“Something should have been done about the Ministry a long time ago. Bea woke me up.”
Jude wipes his eyes. “I have a double garage. But with the buggy in there, it wouldn’t leave a lot of room,” he says.
“Can I give you ten people?”
“You can give me eight. But we do it at night. I don’t want Cynthia finding out. She’s close to her due date.”
“Tomorrow,” I say.
Jude leans forward and taps the glass between the backseat and the driver. “Get me out of here,” he says.
44
ALINA
Abel knows the area better than anyone, so he has been heading up the group, finding the safest route down slopes and over streams for the last three days. The rest of us stay in small groups, and we do a regular headcount, so no one gets left by the wayside.
When we left Sequoia, we scuttled along lanes and through fields for what felt like hours. And we never slowed. Not when the benefactors got weak or when those of us who are inefficient breathers had to increase the density of oxygen in our airtanks. Only when the children began to cry did we stop to feed them.
We’re huddled among a cluster of moss-covered boulders by the edge of a half-frozen lake. Mostly we’re quiet; if we hear anything, we’re ready to move again at a moment’s notice. It’s night, so we have barely enough light to see what we’re doing. When the sun is up, we’ll move on.
“What was that?” I whisper. I can’t rest and jump at the slightest crackling. When the Ministry was after me, I was afraid, but it was a faceless enemy. I can’t think of anything more horrible than being caught by Maks.
Maude stops stirring the powdered formula and water. She clicks her tongue. “I don’t hear nothing. Just these poor babies’ tummies grumbling. Mine, too. We got any more grub for the adults?” She lifts the milky spoon out of the bowl, licks it, and grimaces. I go back to rocking Lily, the child I’ve been carrying. She wriggles and reaches out to Maude. Maude pulls Lily onto her knee and forces a spoon into her mouth. “Shh, pet,” she soothes.
My stomach is knotted in hunger, and I only have one protein bar left. I break off a small piece of it and pass it to Maude, who chews and swallows it in a few seconds. I hand the rest of it to Jo. She looks down at the offering and wells up. She has plenty of reasons to cry, but I pretend I don’t notice and join Silas, who’s poring over a map. He’s put himself in charge of the route, and no one’s arguing, not even Dorian, whose clamor for control has come to a swift end. “We’ve almost no food,” I tell him. We didn’t have much in the first place, but now we’re dangerously low.
Silas points to a spot on the map. “Another day at most,” he says. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure that’s where we’ll find solar respirators. We can leave everyone there and head for the pod.”
“Great, Silas, but you said that yesterday.” He continues to study the map. “Silas?” I say, and prod him. He looks up. His eyes are deep in their sockets and he has a glazed expression, like he can’t really see me properly. I’ve always looked up to him; he’s older than me and tougher, but sometimes I forget Silas is just as breakable as any of us. “Have you slept since we left Sequoia?” I ask.
He turns to Song, who’s sitting against one of the boulders, a toddler asleep in his arms. A girl of around eight, who’s been helping Maude carry supplies, is asleep with her head on his shoulder. “Do you think there might be a way to transfer the air from the solar respirators to airtanks?” he says.
“It’s possible,” Song says wearily. Being on the run is hard enough, but doing it and carrying kids is backbreaking. Song checks the gauge on the toddler’s airtank and puts a hand to his chest to make sure he’s breathing.
Bruce has taken over stirring their formula, and Maude is busy feeding the babies. I go to him. “Bruce . . . How did you survive when you were drifting? What did you eat?”
He clanks the spoon against the bowl. “Well, it’s too cold for berries, but if we can make it back to the city, we can find us some houses that ain’t been ransacked. Plenty of supplies in houses,” he says. He pulls me toward him. “But listen . . . Maude and me were talking about it. We’ve had a good go of things. If it gets bad, and I mean stinking terrible bad, I’m happy for you to chew on my old bones.” He smiles, and when I try to pull away, he clings to my arm. “I’m serious, Alina.” With his other hand, he makes the motion of slicing his own throat.
I put my hand to my mouth, and try not to heave. Bruce pats me and laughs, but how is what he’s saying or how I feel or any of this mess funny? “Get off me.” I push him. “And if you ever say anything like that again, I’ll break your nose.”
I stomp off.
I want to be alone.
The children have been fed and most are sleeping along with the benefactors. The rest of us are huddled in a circle to stay warm. Quinn sidles up to me. I surprise myself by being pleased to have him close. He puts the opening of his blowoff valve to my ear. “We have to tell them what Vanya’s planning,” he says. I nod. He’s waited a couple of days to bring it up, but with the city in sight, he’s worrying about Bea. And if Clarice was right, we should all be worried—the pod will soon be a graveyard. “If we want to save anyone, we have to split up. The children are slowing us down,” he says. He isn’t being callous; if he were, he would have left a long time ago. And he’s right: Vanya has a zip and could be at the pod already. Then what use will a revolt be?
I drag myself off the ground. “We have to ask the group,” I say.
“I’m heading for the pod in the morning, Alina. I hope I’ll have company, but I’ll go alone if I have to.”
“You’ll have company,” I tell him. “Listen up,” I say loudly, and briefly tell everyone what we know about the brewing coup in the pod and Vanya’s demented plan to cut off its air supply.
“You kept this from me?” Silas exclaims angrily. But at least he knew half the truth. Song, Dorian, Maude, and Bruce have been kept in the dark about everything. I just figured they all had enough on their plates. Anyway, it’s too late for Silas to be upset.
“You can have a go at her another time. Tonight, let’s talk about what we’re going to do,” Quinn says, sounding nothing like the person I met only weeks ago. He’s grown a backbone. And a purpose.
Dorian snickers. “Oh sure, let’s think . . . How can we save ourselves and a load of children, join up with rebelling Resistance members, and then stop Vanya’s armed troops from irreparably damaging the pod and killing everyone in it?” I pick up a pebble and hurl it at him. The last thing we need is his sarcasm. Lives are at stake. “Who threw that?” he says, putting his hand to his forehead.
“I wish I had. Keep your trap shut for once, you dozy twit,” Maude says. “Me and Bruce know how to take care of the little ’uns and survive out here. And we got a map to help us find air. You go and save the world. Save Bea,” she says.
Song raises his hand. “We have no food, our air is low, and we have one gun between us. I’m not sure we’re in a position to be saving anyone.”
“All we have to do is warn them. Let’s try not to forget that there are thousands of lives at stake,” I say.