
Dad, Doctor Grayson, and Mrs. Tarsis were sitting at the kitchen table. Mom joined them. Tears started streaming down her hollow cheeks, and she reached across the table and took Mrs. Tarsis's soft hands in her hard ones. “Abigail, it is so good to see you, but what are you doing here?” Mom asked
.
“I turned fifty-five last week,” said Mrs. Tarsis. Her eyes lost focus. “When I refused to be euthanized, the Inner Guard forced me out of the walled city, and Lissa's husband . . .” Her words caught in her throat
.
“I'm married to her daughter. I couldn't leave her on her own out here,” the doctor explained. “I asked the militia at the north gate to help us find somewhere safe for Abigail, but none of them would even look at us. The boy who brought us here was hiding outside the militia's camp. In exchange for food, he led us belowground. He said you might be willing to help her.”
Dad's mouth formed a hard line. “You're her son-in-law. Why can't you continue to help her?”
“I wish I could, but I am on the brink of finding a cure for the beasts! If I leave now, all my work will be cast aside, and no one will help the infected kids.” His eyes were wide with desperation
.
“And I would rather die out here on my own,” Mrs. Tarsis said, “than risk losing any chance of curing those children. My daughter is in the lab waiting for the day the cure is perfected.”
“I'm sorry, but we can't help,” Dad said. Mom started crying harder. “And I can't let you stay here because you'd be putting my family at risk. As far as the raiders know, only men and boys live here. If they knew I had a woman staying here, they'd kill all of us to get to you.”
Mrs. Tarsis's eyes grew round and she glanced at me, then back at
Dad. “I'm sorry. I wouldn't have come if I'd known. I would never have knowingly put your children in danger.”
“Thank you,” Mom said, sniffling
.
“What I
can
do,” Dad said, “is give you some food, a water purifier, and have one of my boys escort you to the edge of the city.”
The doctor hung his head in his hands. Mrs. Tarsis stared at Dad. After a moment, a sob escaped her. She put her hands over her mouth and started weeping giant tears that poured down her face and over her slender hands, over a gold wedding ring with three diamonds. The doctor put his arm around her shoulders and started crying with her
.
“Dad.” Dean's voice made me jump. I forgot that he was standing beside me, forgot that I was supposed to be getting beans for the Fec. I looked into the pot and stirred it, then dipped the ladle deep, where the beans and rice had settled. I lifted the ladle from the pot and waited for it to stop dripping
.
“I'll take her,” said Dean
.
“Thank you, son.” Dad smiled at Dean, but it wasn't the kind of smile that touched his eyes. It was the smile he did when he resigned himself to bad news. Really bad news. “You'd better get going as soon as possible if you're going to get back here before dark.”