Authors: Norma Hinkens
“Yes sir.” Blackbeard’s eyes flick dispassionately over Jakob and me. “What about them?”
Jerome calmly loads his gun. “Take them to the holding cell.”
“What? No!” I jump up. “You can’t do that. We have to get back to our group or they’ll leave without us.”
With a flick of his wrist, Jerome pins the pistol to my temple. “And who exactly is in this
group
of yours?” He juts out his chin across the desk until it’s almost level with mine. “You showed up here with a Hovermedes and a posse of Rogues on your tail. Either you’re the dumbest Undergrounder ever to resurface, or you’re a doggone snitch!”
J
erome signals something to Blackbeard
. Almost immediately two more guards materialize behind us. Jerome straightens up and holsters his gun. “Lock them up and then get to the barricade as fast as you can,” he says, and abruptly exits the room. Jakob and I exchange baffled looks. What just happened? It seemed like the conversation with Jerome was going well, at least until I mentioned the Craniopolis. Maybe he was just lulling us into a false sense of security to get us to talk. It’s possible he never had any intention of letting us go, or helping us. At the guards’ direction I get to my feet in a daze. They exchange a few words with Blackbeard, then escort us out of the office and down the corridor in the opposite direction from which we came.
Jakob and I make repeated attempts to engage them in conversation, but they ignore us, poker-faced as they go about the business of locking us up in a cell in a dingy room at the north end of the corridor.
“I’m telling you we’re Undergrounders. Please! You can’t do this,” I say. “We’re not a threat.”
Moments later the sound of their boots pounding the tile floor fades to silence, and I resign myself to the fact that they’re not going to relent and turn us loose, despite my passionate pleas of innocence. I slump down on the concrete and drop my head into my hands. “I’m sorry. This isn’t how things were supposed to turn out.”
“It’s not your fault.” Jakob rubs my shoulder gently and I bite my lip to keep from bursting into tears. A wave of despair washes over me when it hits me that I can’t save Owen or Panju now. Coming here was a huge mistake. I should have taken Izzy back to the Council’s base and left her in Big Ed’s care. I’ll never be able to convince these people, let alone subversives, to help me.
Rummy was right. Some leader I’ve turned out to be. I’ve lost Panju to Sweepers, let Izzy wander off, left Trout to lead a dangerous mission I initiated, and now Jakob and I are locked up inside the city, charged with treason by the sound of it, and with no hope of getting out.
“Do you really think Jerome believes we’re snitches?” Jakob asks.
I shrug, then lean back against the wall and close my eyes. I’m not sure what he believes. Obviously, I misread him. Big Ed always told me to go with my gut, but it didn’t serve me well this time. I straighten up and push down the depressing thoughts threatening to muddy my thinking. I can’t fold now that I’ve come this far. There has to be some way out of this predicament I haven’t thought of yet. Maybe I can reason with Jerome when he gets back.
I straighten up with renewed resolve. “Jerome probably just needs a reason to keep us contained until he can check out our story,” I say, as much to convince myself as Jakob.
“
Contained?
That’s what you call this? We’re behind bars, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“He has a responsibility to protect the people who are already here,” I say. “He doesn’t know who we have hiding out there in the woods. He’s probably had to deal with all kinds of crazies and marauders trying to get in.”
“And Rogues.”
I stand and pace back and forth, eying with increasing frustration the padlock and chain that holds the iron door to the holding cell shut. Blade might be with the Rogues who were spotted east of the city, and if so, he’s closing in on Trout and the others. “We have to find a way to warn Trout and Sven. They have no idea they’re in danger.”
“How are we supposed to do that? There isn’t even a guard here we can bribe. There’ll all out manning the barricade.” Jakob stares despondently at the floor. “Even if we could get out of here, we’d never reach Trout in time now.”
I flick the hair out of my eyes. “On horses we could.”
We freeze at the sound of someone plodding lightly through the foyer. Jakob throws me a startled look, and quietly gets to his feet. I hold my breath as the footsteps draw closer, then come to a sudden stop in the hallway just outside the door. After an agonizing wait, a petite figure appears in the doorway, twisting shyly to and fro.
Jakob and I gasp in unison.
“Hi,” Izzy says, eyes like saucers as she surveys our predicament.
I stare at her for a moment, shocked into silence by her transformation. I’m not sure I’d have recognized her if it wasn’t for the tiny voice that carries across the room like a chirp. The rags are gone. She’s kitted out head to toe in clean clothes, her face freshly scrubbed. Cocoa-colored curls tumble over her shoulders, framing intense, brown eyes in a porcelain face. She clutches a rag doll by the leg, trailing it behind her as she tentatively approaches.
“Izzy! Are you okay?” I say, the words finally spilling out.
“Uh-huh.”
I grip the bars to steady myself. “How did you get here?”
“A big kid.”
Izzy presses her doll up against the bars. “Wanna play with me?”
I throw a quick glance over Izzy’s head but there’s no sign of a big kid hovering in the background, or any guards either. The place must be deserted. I take a deep breath. I’m not banking on her being able to get us out of here, but right now she’s all we’ve got. “Listen, Izzy, we need your help. Can you to go out to the rubble and find me a nail?”
She takes a step backward, sticks her thumb in her mouth and sucks on it, staring at me warily.
I suppress a sigh of frustration before turning to Jakob. “Think she even knows what a nail is?”
“Let me try.” Jakob elbows me gently aside. He hunkers down at eye level with her, reaches a finger through the bars and pretends to tickle the rag doll. After a moment, Izzy chuckles and pulls out her thumb with a loud, smacking sound. “Wanna play with me?”
Jakob smiles. “Of course I do! If you find me a nail I’ll come out and play with you.”
“Okay then. You can hold her if you want.” Izzy passes the rag doll through the bars, turns, and scampers out the door.
My shoulders sag with relief. “That easy, huh? Think she’ll actually come back with a nail?”
“I can be very persuasive.” Jakob plops down on the floor and grins up at me.
I give him a wry grin in return. “You definitely handled that with more flair than I did. How are your lock-picking powers?”
He pulls a face. “Never tried.”
“Lucky for you, I got plenty of practice picking locks with Owen on the food storage units in the bunkers.”
“What?” Jakob gasps.
“Don’t worry, we didn’t take much. It was mostly the thrill of breaking in.”
Footsteps patter through the foyer again. A moment later, Izzy trots up to the holding cell and sticks a tiny fist through the bars. Beaming with pride, she drops two twisted nails into Jakob’s outstretched hand.
“You’re up,” he says, handing them to me.
I push the nails around in the palm of my hand, my heart thudding wildly beneath my ribs. One of them is rusted through, sure to snap under pressure. But the other one might just work. “Good job!” I say, giving Izzy a quick pat on the head. “You’re the best friend ever.”
She smiles, but it’s Jakob she’s looking at.
I pull the padlock to the inside of the bars and begin jiggling the nail in the keyhole. Sweat beads on my forehead. It’s one thing picking a lock when you’ve got more hours to kill than you know what to do with, but it’s a paralyzing ordeal when every second counts.
Izzy watches intently, clutching the rag doll she retrieved from Jakob. “Are you yocked in?” she asks.
I stifle a laugh and jab the nail harder into the keyhole. Relief bursts through my veins when I hear a welcome ping. “Not anymore!” I swipe my sleeve across my brow and hurriedly tear the lock off the chain. “Let’s go,” I say motioning to Jakob.
He follows me through the holding cell door and reaches for Izzy’s hand.
“Where are we going?” Izzy asks.
“To find the riders,” I reply. “Do you know where they live?”
Izzy nods solemnly. “I’m ’lowed to feed the horses.”
Jakob and I exchange grateful glances.
“Do you want to feed them again?” Jakob asks.
Izzy nods. “Sure.”
T
he street
outside the courthouse is close to deserted even though the sun is high in the sky. The few people we encounter hustle by, barely giving us a passing glance. With so many Undergrounders seeking refuge in the city in recent days, they have little reason to question who we are.
“Word must have spread that Rogues are headed this way,” Jakob says. “Everyone’s disappearing inside.”
“Lucky for us,” I reply. “It gives us a chance to reach the riders before Jerome and his surly sidekick, Blackbeard, get back.”
Izzy tugs on Jakob’s hand and points down a narrow alleyway. “This way.”
“Are you sure?” I stare dubiously down the rubble-strewn lane. “Doesn’t look like it’s used much.”
“The big kid showed me a short cut,” Izzy announces with pride.
W
e pick
our way carefully through the debris and emerge at the end of the alleyway in a large courtyard attached to a concrete building that might have been part of a shopping mall at one point. I smell the sweat of horses before I see them. Judging by the steaming piles of evidence we take care to step around, the horses have been here recently, but there’s no sign of them tethered anywhere in the yard. “Where do they keep the horses?” I ask, looking around curiously.
“In there.” Izzy points at the building and beams up at me, obviously thrilled to be a source of endless knowledge.
As if on cue, a black stallion sticks his head through a gutted window and neighs loudly. I jump back, hair on end. “Guess his ears were burning. So much for keeping our arrival under wraps.”
Jakob shrugs. “We can’t just steal a couple of horses and gallop away on them anyway. You may pick locks like a pro, but you don’t know how to ride. Unless we can persuade the riders to help us, this plan of yours won’t fly.”
I raise my brows in acknowledgement. “Point taken. I definitely don’t talk horse. If the riders are here, I’ll plead our case. Otherwise, we’ll have to wing it. We’re running out of time.”
“I wanna feed the horses now,” Izzy says, pulling Jakob in the direction of the door.
I take a deep breath and follow them inside. The space is partitioned into eight makeshift wooden stalls, only two of which are occupied. Izzy walks over to a bucket and pulls out a small, shrunken carrot. She holds her palm out flat and totters over to the first stall, trying to balance the carrot. “Fing’rs together and thumb in. Jody showed me.”
I watch, fascinated, as the towering horse leans down and lips the carrot from Izzy’s little hand.
“He’s beautiful.” Jakob rubs the horse’s head. “I’m almost certain this is the one you rode in on.”
“His name’s Condor.”
I spin around, my heart racing. Jody leans up against the doorframe, arms folded, eying us with a hint of a smile on her lips. “What are you doing in my barn?”
Jakob spreads his hands in a gesture of helplessness. “Uh, Izzy wanted to feed the horses.”
“Don’t you know there’s a curfew?” Jody takes off her cowboy hat and hangs it on a nail. “Unless you’re on duty you’re supposed to stay off the streets.”
“We don’t have anywhere to go yet,” I say.
Jody frowns. “Jerome didn’t assign you your accommodations?”
I give a one-shouldered shrug. “He was about to, but he got pulled away when the situation with the Rogues came up.”
Jody’s face clears. “Well in that case, I suppose you can stay here for now. We call it a barn, but there are sleeping bunks in the back.”
I take a quick breath. She seems a lot less guarded now that she thinks we’ve passed Jerome’s inspection. I can’t let this chance to help Trout and the others slip away. “Jody,” I say, stepping forward. “We need your help. The rest of our group is still out there in the forest.”
“Already on it,” she replies. “Jerome sent out six riders earlier. He said you looked harmless enough, but he wanted to make sure your story checked out.”
I exchange a quick glance with Jakob. Evidently Jody doesn’t know Jerome had us locked up until he could verify what we told him.
Jody walks over to the stall beside ours and begins rubbing down her horse. “How’d you bump into Izzy again?” she calls, from the other side of her horse.
“They were yock—” Izzy begins.
Jakob gives a quick tug on her arm.
“Out and about,” he says.
I bite down on my lip.
Jody continues to rub down her horse in silence. I press my knuckles to my mouth. I can tell by her tense, deliberate movements that she’s picked up on something. After a few minutes she tosses her curry comb aside and folds her arms in front of her. She arches a brow at me and I brace myself for a loaded question. But before she can probe, the sound of hooves echoes down the alleyway.
Jakob swoops Izzy up in his arms and backs up as a rider on a large sweating chestnut mare trots through the doorway. My knees almost buckle beneath me when I glimpse an ashen Trout clutching the rider’s waist.
“Trout!” I yell.
He groans and swings stiffly down from the horse. “Yikes! These things must run on nitro fuel.”
“Is Tucker with you?” I wet my lips and wait for what seems like an eternity before Trout answers.
“He’s bringing up the rear in a saddle bag at a more civilized pace. He was a bit freaked out. The others are right behind me.”
I embrace Trout warmly, dizzy with relief that everyone’s safe.
I watch as the rest of the horses darken the entry in turn, mentally checking off each member of our group as they appear: Sven, Buck and Elijah, a quivering Won, and a bloodshot Rummy, gagged and swaying precariously like he’s about to pass out. I shiver. I don’t trust him even half-dead. One by one they dismount and totter around on shaky legs.
Sven grabs Won and Rummy by the neck and shoves them down on a hay bale. He tightens the ropes on their wrists, then turns to Buck and Elijah. “Make sure they don’t go anywhere,” he says.
Jody steps out from behind Condor and narrows her eyes at me. “You never mentioned hostages. Does Jerome know about this?”
“He does now,” Jakob says, gesturing toward the doorway.