It was the last clear, still image I had before the night sped up, gliding into a blur that carried us down the stairs, down the main hall, and out the very same door we had come through. The blast of cold air washed away the pounding heat from my blood. I shook the fear off, and I let myself imagine it—how good it would feel when this was Thurmond we were walking out of, when I passed through that gate one last time.
Cate may have gotten me out, but until that moment, I’m not sure I’d fully recognized that I was still a prisoner of that place. And it wasn’t the cure that would give me the feeling of finally being freed from this horrible reality. It was knowing, with certainty, that I would never be forced to go back.
Zach helped Liam lift his motorbike onto the back of the truck, and gave Alice the lift she needed to get up into it. I caught his questioning look as he took her hand and nodded. She had to come back with us. She’d seen too much, was a security risk. Gonzo and Ollie were the last to climb into the truck’s trailer, having dragged the PSFs we’d left outside into the interior of the camp, along with the secured truck driver.
The kids were forced to sit on the plastic-wrapped pallets and boxes, some of them clutching yellow and orange glow sticks and flashlights we’d given them so they wouldn’t feel like they were being locked in total darkness. As I rolled the trailer door down, I saw Liam sitting with his back against the siding, his arms resting over his knees, watching me. I pulled the door firmly into place and secured it with the latch.
Zach was already up in the front seat, ripping the GPS out of the console. He rolled down the window and tossed it outside. One less way for them to track us when they figured out what was happening. I was the one to run to open the gates; the fence wasn’t electrified, but the PSFs had managed to secure it with a padlock. I turned to look at Zach and shook my head. He waved me back and I climbed into the cab with him.
“Brace yourself,” he warned, relaying the message to me and the whole team in the back. The truck lurched forward and barreled through the gate, sending pieces flying as if they’d been made of Styrofoam. A section caught on the front hubcap and sparked against the ground, but was knocked away as we veered onto the highway, and we sped away before the sun had the chance to start rising at our backs.
16
WE DROVE A FULL FOUR hours before ditching the semi-trailer truck in Reno. In an ideal world, we would have taken it straight to Lodi, only stopping once to let the kids relieve their bladders and stretch their legs, but it was marked with military insignias. Someone was bound to notice it if we kept going.
Senator Cruz had arranged for an old Greyhound bus to be brought down from Oregon and left at Reno’s city limits, warning it was the only time she’d be able to put this particular contact into play as the former state governor, her college classmate, had been careful to never entangle himself too deeply in matters of the Federal Coalition and had been rewarded by Gray with the right to keep his job.
Zach and I helped each kid down, and I couldn’t stop the small smile on my face at seeing the way they all seemed to want to spin around in the warm sunlight. Rosa was one of the last off, bypassing Zach’s hands for mine.
“Okay?” I asked her. “How are you doing?”
She stretched her arms back and forth, swinging them around. I made sure that I kept the smile on my face so she’d know it was okay to let herself believe this would work out. Something I’d learned from Cate.
I wondered what she’d think of all this as we lifted the boxes of food and medical supplies off the truck, putting them in the undercarriage of the Greyhound bus. When I saw her again, I would make sure she knew the full magnitude of what she had done for me. I wanted to believe that if I felt all of these things, if I brought her face to mind and focused on it, she’d somehow be able to tell I was thinking about her—that I hadn’t forgotten her.
That I was coming for her.
Liam walked Alice to the bus, ignoring the glances the team shared as they passed by them. After exchanging a few last quiet words with her, he got back on his motorcycle, explaining to Zach he was going to ride behind us.
I held a hand out to Rosa, who took it gratefully. Zach jumped into the driver’s seat and craned his neck back, counting to make sure that everyone was on. The kids squeezed into the seats and onto the floor; after a moment of petrified uncertainty, the older kids began to play with the vents, fiddling with the lights.
“Pull your curtains all the way closed,” I told them. “It’s going to be another three or four hours to where we’re going.”
“Where is that?” one of the kids asked.
“Cali-for-nia!” Gav sang out, pounding his meaty hands down on the seat in front of him. “Let’s go, already!”
“Seat belts,” Zach called as he started the bus. Then, realizing there was a speaker system, repeated the order through that. “Seat belts. Welcome to Psi Bus Services. I’m Zach and I’ll be your driver on this epic quest to freedom. If you look out your windows—but, obviously, don’t, because Ruby just told you not to—you can give Nevada the finger as we pull away.”
That, at least, made a few of them crack a smile. I gave Zach a thumbs-up and he returned it. The bus lurched forward and we were off again, really cruising. I smiled despite myself, winging along on my own cloud of happiness. I didn’t come down, not for a second, until I glanced at Rosa.
She had taken the window seat, drawn her legs up to her chest to tuck under her shirt, and pressed her face into her knees.
“Rosa,” I said, putting a hand on her back. The number on her shirt pocket, 9229, had been her whole identity in that place. I wanted her to hear her name. To feel human.
“You shouldn’t have come, we’re not ready yet. We’re still broken.”
“No,” I said quickly, “no you’re not. You’re different, that’s all.”
“They said the good ones were the ones that died,” she said, and I noticed a faint scar running down her left cheek, a narrow, spiraling pink line. What could have left a mark like that, other than someone intentionally scratching it into her skin? “That we were all wrong and we’d—we’d never get out. But they never did anything to help us. I want—I want to be fixed, we all did, we did everything they asked, but it wasn’t enough.”
“If they made you feel that way, then they were the ones who were wrong,” I said. It took me a moment to realize why the words came so easily. Clancy. How was this any different from what he kept trying to tell me? I shifted uncomfortably, trying to think of Cate instead, how she had talked me down after I escaped Thurmond. “The most important thing you ever did was learn how to survive. Don’t let anyone make you feel like you shouldn’t have, or that you deserved to be in that camp.”
“You were in one, too?” Rosa asked. “You got out and things got better?”
“They’re getting there,” I told her. “Your mom is helping us.”
There. One small, trembling smile. “Has she been wearing her red suit?”
“Red suit?” I repeated.
Rosa nodded, finally sitting back against the seat. “Mom had this dark red suit she always wore when she had to go in for a big vote or debate. She said it scared the old white dudes who kept trying to shut her up or make her sit down.”
“No,” I said, “but you know what? I don’t think she really needs it anymore.”
The girl spread her fingers over her blue uniform shorts. “And you’re totally...you’re sure she wants to...I mean, I would understand if she didn’t want to see me. I was with my Gran when they came. Mom never saw me after I got damaged—changed, I mean.”
“She wants you,” I said, the words spilling out from some place I hadn’t dared to touch since I’d left Thurmond. “More than anything. It doesn’t matter what you can do, or what any of the people at that camp told you. She’s there and she’s waiting for you.”